Bill Gates assists in funding first aviation-themed public high school

In a previous article, "Cockpit Colin" said:
I've always suggested what I believe to be the perfect solution for people
who don't like Bill, don't like Microsoft, or don't like their products ...

... Don't use them.

Great. Now convince the people who use my web sites not to use IE, so I
don't have to make dozens of work-arounds for the fact that millions of
people continue to use that piece of crap in spite of the fact that it's
demonstrably the worst browser on the market today. And convince the
company I work for to stop requiring certain documents in Word, a
thoroughly horrible word processor. And stop people who subcribe to my
mailing lists from using Outlook and Outlook Express, so they don't flood
my mail servers with the viruses which they inevitably get because of it.

Microsoft wouldn't be a problem if they weren't a combination of the most
evil, dishonest and illegal monopolists on the planet, AND the worst
programmers.

--
Paul Tomblin http://xcski.com/blogs/pt/
"Only a NAZI would try to invoke Godwin's [law] deliberately"
- Jeff Gostin in a.s.r

Paul Tomblin wrote:

And stop people who subcribe to my
mailing lists from using Outlook and Outlook Express, so they don't flood
my mail servers with the viruses which they inevitably get because of it.

Stop people that happen to visit a web site or view a mail message with my
email address from using MSFT products. That would prevent those products
from sending out viruses forged to appear to be from me.

- Andrew

Andrew Gideon wrote in
online.com:

Paul Tomblin wrote:

And stop people who subcribe to my
mailing lists from using Outlook and Outlook Express, so they don't
flood my mail servers with the viruses which they inevitably get
because of it.

Stop people that happen to visit a web site or view a mail message
with my email address from using MSFT products. That would prevent
those products from sending out viruses forged to appear to be from
me.

- Andrew



Of course we all know that if, say Netscape was used by 90%+ of all the
users out there, all the security explotes/viruses etc would be written for
those applications....

--
ET


"A common mistake people make when trying to design something
completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete
fools."---- Douglas Adams

ET wrote:

Of course we all know that if, say Netscape was used by 90%+ of all the
users out there, all the security explotes/viruses etc would be written
for those applications....

Presuming that Netscape (or whomever) didn't break some basic principles of
software engineering (ie. shoving a widely diverse set of features into a
single monolithic component), it's a good bet that there'd be fewer bugs
and that those would be more quickly fixed.

~200 days for the fix for the ASN.1 issue? That may be a new record.

Presuming that Netscape (or whomever) didn't bundle their product with the
monopolistic OS in a way that eliminates competition, along with contracts
that discouraged OEMs from using alternative OSes, then it wouldn't be
likely that any single product would achieve 90% reach anyway.

Monocultures are good for disease, but bad for the population.

- Andrew

In article ne.com,
Andrew Gideon wrote:

ET wrote:

Of course we all know that if, say Netscape was used by 90%+ of all the
users out there, all the security explotes/viruses etc would be written
for those applications....

Presuming that Netscape (or whomever) didn't break some basic principles
of
software engineering (ie. shoving a widely diverse set of features into a
single monolithic component), it's a good bet that there'd be fewer bugs
and that those would be more quickly fixed.

~200 days for the fix for the ASN.1 issue? That may be a new record.

didn't you hear? ms claims the bug isn't the problem, the
patch is the problem.

--
Bob Noel

Andrew Gideon wrote:

Presuming that Netscape (or whomever) didn't bundle their product with the
monopolistic OS in a way that eliminates competition, along with contracts
that discouraged OEMs from using alternative OSes, then it wouldn't be
likely that any single product would achieve 90% reach anyway.



See, this kind of crap is what passes for "information".

OK. So you have an opinion about MS. Wonderful. An opinion is like an
asshole. We've all got 'em. But that doesn't make you special.

