Office 2007 UI License 281
MikeWeller writes, "Microsoft has recently announced a new licensing program for the Office 2007 user interface. This page links to the license and an MSDN Channel9 interview about the program (featuring a lawyer). The program 'allows virtually anyone to obtain a royalty-free license to use the new Office UI in a software product. There's only one limitation: if you are building a program which directly competes with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, or Access (the Microsoft applications with the new UI), you can't obtain the royalty-free license.' What does this mean for OpenOffice? Will traditional menus/toolbars hold up to an ever-increasing number of features, or will OO be forced to take on a new UI paradigm? With the gap between OO and MS Office widening, how is this going to affect users trying to move between the two platforms?" You need to sign the license before you can get the 120-page UI implementation guidelines, which are confidential.
Fair enough (Score:2, Insightful)
so, what this seems to say (Score:5, Insightful)
So, what this seems to say: Microsoft will allow anybody and everybody to plant their seed (the ribbon UI), to start the viral/grassroots campaign to their way of doing things. Unless and until it conflicts with their existing products.
It's royalty free... translation: Microsoft gets a free ad campaign. But for those who may not be familiar with the company Microsoft, Microsoft is not likely to be friendly about anyone using their UI on any product down the road they decide should be protected.
So are these the dying rattle breaths of a behemoth unable to compete today? Or is it one more salvo (consider Ballmer and his innuendo about Microsoft's Novell-Linux pact) in a war to control even more tightly the computing business world?
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:so, what this seems to say (Score:4, Insightful)
Couldn't have said it better myself. This is Microsoft's way of trying to get a 'unique new interface' rolled out as rapidly as possible. If you're not using this 'unique new interface' then you know you're behind the time - hell, knowing Microsoft products, it also means you're probably about to be EOL [microsoft.com]'d!
"Dude, You're still using XP with those crappy flat menus.... wow..."
I genuinely hope that the public don't buy this latest round of Msft. bullsh-t, Office 2003 is still perfectly capable, why should users be forced to upgrade?
*sigh*
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
three letters: XML [microsoft.com]. have you ever tried to generate an excel document with charts without using an office object? can't really be done in a secure (read: won't potentially crash your IIS box) manner due to needing office installed. in an environment where reports (excel, ppt, word) are generated by a site this is priceless.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Being someone who develops a product that is heavily integrated into Office wherever possible (because our customers demand it) I could actually see using some of these components. I know there's a lot of MS hate, but Office 2007's UI will become known - sooner or later - and riding their giant monopolistic wave to success isn't bad business.
It m
Pure marketing without meat (Score:3, Insightful)
So if you are doing word processing, document editing, email, calendars, diagramming, data storage/database, reporting, presentations, or anything else useful for end-users, there is no royalty-free option.
If you are doing a Mickey Mouse IM, media player, or something else that can't generate revenue due to widespr
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
This whole concept got me thinking about UI history overall. Let's take a romp through history of some of the UI advancements over the decades:
Function Labels
Old-school "green screen" standards such as IBM's user interface guidelines included the use of label displays for function keys (where supported by hardware), standardization of keystroke actions such as "ALT-F4" closing a window, and recommendations for font highlighting to indicate mandatory/optional data, read/write access, primary keys, etc.
Re:so, what this seems to say (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Why face competition when you can stifle it? Saying you can make GUIs which look just like ours unless you compete with us gets their paradigm adopted but ensures they don't have to compete with another product which ahs incorporated their (ugly) GUI changes.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
have to say that I'm not allowed to do that? I would argue, none at all."
And you would probably be the winner of that lawsuit.
A good example of this is when Jeep sued GM based on GM copying the grill used in the Jeep Cherokee for the Hummer H2.
Jeep lost that lawsuit. The Hummer H2 sold great. Now Jeep has an SUV that looks a LOT like a mini Hummer.
The moral of the story
Re:so, what this seems to say (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:so, what this seems to say (Score:5, Interesting)
That said, I've asked folks at MS several times at conferences about the switch, and they all give a similar answer. Their research indicates that users overwhelmingly prefer the new UI over the old menu-driven approach.
