There is only one man who would pull the wrong tooth...

I get a Dreyfuss-like tic in my eye any time I hear someone taking pity on or apologizing on behalf of Microsoft, but... John Dvorak hit the nail on the head.

I will refrain, here, from engaging in a redundant anti-Microsoft rant. I will not bore you with the same old tired pro-F/OSS arguments. I will stay on-topic, I swear...

Dvorak mentions that if Microsoft had used its vast resources on the originally advertised features of MS Windows Vista, it would be coming out on time and with all the originally advertised features. (For those of you living under rocks, or just tuning out the tech news, here's a summary... and this from a pro-MS-Windows publication!) From what I can tell... and I have to admit, I haven't dowloaded a public beta... Hey... I won't run their code when they claim it's ready... what makes you think I'll run it when they admit it could jolly-well be broken?!... but from what I hear in the press, MS Windows Vista promises to be yet another incremental improvement in the MS Windows feature-set (and I'm not talking about eye-candy*, here... I'm talking about actual usable features that do something productive)

So... What I take away from the Dvorak article is that the root cause of the bulk of Microsoft's current woes is Internet Explorer and its integration into the MS Windows operating system. Seems fitting in a way... like MS has baked their cake and, now, get to sleep in it. The cows have come home to roost on the barn door! Thyme feels all goons! Peen now or forever hold your feces!

{note to self: If you don't understand metaphors, don't use them.}

Perhaps a better way to put it is this: Microsoft engaged in anti-competitive hehavior when it integrated its web browser into its operating system, such that other web browsers could or would not be meningfully used. Microsoft used its "for all practical purposes" monopoly market-share to push out other "competitors". Strangely, the US Justice Department was unable to make a sufficiently strong case to that effect and Microsoft was allowed to continue its "integrated web browser" practice... and expand it into the "media player" realm as well... but now.... Microsoft has done to itself what the Justice Department... even the Almighty Forces of the Free Market... couldn't do. It punished itself for its rotten behavior. Inadvertantly, perhaps... but, nevertheless, it has punished itself and its customers. The unfortunate outcome of all this (prove me wrong.. PLEASE!!!) is that the general public will be sufficiently placated by the eyecandy and opt to buy MS Windows Vista, hook, line and stinker.

Same old shit.

Anyway, good insight, John.


* I was looking for a page to link to for this term, and I thought... Hey, Microsoft surely has plenty to say about it's upcoming release of its flagship operating system. Strangely, the webpage with said propaganda doesn't render correctly in Firefox. There's an old saying about what to do with people who can't take a joke. I think it applies here.
NOTE: Microsoft has FIXED it's "Windows Vista" site so that it works under Linux. Huh. A step in the right direction, but I still won't buy it. :P

Honestly, I tried to be good!

NOTE - I originally started this post... um.. a while ago. not fresh, but still relevant.

I read this story about the latest MS Windows patch, and how they're STILL playing catch-up to fix bad coding practices (bugs) in a years-old product they won't be replacing for another year... and chuckled a bit.

I mean MS Windows is certainly a big complicated pile of code, with a lot of legacy crap that MS just can't seem to let go of... fair enough... but Internet Explorer... let's remember that it's an "integrated part of the Operating System"... can't remove it, no-no-no! IE6 has been out... what... two, three years... and was just a re-dress of IE5.5, which... it basically goes back to IE4... MS has basically had 8 years to refine, tune and lock down this stupid browser. Come on. Firefox is not perfect. It hasn't been around nearly as long, it's been developed as an open-source project, it's a cross-platform browser... it's free... AND it works better than IE.

I don't know. I mean I feel for all you Windows users out there... I really do. They've got you by the short-n-curlies, and it's sad. It's like being in a bad marriage, but not one so bad that your life is threatened if you stay... one where the aparent cost of leaving and the aparent cost of staying are about the same. ...but they're really not.

My advice? Well... I would suggest aggressively weaning oneself off MS Windows. Start by using OpenOffice.org or some other ODF-compliant suite. ... or, even better, write in plain text! You can get OpenOffice.org for MS Windows... start converting your old docs to ODF and creating your new ones in ODF... You can also make a difference by sending your document out in the original ODF rather than pre-emtively converting them to some other, inferior format. Stop using IE. Use Opera, Mozilla, Firefox, Dillo, Galleon, Konqueror, et cetera... There are plenty of browsers out there.

As for content that "can only be viewed" in MS Windows Media Player? The short answer is, "Too bad." Support open formats. Ogg, theora, flac, speex, png. If you don't view content that requires proprietary software, eventually the creators of websites will stop posting it.

You have a choice. You can choose to be a person or a "consumer".

It's not just about free as in beer... it's free as in speech and liberty and lack of encumbrance. Richard Stallman may be a bit of an eccentric... some would say kook... but I silently thank him every time I boot up or logon to a GNU/Linux system.