In a post by elav was brought to the table for the discussion of what Linux needs to be on the desktop. Well, with this article by Javier Smaldone we will try to see one of the once dominant companies and the reason for its success and possible failure.
Summary:
A well-known anonymous saying circulating on the Internet begins by saying: «Microsoft is not the answer. Microsoft is the question ...«. This text reflects some aspects not always widely disclosed about Bill Gates, Microsoft, its products, policies and management; in search of an answer to the question posed.
Motivation for this article:
Many are the stories that have been told around Bill Gates and Microsoft. In most of them, those that the common people know and those that spread the mass media, Gates appears as a computer genius and his company, Microsoft, as responsible for the advancement of personal computing (and even Internet) in recent decades. Little is known, at the popular level, about the true origin of this empire and about the effect that the strategies carried out by Microsoft have had on industry and information technology.
On the Internet it is common to find sites against Microsoft and Bill Gates. Most focus their criticism from the technical point of view: pointing to the low quality of their products, exposing their gross flaws and notable shortcomings, comparing Windows with other operating systems that are much more stable, efficient and secure. Others warn about the dangers posed by Microsoft's monopolistic position, and the policies implemented by this company to expand its control to other areas, beyond personal computing.
This short article has several objectives:
- Demystify some stories that are part of folklore, such as the origin of Bill Gates and the alleged inventions attributed to him.
- Explain, very briefly, the reasons that have led Microsoft to its current position of dominance in the personal computing market.
- Show the risks and dangers involved in the maneuvers carried out by Microsoft.
Myths and truths about Bill Gates
The computer boy:
His real name is William Henry Gates III and, as he seems to indicate, comes from a wealthy Seattle family. The story that has always been told about his beginnings, playing with his small personal computer, is far from reality. Gates was educated in one of the most expensive schools (tuition was roughly triple that of Harvard University) and, when together with a group of colleagues he wanted to start playing computers, his mothers rented them a PDP-10 ( the same computer used by the Stanford and MIT researchers).
The young visionary who revolutionized computing
Another fairly common myth is that Gates created the Basic language. Could not be farther from the truth. Basic was created by John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz in 1964. What Gates and Paul Allen did was create a version of the Altair personal computer language interpreter (an achievement that is widely surpassed by any student in a college compiler course). This interpreter is the only known piece of code written, half, by Bill Gates. Later we will see that many other inventions attributed to him were not his work either.
Myths and truths about Microsoft
The beginnings:
Microsoft was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen. Initially each of them owned 50% of the company, although later Gates gradually took more control over it.
The first great success of Microsoft, determining its future success, was the sale of MS-DOS to the IBM company. DOS was also not designed or developed by Microsoft, but was purchased from a small company called Seattle Computer. Its original author had dubbed it QDOS, short for "Quick and Dirty Operating System" (fast and dirty operating system). It is recognized by all that the quality of design and implementation of MS-DOS in its early versions was very poor. IBM's decision to incorporate it as the operating system of its PCs was motivated by a question of competition with the Digital company, which could provide a much superior product, and because IBM did not really attach much importance to the line of personal computers. What was striking was that IBM did not buy MS-DOS but decided to pay Microsoft a royalty for each copy that was sold together with an IBM-PC. What has rarely been said is that at that time Gates' mother, Mary Maxwell, was a director of the United Way company together with IBM CEO John Opel.
Windows
We must begin by clarifying, for those who have believed the ridiculous stories that are told in some media, that Microsoft did not invent graphical environments, nor windows, nor the mouse. All of this was developed by the Xerox company in 1973 and then copied by Apple in the late '70s and Microsoft in the' 80s.
Windows was announced on November 10, 1983. The first version (1.0) appeared on November 20, 1985, while the first really usable version (3.0) was released on May 22, 1990. A whole sample of the "Efficiency" of the company. Recall that we are talking about a product that provided functionality equivalent to those incorporated by the Apple Macintosh in 1984 (whose stability and robustness were vastly superior). The only "virtue" of Windows was that it ran on top of MS-DOS on IBM-PC compatible computers.
Microsoft and the Internet
Many have come to believe that Microsoft invented the web or, worse, that the Internet is a brilliant idea from Bill Gates.
The Internet, as such, dates from roughly 1986 (although it originated in the late 60s). The World Wide Web (along with the first browsers) emerged in 1991. Some time later, Microsoft bought a browser called Mosaic from the Spyglass company, to later transform it into the now known Internet Explorer. The first version of Internet Explorer appeared in August 1995.
The truth is that "visionary" Gates did not see the Internet coming. Belatedly, along with the appearance of Windows 95, he tried to set up a parallel (and independent) network called "The Microsoft Network" (many will remember the useless little icon on the desktop) which failed miserably. Following this failure, Microsoft bought several Internet-related companies, including one of the largest webmail providers: HotMail. Around this and other services, he finally set up his website called… Microsoft Network! (currently better known as MSN).
