[KLUG Advocacy] Another interessting article

Adam Williams awilliam at whitemice.org
Mon Jun 7 09:49:16 EDT 2004


> > ... go on over to the NY Times website (free registration needed), and
> > read about the progress being made in Brazil.
> > http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/technology/tech-tech-brazil-opencode.html
> And an even more interesting article, from a former MS employee, is
> here:
> http://www.seattleweekly.com/features/0422/040602_news_microsoft.php

Indeed, a very interesting and insightful article.  It's only weakness is 
that it is clearly written from a "Project Managers" standpoint.  He is 
very much overlooking how REALLY REALLY difficult it is for M$ to come out 
with 'revolutionary' new products - they have a ******HUGE****** installed 
base and *****MUST***** have backward compatibility - and not only 
backward compatibility - but backward compatibility for SEVERAL 
generations of product, back to Win16.  This is like running a marathon 
with an 800 pound basillisk in your front pocket.  This issue is even 
dogging projects like Samba, based upon the notes from the recent Samba XP 
conference.

And he is just wrong about ".Net".

THE CORE OF .NET IS AN ECMA STANDARD!!!!!
THE CORE OF .NET IS AN ECMA STANDARD!!!!!
THE CORE OF .NET IS AN ECMA STANDARD!!!!!
THE CORE OF .NET IS AN ECMA STANDARD!!!!!
THE CORE OF .NET IS AN ECMA STANDARD!!!!!
THE CORE OF .NET IS AN ECMA STANDARD!!!!!

Sheesh, he worked for the friggin' company.  I don't have ANY warm-fuzzy
feelings for M$;  I'm a *(&^#$@&*^$^&* socialist and think, ideally, the
federal government should sieze control of the entire company, auction off
it's assets and make all its intellectual property public-domain.  IMHO,
M$ is a greater threat to civil liberties and economic viability than the
Bush administration. But come on!  Java (and Sun) is as "Open" as a bank
vault.  And there is nothing platform-centric about .Net, crack a stinkin'
book.  And developing applications to run in a web-browser?  It's handy,
but for ***ALOT*** of things web-browser-apps SUCK.  Someone really has to
come up with a better answer, and M$ (even being the capitalist dirt-bags
that they are) deservers credit for seeing the need and DELIVERING a
robust and <shock>OPEN</shock> solution.



More information about the Advocacy mailing list