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Showing messages 1 through 21 of 21.

• Nobody likes # 1
  2003-03-11 09:47:23  anonymous2 [View]
  
  
  Some folks just won't face facts. Microsoft has practically created and defined large portions of the market we all profit from. Nobody is forced to buy their software....and their developers and designers are not part of an Axis of Evil.
  
  I don't like some of the decisions Microsoft makes, but it's easier to criticize and demonize # 1 than it is to beat them at their own game. Stop using Microsoft as the excuse for why nobody wants your product.
• Nobody likes # 1
  2003-03-11 15:27:59  Tim O'Reilly | [View]
  
  
  I agree. Microsoft certainly can benefit from our criticism. (And despite a lot of skepticism out there in the marketplace, I think that they are taking the criticism to heart, albeit gradually and unevenly.) But the criticism should be specific and substantial, not knee-jerk and over-broad. There are an awful lot of people who blame Microsoft whenever they do anything wrong, and attack them whenever they do anything right, arguing that it's a smokescreen. If we want them to improve, we need to praise them when they make good moves, and restrict the criticism to actual wrongdoing.

• People Buy Tobacco
  2003-02-20 14:14:18  anonymous2 [View]
  
  
  People choose to buy the product that kills them. Just like people buy the software that is buggy from Microsoft. If there is a market, the product should be made. When the mindset of people changes, so does the market.
• while Tobacco Companies Tell Lies
  2003-02-21 08:14:51  mentata [View]
  
  
  The similarity doesn't end at the cash register, it extends to the labs. Check out the movie "The Insider". If that's not convincing, see also the Philip Morris motto on the logo for any pack of Marlboros.
  
  People buy chrystal meth, too, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about why it's not cool to sell addictive things without being open about the consequences.

• I'm Sure tobacco co. employees are nice too...
  2003-02-20 08:07:20  anonymous2 [View]
  
  
  but they still make a product that kills 300,000 people a year.
  
  

• MS developers are just troops
  2003-02-16 15:18:54  anonymous2 [View]
  
  
  "One of my great passions these days is to break down the barriers between Microsoft and the open source world by creating more contact between their developers."
  
  Tim,
  
  How on Earth do you figure that fraternizing amoung developers is going to in any way change or mollify the clear intent and purpose of Microsoft's leadership.
  
  This reminds me of the stories of temporary suspensions of fighting during World War I at the front lines during Christmas. For a few hours, they laid down their arms and shared what food and drink they had. Then they returned to their trenches, and on the orders of the generals, proceeded to kill each other.
  
• MS developers are just troops
  2003-03-01 11:48:53  Tim O'Reilly | [View]
  
  
  I don't know Bill G or Ballmer, but I do know some folks pretty high up in the organization (Jim Allchin, Eric Rudder), and while they are fierce competitors, I don't think that they are the demons that opponents like to portray them as. They are really wrestling with a hard problem -- how to be better corporate citizens, how to get better at listening to and serving customers, while also growing a business that has historically been so successful that any slowing will be punished by the market as failure. I think they can make the transition, as IBM did, and I think they want to make that transition. Simply demonizing them will just harden their positions. We have to help them find a way forward to a slightly more cooperative model.
  

• demonized?
  2003-02-16 11:30:29  mentata [View]
  
  
  I agree it is a noble cause to bring developers from both sides together. When I got a posting on O'Reilly for a Java example I wrote, I didn't expect it to end up on the ondotnet home page, but in the end that fact pleased me. Coders of all walks are craftsmen with the shared goal of creating software solutions, and I welcome the dialogue.
  
  However, I object to defending Microsoft by implying the organization has been unfairly slandered. People like myself have very objective reasons for eschewing their products and directions. By and large, the barriers to synergy aren't being erected by programmers from either camp, but are inserted methodically by the top of the Microsoft corporate structure. David Stutz clearly had the insights to be a bridge between worlds, but he is leaving because there is apparently no room for that perspective in the narrow confines of Microsoft strategy.
  
  Somebody once created something of monumental value to the world and gave it away freely, putting the benefit of all mankind above his own personal gain. It was a profoundly beautiful act, and has culminated in an unparallelled positive shift in our industry. Then a human face of Microsoft very publicly called it cancer. Now you tell me who's doing the demonizing.
• demonized?
  2003-03-01 12:08:21  Tim O'Reilly | [View]
  
  
  Listen, I'm the first to call Microsoft on their shenanigans. I've been doing it for years. And like a lot of other folks, I gave them sh*t for their inflammatory comments about Linux and open source. But they've come a long way since then, they've tried to retract or apologize for those comments. I'm not saying that they are uniformly nice guys, nor that they aren't fierce competitors, but I am saying that there are a lot of people in the OSS community that wants Microsoft to die -- so why shouldn't they fight back? The best way to encourage them to be less hostile themselves is to be less hostile to them. That doesn't mean letting them get away with stuff, any more than Gandhi let the British get away with stuff in his fight for Indian independence. But he didn't fight back on their terms. He won by calling out the humanity in the British, not by fighting fire with fire. Make your enemy better, not worse, and you eventually win.
• demonized?
  2003-07-06 19:50:39  anonymous2 [View]
  
  
  Tim, you own and run a business that gets significant revenue from the Microsoft world. Of course you want to soften perception of Microsoft's true nature because the upside for you is increased cross-over sales. You want to be seen by Microsoft as a positive force, helping the Microsoft spin machine, so they will help you get more business.
  
