Can this week ever end?

Jarod: oh, so, you are advocating breaking the law and stealing intellectual property? Got it.

Bug: >Your company lied about much bigger stuff, much bigger. For years…from top management to the whole world. Shame on you. You deserve this..

So, two wrongs make a right? Got it. Your ethical system isn’t all that hot. Sorry, think about what you just said.

Bug: >Your company lied about much bigger stuff, much bigger. For years…from top management to the whole world. Shame on you. You deserve this..

So, two wrongs make a right? Got it. Your ethical system isn’t all that hot. Sorry, think about what you just said.

Dmad: >For that reason it would be good to hear from someone that is accountable for its shipping, not the head of MS’s PR agency.

The Xbox team has spoken on this issue. Tons of employees who work on the guts of Windows have spoken. And, Charlie Owen of the Media Center team has spoken.

I send you back to Dave Winer who has a lot more authority in this matter than an anonymous jerk like you do.

J. Random: >Yep, it’s SP4. That’s all.

I really am getting tired of fighting with anonymous jerks.

A service pack doesn’t come with a new UI. It doesn’t come with a new audio stack. It doesn’t come with completely recompiled code. With a new security model. With kernel changes. With a new networking stack.

It’s becoming pretty clear that anonymity here is just bringing a bunch of jerks. Maybe I should turn on comment moderation.

MarkL: sorry about WordPress.com cutting your comment. I don’t have the rest of it. Thank you very much for the support.

Hey, if we hate Google so much, why do so many Microsoft employees use it? (When I was at Google I took a look at the monitor that shows searches done around the world and Microsoft was doing more searches than the entire continent of Africa).

From a tech point of view I find this conversation so very sad…

Whether you like Microsoft or not (for the record I mostly do and have some brilliant friends working there), whether you think they have made mistakes or not (they have) COME ON! propagating a story that talks abou a 60% rewrite of an OS is ludicrous!!!

Here’s what Dave Winer says: “Anyone who believes that it’s conceivable is someone who hasn’t got the most basic clue about how software development works.”

Robert, Dave might be your friend but he’s not saying that Windows Vista doesn’t require a 60% rewrite. He’s saying there’s no way Microsoft could accomplish a 60% rewrite in the 8 months before it’s scheduled to ship. I have no argument with that.

31. You are still missing the point. Who cares if Xbox devs are coming over or not? Who cares if low level Windows employess have spoken? Again, the issue is not the innacurate, made up 60% code rewrite story that you want to keep alive. This issue is yet ANOTHER delay in the release of Vista. There is no clear discussion of what is causing the continued delays, other than “MS will ship when it is ready” Great! They always say that. And, well, even when the do ship many will wait until SP1 (at least businesses) to deploy it because… most know MS pretty much always has a crappy V1 release.

So, to quell the continued rumors and speculation about what is causing the continued delays, it would be great to get Brian Valentine on record to have a “naked conversation” about what is really going on over there. Now, if you don’t have enough influence to pull that off, or if you ring up Brian he has no idea who you are, well I certainly understand. It was just a suggestion.

BTW, Robert, didn’t Mark Lucovsky leave your convicted monopolist felon employer for Google.

Yes he did. Right about the time Allchin told Gates Longhorn “was not going to work” and Windows needed a complete rewrite.

http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,1995,1772125,00.asp

Hmmmm.

Dmad: >This issue is yet ANOTHER delay in the release of Vista.

No, that’s not the issue of this thread. It might be another thread’s issue, but that’s not what we keep talking about here. If you wanna talk about that and switch the topic, come on over to Channel 9.

>There is no clear discussion of what is causing the continued delays

Again, it’s pretty clear that there isn’t one thing that’s causing the delays. Want one? My sound card’s driver doesn’t work in Windows Vista. Who is responsible for fixing that? Can Vista be released until it is? No. It’s a popular sound card.

Finally, I’m not going to listen to you. You are an anonymous troll who keeps trying to switch the topic of conversation here. Have a good weekend.

Anon: yes, and that makes his words here even more interesting.

Blog.jaredwsmith.com: Windows Vista is scheduled to be released to manufacturing in November (fingers crossed) so we’ll have gold copies before Christmas so you should be able to build a system before Christmas. MSDN subscribers usually get OS releases within hours of them being finished and don’t need to wait for the retail release.

I think the reason for your aggressive denial about the 60% code rewrite (even after the Windows management shakeup and announcement of Vista’s delay) has nothing to do with the amount of code Vista needs redone. You wouldn’t have any credible information to refute that anyway, especially if you’re dependent on low-level Microsoft employees and its PR firms to make statements to the contrary. At this point, Microsoft, the company, has to do everything to maintain the illusion that “everything is on track” so that OEMs don’t begin looking at alternatives to Windows in order to jumpstart their sales.

I notice that Windows and Office sales grew half as fast as the general PC market last year. If that’s not marketshare loss, what is it?

Duncan: I’m snarky alright. I’m tired of anonymous jerks.

Anon: that’s just so much bull. But, glad you’re under the influence of better stuff than I am at the moment. Is this the kind of thinking that passes for clarity of thought at our competitors? Yeah, go in and mouth off in Scoble’s blog anonymously. When did this turn into Slashdot? Heheh. Geesh.

> if you’re dependent on low-level Microsoft employees.

