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Paul Watson wrote:
So anyway, can everyone please list why they feel they shouldn't be using MS products? Are there valid reasons which do not apply to other companies?
Well, I have actually only one - spyware. I don't need no stinking activation, nor I need MS to track my usage patterns etc.
If I was a goverment worker that alone would make me stop using MS software since it can not be trusted (MS has a proven record of illegal spyware practices).
Eventually I will not buy any new MS software unless they change attitude.
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George wrote:
MS has a proven record of illegal spyware practices
I hadn't hear about it, though I'm not the best when it comes to news, so could miss it.
And as I think, if you don't have something illegal on your computer, you usually don't care about "spying" 
Also I have a firewall working for me and cutting every connection I don't trust, so it would be hard to spy if someone wanted to.
Philip Patrick
Web-site: www.stpworks.com
"Two beer or not two beer?" Shakesbeer
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Because it isn't true. Just a bunch of hype and poor understanding of MS using one firm that also deals with questionable site tracking.
Anybody who whines about that should stop using the internet since Google, Altavista, etc all track you.
It is just ignorance. But ignorance never stopped the MS bashing.
Tim Smith
"Programmers are always surrounded by complexity; we can not avoid it... If our basic tool, the language in which we design and code our programs, is also complicated, the language itself becomes part of the problem rather that part of the solution."
Hoare - 1980 ACM Turing Award Lecture
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Tim Smith wrote:
Because it isn't true. Just a bunch of hype and poor understanding of MS using one firm that also deals with questionable site tracking.
Glad I am not the only one who thought that spy-ware claim was rubbish.
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What the deal is that the company MS uses for the "We can't find the site...." and the redirector links on that page is a known spyware company. It is unknown if they are actually tracking your redirection, but it is safe to assume they are.
If you don't want them to track you, then just don't click on the links on that "We can't find the site..." error page in IE.
But if someone doesn't like that tracking you, then they must hate that Google and etal do it too. If that is the case, then at least they are being consistent.
I use AD-Aware from Lavasoft. And yes this does pop up as spyware. But everybody who actually knows what is going on admit it is benign.
Tim Smith
"Programmers are always surrounded by complexity; we can not avoid it... If our basic tool, the language in which we design and code our programs, is also complicated, the language itself becomes part of the problem rather that part of the solution."
Hoare - 1980 ACM Turing Award Lecture
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George wrote:
(MS has a proven record of illegal spyware practices).
Well firstly even if that were true/accurate (I believe what Tim said below is accurate) then you might as well round up half the shareware companies in the world and throw many other big companies into jail for spy-ware.
And I asked for a reason that cannot be levelled at other companies. Your reason can be levelled at everybody from Real Networks to the GetRight boys to Opera to Netscape to AOL.
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Paul Watson wrote:
everybody from Real Networks
I agree in principle with what you're saying, but Real is a bad example. Real player is a virus, pure and simple. I will not run it on any of my computers.
And the answer is easy - install a firewall and provide those programs with permission on a case by case basis to see how often they 'phone home'.
Christian
Hey, at least Logo had, at it's inception, a mechanical turtle. VB has always lacked even that... - Shog9 04-09-2002
Cats, and most other animals apart from mad cows can write fully functional vb code. - Simon Walton - 6-Aug-2002
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"nor I need MS to track my usage patterns etc"
It's called marketing, end it's everywhere. Would you give up you driving privileges? - DMV's sell your personal info; would you reject a six-figure job offer because they ask you for your piss sample?
Welcome to America of the 21st century, my dear revolutionary. Amish don't use electricity - they think they live comfortably, do you?
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Paul Watson wrote:
So anyway, can everyone please list why they feel they shouldn't be using MS products? Are there valid reasons which do not apply to other companies?
The biggest problem is lock-in. In other words, often once you start using MS products, it's extremely difficult to move away. Too many proprietary file formats, network protocols, etc. MS works well with its own stuff (well, most of the time  ), but usually not well with other products.
This doesn't matter much if you are confindent that MS will always be the best, until the end of time, but if something better, faster, or cheaper comes along, you won't be able to take advantage of it without a big initial expense.
(Of course, I realize MS is not the only company that tries to lock customers into their products...)
There are three types of people in this world: those who can count, and those who can't.
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Navin wrote:
you won't be able to take advantage of it without a big initial expense.
This is true for every other vendor out there. Work with java and you are stuck with the appserver (overpriced might I add) with so many bells and whistles that you have to pay a consultant from the appserver company to install it, and even they can't get it installed right! 
I think the beef people have with MS boils down to jealousy.
ed
Every time I walk into a singles bar I can hear Mom's wise words: "Don't pick that up, you don't know where it's been!"
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Ed K wrote:
I think the beef people have with MS boils down to jealousy.
Thank you, exactly what I think.
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Paul Watson wrote:
I think the beef people have with MS boils down to jealousy.
Thank you, exactly what I think.
Not quite. My biggest beef is that they rarely follow the philosophy of "live and let live". In an idea world, you could always choose the best tool for the job at hand. Sometimes Microsoft tools are the best, and sometimes they aren't. Microsoft is making it more and more difficult to do any kind of combination like this - it is becoming an all-or-nothing choice.
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(oops, that wasn't really anonymous, that was my post but I forgot to log on.  )
There are three types of people in this world: those who can count, and those who can't.
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Anonymous wrote:
Microsoft is making it more and more difficult to do any kind of combination like this - it is becoming an all-or-nothing choice.
