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Ask HN: Why the Microsoft hate?

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Re: Ask HN: Why the Microsoft hate?

#241

Post by auctiontheory »

OrwellianChild wrote: post #200
auctiontheory wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are conflating two completely different properties of MS Office: (1) product functionality (e.g. macros) and ecosystem, and (2) proprietary file format lockin. I'm objecting to the latter, when it is a virtual monopoly, and I'm suggesting that the vast majority of Office sales are for the latter reason, not the former.

So, by extension, the vast majority of Photoshop sales are due to PSD lock-in? And the vast majority of Apple sales are due to iOS lock-in? I'm seeking a distinction here. If my statements about Adobe and Apple are not true, what makes Microsoft different?

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you're not trolling me; this has been widely discussed for years ...

Apple and Adobe do not have the segment market share that Microsoft does with Office. More importantly (to me), people buy Apple and Adobe products because they want to. People buy Microsoft Office because they have to. And they feel they have to not because Office has functionality that is so unsurpassed to help them get work done, but for one reason alone: file-format lock in.

As if, and again this is hardly original with me, a private company controlled the protocol to make phone calls and forced you to buy their (overpriced, crappy) phones to access the phone network.

Re: Ask HN: Why the Microsoft hate?

#242

Post by anoopelias »

"Hate the sin, but not the sinner".

It is important as a community that we keep an open view about the products that we see getting posted here. Microsoft might have made mistakes in the past and had produced lowly products.

But who knows, it is possible that the next best thing in the world may come from one of them - or for that matter, anybody. A prejudiced eye can only have a blurred vision.

Re: Ask HN: Why the Microsoft hate?

#243

Post by Natsu »

sillysaurus2 wrote: post #124
pg wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That article was not flagged off the frontpage. It set off the flamewar detector. As for recoiledsnake, that is one of many accounts created by a group or individual who is either an astroturfer or indistinguishable from one. Part of his/her/their m.o. is to talk constantly about there being an anti-Microsoft conspiracy on HN. Sometimes he/she/they would use multiple, separate accounts in the same thread.

Sometimes he/she/they would use multiple, separate accounts in the same thread. Is it possible they post from work, and hence share the same IP address with other HN posters? Microsoft is a big place.

While I can see how that would explain separate IPs, I do not see how it would explain separate accounts posting agreement with themselves and it would certainly create an appearance of sockpuppetry.

Re: Ask HN: Why the Microsoft hate?

#244

Post by lake99 »

CrankyPants wrote: post #220
fetbaffe wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, because Apple always follow standards and have open implementations.

WebKit? ALAC? On top of that, Apple's done more than any other single player (except perhaps Adobe!) to move the industry away from Flash, to open alternatives. No, they don't always follow standards or always have open implementations, but their garden is arguably quite a bit less walled than the one in Redmond. Which makes your point a little confusing, at best. Also related: http://www.apple.com/opensource/

KDE started the Webkit stuff. I don't quite get why Apple made ALAC (2004) when FLAC (2001) was already there.

> Also related: http://www.apple.com/opensource/

Also related: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/openness/default.aspx#project... and http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/

Re: Ask HN: Why the Microsoft hate?

#245

Post by seanmcdirmid »

jlgreco wrote: post #233
sliverstorm wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, if you are large-ish and organized, it provides an easy avenue to take down stories you don't like without the paper-trail of flagging...

Considering these flamewars typically involve at least one person who admits to being a Microsoft employee, I don't think that "false-flags flamewars" is something that we are seeing in practice.

Actually, the flamewar involved no one claiming to be an MS employee. I only commented after the submission was killed.

But feel free to believe anything that reinforces your existing beliefs.

Re: Ask HN: Why the Microsoft hate?

#246

Post by forgottenpaswrd »

jabits wrote: post #89
nikatwork wrote: post #16

I started my career working on VB apps, and ASP then ASP.NET websites, using a Windows dev box. After learning several OSS stacks, I have nothing but contempt for Microsoft technologies. I wouldn't say I hate MS - they are what they are - but I am certainly conditioned to be very suspicious of their offerings. I would never take a job working on a MS stack again, ever. I currently work for a large enterprise that use…

''The devs love it and it makes me happy.'' Not all devs. Microsoft tools have contributed to a long, successful, and enjoyable career for me, and I have yet to find an IDE as nice as VS (any contemporary version). The MS toolsets have been mostly good to work with, a few warts not withstanding. What OSS tools and IDEs are making your devs so happy, and making their jobs better than say, VS 2012? (serious question)

"What OSS tools and IDEs are making your devs so happy, and making their jobs better than say, VS 2012?"

