Why Apple is a better company than Microsoft

[Agathon]

You’ve changed my wording to win your argument.

And he's never done that before...

[Urban Ranger]

Apple Computer released 10 security fixes to address Mac OS X flaws that security experts described as "critical."

Meanwhile, all is quiet on the Western Front

[Asher]

Originally posted by Agathon
And he's never done that before...

I've already said several times that MS has used "undisclosed" APIs in their products. He's still on some mission to prove that is the case.

What isn't the case is that these APIs were anything important that meant anything to anyone except lawyers. I guess it's not fair to expect non-software engineers to understand that these "undisclosed" APIs aren't some magic beans that make your program more competitive, but they were unfinished or otherwise unsupported calls in the OS, like the early file open/save dialogs used in MS Office.

[Mr. Harley]

I do understand Asher. You are ignoring my point about all those companies, without access to those API's, that had stability problems with Windows. Are you saying they all had lousy programmers? As I've said, it is the totality, not each individual detail, that led to the lawsuits and the resulting judgements.

Both sides got to present their own expert witnesses. You do know the standards for those in the USA, they have to have a certain degree of credibility - Imran could explain the ins and outs of that. Now, are you telling me that Microsoft hired the least competent expert witnesses. I seriously doubt it.

Instead I can virtually guarantee you that Microsoft spent more money on the case than the government. They lost. They won the sanctions phase, which is proof about justice still going to the highest bidder in the US. And as I keep repeating - if the

...""undisclosed" APIs aren't some magic beans that make your program more competitive, but they were unfinished or otherwise unsupported calls in the OS...

then why did the MS programmers use them so often, unless of course they are lousy programmers using "unfinished" API's. Hold it, you say the Microsoft programmers are excellent, and state of the art, and that us poor code monkeys can never aspire to their degree of enlightenment.

[Asher]

then why did the MS programmers use them so often, unless of course they are lousy programmers using "unfinished" API's.

The guys developing MS Office don't know the ins and outs of Windows. They're given a sheet of APIs that are in the current Windows builds and they'll use them, and some of those APIs get the axe before the public release of Windows.

And I don't think they used them "so often" -- IIRC there are 16 cited uses of hidden APIs, out of literally millions of APIs used in, say, MS Office and Windows.

I'm telling you that I don't think Judge Penfield Jackson's opinion on a technical matter is worth anything at all. You can harp all you want about the expert witnesses, but the man who made the judgement is hardly an impartial observer -- which is why he was subsequently removed from the case.

Sorry, but in a technical discussion involving API usage, you cannot defer judgement onto lawyers and judges who were removed from the case for being biased. They know jack all about technology, usually, and in Penfield's case he had the added bonus of being a complete moron.

[Mr. Harley]

But Microsoft had their expert witnesses. What about all the books documenting "unpublished Windows" and those API's? There are many of them, and you still have not responded to my point about all the companies who have had problems programming for Windows without the same access to the undocumented API's.

In fact you make my point for me.

The guys developing MS Office don't know the ins and outs of Windows. They're given a sheet of APIs that are in the current Windows builds and they'll use them, and some of those APIs get the axe before the public release of Windows.

And when they do this, their product up until Windows XP was more stable and ran faster than both their competitors. So having access to the API's made a difference. Which is my point.

BTW - they are not millions of API's, just thousands of calls. However, it was not sixteen calls, it was 16 API's total, with the total number of uses not being documented in the DOJ reference. Now how many different API's are there total that MS Office used - that is a meaningful comparision. I forgot, exaggeration - "millions" - and distorting comparisons - total number of calls versus actual API's used - are part and parcel of any argument you cannot win on clearly technical grounds. Is it so hard to admit that Microsoft is a monopolistic, rat bastard company that uses its market position and the courts to get away with, well, extremely profitable business practices.

[Asher]

Originally posted by shawnmmcc
But Microsoft had their expert witnesses. What about all the books documenting "unpublished Windows" and those API's? There are many of them, and you still have not responded to my point about all the companies who have had problems programming for Windows without the same access to the undocumented API's.

In fact you make my point for me.

Look -- Netscape and Sun, the two chief plaintiffs in the case, are notoriously inept when it comes to software development. They don't know how to program well, period, and their constant whining about how the APIs supposedly made-or-break them is just sickeningly false. They need to learn how to use the resources available to them, and they need to go back to school and learn how to design a piece of software.

