[ale] Let's Party! (To celebrate computer viruses!)

[Michael B. Trausch]

On Wed, 2009-09-23 at 15:11 -0400, Brian MacLeod wrote:
> 
> 
> On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 2:17 PM, Michael B. Trausch
> <mbt at zest.trausch.us> wrote:
>         Or, expressed with slightly less obvious bias:  Windows lacks
>         a sound
>         philosophy for compartmentalized software and is, has been,
>         and will be
>         until its death vulnerable to all sorts of problems stemming
>         from poorly
>         thought out design and implementation.  Even worse, the
>         company is and
>         historically has been a very good _business_, in the sense
>         that they
>         know how to get the money, regardless of the social, security,
>         or other
>         implications.
>         
>         Of course, I think many of us could go on and on and on, but
>         really.
>         Let's at least be adult about it and call it like it is,
>         without
>         resorting to childish wordplay and dysphemisms.  After all,
>         they have
>         given us enough to work with without making ourselves look
>         like the
>         imbeciles we already know they are.  It gets old.
>         
> 
> As a business major, I find the association of the name Microsoft and
> the idea of good business insulting.  They are a great marketing
> company.  But good business entails meeting the needs of a segment and
> having everyone feel they got something good out of it, and that
> society overall benefits from the interaction.  It is obvious that the
> business which Microsoft conducts typically yields significantly less
> benefit for society than for itself...
> 
> ...since we're in the mood to be correcting things.  

I never said that they were good in the sense that they do good.  I said
they were good qualified with the statement "in the sense that they know
how to get the money, regardless of the social, security, or other
implications."  Please do not confuse "growing the company well" with
"doing right by others."

A good business makes money; a good corporation not only makes itself
money, but makes its shareholders money.  That is a completely different
and distinct concept (logically speaking) from improving society.
Indeed, there are _many_ businesses that are doing well for themselves
financially, but are causing grave consequences.  Do they care?  Not at
all.  They have their money, and _that_ is what they care about.  Alone,
that's reason enough for me not to put money in their pockets.  I would
much rather put money in the pockets of companies who try to do right by
(at the very least) their consumers, and preferably society as a whole,
as well.

Now, of course, there _are_ some good things that have come from
Microsoft's finances, if they are taken by themselves.  But I hardly see
the net value being positive when taken in context with all of their
actions.  I was not addressing their business practices with the
statement "they are a good business", I was simply addressing the fact
that they meet and exceed their goals monetarily on a regular basis.  Of
course, I vehemently disagree with their business practices, by and
large.
> 
> I too tire of the zealotry to the point of renaming things, but not
> because it's annoying for me to parse, but for me to have to explain
> to others who are looking for options that 1) don't require further
> explanation as to the renaming/making fun of the first option (yes, I
> get asked this, and yes, Microsoft Windows is often people's first
> option, it just is), and 2) doesn't look like to be supported by a
> bunch of loonies.  I'm not saying we aren't loonies (I'm one to
> speak), but there's a time and a place, and trying to get people off
> the Microsoft treadmill is not one of them.  Reasoned arguments, such
> as the one Michael put here, are going to be much more effective in
> that because we haven't forced someone to internally squelch our
> statements because we look like we're insane or cliquish.  

That is the reason I take issue---repeatedly---with it.  I'd go so far
as to say that such attacks belong elsewhere.  I'd like to think that we
can use nothing but logic to address the issues.  Of course, I would
suspect also that this is why I would make a poor politician.  To a
certain extent, people do not care about the real issues, and feel that
they must have some sort of rally cry and cause to form against.

If someone were to ask me why I use Linux in comparison to other
systems, I could explain it to them very well.  There are a host of
reasons that I use Linux over Windows, OS X, the various BSD systems,
the Hurd, and on and on.  But I'm not about to say that "I use Linux
because those acid droppers over there from Berkeley are just
unlikeable."  That has nothing whatsoever to do with why I run Linux on
my desktop instead of FreeBSD.  I will happily use the best tool for the
job, and sometimes that's even one of the BSD family members.  (For the
record, none of my hardware boots any BSD release save for FreeBSD 7.2,
which is a major reason that I stopped using it some time back even on
servers; the other reason is that I work largely with complex
configurations that just work well with Linux.)
> 
> I have seen a lot of interest in my MBA program for Linux, but I have
> seen many turned off because of this behavior which they consider
> inappropriate.  I've got a few now working on their own installations,
> but it's taken a lot of convincing that being anti-Microsoft is all
> there is to this community.  
> 
> Being for something doesn't mean you must always speak poorly of the
> opposing view.

I have, as well, run into many situations where people would consider
the option, but when they look at support resources such as local user
group archives, they wind up not signing up or are driven away because
of the irrelevant and childish behavior.  While many people out in
society are sheep, those who are not and genuinely wish to educate
themselves on the available choices and seek out help and support ought
to be able to do so in an environment where elitism, politics, hype,
FUD, and other similar factors aren't on-topic and are discouraged.

Many of those that I know, at one time or another before actually
getting into using systems other than Windows, refused to consider
anything else because of the perception that the people who build,
support, and distribute the software are unprofessional and make the
(admittedly flawed) assumption that those traits are global personal
traits that would, one way or another, translate into the resulting
software being unprofessional.

I certainly do not advocate that people aren't entitled to their
opinions; but like in every other aspect of life, there is a time and a
place for them.  I suppose to some people, it is more important to
announce their opinions loudly and show which end of the spectrum they
reside on.  To me, it's more important that we actually not drive people
away and take an active part in bringing the market closer to having
_real_ competition and thus improvements.  The software stack that I run
has been continually and noticeably improving regularly, in some cases
daily.  The same cannot be said for Windows, and as I mentioned earlier,
aside from purely technical arguments, there are a great number of
reasons that one should not, IMHO, line the pockets of Microsoft with
even more resources.  It's like rewarding them for their bad and often
unethical behavior.

It is _also_ sometimes challenging to show someone the proof on that
last statement regarding Microsoft's unethical behavior without driving
them away (at least temporarily) because they consider themselves to be
an ethical person and uphold others who are the same.  However, that
temporary condition is very easily converted into a permanent one when
they are given reasons to use argumentum ad hominem in their own heads
to discredit anyone who shows anything about a different system to them.
I don't think that's what we really want to accomplish---I think we all
want the same thing:  To be able to show people what's out there and
take advantage of their ultimate freedom, that of choice.

	--- Mike

-- 
Blog:  http://mike.trausch.us/blog/
Misc. Software:  http://mike.trausch.us/software/

“The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too
high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving
our mark.” —Michelangelo