Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers (was: OT email response format)

From: James B. DiGriz <jbdigriz_at_dragonsweb.org>
Date: Tue Apr 23 15:02:44 2002

Richard Erlacher wrote:
> Your comment that one should use Windows for office work is well taken. It
> does that quite well, and other OS' feeble attempts at it realy don't compare.
> That's probably the primary reason for Windows' success.
>

That wasn't really Windows, though, that was the Borg assimilating its
hangers-on. The source of countless lawsuits. One of many reasons
there's been a tech slump.

> The fact that *NIX has focused on other things is why it's not popular with
> folks engaged in other pursuits.
>
> However, because of Windows' amazing popularity (despite its sometimes glaring
> weaknesses) other application types are finding their way into the Windows
> environment. Because of the ghastly results produced under UNIX for the EDA
> community, not to mention the 2-orders-of magnitude-higher prices, this is
> welcomed by those of us who rely on EDA tools to make our living. The tools
> we had under UNIX used to break down just as often as under Windows, but they
> cost WAY more, and one couldn't blame the OS.

All proprietary EDA tools cost way too much. OSS tools have difficulty
here because of artificial IP barriers, not any inherent deficiency in
the OS'es. Another reason there's been a tech slump. The OS itself has
little direct bearing here, which I don't think is actually inconsistent
with what you're saying. I won't contest your comparison of traditional
Unix pricing vs. MS, just say that it's irrelevant if you're considering
OSS tools. If you look at total cost over time, though, MS is not quite
the bargain it might seem at first glance.

>
> All the *NIX sophistry is what has cause the decline of *NIX popularity in
> general, and the MS-hating doesn't do a thing to help the *NIX community.
>
> All the MS-haters' rants do is shore up the belief that it's just sour grapes.
> If one could take one of today's high school grad's and plunk him/her down in
> front of a *NIX box and be able to get a little useful work from him/her THAT
> SAME DAY, which one certainly can do with Windows, then *NIX would be much
> more widely used.
>

I know more people who won't read a book than will, if it comes to that.
  It's always been possible to set up *nix apps for non-technical users
who have no clue about a command-line shell. And there've been powerful,
networked GUI's for *nix for a long, long time.

If you've ever been around me after struggling to install a freaking
driver in Windows for half a day (any version after 3.1 or so, or WfW)
and have it stay put and play nice with everybody else, you've heard
more than a rant.

Agreed it's counterproductive, though. It's the same thing, in fact. I
don't hate MS. It's just irrelevant to me anymore. People ask me to
install Linux now, in fact. It's getting quite good as a desktop OS.
Office apps and all.

> Dick
>
Received on Tue Apr 23 2002 - 15:02:44 BST