Tag: microsoft

A closer look at Microsoft’s unethical business practices

A recent reader’s article on boycottnovell.com offers a very insightful look into the unethical side of Microsoft’s business.

The author, Roy Schestowitz, makes a number of very good points. In particular:

  • Microsoft abuses “guerilla” or “viral” advertising more than other companies, disguising recommendations as “impartial” when in reality they are anything but that. An unfortunate choice for a company that really should not need to resort to these tactics.
  • Microsoft combines products into “bundles” solely to squeeze out competing products. Examples abound: perhaps the best known is Windows 95, where MS-DOS was no longer available as a separate product. Another example is the inclusion of Web browser and media player software within Windows.
  • Microsoft abuses standards and in fact the entire standardization process to suit their needs. While this is not really explored in Roy’s article in detail, the most obvious example I can think of is the confusingly named Office Open XML format. Microsoft appears to have chosen this name to confuse on purpose as the first version of the OASIS OpenDocument standard (sometimes called ODF) was finalized about a year before.
  • Microsoft’s “partner” network is a sham, as the “partners” really aren’t partners in the truest sense of the word. In essence, the partnership arrangement is coercive; “partners” are agreeing to support and recommend Microsoft’s products exclusively and are threatened with loss of competitiveness if they want to back out.
  • Microsoft also refers to free software, and particularly the GPL, as “Communist” and “un-American.” This is a transparent smear tactic to anyone who is paying even the smallest amount of attention to Microsoft’s motives.

Microsoft, remote Xbox 360 bricking, trust, and individuality

While slightly old, I only recently stumbled across a Technologizer article that claims Microsoft can remotely disable (“brick”) an Xbox 360 console.

The chilling effect here should be obvious. And I have two points to note about this.

One, I am really glad I don’t do proprietary game consoles anymore. I miss them less as time goes on.

Two, it has long been my viewpoint that any time a company releases a gadget like this, not designed to run a free software operating system (in this case, quite obviously designed never to run anything not bearing Microsoft’s digital signature equivalent of the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval), it would greatly behoove one to treat the transaction as a rental, not a purchase. That is, when one buys an Xbox 360, one is renting that device from Microsoft for its useful life, for a flat rate, and one considers the device as actually being owned by Microsoft during this time. (Think of the “return” as being made to a recycling center. Even though one technically can sell the Xbox, it would still be wise to treat this more as the transferring of a rental contract than an actual sale, similar to what happens when one gets tired of the iPhone after a season’s worth of lousy service from AT&T and is no longer interested in paying the balance of the two-year contract.)

The Xbox is just an example here. It’s not just the Xbox, or just Microsoft; Apple’s iPhone and iPod would also qualify here, making the appropriate substitutions. As mentioned previously, I would also treat the Amazon Kindle in this fashion. There is unfortunately no neat place to draw a “line in the sand” here; some manufacturers are actually reasonable and do not resort to fascist tactics such as remotely disabling hardware on a whim.

The important thing to take away from all this: using a manufacturer’s hardware, especially when sold as a closed system, is trusting that manufacturer. When you use your Windows PC, play games on your Xbox 360, or use your Zune for playing music or video, you are trusting Microsoft. When you use your iMac or MacBook, or use your iPod for playing your music or video, you are trusting Apple. When you use your Kindle for reading e-books, you are trusting Amazon. The use of these devices and proprietary software are the transactions that define entrusting the companies behind them. There is no way around it. Not surprisingly, you find very few bloggers like myself willing to take the gloves off and expose misdeeds of companies like Microsoft and Apple.

I recently observed someone carrying an iPhone in her dress/shirt pocket, clearly displaying the Apple logo to the world, as if to show it off. (I don’t think she’s one of my readers, but she might be.) Now, I don’t always call people out for things like this in person. But here, where I don’t need to worry about making a scene, I feel I can safely say that I’m not sure what kind of fashion statement that’s supposed to make. Maybe it’s “I’m a sheep,” “I’m a lemming”, or “I have no individuality.” Or maybe even “I think the Apple logo looks so cool I’ll give them free advertising.” Perhaps, it’s “I still like Apple even though they sold Baby Shaker for a few days and censored the EFF application for no good reason.”

I don’t know. Maybe someone out there can explain it. That’s why I have a comment section. (And I’m not even requiring commenters to sign up for an Intense Debate account first.)

Microsoft vs. ODF: arrogance on display

I sure picked a great day to read Groklaw. The featured topic today is Microsoft’s attempt to make ODF look bad, using the time-honored FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) techniques.

This article refers back to another article highlighting the awful ODF support in Microsoft Office 2007.2 (aka 2007 SP2). which also quotes an article by Rob Weir. Even for Microsoft, this is pretty damned egregious:

The new entry to the mix is Microsoft Office 2007 SP2, which has added integrated ODF support. Unfortunately this support did not fare well in my tests. The problem appears to be how it treats spreadsheet formulas in ODF documents. When reading an ODF document, Excel SP2 silently strips out formulas. What is left is the last value that cell had, when previously saved.

Sheesh. I write only a minimal amount of software, but I do enough testing to catch First Class Foul-Ups like this. Continuing on:

This can cause subtle and not so subtle errors and data loss. […] In general, SP2 converts an ODF spreadsheet into a mere “table of numbers” and any calculation logic is lost.

In the other direction, when writing out spreadsheets in ODF format, Excel 2007 SP2 does include spreadsheet formulas but places them into an Excel namespace. This namespace is not what OpenOffice and other ODF applications use. It is not the ODF 1.2 namespace. It isn’t even the OOXML namespace. I have no idea what it is or what it means. Not every ODF application checks the namespace of formulas when loading documents, but the ones that do reject the SP2 documents altogether. And the ones that do not check the namespace try and fail to load a formula since it is syntactically different than what they expected. The applications essentially display a corrupted document that is shows neither the formula nor the value correctly.

