Definitely a good belly laugh !
Yeah, this is off topic, but a lot of people in this group feel the same way.
I may rave a bit, but if this continues the software industry will become
stunted and genetically inbred. Groups like this will become unecessary.
Did you know that MS has a lot of system proprietary APIs their applications
people use at the expense of independent software developers. I just
discovered this with their usrmgr.exr and svcmgr.exe extensions - used by
Exchange. The actually told me it was proprietary and was reserved for their
Exchange team. I can't even begin to convey the arrogance they now openly
display when dealing with non-MS insiders.
This was a big eye-opener for me, and they just laughed at us and more or less
said "what you gonna do about it" - tell as many professionals as possible !!
Lately they are saying in their official readme.txt files things such as Samba
and NFS servers *require* plaintext passwords to be sent over the network (the
implication being that you had better switch to NT quick smart if you want
security). And now, that LPR somehow produces inferior print quality !!!
None of these little things are big news in themselves - just little
disinformation hints here and there about Unix variants to create Fear,
Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) in the minds of gullible management and
time-stressed IT manageres to somehow think NT will solve these alleged
issues. It is quite subtle, but the overall message is clear.
This is your wake up call. This company, despite all of its anti-government /
interventionist hype is hitting the hot buttons of people, particularly
programmers and libertarians thanks to their PR spin masters. This is just a
cynical ploy to exploit the free capitalist in most of us, in the same way the
smkong industry is now down to the use of slogans about freedom, all other
arguments being thoroughly refuted.
See it for what it is.
They omit to mention all the behind the scenes lobbying in many countries,
including getting monopolies in exchange for browsers that don't support SSL
and other crypto, to help prevent abuse of freedom of speech, or how they
opposed paralell imports of legitimate software to protect their distribution
monopoly/pricing structure, where they get their friends at the State and
Commerce department to help "clarify" things. They even claim R & D grants and
other forms of corporate welfare they sponge.
Dont't mistake what MS really is: a grasping, marketing hype and manipulative
juggernaut whose employees are blinded by gold and the inevitable human
reacion of being able to rationalise all this away.
I feel sorry for some of the MS folks I know who are good people, but their
employer is a public danger.