It's a gutsy move, but they're sure it'll be a welcome one.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The transition from 2003 to 2007 is probably an initial five minutes to look around the ribbon
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
This would seem to be an attempt to keep other office programs from using any new UI candy present in Vista. Nothing more, nothing less.
I't won't matter because when people start 'working' they are not concerned about how pretty the UI is but how well things work. MS Word for one is a terrible program perf
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
I remember using Word and Excel 4 in Windows, and no, the UI was not that different at all. This seems like a case of "We've got this flashy new OS, but we have no functional changes for Office... how can we justify releasing a new version?"
Kind of like when they released a tremendous overhaul of Windows NT (Windows 2000) for business, but had nothing new for home users. The result: Windows Me. If that's a valid para
Re:so, what this seems to say (Score:4, Interesting)
Today there are lots of inexperienced computer users who still manage to:
- Use windows.
- Use a browser.
- Use an IM client.
- Use an email client or webmail site.
- Use some social network site, like the complete UI mess that is MySpace, or blogs, photologs, etc.
- Use a p2p client
Just with that basic usage they're exposed to a ton of different widgets, metaphors and procedures Even users who call the little blue icon with the 'e' "The Internet".So, sure... some people will feel lost at first, but I think a complete UI overhaul is much manageable now than it was before the coming of the net.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Windows 3.1 was 16-bit. I don't think they're lazy enough to thunk their own OS tools through wowexec. I'm going to need a source for that. I mean, I read somewhere that Steve Ballmer is the mortal enemy of chairs and underarm deodorant. That sounds a lot more plausible.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:so, what this seems to say (Score:5, Insightful)
It's kind of stupid to offer development tools and then restrict developers, especially if you're interested in convincing people that you're not using your monopoly improperly. It looks bad. But I gotta ask, why on Earth should open source developers care?
Do you want to be in Microsoft's shadow? Are you an "almost as good" substitute for MS, or are you actually better? Do you have origional ideas?
AMD didn't get where it is now by continuing to copy Intel. It got here by at some point realizing it could do better. Intel ended up following them. If you want to look, act and be just like Microsoft, then you should be upset over this. If you want to look and act like something better, then this is just a good reminder that that is your goal.
TW
Re: (Score:2)
The problem with this is Microsoft have a huge budget and endless resources to develop these new ideas. On the flip side, while the "open source community" can probably outdo Microsoft in terms of developer numbers, there is no effectve way of mobilising that "workforce" towards a common goal. Even Sun has been unable to create a usable GUI for Openoffice. It sucks
Re: (Score:2)
Hold it, it depends on what you're familiar with. I for one get the strong urge to smack my head against the monitor every time I work (about two hours per year) with MS Office. However, I'm very comfortable working with OpenOffice. And having to click the arrow in MS Office everytime I want to access a menu item I haven't used in the last 2 minutes is the worst invention -ever-.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm in total agreement there. The first thing I do is turn that off. That's what options and preferences are for. My colleague however thinks it's very useful. He thinks you need to be a regular user of Office to get the "benefit" of it, and like you, I'm not.
My main grumble about OpenOffice is the godawful widget set they've created. If they switch to either Gtk or Qt
Re:so, what this seems to say (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not so sure it's as bad as all that. For example, look at the OOo 2.0 icons. They look great. I know an icon is barely a UI element, much less a whole UI, but you know a a regular ol' programer didn't do that. It took someone with more than a little artistic talent to pull that off.
For that matter, look at the visual elements in major Linux distros over the last few years. Visual quality and consistency have improved dramatically across the board. Some areas are still rough, but if you've ever looked at the mess that's in most Microsoft "options" menus, you know theyr'e not alone.
I have to admit that I've been lulled into looking for the next clone of an MS feature. When they put the format painter in OO.o 2 I was very pleased. But it's not the clone features that get me comming back to open source. It's the things that only those products offer.
Wasn't it tabs. popup blocking and the small footprint that got you hooked on Firefox? MS didn't have 'em. I know I like being able to have more than one true window in OO.o spreadsheet. The guys in Redmond make me use a single window.
Now microsoft is following Firefox's lead on tabs. They're actually following open source. Tabs are a UI element. Clearly OS has some ability to lead.
