ARGH Someone really doesn't get it!

Just read this on eWeek.com:

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1579765,00.asp

Someone really needs to straighten this guy out. Just reading it made my blood boil!

Sounds all based in fact, mix in some opinion and you have an article. What doesn't he get exactly? Thing is you haven't actually said anything, you've just linked to an article and said that you don't agree.. but why?

Gotta love biased journalism.

These are facts? Or opinions?

"You want to know one reason why Microsoft is taking so long to come out with Longhorn? It wants to make darn sure that it's as Linux and open-source unfriendly as humanly possible."

"Today, you can mix and match Linux, Windows and open-source programs pretty much as you see fit." (riiight)

"In the past, it set its operating systems so that unless you ran Microsoft's own programs, you got a second-class experience. We saw that with Netscape." (uh...?)

"Make it so that users of their next desktop system won't be able to use non-Microsoft-blessed servers or programs at all." (eh? non-MS programs won't be allowed?)

And that's just the first page, and what jumped out at me.

Journalism is about reporting the facts. This isn't an Op-Ed piece, and E-Week isn't the place to just spout Linuxisms. The author offers no proof, only happenstance, conjecture and supposition on how and why Microsoft does stuff.

The idea behind patents is to make sure nobody else can write software? Give me a break.

Also, the author has no idea what WinFS is. None. The entire second page of his article based on 0 knowledge. I'm going to hate saying this, but this entire article is pure FUD.

I think it's funny that he says this:

"I know what I want from an operating system, and I don't think I'm that different from most people."

Followed by this:

"work with open standards and have an open set of application programming interfaces"

Yeah, that's what "most people" want. It to work with open standards and have open API's...

I love a good rant as much as the next guy, but I can't even build up to a rant on this. I wouldn't know where to start. Maybe the author should start here, at C9, to see what Microsoft is really about and what Longhorn really is.

Maybe along the way he can read up some on WinFS.

Tell the voices in my head to stop, please...


LOL

~ Knute

"eWEEK.com Linux & Open Source Center Editor Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols has been using and writing about operating systems since the late '80s and thinks he may just have learned something about them along the way."

Please click on the link again and look at the breadcrumb-trail at the top:

"Home > Linux & Open Source > Opinions > Opinion: Longhorn's Real Job: Trying to Gore Linux "

I see the opinion portion there and it usually hints me off that this is an opinion article and may contain as much conjecture and assumptions as the writer feels comfortable with.

With that in mind, I think it is a decent article. After all, news-predictions are nothing more than someones opinion and ideas on particular subjects. Drawing imaginary lines from pointA to pointB. I am sure the writer of this article would love for someone to prove him wrong, I know I would. Afterall the point of networking is ... well networking, and if an OS these days limits itself to spite other brands of opperating systems, then WTF is the point of even putting a tcp/ip suite in the damn thing.

And before someone gets in a hissy fit over what I say, chill - I am just writing opinion and making up mock scenarios.

Yeah, I think we all need to work towards agreed standards. That includes competitors.

The fact is that none of his article is based on any shred of fact. WinFS works just fine with other OS's, none of Longhorn is meant to kill other apps, Microsoft isn't preventing other vendors from interoperating, and the API's are being published (not that they weren't, of course).

So, his opinion is based on pure speculation and prejudice. It's not worthy of an e-Week piece.

How can you be so sure of that?

About Netscape. Hints: DoJ. XPSP1. "Set Program Access and Defaults". 

/Lars.

Be sure of what? Microsoft won't release software which stops all non-MS software from running because nobody would buy the software...

I'm not sure which one of these claims I have to be sure about.

You'll probably want to read Scoble's take on this: http://radio.weblogs.com/0001011/2004/05/04.html#a7379

As it covers the Linux thing fairly well.

I love these threads where people get their knickers in a twist over an opinion. I will continue to laugh at these "opinions" because they are just like the thing your sitting on, we all have one and they stink.

~ Knute

Happy Coding Folks!