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Of all the stuff Microsoft pulls on customers, from the government to the
home consumer to the military, everything pales in comparison to what it
does to other high-tech firms, sometimes.
While Microsoft may have won a couple of sexual harassment cases by Rod Van
Mechelen and Joan L. Grove Brewer -- Rod, who begs in downtown Seattle at
times, and Joan, who's the whistle blower on Microsoft's dirty tricks -- it
has lost a few copyright battles recently. As well, Microsoft has also been
guilty of reverse engineering in the past.
]
ON COPYRIGHT BATTLES AND REVERSE ENGINEERING
Let's listen to Joan tell us about reverse engineering and a few legal
cases Microsoft has lost over the years:
"... They reverse engineer everything and [steal] it. I've
still got one of my e-mails to Gates about Steve Salsbery
literally bragging about it. I think at last week's Game
[Software Development Kit] (SDK) seminar in the Bay it was
a pretty hot topic. Microsoft doesn't even cover the fact.
... They stole AVI from Apple and were caught [and] they
stole Stac's software too. But I did a nice little
declaration for Stac's attorney when MS tried to shit on
them and nothing puts the fear of god in MS's face than the
idea that I might ever end up deposed in any lawsuit. Gates
always flips when anyone starts asking him anything personal.
I even told that to the guy who won the case against MS in
Hawaii. He won out of court quite big. He's gagged! The
people with the trout ponds won and I helped them. They are
gagged too."1,2,3
One cannot help but note how ironic these charges are in light of what
happened to Bill Gates in the past.
Many years ago, Gates once wrote an editorial in a software trade journal
about software piracy. At that time, his version of BASIC for the defunct
Altair 8800 had been copied without permission by computer hobbyists.
Yet, within his programming department at Microsoft, some members of Gates'
staff have reportedly reverse engineered a software competitor's product
many times. Another time, around 1989, they may have inserted undocumented
code into betas of OS/2 1.3 to make IBM look bad. [They also doctored
Windows 3.1 to give false errors if DR-DOS was the base Operating System. -
SHK 96/09/20]
HOW TO THWART MICROSOFT'S CODE STEALING
But Joan outlines a simple plan to thwart Microsoft's legal department:
"The way you beat these people is very simple. You start a
very bad rumor, [and] let the gossip mill go nuts for a while
at MS. Then you send letters to them as one attorney to the
other, saying you had an engineer who worked as a tester, who
for now will remain un-named, who claims Microsoft reverse
engineered their program. Then see if they want to license
some of the code. Do you know that Steve Jobs sold some
software to Gates? :) He may soon be selling [them] even
more. You don't fight a beast. You lure them into a trap
and let them take out themselves."1
Obviously, when Joan saw software thievery and reverse engineering going
on, she had to do something about it, especially when management knew
nothing about it. And that's exactly what she did, without naming names, of
course. For Joan, she "didn't do it for legal reasons."1
"Stealing code without documentation is very dangerous," declares Joan.
"It's extremely difficult to do and even more difficult to debug." In fact,
it's so impossible to debug that "IBM [calls] MS code kitty litter because
of this. The poor quality of all [Microsoft's] software is due to
stealing."1
Having said that, Joan is too worried about Microsoft programmers' code.
Not yet, anyway. She even has advice for the competition: "They should make
a crap version as a new beta and lure [Microsoft]. This is not hard to do.
[Microsoft] will think it's even better [than it really is] and get
burned."1
MICROSOFT GETS CAUGHT BREAKING INTO BORLAND
Since Microsoft was involved in such dirty tricks, this reporter wonders if
it ever got caught trying to steal other people's ideas.
Let's listen to Joan again as she recalls what Microsoft people did at a
Borland seminar once:
"I remember the one year when MS people at a Borland
Seminar broke into one of their labs in an attempt to
steal something and actually got caught. Hey, this is
war. With a company this corrupt and dishonest, headed
by a guy who sees himself as a warrior king who is
going to change the world people should really be
scared. These guys all live in [their own] fantasy
worlds because they are socially backwards."1
And the galling thing is, Bill Gates "thinks he is a visionary." Any
psychology text book would tell you that's delusional thinking, says Joan.
"Yet the media still [continues to treat] Gates [in] this way."1
Even so, the regular news media outlets are so controlled by the U.S.
government that it does not faze this reporter that the media goes on
treating Bill Gates as "a visionary". In the eyes of the public, this man
has gained celebrity status through cleverly crafted ad campaigns on
Microsoft's Windows.
