On 2003.12.19 16:27 Dustin Puryear wrote: > A representative from Microsoft ... > ... Mr. Surkan is hoping to get some feedback from our > community. Let me remind everyone that people tend to listen more to > *constructive* and *professional* opinions. > >> Michael Surkan >> I would like to better understand what it is that makes Linux and Open >> Source solutions so useful for you.
What could be more professional than an honest opinion? Let's cut to the bottom line, Linux is Free. With apologies to the Wachowski brothers: *** Surrender your code and a new world awaits you. We demand it. *** You have no choice and the longer you wait the less useful that code will be to anyone. It is inconceivable that Microsoft can or will fix their problems and modernize their software and I doubt the purpose of your survey. Free and open software give users control and flexibility and this has led to rational design. Microsoft has intentionally co-mingled and broke their code to prevent others from competing commercially with them. The effort spent destroying Lotus, DRDOS, Netscape, and messing with Real, Apple, and even the GPL itself should have been spent on improvements to your own code. Your ongoing "knife the baby", "cut off the oxygen" competitive approach also casts doubt on your sincerity. How can anyone take seriously a call for help from a company that is giving tens of millions of dollars to SCO? You do not need my input to know what improvements are needed to your code. I will not give your marketing department a list of features that tempt the free user community back to slavery. Only immediate and radical philosophical changes from the leadership at Microsoft can save Microsoft from destruction. Free your users and your code and you might survive. Free and superior alternatives exist for every purpose your software has. Every new day your situation is exponentially worse. Attempts to lock the rest of the world out of commodity hardware through patents will fail and backfire. Free your code and you will be its masters by merit. Continue in isolation and your code will continue to flounder in stagnation. You are outnumbered and can only waste the efforts of talented programmers unless your free them. Welcome to the list, Surkan. No tricks, please. http://lists.essential.org/1998/am-info/msg01529.html
