The Microsoft Tax That Can’t Be Beat

I think that Microsoft should have a “family” plan. Microsoft is the “bully”. The price is “fixed”. I am “told” what I can do with my “copy”. For three people in our household, I have 3 desktops and 2 laptops. Each of them have a separate license. That means I paid for 5 copies of Windows. I can only have 3 people using 3 computers at one time. What a waste of money. The hardware is cheap compared to the software you need to run it. “Don’t make copies”, well, if you don’t make backup copies and something happens, you have to buy “another” copy….

Is Microsoft a Villian? No - it’s just a business doing what businesses do best - making money. The problem we have now is that their 98% market share isn’t to do with people having a realistic choice when they buy a computer - it’s to do with business arrangements between Microsoft and the likes of Dell and HP. Where Microsoft got lucky is that they rode the wave, managed to keep those agreements in place, and got a large installed base of applications out there that will only run on Windows PCs.

Should programmers be allowed to look at and modify Microsoft code? Of course - if they then share those modifications back with everyone else.

Do the numbers - I don’t know how many programmers Microsoft has working on Windows, but it can’t be more than a few hundred, surely. If you open source your code, you have the services of tens of thousands of highly motivated programmers and testers - motivated to use their skills to fix the problems they are having.

As long as those solutions are shared, everyone benefits - this is the true power of open source software and the GPL.

I always liken this to the original CD Database - a free database that allowed you to look up the track details for a CD. If you’d sat down to make a business plan for it, you would have needed to employ a few people over a long period of time to type in all those details, plus you’d have to buy all the CDs. That would have been a lot of money, and you’d need to charge people to access the database to make the business plan work.

What actually happened is that they ‘open sourced’ the data in the database, so that anyone could use the data, but anyone could add data too. So if you stuck a CD in and the track details didn’t magically come from the database, you’d probably be motivated to add them in. A small amount of effort on the part of thousands of people around the world built that database for free.

So, you see, sharing things can be good and can offer a better business model for everyone - when you look at increasing value, you really need to consider increasing the value to everyone, rather than just the few who cornered the market, setup their stall, and acted as artificial gatekeepers.

> If you copy it to share with your friend, which is simple good-neighbourliness, they call you a “pirate”.

Are you kidding? How about if I screenscrape your website and use your content to generate traffic for my click farm? No? Why not? Is it because you worked hard to make your website good, and that I shouldn’t benefit from your hard work without giving you something in return?

Yeah, that’s it. As much as some geeks want everything to be open source and freely available, we all like to own things…especially things we created. MS invested a lot of time and money making stuff, and how DARE they suggest that “simple good-neighbourliness” is wrong!?!

Some people need to get a grip. If you want open source software that works as well as what MS offers, go find it…or invest and build it. Don’t expect a company that supports thousands of employees and their families to make it okay for your neighbor to get their product without paying for it. You wouldn’t do it, and they shouldn’t either.

Sheesh.

“Yeah, that’s it. As much as some geeks want everything to be open source and freely available, we all like to own things…especially things we created. MS invested a lot of time and money making stuff, and how DARE they suggest that “simple good-neighbourliness” is wrong!?!”

Microsoft indeed invested a lot of time and money. Unfortunately none of it was to really create anything… just to copycat, outright steal, or buy out the competition. Name me ONE DAMN THING you think Microsoft actually created, and I’ll name something that came earlier that did the exact same thing that Microsoft either copied, stole line for line from, or bought out entirely. Stop deluding yourself into thinking MS is a creative force. It isn’t.

“Some people need to get a grip. If you want open source software that works as well as what MS offers, go find it…or invest and build it. Don’t expect a company that supports thousands of employees and their families to make it okay for your neighbor to get their product without paying for it. You wouldn’t do it, and they shouldn’t either.”

I have found better open source software to every offering Microsoft has made. Windows? Linux. Office? OpenOffice.org DirectX? OpenGL + SDL. SQL Server> MySQL. IIS? Apache.

Get the hell off the Internet, Microsoft Shill.

Big words from someone named “Anonymous”.

You’ve obviously - and completely - missed the point. I’m not a Microsoft shill, but I recognize the fact that they, like thousands of other companies, have served computer users fairly well. It’s easy to complain about them, but their influence can’t be denied.

Bill Gates bought DOS…he didn’t create it. Once he bought it, however, he added value to it by expanding it with his own code. Had he not done that, our computers and programs probably wouldn’t be as good as they are…including Apple. Without competition, Apple probably wouldn’t have worked as hard as they have. Without MS, Apple would have gone under…did you know that Gates gave money to Apple to keep them afloat?

Nah. You probably didn’t know that. Bill Gates is obviously the devil with a pocket protector.

I’m typing this in my non-MS browser, by the way. At the moment I have three non-MS browsers open…as well as a non-MS file explorer, non-MS graphics program, non-MS FTP program, and non-MS text editor. I also have Outlook open, as it meets my needs.

Because Outlook meets my needs, I’m more than willing to pay for it. I haven’t sponged off a neighbor’s goodwill by asking him to commit a crime by copying it for me. Maybe you need some friends who are musicians or authors to teach you about copyright. It’s not there to protect massive oligarchs, it protects anyone who creates something of value.

Maybe you’ve never thought about it…is that because you’ve never created anything of value? Hmmmmmm.