  And trying to take something from history and totally distort it for your own ends won't work either.
  
  Why did Gandhi fight the Brits in the first place? Because British ruled India -- the land of his people -- by brute force.
  
  This is no different than the way Microsoft rules the world of personal computer operating systems, programming tools, office suites, and browsers. By monopoly -- i.e. brute force.
  
  Gandhi fought the British by extreme civil disobedience (this is not warm and fuzzy meetings and talks). Why?
  
  Because Gandhi could not meet the British fire vs. fire because the British had all the weapons. So Gandhi used all the avenues of resistance and dissent available to him.
  
  In the end, Gandhi won because he exhausted the spririt of the enemy to fight. This is nothing that is not in Sun Tzu.
  
  With free software and open source, the struggle may be similar. The more on the ground resistance there is to Microsoft, the more Microsoft will have to change their ways. It is not "the more nice talk we give to Microsoft, the more they will change". Microsoft is not your little infant that needs sweet talking.
  
  Microsoft is a vicious beast of a company that doesn't play by the rules. The only thing they understand and respect is pure force. And myself, having worked with them on and off over the past 13 years, attest to this. You bargain with Microsoft strength vs. strength. There is not one humanitarian bone in the Microsoft body.

• What is Stutz really saying..
  2003-02-15 14:03:31  anonymous2 [View]
  
  
  Reading Stutz's message leaves me most confused about what he is really saying. I get the impression that he is not objecting to Microsoft's traditional practice of destroying potential competion with dirty tricks, but that he is objecting to their failure to figure out how to destroy open source.
  
  
• What is Stutz really saying..
  2003-03-01 11:53:52  Tim O'Reilly | [View]
  
  
  The essence of Stutz's message has nothing to do with the proprietary vs. open source dynamic, but with the question of whether Microsoft will let go of Windows and the PC platform in order to embrace the next platform, where they may not have an ownership lock in position.
  

  
  The next great market is one that Stutz characterizes as "Useful software written above the level of the single device." This is the market that BEA is well on its way to locking up with J2EE, and that Microsoft had a bold vision for with .Net, but is afraid to embrace fully (competing fairly), instead hanging on to too much of its Windows heritage.

• leverage the indestructible
  2003-02-16 11:45:18  mentata [View]
  
  
  I think he is unequivocally saying that open source is not going to be destroyed by any means. His point is that Microsoft is not making the transition, and until they change their strategy they will miss the opportunities.
• leverage the indestructible
  2003-02-16 14:53:49  anonymous2 [View]
  
  
  These are several quotes from his article that cause me to question his real thoughts and intent.
  
  "disgruntled Microsoft wannabes have poured huge quantities of often inferior, but nonetheless requirements-driven, open source software."
  
  Open Source developers are NOT "Microsoft wannabes". We have seen and experiences first hand the terrible distruction of the Microsoft model on the rest of the development world. And we most certainly do not wish to duplicate it.
  
  
  "accelerate the divergence of the open source platform, and have other undesirable results."
  
  
  The growth and divergance of the open source plateform is an 'undesirable result' to whom?
  
  
  "Microsoft must survive and prosper by learning from the open source software movement and by borrowing from and improving its techniques."
  
  This is a clear statement of the embrace and exstinguish tactic. The methods of open source and Free Software, collectively known and Libre' Software, are NOT just another form of software engineering. They were evolved out of necessity because of their natural immunity to the financial and legalistic attacks used by Microsoft to destroy any sign of potential competition way before it could ever get to the 'market place'.
  
• leverage the indestructible
  2003-03-01 12:03:06  Tim O'Reilly | [View]
  
  
  You're showing your biases here.
  
  1. "Open Source developers are NOT "Microsoft wannabes". Of course most are not. But there has been an awful lot of Microsoft imitation among OSS developers, building clones of Windows, Office, et al. So much so that Mitch Kapor started the Open Source Applications Foundation to start trying for some real innovation in the open source desktop applications space. Years ago, I gave a talk in which I said that OSS developers shouldn't try to be the next Microsoft but should try to be the Intel Inside of the next generation of applications. I continue to feel that so much of the OSS rhetoric has in fact been shaped by trying to imitate or compete with Microsoft, rather than in celebrating OSS's pioneering efforts in new markets, from the Internet to areas like bioinformatics. I'm almost unique among vocal open source advocates in saying that these areas are more important than the areas in which OSS competes with MS. So I don't think that Dave's comment is off the mark at all, though it is a little strongly put. (But remember, this is a message written to his former colleagues at Microsoft.)
  

