9 ms·

Microsoft killed my Pappy

97 points by donniefitz2 13y ago

Mikeb85 13y ago
It's true, Microsoft is quite different, but not different enough. For entirely pragmatic reasons, I'd rather use Chrome, Linux, Android, Gmail, Google search and Google Docs. Typescript looks nice, I might use Babylon.js, and I still use Skype from time to time, but I'll still never use Windows, IE, Hotmail, etc...
- dragontamer 13y ago
  Linux, yes. Unfortunately, Android seems to be stepping away from "Linux" proper and is becoming its own beast. (OpenBSD and FreeBSD are closer in form and function than Debian Linux and Android). Chrome? Gmail? Maybe. Google however is pushing far more than Microsoft has as far as dropping my anonymity from Youtube, pushing me into their Google+ features and making me share sign-in information across Chrome sessions. I'd say its a Tie between Microsoft / Google here, both want me in their cloud services. Although, Outlook.com works a hell of a lot better on Android than Gmail / Google Calendar works on Windows8. So from a usability point of view, Google is beginning to lose it in their anti-microsoft wars. I don't like getting caught up in the middle of their politics. So that's my tiebreaker: Microsoft's calendar platform is supported in more platforms than Google Calendar. Google Docs vs Microsoft Office? That one is easy. One of them runs on my computer, and the other one is untrustworthy, in the cloud. Do I really trust Google's servers over my own computer? Will Google protect the privacy of my documents from prying eyes? Nothing beats cold storage on my own computer, Microsoft Office gives me that. Open Office vs Microsoft Office is another story of course... but Open Office is pretty terrible IMO. Open Office is pretty bad in my experience. Instead... its about Abiword and Gnumeric. Unfortunately, there is no adequate replacement for OneNote and Powerpoint, so I'll keep using those.
  - einhverfr 13y ago
    Am I alone in thinking that Android needs some real, community developed competition that isn't primarily sponsored by an adware company?
    - vetinari 13y ago
      Yes, you are alone in that. All android needs are sync adapters for your own mail/calendar/whatever service running on your own hardware. There is no need to discard entire platform just because you don't like Google cloud services. Most people won't bother running their own servers though.
    - dragontamer 13y ago
      No. You're not. See Nokia Meego or Samsung Tizen. I was quite supportive of Meego, although my enthusiasm has dampered quite a lot with Tizen. There are only so many failures that one can put up with...
  - gillianseed 13y ago
    >Unfortunately, Android seems to be stepping away from "Linux" proper and is becoming its own beast. (OpenBSD and FreeBSD are closer in form and function than Debian Linux and Android). You realize that Linux is just a kernel? OpenBSD and FreeBSD are both server/desktop operating systems, meanwhile Debian Linux and Android are desktop and mobile OS'es respectively, your comparison is pretty worthless. A similar comparison to Debian Linux with Android would be FreeBSD with iOS.
jmduke 13y ago
This is a shockingly honest and open assessment of Microsoft's PR from someone who actually works at the company. I think the underlying notion is spot-on, and -- as someone who doesn't bear any particular ill will towards Microsoft besides the travesty that is Excel for Mac -- its interesting to see the seeds being sown of irrational Google hatred.
dragontamer 13y ago
http://www.microsoft.com/openspecifications/en/us/programs/community-promise/covered-specifications/default.aspx http://www.microsoft.com/openspecifications/en/us/programs/c... In many ways, Microsoft's Open Specification Promise is quite a bit stronger of a promise than most people might expect.
epistasis 13y ago
Every time I have to suffer through the archaic UI of Word and enjoy late 1990s performance in the mid 2010s, I am reminded that my Pappy is still dead, even though MS could have made amends. They haven't. And in addition to my Pappy there's a whole other cast of characters that are dead, and they've saddled the entire world with mediocre-to-bad computing experiences. No amends for that either. Perhaps can't make amends, because they are themselves too stuck in the past, unwilling to fix their ways or legacy programs. The world of computing could have been and would be today a better place if they hadn't dominated through business practices, but instead dominated with products.
- jongalloway2 13y ago
  Which version of Word are you using?
- dragontamer 13y ago
  Yes. Microsoft Word killed your pappy. Best argument ever. That is absolutely weak man. If you don't like Word, then don't use it. There are plenty of alternatives. TeX, LaTeX, Abiword, Open Office, Wordpress... I kid you not, I submitted every single college paper manually typeset in TeX / LaTeX document, created using Vim + Makefiles I hand crafted. Graphs were generated in GnuPlot, maybe R if it were statistics related. Gnumeric was my spreadsheets program, and occasionally I'd use Abiword for times when I needed a more classic "double-spaced 500-word" homework assignment.
  - einhverfr 13y ago
    Exactly. I use LaTeX for almost everything that most people use Word or Powerpoint for. Yes, with vim and makefiles. There is no matching my productivity there in a word processor. And I use Gnumeric (and assume you do too) because of the latex export function. If Microsoft wants my business back, having really good LaTeX export from every MS Office program would be the place to start, along with native Linux clients. What? They won't do that?
    - dragontamer 13y ago
lignuist 13y ago
> Is Microsoft circa 2014 worse than Google, Apple, or Facebook? We're not nearly as organized as we'd need to be to be as evil as you might think we are. Microsoft is not any worse than the other companies. They are all at the same terrible level. But Microsoft became a bit better over the last years, I would say.
- mercurial 13y ago
  I usually think of a business model whereby a company goes around and tells others "pay me for patent X or I'll sue you" as extortion. And shockingly enough, that's part of the modern, saintly Microsoft business model. Not to mention the suspicious fast-tracking of the word document standard. Another thing is trust. Why would you trust an organization which still had at least a famous C-level executive which executed a number of business strategies you have a problem with? Why would you trust an organization run by Steve Ballmer? Now, maybe new management will turn Microsoft around, but it has done enough dodgy things over the years that yes, it will have to "bend over backwards" for a long time before I trust it again.
  - mercurial 13y ago
    I'll add that on the other hand, I have the utmost respect for Microsoft Research, which keeps churning out amazing results. I just wish it was called something else. I think I'd like the idea of a chartered research establishment, like the BBC, with a secure amount of public EU money, focusing on the future of computing, and not scrounging for grants.
charleslmunger 13y ago
When you stop shaking down your competitors with software patents, let me know. Until then, your talk about openness is just talk. Extracting settlements from android OEMs over FAT patents is contrary to all the values you've mentioned in this post.
- shanselman 13y ago
  I agree. I don't know anything about that part of the company, though. I work on the web.
  - yuhong 13y ago
    I hope it is on Satya's list. I have several other items on my wishlist too such as fixing the OOXML fiasco. I just realized that Office for Windows don't use the "Open XML" term that much inside the software.
  - charleslmunger 13y ago
    Unfortunately, that part of the company is still part of your company. And it's a big, visible part. Because of MS's transgressions in the past, you don't get the benefit of the doubt from younger devs. Because you're still behaving like jerks with patents, younger devs know that the company hasn't changed. Microsoft is still extracting software patent royalties from android OEMs this very minute - that's not anyone's pappy, and it's not a vendor overreaching. It's a calculated, evil decision by the highest levels of management.
    - IBM 13y ago
      No it really isn't. They need to pay for a license or not infringe on the patents.
      - charleslmunger 13y ago
        You nearly had me, until I saw your username. Well played.
  - 13y ago
mik3y 13y ago
This was a great point: That's 20 years ago. And for bundling a browser in the operating system that couldn't be uninstalled or easily replaced? Sure, no operating systems do that in 2014. I wonder if I can swap out Chrome from Chrome OS or Mobile Safari in iOS. Point is, it's common now. I lived through this time "hating" Microsoft for some of the stuff it was doing then, and it's probably well past time to bury those hatchets. But they still do rather icky things: Rockstar Bidco lawsuits and the "Scroogled" campaign come to mind. I'm biased, but they've got to can it with these things (and just innovate) until I'll look at them as a pleasant company.
- shanselman 13y ago
  Ya, Scroogled was weird. I like the new office.com, though.
  - RexRollman 13y ago
    As a former Google user and Chromebook owner, I kind of agree with the sentiments of the Scroogled campaign. That said, I don't think it made for good commercials.
- bluthru 13y ago
  Google and Apple actually update their browsers, though. I don't think there would be as much concern if IE8 on XP automatically updated to IE11.
  - shanselman 13y ago
    Ya, XP doesn't update as XP is a 12 year old operating system and not supported. My Windows 7 machine just updated to IE11.
    - bluthru 13y ago
      Mozilla and Google offer update browsers for XP. Why can't MS do that with their own codebase?
