I wrote 'Nuke Redmond'

From: Richard Erlacher <edick_at_idcomm.com>
Date: Mon May 8 09:05:52 2000

There were indeed some "problems" with the first Office for '95 suite on top
of the "upgrade" version of the first release of '95. These were fixed with
a download, however.

How the activity of a few morons who think cyber-vandalism is funny ties
into this thread, I don't know, but I'd certainly vote to make a spectacle
of all virus-progenitors by dipping them, slowly, and feet first, into a hot
solder pot during halftime at the superbowl.

I think people who send cute little pictures, and unsolicited jokes, etc,
ought to be charged for their transmitted bandwidth by their ISP rather than
getting a flat rate. If bandwidth continues to be wasted like that, it will
eventually cost us all by the bit. People who open email from sources they
don't recognize are running a risk similar to unprotected sex with unknown
people. People who open attachments to such email get what they deserve.

Dick

----- Original Message -----
From: Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner <spc_at_armigeron.com>
To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Sunday, May 07, 2000 10:27 PM
Subject: Re: I wrote 'Nuke Redmond'


>
> I'm replying to several messages, all by Richard Erlacher, here in one
> message:
>
> > I'm often puzzled by the complaints about "crashes" under Win9x and NT.
> > My notebook, running Win95, hasn't crashed, although it's been in almost
> > constant use since early '97 when I bought it. Now, the machines into
> > which I routinely stick cards that may or may not work, along with
> > products that may or may not work, both hardware and software, . . .
well,
> > they have had other histories, but it's seldom Microsoft software that's
> > to blame for that.
>
> And I've run Win95 for a year with no problems. It wasn't until
Microsoft
> Office was installed on the machine did it lock up and I wasted two days
> trying to reinstall Win95, from scratch, before giving up and going to
Linux
> so I could continue my job.
>
> Hardware didn't change. Just the addition of Microsoft Office.
>
> > I've never bought a license for a DEC OS, but I doubt it cost under
$100.
> > There are Linux versions one can buy in ready-to-install form for under
> > $100, but those will cost $1M, at least, at 50-cents-an-hour before
> > they're working properly and that's only if you're a real *nix expert.
> > What's more, NO *nix version offers the features that make the Win9x
> > desirable for home computer use. There are lots of books out there for
> > *nix users, but I've yet to see a "{insert vendor name here} Office for
> > Dummies" book for LINUX, though I hear there is a "LINUX for Dummies"
book
> > out there.
>
> So I assume that the *only* use a home computer is used for is for
office
> suite software. Okay.
>
> Now, how much damage did the ILOVEYOU virus do? How much will it cost
to
> fix the damage that ILOVEYOU virus did?
>
> More to the point (not really using any office suite program) the major
> attraction of an office suite is that the different applications can embed
> files from each other into a single document, right? That you can take a
> spreadsheet (or portion thereof) and embed it into a word processor
> document. Am I correct in that? There's nothing inherent in the design
of
> Windows that precludes such from being done in other systems, other than a
> lack of economic insentive and the fear of bring the wrath of Microsoft
down
> upon you and being crushed out of existance (aside: Cisco has as much, if
> not more, control in the router industry as Microsoft in software yet
aren't
> nearly as hated as they make very good products and when they buy out a
> company, they tend to actually use the technology they bought out.
> Microsoft has a hit-or-miss reputation with software reliability and even
> when they buy out a company they are equally likely to sink the technolgy
as
> they are to market it).
>
> > Many people think that lobotomizing MS would help the industry. I am
not
> > among them, however, because, at least for now, MS is the only
> > organization capable of mustering the talent and resources to generate
> > application software that pretty much functions as it should within the
> > framework of this extremely complex OS.
>
> I doubt that. The free BSDs or Linux is a good counter example. And if
> you wish to discount the operating system, there is Apache. And if you
wish
> to discount servers, the GIMP. While it isn't up to the functionality of
> Photoshop it certainly does anything a home user would want it to do.
>
> Nature abhoors a vaccum and if Microsoft is gone, it will be filled in
> rather quickly. Ding dong the witch is dead and all that.
>
> > Even if someone else could do it, which I seriously doubt, it's unlikely
> > anyone can come up with an OS capable of competing against Windows, if
the
> > same tests are to be applied that have been used to determine MS'
> > practices monopolistic or anticompetitive.
>
