“Sometimes you need to open your heart and let the love flow, even toward those you do not naturally like. Indeed, many religions claim this is a great way to achieve satori or sainthood or whatever state they consider to be the highest one a living being can achieve. So, what with wIndependence Day now being behind us, I think it is time for us to think kind thoughts about Microsoft and Microsoft employees. Their best times are behind them. They have nowhere to go but down. They have every right to be upset about this. And Linux users should be there to comfort them in their hour of need.” Editorial from OSDN’s editor in chief.
NewsForge: Sympathy for Microsoft
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
I have to disagree with this man’s viewpoint. its like saying Tiger woods has nowhere to go but down. Sun and Oracle and Palm and the rest of them are the ones who have to worry about loosing their top-status positions. If anything, Microsoft is going to get bigger and better and into many more technology niches.
We’re supposed to feel sorry for the giant when he gets a splinter? This guy just reads like an arrogant prankster. MS is hardly in the world’s biggest dive. And desktop linux is still just a chuckle in the wind.
Cash money journalism.
Certified 100% content free.
Often times, Microsoft will broadcast some really dumb message very overtly so they can follow it up with something much more subtle. The latter is what they really want to get across. The first message is so the “big bad wolf” is easy to spot.
So let’s see what sorts of follow-ups we get in the next few weeks.
#m
obviously this Linux user is feeling like Linux is losing the battle so he needs to pep up the troops by acting superior to the poor Gates and Ballmer and the sad Microsoft team.
One word came to my mind while reading the article: LOSER. (and I wasn’t thinking about Microsoft!)
>Cash money journalism.
This has nothing to do with any paid journalism. Personally I see this editorial as a way of Roblimo to make sure that there won’t be any incidents in Microsoft’s booth at LinuxWorld. He just tries to make sure there is a “bridge”, because if there is not, Linux users might try something stupid, that will put the whole Linux community under heavy critisism.
This editorial by Roblimo is a service to the Linux community trying to endorse patience and good manners, it is not any kind of paid journalism.
Please all of you, do not be so critical without seeing the bigger picture first.
M$ called mall security on my friend and me when we showed up and started distributing FreeBSD CDs at their Chicago leg of the “Meet Me” tour. They didn’t mind at first, but then they saw that people were actualy receptive to us…and then the heeve ho….
The same sort of thing happens at MacWorld, some of the shows I’ve seen clearly had MS suits looking lonely, how exciting can Word be compared to some of the video effects stuff next door. Even better are the HW Embedded shows where Linux isn’t even the theme, but MS standing out like a sore thumb surrounded by disinterested HW engineers. They put themselves in this situation where they arrogently assume their solutions are the perfect fit for every thing. The HW guys are looking for tiny SW footprints, & MS brings along the pet elephant NT.
As for the article, no sympathy whatsoever. The last time I heard of down & out folks living under the bridge falling from a higher life, it was always Hollywood stars hooked on bad life style choices.
I think people should engage them with the truth, tire them out.
“Please all of you, do not be so critical without seeing the bigger picture first.”
Wow, Eugenia trying to have sense of perspective instead of reacting off the top of her head emotionally?
I don’t think there will be any incidents. Tuxers talk tough, but always try to play by the rules of civilized behavior. They do not need big mamma to keep them in line like good litte penguins. The fact that MS has never played by those same rules might upset them sometimes, though.
Roblimo’s stance isn’t motivated by paid sponsorship. I think he really is a bleeding-heart do-gooder type, as are most of the journalists at Slashdot and OSDN. Changes in ownership won’t affect that much.
The hard-nosed, worldly, cynical perspective at OSNews.com is likewise an expression of how the editors here think and feel. That’s also difficult to change despite the best of intentions to be kinder and gentler to tuxers, as a recent survey shows that the majority of readers here favor open source and free software. How does one suddenly go from “be a man, let’s fight” to “kill them with kindness”? Uplfting the primitive savage out of ignorance is hard work for those of us who must descend to the level of worldly-minded people to talk in a language they can understand.
I’m sure that if Eugenia were a tuxer she would punch out some poor MS booth worker and we would all be reading about it in the papers the next morning.
Believe whatever you want to believe.
Let’s make sure the wooden stake is driven deep into the Redmond beast’s heart and garlic stuffed in the mouth. The “undead legacy OS” still has a few years of dominance left before OS X (or maybe LINUX– a long shot) sends it back to the C:’s of hell.
They have nowhere to go but down. They have every right to be upset about this. And Linux users should be there to comfort them in their hour of need.”
