Re: Just wondering...

[Steve Cohen <stevecoh@mcs.com>]

Simon Cooke wrote:

>
>
> Am I just misreading peoples intent here? Or is this just a place for
> everyone to get together and villify Microsoft? You know, your typical
> advocacy place, where even cold hard fact won't change peoples opinions?
>

I would also like to point out this: Tod Nielsen from Microsoft was on here
about a month ago trying to enlighten us with the "cold hard facts" about
Apple's claims of sabotage with regard to QuickTime.  As you will recall
Microsoft hired an ostensibly independent lab to prove that there was no
sabotage by Microsoft.  The proof consisted of showing that there was an
undocumented call that Apple must have known about since they used it in
other places. Nielsen seemed a little indignant that this explanation did not
calm all doubts.

If you share the appraisal of this as proving Microsoft's good intentions,
then we still have a problem here.  A "solution" that depends on the use of
undocumented calls (remember, Microsoft  countersued Stac for reverse
engineering) doesn't make it as a solution in my mind.  Did the Apple
engineer who first learned of the undocumented call have an obligation to
document the call throughout the company?  Was that his responsibility?  The
fact that **MICROSOFT** at the moment it told Apple of the undocumented call,
did not document the call to the rest of the world means that it is still to
be considered "sub rosa" and you should in fact expect others both within and
without Microsoft to forget about it every time.  There's also an issue of a
"club" - it raises an unfortunate odor of "connected" vs. "unconnected"
outside developers between those whom Microsoft tells about undocumented
calls and those whom Microsoft has left out of the loop.

The fact that in this instance Microsoft would use undocumented calls
**IN ITS DEFENSE** is very interesting, since they always deny that their
engineers use undocumented calls to gain a leg up on the competition.
I would welcome an honest discussion from Microsoft of why and when they use
undocumented calls.  I haven't seen it yet.

>
>