In spite of his growing popularity, this reporter finds it extremely
troubling to find Bill Gates looked up to as a "visionary" and a "warrior
king" about to change the world. If Windows is any measure of Microsoft's
ability to do just that, then the only change in store for us tomorrow will
be a drop of couple of dollars on Microsoft stocks.
JOAN'S PERSONAL EXPERIENCE WITH MICROSOFT STEALING FROM HER
One aspect of working for any company is that quite often the idea an
employee comes up with really belongs to the company. When asked if
Microsoft ever stole ideas from her, Joan has this comment to make:
"As for MS stealing from me, I knew it at the time and
got a bit rebellious. So I let them steal. The issue
is this. If you do a design for a company or product,
it's based on your research and writing that up was not
what I was willing to do. So I gave them just enough to
get them in trouble. Like the BOB project."1,5
So, all a disgruntled employee needs to do is come up with a brilliant idea
but not write up a proposal on it. After all, there will be someone else in
the company bold enough to steal a colleague's idea and show their
supervisor the resulting proposal.
In this case, Joan illustrates how to play the corporate game:
"This whole idea is a Chinese war strategy. You see the
Generals and know there are young ones under them who want
to move up. So you pit the younger ones against the older
more experienced ones. You help them take them out. This
is what I did."1,6
However, Joan did write a proposal while at Microsoft in 1990 that a woman
executive there took and put the deal together with U.S. Bank. "[Microsoft]
Money was a checkbook program back then," she says. "I had laid out this
whole thing on mainframes being used as servers and even gave her my list
of ex-clients."1
It's amazing that Joan isn't with Microsoft any longer. Judging from what
she's said, Joan could have easily climbed the corporate ladder. Still, she
had said no to the kind of stuff the techno-bimbos at the software behemoth
were doing a long time ago. And saying "No!" to Bill Gates may have landed
Joan in a heap of trouble with Microsoft Corporation.
Comments Joan:
"I have a feeling my reputation from college followed me
here. I had a background in the arts and humanities and
was an ex-rancher who knew lasers, electronics and
programming too. I'm a generalist by choice. I also
said no to Bill Gates and that was a real no no. He is a
hacker and I'm just like this data base of information
based mostly on empirical research that he is trying to
hack. If anything, he is trying to keep me from working
for anyone else because I do think a lot like him. I'm
what they call a wild card in the high-tech industry. I
stir things up by presenting alternative views."1
Borrowing from Greek mythology, in this reporter's opinion, Joan L. Grove
Brewer is more like the Crone sought out at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi.
The Crone was the woman oracle, Pythia, who would utter weird sounds while
in a frenzy. As the oracle of Delphi, Pythia was sought out by kings and
wise men, who came away puzzled by the weird sounds she uttered when Apollo
spoke through her ... Kingdoms were won and lost, based on what mortal men
did, or failed to do, in response to such prophecy as interpreted by temple
priests.
JOAN AND BILL: TWINS SEPARATED AT BIRTH?
Of course, this being the 90s, modern people do their own interpretation of
prophecy. In the case of Joan, there seems to be an almost eerie connection
between her and Bill Gates that almost verges on [ESP].
"It's been suggested by some who know Gates," comments Joan, "that he is
obsessed with me." She had sent him "a lot of written material since 1988."
In returned, Gates referred her for a job interview a year later. In
retrospect, Joan is modest about her contributions to Bill Gates: "I don't
think I've given Gates all his ideas, but I do think we think so much alike
that it's almost like telepathy."1
GATES AS UNPRINCIPLED PRAGMATIST
In regard to Gates, Rod Van Mechelen says, "Bill is pragmatic, not
principled."1 This reporter doesn't know about the "not principled" part.
Business principles tend to work from real life experience rather than from
the rarefied atmosphere common in both academic and political "ivory
towers."
Hence, where an employee (software engineer) may "borrow" code from the
public domain (i.e. numerous examples but one that is outstanding is the
one that resulted in Gates' article in a long-forgotten computer journal
about software piracy), the government may steal outright (i.e. the
Systematics/Alltel versus Inslaw case). Within academic circles, this is
plagiarism and is deemed punishable by being kicked out of an academic
institution when caught. However, at Microsoft, software engineers like
Steve Salsbery just crow about it.