BTW, I agree with you. Microsoft has some very bright people who often do a great job at making thier UIs work for you. Sometimes they don't. Often, even if they do, they take their good, sweet time to get there. The OS community can bang out an improvement almost at the speed of thought, and then ramp up evolutionary improvements in short months, or even weeks. I think that if it's a priority for OS to lead, MS is going to have no choice but to follow. I also think if we simply follow, we'll never be given the opportunity to lead.
TW
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
On the other hand, the strong implication in this is that Microsoft has defensible intellectual property underlying the Office 2007 UI. It wouldn't surprise me to find that
Correct me if I'm wrong. (Score:2)
Besides, To me, it looks like the Ribbon interface is merely horizontal menus instead of vertical menus, based on the couple of screenshots I've seen of it. Whooptie-flippin'-doo!
Are you delusional? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sorry, but your flair for the dramatic is a little much, even by slashdot standards.
"dying rattle breaths?" "unable to compete?"
Please. Aside from the notorious cash reserves, they're still making profits hand over fist.
When they start posting red ink, then we'll talk, but I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you...
Re: (Score:2)
I think the Microsoft is in a similar situation. Profits look good now and they are in a monopoly position in many business areas but you can see that they aren't m
Re: (Score:2)
So what? It's a good thing for developers and users. I wrote a custom app for my business using VB6 to manage some middleware piece. It works fine. I needed a web browser integrated into it to do a few things. I could use IE, which involved dragging an icon into my application, or I could use Firefox which involved... actually, I have no idea how I would do
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Ingenuity (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
For developers creating Windows products, this is a great license to obtain. I re
Re: (Score:2)
The key word (Score:2)
The key word is "their", as in it just states that competitors can't use THEIR Ribbon interface.
Ingenuity? (Score:2, Interesting)
The words "Microsoft" and "ingenuity" hardly belong in the same sentence. Considering the billions they allegedly spend on R&D, and I personally don't believe they really spend that much, you'd think they could deliver a better, more reliable product. MSFT has purchased its most innovative products. They haven't developed anything internally that's a home run product in nearly a decade. Their market position is more the result of file formats and OEM agreements than any creative development. They're
Re: (Score:2)
It depends on how you measure fitness.
I think the courts have made it pretty clear (Score:5, Interesting)
This is just a clear threat to competitors that they're going to be spending millions defending frivolous law suits. Interesting that Microsoft have decided that their business model is now to sue competitors.
Re:I think the courts have made it pretty clear (Score:5, Interesting)
Basically what this says is, IF you download the document, you CAN'T implement the UI unless MS sign off on your implementation. But if you ignore this propagandist nonsense, you can implement any UI you like including a poorly implemented version of the Ribbon UI.
Jeez. Wake me up when it's in the Win32 API.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This isn't about (AFAICT, and I'm not clicking through their legal stuff from work) "copying", it's about the licensing terms for their library. Which, for the benefit of the "dying rattle breaths of a behemoth unable to compete today" guy, are the same terms they've always used.
Re:I think the courts have made it pretty clear (Score:5, Informative)
From the announcement:
"For those that want to build their own UI that takes advantage of our design guidelines, they will need a license."
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That's interesting legal advice. I'm pretty sure the courts in every major jurisdiction where this has come up have clearly disagreed.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps it is, but surely that applies only if another party has entered into that contract. AFAICS, there is nothing to stop anyone from just observing what Microsoft applications do, and coding a user interface that works similarly without the help of MS's guidelines.
The Gap (Score:3, Insightful)
Well this is an interesting statement full of subjective possibility. I could probably argue a half dozen different interpretations.
The myth of Windows GUI consistency. (Score:2, Insightful)
Windows has just as little GUI consistency as X. This new Office interface totally deviates from anything they've done in the past. The IE7 interface is completely different, as well. It used to just b
Re: (Score:2)
Thus maybe at some time we get to a situation where Linux interfaces are actually more consistent than Windows interfaces!
Re:The myth of Windows GUI consistency. (Score:5, Informative)
But MS violate their own standards by creating custom widgets for Office and IE. This is something widely criticized by UI designers.
