Colin Watson wrote:
>
> On Wed, Oct 10, 2001 at 08:44:45PM -0700, Erik Steffl wrote:
> > Colin Watson wrote:
> > > On Wed, Oct 10, 2001 at 03:28:42PM -0700, Ben Hartshorne wrote:
> > > > And he does have a point. The anti-M$ sentiment has led to a number of
> > > > comments on this list that, were I thinking of transitioning to Linux,
> > > > would deter me from doing so because self-righteousness is rarely very
> > > > friendly.
> > >
> > > I couldn't agree more. Despite not having used a Microsoft product in
> > > any seriousness in years, the whole rabidly anti-Microsoft attitude
> > > really bugs me sometimes, and I shudder to think how it must look to
> >
> > perhaps you're forget what's it really like. I dare you to try some
> > and check your attitude:-))
>
> I do still encounter Microsoft products briefly from time to time, and
> personally I don't like them at all and feel a sense of relief when I
> can stop and use something else instead. All I'm saying is that I think
> the knee-jerk reactions are profoundly unproductive and foster in
> outsiders an unpleasant image of what I actually consider to be a very
> friendly community. Often the jokes get way out of hand - see almost any
> Slashdot flamewar, for example.
>
> Look at a lot of Linux (etc.) developers and you'll find they're quite
> professional about it; Linus said recently that he didn't much care
> about the relative merits of Linux and Windows, but that he just wants
> to make Linux even better than it is now. The best developers look at
> other systems and work out what they can learn from them, not where they
> can score the most points in a flamewar. For the most part, if they *do*
> resort to bashing Microsoft, it's with a certain amount of thought and
> evidence. At least that produces a useful discussion rather than a
> mud-slinging exercise.
>
> For the most part, the people who spend their time denigrating their
> competitors, smilies or not, aren't the people who really do the work.
>
> Sorry if this sounds like humourless preaching; it's just one of the
> things that bugs me on a regular basis, so I stopped finding it funny a
> while back.
you're right, my point was that given the nature of ms products it is
understandable that people go irrational when they have to work with
these... (juding by my own personal experience)
the problem is that you can hardly avoid them (e.g. when you want to
play games (or use some other software that runs on windows only and has
no equivalent on other platforms) or when your job requires it) - e.g. I
do all the development at my job (currently) under solaris but still
have to use exchange for email, word for docs etc. (and there is no
replacement for exchange because: they don't have pop3 server, we use
calendar etc.). One could find a ms free job but there's not many of
them (so not everybody can do it).
but as I said, you're right, we shouldn't get childish on them because
there's no sense in doing it and we just damage our image (we = ms
nashers who use cheap shots) [I used 'we' but I really mean 'them' :-) ]
erik