The protocols, standards and norms of the Internet are documented by so-called RFCs (Request For Comments). To date (January 2003) there are 3454 RFCs. Only 8 of them have been prepared by Microsoft employees (the oldest dates from March 1997 and 7 refer exclusively to products from this company), which represents 0,23% of the total. Based on this we can say that we owe to Microsoft 0,23% of the technological advance of the Internet.
Microsoft and the advancement of computing
Many credit Microsoft for having brought computing closer to ordinary users, for having produced the technological advance that facilitated access to personal computers. Reality shows quite the opposite: not only is it not a merit of Microsoft but this company caused, in many aspects, a considerable technological backwardness.
During the 80s, the only Microsoft product that stood out was MS-DOS (called PC-DOS in the version distributed by IBM). The success of MS-DOS did not lie in its technical features but in that it initially went hand in hand with the IBM-PC, whose hardware architecture was copied by many other manufacturers, leading to the proliferation of "compatible" equipment. For these hardware manufacturers, it was much easier to distribute their equipment accompanied by MS-DOS than to develop a new similar product (which ensured compatibility also at the software level). Simultaneously, other operating systems of much higher quality and design appeared, but linked to hardware architectures that were not so successful (an example is the Apple Macintosh already mentioned).
At the end of the '80s, DR-DOS appeared, from Digital Research, whose technical characteristics were far superior to MS-DOS (although, unfortunately, it had to follow the same design for compatibility reasons). DR-DOS version 6 had a large sales volume until Microsoft released version 3.1 of its Windows system. Interestingly, and although the rest of the DOS applications worked correctly, Windows 3.1 crashed when running on DR-DOS. This prompted a lawsuit.
The decade of the '90s began with a total dominance of Microsoft in the area of the operating systems of personal computers, with MS-DOS and Windows 3.1. Alternatives began to appear at this time: versions of Unix for 386 systems (one of which belonged to Microsoft) and OS / 2 from the IBM company. The main disadvantages that these products had to penetrate the market were the lack of compatibility with the existing software (the design of these systems was very different from that of MS-DOS / Windows) and the control of the market that Microsoft exercised. A notable fact is that, given the advancement of Unix systems, Microsoft decided to discontinue the production of its product compatible with this operating system (called Xenix).
With regard to this issue, behind each successful Microsoft product there are a couple of dark stories where the words "trial", "theft", "espionage", "copy" appear repeatedly. The number of innovative and highly technical products that emerged over the years and were destroyed in some way by Microsoft is countless (a widely used mechanism for this was to buy and then discontinue).
It is also notable how Microsoft intends to introduce each product innovation as a technological breakthrough. It did, for example, with its publicized DLLs (dynamic loaded libraries) in Windows (when they already existed in Unix for a long time), priority multitasking in Windows 95 (already existing in systems implemented in the '60s) and more recently with the possibility of managing space limits per user in Windows 2000 (something that many operating systems have allowed to do for several decades) and the support of journaling in NTFS (a feature that allows maintaining the integrity of the file system in the event of a crash. system, and it has been present in many operating systems for more than a decade).
The quality of Microsoft products
Many people believe that it is common for a computer to hang from time to time. It has even come to seem normal for a computer virus to destroy all the contents of a hard drive and that this virus can arrive by any means and with the slightest lack of caution. They have convinced many that the only way to avoid this is with an always updated antivirus (and that Microsoft does not provide), and if the antivirus fails ... the only culprit of the disaster is the evil author of the virus (usually a teenager with little computer skills). It's common to think about updating software (as if it had an expiration date), and you rarely see any real improvement after updates. It seems normal for a program to exceed 100 Mb in size and require the latest processor and huge amounts of memory.
These ideas, with which most of the people who use Windows computers live on a daily basis, have been the result of the computer "evolution of technology" of the last decade. This is what Microsoft has sold even better than its products, to the extent that many professionals have assumed them as common currency.
Solutions to gross bugs in programs have been "sold" by Microsoft as breakthroughs throughout its history. When a new version of Windows crashes once a week instead of twice, the message is that "it is now much more stable." A very interesting anecdote is what happened in the first versions of the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. It so happens that said program was unable to read files generated by versions in other languages since, when saving a spreadsheet as a file, it stored the names of the functions used (the function to add in the Spanish version was «sum», while which in the English version was "sum"). At the same time, other similar programs such as Quattro Pro did not have this drawback: instead of the name of the function, they stored a numeric code that was later translated into the corresponding name according to the language. This is something that is taught in any initial programming course, but the Microsoft programmers did not know how to apply such a basic idea. When a new version of Excel was released, in which the notable flaw was corrected, the advertising highlighted it as a great improvement: now it was possible to open documents generated by versions in different languages. Of course, those users who wanted to access the new version to overcome the ridiculous limitation of the previous one, had to pay for the license again (perhaps with an "advantageous" upgrade discount).