However, usually the WinAPI widgets are the core of Windows GUIs (tweaked buttons, menus
However, nowadays GTK and Qt have little custom quirks of this sort. Their differences are mostly optical (but it is a visual inconsistency when 90% of all apps are Qt/KDE-based and only one program uses GTK). However, the presence of two major TKs is a problem because distros tend to choose only one of these two. In this case you end up with a dependency that may be big enough to turn users and more importantly distro makers away (like "oh no, my system is purely GTK-based, I dont want Qt anywhere").
Re: (Score:2)
How about you show me a way to have MS Word, IE7, MS Antispyware, the Add/Remove Programs panel and the rest of windows all LOOK THE FUCKING SAME.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
So what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course I didn't RTFA, but considering that OO.o is a) multiplatform, b) open source, and c) doing fine as it is, I'd imagine the folks at OO.o will be filing this under D for Don't Give A Shit.
Seriously - would you lose any sleep because MS won't give you a new toy? Even if OO.o wanted it, and even if MS gave them it, they probably couldn't use it because it'll probably be Vista- (or at least Windows-)only.
And seeing as most critics have slammed the new MS Office UI as being generally awful, it's not beyond the realms of possibility that OO.o's similarity to the "old" MS Office UI might pick them up a few users.
C
Re: (Score:2)
I agree from the perspective that I am sure nobody will *rush* to implement the new interface design on its products. I was pissed off when I downloaded the new Messenger from microsoft which had the menu bar hidden (you could enable it but meh!).
Also, just 2 days ago a flatmate who is VERY computer illiterate asked me to help her making Adobe documents appear in the Firefox Window. I was surprised she said "Firefox Window" and as she explained me she downloaded firefox because after a
Re: (Score:2)
Tell your flatmate that she can go into MS Word, go to the File menu, choose Open, type the URL she wants directly into the textbox, and press enter. This will load the webpage into Word in the same fashion as she would expect if she clicked the Word button in IE.
Cheers,
aaron
Compatibility (Score:4, Insightful)
Office for the most part has had a good UI. It has served people well over the years with millions of people getting used to it and being productive with it. Copying the interface and features of Office is a good way to get people to switch (Hey, it's free and it does the same thing, cool!).
But in the end I think all this "we can do that too" mentality ends up stifling free software. While I applaud the efforts of OO and am grateful for it's inclusion in modern distros I would also love to see them wake up one day and deceide they were going to take a "and now for something completely different" approach. Forget chasing the MS UI. Come up with your own, or stick to the one that's in there already and work on optimizing OO's use of resources. Create more filters for different file formats. Expand on the scripting capabilities to make OO a better tool for office automation. The UI is fine the way it is! Tweak it, yeah, but redo it to make it look like MS every few years? Screw that!
I understand why they do it but watching the OO team spend the next few years implementing knock offs of ribbons only to see these supplanted by some new inane concept in Office 2010 just seems like a waste to me.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Of the 500 or so users who work for my customers, only two individuals use any of the "advanced" features of Office. And both of these only use Mail Merge to create mass mailings. Hard
Re: (Score:2)
I think perhaps it's you who doesn't understand. Most people don't pay $400 for MS Office. Businesses typically have volume licensing agreements that work out far cheaper. Those home users who have legal copies generally get one of the cut-down versions (possibly just Word) thrown in as part of a bundle with a new PC, just like Windows, and don't notice the cost because it's a relatively small part of a mu
Re: (Score:2)
Most of my customers are small business with fewer than 10 employees, so many of them are not eligible for big volume discounts (my nonprofit customers get MS products cheaply though). I was cabling a collision repair customer's shop yesterday and he had four MS Office SBE packages on his desk that he had purchased the previous day from Sam's Club. Why he didn't purchase OEM Versions from us is beyond me, since I ended up i
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Not that it contradicts what you are saying, but my experience working for many years at a Fortune 100 company is exactly the opposite. I worked as a copy writer at the regional headquarters for this outfit but spent most of my time addressing the rest of t
Re: (Score:2)
If they do something radically different, nobody will use it because it's Too Different, and hence a) hard to learn and b) expensive to train (heard this one in conjunction with Linux, eh?). If they do something too much the same, then nobody will use it because it's no different fro
Re: (Score:2)
Take a look at LyX [lyx.org] for a completely different take on word processing. I've found its user interface to be very pleasant to work with---all you have to do is write, and everything turns ou
what what what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Brain explodes.
