Date: Thu, 04 Apr 2002 17:29:16 -0500
From: Ted White <tedwhite at compusnet.com>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Microsoft (was Re: equal pay)
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

"Keith F. Lynch" wrote:

> "Strong, Lee" <StrongL at MTMC.ARMY.MIL> wrote:
>
> > <Seriousness alert> What is so bad about Bill Gates and/or
> > Microsoft?  I've heard a lot of hostile comments but I've never
> > heard any real evidence of wrongdoing.  Please provide specifics.
> > Thank you,
>
> I don't know about "wrongdoing," but I avoid using Microsoft products
> because they are bug-ridden, slow, and bloated.  It is NOT normal
> for an operating system to crash.  Nor for it to be possible to get
> computer viruses simply by reading email.  If computers are thousands
> of times faster than twenty years ago, why do they take just as long
> to boot?  And if disks are ten thousand times larger, why are they
> always nearly full?

Mostly because we find new things to fill them up.  I thought it was a Big
Deal when I upgraded my Pentium I computer to a 3 gig harddrive in 1998.  My
Pentium II has a 13.4 gig harddrive and I've filled it up once already!   I'm
already thinking about getting one of those Really Big (40 to 80 gig)
harddrives to add on.   But that's because I've installed a WAV.file editing
program (Cool Edit Pro) and I've been using it to put '50s jazz LPs and '70s
Italian rock LPs on CD -- cleaning up the files with click & pop removers,
noise-reduction/removal, and doing hand-editing of thuds and other vinyl
imperfections.   WAV.files take up A Lot of room on the harddrive, and I've
learned to delete them once I've burned a CD from them (the CD *is* the hard
storage).  People who are getting into digital video/editing use up their
harddrive space even *faster*.

One major difference in larger harddrives:  it takes longer to defragment
them.

> All the computer power that was used to put a man on the moon wouldn't
> suffice to even boot up Windows far enough to get an "insufficient
> memory" error.
>
> I'm also dismayed by the arrogance of that company.  For instance
> their suggestion, in response to a bug involving the word "begin" at
> the start of a line, that everyone stop using the word "begin"!  Or
> by their casual assumption that everyone is a software pirate.  They
> arrange deals where it's almost impossible for anyone to buy a PC
> without also paying for an included copy of Windows.  And then they
> turn around and use the count of included copies of Windows to "prove"
> that almost everyone uses Windows, and that this deal is justified to
> prevent piracy!
>
> Also, their license terms say that if you don't agree to the license
> terms, and do not use the software, return it, and you will get a
> full refund.  People who have attempted to get a refund for the pre-
> installed copies of Windows they had paid for but neither wanted nor
> used got the runaround.
>
> It's not difficult to be Microsoft-free.  Those of you were were over
> here on Fifth Friday saw that I have lots of computers, and lots of
> computer books.  But the only thing by Microsoft was a FORTRAN manual
> from the 70s.  (That was the buggiest implementation of FORTRAN I had
> ever used, and was my first exposure to Bill Gates' firm.)
>
> The existence of this list, of various features on our web page, and
> the fact that my email is always free of stray equal signs, ads, and
> HTML show that the software I use is not only cheaper, faster, more
> compact, and more robust than anything by Microsoft, it's also more
> powerful, and gives its users more flexibility and control.  Also,
> its error messages aren't incomprehensible.
>
> I'm utterly baffled by Microsoft's success.  Back in the late 70s I
> wrongly predicted that the company had no future.

It's simple:  most people want and many companies and organizations *need*
standardization in their equipment and software.  For a company having lots
of different computers running different programs on different operating
systems is chaotic -- anarchy, really.  So Microsoft has capitalized on that
need.

There is a second force at work as well:  the movement of PCs into ordinary
households where no one is a "computer nerd."  Mr. & Mrs. Retiree want to
swap email with their kids and grandkids and send them digital photos.   They
don't want to have to *live* with their computers; they want reliable
appliances.   (These are the people, Keith, who delight in sending their
email in fancy typefaces and multiple colors.)   To the extent that their
Microsoft-equipped computers crash, this is Bad, but the standardization
helps -- and the majority of these people use AOL as their ISP.   They are
"dumbing down" computers and they expect everything to be standardized for
them.   They have never heard of Linux.   Their kids and grandkids use
computers mostly for video games, email, and websurfing.

--Ted White