Microsoft's dubious practices
Unlawful competition
There are several documented cases (and some that have gone to court) where Microsoft is suspected of altering the code of its operating systems to make competing programs run slower or with errors. Microsoft has been brought to justice several times (and sometimes with rulings against it) for intellectual property violations.
It is also common practice for Microsoft, taking advantage of its excellent economic-financial situation, to buy from those small companies that stand in its way by developing products that could compete with its own.
Breaking the rules
A tactic widely used by Microsoft to achieve market dominance is known as "Embrace and Extend". It consists of extending certain protocols or norms beyond the standards in an arbitrary and unilateral way, so that later only the products that implement them in the same way can interoperate correctly. There are plenty of examples of this type of practice (the implementation of SMTP in Microsoft Exchange, the alteration to HTTP in Internet Information Server, among others), but perhaps the most notable is the one that led to the lawsuit that Sun Microsystems initiated against Microsoft for having extended the specification of your Java language in violation of the terms of your license, which allows anyone to implement a Java compiler, but without departing from that specification. The objective pursued by Microsoft was that the Java programs generated with its J ++ development environment could only be executed on Windows, since Java was designed as a language that allows the development of portable applications between different platforms (something that, obviously, does not suit it ). When this attempt failed, Microsoft made the decision not to include Java support in its new operating system: Windows XP, Vista, 7 and 8.
Closed and changing formats
The formats in which information is stored have historically been used by Microsoft for two purposes:
- Prevent interoperability with "non-Microsoft" programs.
- Force users to upgrade to new versions.
This occurs because these formats are "closed" and are not publicly documented. This means that only Microsoft knows about them and it is the only one that can make a program that stores or accesses information in such formats. Having absolute control over the format allows Microsoft to change it at will. It is quite common for applications like Microsoft Word to use new ways to encode information in .DOC files (always with the promise of new features, but technically not justified), which has the direct consequence that the files generated by the new version they cannot be opened with previous versions (although a way to store the data in a compatible way is provided, it requires certain additional steps). This means that gradually, given the circulation of files in the new format, users have to migrate (with the consequent cost) even though they do not need the "new features" (does anyone use Word functions from Office 2010 that were not in Word of Office 95?). What Microsoft achieves through this is to limit the choice of users who are trapped within this true vicious circle.
Microsoft and hardware manufacturers
Due to its monopolistic position, Microsoft can exert great pressure on PC hardware manufacturers. This pressure translates, for example, into the prohibition of selling equipment with other operating systems installed, on pain of not offering discounts on the sale of Windows or Office licenses to said seller. No manufacturer of personal computers would dare stand up to Microsoft and lose the ability to offer their computers with Windows preinstalled (and at a lower price than the retail price). This has led to the fact that it is currently very difficult to acquire a well-known brand computer without the cost of at least one license of some version of Windows being included in the price (even if one does not want to use this product).
In the same way, it has reached the extreme that those responsible for providing the technical support service of computers equipped with Windows is the manufacturer itself. This is ridiculous because said manufacturer does not have the means (internal documentation, source code, etc.) to be able to troubleshoot or correct errors in the program. Again, manufacturers must agree to these terms to continue to receive "preferential treatment" from Microsoft.
With the arrival of Windows 7, an even greater level of dependency has been reached: due to the new "security functions" of Windows 7 (which have not prevented a single virus from working under this new version) the drivers or controllers of Devices must be "certified" by Microsoft in order to be installed on the system. This again forces the hardware manufacturers to maintain "good relations" with the company, adding another pressure mechanism.
Microsoft, lies and ... "steam"
The term "vaporware" is commonly used to refer to a product that is advertised by a company, when it does not really exist (or will not be available within the promised time frames). The objective of this strategy, generally used by companies that are in a situation of market dominance, is to discourage their competition and create a mixture of concern, expectation and hope in their users.
Microsoft has used this resource many times. We have already talked about the seven years it took from the official announcement of Windows to its first really usable version. A similar case has occurred with Windows 95 (announced as Windows 4 in July 1992 and released in August 1995) and with Windows 2000 (whose first beta version was released in September 1997, under the name Windows NT 5, and which finally appeared in February 2000). In all these cases, promises of supposed functionalities and improvements were made that ultimately were not fulfilled. In some cases, incomplete products were released, as happened with Windows NT 4, which became really usable after the so-called "Service Pack 3", released one year after it began to be marketed.
Bill Gates, the philanthropist
The mass media often show Bill Gates making donations of software and delivering bombastic speeches about Microsoft's efforts to bridge the technological backwardness of underdeveloped countries. These donations, the amounts of which are measured in several million dollars, are not real. The supposed value is calculated taking into account the cost of licenses in the market, but the reality is that Microsoft has almost zero cost (just that of duplicating CD-ROMs). In this way, the company ensures its growth, adding a good number of users of its products at a much lower cost than an advertising campaign would have meant, without taking any risk and last but not least ... obtaining excellent publicity in return!