rtfeldman 13y ago
I can't speak for anyone else, but as a Web developer, I hate Microsoft because of their current and recent handling of Internet Explorer - specifically that it doesn't auto-update. I love my job, but in my job, Internet Explorer 8-9 is pain. It's why we can't have nice things. I checked out a Windows Phone in a store once, and thought it was pretty sweet until I saw the IE logo and physically recoiled. There was no way I was going to own something where I'd have to hit that logo every day to browse the Internet. That's not ancient history, that's present-day reality.
- adamnemecek 13y ago
  > specifically that it doesn't auto-update you might want to do a double check on that
  - shanselman 13y ago
    Ya, IE8 sucks but my Windows 7 machine auto-updated from IE9 to IE10 and just updated to IE11 just last week.
- jdaley 13y ago
  Internet Explorer doesn't automatically update because every company disables the automatic updates. Developing for Internet Explorer 8 is my present-day reality too, but if IT departments were instead mandating Firefox 3.0 or Chrome 1.0 I'm not sure how much better it would be.
- gaius 13y ago
  We have a saying in Yorkshire, where there's muck there's brass.
andrewflnr 13y ago
Even if I concede all that, in the meantime, we've had the "Secure boot" fiasco and some other things I don't remember distinctly. I just remember constantly trying to fight the instinct to hate, to give MS the benefit of the doubt, but I just can't do it. When discussing past wrongs of an institution, the question to ask is not "how long ago did they do it?" but "has the institution changed since?". In Microsoft's case, the answer seems to me to be "not enough".
- einhverfr 13y ago
  One thing I have learned though is that large companies almost never deserve the benefit of the doubt when it comes to their interests or motivations. Is Microsoft any more evil than Google? No, and they are probably less so these days. Google strikes me as more deeply invested in defence informatics and surveillance than Microsoft, for example. But am I going to run out and use Windows Phone because it is the lesser of evils? Definitely not. Lesser of evils unfortunately has proven very successful in American politics. But it has very little place in business.
  - bad_user 13y ago
    Windows Phone cannot be the lesser of evils because it is very restrictive and cannot be forked. Plus Microsoft is making more money with Android through extortion. So no, they have a long way to go before they can earn my trust again.
- jongalloway2 13y ago
  In what way has the "secure boot fiasco" actually impacted you? I read a lot about it a few years ago, but in my experience that was nothing but FUD.
  - dTal 13y ago
    Give it time. So far the worst effect has "merely" been to introduce needless hassle and obstacles when installing non-Microsoft operating systems [1]. Microsoft's current hardware certification spec (that manufacturers tend to implement so they can put "Certified for Windows 8" on the box) requires that the user be able to switch off Secure Boot (generally taking the entirety of UEFI with it) as long as they are not on an ARM system. They could change this at any point, and unification of ARM and "PC" is a current trend at Microsoft of which the move to Secure Boot on both platforms is already a part. Forgive me, but I'm not ready to accept Microsoft having me by the balls just because they haven't clenched their fist yet. Secure Boot's purported threat model is a solution looking for a problem ("boot sector viruses" in 2014?). It doesn't really make much sense to make the boot process entirely unmodifiable on the grounds that "malware might modify it". Malware might modify anything else on your system too, and you are pwned either way. So it's probably safe to assume Microsoft had a different motive. I don't think it's wise to think of it as over-and-done-with. [1] http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/9844.html?thread=328308 http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/9844.html?thread=328308
chaostheory 13y ago
Past behavior is a great predictor of the future, and winning back trust is both hard and slow. This post would be more believable if MS isn't still exhorting companies with their large patent portfolio. Maybe Nadella can change the culture but I have my doubts. Scott, actions are much louder than words. EDIT: I'm not saying other companies are much better. However I think it's more productive to have an internal company awareness campaign and mission of "Don't be an asshole", instead of publicly whining about people who still remember past misdeeds or current ones. http://www.zdnet.com/microsofts-most-profitable-mobile-operating-system-android-7000015094/ http://www.zdnet.com/microsofts-most-profitable-mobile-opera...
MaysonL 13y ago
Dismissing Microsoft's anti-competetive practices and culture as "bundling a browser in the operating system" is more than somewhat disingenuous.
Aoyagi 13y ago
Ah, the great question of modern times: Should I more hate Microsoft or Google? Personally I'll go with Microsoft, because contrary to what the blog says, I feel that Google is far more open, though that still won't make me buy and Android device. At least not without instantly "flashing" it with some custom ROM that's stripped of as much Google things as possible. Would any Windows version allow me to do this? Of course not, WP doesn't even allow me to access the file system. As for Microsoft being aware of anything, it's aware of sales and automated feedback. That's all. Considering Lumia 520 makes up a third of all Windows Phone sales, I assume there will be a lot of cheap phones in the future and little expensive innovation. Both companies are effectively forcing things on people, so talking about "being open" is, in general, out of the question. And with the "cloud and mobile foremost" direction of Microsoft, I don't think I'll have to look for "new" reason to hate Microsoft the same as or more than Google.
arjie 13y ago
It's been a while since I've acted the angry young man, but it hasn't been all that long since Microsoft found itself happily embroiled in controversies regarding the OOXML ISO vote, notably the Sweden situation. It isn't enough to fail at being evil. Trying to do so loses you points. I'm ambivalent towards MS today. I'd like to see good stuff from them, but I treat their stuff with caution.
- camillomiller 13y ago
  Ambivalent is the keyword here. It has to be said, though, that Microsoft's evil methods have usually been administered in foreign, often developing, countries. [The telegraph's article](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financial-crime/10260730/Microsoft-faces-US-scrutiny-over-bribery-allegations.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financial-crime/10260730/...) I always thought that Windows kinda spoiled the digital culture of a generation And therefore I always supported Linux for professional usage and Apple for personal usage. But that's an opinion based on a range of products; sticking a sentiment like hate to a company that makes tools you still can decide to buy or not to buy, is always pretty stupid. Unless they're Nestlé or Monsanto, of course.
deleted 13y ago
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nhebb 13y ago
> I said, find a new reason to hate Microsoft. OK. I'm pissed that they dropped the deployment tools from Visual Studio. [1] People keep saying that the desktop is dying, but PC makers still managed to sell over 300M units last year. But if the desktop market ever does truly die, I think Microsoft can be said to have had a part in that. [1] I'm not actually pissed. I moved on to WiX, but since you asked I felt pressured to come up with something.
- jongalloway2 13y ago
  Which development tools?
  - nhebb 13y ago
    They dropped the setup project (deployment). If they had dropped the development tools from VS, I'm not not sure what would be left. [edited (twice) for clarity]
    - jongalloway2 13y ago
      Sorry, misread. Which deployment tools are you missing?
      - junto 13y ago
        Setup deployment projects went wayward in VS2012. The 3rd party incumbent company suggested by MS is charging for an underwhelming product as an alternative replacement.
  - Renaud 13y ago
    The templates for building setup projects. Even though it was limited, it was very useful. I lost a fair number of days trying to rebuild setups from scratch using other solutions.
  - locusm 13y ago
    What happens when VS2013 hasnt been used for a while then whilst being offline you fire it up? Im referring to requiring a login here... whats the expected behaviour?
jamesaguilar 13y ago
In which someone doesn't understand the difference between doing a thing when you do have a monopoly, and doing it when you don't. I say this as a pretty heavy windows user, but chrome on chromeos and safari on iOS are simply not comparable to ie on windows in the early-mid 2000s.
- dragontamer 13y ago
  Ahem. You mean Opera and Netscape Communicator were not comparable to IE5 and IE6. Microsoft IE stagnated at that point, as Netscape morphed into Mozilla Communicator, and then was rewritten into Mozilla Firefox. But IE reigned supreme only after it defeated Netscape Communicator (which was supported by the internet monopoly AOL)
  - jamesaguilar 13y ago
    No, I meant what I said. What are you talking about?
pjscott 13y ago
Nope! Being a hatchet-burier weakens my current hatchets. I'm still boycotting GoDaddy, for example, even though I forgot why. Presumably I had a good reason. And when I've forgotten why I was mad at the companies who wrong me today, I'll still avoid them. This is an incentive for them to be nice now instead of later.
ig1 13y ago