Of course, Bill may be unprincipled in that he has plagiarized Xerox and
Apple with [the development and marketing of] Windows, which is likened to
a bad port (of Smalltalk) to Intel machines. Mac's OS is better integrated,
thanks to [Steve] Job's honesty -- he did pay to visit [Xerox's Palo Alto
Research Center (PARC)].
In this reporter's opinion, Gates read the article on Job's visit to PARC,
probably in Apple's user magazine and [ordered] the boys in [Microsoft's]
product development [to] "clone it! Buy a couple Macs and run it. See what
you can do to make it work under MS-DOS." And the boys at development
complied. Of course, they probably didn't completely reverse engineer the
Mac operating system due to the lack of documentation.
IS WINDOWS THE BAD CLONE OF MAC OPERATING SYSTEM?
How else do you explain the numerous bugs that turned up throughout
Windows' evolution from its 286 days, through its inclusion in Desk Top 3
contracts with the U.S. military, up to last year's unveiling of Windows
95?
Windows 3.11 is the improvement on 3.0, which itself is an improvement on
Windows 2.11. For the business world, we have Windows for Workgroups (WFWG)
3.x. While Windows 95 finally makes Windows networkable within the business
environment, it is only with Windows NT that you get platform portability
[that] almost neatly dove-tails [compliantly with] UNIX... In any case, the
current Windows family -- consisting of Windows 3.11, WFWG 3.x, Windows 95
and NT -- will always remain bad clones of the Mac operating system for
Intel-based IBM PC compatible computers.
Meanwhile Microsoft University is turning out graduates -- ... its [own]
"Borgs" -- complete with systems engineer equivalency and courtesy of the
open-book philosophy during tests.
MATH BUGS REVISITED
Getting back to math bugs, this reporter knows of two products that run
under DOS which outperform the Windows Calculator application: 4DOS's
%@EVAL environment command and the UNIX port of bc in the MKS Toolkit.
While it is unknown if the OS/2 calculator application works correctly,
hopefully the following figures will be tested on it in the future.
Add the following numbers in any order to obtain 0.0:
120 30.5 20.3 -120 -30.5 -20.3
In Windows, you will get errors [like] 1.06581410364e-014, depending on the
sequence in which the above six numbers are added. Under 4DOS, the related
command is:
ECHO %@EVAL[120+30.5+20.3-20.3-30.5-120]
The result is 0.
Using bc, in both the MKS Tools port and under UNIX, the following commands
are issued:
RANGE=15
120+30.5+20.3-120-30.5-20.3
Again the result is 0.
After seeing this math bug, this reporter's question to Microsoft is: Isn't
it profitable to fix this bug? Not if you plan to make money conning
customers into getting software upgrades for products that are found to be
buggy!
MICROSOFT TROUBLED BY PROBLEMS WITH ITS NETWORK SOFTWARE
Apart from bugs and software theft, Microsoft seems to have problems
in-house with its network system. At one time when the software giant used
UNIX, it had no problems whatsoever. Let's listen to what Joan has to say
about it:
"... Not too long ago, Microsoft's e-mail was down for
24 hours. I heard the whole company stopped. This is
perhaps why Gates is now going to get serious about
improving his own system. All the years they ran on
Unix this never happened. The amount of money lost due
to system downtime is huge."1
System downtime is always a money-loser, especially when the same network
system is used by all departments in a large company. In Microsoft's case,
all that lost productivity time just boggles the mind.
One wonders how much IBM lost when its own network went down a few years
back. According to Joan, "[IBM] had a [system crash] on their main hub and
it took about a week to find out [what happened]--at which time all their
back-ups were messed up."1 This reporter is reminded of the crash of one of
the stock market computers at Wall Street a few years ago. Luckily, they
had a back-up system and trading resumed ...
Then there was the seven-hour downtime at the nation's airports, which
resulted in the Concord being rerouted to Connecticut instead of New York
City's LaGuardia Airport.
One annoying thing about IBM though, is that the computer [manufacturing
giant] hates to work with programmers because they can't control them.
Someday, programmers should seriously think of migrating to UNIX from
MS-DOS, Windows and IBM. While Microsoft may be a lucrative short-term goal
for programmers, on the long run, this reporter's money [is] on UNIX.
Of course, computer network and system crashes aren't at all restricted to
Microsoft. The severity of the problems such downtimes could cause to the
productivity and safety of America [is] very serious. But UNIX isn't immune
to such crashes either.
Of course, when you thought Microsoft was only in the software business,
there's more to them than meets the eye.
