[extropy-chat] Microsoft (was: singularity conference at stanford)

[J. Andrew Rogers]

On May 16, 2006, at 12:13 AM, John K Clark wrote:
> "Alfio Puglisi" <alfio.puglisi at gmail.com>
>> Eugen's mail program sends perfectly standard-compliant multipart
>> messages. If Outlook Express can't handle them, that's Microsoft  
>> fault, as
>> usual.
>
> Like it or not Outlook Express is the most used mail program on planet
> Earth, and as the entire point of mail programs is communication I  
> tend to
> think the problem is with Eugen and not with me.


Outlook Express is showing up decades late to the game with a  
defective implementation of old standards.  No one can require any  
software to interoperate with any other software, but let's be clear  
about where the defect lies that does not let Outlook Express handle  
email that virtually every other client has handled correctly since  
before OE was a gleam in Bill Gates' eye.  And do not be too  
impressed with its popularity -- the vast majority of the market does  
not use OE, and all Microsoft email clients in aggregate still only  
gets you something like half of email users.

Since when did you start making arguments from popularity,  
particularly the modest popularity of something unambiguously  
defective?  Are you a devout Christian yet?

No one is going to make you switch email clients, but it is asinine  
to suggest that the rest of the world should accommodate your  
trivially fixable defect.  How this is plausibly Eugen's problem is  
beyond me.

J. Andrew Rogers