Microsoft on putting a backdoor on encryption in Hotmail/Outlook.com: "When we upgrade or update products we aren't absolved from the need to comply with existing or future lawful demands." http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-collaboration-user-data http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-c...
wyager 13y ago
Google, Apple etc. make sweet products and contribute a lot of FOSS tech back to the community. I'm not a fan of MS products, and they contribute back very little.
motters 13y ago
Unlike perhaps a decade ago I don't really care about Microsoft today. They're irrelevant to my life, and I don't use any of their software. If anyone recommended using a proprietary Microsoft system I'd respect their choice but strongly advise against it. You might say that stuff that happened a decade ago is done and gone, but the thing to really consider is whether the people running Microsoft has changed significantly and whether their overall approach/philosophy has changed. I think the answer to that is not much.
- jongalloway2 13y ago
  90% of them have retired or been fired, just like at any tech company after 10 years.
deleted 13y ago
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- jongalloway2 13y ago
  Except that Microsoft pioneered the flat design thing, which both Google and Apple have recently followed. So how is this still a valid criticism?
  - PakG1 13y ago
    Could you expound on what this means? Because Apple was the first to bring out a consumer-grade multi-touch screen, and I believe everyone was blown away by how thin their Mac Book Airs were compared to everyone else's efforts? edit: So I'm not sure what flat here is exactly referring to. Surface? What about all the tablets that preceded it, all the way back to the 90s with GO, Newton, and the like?
    - jmduke 13y ago
      Flat design refers to a graphic design concept: http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2013/05/what-is-flat-design/ http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2013/05/what-is-flat-design/
    - lazugod 13y ago
      Flat refers to the on-screen aesthetics, not the hardware.
  - locusm 13y ago
    Sharepoint ? Now that's a turd that needs constant polishing.
  - pcurve 13y ago
    yep, flat and thin font thing, which now the whole web is doing. Not sure Google and Apple.
raphinou 13y ago
Ms has not changed a lot, the OOXML standardisation process showed this. And putting the actions of 20 years ago in today s context is irrelevant as ms doesn t have the power anymore it enjoyed at that time. A lot of devs are also still pissed because of the countless hours , ie lost evenings and nights, they had to spend to make their app compatible with IE. This isnt a defense of apple or google btw, any market controlling company is harming progress imo.
ephemeralgomi 13y ago
There is a big difference between "We stopped being evil at some point" and "we stopped being successful enough to pull off the evil shit that we really, really wanted to do". The DRM[0] that Microsoft were trying to bundle with the Xbox One just scant months ago is the same Microsoft I remember - and they thought that they could pull it off because they were the market leader last console generation. If Microsoft gets any headway with any other of their products, I know exactly what they're going to use it for, whether good-hearted programmers working there support it or not. For me, it's really not a matter of hatred, I've gotten over it. It's just straightforward ROI. I'd need a really compelling reason to consider Microsoft technology, to offset the expected amount of integration pain, license cajoling, oh-but-it-really-only-works-if-you're-using-a-full-MS-stack bait and switchery that I've experienced in the past. There's more than enough fantastic tech out there to keep me busy that doesn't have that baggage attached. Sorry, guys. [0]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_one#Initial_used_games_and_Internet_verification_policies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_one#Initial_used_games_and...
greggman 13y ago
I don't hate Microsoft for 20 year old reasons. I hate them for 2.5 year old reasons http://games.greggman.com/game/webgl-security-and-microsoft-bullshit/ http://games.greggman.com/game/webgl-security-and-microsoft-... I'm sure others can list more recent FUD and lies put out by Microsoft. If in another 5-10 years there's no more incidents of that kind of stuff maybe I'll like them again? ... Actually I can't really say I hate them now. But I think it's important to point out they are still a pretty shitty company in many ways. I hope they stop that crap. An x-coworker at my last job had previous worked at Microsoft. His parting message to everyone was how happy he was that at this job the company always tried to do the right thing whereas at his previous job at MS the company always tried to see how much they could get away with. Of course that's just one anecdote but if true I hope MS can change that attitude to something positive and that we'll see the results for the next few years.
- jongalloway2 13y ago
  Different people have widely varying experiences working at Microsoft. There are 130k people in the company. That might mean your boss might vary a bit over a company that is bigger than many cities. WebGL shipped in IE11. I argued with them over getting it in earlier, too, but they had some semi-valid concerns over running web-delivered instructions directly on your GPU.
- com2kid 13y ago
  > I'm sure others can list more recent FUD and lies put out by Microsoft. Really? I had a PC on which Firefox and certain WebGL content would hard crash my machine thanks to what I resume are video card driver bugs. (Upgrading video card drivers resolved that particular instance of that problem) Given that, it is by no means unreasonable to assume that WebGL content might be able to hit security holes in video card drivers. What that entails, who knows. Presumably going right away and saying "sure, we'll just add a hole to let people stream code directly from the web right into your video card" sounded like a horrible idea. And since IE is shipped with the OS, level component, it has to be supported to customers for-bloody-ever. (Or so it seems at least!) So there is a higher bar, and all of a sudden releasing patches isn't an "auto-update the world and hopefully don't break anyone" sort of thing like it is with Chrome or Firefox, but now it becomes a "well have to test this patch across an almost unimaginable number of test scenarios and machine configs because we don't want to break functionality that any one of our large customers rely on". At that point, adding a new feature, which even sorta smells like it could open up a whole new can of worms, becomes, for good reason, somewhat less desirable! (Disclaimer: I work for MS, but in a completely unrelated area, opinions are my own, those of an overly paranoid-for-the-customers software engineer.)
rdtsc 13y ago
> Do I hate Japan for World War II? [...] I said, "No, we're cool with Japan. We've done some good stuff together." And he was like, "Cool." No we are not cool. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731 is not cool, still not cool. I won't repeat the horrific things that happened there, read it for yourself, but no, just saying "we are cool" about it goes a little too far. > Is Microsoft circa 2014 worse than Google, Apple, or Facebook? We're not nearly as organized as we'd need to be to be as evil as you might think we are. Microsoft has been, as most people perceive today, de-fanged. It was a scary monopoly, it was pushing crappy APIs, not following standards, perverting them. That legacy crap is still there. It is still maintained. Someone deals with it. So it wasn't just about browser wars. Imagine perhaps Facebook merging with Google so now everything you do online or anywhere on your computer is controlled by one company. That was kind of how Microsoft was viewed. So, true, there isn't as much reason to hate anymore. But there is a lot of reasons to not forget as well. What does that mean in practical terms? It means I won't be jumping on or using any Microsoft technologies if I have a choice. F# looks awesome, but nope, I am not touching it. Maybe Visual Studio 2014 is going to be really great, but I won't even try it. If it is tied with .net anything, not touching it. > Moreover, I think that Microsoft is very aware of perceptions and is actively trying to counter them by actually being open. Too late. Open source Windows if you want to be open. Open source your browser if you want to be open. Go back and fix your broken APIs and start following standards. Google as much as many don't like it (and I am in that camp too, when it comes to privacy), has to be commended for being open and contributing to Open Source. So use Google as your example in that respect.
- sz4kerto 13y ago
  Google is not open-sourcing software core to their business. None of it. So your request to open-source Windows and pointing to Google as an example to follow is ridiculous at least.
  - sounds 13y ago
    Google uses Linux on the bulk of their machines and actively contributes to the Linux kernel.
bad_user 13y ago
He's not mentioning Microsoft's patents related attacks on Android, their involvement in SCO's war on Linux, their refusal to implement web standards that compete with their own homegrown solutions, or the Nokia partership that basically killed Nokia. I really like Hanselman and his blog and I even like some of the stuff Microsoft has been doing, but this is a distasteful marketing piece. And BTW, in society trust is a fragile thing and many people don't forget so easily. Other companies should pay attention to this fact. Fool me once shame on you and all that.
- d0 13y ago
