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Re: Microsoft's "Destroy Borland" Story Returns

On Sep 27, 9:09 am, Hadron <hadronqu...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Matt <m...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> > Hadron wrote:
> >> Matt <m...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

> >>> Most code is non-portable.  Does that make you happy?   Maybe you

No, but it makes Bill Gates VERY HAPPY.  One of the main reasons
Microsoft went after Borland was because Borland was trying to provide
source code compatibility with UNIX for Windows.  Microsoft wanted all
code written for Windows to work on ONLY Windows.

Borland provided source code compatibility in C and C++, and binary
code compatibility with Java and JBuilder.

Borland even offered Kylix on both Windows and Linux.

All of this caused Bill Gates to focus a create deal more effort to
"Destroy Borland".

Microsoft also targeted Corel for the same reason, eventually getting
the CEO - who pushed for compatibility with Linux - fired.

Microsoft has not been able to shut down projects like Cygwin, but has
made deals with Red Hat that has stopped them from developing Cygwin
as a more robust alteranative to the Microsoft APIs.  You can run
Linux applications on Windows, but you can't get the full "Linux
Experience" with Cygwin.

> >>> would like to go back to the early 80's when programmers didn't even
> >>> use the DOS interface consistently.  They would go directly to the

Back when DOS programmers were still trying to use peeks and pokes and
jump into undocumented BASIC routines to do simple functions, UNIX had
a fully standardized interfaces for nearly every function, including
functionality that wouldn't be available from Microsoft until Windows
NT 4.0 or Windows 2000.

Microsoft **Could** have adopted the standards which had already been
established by BSD Unix, but opted to re-invent the wheel at every
level.  But they decided to make the wheels octagonal, because it was
"simpler".


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