From: Eugen Leitl (eugen@leitl.org)
Date: Tue Nov 19 2002 - 09:22:34 MST
John, can you please make your fine Microsoft Outlook Express
6.00.2800.1106 not add blanks before the text you post? Btw, while we were
at fine Microsoft mailers, here's some very useful 3rd party software to
use, which fixes Microsoft Outlook's broken quoting (which illustrates
(assuming, another illustration was necessary) that in its pigheaded way
Redmond doesn't care about existing standards, and generally acts like a
800 lb gorilla in children's daycare unit):
http://home.in.tum.de/~jain/software/outlook-quotefix/
I also presume you've applied all the usual security bugfixes, without
which your fine Microsoft Outlook mailer is primarily the best known viral
vector known to man. Oh, and since the Internet Explorer (which is a part
of the OS, according to Bill Gates, and can't be unbundled, despite this
having been demostrated by 3rd parties) is being used for HTML mail
preview, you've patched it as well, and in general keep your fine
Microsoft OS in good patched order? Here's what it takes to make NT about
as secure as Debian (not to speak of OpenBSD) ships out of the box:
http://bunbun.ais.vt.edu/work/securing_nt.html
Funny, huh? Don't get me started on what I read daily on Bugtraq, and
Redmond's policy to fix vulnerabilies (or, rather, their policy to not fix
vulnerabilities).
On Tue, 19 Nov 2002, John Leppik wrote:
> Let me start by saying that I have been in the software business for
> over 40 years and have no interest in Microsoft except as a user of
> some of its products, and yes, I have some problems with them and I
> get good value from them.
There's little to argue with that.
> What you write Eugen is, I think, abusive, biased, incorrect and much
> more. I started when everything was open source and you could only
I was commenting on the statement that I should thank Bill Gates for the
PC. Which is complete hogwash.
I might have possibly been abusive, for which I owe everybody an apology
(I'm terribly cranky lately, and it's not just the weather). I don't think
that I owe the PC to Bill Gates, nor have I observed any innovation coming
out of Redmond -- feel free to list any innovation. Nobody else did so
far, which I guess is also a kind of an answer. Instead, I see bloated,
buggy, insecure software coming from Microsoft, stuff so bad it's a
disgrace to the field of computing. You might also look into Redmond's
business practices, which brought them before the judge (and where Bill
Gates lied in his testimony). What I also see coming out of Redmond is
violation of user privacy, and EULAs from hell, and stated intent to make
the user become an untrusted party in regards to the machine she bought
and owns. You surely haven't missed the DRM/Pd debate?
> get it from IBM. Most people wound up writing their own at a cost of
> many millions of dollars for one-of-a-kind programs. The software
> industry got started when people decided that it would be better to
> centralize talent and experience and buy application for several
> hundred thousand to several million dollars a shot. The UNIX world
> reduced purchase costs to the tens or hundreds of thousands of
> dollars. Bill Gates was key in bringing the cost for quite elaborate
> application down to the low hundreds. And yes, there always has been
I think we can safely state that Bill Gates had no part in making software
affordable. He also didn't invent the Internet. He didn't invent open
source either (this preemptively, before Microsoft claims that, too).
> free stuff, mainly used by people who are very good at programming and
> debugging themselves (that leaves out most of humanity).
Er, it has been a while (a _long_ while) since any open source users
needed to do any debugging. You don't seem to be very up to date here.
> Microsoft products are not all things to all people, but they are the
> tools of choice of most people who have the option to choose. That is
That's a false statement.
> where they choose to put their money and where they think they will
> get the most gain. (I expect that you will come back with a
> monopolistic conspiracy theory. I will wait to see what flavor yours
No such luck.
> is.) I do not mean to imply that Microsoft products would serve you
> well. You have apparently found a better option for yourself, but why
> are you so abusive of Microsoft and someone who thinks that there may
> be something of value there?
Of course there's something of value in Microsoft's software. I could make
a short list of things I like. But that's not the point. The point is that
I don't owe the PC to Bill Gates. In fact I don't owe a lot to him, except
a lot of daily aggravation which he and the company he founded are
directly responsible for.
> I just don't know how to comment on the following politely "Ron, sorry
> to say, but you obviously have very little clue about the industry,
> and Microsoft's role in it. As an engineer, you're surely aware of the
> dangers of talking about a field you know nothing about?" ...and I
> too am an engineer. Is that my problem?
According to your own words you're an engineer who has been four decades
in the industry (notice that we're talking about the PC, which is about
two decades old). I might be misinterpreting it it, but Ron doesn't seem
to be a software engineer, nor a computer person.
> I don't think this is a transhumanist topic, but I could not let abuse
> pass without comment.
So let's make it a transhumanist topic, and not a scatfest.
I've always wondered what is broken in the process by which Microsoft
makes software, and how this process can be fixed without starting from
scratch. Maybe some of resident software developers with insider knowledge
of Microsoft's structures and processes can comment.
How can we make Redmond a company with extropic values and positive impact
on the world?
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