  This is plainly rubbish. 1. Android patents is part of an all our war between all vendors. Everyone is shitting on everyone's lawn. Apple, Google, Samsung are all just as bad. The whole mobile market is lawyer driven. 2. SCO is gone, dead. They went after Microsoft as well for Xenix. They weren't involved other than to cheaply get them to go away. 3. Web standards. There were no web standards. There are barely web standards now and IE10/11 do a pretty good job with supporting them. 4. Nokia yadda yadda. Nokia was dying and knew what was going to happen. Nokia is a big company and handsets were a dead end for them so it made sense to lose them cheaply to Microsoft. The Nokia board made a killing. All companies are assholes but facts are facts.
  - BrokenPipe 13y ago
    While Google is becoming or is already as bad as Microsoft this is not a good enough argument to excuse Microsoft for bullying the mobile market with the FAT patent. I remember the J# lawsuit! From wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_J++ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_J++ "Some observers have remarked that this was deliberate from Microsoft, in an attempt to at least slow the advance of Sun's Java technology."
    - d0 13y ago
      There are other patents involved. That is just the poster-boy for it. I know an ex-J++ team member. The objective was to produce a Java IDE that didn't suck (do you remember 1996 Java)? Sun wouldn't license them the runtime, name and class libraries so they cloned it much like GCJ and GNU classpath did. Absolutely no one moans about that.. Despite being an ex Solaris cert guy, Sun screwed up literally everything from 1995 on. This was another thing.
calanya 13y ago
Microsoft's approach to Web development is not in favor of openness, despite of all of Scott's efforts. They are still pushing the closed, proprietary Silverlight over HTML5.
- clemensv 13y ago
  The Silverlight developer community has been up in arms for 2+ years claiming the exact opposite, i.e. that they got completely abandoned in favor of HTML5. Part of that is motivated exactly by the Windows OS group having been pushing HTML5+JS as the primary programming model for apps much harder than they have pushed XAML/WPF/Silverlight ever since Windows 8's new app model got first presented. In server/cloud it's all about HTML5/JS and open standards to the point that Azure Mobile Services only now (yesterday, actually) added .NET support after being exclusively Javascript/Node.js only for well over a year. Recent (<18 months) evidence of Microsoft pushing SL over HTML5 would be greatly appreciated.
- locusm 13y ago
  clemensv is right - SL went the way of the Dodo a long time ago. How Microsoft handled the Performance Point server debacle was way worse though.
Oletros 13y ago
Yap, Fairsearch actions tells a lot about how Microsoft has changed, amicus brief in support of API copyrightability tells a lot about how Microsoft has changed
jadeddrag 13y ago
For many of us, the Microsoft hate has been displaced with complete indifference. I don't think there are more than two people in our 250+ mobile engineering company who even think about microsoft. Even the gamers are moving onto better platforms. For my ease of family IT matters, I've upgraded everybody to Ubuntu. Sorry Microsoft, the war is over. You are now irrelevant.
troels 13y ago
It's not about right or wrong. It's about trust. And MS burned that in the nineties. It would take a tremendous effort to rebuild it.
gonvaled 13y ago
Microsoft killed (or at least delayed, so much that they are not yet here) Linux laptops. I am using a Linux laptop (no M$ tax), but it was not easy to find. And it is not state of the art (HP 635). Microsoft has forced me to continuously deal with my providers for sending me invoices in a non-standard format (.doc). Because they fought, and are fighting open standards for office documents (I am exclusively using open office / libre office, but that is not a 100% working solution) Microsoft is one of the biggest extorters using the patent system to tax us all. I would say that MS is still one of the biggest drags on the world economy: not because their products do not increase productivity (they do!), but because we could be in much better place if they wouldn't have fought open standards. The damage done is not reversible in a generation: I would say that the economic consequences are more lasting than the ones caused by both World Wars, since those proprietary products have a huge lifespan and have full world penetration, in all economic areas. So no, I am not about to forget what they have done (and are doing).
gojomo 13y ago
Some of the animus is also related to regional/cultural tribalisms. It's the free-wheeling multifaceted Bay Area – or more generally California – against a monolithic empire to the North, whose offerings are most popular among the crass bean-counters of the East. Even those far away from these regions can be swept up in the same thematic framing.
ZeroGravitas 13y ago
New rule: if you don't even understand what the Microsoft antitrust case was about, you're not allowed to tell us that it wasn't a big deal. Doubly so if you work for Microsoft who are currently making similar arguments against Google in Europe. Nevermind Microsoft, I'm barely three paragraphs in and I'm forming a strong dislike of the writer due to his breezy dismissive style.
throwawaykf05 13y ago
expected, a post about irrational hatred generates even more irrational hatred. But that's what you get when open source is your religion of choice. Since HN does not let me comment too frequently, I'll just address these points in a single post: 1. "Open source Bing/Windows": Yes, please, give away the things that took thousands of engineers and billions of dollars and decades to build. Look, I like open source and use entirely open source stuff at my day job and hobby projects, and even have open sourced my piddly crap that nobody uses on Github... but nobody is entitled to somebody else's work for free. And damning somebody else for not espousing your beliefs is simply being a religious fanatic. 2. "Antitrust/Monopoly": They were dinged by the US and the EU for essentially trying to turn their OS into a browser while having an OS desktop monopoly. They were trying to be ChromeOS before Google even existed. They were accused of leveraging their monopoly to enter another market but, as is obvious now, is that the desktop and browser market were one and the same. And then people insist that they "missed the web"! And after almost being dismantled by the US government for going that route, people are angry that they let IE stagnate! 3. "Android patent trolling" - They have an impressive patent portfolio (well, by the standards of most patents out there) and have every right to monetize it, which is how things typically happen in all industries. And as an early incumbent in mobile OSs, they did do a lot of work that modern smartphones still use, so it's not like Android isn't standing on the shoulders of WinMobile in addition to iOS. 4. "API copyrightability": It's not so much that Microsoft and Oracle are right on this, it's Google that's wrong. Google's arguments as to why why APIs should not be copyrightable, taken to their logical conclusion, mean no code ever can be copyrightable. My take is they would be found copyrightable, but Google may probably prevail on fair use. 5. "Scroogled": It's based on surveys that shows people are not aware that gmail scans their email contents, and when told of this, most of them disapprove. And if the surveys don't convince you, the class action "wiretap" lawsuits recently filed against Google are a clear indication that there are those who don't like this. It's perfectly fine to make consumers aware of their product choices, especially if it's also in your business interests. 6. "WebGL": There were actual security holes (DOS was just one hole -- the screencap exploit was much worse), and what Microsoft had said then was "WebGL in its current form is not safe". However, as the standard was redesigned to address such issues (http://www.techradar.com/news/software/applications/why-microsoft-decided-to-put-webgl-into-internet-explorer-1167110 http://www.techradar.com/news/software/applications/why-micr..., search for "CORS"), MS has gone ahead and included it in IE 11.
dhoulb 13y ago
I don't hate Microsoft. But I don't exactly like them either. They've made some pretty piss poor decisions over the last 10 years that have had some huge impacts. IE6 was bad, but I can forgive their ignorance on that — no-one knew any better at the time. What I can't forgive is IE8, and the years since then that they've CONTINUED to make major-versioned browsers. If IE6 was a one off problem, it'd be fine. But with IE7, IE8, IE9, IE10, IE11, and new ones being released all the time, it just seems like MS don't realise it's a problem. No-one should be making browsers that don't silently auto-update at least once a month. It's physically harmful to the web ecosystem. I don't care how good IE11 is now, whether they've caught up or not, I care about them putting a system in place that ensures everyone always has the latest web technology. Don't tell me it's not possible. Google and Mozilla have had it sussed for years now. (Apple could do with sorting themselves out on this too. Could also see them go in this direction since Blink split off.) I can't help but think the version numbers are political? Some group in Microsoft trying to prove its worth by making a big deal about version numbers every year? "Look how much we care about the web, look at our new shiny browser. It goes to 11..." The web would be way further ahead if Microsoft had stopped making browsers years ago. Millions of hours are wasted every year testing websites in dead browsers. Microsoft created this situation, and they've still not adequately addressed it. Put your latest browser on everything you've ever made, stop calling out the major version numbers, release every month or so. That's how you'll get people to like you.

