From: sichermn@csulb.edu (Jeff Sicherman)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: FCC will proclaim Microsoft is run by Communists! :)
Date: 24 Dec 92 07:40:00 GMT
Organization: Cal State Long Beach

In article <1992Dec23.144151.29932@tc.cornell.edu> bai@msiadmin.cit.cornell.edu (Dov Bai-MSI Visitor) writes:
>In article <BzoytD.H4p@csulb.edu> sichermn@csulb.edu (Jeff Sicherman) writes:
>
>>   Instead of all this the 'sky will fall' rhetoric, please explain how
>>Microsoft will be so disasterously hobbled if its applications divisions
>>are required to be and operate separately from its operating environments
>>(OS, WIndows) ones. According to the word from g., they already do so,
>>therefore one must conclude there will be no negative effects.
>
>What you fail to understand is the psychology and actions of some 
>entrepreneurs. If you want to have successful entrepreneurs you have
>to look at what drives them. Otherwise, they may just disappear. Maybe
>you are not bothered by this, but many people do.

  Oh, I think there will still be plenty of opportunities for Billy boy if 
he works at it. However, it may put a crimp in his megalomania. And I fail
to see why we have to tailor the marketplace for the most extreme desires
of entreprenuers if that results in being to corruption of the market and
the detriment of consumers.

>
>BG is not doing these things because he does not have enough money
>for living. He does it because for him it is a game that _involves_
>money. It is fun for him to develop new software. But to play
>a game and enjoy it, you must have some fixed set of rules. Otherwise,
>even playing chess would not be fun. 

  The rules are there and long established and well documented. (Bill
could learn a few things about documented rules himself.) All he has
to do is follow them.
  
>
>From a programmer's point of view there is no real separation between 
>applications & system software. Almost every application involve
>some interaction with the system or system calls. This separation 
>exists only in the mind of the FTC. Now, when entrepreneurs start
>the game, they usually have some long-term goals. They dont know 
>ahead of time that some government committee is going to enter into
>the picture later on and arbitrarily change the rules. If that
>occurs too much in new areas they will simply not start to play 
>the game. 

  Apparently you have developed a new philosophy of applications
programming that I have not seen in my 20+ years of it. The best
applications programming involves adhereing to the well defined
interface supplied by the O/S and not mucking about with and/or in
undocumented areas or the internals. This results in stable programs
that can be ported to future versions of the O/S (assuming the O/S
people follow their own rules) without trauma. That is what most of
us are expected to do and advised to do by the Redmond gang. However,
they seem to have some difficulty in following their own advice and
keeping their noses out of 'unofficial' (read: not disseminated)
information that happens to just be floating around there. When caught
in this hipocrasy, they offer a lame excuse like: well, we didn't
really get any advantage out of it.




-- 
Jeff Sicherman
up the net without a .sig
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