What gap ? (Score:3, Insightful)
You mean Microsoft Office 2007 is so much worse than OpenOffice.org 2.0 and Microsoft Office 2003 ?
It still doesn't number paragraphs (1.1, 1.2) or update references automatically whitout dirty hacks ?
It still retains locks on directories when closed ?
It still somehow corrupt your document once in a while (*) ?
...
(*) Last month I needed to save the document as an XML document because saving it as
Re: (Score:2)
Isn't it always the NEXT version of Office that's going to be bug-free? Maybe, after 20 years, they'e got it right? Next: hydrogen fusion is just around the corner.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
If you want details
Paragraphs numbering : MS Word. Most people here are using old canvas where numbering works. I asked to one guy how it was achieving it. He did tenths of tries clicking everywhere until it worked. Couldn't get a straightforward procedure. Out of curiosity, launched OpenOffice.org 2.0 at home. Did what seemed straightforward to me (selecting 1.1 scheme in bullets and numbering), almost same p
Re: (Score:2)
how about prior art? (Score:5, Informative)
http://quanta.kdewebdev.org/screenshots//shot2.pn
http://quanta.kdewebdev.org/screenshots//shot13.p
Do they need a license too?
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Stealing ideas has gotten them this far... why stop now?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The new Office UI dynamically changes based on what you're doing. The ribbon starts with some common (and buried) features for the task you're working on (like changing a font). As you use it, the ribbon drops what you use infrequently and presents new choices. This is nothing like Quanta, and it's clear you haven't used Office's new UI at all.
That's
Menu structures are common across different models (Score:3, Interesting)
My Smarter Colleagues noticed that from the same data structure we used for the lotus menus we could build PF-key menus, modern cascading drop-down menus and right-mouse-button pop-up menus.
Which means that for any menu sequence of head->middle->middle*->tail, you can change the visual appearance of the menu without changing the application-level calls used to create it. And that in turn means you can make "ribbon menus" a user-specifiable "skin".
--dave
isn't it just a modern/fancy lotus 123 style menu? (Score:2, Interesting)
The bigger question is who cares (Score:2, Interesting)
One again: Trying to trick the customers. (Score:4, Insightful)
There is a social breakdown happening at Microsoft. Bill Gates is, apparently, no longer interested. The company is becoming more and more unable to complete projects.
Microsoft never competed very well on technological merits, but now things are becoming worse. People think that Microsoft has been successful, but the company's success has always depended on tricking customers who don't have much technical knowledge. As customers become more technically knowledgeable, they realize more and more that Microsoft is adversarial.
We who read Slashdot can make a difference. We can explain the issues to everyone we know and meet.
--
Comedy and Tragedy of the Bush administration [futurepower.org]
Lipstick on a pig (Score:3, Insightful)
I would venture to say that the overwhelming majority of MS Office users do not need to use, or even want to use, most of the features that are present in those bloated applications.
Re: (Score:2)
For those who do not speak slashbot, the OP is saying "Anything I say from this point on is going to be pulled straight from my ass so it supports my initial hypothesis. Please do not look for, nor expect, any atual factual data to backup my comments. In fact, be fully prepared to do the research yourself and discover that I couldn't be more wrong if I tried. Thanks for listening and use Ubuntu, it's the most friendly linux desktop available."
Frankly... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Congratulations, you just described Office 2007.
Re: (Score:2)
Ironically, it is exactly the kind of study you talk about that led Microsoft to produce this new UI. There will inevitably be resistance to change, but after a while I suspect the usability guys will win, because they have solid research behind them and users are fickle creatures.
That doesn't negate your main point about free software alternatives not just cloning MS UI, of course. Look at Firefox: innovative UI features not present in the established MS product, in an overall clean and usable interface,
Re: (Score:2)
Ever-increasing number of features (Score:4, Insightful)
How about turning that on it's head? "Will the paradigm of an ever-increasing number of features hold up to the reality of having to present them in a UI of some sort?"