This people are pathetic.
Not only arrogant and snob but, unfortunately, always making a fool of themselves.
This editorial by Roblimo is a service to the Linux community trying to endorse patience and good manners, it is not any kind of paid journalism.
I have to disagree on this one. The author is just taking revenge on something that happened to him on a M$ show or something. If on one side he tries to input tolerance and convince Linux fanatics to be courteous with M$ people he also tries to remember to everyone that M$ is a bunch of bad Mafia guys who call security to put Linux users outside. He also says that it’s time to stop hating Microsoft because the revolution is over and they have won which is some kind of a theatre/fiction novell but not reality for sure.
I like Linux (and even more FreeBSD) but I really dislike this kind of Linux people/users, like this stupid author. This attitude from Linux users disgust me very much. They should be in a psychiatric facility and disallowed to touch a computer keyboard or an Internet modem. This people are intoxicated.
Sympathy for M$? How about all the technologies they’ve crushed, companies they’ve destroyed and products they’ve either driven off the market or purchased then rebranded.
No thank you. If Billy G ever finds himself in the gutter, I’ll be the first to kick him.
[QUOTE}
No thank you. If Billy G ever finds himself in the gutter, I’ll be the first to kick him.[/QUOTE]
you probably will have to stand in line…
Perhaps Eugenia’s right about the intent of this article – I don’t know, myself. There is some imagery in it that is at least half true. Microsoft as the big shark that must always keep swimming, always finding some ways and means to stay at the top, with little fish always nibbling at it. That’s true in a way but, of course, the big shark is still very, very powerful. I do think though, more and more, people and companies do not fear Microsoft as they once did and many feel the time to strike is now, as MS is under such scrutiny. At Apple, Jobs is doing it. He says, “What’s a few market share points among friends?”. And, although an amusing remark, it is true. What if Apple somehow doubled its market share from 3% to 6 %? It would be like The Rapture for Apple – its stock would go through the roof! And MS would be selling their Mac software the whole way along. There is something stirring. I have no idea how big it might be, but even a little elbow room in desktop OS competition, a little daylight, is far more than we’re used to experiencing. The company on top always worries more than those not on top. To reach for and become number one is a tremendous feat, but to maintain that status is always even harder. Microsoft worries just like any other company that’s number one in its field does. And one of these days, maybe in two or three years, some company or corporation is going to put together a Linux desktop that’s *it*. As Eugenia says, right now there are attempts and they flop, but get back up again and keep trying. Someday, it’s not going to flop. And that means MS hs one more thing to worry about. There are little things happening already. Despite the fact that most consider Lindows a joke, I bet anything Gates is kicking himself and saying, “What the hell’s the matter with us – we should have Walmart in our hip pocket!!”. And that’s how it is with empires – the bigger they get, the less they can really see what’s going on around them or, at least, be less able to respond to everything on every front.
For me, loving OSS doesn’t mean killing M$ but to change their mentatlity so that they will do something like this;
i. No more bouught over of small potential company.
ii. No more crushing of other company with bright idea.
iii. No more expensive software.
iv. No more spyware inside their software.
v. No more misuse of monopoly power
and the most important thing,
vi. OPEN SOURCE THEIR SOFTWARE.
Wow, Eugenia trying to have sense of perspective instead of reacting off the top of her head emotionally?
——————
I can’t believe Eugenia didn’t censor that post critical of her. Lord knows she does enough of that…
Microsoft like any other company would one day fall off. History taught us so.
I have to disagree with this man’s viewpoint. its like saying Tiger woods has nowhere to go but down. Sun and Oracle and Palm and the rest of them are the ones who have to worry about loosing their top-status positions. If anything, Microsoft is going to get bigger and better and into many more technology niches.
Sun would most probably loose its market share to Linux and hardware makers using it. Oracle most likely would loose its market share to IBM or some open source project. Certainly not Microsoft (Oracle’s and Sun’s key market aren’t close to being dominated by Microsoft).
Personally I think these companies (Microsoft, Sun, Oracle) would die out unless they drasticly change their business model. No one can stay on a business model for too long…
We’re supposed to feel sorry for the giant when he gets a splinter? This guy just reads like an arrogant prankster. MS is hardly in the world’s biggest dive. And desktop linux is still just a chuckle in the wind.
Linux is beating Microsoft in the server and enterprise market. Linux has a remarkable success in the PDA market even with its young age and lack of standards. Linux had claim a lot of spots in the embedded market (DVRs, for example). But I doubt Linux would win in the desktop market 🙂 but as it is going, Linux is hurting Microsoft a lot.
