{"id":119,"date":"2005-02-23T11:34:55","date_gmt":"2005-02-23T11:34:55","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2005-02-23T11:34:55","modified_gmt":"2005-02-23T11:34:55","slug":"microsoft-aka-the-evil-empire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/2005\/02\/23\/microsoft-aka-the-evil-empire\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft (AKA the Evil Empire)"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have never been a Microsoft (M$) hater; I made plenty of money in the early stages of my career writing applications for Windows, so I am normally fairly reserved when it comes to attacks on M$. But not this time; it is just getting too much to stomach.<\/p>\n

So why do many IT folks hate the evil empire? Because of the stupid stuff that M$ does to stifle creativity, and hinder competition. Their unfair practices are fairly well documented so I am not going to go ranting this morning on the subject.<\/p>\n

Now M$ has tried to patent IsNot<\/a> (as an \u201cis not\u201d operator) in \u201cBASIC like\u201d languages. Many of the readers here may not care, but for those that do, keep your fingers crossed that the patent is denied.<\/p>\n

M$ is also at it again trying to \u201cstick\u201d it to the competition by including \u201cspecial\u201d code that prevents Windows applications running under Wine<\/a> from receiving updates. For those that do not know, Wine is a great application that allows Windows applications to run on top of Linux systems. M$ claims that it is trying to prevent software piracy by not allowing illegal software to receive updates, but alas, as usual M$ is not being truthful with consumers. Apparently, there is a specific module of code that checks to see if users are running Wine. If they are, too bad, so sad, no updates for you! It does not matter if all your software is perfectly legal; Wine and Windows updates apparently will no longer mix.<\/p>\n

M$ has to make money; I understand that, but it does not mean that I have to like their tactics.<\/p>\n

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