Re: Just wondering...

["Eric M. Bennett" <ericb@pobox.com>]

Chris Pall wrote:

>Microsoft has it's own forum in which it receives no critical review
>whatsoever - The Wall Street Journal, The millions of dollars in
>advertising and
>website ads which flow on a daily basis. It's been uncovered that
>Microsoft has used it's own money to buy letter writers in order to
>influence the
>opinion of newspapers.

Is there proof that they ever actually did this?  I thought they were
caught before they did it, so they called it off.  (I'm sure they would
have gone ahead with it if they had not been caught, but the fact is that
they *were* caught.)

>There's no justification for either of these extremes. Which is why we
>value the other sides story. So, to answer your question - are there any
>pro-microsoft people here? Yeah - of course, but if you're watching, they
>don't speak up very often.

I suspect this is a case of people with similar opinions gathering
together.  Since most of this list has a very strong anti-MS slant, MS
supporters may feel less welcome here than elsewhere.  I pop my head into
the MSFT discussion board on The Motley Fool periodically, and over there
everyone seems to be gung-ho in favor of MS, and the perception is that MS
has won the antitrust trial even before it's called any of its own
witnesses.  Do I want to go in there and start a flame war with twenty
other people who think MS is the greatest thing since the invention of the
wheel?  No.  The same thing probably happens here: people do not want to
"waste" their time addressing a hostile audience that has more or less
already formed a firm opinion about the topic of discussion.  If I want to
argue with pro-MS folks, I go onto Usenet, where the forces on each side
are more equal.



--
Eric Bennett (http://www.pobox.com/~ericb/)
Cornell University, Field of Biochemistry, 377 Olin Chemistry Lab

Piano, n.  A parlor utensil for subduing the impenitent visitor.  It is
operated by depressing the keys of the machine and the spirits of the
audience.
-Ambrose Bierce