Let’s make sure the wooden stake is driven deep into the Redmond beast’s heart and garlic stuffed in the mouth. The “undead legacy OS” still has a few years of dominance left before OS X (or maybe LINUX– a long shot) sends it back to the C:’s of hell.
As long as Apple remains largely a hardware company, I doubt that OS X would ever steal a lot of market share from Microsoft. As long there isn’t any coordination in Linux, and there isn’t good standards that are followed by everyone, and as long FSF hippies don’t be the most vocal, Linux wouldn’t get much market share from Microsoft.
Eric Raymond would like me to believe that Linux would capture Microsoft’s market dominance once PCs gets too cheap…. well, now there are other OSS desktop OS competition coming out, namely OBOS…
M$ called mall security on my friend and me when we showed up and started distributing FreeBSD CDs at their Chicago leg of the “Meet Me” tour. They didn’t mind at first, but then they saw that people were actualy receptive to us…and then the heeve ho….
I actually wanted to do so for Windows XP launch in Malaysia, only with Mandrake CDs, but I didn’t have the money of it
But like every other AOL CDs, few people would actually install it unless you get the person recieving truly excited.
Who knows? If I had enough money, for Windows .NET Server launch, I would give out Debian CDs, and explaining the goodness of it over Windows :-).
Sympathy for M$? How about all the technologies they’ve crushed, companies they’ve destroyed and products they’ve either driven off the market or purchased then rebranded.
Hmmm, the companies they crushed were crushed mostly because of their own fault rather than Microsoft’s. And then the technology they crushed, they wouldn’t be crushed if they have a better company behind it (guess what? technical merits barely have any effect in it’s success). As for the companies they purchased: it was legitimate, ethical, and the products they purchase wouldn’t have been installed so much if it wasn’t for Microsoft in the first place. If weren’t for buying out other companies and software, Microsoft wouldn’t have existed (their DOS was bought out, remember?). So, in conclusion, you are just mad at Microsoft because your favourite company died out against Microsoft, and/or your favourite product didn’t get much market share and users because of Microsoft…
i. No more bouught over of small potential company.
Hmmm, history taught us that sometimes merging and buying out is good. For example, would there be FrontPage and today’s Access if Microsoft don’t buy other companies?
ii. No more crushing of other company with bright idea.
Hmmm, so if you have a bright idea, you can’t implement it because your would be competitor would die off? I don’t see the logic.
iii. No more expensive software.
Notice the people undercharging them are either not making money or making money elsewhere.
iv. No more spyware inside their software.
Well, if they want to put spyway in their software, it is their product and they could do so. But if they do so without mentioning it in the privacy policy, well, they shouldn’t do that. But if they mention it in the privacy policy and also in the EULA, customers who want privacy shouldn’t complain because they should have read the privacy policy.
v. No more misuse of monopoly power
Hmmm, just imagine, if they didn’t “misuse” their monopoly power, there won’t be Windows, their OS would just be nothing more than a kernel and a bunch of basic tools (not even a defragmentor or scandisk), their Office suite would be nothing more than Word and Excel and a small bunch of features….. heck, if Microsoft did all that, they wouldn’t be alive.
vi. OPEN SOURCE THEIR SOFTWARE.
Even though 50% of my software are open source, and 27% of it are GPLed (well, I’m also using Windows in addition to Linux), I have yet to see a open source based company that is profitable…. Well, you can say Red Hat, but they make their money from consulting (and if Microsoft follow their model, well, they wouldn’t be following number v). Mandrakesoft claims to have a good Free Software business model: selling non-Free Software. 😀
Oh, Jay, I tried to read your comments, but it is too hard. Try seperating it in paragraphs, makes reading much easier 🙂
My favourite:
you probably will have to stand in line…
Though if Microsoft dies off, he could use his money saved and buy off Sweden or Israel or some pacific country 🙂 And most people wouldn’t care about King Bill Gates of Micronesia. Besides, if ever he find himself in the gutter, somebody was responsible in kicking him in there.
rajan, you always make good posts and I remember in one of them you mentioned your age. You are very mature. And, lol, I’ll take your tip and use paragraphs!
I have to disagree with at least one part of your post. Microsoft is guilty of abusing their monopoly. During the course of their trial,
company after company testified that Microsoft threatened them if they didn’t do things their way. And there were not competeing software (OS and Office) companies for the most part, they were hardware companies like Compaq, HP, etc. There have been all kinds of remedies suggested. I think breaking up MS into seperate companies wouldn’t accomplish anything. I think they need huge fines and a mechanism in place to make sure they don’t continue to engage is these unethical business practices.