In other words, instead of doing what the standard says, Microsoft makes up their own completely different thing and expects the rest of the world to play along and “fix” previously working (standards-compliant) software to interoperate.

Note to Microsoft: This is not how standards work. Frankly, if you don’t intend to support ODF properly, you may as well not support it at all. What your product writes isn’t ODF. When your product reads ODF, it silently discards important parts of the data. (Yes, the formulas in spreadsheets are important. That’s the whole purpose of a spreadsheet program! Otherwise we may as well be using pencil, paper, and calculators.)

The Groklaw article goes on to highlight the failure of Microsoft to properly implement password protection. I personally tend not to use format-specific encryption features in favor of more general solutions such as OpenPGP-compliant encryption, but this is important nonetheless, as (quoting Jomar Silva, as quoted in Groklaw):

I would really like to find a good technical explanation for this, since the encryption and password protection are fully specified in ODF 1.0/1.1 (item 17.3 of the specification), and they are using existing algorithms, very familiar to any developer.

The grizzled veterans of computing will remember Microsoft mucking up MS-DOS to not run Lotus 1-2-3 properly, crippling Windows 3.1 to crash under DR-DOS, and other similar sins. More recently Microsoft states in their end-user license agreement (EULA) for Office that the user is only licensed to run Office under a genuine copy of Microsoft Windows. That is, if you are running Office under Wine, ReactOS, or any similar Windows-compatible replacement code, you are in violation of the license agreement.

The Groklaw article goes on to reveal part of a Microsoft internal memo discovered during antitrust litigation:

Our mission is to establish Microsoft’s platforms as the de facto standards throughout the computer industry…. Working behind the scenes to orchestrate “independent” praise of our technology, and damnation of the enemy’s, is a key evangelism function during the Slog. “Independent” analyst’s report should be issued, praising your technology and damning the competitors (or ignoring them). “Independent” consultants should write columns and articles, give conference presentations and moderate stacked panels, all on our behalf (and setting them up as experts in the new technology, available for just $200/hour). “Independent” academic sources should be cultivated and quoted (and research money granted). “Independent” courseware providers should start profiting from their early involvement in our technology. Every possible source of leverage should be sought and turned to our advantage.

I have mentioned before the “stacked panel”. Panel discussions naturally favor alliances of relatively weak partners[…]. Thus we find ourselves outnumbered in almost every “naturally occurring” panel debate.

The key to stacking a panel is being able to choose the moderator. Most conference organizers allow the moderator to select [the] panel, so if you can pick the moderator, you win. […]you have to get the moderator to agree to having only “independent ISVs” on the panel. No one from Microsoft or any other formal backer of the competing technologies would be allowed -just ISVs who have to use this stuff in the “real world.” Sounds marvellously independent doesn’t it? In feet, it allows us to stack the panel with ISVs that back our cause. Thus, the “independent” panel ends up telling the audience that our technology beats the others hands down. Get the press to cover this panel, and you’ve got a major win on your hands.

This is the kind of marketing and publicity that gets people to say things like “damn marketers” and much nastier things I won’t repeat here. In short, this is Fraud. Yes, with a capital F.

My response to the author of this memo: If you find yourselves outnumbered because nobody backs your proprietary standard, doesn’t that alone tell you something? Nobody wants to be locked into what Microsoft says, at Microsoft’s prices, upgrading when Microsoft says it’s time. The rest of the world has spoken: they want their freedom. That’s why we have ODF, HTML, CSS, JPEG, PNG, Ogg, Vorbis, FLAC, Theora, Speex, the GNU operating system (commonly deployed as the GNU/Linux variant), and OpenBSD.

Were an individual software author to try this type of shenanigans, that author would be branded a sociopath, and rightfully so. Wake up and listen to the masses, Microsoft. Interoperability doesn’t mean “write it so only Microsoft products can read it.”

TNT: We don’t know multi-platform

I recently read an article in Jeff Balke’s blog about TNT’s online video. In a world increasingly moving away from a “one size fits all” model with regard to computer operating systems (not that such a model ever really applied to begin with), it is absurd to think that everyone will be running any given operating system.

Especially when that operating system is Microsoft Windows. TNT, you dropped the ball big time. This is 2009, not 1989 or 1994.

I’m sure someone will hack around what I’m sure is an absolutely blockheaded browser- or OS-sniffing script. My point is, however, we should not have to.

Hidden traps in the Windows 7 beta EULA

As reported in Ed Bott’s recent blog article, Microsoft is up to their usual nasty tricks with the license for the beta version of Windows 7.

Even though it is far from new, I find the prohibition on benchmarking particularly obnoxious. A company that truly believes they are releasing a superior version of an existing product should be able to accept a benchmark with a previous (and intended-to-soon-be-inferior) version as yet more feedback. But this isn’t just any company, this is Microsoft, and publishing a benchmark subjects you to immediately losing your privilege of running the Windows 7 beta.

Continuing in this same theme, Microsoft has specifically forbidden the use of the Windows 7 beta in a production environment. That, combined with the prohibition on benchmarking, suggests very strongly to me that this is just a pacifier for the people who really hate Windows Vista and Microsoft just wants people to casually kick the tires and rev the engine a little bit, not really test what new PCs will ship with this summer.

And of course, there’s the expiration date. On 2009 August 1, your Windows 7 beta chariot turns into a pumpkin. I suspect this can and will be defeated by some enterprising souls, but given the de facto corporate police state of Windows starting with XP with regard to validation and activation, it probably won’t be easy.

I’ve looked back enough, so I’ll wrap this up before I turn into a pillar of sand, or something.