The type of work that I do exposes me to many types of web technologies at many different organizations. This is purely anecdotal, but there is real interest in Silverlight among heavy users of Microsoft technologies. Adoption is very low right now, but there are quite a few shops testing the waters. And why not? If you don't care about multi-platform interoperability it's actually pretty nice. If I had to guess I'd say there are more shops like that out there than ones who develop platform-independent applications. I think this is a very bad idea, but these organizations are making a conscious decision to operate like this. They could just as easily choose to use platform-independent and open source tools, but they're not doing it. Microsoft isn't paying them all.
Because of software patents.
Microsoft isn't paying them all.
No, it is threatening them all if they don't pay. In the name of "innovation".
Did you completely miss the point I was trying to make? You and I may not like Microsoft products because of their proprietary nature, but there are plenty of customers making a conscious decision to use them despite this. In fact, quite a few of them probably choose Microsoft specifically because of this.
No, it is threatening them all if they don't pay. In the name of "innovation".
I don't even know where to start here. I'm going to completely overlook that "innovation" remark because your poor use of the English language makes it impossible for me to figure out what you're trying to say.
Do you realize that you've contradicted yourself here? First, you cite examples of Microsoft paying people off to use their software. Now they are threatening them if they don't pay? Which one is it?
If what you're getting at is all that BSA nonsense I'll bite on that. The companies that get bullied by Microsoft and the BSA have chosen to use Microsoft software. Many of them are using it illegally. Either way, that's something they have opened themselves up to by using Microsoft software. Do I think it sucks? Absolutely. That's why I choose my software carefully. Microsoft is not like the Mafia showing up at your door demanding money as soon as you set up shop. They are demanding money - whether right or wrong - from people already using their software.
Ten years ago your arguments would have held a lot more water. I may have even made those arguments myself. But things have changed considerably over the last several years. We have real alternatives to Microsoft software. In many cases we have acceptable interoperability between Microsoft products and their open source equivalents. The fact is you can get by in a mostly Windows world without ever touching a Microsoft product so I tend to think the primary cause of complaints like these is the stupidity of the people who still use software that doesn't fulfill their needs.
http://www.theserverside.com/news/thread.tss?thread_id=49451
http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD12xx/EW...
How "they" try to corrupt "us"
At my former university it was a firm principle of the informatics group that we would not teach our students how to use industrial products. The main reasons at the time were the quality of industrial products was never up to academic standards, and the market being as fickle as it is, the industrial product was of volatile significance only.
Later I learned how much the purposes of the University and those of industry can diverge. Universities, believe it or not, are interested in education, but I learned of industries that were not interested in education at all, neither in an educated work force, nor in an educated customer base. On the contrary, they preferred a docile, brainwashed work force and undemanding customers hooked on their products.
Another remark is that it is the task of a "leading University" to lead. In particular this means for us that we should give society not what it asks for, but what it needs. This issue is particularly acute for CS because their society asks for snake oil, for more of the same, though we all know that it hardly works.
The above was triggered by a letter we received from one of our colleagues. I quote from it - "MS" presumably stands for "Microsoft"- :
"We had a good meeting with MS representatives [...]. They were open to the possibility of giving us a significant number of graduate fellowships [...]. A key thing that MS wants in return is that our students have experience in programming in NT environments; they and other companies want such students. [...]"
Well, that was a revealing meeting! For the record I quote from the following paragraph of that letter:
"I believe a key to the MS support for our department will be clear evidence that we are using NT (or related software, e.g. CE). I need to collect information about your use of NT (or intended use of MS software) as part of our proposal."
Since I do not want MS to sue me, I won't tell you how much I appreciate their offer. You must guess. For more detail I refer to the communications of the Chairman of the Board of "Mathematics Inc.", as published in [0]. For dominance of the Universities, see EWD539 in particular.
[0] "Selected Writings on Computing: A Personal Perspective" by Edsger W.Dijkstra. Texts and Monographs in Computer Science, Springer-Verlag 1982 [ISBN: 0-387-90652-5]
Austin, 21 February 1999
prof. dr Edsger W. Dijkstra Department of Computer Sciences The University of Texas at Austin Austin, TX 78712-1188 USA