Re: Is ActiveX safe?

["Joe Pluta" <joepluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> From: Bob Crothers
>
> But before we start attributing too much to MS, remember when Java died?
> For a while, MS was on the Java Bandwagon also.  Then Sun complained about
> the way MS was doing things and filed a "Cease and Desist" order.  MS
> complied with that order (to Sun's great surprise) and stopped shipping
> JVM's with windows. Be careful what you wish for, it might come true.

Just to be clear here: Microsoft was enjoined because they were extending
the JVM in incompatible ways, in step with the Microsoft standard Embrace,
Extend, Extinguish technique.  Microsoft embraces a technology, adds
Microsoft specific features, then forces everyone to their version by
requiring those extensions, thereby wiping out the competition.

Microsoft dropping the faulty JVM was the best thing that could have
happened to Java (next to Microsoft actually supporting Open Source, which
will never happen).


> But the bottom line is that MS does NOT exist to enhance our lives.  They
> exist to enhance the lives of MS Shareholders. It's called capitalism.

Yeah, but there is such a concept as corporate ethics which covers such
things as monopolistic practices, unfair labor practices, that sort of
thing.  Some companies follow them of their own accord, some need to be sued
to do so.  Microsoft has consistently shown through their actions and even
through internal memoranda that they knowingly violate these ethical
principles and need to be sued to keep their hands clean.


> They are no more of an evil empire than IBM was in the 70's.

I don't know how bad IBM was in the 70's.  In the 80's, they made a number
of glaringly stupid mistakes, from misgauging the commoditization of the PC
to dropping the ball on OS/2,  You might argue that these were simply failed
attempts to pull the same dirty tricks Bill Gates has pulled so successfully
over the years, but I haven't seen anything like that in decades.  Certainly
these days, IBM is far worse to IBM than to the outside world.  The foolish
internecine warfare between the System i and pretty much everybody else is a
clear example of that.

Joe