I've been using office-style apps heavily since about Office 4, and I haven't seen many new features at all that I consider essential -- *especially* not ones that require adding UI elements to accommodate them. MS's own focus group studies show time and time again that 90% of Office features end up in the "rarely used" category anyway.
I use Office 2007 some, and I'm pretty neutral on the ribbon since I do most tasks via keyboard shortcut anyway. For my money (or lack thereof), let OOo keep its traditional menus & toolbars. Just make keyboard shortcuts consistent across an office suite, get the fundamental features right, minimize the bugs & make the memory & disk footprints as light as you can.
The Ribbon may be da new shiznit and whatnot, and by virtue of MS's market penetration may even end up being the "look" that all others are compared to. Even if that happens, though, I have a hard time seeing *feature bloat* being the driving factor behind what UI paradigm wins out.
The Best Option: Support Both (Score:3, Interesting)
O
ZOMG look at the INNOVATION (Score:5, Insightful)
Given the obvious use of technology here and the subjectiveness of what may constitute a ribbon, and how broadly companies like Microsoft tend to paint their patents, I would contend that their "ribbon" is simply taking the Adobe Creative Suite's toolbar scheme that has been around for a decade and simply repainting it to fit in Microsoft Office components. Likewise, one can argue that since context-sensitive toolbars have been around for about 20 years, and buttons in those toolbars have optionally spawned menus when clicked for at least ten years, that there is NOTHING AT ALL new about a Microsoft "ribbon" aside from the artwork, which is covered by COPYRIGHT, not a patent.
Re: (Score:2)
just sign right here for your free ui... (Score:2)
Why isn't the ribbon UI part of the OS? (Score:2)
Is This Anti-Competitive? (Score:2, Insightful)
Just another attack on the GPL...? (Score:2)
But of course the GPL doesn't allow you to say that your code can't be used in Office-like apps.
Never mind, I don't see how the license can apply to anyone who doesn't agree with it.
HAL. (Not following the link!)
Sheep! (Score:2)
IBM -- OPEN SOURCE 1-2-3!!! NOW!!! (Score:2)
Doesn't Microsoft get it? Most users are click-trained on Office. If you move a single icon, they are unable to use the product any longer. If you put this new re-GUI-ed office on a person's computer, they'll be catatonic. I mean, I have seen many users who learn exact, step-by-step procedures. They don't explore. They don't adapt. Revamping the entire UI is a bad idea - people will flee to OpenOffice.
If IBM had any sense at all, they'd open source Lotus 1-2-3 immediately -- there are millions of people
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Did they? I seem to recall that the majority of reviews (I have read) actually thought the ribbon was a bad idea, until they tried it - at which point they thought it a great enhancement in managing the function bloat.
Re: (Score:2)
"Ok you may clone our look and feel, but you have to write all the code your self."
Writing a normal look and feel application would be much more easy, because windows contains much of the needed widget code.
Re: (Score:2)
Before you talk about knee-jerk reactions you might want to at least UNDERSTAND what MS are doing here. They are NOT giving you any CODE. They are simply allowing you to COPY their UI.
Go to the download page: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/office/aa973809.a spx [microsoft.com]
See any code? Libraries? SDK?
Now do you still want to thank them so much?
Re: (Score:2)
Do you realize how bizarre this sounds? Why do we need Microsoft to "legitimize" anything like this? It's a UI element, nothing more, and they aren't even providing it, nor did they invent it.
Remember back in the '80s, when Apple sued Microsoft over the "look-and-feel" of MS-Windows? Remember how Microsoft won that battle? Now they ar
Re:As usual, Slashdot doesnt get it. (Score:4, Insightful)
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Part of the reason that MS is successful is because there is nobody out there that makes development for their platform as easy as MS. Maybe if some other companies would have somebody screaming about developers and throwing chairs, then those companies would be just as successful in this way. MS gives me tools, and makes it EASY. The OSS community tells me to RTFM. I'll give ya' one guess what I use to develop my business tools.