In other cases these "donations" have another connotation. Recently Gates, through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, made a series of donations in India for the fight against AIDS. This occurs simultaneously with a series of negotiations and studies carried out by the Indian government, with the aim of promoting the development of Free Software in that country.
We must not fail to take into account that this supposed philanthropist has (as of January 2003) a personal fortune of 61.000 million dollars, which is equivalent to 9,33 dollars for each inhabitant of this planet.
The future
The future looks both encouraging and terrifying. On the one hand, the constant advance of Free Software seems to have put a brake on Microsoft's voracious expansion. Finally, after many years of absolute dominance, an opponent appears that Microsoft seems to fear. Until now, their attempts to stop the growth of Free Software have been useless, exposing its contradictions more than once and exposing its limitations to compete with a model that does not conform to its schemes (its large heritage is of little use to compete with a movement based on community development, totally decentralized and outside its sphere of power).
On the other hand, threats appear on the horizon such as the attempt to create a computing platform called TCPA (Trusted Computing Platform Alliance), which proposes a model in which computers are dominated by companies and no longer by users, being able to these restrict and monitor access to information. This type of initiative puts us one step away from the dire situation posed by Richard Stallman in his short story "The Right to Read."
Fortunately, a large number of people around the world, grouped in organizations of different types, who fight to stop the advance of these types of dangers and who bet on the emergence and crystallization of new alternatives, make the future appear more like an opportunity of change that like the consolidation of the positions that companies like Microsoft have built during these last years.
Conclusions
My personal opinion, taking into account the points raised in this text (and many others that I have not included because they are beyond my possibilities) is that Microsoft represents a serious threat to the development of computing and, worse still, to the free development in the world of the future, increasingly linked to information technologies. We must realize that it is not only a technical issue, but that there is much more at stake.
A key to the establishment of the monopoly that Bill Gates has achieved over the last twenty-five years is the great misinformation (and in many cases disinterest) that exists, which has allowed him, through very effective marketing campaigns, to achieve that the common of the People and many professionals in the discipline have a totally distorted image of the objectives of this company and its true contribution to information technology.
Those who produce the true advances are those who work for the evolution of science and technology, not those who try by any means to impose their products, destroying advances, corrupting standards, stealing ideas, destroying potential competitors. For all this, I already found an answer to the question.
Microsoft? No thanks.
Permission to copy, distribute and / or modify this document is granted under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; This document is presented without Invariant Sections (not Invariant Sections), without Cover Texts (not Front-Cover Texts) and without Back-Cover Texts (not Back-Cover Texts).
And those of us who study, it is even more ashamed to say it, but the supposed Informatica seminar that I am taking should be called Microsoft Office Seminar and by law they require me that my work be done in Office 2010 with windows 7.
What he didn't understand is that my university's servers use Debian, that would be double standards or something like that. ??
A good article without a doubt.
Now we just need another called Steve Jobs and Apple ... myths, legends and more
Much needed these days pro mac
Nice article mate, thanks for telling the truth.
regards
He did that on purpose, just by reading the title you knew that there was going to be a flame war. 😀
JUAZ JUAZ !!!
Very good, I already knew some things and did not know many more. If I were to comment on any of this in my work environment, I would be crucified and labeled a linux fundamentalist, even though they are always talking about viruses and how their computer crashed while they were doing something. It is good to know that I am not the only one who thinks there is something wrong with Microsoft.
Good article, although if I commented on any of this in my work environment, I would be crucified and branded as a linux fundamentalisa; even though they are always talking about viruses and how their computer crashed while they were doing something. It is good to know that I am not the only one who thinks there is something wrong with Microsoft.
Very good article ... I think an update would be good, on the agreements in Universities, where Microsoft "gives" Software to the University and even to its students.
Thus generating a dependence on these products when they go out to develop their careers as professionals.
Excellent article! Sharing ...
uff what a good article I sat for a long time analyzing everything, by the way a great job thank you very much greetings Ariki
Excellent D :, I read it completely
Very good article, quite spacious. Something that must also be mentioned is M $, as MAPPLE is educating its users to believe that copying and sharing is piracy (and almost the worst crime of all)
Very interesting indeed that if there are these and many more truths that have not come to light because certain people with their money do not want them to know 😀
Companies like Microsoft or Apple are the paradigm of hell, and before we know it, they will become a real problem for the evolution of society in this world vilified by economic interests. Ah, I also forgot about Google.
I remember when Bill Gates bought the website from Homer Simpson and then he starts to destroy everything and says: I did not become a millionaire by writing checks.
In the part of "Closed and Changing Formats" you are very right there are many things that you cannot have when you do not open a Word 2010 document (or any Office tool) in old versions of it.
I don't know if you already found out that the new version of MS Office no longer supports the old formats .doc, .xls, etc. I don't know how it will affect the Linux community, and I don't know if Libre Office, Apache Open Office or Calligra support it well or if they save in .docx, xlsx, etc.
