Many of us lived through the 90s, when Microsoft strongarmed their technically inferior products to the whole PC industry. In fact, they pretty much invented the whole closed-source proprietary software model, and I totally agree with Stallman that it is a horrible invention. And they were rewarded for it handsomely. Then the numerous FUD attacks against many things I like, such as Linux and the open-source community in general.
At least for me, all this has created strong dislike towards that company. It's nothing that cannot be fixed, but not quickly, and I really don't see them trying a lot yet.
Fortunately, the situation these days is much better than in the 90s since now there are real alternatives. What was once hatred is now just suspicion.
> In fact, they pretty much invented the whole closed-source proprietary software model
Wow...are you sure you know your history?
Software is much older than the 1990s. Before there was Microsoft, there was IBM (Apple and MS started at the same time, roughly). Before that, there were no PC clones, only sanctioned hardware running sanctioned software, all with big fat IBM support contracts. Even Apple practiced this, very closed-source proprietary; Microsoft was actually the "open" alternative back then (Stallman was probably playing around with PDPs, very much proprietary uncloneable hardware systems that came with an open Unix).
Then Microsoft comes along and disrupted the entire industry. How? By shipping an operating system for commodity hardware that could easily and cheaply be cloned (IBM's accidental doing as they needed to ship the PC quickly). This happened in the early 80s, which occurred before the 90s.
> Fortunately, the situation these days is much better than in the 90s since now there are real alternatives. What was once hatred is now just suspicion.
Fortunately, the situation these days is much better than in the 90s since now there are real alternatives (DELL, Compaq, Gateway). What was once hatred (against IBM) is now just sympathy.
At least for me, all this has created strong dislike towards that company. It's nothing that cannot be fixed, but not quickly, and I really don't see them trying a lot yet.
Fortunately, the situation these days is much better than in the 90s since now there are real alternatives. What was once hatred is now just suspicion.