Bill Gates Chews Out Microsoft 836
s31523 writes "All of us have one time or another been completely frustrated by certain Windows usability issues, and in many cases our experiences have driven us over to Linux, or kept us there. For anyone that has ever been frustrated, you will be happy to know you aren't the only one. After reading this leaked Microsoft memo from Bill Gates back in 2003, you will surely have more insight into why Vista is a complete disaster due to Microsoft not learning anything from their experiences from XP."
Funny thing about MovieMaker (Score:3, Informative)
The funny thing is that on XP you still have to install Service Pack 2 to get MovieMaker. You can't just download it separately. Oh, well, you can order it on CD, too, I guess, but who wants to do that?
I thought this was a joke until I read this part.. (Score:5, Informative)
Wow! I thought this was a joke until I read this part
Re:100% fake (Score:5, Informative)
That is NOT Gate's writing style and there are several mistakes as well that point to someone other than gates wrote the letter.
"I go to microsoft.com they have a download center" HUH? Cince when does the Head executive of the company refer to the company as "they" instead of "we"? I have never seen it even down to the grunt level.
This "secret memo" is bunk. it is in no way Bill Gates' writing.
Re:100% fake (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Then STOP releasing the product! (Score:1, Informative)
At least Ubuntu *comes* with those programs! What would you do in Windows? Google for the program or ask someone what to use. It's the same with any Linux program, but either it's already installed or can be installed with a click or a command, once you know what you're looking for.
Re:100% fake (Score:5, Informative)
The email is real. It's in the court documents from the Comes vs Microsoft case. You can find it in PX07199.pdf from http://edge-op.org/iowa/www.iowaconsumercase.org/011607/7000/
Re:100% fake (Score:4, Informative)
Um, you realise he confirmed it personally as part of an interview, right? RTFA much?
"When Seattle Pi recently asked Gates about the email, he replied, "There's not a day that I don't send a piece of e-mail ... like that piece of e-mail. That's my job." There was no mention as to whether or not Gates had time to take names."
Re:Then STOP releasing the product! (Score:5, Informative)
The letter is from the antitrust files, so it's certified.
The very interesting thing is that there is no single person at Microsoft who has the final say on how all of there stuff interacts together. Not even Bill has that clout (and if he did, he sucked at his job).
Re:Then STOP releasing the product! (Score:0, Informative)
You can't and you should know that. In Unix new processes get to use the new library version but running processes keep using the old one. That's the same as in Windows. Therefore you CAN continue without rebooting in Windows as well but then you simply do not profit from security updates etc.
Re:It's a FAAAAAAAAKE! (Score:5, Informative)
Don't you feel silly now after that pointless rant that it turns out to be real and part of the released court documents from the Comes vs Microsoft case?
Re:Its real. Here are the links (Score:5, Informative)
Re:100% fake (Score:2, Informative)
He's not referring to the company, he's referring to "Microsoft.com" which is the internal name of the team that manages the web site. If you look at the original document, you'll see that web department is referenced as "Microsoft.com" on multiple occasions.
Re:Then STOP releasing the product! (Score:2, Informative)
No, you can't. Under windows you can't overwrite the old file with the new file as the file is locked. You have to reboot to reset the lock.
Re:Then STOP releasing the product! (Score:2, Informative)
apt-cache search "media player"
You can do the search in Synaptic too.Re:100% fake (Score:5, Informative)
Here's a PDF of the original, together with the replies, as submitted to the trial.
http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/microsoft/library/2003Jangatesmoviemaker.pdf [nwsource.com]
Re:Its real. Here are the links (Score:5, Informative)
Here, Knock yourself out [edge-op.org]
The specific exhibit (7199) is found near here [edge-op.org]
And if you doubt me (after all, who is this xtracto guy), the page is linked from groklaw [groklaw.net]. Maybe they are more thrustworthy than myself?
Re:Then STOP releasing the product! (Score:2, Informative)
"he certainly should know why rebooting would be necessary when updating part of the OS."
This is a Windowism. In mature operating systems such as linux one does not have reboot a machine after installing a multimedia application.
You've been trained to think that it is necessary.
Re:Then STOP releasing the product! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Then STOP releasing the product! (Score:4, Informative)
Since my degree (Technical Communications) concerns interface design and usability testing, what Red Flayer says is 100% accurate. Any usability tester worth their salt will force themselves to think like their target audience--in this case, a typical "email and word processor" computer user.
As much as it may be against the status quo here, I have to give credit where credit is due. If the email is really from Bill Gates (after reading it, I am not sure...), he seems to know what he is doing in regards to usability testing.
The man is not stupid, just unethical.
Re:Then STOP releasing the product! (Score:4, Informative)
Lots of people. I don't happen to use Outlook, but I do it all the time.