97 points by donniefitz2 13y ago

It's true, Microsoft is quite different, but not different enough. For entirely pragmatic reasons, I'd rather use Chrome, Linux, Android, Gmail, Google search and Google Docs. Typescript looks nice, I might use Babylon.js, and I still use Skype from time to time, but I'll still never use Windows, IE, Hotmail, etc...

dragontamer 13y ago
Linux, yes. Unfortunately, Android seems to be stepping away from "Linux" proper and is becoming its own beast. (OpenBSD and FreeBSD are closer in form and function than Debian Linux and Android). Chrome? Gmail? Maybe. Google however is pushing far more than Microsoft has as far as dropping my anonymity from Youtube, pushing me into their Google+ features and making me share sign-in information across Chrome sessions. I'd say its a Tie between Microsoft / Google here, both want me in their cloud services. Although, Outlook.com works a hell of a lot better on Android than Gmail / Google Calendar works on Windows8. So from a usability point of view, Google is beginning to lose it in their anti-microsoft wars. I don't like getting caught up in the middle of their politics. So that's my tiebreaker: Microsoft's calendar platform is supported in more platforms than Google Calendar. Google Docs vs Microsoft Office? That one is easy. One of them runs on my computer, and the other one is untrustworthy, in the cloud. Do I really trust Google's servers over my own computer? Will Google protect the privacy of my documents from prying eyes? Nothing beats cold storage on my own computer, Microsoft Office gives me that. Open Office vs Microsoft Office is another story of course... but Open Office is pretty terrible IMO. Open Office is pretty bad in my experience. Instead... its about Abiword and Gnumeric. Unfortunately, there is no adequate replacement for OneNote and Powerpoint, so I'll keep using those.
- einhverfr 13y ago
  Am I alone in thinking that Android needs some real, community developed competition that isn't primarily sponsored by an adware company?
  - vetinari 13y ago
    Yes, you are alone in that. All android needs are sync adapters for your own mail/calendar/whatever service running on your own hardware. There is no need to discard entire platform just because you don't like Google cloud services. Most people won't bother running their own servers though.
  - dragontamer 13y ago
    No. You're not. See Nokia Meego or Samsung Tizen. I was quite supportive of Meego, although my enthusiasm has dampered quite a lot with Tizen. There are only so many failures that one can put up with...
- gillianseed 13y ago
  >Unfortunately, Android seems to be stepping away from "Linux" proper and is becoming its own beast. (OpenBSD and FreeBSD are closer in form and function than Debian Linux and Android). You realize that Linux is just a kernel? OpenBSD and FreeBSD are both server/desktop operating systems, meanwhile Debian Linux and Android are desktop and mobile OS'es respectively, your comparison is pretty worthless. A similar comparison to Debian Linux with Android would be FreeBSD with iOS.

jmduke 13y ago

This is a shockingly honest and open assessment of Microsoft's PR from someone who actually works at the company. I think the underlying notion is spot-on, and -- as someone who doesn't bear any particular ill will towards Microsoft besides the travesty that is Excel for Mac -- its interesting to see the seeds being sown of irrational Google hatred.

dragontamer 13y ago

http://www.microsoft.com/openspecifications/en/us/programs/community-promise/covered-specifications/default.aspx http://www.microsoft.com/openspecifications/en/us/programs/c... In many ways, Microsoft's Open Specification Promise is quite a bit stronger of a promise than most people might expect.

epistasis 13y ago

Every time I have to suffer through the archaic UI of Word and enjoy late 1990s performance in the mid 2010s, I am reminded that my Pappy is still dead, even though MS could have made amends. They haven't. And in addition to my Pappy there's a whole other cast of characters that are dead, and they've saddled the entire world with mediocre-to-bad computing experiences. No amends for that either. Perhaps can't make amends, because they are themselves too stuck in the past, unwilling to fix their ways or legacy programs. The world of computing could have been and would be today a better place if they hadn't dominated through business practices, but instead dominated with products.

jongalloway2 13y ago
Which version of Word are you using?
dragontamer 13y ago
Yes. Microsoft Word killed your pappy. Best argument ever. That is absolutely weak man. If you don't like Word, then don't use it. There are plenty of alternatives. TeX, LaTeX, Abiword, Open Office, Wordpress... I kid you not, I submitted every single college paper manually typeset in TeX / LaTeX document, created using Vim + Makefiles I hand crafted. Graphs were generated in GnuPlot, maybe R if it were statistics related. Gnumeric was my spreadsheets program, and occasionally I'd use Abiword for times when I needed a more classic "double-spaced 500-word" homework assignment.
- einhverfr 13y ago
  Exactly. I use LaTeX for almost everything that most people use Word or Powerpoint for. Yes, with vim and makefiles. There is no matching my productivity there in a word processor. And I use Gnumeric (and assume you do too) because of the latex export function. If Microsoft wants my business back, having really good LaTeX export from every MS Office program would be the place to start, along with native Linux clients. What? They won't do that?
  - dragontamer 13y ago

lignuist 13y ago

> Is Microsoft circa 2014 worse than Google, Apple, or Facebook? We're not nearly as organized as we'd need to be to be as evil as you might think we are. Microsoft is not any worse than the other companies. They are all at the same terrible level. But Microsoft became a bit better over the last years, I would say.

mercurial 13y ago
I usually think of a business model whereby a company goes around and tells others "pay me for patent X or I'll sue you" as extortion. And shockingly enough, that's part of the modern, saintly Microsoft business model. Not to mention the suspicious fast-tracking of the word document standard. Another thing is trust. Why would you trust an organization which still had at least a famous C-level executive which executed a number of business strategies you have a problem with? Why would you trust an organization run by Steve Ballmer? Now, maybe new management will turn Microsoft around, but it has done enough dodgy things over the years that yes, it will have to "bend over backwards" for a long time before I trust it again.
- mercurial 13y ago
  I'll add that on the other hand, I have the utmost respect for Microsoft Research, which keeps churning out amazing results. I just wish it was called something else. I think I'd like the idea of a chartered research establishment, like the BBC, with a secure amount of public EU money, focusing on the future of computing, and not scrounging for grants.

charleslmunger 13y ago

When you stop shaking down your competitors with software patents, let me know. Until then, your talk about openness is just talk. Extracting settlements from android OEMs over FAT patents is contrary to all the values you've mentioned in this post.

shanselman 13y ago
I agree. I don't know anything about that part of the company, though. I work on the web.
- yuhong 13y ago
  I hope it is on Satya's list. I have several other items on my wishlist too such as fixing the OOXML fiasco. I just realized that Office for Windows don't use the "Open XML" term that much inside the software.
- charleslmunger 13y ago
  Unfortunately, that part of the company is still part of your company. And it's a big, visible part. Because of MS's transgressions in the past, you don't get the benefit of the doubt from younger devs. Because you're still behaving like jerks with patents, younger devs know that the company hasn't changed. Microsoft is still extracting software patent royalties from android OEMs this very minute - that's not anyone's pappy, and it's not a vendor overreaching. It's a calculated, evil decision by the highest levels of management.
  - IBM 13y ago
    No it really isn't. They need to pay for a license or not infringe on the patents.
    - charleslmunger 13y ago
      You nearly had me, until I saw your username. Well played.
- 13y ago

mik3y 13y ago

This was a great point: That's 20 years ago. And for bundling a browser in the operating system that couldn't be uninstalled or easily replaced? Sure, no operating systems do that in 2014. I wonder if I can swap out Chrome from Chrome OS or Mobile Safari in iOS. Point is, it's common now. I lived through this time "hating" Microsoft for some of the stuff it was doing then, and it's probably well past time to bury those hatchets. But they still do rather icky things: Rockstar Bidco lawsuits and the "Scroogled" campaign come to mind. I'm biased, but they've got to can it with these things (and just innovate) until I'll look at them as a pleasant company.

