Microsoft learns to live with open source

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Bashing and hating Microsoft

There are two aspects of Microsoft: the software the company produces, and the compay's behaviour. Re Windows and the other MS software I've used, I don't "hate" it. It seems to be adequate for 90+% of non-business users who are happy if their email, web surfing, and games work most of the time and who routinely reboot their machines every day or so. But the SW just isn't robust enough for more demanding applications. MS software also seems fine for most routine day-to-day business use, stuff that gets done millions of times a day. Memos and business letters and spreadsheets (Oh, my!), the form and mechanisms of which never change. But if you need anything out of the hum-drum ordinary, MS is just too inflexible. There's the MS way, there are MS solutions, and if your problem doesn't fit the MS paradigm, you're out of luck. (Reminds me of Henry Ford's comment about Model Ts, "You can it any color you like as long as it's black.")

If that's MS "bashing," so be it.

There's nothing to "hate" here. Personally, I find the MS paradigm cumbersome and limiting, but that's just me. YMMV, and if it works for you, go for it; it's certainly not my business to try to stop you.

And that's where the "hate" comes in. We here in the Linux world aren't trying to forcibly deprive MS users of their OS-of-choice. Sure, if we create an OS more people voluntarily switch to, great. But, honestly, not very many of us really care which OS anyone else uses.

The same, most emphatically, cannot be said of Microsoft. For a long time, it was stated MS policy to destroy Linux. It may still be and they've just gotten more subtle about it. (Remember "Embrace, "extend," extinguish."?) I don't know. I do know that the history of MS is one of implacable hostility to everything not Microsoft.

It's a matter of freedom versus greed. Linux, and open-source in general, is a statement of the right of computer users to compute their own way, and this is utterly antithetical to the "Microsoft uber alles" attitude taken by Microsoft. Bill Gates doesn't care about freedom-of-OS; he just doesn't want me to use Linux because, if I do, he doesn't make more money.

I may not agree with your choice of using Windows, but I'll defend absolutely your right to use it. Can you say the same about my choice to use Linux?

Posted by: Henry Miller   Posted on: 07/11/05 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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