Emay had good suggestions above. They need a watch dog on them. I think really that other competing companies just need the daylight that would provide.
Hmmm, the companies they crushed were crushed mostly because of their own fault rather than Microsoft’s.
Microsoft killed alot of companies through illegal/unethical tactics. The ones that have landed them in court are not the first nor the most serious.
For example, they killed off competing office suites by bundling Office for free with the OS (is Office still free, do you think you might be better off if there was real competition). They also utilized tactics like breakware, for example if you tried to run Window 3.1 on DR-DOS (which was widely considered to be superior to DOS) you got error fake messages. They killed off Quarter Deck in a similar manner.
Add this to there tatic of strong arming the OEMs to exclude competitors, and I think you see Microsoft is anything but the benevolent giant you make them out to be. Microsoft has accumulated its’ vast fortune at the expense of all us and by illegal means. Virtually every product you buy or use includes a Windows tax.
In order for the free market to work there must be fair and open access to the market.
Hmmm, just imagine, if they didn’t “misuse” their monopoly power, there won’t be Windows, their OS would just be nothing more than a kernel and a bunch of basic tools (not even a defragmentor or scandisk), their Office suite would be nothing more than Word and Excel and a small bunch of features….. heck, if Microsoft did all that, they wouldn’t be alive.
So what ?
We’d have companies with good systems, softwares, none of them being a monopoly. Where’s the problem ? With competition, we would have far more features in all these softwares. And that’s a Good Thing(TM), unless you believe in communism and only-one-product-for-people concepts?
Hmmm, just imagine, if they didn’t “misuse” their monopoly power, there won’t be Windows, their OS would just be nothing more than a kernel and a bunch of basic tools (not even a defragmentor or scandisk), their Office suite would be nothing more than Word and Excel and a small bunch of features….. heck, if Microsoft did all that, they wouldn’t be alive.
It would do to remember that Thomas Edison was just the first of 3000 people to try to patent the light bulb. The PC revolution would have happened with or with out MS.
MS took what was a vibrant ecosystem full of choices and competitors and turned it into a barren dessert.
Thomas Edison was NOT that great inventor that you would think. He “stole” a lot of inventions from other people.
And patented those inventions. Bill Gates is doing this today.
Let me start out by saying that I agree that MS did some unethical things, like many of their contracts, and the way they faked things with the OS and browser to make it seem like their product was superior, when actually they were purposely crippling the other product instead.
However,on many other items, it is hard to fault them. So they gave Office away… at the time nobody wanted to buy it, it wasn’t vey good, it had zero market share, etc. so the only way to break into the market was to give it away (as in free or very cheap). Guess what, at that price a lot of people liked and used it. However MS never intended it to be free forever, they had loads of developers, and eventually they improved it enough that the people who started using it for free felt it was worth paying $300 to upgrade it. Anybody see anything wrong with that business model?
What is wrong with MS buying out small companies with good ideas? Most often the person who started the small company with the good idea ends up very well off by selling.
On the other hand, they could refuse to sell, and then this is what happens: Just like the open-source/linux communities constantly copy other ideas and make new crappy versions of existing MS/Adobe/Etc. apps, MS copies the little software companies good idea (after all, it is a good idea), and throw their loads of developers (and advertising) at it, and guess what- they crush the little company. Just like the little company wishes they could do to MS’s stuff.
And in reference to Windows, most users (not developers/admins/hackers/experts) welcome each new thing MS puts into the OS. They like having browsers and media players and photo apps and games built in. MS is in the business of selling OSs, so give the majority what they want. Plus only the most hardened MS hater wouldn’t admit that 95, 98, 2000, and XP have gotten better with each version. (notice I left ME out)
So you hate MS-it’s partly because they are succesful!
However,on many other items, it is hard to fault them. So they gave Office away… at the time nobody wanted to buy it, it wasn’t vey good, it had zero market share, etc. so the only way to break into the market was to give it away (as in free or very cheap).
The difference is that they control both the OS and the apps. They are able to fund loses in one market by sales of the OS. Also, since MS developers have full documentation for the OS they are to keep outside developers at a disadvantage.
This help lead to MS having a monopoly, and less choice for consumers as well as higher prices. I do not understand why so many people do not want competition that would result from a true free market. If you choose to you could still use MS products, but you would also enjoy many alternatives.
Even if you choose to stay with MS products exclusively, you would still benefit. Real competition would force MS to develop better quality products and treat their customers more fairly.