RE: [MLUG] News Alert from NYTimes.com

["Ross, Matt" <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

Ok, time to put my two cents in before inflation hits.

I hate it when people call it M$, we're all in the computer biz for $,
Microsoft is bad because they get their $ for exploiting other businesses.
Second, MS software does tend to suck, they are good at what they do, unless
you're under the delusion that software is the main thing they do.  MS is
easy by comparison, but unlike Dev's mom, mine couldn't install Windows on
her own, or even CD based games (we've tried the latter).  Mom was good with
computers when they had punchcard readers instead of magnetic memory, but
the concept of GUI is beyond her.  Maybe she would be better with *nix. ;-)
I will admit though, I've crashed Mandrake and SuSE more often than NT4, but
Win2k hasn't been as stable as NT4 when I used it.  I am a Windows user,
though I'm trying to reform, but I have yet to find an office suite to
replace MS Office.  Star Office appears to be powerful, and I haven't
crashed it yet, but I also haven't been able to get it to work on the level
of MS Office, it is far to immature an interface for a user program, and I
find it much easier to use HTML rather than Star to make documents under
Linux, dispite the bugs in cross-browser use.  Frankly, Linux is immature in
this reguard.  The interface at its best is an immitation of Windows or
Macintosh.  Linux's best feature is the fact that it is simple.  No fancy
bull that wasn't error checked and will crash without reason, and no giant
security holes with GUI to hide them, and best of all, no all-powerful
programs vying for power over the comp.  My biggest complaint about MS is
their browser-god IE, which you can't uninstall without an instruction
manual the size of War&Peace, and which controls most of the other
operations in navigating the O/S.  Before someone starts saying "yeah, use
Netscape instead," I wish to tell them where they can shove that piece of
....anyway, Netscape isn't as intrusive, but it isn't as effective as a
browser.  Their standards compliance comes at the cost of backwards
compatability, unlike IE, which runs just about any HTML tags that they
won't get sued for supporting (eg: layer tags).  To summarize, MS sucks, but
so does everything else at this point.

Now, before I leave, I'll get back to the topic. As was pointed out, we all
knew from the begining that MS would buy its way out, we would too if we had
the money and were in their shoes.  Scruples aren't involved, as the case
was built on vague terms and the general hate for MS, not for the laws they
broke.  Socially speaking, I'm anti-anti-trust, but perhaps that comes from
too many years of playing Monopoly.  I thing the government stepping in
every time a little company goes out of business in favor of a bigger better
company is worse than having Bill Gates rule the PC market.  Also, before we
attack MS, let's get some perspective, Intel runs the chip market, MS runs
the O/S market, and AOL runs the ISP market.  If we're going to attack evil
big business, why are we attacking MS and not Intel and AOL?  All three make
their money on unsuspecting users who don't have sense enough to figure out
why their PC's are crashing.  "It broke, I'll get a new one."  If we want to
save these users from a fate worse than the blue screen of death, then we
need to make more useable interfaces for Linux, make games for linux (that's
why 6 year olds don't use *nix), make competitive office software, and make
Linux software read and write Windows and possibly even Mac files.

BTW, I thought the 10% was Linux users, not merely non-Windows users.  Last
number I heard for that was 25%, with almost 15% of the market using Macs,
and a fraction of 1% using BeOS.

PS: Should this go to discussion, as it's MS related instead of Linux?
-----Original Message-----
From: Gants, Mark E. (UMC-Student) [mailto:EMAIL:PROTECTED]
Sent: Friday, September 07, 2001 3:26 AM
To: EMAIL:PROTECTED
Subject: RE: [MLUG] News Alert from NYTimes.com


Hmmm, I really don't think this is a bad thing. As long as Microsoft is
around, they will be hiring programmers. Getting a decent job is never a bad
thing - even if it is a job that involves taking over the world. Better to
be "on the protected lists" than out on the streets. I know there is a
strong feeling of resentment towards Microsoft on this list, but really -
they wouldn't be around it they weren't good at what they do. You don't win
if you're a loser, and it seems like Microsoft always wins......sooner or
later.

night,

mark

-----Original Message-----
From: F Vernon Green [mailto:EMAIL:PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, September 06, 2001 5:00 PM
To: EMAIL:PROTECTED
Subject: RE: [MLUG] News Alert from NYTimes.com


Well you can't exactly paste that on to Bush. Let's face it anyone who
really thought M$ was going to get broken up on this deal was very naive. No
matter who was President M$ was never going to get broken up. This is all
about money and the United States government sense some very deep pockets
ripe for the picking. If Bill Gates and buddies had been lacing the palms of
the democratic national committee they would not have even been brought up
on charges.

Since they didn't this is just another way to coerce money from a company
that has a lot of money. M$ will not be broken up, it will be a matter of a
fine and more than likely M$ will settle out of court. With the money that
the company has, any fine they are slapped with will not effect them much.
SO M$ is going to get a slap on the hands and be told not to do it again.

-----Original Message-----
From: EMAIL:PROTECTED
[mailto:EMAIL:PROTECTED]On Behalf Of Igor Izyumin Jr.
Sent: Thursday, September 06, 2001 2:56 PM
To: EMAIL:PROTECTED
Subject: Re: [MLUG] News Alert from NYTimes.com


On Thursday 06 September 2001 16:29, you wrote:
> F*ck...
Geez, you're that naive?  I thought it was pretty obvious that microsoft got
away the very second that bush was proclaimed president.
--
-- Igor
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