I wrote bad reason.
You had written it well.
very good comment. I really liked the blog antrada, I remembered a comment made by my programming teacher, he said that "now the software surpasses the hardware, so we need powerful machines today" ... .. no comments. by the way, he has the mentality of a windoze fanboy. in this blog I have commented several times about my refusal to these products and the university, and now with windows 8 they all look like rowdy girlfriends ._.
The idea of retaking and publishing this article by Javier Smaldone is to note that many of the "why" raised in many places about Linux are motives beyond the technical issue. One of the advantages of Linux is precisely that it is not a closed sphere of power and control and its diversity is what makes it strong but at the same time weak.
And in response to Son Link I am also making a compilation of Apple, and in particular Steve Jobs.
Thank you for your comments and I hope it will be useful and help others to open their eyes to reality and that there are more options from Microsoft and Apple of much higher quality and reliability.
I hope soon Steve jobs as well as Richard Stallman 🙂
How about
Heh Heh, good idea, I hadn't contemplated it. I think it would be a good exercise to talk about Stellman and Mr. Trovalds (sorry if I'm wrong, I don't remember how it is spelled at the moment).
But about Jobs the truth is interesting and also about his partner with whom he founded Apple (Steve Wozniack).
In a few more days I'll have it ready and we'll see what happens.
Greetings.
Hello, do you have the article ready for Apple and Steve Jobs? It would be very interesting to also know its history.
RMS is interesting to me, especially because the Free Software Foundation uses non-free debian on its servers, since I discovered that I began to notice that RMS does not fulfill many things that it preaches, therefore I never became a GNU fan Boy as such, I am a SL fan boy and I enjoy seeing how the windowsers fall to lies
I particularly liked the article. Two things, not directly related:
I have a copy of the DR-DOS Quick Reference and User Manual over there, which already included a windowing system. I don't remember the year at the moment, but I consider it a curiosity.
The announcement specifying the license of this text could lead to a healthy debate about changing the license of <° Linux. For me it would have to be more permissive, leaving it as a free cultural work in full form by changing it to CC-BY-SA, and continuing to protect the content efficiently.
How about Anti.
If in fact the very primitive but striking window systems that many of us were enthusiastic about at the time. The environment in question was called GEM and today it has a variant called openGEM that runs on a system called Free DOS.
No. DR-DOS 5.0 brings ViewMAX. I have the manual in hand to test it:
http://ompldr.org/vZnY2bQ
http://ompldr.org/vZnY2bw
http://ompldr.org/vZnY2cA
Excellent article: D…
you sir, you have earned applause, clap ♪
just kidding, very good article xD
Good article friend
Very good article. You mentioned OS / 2 and I almost shed a tear. I still have the original CD's of 2.1 and the latest OS / 2 Warp, which came with included speech recognition, voice dictation capability to the word processor, etc.
If you want to deepen your knowledge on the subject (and expand this article further, if you want) check out this MuyComputer note (actually there are two, you will already find on the page the link to the second part), where the story of how is told Microsoft, and the ineffectiveness of IBM, crushed one of the best operating systems that existed at that time. It's over here:
http://www.muycomputer.com/2012/04/02/ibm-os2
regards
How about Juan Carlos.
In fact it has not disappeared, today it is called openStation and IBM uses it for very specialized markets (veriticales) and the truth to be frank (I have not tried it but I have seen how it works) it is very good.
Sorry, but I must point out that you are wrong, it is now called eComStation, and is maintained by Serenity Systems; with some other contribution of drivers by IBM.
I forgot to add up there that OS / 2 was the foundation of Windows NT.
Greetings.
How about Juan Carlos.
You're right, I got the name wrong but as I tell you although I have not tried it if I have received comments that it is very reliable.
Thanks for the correction and greetings.
Nothing, nothing, it was so you don't have bad information, nothing more. And they are already making me want to put it in a virtual machine to remember old times.
regards
this already came out a while ago in wiggle me:
http://www.meneame.net/story/odiamos-informaticos-microsoft
seen in http://www.domatix.com/blog/%C2%BFodiamos-los-informaticos-a-microsoft
How about Peter.
That's right, in fact when I saw it I saved it and since then I keep it in my backups. In fact, I also refer to its author, Javier Smaldone, and I put the GPL that allows its use.
You are well and a cordial greeting.
How about Peter.
I have this article since the end of 2004 and I have kept it because I consider it a good reflection so that new generations of users know things that they do not have to live and that of course they will hardly find.
In addition to Microsoft, no thanks, I would add other companies such as Apple, Intel, Google and others. If I write them, the comment will lengthen a lot, the practices mentioned are exercised by all the companies that reached the top, after all they are companies that their way of subsisting is through capital income.