The guys developing MS Office don't know the ins and outs of Windows. They're given a sheet of APIs that are in the current Windows builds and they'll use them, and some of those APIs get the axe before the public release of Windows.

And when they do this, their product up until Windows XP was more stable and ran faster than both their competitors. So having access to the API's made a difference. Which is my point.

But again it's simply wrong. Members of MSDN (Microsoft Development Network) get early builds of Windows just like MS internal does. They get early builds of APIs just like MS internal does.

In fact, there's a new build of Windows Vista and it's APIs being shipped out to MSDN members monthly now.

BTW - they are not millions of API's, just thousands of calls. However, it was not sixteen calls, it was 16 API's total, with the total number of uses not being documented in the DOJ reference. Now how many different API's are there total that MS Office used - that is a meaningful comparision.

Considering that MS Word alone has 1,500 commands, and of course there are usually many APIs per command depending on the situation, not to mention all of the functionality in Excel -- it's kinda mindblowing.

In terms of unique APIs in Office/Windows, you're easily looking at tens of thousands. 16? Come on.

[Mr. Harley]

And their importance? I still offer my one compelling point - the list of companies "Netscape, Lotus, Wordperfect, Borland, Dr. Dos, Norton (until they signed their agreement with Microsoft, prior to that every new release of Microsoft caused Norton problems but not the Microsoft prodcuts),.." whose programs all had problems with Microsoft OS's. BTW - of course Microsoft has cleaned up their act - they won. Microsoft is not stupid, they use a tactic exactly as long as it is to their advantage, and exactly as long as the benefits outweigh the risks.

The difference between our arguments is that you argue it has only been Microsoft programming acumen that has given them their monopoly and dominance. My arguement is that is true, as long as you remove the "only", and add in an utterly brilliant and amoral business strategy that pushes the limit of the US legal system.

If you believe that is the only case they did this, look at the three legal decisions, and the contempt of court citiations, against Microsoft and it's treatment of so-called temporary employees. Note that your premise would make this completely disconnected to it's other actions, maybe even an isolated behavior. My premise, on the other hand, finds this behavior utterly consistant with company policies, or at least those company policies/culture as demonstrated by their actions. Whose model is working better now?

[Darkstar]

Fve Crathva is not a DL of Asher. He's an old hand rarely seen around here, but has been documented in pictures. He isn't a MS fan, unless he's converted in the last 6 months.

Ash, most of those "illegal advantage" APIs came about in two ways. One was, an OS guy got sent over to help out the Office group. As he wrote/maintained the code or called into it during his earlier work, he used it in his Office work. You know, you use what you know. Guess what? BAM! It is illegal for a "monopoly" to do that. The second was, him being a buddy of the OS group, he'd *ask* them if there was anyway to do a particular thing easily, and they'd cut him a new function. BAM! Illegal! said the court.

MS has stopped doing that... because when the OS group would close out that stuff, then their own products broke.

The knowledge of those secret APIs got out via the old style (by brain loss, hackers digging around, etc).

Now, that's the only way I can recall that security updates intentionally broke other people's products. Most of the time, when companies that claimed MS broke them, detailed studies showed that the company broke itself. Real comes to mind, for instance. (Real's CEO testified in the Anti-trust cases that most of its breakage came Microsoft targeting it and making its software break, when later detailed investigations revealed that Real knew they were broke, that they broke themselves, and that the CEO of Real was snowing his investors that the company's problem with its own software was due to MS's intentional evil, rather then the company's own lack of technical capability).

[Mr. Harley]

Thanks for the info on Fve Crathva, Darkstar. Your first example shows why there was a monopoly advantage in that there was not a firewall between the divisions. Not a problem normally, but it is a problem if you already have a monopoly and are sending one of the inside guys over to hlep out. That leverages the monopoly into other areas. Which is illegal under US law.

Second was getting help from the OS group to write in a new function to make the job easier for the Office guys. Again, not a problem except the favors are being done by the guys from the division with the de facto monopoly. Again, this is illegal.

Finally someone who understands that my problem is with Microsoft business practices, and the fact that the Office people were leveraging the OS Monopoly to their advantage. Without the Monopoly none of the practices would have been a problem. With it they became illegal.

And as I noted, and as Darkstar confirmed, they stopped doing it. First of all, they won. Second of all, to continue to do so could get them in deep sh*t with the EU, and they would get nasty once they had an excuse to f*ck another US company if by doing so they might create an opening for one of theirs. Microsoft understands that equation all to well.