They even changed the functionality after user observation showed that a lot of people used it to check dates:
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Date-and-Time-Settings-in-Vista-38465.shtml [softpedia.com]
Re:Then STOP releasing the product! (Score:5, Informative)
or enter "podcast" as a search term in your GUI software installation tool. How hard is this? Certainly easier than strolling through dozens of software shops or dredging the web
Re:Then STOP releasing the product! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Then STOP releasing the product! (Score:4, Informative)
In reality it still had to be done because of the technical aspects of changing a .dll in use and no safe way to replace it in flight (why not?), but then again getting that stupid little logo on your box wasn't going to trump usability... but at least there was "some" encouragement for developers to find another way.
Re:Gates, you have to do this differently (Score:4, Informative)
That is funny and all, but it still points you to Windows Update, which means you're still going to spend 20 minutes waiting for the pages to load, get prompted to install a bunch of other updates, and probably reboot a few times.
Incidentally, the same search gives you the same link on Microsoft's Live search.
Re:Then STOP releasing the product! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Then STOP releasing the product! (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Then STOP releasing the product! (Score:3, Informative)
I don't find it impossible or even unlikely that a CEO that cared about his company at all might try to use the company's products in a way similar to how their customers would experience it. Sure, it's unlikely that they'll get a 100% "authentic" experience, but they could certainly go and jump through some of the hoops they make customers go through, just to see what the experience was like.
I don't think Gates was looking for a copy of Windows moviemaker because he had some video of his last vacation that he wanted to pretty up, he was trying to understand the product that MS had actually released, with the hopes that it could be improved. It's sometimes called "eating your own dog food", and it's not some obscure or exotic management technique. It's a really valid way for a company to evaluate their products, and CEO's that don't at least attempt it probably should.
That note was from 2003... (Score:3, Informative)
So, just for grins, I went to download movie maker. Went to the main paged, searched for 'movie maker', and there STILL is no download link. I HAVE to use Windows Update to get it.
Nice to know Microsoft ignores Bill just as much as they ignore the rest of our feedback.
Re:Then STOP releasing the product! (Score:3, Informative)
Short form, there was a 'bug' in Excel that was there for compatibility with Lotus 123, which erroneously treated 1900 as a leap year. This broke January and February of that year, but otherwise worked perfectly.
Spolsky found the bug after sending his spec to Bill Gates, who, apparently, not only read the whole thing, but marked it up with notes in the margins. At his review with Bill, the questions kept getting harder, until finally he asked if the date and time stuff was going to work properly. Joel's answer, of course, was 'Yes, except for January and February, 1900'. This satisfied Gates, and he got up and left.
Gates knew the problem was there. He knew that was a gotcha that was in the code, and he likely knew why it was there and who put it there. He's a programmer, like it or not. His company makes shitty products for a variety of reasons, but Gates himself is (or was) a programmer.
I'm certain he knew full well why he had to reboot. His point wasn't to try to fill in information, his point was to outline the absurdity of restarting your system, over and over and over again, just to make a movie. Sounds pragmatic to me.
Re:Then STOP releasing the product! (Score:2, Informative)
Well that's what synaptics is for, isn't it?
Or even "better" the software install/remove utility. You even have to touche your keyboard to use it. I damn know well how people can be stupid or fake to be when it come to computer of all things but this is just dumb easy.
Re:Then STOP releasing the product! (Score:5, Informative)
That's exactly what I said. Finding the product is the same on Windows and Linux, but at least Linux *has* the index and package manager right there, so it's no worse.
Umm, under Linux the software is 99% OSS and downloadable and fully functional - the most you have to go through is agreeing to a EULA. You search under yum, apt-get, emerge, etc... find the description you want, install and use...
Under Windows, you search and sort through *AT LEAST* 50% commercial/shareware packages that are crippled until you purchase it.
The last time I tried this, I went through 1/2 dozen apps, and dozens of websites to just burn a cd image quickly/easily...
Re:Then STOP releasing the product! (Score:4, Informative)
People who don't know what CAD is aren't going to be buying AutoCAD (at least, they shouldn't be -- its expensive and they'll be sorely disappointed).
Automatic Computer Aided Design is a hell of a lot more descriptive than Visual Studio to the casual glance. Yes -- a studio where I work visually -- doing what?
I know its an IDE, but I also know that about NetBeans and Eclipse.
At least WinAmp (Windows Amplifier) sounds like it might have something to do with music.
Re:Then STOP releasing the product! (Score:1, Informative)
Because it just falls back to the RTFM n00b lololol mentality that open sources so desperately needs to escape.
Re:The bundle without a key (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Then STOP releasing the product! (Score:5, Informative)
Not only that, but you use the term "window managers", which is just ironic, as only one of the 3 is a window manager.