> I don't follow your logic here. Which tests are you referring to?
>
> Outside of marketing, there is no technical reason why a Windows-like
(or
> Mac-like) graphical user interface can't be built upon X Windows (the
> primary graphic sub-system used on Unix workstations) and applications
built
> to that interface. Embedding documents into other documents isn't
dependant
> upon the underlying operating system---OLE, COM and DCOM are interface and
> data exchange/understanding issues, not operating system dependant issues.
>
> > If the complete source code
> > for Windows is to be mandated by the courts to be made available to
anyone
> > who wishes to write applications for Windows, MS is correct in demanding
> > that the code be released only to companies who, including all their
> > employees as individuals, be barred for a period of, say, ten years,
from
> > participating in the production of any operating system which might be
> > used as a competitor to Microsoft's OS products, including the drivers,
> > utilities, or ancillary programs, e.g. a browser.
>
> Why? Such draconian measures would be such that you might not get very
> many companies (or programmers) willing to even consider such a deal.
>
> > If they're to "fix" this thing in a permanent way, then they will have
to
> > legislate a solution which would require that no person involved in the
> > development of any major software product be permitted to communicate
with
> > anyone else, not his/her spouse, offspring, superiors or subordinates,
> > except in permanently recorded written form for a period not less than
> > five years beyond the end of the economic life of that product. I doubt
> > that will happen.
>
> Again, why do you think this?
>
> > Well, we may get to see whether the courts come up with a prudent and
> > reasonable solution. The obvious solution to break up MS won't help,
but
> > it will serve to octuple the cost of both software and hardware. It
will
> > set back the industry a decade as it tries to find a substitute for MS
in
> > a market where really only one OS and Office automation suite is going
to
> > be effective. If you don't see that through your haze of rage at
> > Microsoft for doing something you weren't smart enough or diligent
enough
> > to do yourself, then perhaps you can come up with a potential successor
OS
> > to WIndows. Remember, though, that if MS simply closed its doors
tomorrow,
> > it wouldn't harm MS as much as it would harm the end user.
>
> Personally, I feel that the two worst things to happen to our industry
> have been Unix and Microsoft. I won't go into why I think Unix is bad,
but
> Microsoft has definitely kept the industry back technically, if only with
> entrenching the poor design of the IBM PC as a standard for nearly 20
years.
> Hell, if this sets the industry back 20 years that'll be the best thing to
> happen! Imagine, decent hardware! Software that actually works! Less
> slavish reliance on computers! That's bad?
>
> Another bad aspect of Microsoft is the proliferation of file formats.
> Microsoft Word 6 format is imcompatible with Microsoft Word 95 format is
> imcompatible with Microsoft Word 98 format is imcompatible with Microsoft
> Word 2000 format. Sure Microsoft MAY make a utility available for
upgrading
> the document but they don't make it easy and heaven forbid you find a
cache
> of documents seven years old in the backups that is in Word 6 format.
>
> It's not hard to create a file format that is extensible, nor forward
and
> backward compible. To bring this back to topic, I have extensive
> documentation on IFF, initially designed and documented in 1986 for the
> creation of files that can be extensible and forward/backward compatible,
> such that a document created with a program now can be opened with a
program
> written 10 years ago and have it not crash (or at least be able to do
> something with the file and not loose the extra information).
>
> And it certainly doesn't take one megabyte to store a single page of
> information. That is just plain insane.
>
> > jpero_at_pop.cgocable.net
> >
> > > What I was thinking of is a untoucheable and invisible OS and for
> > > managing data is data users created only. Applications and any little
> > > utils, drivers and hardware all are seen as "modules". Drivers and
> > > hardware go hand in hand and is therefore as hardware module set. For
> > > applications and small utils, they would be software modules.
> >
> > That would be a WONDERFUL idea ... an OS distributed on ROM. I trust
> > you'll start on that immediately.
>
> Again, to bring this back on topic, there have been plenty of operating
> systems distributed in ROM---AmigaOS, QNX, OS-9 and the original MacOS
were
> all contained in ROM, were/are ROMmable and extensible. And all are older
> than 10 years old. Even MS-DOS came in ROM format for some computers
> (although I'm not sure if it ran out of ROM, or was copied to RAM before
> running).
>
> -spc (Have you actually USED anything other than Microsoft products?)
>
>
>
Received on Mon May 08 2000 - 09:05:52 BST