Huh? What are you talking about?
How are they locking me into an MS only toolset?
If what you said was true they would make VS.NET the only tool allowed to develop the .NET Framework with. But that is obviously not the case. I can use frikking Dreamweaver to do ASP.NET if I want and there are other choices out there.
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One thing in particular I am talking about is Windows filesharing. In NT 4.0 (and 9X, etc.), you could easily use Samba, which is a file sharing system that can run on other platforms (e.g., Linux.) With 2000, they tried to add more prorpietary stuff, and wrapped an end-user licence agreement around the necessary info. I think the Samba people figured it out anyway, but I am talking about stuff like that.
And what about Windows Media Player? Can you read a Windows Media stream with anything else? (I doubt it, but maybe I am wrong here and you can.)
Visual Studio really doesn't have those kind of problems, a C++ (or C# or VB) file is in text, and as you said I think you can develop for .NET with other platforms, so I am not taking about Visual Studio so much as other products.
There are three types of people in this world: those who can count, and those who can't.
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Whats wrong with microsoft is that all the the programs are closed source. A UNIX or a LINUX server and even workstation setup is entirely consisting of open-source.
The open-source allows you to modify it to your liking and also sharing modifications to further strengthon the security it provides provides;P
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????
Open Source?. You have to pay out the wazoo for the Solaris code, as I suspect you have to do the same for any other big *NIX vendor. Not to mention the NDA's required...
--
Russell Morris
"Have you gone mad Frink? Put down that science pole!"
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Anonymous wrote:
The open-source allows you to modify it to your liking and also sharing modifications to further strengthon the security it provides provides
Who has the time to fix and update somebody else's software. I barely have the time to do my own code. At least MS provides easy to use development tools for writing my own code.
Michael
Programming is great. First they pay you to introduce bugs into software. Then they pay you to remove them again.
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Anonymous wrote:
open-source
And then we could write different versions of all those tools to integrate with other tools each of a different version and then we could try and maintain all those versions, while keeping which platform the version matched and ...
I don't have time to rewrite the OS or teach my father-in-law how to use a command line to compile his OS...I'll stick with windows.
ed
Every time I walk into a singles bar I can hear Mom's wise words: "Don't pick that up, you don't know where it's been!"
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Hell, Apache can't even keep their own software working with each other.
PHP 4.2.2 with Apache 2.x?
Nope, doesn't work.
You have to pull the source out of the CSV and rebuilt.
Oh gee, thanks... Yeah, going to do that.
  
Tim Smith
"Programmers are always surrounded by complexity; we can not avoid it... If our basic tool, the language in which we design and code our programs, is also complicated, the language itself becomes part of the problem rather that part of the solution."
Hoare - 1980 ACM Turing Award Lecture
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Anonymous wrote:
Microsoft is making it more and more difficult to do any kind of combination like this - it is becoming an all-or-nothing choice.
I'm using Windows 2000 running VS 6 to talk to a Sun Solaris box running Oracle. Don't see much lock in to MS tools their. The only thing that makes me wish for more MS is the poor crap that Oracle supply for client tools.
Michael
Programming is great. First they pay you to introduce bugs into software. Then they pay you to remove them again.
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Michael P Butler wrote:
poor crap that Oracle supply for client tools
They went from good stuff to java...that should be a textbook example of why not to use java! 
ed
Every time I walk into a singles bar I can hear Mom's wise words: "Don't pick that up, you don't know where it's been!"
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Anonymous wrote:
any kind of combination like this
That is called a 'Marketing Plan'! And they do it very well...I agree that they try to inhibit the competition from integrating, but Ford doesn't make their engine compartments accomodate Chrysler engines either. They don't prohibit you from doing the customizations/integrations, but to make it part of their business plan???? I don't think so.
ed
Every time I walk into a singles bar I can hear Mom's wise words: "Don't pick that up, you don't know where it's been!"
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Navin wrote:
This doesn't matter much if you are confindent that MS will always be the best, until the end of time, but if something better, faster, or cheaper comes along, you won't be able to take advantage of it without a big initial expense.
(Of course, I realize MS is not the only company that tries to lock customers into their products...)
Even though you acknowledge knowing that MS are not the only ones practising it, I still boggle at the thought that you bring this up as a valid point against MS.
Should I stop using Adobe Photoshop because it outputs PSD files? What about Macromedia Flash? Man that is just evil stuff, I will go uninstall it right now!
Yes it would be nice if companies did not use proprietary file formats, but that is not going to happen for awhile.
This is what I keep asking: Are there valid reasons not to use MS which do not apply to other companies?
To me MS is just another company doing what every company strives to do, make profit. If you don't like what they do, use someone else, but don't make them out as the devil while everyone else is a saint, they aren't.
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Paul Watson wrote:
To me MS is just another company doing what every company strives to do, make profit. If you don't like what they do, use someone else, but don't make them out as the devil while everyone else is a saint, they aren't.
Interestingly, you yourself gave the best reason not to use MS right there - perhaps you simply don't like their tools. But that aside...
I never said "evil", "devil", or anything like that in my post. MY point was that MS often does use proprietary formats and protocols to lock in customers. And it is simply untrue that *all* vendors use proprietary formats. (Anything open-source, by definition, uses open formats. And even MS itself occasionally publishes its formats and protocols.)
Being too locked in to one vendor, whoever it may be, is almost always bad, for the reasons I stated before. For me, given a choice, I'll pick the vendor that is the most open unless there is a compelling reason not to.
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