🚀 go-pugleaf

	Greetings everyone,

	The "Win95 vs. OS/2" case is resulting again in endless thread.
This thread has *again* drifted far beyond this newsgroup's meaning.

	The reason is obvious: the religious war between those who likes
OS/2 and likes MicroSoft's OSes is raging anew.

	The obvious solution is this: use what you like. Don't flame in the 
newsgroups not dedicated to flaming. Save your nerves!

	I belong myself to OS/2 fans. I *have* tested both MS' and IBM's
products, this is why I chose OS/2 Warp. But it is not only the
quality of OS/2 that attracted me; this is also the policy of
MicroSoft that repulsed me, too. Several of the reasons why I dislike
MicroSoft altogether are stated below. If you are a compromiseless
fan of MicroSoft, don't bother reading. I *won't* answer offensive
postings/eletters any more. Besides, my thoughts are based upon *facts*, not 
emotions. I can hardly expect you can find reasonable objections...

	I address OS/2 team: do *not* fall to offenses, like calling MS
products names and teasing MS fans. This is childish. The time will
show which OS is better and I am undoubtedly convinced that MicroSoft
deserves downfall for all its doings and that its Windowslings
have no future. Do not use MS products, oppose it wherever possible, create 
alternate software. That's much more positive.

	Let's be reasonable! Let's stop that endless thread!
















	[This article was posted in alt.lang.asm etc. several days
before]

	Below I explain why I dislike MicroSoft. The exact *numbers* can be 
not very correct... but the difference is not that dramatic...

	* MicroSoft's policy is based upon rough force and deceit. The
first - world-famous now - contract between IBM and MicroSoft obliged
all IBM-compatible producers to pay MicroSoft $45 *from each computer
sold*, just because MS-DOS was installed there. IBM tried to cancel
that contract, but with no result. MicroSoft tricked it, in fact, and
this is the reason why MS-DOS is so conservative, useless, patched
all over it and strange. Why bothering modifying it if money come to
you effortlessly?..

	* MicroSoft tends to hold monopoly on everything it touches. This
is why it is so hostile to all DOS clones, this is why its technical
support is quite pathetic and absurdly expensive, this is why its
products are all weird, clumsy, resource-consuming. Do you know that
in Windows there was code that detected third-party [D]OSes and
aborted execution?..

	* MicroSoft falsifies facts when persuading customers into using
MicroSoft products. Have you ever heard about a clause in beta-tester
contracts (for Win95, for example) that *forbids* spreading any
negative information about product being tested without prior
permission by MicroSoft? Have you not know that Gates used quite
doubtful reasons when "proving" that Windows runs its applications
much faster than OS/2 (he used MicroSoft, not third-party's tests
with ancient OS/2 Windows emulator to "prove" that)? Have you not
know that MicroSoft filters carefully all people before allowing them
to participate in MicroSoft public-oriented activities? And so on,
and so forth.

	* MicroSoft is outright hostile to customers. Try to count
articles and so on about technical support, for example. I live in
Russia. For us MicroSoft invented disk copy protection, installation
counters, no chance of upgrade/technical support and other nice
improvements.  Do you know when MS-DOS started to support Russian
language? Since version 6.22... Do you know how?  By loading more
than ~40Kb of residents. To compare:  DR-DOS supports Russian
language since version 5.00, as regular codepage, with no special
overhead.

	And so on.

Konstantin.
m...@ccphys.nsu.nsk.su