"Roy Schestowitz" <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:2447979.e8TjbcLbb3@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
And yet you seem to have no problem citing Motley Fool when they
cricize
Microsoft or SCOX or support Linux:
Motley Fool on Hated Stocks (Microsoft Included)
http://groups.google.ca/group/comp.os.linux.advocacy/msg/cb0296416ddd7cfd
^ That's finance
Motley Fools Calls Microsoft "Dead Money"
http://groups.google.ca/group/comp.os.linux.advocacy/msg/f6de113d8f419494
^ That's finance
Motley Fool Not Impressed by Microsoft
http://groups.google.ca/group/comp.os.linux.advocacy/msg/5770310d395a4dcb
^ That's finance
On the Linux-IBM Friendship
http://groups.google.ca/group/comp.os.linux.advocacy/msg/ea423532d05bb7e9
^ That's finance
Motley Fool Confirms that SCOX is Doomed
http://groups.google.ca/group/comp.os.linux.advocacy/msg/360914552ba3d1b6
^ That's finance
Right, they're all finance, which as I mention later on in my post seems
to be very offtopic here. Even if we accept Microsoft bashing as a form of
Linux advocacy, I thought we'd at least limit the Microsoft bashing to
technical flaws in the OS or business decisions that promote lock-in... not
how well their stocks are doing! Consider how absurd this sounds: "MSFT went
down. That's reason enough for me to reformat my computer and install
Linux!"
I don't particularly care much for the "financial perspective". The
fact
that Microsoft's stock went down is not particularly interesting to me.
And
this disinterest has nothing to do with Microsoft: If you told me
Redhat's
stock went down, I'd be equally uninterested (does Redhat even trade
stocks
on the public market? I have no idea. That's how little I care about the
financial perspective).
However, this article Larry brought up IS interesting to me. It
doesn't
mention anything about stocks. Instead, it's about how Microsoft is being
put into a very unfair position. It's being forbidden by law to bundle
applications with their OS, and then being criticized for not bundling
applications with their OS. While Microsoft-sympathizing may be off topic
in a Linux advocacy group, it's certainly more on topic than reports on
how
MSFT is doing on the stock market this evening.
If you check that critique of a writer who said Microsoft has "virtues",
you
will realise that Microsoft was assessed in a supposedly technical way
that
analyses its behaviour and ethics. But the author hasn't a clue. He sees
Microsoft as MSFT -- a stock.
I saw your post on that, and when I went to the link, I saw the
critiques, but not the original article being criticized. Since I only heard
"one side" of the story, I withheld forming judgement on the matter. That
said, I didn't like the writer's response of "Okay, you guys are right that
I'm wrong about Microsoft, but I stand by my opinion anyway."
And /that's/ why I don't accept Motley Fool's
take on Microsoft's history of stifling competition, among other
wrongdoing.
There are three problems with your line of reasoning:
First, Motley disapproves of MSFT as a stock. That's evident from all
the financial articles you've posted. So if Motley were blinded by their own
financial analysis, they'd be disapproving of Microsoft itself.
Second, in the article Larry posted, Motley is not discussing
Microsoft's behaviour at all. They are discussing other people's behaviour
towards Microsoft. Namely, the EU and the press. So it's impossible for
Motley to distort or lie about Microsoft's history of stifling competition,
because they're not talking about Microsoft's history at all. They're
talking about the EU and the press's behaviour towards Microsoft over the
last month or so.
Third, you don't actually need to know anything about operating systems
or how they work to understand Motley's two main points. The first main
point is that people are asking for features in Windows, but the EU is
forbidding them from adding them. If you went to an amish farmer, who had
never seen a computer before, and never heard of "Microsoft", "Windows" or
"EU", they'd still understand the gist behind the statement "people are
asking for features in Windows, but the EU is forbidding them from adding
them." The other main point is that when IE has flaws, it gets a lot of
coverage, but when Firefox gets flaws, it's ignored by the media. Again, you
don't even need to know what "IE" or "Firefox" is to understand what the
statement basically means.
I see the same miscomprehension among family that is merely a user of
Microsoft Windows. Just because it's there before you doesn't mean it got
there owing to so-called "virtues".
I don't think anyone in this thread thus far has implied that Windows'
position is due to so-called "virtues". In fact, I don't think anyone in
this thread has thus far said ANYTHING about Window's position. The topic of
this thread is the EU's and the press' treatement of Microsoft itself, the
company. It doesn't really address Windows itself except to mention that the
EU ruling is about Windows.
- Oliver
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