shanselman 13y ago
Ya, Scroogled was weird. I like the new office.com, though.
- RexRollman 13y ago
  As a former Google user and Chromebook owner, I kind of agree with the sentiments of the Scroogled campaign. That said, I don't think it made for good commercials.
bluthru 13y ago
Google and Apple actually update their browsers, though. I don't think there would be as much concern if IE8 on XP automatically updated to IE11.
- shanselman 13y ago
  Ya, XP doesn't update as XP is a 12 year old operating system and not supported. My Windows 7 machine just updated to IE11.
  - bluthru 13y ago
    Mozilla and Google offer update browsers for XP. Why can't MS do that with their own codebase?

rtfeldman 13y ago

I can't speak for anyone else, but as a Web developer, I hate Microsoft because of their current and recent handling of Internet Explorer - specifically that it doesn't auto-update. I love my job, but in my job, Internet Explorer 8-9 is pain. It's why we can't have nice things. I checked out a Windows Phone in a store once, and thought it was pretty sweet until I saw the IE logo and physically recoiled. There was no way I was going to own something where I'd have to hit that logo every day to browse the Internet. That's not ancient history, that's present-day reality.

adamnemecek 13y ago
> specifically that it doesn't auto-update you might want to do a double check on that
- shanselman 13y ago
  Ya, IE8 sucks but my Windows 7 machine auto-updated from IE9 to IE10 and just updated to IE11 just last week.
jdaley 13y ago
Internet Explorer doesn't automatically update because every company disables the automatic updates. Developing for Internet Explorer 8 is my present-day reality too, but if IT departments were instead mandating Firefox 3.0 or Chrome 1.0 I'm not sure how much better it would be.
gaius 13y ago
We have a saying in Yorkshire, where there's muck there's brass.

andrewflnr 13y ago

Even if I concede all that, in the meantime, we've had the "Secure boot" fiasco and some other things I don't remember distinctly. I just remember constantly trying to fight the instinct to hate, to give MS the benefit of the doubt, but I just can't do it. When discussing past wrongs of an institution, the question to ask is not "how long ago did they do it?" but "has the institution changed since?". In Microsoft's case, the answer seems to me to be "not enough".

einhverfr 13y ago
One thing I have learned though is that large companies almost never deserve the benefit of the doubt when it comes to their interests or motivations. Is Microsoft any more evil than Google? No, and they are probably less so these days. Google strikes me as more deeply invested in defence informatics and surveillance than Microsoft, for example. But am I going to run out and use Windows Phone because it is the lesser of evils? Definitely not. Lesser of evils unfortunately has proven very successful in American politics. But it has very little place in business.
- bad_user 13y ago
  Windows Phone cannot be the lesser of evils because it is very restrictive and cannot be forked. Plus Microsoft is making more money with Android through extortion. So no, they have a long way to go before they can earn my trust again.
jongalloway2 13y ago
In what way has the "secure boot fiasco" actually impacted you? I read a lot about it a few years ago, but in my experience that was nothing but FUD.
- dTal 13y ago
  Give it time. So far the worst effect has "merely" been to introduce needless hassle and obstacles when installing non-Microsoft operating systems [1]. Microsoft's current hardware certification spec (that manufacturers tend to implement so they can put "Certified for Windows 8" on the box) requires that the user be able to switch off Secure Boot (generally taking the entirety of UEFI with it) as long as they are not on an ARM system. They could change this at any point, and unification of ARM and "PC" is a current trend at Microsoft of which the move to Secure Boot on both platforms is already a part. Forgive me, but I'm not ready to accept Microsoft having me by the balls just because they haven't clenched their fist yet. Secure Boot's purported threat model is a solution looking for a problem ("boot sector viruses" in 2014?). It doesn't really make much sense to make the boot process entirely unmodifiable on the grounds that "malware might modify it". Malware might modify anything else on your system too, and you are pwned either way. So it's probably safe to assume Microsoft had a different motive. I don't think it's wise to think of it as over-and-done-with. [1] http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/9844.html?thread=328308 http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/9844.html?thread=328308

chaostheory 13y ago

Past behavior is a great predictor of the future, and winning back trust is both hard and slow. This post would be more believable if MS isn't still exhorting companies with their large patent portfolio. Maybe Nadella can change the culture but I have my doubts. Scott, actions are much louder than words. EDIT: I'm not saying other companies are much better. However I think it's more productive to have an internal company awareness campaign and mission of "Don't be an asshole", instead of publicly whining about people who still remember past misdeeds or current ones. http://www.zdnet.com/microsofts-most-profitable-mobile-operating-system-android-7000015094/ http://www.zdnet.com/microsofts-most-profitable-mobile-opera...

MaysonL 13y ago

Dismissing Microsoft's anti-competetive practices and culture as "bundling a browser in the operating system" is more than somewhat disingenuous.

Aoyagi 13y ago

Ah, the great question of modern times: Should I more hate Microsoft or Google? Personally I'll go with Microsoft, because contrary to what the blog says, I feel that Google is far more open, though that still won't make me buy and Android device. At least not without instantly "flashing" it with some custom ROM that's stripped of as much Google things as possible. Would any Windows version allow me to do this? Of course not, WP doesn't even allow me to access the file system. As for Microsoft being aware of anything, it's aware of sales and automated feedback. That's all. Considering Lumia 520 makes up a third of all Windows Phone sales, I assume there will be a lot of cheap phones in the future and little expensive innovation. Both companies are effectively forcing things on people, so talking about "being open" is, in general, out of the question. And with the "cloud and mobile foremost" direction of Microsoft, I don't think I'll have to look for "new" reason to hate Microsoft the same as or more than Google.

arjie 13y ago

It's been a while since I've acted the angry young man, but it hasn't been all that long since Microsoft found itself happily embroiled in controversies regarding the OOXML ISO vote, notably the Sweden situation. It isn't enough to fail at being evil. Trying to do so loses you points. I'm ambivalent towards MS today. I'd like to see good stuff from them, but I treat their stuff with caution.

camillomiller 13y ago
Ambivalent is the keyword here. It has to be said, though, that Microsoft's evil methods have usually been administered in foreign, often developing, countries. [The telegraph's article](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financial-crime/10260730/Microsoft-faces-US-scrutiny-over-bribery-allegations.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financial-crime/10260730/...) I always thought that Windows kinda spoiled the digital culture of a generation And therefore I always supported Linux for professional usage and Apple for personal usage. But that's an opinion based on a range of products; sticking a sentiment like hate to a company that makes tools you still can decide to buy or not to buy, is always pretty stupid. Unless they're Nestlé or Monsanto, of course.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

nhebb 13y ago

> I said, find a new reason to hate Microsoft. OK. I'm pissed that they dropped the deployment tools from Visual Studio. [1] People keep saying that the desktop is dying, but PC makers still managed to sell over 300M units last year. But if the desktop market ever does truly die, I think Microsoft can be said to have had a part in that. [1] I'm not actually pissed. I moved on to WiX, but since you asked I felt pressured to come up with something.

jongalloway2 13y ago
Which development tools?
- nhebb 13y ago
  They dropped the setup project (deployment). If they had dropped the development tools from VS, I'm not not sure what would be left. [edited (twice) for clarity]
  - jongalloway2 13y ago
    Sorry, misread. Which deployment tools are you missing?
    - junto 13y ago
      Setup deployment projects went wayward in VS2012. The 3rd party incumbent company suggested by MS is charging for an underwhelming product as an alternative replacement.
- Renaud 13y ago
  The templates for building setup projects. Even though it was limited, it was very useful. I lost a fair number of days trying to rebuild setups from scratch using other solutions.
- locusm 13y ago
  What happens when VS2013 hasnt been used for a while then whilst being offline you fire it up? Im referring to requiring a login here... whats the expected behaviour?

jamesaguilar 13y ago

In which someone doesn't understand the difference between doing a thing when you do have a monopoly, and doing it when you don't. I say this as a pretty heavy windows user, but chrome on chromeos and safari on iOS are simply not comparable to ie on windows in the early-mid 2000s.

dragontamer 13y ago
Ahem. You mean Opera and Netscape Communicator were not comparable to IE5 and IE6. Microsoft IE stagnated at that point, as Netscape morphed into Mozilla Communicator, and then was rewritten into Mozilla Firefox. But IE reigned supreme only after it defeated Netscape Communicator (which was supported by the internet monopoly AOL)
- jamesaguilar 13y ago
  No, I meant what I said. What are you talking about?