You might check the kinds of people I have access to. It isn't just low-level employees. Go look at the kinds of people I've interviewed for Channel 9. And go and read Charlie Owen. He works in the Media Center team and knows EVERYONE. Or, go and read Mark Lucovsky. He works at Google. Or go and ask Dave Winer. He has done more in his career than you'll ever even attempt. Or ask the Xbox team. Or ask Sean Alexander, he's worked in Windows for years. Or, or, or.

But, who are you? An anonymous jerk who is so cowardly that you won't even sign your own name and start a blog where we can come and make fun of you.

Have one for me. And good luck with the “60% rewrite.”

glad you’re under the influence of better stuff than I am at the moment. Is this the kind of thinking that passes for clarity of thought at our competitors?

Robert, I’m not under the influence of anything right now. Maybe you should re-read my post later.

But, who are you?

Somebody who’ll never attempt as much in my career as Dave Winer accomplished in his, I guess.

An anonymous jerk who is so cowardly that you won’t even sign your own name and start a blog where we can come and make fun of you.

Why should I start my own blog? You seem to be trying to do just as good a job making fun of me here.

Going public with my name is just going to make me more vulnerable to personal attacks from Microsoft’s goon squad, kind of like you softies do to competitors.

I read Charlie Owen’s post. He didn’t say the rewrite was “poppycock”, he said the story was “poppycock”. Nobody from Microsoft has specifically refuted a 60% rewrite – for all I know, it’s entirely feasible Owen’s code is 100% done, a 60% rewrite is still necessary, and nobody refutes it can’t be done in 8 months.

Nonetheless, I noticed in typical Microsoft fashion Owens could not resist taking a stab at competitor’s product on his own blog: Apple iTunes. First it was Jim Allchin saying the iPod nano had a “moisture problem” (never reported by anyone else), now Owen tells us about how iTunes “torques even [his] most stable Windows XP build”?

What an ethical organization you work for. Developers, developers, developers and Windows ecosystem rah rah rah, but heaven forbid that Windows ecosystem includes competitor’s products because that “torques” even stable versions of Windows.

Where can I get a copy of this mythical stable version of Windows? Preferably one that doesn’t “torque” under iTunes, too, as I am rather fond of that program.

>Robert, I’m not under the influence of anything right now.

TRANSLATION: I have absolutely no chemical excuse for being a jerk. You're just seeing my true personality come through.

>Going public with my name is just going to make me more vulnerable to personal attacks from Microsoft’s goon squad, kind of like you softies do to competitors.

TRANSLATION: If you knew the position I hold, and the company I work for, you'd break out in laughter.

TRANSLATION #2: I know that what I'm writing here is complete BS, so I wouldn't dare put my name to it and take the ridicule.

> Nobody from Microsoft has specifically refuted a 60% rewrite

TRANSLATION: Scoble doesn't really work for Microsoft.

Hey, anonymous jerk, I VERY SPECIFICALLY refuted it.

>Where can I get a copy of this mythical stable version of Windows?

I add nice non-anonymous bloggers to the beta. Since you're none of the above, I guess you'll have to wait until January 2007.

Wow, that was a horrible defense. Shrill and mean. You are better in person, than on blog.

Christopher: too bad. It’s my blog. Don’t like it? Start your own. I’m getting very close to turning off comments, or moderating them at least. The amount of BS here is approaching Slashdot levels. I’m not going to put up with that. Period.

I genuinely don’t understand all this upset. Why does it matter how many lines of code have to be re-written (or still need to be written) to ship Windows Vista?

Surely the point is that Microsoft has announced that the product is delayed. Surely that means there must be *some* problem with the Vista project; even if the problem resides solely in project management. If there wasn’t a problem, it would be shipping according the previously announced timelines.

This is a pain for customers who are looking forward to buying the new product. However, the truth is – when the product is an OS (or includes an OS), it’s better to ship a high-quality product late than ship a low-quality product on-time. I don’t see that Microsoft had any choice but to delay the product launch; just as Sony has had no choice but to delay the launch of the PS3.

This is all very amusing, in a sick, car crash kinda way. Maybe that’s just my sense of humour (yes, I’m a Brit).

I can’t see there being a 60% re-write or even, as the original article that spawned this actually said, 60% of the code needing some kind of change. That’s probably not physically possible without seriously compromising the stability of the system.

I can see a situation where a very serious and easily exploitable security concern prompts an extensive review of a large proportion of the system. That would not surprise me. If the exploit affects code that is fundamental to the security model for the whole system, I could see that large proportion reaching a 60% regression.

The original reason for the delay was given as security.

Sounds like a reasonable explanation without requiring a “60% re-write”.

A lot of conclusions jumped to there, and I’m sure that this is nowhere near the actual reason(s). Rather than just bashing and believing you’re right, put some thought into why this may be happening and let’s hear why (that’s to the commenters, not to the original blog poster).

CDB

It is surprising to see such personal attacks on an individual on an issue which frankly is trivial at best. Surely it seems to me that a lot of lives already depend on Vista – can “anon” and the other naysayers please elucidate as to what part of your professional/personal lives is at stake because of this delay?

No matter what anyone says, you will hear only what you want to hear – so be it.
If this is really such a big deal to some of you then you always have the right of choice dont you? Exercise it.

Even better – Get a life.

Robert – After decades of spreading fear, uncertainty, and doubt about competitors, its a little amusing watching your company flail about helplessly – and by actions of their own doing. I think its called karma!