[KLUG Advocacy] Re: nice article on Windows XP

[Adam Tauno Williams]

> >>http://www.hevanet.com/peace/microsoft.htm
> Once again, I agree with Adam.  You could argue (as some have) that 
> there's no point in creating new protocols like the help system when 
> standard ones like HTTP could do the job, but the "help by Internet" 
> system is the least of several evils in my opinion.  Options 2 and 3 
> that I can think of are to have no online help beyond what is currently 
> installed as documentation, or having a few more gigs worth of installed 
> documentation that 99.9% of the users will never need.  And that stuff 
> will need to be updated (again, by connecting to Microsoft) or it will 
> get more and more stale.  While the new protocol for the help system may 
> be unnecessary, in principle it's nothing more than an easy way to find 
> support.Microsoft.com.

GNOME uses on-line help.

> I suppose the Windows Media Player bit is a tiny bit disturbing only 
> because you can't turn it off.  There's nothing wrong, though, with 
> checking the Net for title information so it can display it.  That's 
> what most music players and CD burning programs do to display album art 
> and track list. 

But this whole section is torpedoed by statements lim ke "that shows
that Microsoft can and will be sneaky." and "This gives an idea of the
moral limits felt by Microsoft".  (a) They aren't in the least bit
sneaky, they are very up front about these issues - and they claim this
is done to improve the utility of the software to the user.  This is a
legitimate claim;  although you may not be comfortable with the side-
effects.  (b) This more clearly an ethical and civil liberty issue, than
it is a "moral" one.

> The author also complained about both security vulnerabilities and 
> automatic downloading of patches.  Well one is the solution to the 
> other.  Microsoft assumed (and worm outbreaks have proven beyond any 
> doubt) that if left to themselves most users will not patch their 
> systems or secure them properly, so XP does it for them.  You can turn 
> this off too if you know better, but defaulting to automatic patching is 
> a good thing. 

One of course should mention that RedHat (or Fedora, whatever) or SuSe
also contain code to call-home-to-mama, and do so, in order to alery you
to pending updates.

> While I didn't read the entire thing either, the idea was pretty clear 
> for what I did read.  The author started with a bunch of disclaimers 
> about how he is NOT anti-Microsoft in any way, but the article was 
> complete MS bashing.  While I don't particularly like them either, I at 
> least confine my complaints to stuff that is specific to Windows.  At 
> least half of the complaints I read were not problems with Windows but 
> problems with any modern, complicated operating system.  I wonder if the 
> author's hypocrisy was intentional or if he's just that deluded.

He presents some decent reason why someone concerned about larger
technological and civil liberty issues would opt not to use Microsoft
products;  but it would be much more credible if the conspiracy theory
subtext were removed.  There is nothing coercive about Microsoft's
products, coercion requires deception.