As Linux is a decentralized system without capacity or interest in marketing, the responsibility falls on users with more knowledge, who know where things come from, and explain things to them, give them a taste of what free software is but without telling them what what it is (watch out for this because if you tell them it's free software they look at the pc like a vampire and drive a stake into it).
Companies today already have the power over the hardware of smartphones, just to see that if one wants to install a ROM or update to another version of Android, it has to be done through exploits, because companies do not release an update when The cell phone with the hardware that it has supports it quietly and if they do it later, a second berry has to be skipped, which are the telephone companies that have to be willing to add 5 crazy programs that almost nobody uses and register the new version.
This is one of my favorite articles, very realistic, excellent article.
Cheers(:
The author of the article is in love with Bill Gates.
True, and things like the secure boot that those with win 8 will come with do not give much hope.
Although I do not know what happens in my country, more than 80% of users and businesses use pirated copies of xp since 2005 and it remains in that proportion, this proportion increases in relation to other microsoft products. Even a neighbor bought win 2000 for his old computer at a stand and wondered. Does Mexico represent rebitable sales for Microsoft only to the government sector?
Excellent article, I loved it.
Excellent entry, clean, direct, round and concise. And the "myths" of Bill Gates is nothing more than the unfortunate extension of the same lies and half-truths that Microsoft himself was in charge of spreading, and even today quite a few redmond rat fanboys believe it as the Gospel according to Saint William Doors. Congratulations on rescuing the article and updating it.
Before I thought badly about Microsoft, now I think worse. It is worth keeping.
Excellent article, very complete, many truths to always keep in mind!
I am proud to share the province (Cordoba) with Javier, in his blog there are very interesting articles about free software:
http://blog.smaldone.com.ar/
Microsoft's dirty tricks came to light thanks to the so-called "Hallowen Documents", interesting for an article, it hurts that I am so bad for English:
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentos_Halloween
I understand that you hate Microsoft, but Bill Gates's philanthropic actions are completely real, the smear you make of them is not much different from the usual Microsoft FUD.
When Bill created Microsoft was studying at Harvard, that you try to show it as useless in the article also seems wrong to me.
While I use Linux out of personal convictions Windows 7 is a really very good and highly polished product. Office was always a quality product, you seem to have forgotten to mention it.
Microsoft despite its detestable practices has contributed a lot to the development of computing, it is not a myth that has brought computers to people, succeeding in what Linux never does well, advertising. I prefer to highlight the good points of Linux to criticize the rival, it does not seem like a good way to propagandize the system.
The problem is that the "advances" in computing that Microsoft has achieved only benefit their owners, or are we going to compare the contributions of people like Vinton Cerf, Berners-lee or Dennis Ritchie with those of that company and its former CEO? Think a bit what the Web would be if Internet Explorer and its "particular" way of understanding the standards had not had competition. Microsoft is late, it is a stick in the wheel to technological development. Regards.
Hello Santiago, you say that Win7 is a really very good and very polished product, I think it is not so much. I work 8 hours a day with this system, and at least once a day, I get a crash, I process databases with SPSS programs, and sometimes I have to reboot the system, and lose a good part of the work done (to sometimes it won't even let you kill the process that got hung up).
Sometimes it freezes when I try to minimize all the applications at the same time (windows + D) it takes between 7 and 10 seconds to freeze, that from the system side, as for MS Office I can tell you that Excel is a tool of excellence , very easy to use, very easy to program macros and Userforms with VBA; but Outlook that belongs to the same suite, in the same way gives me problems, very frequent, at least once a day, for me that is already frequent and annoying, from this part I have not detected the exact point, nor why it restarts , since there have been different moments and actions.
I've been using it at work for a good couple of years now and in each update I hope they are resolved, and what do you think? It has not happened. What I can tell you is that it is not the hardware of the computer since it is a QuadCore with 4 Gb of RAM, more than enough to run this system.
As for MS Office, it does outperform LibreOffice in terms of functions; but come on, how many actually use all the features and functionalities of MS Office? Most of them, even LibreOffice is left over, the detail is that it is simply not pretty like MS Office, and its way of use is different from the one used with MS Office, for example it was difficult for me to learn to program macros in Calc When in MS Office they are very simple, however they give the same result, only that the way to do it is different and you have to learn it, and it is what many do not want, small detail, right?
However at home I have a laptop with much less hardware resources vs the desktop at work, with GNU / Linux installed, doing the same processes that I do at work, only with more open applications, music, internet browser ... (in work is not allowed) and you know how many times my computer has been hung or frozen, none 🙂
Greetings.
very good article ... and they are very right that m? crosoft has been counterproductive to the technological development and as mentioned by ¨ RudaMacho ¨ (Think a bit what the Web would be if Internet Explorer and its “particular” way of understanding standards had not had competition Microsoft is late, it is a stick in the wheel to technological development) and something I have always said »MS IS INCOMPATIBLE WITH MS»
thank you very much.
