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my money is firmly on Microsoft as being the one more likely to simply make things up... Yes, but you've just given away the perfect counter argument to anyone

my money is firmly on Microsoft as being the one more likely to simply make things up... Yes, but you've just given away the perfect counter argument to anyone who wants to make whatever you say seem like a lie/falsehood: you are clearly biased against MSFT thus whatever you say can be dismissed as "anti-MSFT". If someone can make that allegation against you - not your arguments or facts or information from the reports, mind you, but you personally - then they've won and you've lost. They've called into question your credibility. At the end of the day, a person or a small group of people have to make a decision on the believability of said studies and decide for themselves/their organization, "Should we go the way of Munich or is it safer to go w/ MSFT?" The Art of CYA is all about going the safe route - a.k.a. "No one ever got fired by choosing MSFT over open source in the enterprise."

ZeroGravitas 14y ago
If we're getting right down to the dirty politics of maintaining monopolies then I think something that would give you more pause was that Microsoft did work to get someone dismissed for not choosing MSFT products (they eventually resigned after, amongst other things, newspaper stories suggested that an IT director going to open source conferences was a misuse of public funds): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_J._Quinn http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_J._Quinn
- ScottWhigham 14y ago
  I didn't think that we were getting "down to the dirty politics of maintaining monopolies" nor did I ask for evidence that MSFT did the opposite of what I wrote. Weird. If someone wanted to make a case that you are clearly a "biased individual", you would have given them ample evidence to dismiss whatever comments you make as "Comments from someone who clearly has an axe to grind." I'd challenge you to re-read our discussion from an impartial 3rd person's POV and see if it is possible that a reasonable person would come to that conclusion on their own without prodding... Now have someone prodding them, someone who is their boss or a peer in a conference room that other people respect... It's fine to have your opinion but when you go out of your way to make points that people weren't asking you to make, it seems as though you have an agenda.

ZeroGravitas 14y ago

If we're getting right down to the dirty politics of maintaining monopolies then I think something that would give you more pause was that Microsoft did work to get someone dismissed for not choosing MSFT products (they eventually resigned after, amongst other things, newspaper stories suggested that an IT director going to open source conferences was a misuse of public funds): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_J._Quinn http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_J._Quinn

ScottWhigham 14y ago
I didn't think that we were getting "down to the dirty politics of maintaining monopolies" nor did I ask for evidence that MSFT did the opposite of what I wrote. Weird. If someone wanted to make a case that you are clearly a "biased individual", you would have given them ample evidence to dismiss whatever comments you make as "Comments from someone who clearly has an axe to grind." I'd challenge you to re-read our discussion from an impartial 3rd person's POV and see if it is possible that a reasonable person would come to that conclusion on their own without prodding... Now have someone prodding them, someone who is their boss or a peer in a conference room that other people respect... It's fine to have your opinion but when you go out of your way to make points that people weren't asking you to make, it seems as though you have an agenda.