Re:Maybe you think too much of the difficulties... (Score:3, Informative)
This doesn't seem to have reduced the number of "reboot required"s in patches to the latest Ubuntu release...
Re:Then STOP releasing the product! (Score:2, Informative)
Re:The bundle without a key (Score:5, Informative)
A cute phrase and an oft-repeated anecdote, but according to people at Lotus, it's completely false [proudlyserving.com].
Re:100% real (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Then STOP releasing the product! (Score:3, Informative)
Are you sure that wasn't a trial version? The only "free" Office suite that I've seen come with Windows is the steaming pile of crap that is Works.
Re:100% fake (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Maybe you think too much of the difficulties... (Score:4, Informative)
Most of those have been kernel updates. Until the hot-patch system is released, there's not much you can do about that.
Re:Comic book tiling (Score:3, Informative)
You looking for something like this? [blogspot.com]
Re:Then STOP releasing the product! (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah, like Amarok, Okular, gmusicbrowser, KDE 4, Compiz...oh wait.
Re:The bundle without a key (Score:2, Informative)
Now, you can say it's unfair that they bundled their own apps with Windows, but that makes them no different that any other OS (including IBM, Apple, and pretty much every Linux distro).
To my knowledge not one Linux distro makes their own web browser.
Re:Then STOP releasing the product! (Score:2, Informative)
That's not entirely true. On a Active Directory domain, it's possible for the domain administrators to publish apps (MSI files) out to their users, which can be installed through Add/Remove Programs. But I do agree that in the common case, add/remove cannot add programs.
Re:Then STOP releasing the product! (Score:4, Informative)
I can't remember the last time I've "had to" compile anything from source under Linux. That's what apt (or whatever package manager) is for. The only times I compile things from source are when I feel like it because I'm being geeky, or when it's some really esoteric package that, frankly, you wouldn't even have under Windows (hydra comes to mind).
Nor do you "have to" use the command line in Linux these days for 99% of what I'll call "user operations". Things a typical user would do -- check email, use the web, chat online, watch a movie, write a paper, work on a spreadsheet. You know. Gnome and KDE both make it as point and click simple as Windows. The command line is only "necessary" when you're performing certain operations that a typical user would never, ever, ever do -- for example I use it for running network diagnostics and packet captures and so forth.
It seems to me, most Linux distro's only come with the bare necessities (Browser, Productivity Software, Media Player, Etc.). Windows typically has all of these,
You've got it backwards. A fresh install of, say, Ubuntu, has a nice mp3/music player, mail client, web browser, Office suite, multiprotocol IM client, photo manipulation program, and a bunch of other useful stuff already there, out of the box, ready to go. Most of it will serve the average user's needs already, without the need to go hunting around for additional software. If they do need something else, it's a few mouse clicks to get it installed, and you know it'll work. You don't have to search the web, find a boatload of corporate software that makes you register, pay, dance, and swear off your first born, then leaves all kinds of horseshit little icons, shortcuts, systray "helpers", and additional programs you don't want.
A fresh install of Windows has, well, nothing really. Windows Media Player is a freaking joke, but I guess it plays music. Outlook Express is also a joke, but okay, I guess it checks mail, sorta. Other than that, where's the "Office suite" -- Wordpad? Where's the DVD player? Where's the IM client? If you consider IE to be a viable browser, that's your own lookout, but really, Windows on a fresh install is about as bare-bones, minimally usable as can be. Anything you want, you have to go find for yourself, download, install, register, pay, crack, steal, and then clean up the mess each installer leaves behind.
Finally, you say "Installations are pretty intuitive in Windows." I had to laugh. Let me plug myself a moment and explain why Ubuntu is easier to install than Windows [mirrorshades.org], both the OS and the applications. These are side-by-side comparisions I did while installing each, with what I hope are reasonable expectations.
But if you don't believe me, ask yourself this: Why are users always bitching that their computers are "slow" and so forth? Because Windows lets any application install anything it wants, anywhere it wants, screw with the registry however it wants, load whatever memory-hogging additional "features" it wants, and within short order, the user -- not knowing how to clean up -- ends up with a machine bogged down with ungodly amounts of crapware.
Linux distros, on the other hand, do not have this problem and never will. To screw up a modern Linux system in the same way you really, really have to know what you're doing, and go out of your way to do it.
Re:Why do people make these sweeping statements... (Score:3, Informative)
Vista is a disaster. We ahve a lab full of machine, so yes, I ahve actually ran step by step documented tests.
Freezing up to look for Wi-Fi? Check
Confusing to the users? check
Poor UI choices? check
Difficult to deploy in a reasonable manner? check
API issues, cpu issues, on and on.
Re:Then STOP releasing the product! (Score:3, Informative)