  
  2. "The divergence of the open source platform." If, like Dave, you believe in interoperability, divergence between OSS and Microsoft in key markets like the internet is a bad thing for both parties. Nothing suspicious here. The Internet thrives on interoperability. Microsoft should be embracing (and not extending) a lot of what OSS has done.
  

  
  3. "Microsoft must survive and prosper by learning from the open source software movement and by borrowing from and improving its techniques." This is great advice. What are you smoking? Microsoft shouldn't learn from a software development methodology whose whole raison d'etre is to make it easier for people to learn from and build on the work of others? This is as bad as any Microsoft behaviors you decry.

• partisan but not unfair
  2003-02-17 13:41:25  mentata [View]
  
  
  Stutz did work for Microsoft after all, and I'm sure he experienced his share of bruising from the "Libre" community at the helm of Visual Basic. He is also speaking directly to Microsoft and he wants them to listen, so I'm not surprised he doesn't exactly pledge allegiance to the GPL and indiscriminately bash their own offerings.
  
  You sound principled, and on that I am entirely with you, but I think you're taking his jabs too personally. The open source community is not *entirely* comprised of enlightened and heroic developers: some really do just want the money or prestige even as they dodge the requisite responsibilities. Divergence can become a bad thing when it leads to ugly and unfair competitive practices, which we've seen from many vendors in the software industry, not just Microsoft (although they're truly ugliest when employed by the king of the hill).
  
  I also think Microsoft should be given the opportunity to change and repent. It may be as likely as Dick Cheney joining Greenpeace, but necessity comes from many angles. It's important to note that free and open software pre-dates the Microsoft monopoly. By creating backlash, Bill & Co. may have contributed to the momentum, but the open source revolution now clearly cannot and will not be extinguished. The amazing thing is, that's Stutz's primary point, too.
  
  As a related aside, I absolutely cannot believe how many people are out there running Tomcat with IIS. Is there no threshold for pain anymore?

• some yes, some no
  2003-02-15 13:37:56  anonymous2 [View]
  
  
  Jon Udell is right to talk about Jean Paoli as an incredibly compelling guy who's fulfilling a vision he had long before MSFT. Some of the other MSFT developers have similarly compelling stories. Unfortunately, it's not nearly true of all of them, and it may be fair to say that the company is less than the sum of its parts.

• Why do you want to present Microsoft's "human" face?
  2003-02-15 11:17:32  GerardM [View]
  
  
  Tim,
  I do understand that because of your involvement with PERSONS at Microsoft, people who you like, appreciate even admire, you call it on yourself to show this good side of Microsoft.
  
  What puzzles me is that the company that is universally thought to be the company that is great in marketing actually NEEDS that. I do agree that Microsoft needs to be seen as more human closer to people.
  
  For me, a company that requires these big profit margins in a world where the cost of a full Microsoft Office and OS can often be appreciated in terms of a monthly salary or more PER SYSTEM, is a company that I can only hope to fail in its present form.
  
  What is Microsoft going to give to the world in the coming time, will it be worth it? Is it going to be available only to some?
  
  Is it reasonable that in a western world you get the software gestapo at your door while in countries like India, China it is considered to be waiting for the harvest?
  
  Tim, there are good people working for Microsoft. They are not the company they work for. When these people produce something worthwhile, how is this going to benefit us all? Certainly when you consider that the copyright thingie is to be taken up a notch and some according to the news round .Net and Mono ??

• Its not about the people who work for MS. Its about MS business tatcis
  2003-02-15 09:44:05  anonymous2 [View]
  
  
  Its not a surprise to me that people who work for MS aren't bad people. Of course they are bright, passionate and skilled. So where the scientists who worked out how to split the atom. It what gets done with the technology they invent thats important. Unfortunately thats up to Bill and not the nice people who happen to invent it.

• What's the point?
  2003-02-15 09:12:37  anonymous2 [View]
  
  
  So, what is the point of this article? Yes, there may very well be real human beings with a sense of honor and ethics buried deep in Microsoft. But, as the article points out, they are NOT visible to the public. It also would seem that they have no influence on the policies and decisions of the company. And those policies and decisions have damned near devastated the computing industry in the last seven years.
  
  Perhaps if they were truely honorable, they would follow Stutz out rather than to continue to hand tools to the likes of Gates and Ballmer.
  
  Microsoft has not been domonized because of the personalities of all it's employees, but because of the behavior of the company in the market place and the behavior of it's leaders.

• Where are the comments?
  2003-02-15 08:52:33  anonymous2 [View]
  
  
  What is the point of posting anything to this if the comments are invisible?