pjscott 13y ago

Nope! Being a hatchet-burier weakens my current hatchets. I'm still boycotting GoDaddy, for example, even though I forgot why. Presumably I had a good reason. And when I've forgotten why I was mad at the companies who wrong me today, I'll still avoid them. This is an incentive for them to be nice now instead of later.

ig1 13y ago

Microsoft on putting a backdoor on encryption in Hotmail/Outlook.com: "When we upgrade or update products we aren't absolved from the need to comply with existing or future lawful demands." http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-collaboration-user-data http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-c...

wyager 13y ago

Google, Apple etc. make sweet products and contribute a lot of FOSS tech back to the community. I'm not a fan of MS products, and they contribute back very little.

motters 13y ago

Unlike perhaps a decade ago I don't really care about Microsoft today. They're irrelevant to my life, and I don't use any of their software. If anyone recommended using a proprietary Microsoft system I'd respect their choice but strongly advise against it. You might say that stuff that happened a decade ago is done and gone, but the thing to really consider is whether the people running Microsoft has changed significantly and whether their overall approach/philosophy has changed. I think the answer to that is not much.

jongalloway2 13y ago
90% of them have retired or been fired, just like at any tech company after 10 years.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

jongalloway2 13y ago
Except that Microsoft pioneered the flat design thing, which both Google and Apple have recently followed. So how is this still a valid criticism?
- PakG1 13y ago
  Could you expound on what this means? Because Apple was the first to bring out a consumer-grade multi-touch screen, and I believe everyone was blown away by how thin their Mac Book Airs were compared to everyone else's efforts? edit: So I'm not sure what flat here is exactly referring to. Surface? What about all the tablets that preceded it, all the way back to the 90s with GO, Newton, and the like?
  - jmduke 13y ago
    Flat design refers to a graphic design concept: http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2013/05/what-is-flat-design/ http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2013/05/what-is-flat-design/
  - lazugod 13y ago
    Flat refers to the on-screen aesthetics, not the hardware.
- locusm 13y ago
  Sharepoint ? Now that's a turd that needs constant polishing.
- pcurve 13y ago
  yep, flat and thin font thing, which now the whole web is doing. Not sure Google and Apple.

raphinou 13y ago

Ms has not changed a lot, the OOXML standardisation process showed this. And putting the actions of 20 years ago in today s context is irrelevant as ms doesn t have the power anymore it enjoyed at that time. A lot of devs are also still pissed because of the countless hours , ie lost evenings and nights, they had to spend to make their app compatible with IE. This isnt a defense of apple or google btw, any market controlling company is harming progress imo.

ephemeralgomi 13y ago

There is a big difference between "We stopped being evil at some point" and "we stopped being successful enough to pull off the evil shit that we really, really wanted to do". The DRM[0] that Microsoft were trying to bundle with the Xbox One just scant months ago is the same Microsoft I remember - and they thought that they could pull it off because they were the market leader last console generation. If Microsoft gets any headway with any other of their products, I know exactly what they're going to use it for, whether good-hearted programmers working there support it or not. For me, it's really not a matter of hatred, I've gotten over it. It's just straightforward ROI. I'd need a really compelling reason to consider Microsoft technology, to offset the expected amount of integration pain, license cajoling, oh-but-it-really-only-works-if-you're-using-a-full-MS-stack bait and switchery that I've experienced in the past. There's more than enough fantastic tech out there to keep me busy that doesn't have that baggage attached. Sorry, guys. [0]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_one#Initial_used_games_and_Internet_verification_policies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_one#Initial_used_games_and...

greggman 13y ago

I don't hate Microsoft for 20 year old reasons. I hate them for 2.5 year old reasons http://games.greggman.com/game/webgl-security-and-microsoft-bullshit/ http://games.greggman.com/game/webgl-security-and-microsoft-... I'm sure others can list more recent FUD and lies put out by Microsoft. If in another 5-10 years there's no more incidents of that kind of stuff maybe I'll like them again? ... Actually I can't really say I hate them now. But I think it's important to point out they are still a pretty shitty company in many ways. I hope they stop that crap. An x-coworker at my last job had previous worked at Microsoft. His parting message to everyone was how happy he was that at this job the company always tried to do the right thing whereas at his previous job at MS the company always tried to see how much they could get away with. Of course that's just one anecdote but if true I hope MS can change that attitude to something positive and that we'll see the results for the next few years.

jongalloway2 13y ago
Different people have widely varying experiences working at Microsoft. There are 130k people in the company. That might mean your boss might vary a bit over a company that is bigger than many cities. WebGL shipped in IE11. I argued with them over getting it in earlier, too, but they had some semi-valid concerns over running web-delivered instructions directly on your GPU.
com2kid 13y ago
> I'm sure others can list more recent FUD and lies put out by Microsoft. Really? I had a PC on which Firefox and certain WebGL content would hard crash my machine thanks to what I resume are video card driver bugs. (Upgrading video card drivers resolved that particular instance of that problem) Given that, it is by no means unreasonable to assume that WebGL content might be able to hit security holes in video card drivers. What that entails, who knows. Presumably going right away and saying "sure, we'll just add a hole to let people stream code directly from the web right into your video card" sounded like a horrible idea. And since IE is shipped with the OS, level component, it has to be supported to customers for-bloody-ever. (Or so it seems at least!) So there is a higher bar, and all of a sudden releasing patches isn't an "auto-update the world and hopefully don't break anyone" sort of thing like it is with Chrome or Firefox, but now it becomes a "well have to test this patch across an almost unimaginable number of test scenarios and machine configs because we don't want to break functionality that any one of our large customers rely on". At that point, adding a new feature, which even sorta smells like it could open up a whole new can of worms, becomes, for good reason, somewhat less desirable! (Disclaimer: I work for MS, but in a completely unrelated area, opinions are my own, those of an overly paranoid-for-the-customers software engineer.)

rdtsc 13y ago

> Do I hate Japan for World War II? [...] I said, "No, we're cool with Japan. We've done some good stuff together." And he was like, "Cool." No we are not cool. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731 is not cool, still not cool. I won't repeat the horrific things that happened there, read it for yourself, but no, just saying "we are cool" about it goes a little too far. > Is Microsoft circa 2014 worse than Google, Apple, or Facebook? We're not nearly as organized as we'd need to be to be as evil as you might think we are. Microsoft has been, as most people perceive today, de-fanged. It was a scary monopoly, it was pushing crappy APIs, not following standards, perverting them. That legacy crap is still there. It is still maintained. Someone deals with it. So it wasn't just about browser wars. Imagine perhaps Facebook merging with Google so now everything you do online or anywhere on your computer is controlled by one company. That was kind of how Microsoft was viewed. So, true, there isn't as much reason to hate anymore. But there is a lot of reasons to not forget as well. What does that mean in practical terms? It means I won't be jumping on or using any Microsoft technologies if I have a choice. F# looks awesome, but nope, I am not touching it. Maybe Visual Studio 2014 is going to be really great, but I won't even try it. If it is tied with .net anything, not touching it. > Moreover, I think that Microsoft is very aware of perceptions and is actively trying to counter them by actually being open. Too late. Open source Windows if you want to be open. Open source your browser if you want to be open. Go back and fix your broken APIs and start following standards. Google as much as many don't like it (and I am in that camp too, when it comes to privacy), has to be commended for being open and contributing to Open Source. So use Google as your example in that respect.

sz4kerto 13y ago
Google is not open-sourcing software core to their business. None of it. So your request to open-source Windows and pointing to Google as an example to follow is ridiculous at least.
- sounds 13y ago
  Google uses Linux on the bulk of their machines and actively contributes to the Linux kernel.

bad_user 13y ago

He's not mentioning Microsoft's patents related attacks on Android, their involvement in SCO's war on Linux, their refusal to implement web standards that compete with their own homegrown solutions, or the Nokia partership that basically killed Nokia. I really like Hanselman and his blog and I even like some of the stuff Microsoft has been doing, but this is a distasteful marketing piece. And BTW, in society trust is a fragile thing and many people don't forget so easily. Other companies should pay attention to this fact. Fool me once shame on you and all that.

