Re: [Off Topic] An EXCELLENT Microsoft Confidential document on

[Jiri Baum <jiri@baum.com.au>]

Hello,

Roberto Ripio <rripio@ctv.es> wrote:
| El Wed, 04 Nov 1998, Chad A. Adlawan escribi¢:
...
| >This is an excellent doc that was leaked out of MS on the future
| >issue of Open Source OSes like Linux, etc.  The hosting WWW site
...
| As published, the document is edited by Eric S. Raymond, who has
| added very interesting comments. As has been pointed previously by
| other list members (thanks to them!) it can also be reached at
| <http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/halloween.html> .

I've read the document last night, and I thought it hovered somewhat
uncertainly between Microsoft-bashing and traditional Internet
giving-kudos-where-kudos-are-due, between treating Microsoft as the
enemy and considering it a member of the comunity.

Compare, for instance, "This is an interestingly arrogant comment."
vs "Wow. This is an insight I never had".


Hmm, here's a thought: how about re-doing the comments in the "giving
kudos and constructive criticism" style, and sending it to MS?

That'd confuse 'em.

Say like this: 
--c-- 
< This is a classic play out of the Microsoft handbook. 
--
> While this appears at first sight to be a classic play out of the
> Microsoft handbook, there is a subtle but very important
> distinction. By releasing the source code, the program is
> immediately useful to a much wider audience than a binary-only
> distribution could be, due to the ability of the users to extend or
> modify it according to their immediate requirements.
--

(OK, so it's my first try at this.)


I don't think it could do any harm, because they can understand ESR's
comments just as well as we can anyway. There's no call to be nasty.


Does that make sense?

Jiri <jiri@baum.com.au>