Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2001 07:02:18 +0200 From: Cynic <cynic@mail.cz> To: Bill Moran <wmoran@iowna.com> Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: OT: Ethics and nature (was Re: Justification for using FreeBSD) Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20010615063952.03f5dba0@mail.cz> In-Reply-To: <3B298A29.D6DF874D@iowna.com> References: <01061417404103.00261@blackmirror.xmission.com> <3B294D78.2F1390E@iowna.com> <01061419302201.00346@blackmirror.xmission.com> <5.1.0.14.2.20010615053335.03f5dba0@mail.cz>
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At 06:08 15.6. 2001, Bill Moran wrote the following:
--------------------------------------------------------------
>Cynic wrote:
<snip />
>> well, Microsoft is a _business_ company. They're not there to make the
>> best software, they're there to make money. Same with Sun, Oracle, or
>> anyone else. It's natural they put lots of effort into keeping (and
>> broadening) their territory, just as it's natural they put only as much
>> effort into development as is required to keep the territory.
>>
>> I mean, it's natural Microsoft abuses its monopoly, and it's natural you
>> don't like it (nor do I).
>
>Here I disagree heavily on principal. Abusing power is not natural ...
>it's taught over and over by the society. I have NEVER had a natural
>urge to abuse any power I obtained.
>It's also not natural to feel like you should bullshit your customers
>... or put more effort into convincing people that something is good
>than you put into making it good.
As I said: the primary (or rather the only) goal of Microsoft, or any other
business, is to bring money to its owners. Bullshitting your customers
is cheaper than developing a good product. Feel free to check the NASDAQ
index and Fortune 100 if you don't believe it.
>Most of the people I've met over my lifetime (by a large margin,
>probably 90%) feel good about doing a job right, and prefer to do good
>work for an honest day's wage.
>Unfortunatly, most of them will also use the excuse "I've got a wife and
>kids to feed" when the 10% tell them to shut up and do the dishonest
>work they were instructed to do. Whether or not this is a valid excuse
>to drop one's standards, I'll not try to discuss in this forum.
>An insteresting point, however, is that I feel Open Source is so popular
>because it allows people to feel good about themselves by really doing
>the best work they're capable of. For all it's dumbass efforts to
>discredit and destroy the open-source movement, Microsoft has never had
>the balls to do the one thing that would make them just as powerful:
>Give their employees a way to feel REALLY good about themselves by
>producing an honestly quality product ... and collecting their ample pay
>as well.
>M$ has all kinds of theories as to why highly qualified hackers would
>work on projects and give their code away for free. They speculate that
>hackers get an ego trip when a piece of their code gets committed. Did
>it ever occur to Microsoft that sitting back and watching the
>performance specs on a FreeBSD system makes the hacker proud? That
That is what Microsoft calls an ego trip.
>working back and forth with some other hackers on a coding problem is
>fun? Is it unbelieveable to them that some of these hackers fall asleep
>at night with big grins on their faces thinking "Boy ... I REALLY got
>that new VM code optomized!"
>No. Because the M$ executives were taught in their business classes to
>worship the almighty dollar. And they think that everyone else worships
>it as well. It isn't Open Source that Microsoft is afraid of. [Warning
>... deeply philosophical statment ahead ...] It's the freedom open
>source represents that ALL big business fear.
I disagree. IMO MS people do understand this. They don't fear some freedom
or anything that esoteric. They fear they'll earn less money. All this is
either funny or a nonsense, depending how you view it. These two worlds
are just so different that it's worthless to bash Microsoft just as it's
worthless for Microsoft to do the funny stuff they're doing about OS.
I'm subscribed to several win2000mag.net mailzines. It's amazing how for
example Paul Thurrot, the author of WinInfo Daily, is unable to understand
the nature of OS. It's not about money. And RH will prolly never make
1% of Microsoft's earnings, but that doesn't matter at all... Well, sort
of.
One thing about this _is_ important, though. The more bashing MS recieves
from the OS crowd, the less the OS crowd (and its produts) look mature
in the eyes of businesses they're competing for.
>Whew ... I must be sleep deprived. I'm going to bed before I solve the
>rest of the world's problems or something ... help me down off this
>soapbox ...
I took it. :)
>--
>If a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,
>then what can I get for two hands in the bush?
lewinsky in clinton's pants?
cynic@mail.cz
-------------
And the eyes of them both were opened and they saw that their files
were world readable and writable, so they chmoded 600 their files.
- Book of Installation chapt 3 sec 7
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