Comment by w1ntermute
13 years ago
> He's obviously not so terrible if he created this thing that has people so up in arms.
Oh please, double standards like this disgust me. Microsoft had shit slung at it for years on end by the tech community because IE was terrible and held back innovation on the web, but no one claimed that IE is "not so terrible" just because everyone cared about it.
The difference with Gruber is that he's a darling of the tech community because he's Apple-anointed nobility. But as a programmer, in my eyes (and in the eyes of any other objective observers) he's absolute shit.
The reason Microsoft is dead to many developers (myself included) is that they used their massive corporate power to shut down good startups making cool stuff.
I didn't care that IE was terrible (until v3 or whenever), I cared that Microsoft went to all the major PC manufacturers and told them that their licensing deals were toast if they preloaded Netscape.
I didn't care that Word was a crappy word processor, I cared that they used their market position on office documents to make minor incompatibilities that prevented WordPerfect from interoperating.
I didn't care that Windows file sharing wasn't half as good as NFS, I care that they continually fucked with the SMB protocol so that no one could sell UNIX machines that could share with Windows networks.
It has been an absolute pleasure watching that Microsoft's power over device makers disappear. The world is better off for it, and Microsoft will always be an asshole in my book.
Well thank god we don't have any platform owners today making changes that screw over developers.
There's a differenc between trying to maintain app store policies that strike a balance between security, end user interests, developer interests, profitability, etc. and intentionally putting bugs in your OS to break third party products, stealing third party products and building them into your OS, or bundling free products with your platform or office suite to drive third parties out of a market.
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No, the difference is that Gruber is a person whereas Microsoft is a corporation. Corporations aren't subject to the same social mores - it isn't hurtful to say something nasty about a corporation.
Abandoning basic etiquette that you should have learned in primary school and calling someone "absolute shit" is not cool.
While I agree that calling somebody that is not cool, I think you'll find that product owners at corporations do take it to heart when harsh criticisms are called out. They identify with their output.