WATCH OUT: MICROSOFT MAY BE WATCHING YOU TOO
Another serious matter involving Microsoft occurs within a domain normally
reserved by the National Security Agency (NSA). Once again, let's hear Joan
talk about computer security and corporate spying:
"Hey, some people use pipe bombs and others use computer
bombs. I spent a whole semester in college doing a
security class. Bombs are the worse. They are usually
set by someone about 6 months after they leave. Most of
[us] think MS popped off Prodigy in an attempt to keep
Gates out [of] there. Me and a friend had a very
interesting situation with our mail boxes getting cleared
from time to time. It was because she and I did a lot of
YeeHaws and Young Guns stuff and worked in code. We both
were using false aliases and then I found out we were
being monitored on the nets. It was great. MS was
literally paying people to track me all over and most
likely still are. I've never been too sure just why that
is."1
Perhaps Microsoft just wants to take advantage of that non-disclosure
contract Joan signed when she joined them. It's all very mysterious,
though.
Quite possibly, Gates must have gotten chewed out at a board meeting once
over posting article on the Internet without checking with his executive
staff. These executives are the same types who would get upset to find
important faxes about software bugs stashed in the garbage can by the fax
machine.
COPYRIGHT WARS AT MICROSOFT
Microsoft's dirty tricks with copyright violations and reverse engineering
is a most interesting area to explore. Some of the copyright violations
Microsoft apparently did were very unethical. The Z-nix issue is the
beginning of this trail on the copyright wars. This reporter has read a
report about Microsoft settling with some Hong Kong or Taiwan computer
company which may be related to the copyright wars at Microsoft. It appears
that this one company was producing extra Windows software packages in
addition to the ones bundled with their computers. It sounds similar to the
Z-nix case.
All the interesting stuff this reporter has just learned about undocumented
coding and software copyright violations reminds one of something Bill
Gates reportedly once said:
"You don't need to go to university to learn coding. I
learned more by hanging around the computer room and
going through the trash cans there looking for program
printouts and borrowing [and] learning ideas from other
programmers."4
In all rights, Gates is the richest hacker in the world. He thinks his
riches will open the locks to military computers. And it looks like he's
all set to use Windows NT to do this. This reporter wonders if there is a
"backdoor" into NT FTP server software, just waiting to be opened by
Microsoft-employed hackers.
If there is such a backdoor, then the Microsoft system administrator might
one day come to work early one morning to find these words blinking on his
console monitor screen:
"YOU'VE BEEN HAD! YOUR SYSTEM HAS BEEN ASSIMILATED!!!"
----------
Once again, apologies to Paramount for associating their trademark, the
Borg of Star Trek: The Next Generation with Microsoft Corporation.
----------
Copyright © 1985,1988,1989,1991 by Mortice Kern Systems, Inc.
MKS Tools is a registered trademark of Mortice Kern Systems.
Copyright © 1989 - 1995, Microsoft Corporation, All Rights Reserved.
Microsoft DOS or MS-DOS, Windows 2.11, Windows 3.0, Windows 3.1, Windows
3.11, Windows for Workgroups 3.x, Windows 95 and Windows NT are all
registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.
Copyright © 1993 - 1995, JP Software Inc., All Rights Reserved.
4DOS is a registered trademark and 4OS2, JP Software, and the JP Software
logo and product logos are trademarks of JP Software Inc. Other product and
company names are trademarks of their respective owners.
----------
Bibliography:
1. They reverse engineer everything...: personal correspondence with Joan
L. Grove Brewer, April 9, 1996
2. See the trout farm that drew the ire of Microsoft's legal department
at http://nwlink.com/~seasun/fish-end.htm
3. Stac is the disk compression software company that produces one of the
original utilities for making hard drives appear larger through a
proprietary disk compress algorithm.
4. Words attributed to Bill Gates, paraphrased.
5. The Bob project was the Microsoft Bob project which Joan has
previously claimed was started by Melinda French Gates. This is the
only software product for Windows that goes good with that book
published by IDC Press, "Windows for Dummies." Just think of it as
putting training wheels on Windows. In this reporter's opinion,
Microsoft Bob is just an expensive child's program. Perhaps Melinda
was thinking of having kids one day when she started the Bob project.
Everyone else in Product Development thought it was a dog.
6. Says Joan about what was popular reading material inside the high-tech
computer industry, "Someone even wrote a book called Lure the Tiger
out of the Mountain about The Book of War by the ancient Chinese sage
Sun Tzu and it spread all over the computer industry like a virus."
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