Good article. Perhaps a patent could be added to the list that Microsoft requested (and received) not long ago whereby the default operating system comes with limited functionality, and to fully operate or install programs not developed by Microsoft, you have to pay for a certificate which then "activates" the desired functionality. That they have not implemented it yet does not mean that they do not intend to do it, or otherwise, why would they have made the patent application?
To charge if someone else thinks of it.
Hello, I am new to the blog, although I have been reading it for a long time, I almost never encouraged myself to comment even as anonymous xD
I really liked this post, although most of me like this blog.
And it is very sad to see how a company almost completely took control of computing and thus "forced" manufacturers to develop only the best software for their star OS and good ... if I had to keep saying the amount of atrocities that this company I would take a very long comment.
The worst thing is that I was comparing this situation to the current one with Google and Android, which in itself seemed very similar to me which is creating its own "ecosystem" as Microsoft did, perhaps Google's intentions are not as ruthless or atrocious as Microsoft's, but I closely follow the constant evolution in the mobile sector, and sometimes Google's dominance is a bit scary.
Anyway gentlemen, congratulations on the blog, it is very interesting, I hope they continue like this, and I hope I can create my own post sometime.
but unlike microsoft, google does not force you to use its applications, whether they are web, desktop or mobile, that is, google maintains the mozilla foundation even though they have their own browser, and if we see it from the other side, Google itself is nothing, it is an air company, if tomorrow there is no internet, even there I will go google ... it is an empty company, and yes, it is a giant, but a giant that its dominant position in certain areas has won them for the quality of their services and not for forcing you to use them.
In my opinion, these companies are not comparable, I would compare Apple with Microsoft more, because, in my opinion, both are the mafia in computer science
but there is a big difference between google and microsoft, google does not force you to use their services, neither on the web, nor on the desktop, nor on the mobile phone, they simply propose an alternative, and if we look at google is an empty company , in itself, google has everything and has nothing, if tomorrow the internet ends, google got there, on the other hand, I say they do not force you to use their software because they still maintain the mozilla foundation, even when google They have their own browser, and yes, Google is an internet giant, but they have earned their position due to the quality of their services, they earn most of their money from advertising in the search engine, and now, they don't charge for their services.
I would compare Microsoft with Apple, because, in my opinion, both companies are mafias in the computer world.
but as they say over there, between tastes and colors ...
Greetings!
Good Article, I already sent it to be read to some "friends" who have been making flowers for MS
I'm on Arch with Firefox .. Why do I get a stupid -windo $ - icon?
It's up to the user agent: https://blog.desdelinux.net/tips-como-cambiar-el-user-agent-de-firefox/
xD I want to marry the one who wrote this xDD
Very well documented and argued the article. I wish you could do something analogous with the series of urban legends and misleading propaganda about Apple and Steve Jobs, which seem even more disproportionate to me than those of Microsoft and Gates. There are people who believe that Jobs invented computers (or computers) smartphones, digital tablets, and even multimedia tools, ha: s
Greetings.
already more than one must tell this story that repeats itself over and over again
I've been messing around with Debian distros or derivatives a while ago and let's be honest with ourselves, there are two big deals here.
Microsoft is the private software business, but most of the creators of the different distros are the free software business, or it is not true that several got rich thanks to promoting themselves as creators of intellectual freedom
Let us defend free or proprietary software according to our will, desire or need, but for our own dignity we do not frame this fight, with the flag of pristine freedom, virgin of all pettiness, at least THEY are honest in saying that the only thing they want is money
Nobody says that it is wrong for Microsoft to make money, the problem is how it did it, its dirty strategies that led it to have almost a monopoly in various aspects of personal computing and any "capitalist" will seriously tell you that monopolies always are bad. And about "pristine freedom", there are many makers and disseminators (this blog for example) of free software who do it altruistically, without expecting anything in return, but of course there is nothing wrong with wanting to make money with the software free. Regards.
How about Impartial Chunk.
Look, there is a HUGE difference between the business model of proprietary software (Microsoft style) and free software (under whatever scheme you like). You buy proprietary software for a SINGLE COMPUTER license (if you install it on another it is a crime because it is an illegal copy) and if it brings errors or new features come out, you have to pay for it. Now, free or non-proprietary software can be distributed, copied or given away, but the software is free of charge (of course unless you want to sell it and recover the cost of the distribution medium), you can install it as many times as you can and if there is an update, correction or improvement has no additional cost.
Now, I am a consultant in information technology or IT and I use both proprietary and open systems (depending on the client). In the case of private ones, I charge ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING (licenses, number of PC's, training, number of users, teaching material, installation, etc). When it comes to free software, I usually give it to the client and I only charge my consulting fees (training, didactic material and installation). As you will notice there is a big difference and not even Stellman himself has said it: there is nothing wrong with charging for advice.