d0 13y ago
This is plainly rubbish. 1. Android patents is part of an all our war between all vendors. Everyone is shitting on everyone's lawn. Apple, Google, Samsung are all just as bad. The whole mobile market is lawyer driven. 2. SCO is gone, dead. They went after Microsoft as well for Xenix. They weren't involved other than to cheaply get them to go away. 3. Web standards. There were no web standards. There are barely web standards now and IE10/11 do a pretty good job with supporting them. 4. Nokia yadda yadda. Nokia was dying and knew what was going to happen. Nokia is a big company and handsets were a dead end for them so it made sense to lose them cheaply to Microsoft. The Nokia board made a killing. All companies are assholes but facts are facts.
- BrokenPipe 13y ago
  While Google is becoming or is already as bad as Microsoft this is not a good enough argument to excuse Microsoft for bullying the mobile market with the FAT patent. I remember the J# lawsuit! From wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_J++ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_J++ "Some observers have remarked that this was deliberate from Microsoft, in an attempt to at least slow the advance of Sun's Java technology."
  - d0 13y ago
    There are other patents involved. That is just the poster-boy for it. I know an ex-J++ team member. The objective was to produce a Java IDE that didn't suck (do you remember 1996 Java)? Sun wouldn't license them the runtime, name and class libraries so they cloned it much like GCJ and GNU classpath did. Absolutely no one moans about that.. Despite being an ex Solaris cert guy, Sun screwed up literally everything from 1995 on. This was another thing.

calanya 13y ago

Microsoft's approach to Web development is not in favor of openness, despite of all of Scott's efforts. They are still pushing the closed, proprietary Silverlight over HTML5.

clemensv 13y ago
The Silverlight developer community has been up in arms for 2+ years claiming the exact opposite, i.e. that they got completely abandoned in favor of HTML5. Part of that is motivated exactly by the Windows OS group having been pushing HTML5+JS as the primary programming model for apps much harder than they have pushed XAML/WPF/Silverlight ever since Windows 8's new app model got first presented. In server/cloud it's all about HTML5/JS and open standards to the point that Azure Mobile Services only now (yesterday, actually) added .NET support after being exclusively Javascript/Node.js only for well over a year. Recent (<18 months) evidence of Microsoft pushing SL over HTML5 would be greatly appreciated.
locusm 13y ago
clemensv is right - SL went the way of the Dodo a long time ago. How Microsoft handled the Performance Point server debacle was way worse though.

Oletros 13y ago

Yap, Fairsearch actions tells a lot about how Microsoft has changed, amicus brief in support of API copyrightability tells a lot about how Microsoft has changed

jadeddrag 13y ago

For many of us, the Microsoft hate has been displaced with complete indifference. I don't think there are more than two people in our 250+ mobile engineering company who even think about microsoft. Even the gamers are moving onto better platforms. For my ease of family IT matters, I've upgraded everybody to Ubuntu. Sorry Microsoft, the war is over. You are now irrelevant.

troels 13y ago

It's not about right or wrong. It's about trust. And MS burned that in the nineties. It would take a tremendous effort to rebuild it.

gonvaled 13y ago

Microsoft killed (or at least delayed, so much that they are not yet here) Linux laptops. I am using a Linux laptop (no M$ tax), but it was not easy to find. And it is not state of the art (HP 635). Microsoft has forced me to continuously deal with my providers for sending me invoices in a non-standard format (.doc). Because they fought, and are fighting open standards for office documents (I am exclusively using open office / libre office, but that is not a 100% working solution) Microsoft is one of the biggest extorters using the patent system to tax us all. I would say that MS is still one of the biggest drags on the world economy: not because their products do not increase productivity (they do!), but because we could be in much better place if they wouldn't have fought open standards. The damage done is not reversible in a generation: I would say that the economic consequences are more lasting than the ones caused by both World Wars, since those proprietary products have a huge lifespan and have full world penetration, in all economic areas. So no, I am not about to forget what they have done (and are doing).

gojomo 13y ago

Some of the animus is also related to regional/cultural tribalisms. It's the free-wheeling multifaceted Bay Area – or more generally California – against a monolithic empire to the North, whose offerings are most popular among the crass bean-counters of the East. Even those far away from these regions can be swept up in the same thematic framing.

ZeroGravitas 13y ago

New rule: if you don't even understand what the Microsoft antitrust case was about, you're not allowed to tell us that it wasn't a big deal. Doubly so if you work for Microsoft who are currently making similar arguments against Google in Europe. Nevermind Microsoft, I'm barely three paragraphs in and I'm forming a strong dislike of the writer due to his breezy dismissive style.

throwawaykf05 13y ago

expected, a post about irrational hatred generates even more irrational hatred. But that's what you get when open source is your religion of choice. Since HN does not let me comment too frequently, I'll just address these points in a single post: 1. "Open source Bing/Windows": Yes, please, give away the things that took thousands of engineers and billions of dollars and decades to build. Look, I like open source and use entirely open source stuff at my day job and hobby projects, and even have open sourced my piddly crap that nobody uses on Github... but nobody is entitled to somebody else's work for free. And damning somebody else for not espousing your beliefs is simply being a religious fanatic. 2. "Antitrust/Monopoly": They were dinged by the US and the EU for essentially trying to turn their OS into a browser while having an OS desktop monopoly. They were trying to be ChromeOS before Google even existed. They were accused of leveraging their monopoly to enter another market but, as is obvious now, is that the desktop and browser market were one and the same. And then people insist that they "missed the web"! And after almost being dismantled by the US government for going that route, people are angry that they let IE stagnate! 3. "Android patent trolling" - They have an impressive patent portfolio (well, by the standards of most patents out there) and have every right to monetize it, which is how things typically happen in all industries. And as an early incumbent in mobile OSs, they did do a lot of work that modern smartphones still use, so it's not like Android isn't standing on the shoulders of WinMobile in addition to iOS. 4. "API copyrightability": It's not so much that Microsoft and Oracle are right on this, it's Google that's wrong. Google's arguments as to why why APIs should not be copyrightable, taken to their logical conclusion, mean no code ever can be copyrightable. My take is they would be found copyrightable, but Google may probably prevail on fair use. 5. "Scroogled": It's based on surveys that shows people are not aware that gmail scans their email contents, and when told of this, most of them disapprove. And if the surveys don't convince you, the class action "wiretap" lawsuits recently filed against Google are a clear indication that there are those who don't like this. It's perfectly fine to make consumers aware of their product choices, especially if it's also in your business interests. 6. "WebGL": There were actual security holes (DOS was just one hole -- the screencap exploit was much worse), and what Microsoft had said then was "WebGL in its current form is not safe". However, as the standard was redesigned to address such issues (http://www.techradar.com/news/software/applications/why-microsoft-decided-to-put-webgl-into-internet-explorer-1167110 http://www.techradar.com/news/software/applications/why-micr..., search for "CORS"), MS has gone ahead and included it in IE 11.

dhoulb 13y ago

I don't hate Microsoft. But I don't exactly like them either. They've made some pretty piss poor decisions over the last 10 years that have had some huge impacts. IE6 was bad, but I can forgive their ignorance on that — no-one knew any better at the time. What I can't forgive is IE8, and the years since then that they've CONTINUED to make major-versioned browsers. If IE6 was a one off problem, it'd be fine. But with IE7, IE8, IE9, IE10, IE11, and new ones being released all the time, it just seems like MS don't realise it's a problem. No-one should be making browsers that don't silently auto-update at least once a month. It's physically harmful to the web ecosystem. I don't care how good IE11 is now, whether they've caught up or not, I care about them putting a system in place that ensures everyone always has the latest web technology. Don't tell me it's not possible. Google and Mozilla have had it sussed for years now. (Apple could do with sorting themselves out on this too. Could also see them go in this direction since Blink split off.) I can't help but think the version numbers are political? Some group in Microsoft trying to prove its worth by making a big deal about version numbers every year? "Look how much we care about the web, look at our new shiny browser. It goes to 11..." The web would be way further ahead if Microsoft had stopped making browsers years ago. Millions of hours are wasted every year testing websites in dead browsers. Microsoft created this situation, and they've still not adequately addressed it. Put your latest browser on everything you've ever made, stop calling out the major version numbers, release every month or so. That's how you'll get people to like you.