You will believe that I am joking, but Vim, bash, git, grep, gdb, valgrind, llvm and lots of UNIX tools. We use IDA Pro a lot too.

Most of the people that work with me learned with Microsoft tools, myself included but we can't stand it anymore. Why? They are so powerless and limited, specially in the extension mechanism: extending it using your own tools, which basically do 90% of our work.

The main reason for that is that commercial companies can't let you do what you want, they can't let you do what you need like reading the system internals like with linux system utilities(Windows or Apple monopolizes access to it making amazing tools like Numega SoftIce dead) and even reading the source code.

We use VS 2012 and Xcode for compiling Windows and Mac versions of our software, that is mainly designed and tested in pure Unix.

Re: Ask HN: Why the Microsoft hate?

#247

Post by marze »

pg wrote: post #81
iamshs wrote: post #40

In that particular thread, I was accused of being a shill and an astroturfer by 3 members. All of the accusers had karma greater than 1500, and atleast two of them were on HN since at least 2 years. Why? Because I posted the spec list of the tablet. And I do not have allegiance to any of the tech companies at all, except having used their products one time or another. MS hate is vicious on here. I remember recoiledsn…

That article was not flagged off the frontpage. It set off the flamewar detector. As for recoiledsnake, that is one of many accounts created by a group or individual who is either an astroturfer or indistinguishable from one. Part of his/her/their m.o. is to talk constantly about there being an anti-Microsoft conspiracy on HN. Sometimes he/she/they would use multiple, separate accounts in the same thread.

Would you say you are catching 20%, 80%, or an unknown number of PR/shill type accounts on HN?

Given the size of the PR industry and the relatively low cost of posting on forums where influential people hang out I would think HN would be a tempting target, although it would have to be a sophisticated effort to go undetected.

Re: Ask HN: Why the Microsoft hate?

#248

Post by scott_karana »

curiousDog wrote: post #171
slaven wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well Google Chrome as of last year was based on Apple's open source Webkit so that's not quite true.

Webkit isn't Apple's open source. It was already open source when KDE started it.

KDE didn't start "WebKit" per se. Apple definitely deserves some credit for what they did, but you're right: Konqueror originated it all.

Re: Ask HN: Why the Microsoft hate?

#249

Post by tacoman »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #78
tacoman wrote: post #32

For me, it's kind of like sports. Why do you hate certain teams? I'm a 90's linux user so my hate for MS is self explanatory and these days mostly irrational. Recently I found myself working with a group of Microsoft employees and it's tough to "hate" them, their company or the really nice products they flaunt around (Surface, Windows Phones, etc). There are a lot things that continue to feed my dislike for the compa…

You don't have to love MS or upvote their articles, just not use the flag button to kill articles because you don't like them. I definitely empathize with much of what you are saying. But many of us are just average joes working for a big company with diverse interests. You might still want to interact with us because we know things and have interesting stories to tell. Even if you hate a certain team, would you real…

I work for a telco so I understand what it's like to work for a big unloved corporation. FWIW, the MSFT employees I work with are a great group of very talented and helpful people.

Re: Ask HN: Why the Microsoft hate?

#250

Post by redthrowaway »

pg wrote: post #81
iamshs wrote: post #40

In that particular thread, I was accused of being a shill and an astroturfer by 3 members. All of the accusers had karma greater than 1500, and atleast two of them were on HN since at least 2 years. Why? Because I posted the spec list of the tablet. And I do not have allegiance to any of the tech companies at all, except having used their products one time or another. MS hate is vicious on here. I remember recoiledsn…

That article was not flagged off the frontpage. It set off the flamewar detector. As for recoiledsnake, that is one of many accounts created by a group or individual who is either an astroturfer or indistinguishable from one. Part of his/her/their m.o. is to talk constantly about there being an anti-Microsoft conspiracy on HN. Sometimes he/she/they would use multiple, separate accounts in the same thread.

Speaking of the flamewar detector, I'm curious: what's the balance to be struck between discouraging flamewars (or encouraging civility) and discouraging groupthink? If certain topics are in effect verboten due to the types of discussions they tend to breed, does that not induce a sort of hivemind effect that reinforces prevailing views?

For example, if articles on Microsoft tend to get driven off the front page, while articles on Apple dominate it, that presents the appearance of the HN community being pro-Apple and anti-Microsoft, which affects the types of submissions and comments that are made, which affects the types of views people feel comfortable expressing, and eventually the types of people who choose to participate. The end result is that the community actually is more pro-Apple and anti-Microsoft, and the cycle intensifies until something close to homogeneity is reached.

As desirable as it is to discourage low-signal discussion threads, is there any thought given to the side effects of doing so?

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