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New ~OT: MS shipping applications.
I found [link|http://mark-lucovsky.blogspot.com/2005/02/shipping-software.html|this] at groklaw. (It doesn't quite fit here, but is fairly close I guess.) It makes me go: Wha?

Being a 16 year Microsoft veteran, a Distinguished Engineer, key architect and code writer for windows, architect of the largest source code control and build system ever attempted, I deeply believed that Microsoft knows how to ship software. We know how to build it, test it, localize it, manufacture it, charge lots of $$$ for it, etc.

Mark and I talked about this briefly at lunch that day, and I have been thinking about it from time to time since...

[...]

Consider the .NET framework for a second. Suppose you wrote something innocent like a screen saver, written in C# based on the .NET framework. How would you as an ISV "ship your software"? You can't. Not unless you sign up to ship Microsoft's software as well. You see, the .NET Framework isn't widely deployed. It is present on a small fraction of machines in the world. Microsoft built the software, tested it, released it to manufacturing. They "shipped it", but it will take years for it to be deployed widely enough for you, the ISV to be able to take advantage of it. If you want to use .NET, you need to ship Microsoft's software for them. Isn't this an odd state of affairs? Microsoft is supposed to be the one that "knows how to ship software", but you are the one doing all the heavy lifting. You are the one that has to ship their software the last mile, install it on end user machines, ensure their machines still work after you perform this platform level surgery.

[...]


This is a new revelation? This stuff goes back to the [link|http://www.footefamily.org/train/doshist.htm|Windows Runtime] for Pete's sake.

I know nothing about Mark, but if he's just coming to this realization - that he was wrong about MS being good at shipping software - now, it makes me wonder about the [link|http://apple.weblogsinc.com/entry/1234000137032845/|RDF] at Microsoft. MS has always been about marketing and market dominance, not shipping software.

Cheers,
Scott.
(Don't miss the RDF link. ;-)
New Gimme a break
Same goes for Java, double - God forbid the customer has wrong version - it's worse than none. Same goes for every interpreted language - unless you want your users to be real geeks and download and install runtime. Hell, it was true for MS C++ - MFC libraries needed to be packaged with your application.

What's new?
--


And what are we doing when the two most powerful nations on earth -- America and Israel -- stomp on the elementary rights of human beings?

-- letter to the editor from W. Ostermeier, Liechtenstein

New Exactly.
If you depend on other things (available applications or libraries being present on the client, etc.), well then you depend on other things. If you don't depend on other things and can do it all yourself, well then you don't depend on other things.

Duh.

Yes, it goes for Java, or Flash or .OGG or ... and other things too.

But how he could ever think that MS was good at "shipping software" is beyond me. Even when they controlled everything, they took forever for them to get new stuff out the door.

Cheers,
Scott.
New MS was expected to take care of that
I get the impression that quite a few companies expected MS to take care of that problem for them. That MS would make .NET a manditory part of the OS, thus saving them from having to provide downloads and support for installation and setup of .NET itself.

Jay
New .NET is part of XP sp1
it's 1.0, not 1.1. And XP is not 100% of installed base, not by a long shot.

Microsoft planned to do it. It not their fault that people don't install Windows any more.
[image|/forums/images/warning.png|0|This is sarcasm...]
--


And what are we doing when the two most powerful nations on earth -- America and Israel -- stomp on the elementary rights of human beings?

-- letter to the editor from W. Ostermeier, Liechtenstein

New Quite correct!
Microsoft planned to do it. It not their fault that people don't install Windows any more.
Currect a mundo. Except there is one itty bitty mistake.

You shoulda said:
Microsoft planned to do it. It not their fault that people don't install Windows any more, people are RE-installing.
--
[link|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net|greg],
[link|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] @ iwethey

[link|http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=134485&cid=11233230|"Microsoft Security" is an even better oxymoron than "Military Intelligence"]
No matter how much Microsoft supporters whine about how Linux and other operating systems have just as many bugs as their operating systems do, the bottom line is that the serious, gut-wrenching problems happen on Windows, not on Linux, not on Mac OS. -- [link|http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1622086,00.asp|source]
     ~OT: MS shipping applications. - (Another Scott) - (5)
         Gimme a break - (Arkadiy) - (4)
             Exactly. - (Another Scott)
             MS was expected to take care of that - (JayMehaffey) - (2)
                 .NET is part of XP sp1 - (Arkadiy) - (1)
                     Quite correct! - (folkert)

I never seen a man eat so many chicken wings!
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