You can tell me and how much difference there may be, that depends and I will give you an example. If you do an installation of the MS Office 2010 Suite and you are going to train users (suppose there are 5), this implies: 5 Office licenses ($ 3,000.00 MX each), official Microsoft material ($ 2,500.00 MX each), training to users ($ 2,000.00 MX each) and installation ($ 300.00 MX per PC).
TOTAL = $ 39,000.00 MX.
The same example but with LibreOffice: Software Cost ($ 0.00), Didactic Material ($ 1,500.00 MX), user training ($ 2,000.00 MX each) and installation by PC ($ 300.00 MX).
TOTAL = $ 19,000.00 MX
DIFFERENCE IN PRICE = $ 20,000.00 MX
As you will realize, the cost differential to the client is very large. This is the advantage of free software, which allows you to work not selling the software but your knowledge, which is what is charged.
O ..o, hehehe, let's stop joking. Bill Gates invented the personal computer, the Internet, Sour Cherry by himself, DOS, the mouse, the television. Oh also, Santa Claus gave me a Microsoft Surface yesterday, only he had to go, and left it for me on the Christmas tree. I don't understand why everyone says such funny things XD.
Excellent article!
The only thing that BG has achieved is to focus the sale of software on hardware companies.
Before, computers were for physicists and mathematicians, MIT doctors, etc.
Computing on a personal level was something that was not taken into account.
Microsoft saw the hardware sales business and fed it with seemingly friendly software.
Companies need to sell hardware and thanks to BG's software they sell, sell and sell.
Today, despite all the information that exists, it seems that this is more common than ever. I know people who have bought giant pieces of hardware to do very simple functions, like checking email and nothing else. Amazing.
Now we go through the article on Steve Jobs ... and please, finally, talk about someone who did advance technology, like Dennis Ritchie.
Again, excellent article! Cheers,
Excellent information, friend, it is a subject of great interest. once again the puppet and his company created only to numb the masses, thanks to publicity and disinformation media, which have made it get to where it is, is made known. Let's not forget geniuses like GARY kildall who were always at the forefront and who were silenced by them. the puppeteer (bill's mother) has moved his chips, it is now the turn of free software headed by UBUNTU, the most used distro, and they drive new winds of change, without forgetting that this impulse comes thanks to the multiple distros, focused on each group of people and that together create a new force that is ready to take its position in these times.
Good article. I have quite a mania for Microsoft and its way of doing things, but I think one must be honest.
Much of their success with Windows can also come from the tools they have provided to develop near-click applications. Starting with classic VisualBasic all the way to .NET.
That you can create any type of simple application (or not so much), even connected to databases or web services at the click of a mouse, I find it difficult to overcome. Visual Studio has been and is a veritable beast today. That has helped and helps many people to approach without fear of programming. And I would say that it is the method that Google uses today for Android: to offer development tools so that anyone is encouraged to easily create at least applications for their own use.
Not to mention Office, with its Access (I don't understand how anyone has been encouraged to create a similar 'all-in-one' environment), Excel, Word, etc. It is worth that they have evolved little in 20 years, but it is that at that time they were already super powerful tools, which even today are still the management tool of not a few small and medium-sized companies. With Office they have everything they need, relational DB, input forms, related sub-forms, Reports, mass mailing in Word connected to DB tables, super powerful spreadsheet with links even between different files, and almost everything importable / exportable between them. In addition to ODBC that allows you to connect all of that to the 'outside world'. It's no small feat!
I've tried Java / JavaFX programming with Eclipse and Netbeans, and hey, what a mess. It is worth that you gain a lot with the multiplatform, but no point of comparison with the simplicity of Visual Studio. Even with HTML / JS projects (simple, maybe) I've ended up using Visual Studio earlier than several other IDEs.
To each his own, and of course I applaud free software and the great and disinterested work of the community (when I can I contribute my grain of sand 🙂), but MS's own merits, even if they are 'in its ecosystem' are undeniable.
I insist, if Windows has proliferated so much it is because, yes, of having TAXED it on all PCs, but also because of the amount of tools that they have offered (usually paying, yes) so that one is comfortable using it. And well, there is a Visual Studio Express or Community, both free.
And speaking of the OS, I have tried several Linux distros and hey, as with Java, a mess. Okay, there will be a (possibly intentional) shortage of commercial drivers, etc, but at this point I think that many tasks could be easier to do. With Linux you don't get rid of the console shortly after installing it. Which in Windows most users do not even know what cmd is.
Today, in the era of the Internet and the 'all-free', Linux could be licking the big manufacturers of hard by a growing number of users, with that we would see if they provided drivers. But that said, until there are development tools suitable for all audiences, I am afraid that Linux / Java will still not attract the average or occasional user.
You spend more time installing, configuring and solving dependencies than producing or creating, and that cuts you off before you even start.
On the other hand I criticize as the most, yes, the historical commercial techniques of M $. If it were up to them, today the Internet would be pay per click, I'm sure.
Greetings and thanks for sharing the post.