Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: Anti-Microsoft sentiment

Author:David McCusker
Posted:9/15/2000; 2:00:40 PM
Topic:Debunking the OSS Bazaar?
Msg #:21359 (In response to 21356)
Prev/Next:21358 / 21360

Dave Winer: David, now that I feel that I've tackled the What is Open Source question, I'm looking for the next challenge.

Okay, and this is interesting to me since I've wondered what to do about the problem. I haven't said a whole lot about Microsoft before, and it's largely because it's complex, and not because I don't care.

Dave Winer: When you say: "I think anti-Microsoft sentiment is one of the few sentiments that nearly the entire computing industry agrees on" I'd like to double-click on this phrase: "anti-Microsoft sentiment".

That's a good focus. Anti-anything sentiments are typically corrosive and destructive. But it's hard to stop a Hatfield vs McCoys style blood feud. It's one of the reasons playing for blood is so taboo, because you can't stop it. Except maybe if you have a sacrificial Romeo and Juliet couple handy, or something.

Doc Searls has written before on the mixed metaphors used by competing folks, where some folks were sports based but others were war based. (Maybe someone will link Doc's piece.) The common consensus is that Microsoft was playing for blood, and this breaks the social contract that we don't play for keeps.

The social contract can be fixed, but it requires that the fixing become common knowledge (in the sense that Paul Snively described common knowledge to me recently). Everyone has to know the feud is over, and know that everyone knows it's over. This requires creeping up on it in steps.

It's possible to arrange that everyone meet in the same ideological frame of mind by having discussions just like this one, where folks discuss the status we want to target.

Dave Winer: I'm not in interested in knowing why people have anti-Microsoft sentiment, I just wonder if it could be expressed in words, what is it that they would want Microsoft to do differently?

I don't care about the causes for the sentiments either. I'm only interested in cooking up a set of memes that fixes whatever needs fixing. Everybody needs a new set of matching ideas, with individual variations for Microsoft and the rest of us. Does this require we describe the nature of the sentiment first? Maybe, if it characterizes what problems need correction.

It's perfectly right that we should state what we want Microsoft to do. This is what I want when someone criticizes me. I want to know what someone wants me to do. (Sometimes my wife tells me about something I did wrong, and all I can do then is ask, "What do you want me to do?")

Everyone thinks Microsoft might still play for blood, and they might be afraid to stop out of fear of retaliation. Of course, the retaliation aspect is something Microsoft has played up in it's official propaganda, when claiming it could be subverted any minute now (glancing nervously at a watch).

It would help if Microsoft took steps to increase the trust others in the industry might invest in them. But the absence of any contrition in the aftermath of the justice department trial has tended to subvert any appearance of trustworthiness. It's necessary to establish that one will be predictably honest in some contexts that affect folks from whom one wants trust.

Microsoft need not be contrite about being a monopoly (even though that would be easiest), but something must be done to establish a track record of honesty. This is a problem for them, and they should give it some serious attention. Lying all the time (except behind closed doors with trusted developers) is not going to work very well.

Okay, let me see if I can summarize some of the sentiment in few words. Note brevity can cause some distortion. All of the following points are reasons why the computing industry might continue to look negatively at Microsoft until these perceptions are addressed. I'm sure I've left some out, so don't treat this list as definitive.

Also, many of these are stated so strongly they might seem like exaggeration to some folks. (But to other folks, they might all sound on target.) In case anyone wonders, I largely agree with all these. However, I only voice them because Dave Winer asks, and I hope that doing so can be turned to a constructive purpose. Please don't whack me in retaliation.

Ugh, enumerating all this is making my brain numb. I might think of more later, but those are the first things that came to mind.

Dave Winer: I myself have mixed feelings about Microsoft. Based on publicly available info, and tea-leave reading, most of the time they went against other products I think the Microsoft products were better in some meaningful way to users. I competed against Microsoft a couple of times, and always felt they were a lot more fair to me than my other larger competitors were. I wonder sometimes if the people who are "anti-Microsoft" understand how cut-throat the software business really is.

Yes, many Microsoft products have been fine ones. And yes, the software business is really cut-throat. But even so, I think folks could manage a smile sometimes despite the cut-throat competition. It's the threat of annihilation that makes it hard to smile. The aggressive pursuit of such a goal is quite unnerving.

Dave Winer: I just wonder what the substance behind anti-Microsoft sentiment is.

I know Microsoft has many employees every bit as smart as me, and many others even smarter. And all of them have marching orders that say my place in the world is not useful to them unless I work for Microsoft. There is no sentiment of "the more the merrier." The game is played as if it is zero sum most of the time, when it most obviously is not.

Recently folks have talked about how unpleasant it is to be ignored. Even worse than this is to be hunted with prejudice.

There are responses to this message:

This page was archived on 6/13/2001; 4:56:42 PM.

© Copyright 1998-2001 UserLand Software, Inc.