[cumbria_lug] Observations

[Ian Linwood]

Hello Michael,

Monday, March 8, 2004, 2:17:10 PM, you wrote:

MS> We're dangeously underestimating Microsoft. Right now, their products
MS> are of generally poor quality NOT because of a lack of technical nous,
MS> but because they don't care

I disagree.

MS products of late are very good. My recent brushes with 2003 server
have impressed me greatly (as much as it gauls me to admit).  But they
are still grossly overpriced and create a tie in that once you commit
to is hard to withdraw from.

Their contempt for interpretability and complete disregard for
standards if farcical.

They have recently proposed a change in the use of e-mail which would
make it very expensive and surprise, surprise, mean a royalty payment
to M$, this purely on the pretext of defeating spam. In short, let us
own e-mail and we'll make it too expensive to use.

Nobody seems to have picked up on the ASMTP RFC (RFC 2554), which would be an
open, free, workable alternative.

Open software is not what M$ can be accused of.

-- 
Best regards,
 Ian