MS "bundles their product with the monopolistic OS"? Bull****. If
there's any obstacle out there preventing ANYONE from doing precisely
what Bill Gates has accomplished, providing THE WORLD with a PC-based
operating system THAT WORKS better than anything else out there (you
wanna' challenge the consumer usage numbers?), state what that obstacle
is NOW, before any more of your baseless charges that MS is
monopolistic. It's not a "monopoly" - he built a better mousetrap-
what's your problem with that? We can do that in this country - it's
fair, and it's legal. Get over it.

I prefer Netscape as a browser, and NOTHING in the Windows operating
system does any "eliminating", or in any other way, precludes my use of
a non-MS product.

C'mon. Get a life.

You gotta' problem with Microsoft? Fine. That's your privilege. But
lose all the diatribe about how Gates and MS are getting in your way of
doing what you want. It ain't happening. You're hallucinating.

CriticalMass wrote:


MS "bundles their product with the monopolistic OS"? Bull****.

You write like this, and accuse others of misinformation or hallucination?
Or do you claim to know better than US Federal and EU governments?

If
there's any obstacle out there preventing ANYONE from doing precisely
what Bill Gates has accomplished, providing THE WORLD with a PC-based
operating system THAT WORKS better than anything else out there (you
wanna' challenge the consumer usage numbers?), state what that obstacle
is NOW, before any more of your baseless charges that MS is
monopolistic. It's not a "monopoly" - he built a better mousetrap-
what's your problem with that? We can do that in this country - it's
fair, and it's legal. Get over it.

Oh, please. You don't know how IBM handed MSFT a monopoly? Where've you
been?

Anyway, even if you were correct in your assertion that MSFT achieved its
monopoly through reasonable and legal means, that does nothing about the
assertion that they've abused said monopoly.

Or does this distinction still escape you?

- Andrew

Andrew Gideon wrote:

Anyway, even if you were correct in your assertion that MSFT achieved its
monopoly through reasonable and legal means, that does nothing about the
assertion that they've abused said monopoly.

Or does this distinction still escape you?



It does.

By what means did MS achieve "its monopoly"? Maybe, by making software
everyone chose to use? H'mmmm. Maybe, we're on to something here.

The argument that "no one had any other choice", which you and others
apparently try to make, is intellectually vacant, given that there were
never any market forces preventing potential competitors from entering
the fray and providing competing OSes.

C'mon. Where does this bashing "the ones that make it" ever end? Gates
built a better mousetrap. Get over it. You don't want to use it?
That's fine with me. Load up Linux or something equally as goofy, and
see what software apps there are out there you can run. It's your
choice, big guy. Just don't try to argue that MS is junk simply because
it's the biggest dog on the block. That's not a defensible position.

In my view, MS has done nothing but what any other creative company in
similar circumstances would do - innovate.

If there's any obstacle out there preventing ANYONE from doing precisely
what Bill Gates has accomplished, providing THE WORLD with a PC-based
operating system THAT WORKS better than anything else out there (you
wanna' challenge the consumer usage numbers?), state what that obstacle
is NOW


Standards.

This isn't a computer newsgroup, so I'll stop at pointing out:

1: Several OSs work better than Windows. Windows is just sort-of adequate.
Adequate is good enough for Americans.
2: Consumer "acceptance" has squat to do with quality. It has to do with
marketing and compatitiblity.

Why are they still making VOR airways? Why are they still using NDB
approaches? Why can I file GPS direct but always get rounted from here to
Kingdom Come? By now we should be free of airways and such... but we're not.

Why? Well, several reasons, but one big one is standards. The new stuff HAS
TO work with the existing system. You can invent any newfangled thing you
want, but it will never get adopted in this airspace if it can't coexist.

That's why Mac can read Windows disks. But like VORs, Windows doesn't have to
read Mac disks.

Jose





--
(for Email, make the obvious changes in my address)

In article ,
(Teacherjh) wrote:

2: Consumer "acceptance" has squat to do with quality. It has to do
with
marketing and compatitiblity.

and compatitibility is optional.

--
Bob Noel