Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2002 11:16:51 -0800 From: Johnson David <djohnson@acuson.com> To: Kris Kennaway <kris@obsecurity.org>, advocacy@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: [burnscharlesn@hotmail.com: Advocacy help for CS professor] Message-ID: <20020322191703.3E9D237B400@hub.freebsd.org> In-Reply-To: <20020322013138.A87120@xor.obsecurity.org> References: <20020322013138.A87120@xor.obsecurity.org>
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On Friday 22 March 2002 01:31 am, Kris Kennaway wrote: > - Microsoft has money, therefore can buy the best programmers, therefore > has the best products. Microsoft's money is irrelevant. Although it does mean that that can in general hire the best programmers, it does not mean that the best programmers will want to work for Microsoft. Microsoft has hired some damn good programmers, engineers and designers. But they don't have a monopoly on them. They don't even have the majority of them either. GM is bigger than Volkswagon, but that doesn't mean that Volkswagon has to settle for second rate engineers. > - Microsoft is very successful, therefore has the best products (though he > is not using the popularity alone as an argument as he does have extensive > knowledge of logic) Market success has little to do with who has the best products. As a former salesman, I know from intimate experience that business success has little to do with quality. I had more successful competitors with crappy products, and less successful competitors with high quality products. And believe it or not, as unfathomable as this may seem to your professor, what is the best product for one person is not always the best product for everyone. > - OSS programmers could not possibly be as good as Microsoft programmers, > because Microsoft sponsors such things as nat'l programming competitions > and hires the winners/hires the best of class from top universities, etc. What makes him think that the best of class want to work for Microsoft? I can think of a hundred reason for not working for Microsoft. Not everyone is motivated by money alone. Maybe they don't like the Redmond weather or housing prices. Maybe the area they want to work in doesn't have openings. Maybe they want to work in hardware instead of software. Maybe they want to work for Cisco or IBM, both of whom are much bigger than Microsoft, and more successful in their respective fields. Maybe they don't like big companies and want to work for a tiny ten person outfit. Who are the best ten programmers on Earth? Hard to say, and opinions will vary widely. But I would at least but Knuth and Stepanov in the list, neither of which work for Microsoft. > How to prove, though? I have pointed out that academics and contest > winners are different from people that naturally love to code, but he is in > a commercial mindset. If he is of a commercial mindset, then nothing will dissuade him. He probably thinks McDonald's makes the world's best hamburgers. Let him have his Windows and Big Macs. Having had to use this at work, I have found OE to be the worst email client I have every had the occasion to use. > but I really need more examples in which an OSS Unux product is superior. gcc versus Visual C++. Take out the user interface and Visual C++ sucks. In terms of C++ standards, Visual C++ is downright medieval. Actually, ANY C++ compiler will beat out Visual C++ once you take out the GUI. KDE versus that monstrosity known as the Windows Desktop. (I don't have much experience with Gnome, so I can't comment on it). I'm serious! I'm talking about just the desktop, not the underlying OS. As a desktop, Windows is horrible. The KDE panel runs rings about the Windows taskbar. Its window manager is sensible. It doesn't trash your file associations everytime you install a new program. Etc. Mozilla or Konqueror versus IExplorer. If all you judge by is the number of sites that says "best viewed with IExplorer", or the number of proprietary plugins, then the latter will win. But that only demonstrates the ubiquitousness of IExplorer, not its quality. But if you judge based on usability, adherence to standards, etc., then the former two are at least as good, if not better, than the Microsoft offering. David To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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