From: Adam <""4thwormcastfromthemolehill\"{at}the field.near
the bridge">

Don Hills wrote:
> In article , "Rich"  wrote:
>>   If you read it you didn't understand it or are purposely pretending
>> not to.  Oh well.  Believe what you want.  The rest of the world isn't
>> affected by what you want to believe.
>
> The rest of the world is indeed not affected by the Microsoft FAQ.
> They prefer to listen to people like Peter. Feel free to say that Microsoft
> is right and everyone else is wrong. We'll lend that just as much credence
> as we have to every other time Microsoft has said that.
>

I'm sure the truth will out in a few years as the result of some law suit
or other e.g. the early/mid nineties stuff such as:

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20070127202224445

e.g.

"Dennis Adler to bradsi and davidcol:

    You never address the issues Schulman raised in his mail. You
continue to say, "There was no advantage to MS in using these
APIs." Get real. You mean to tell me that the Word & Excel teams
put in a bunch of API calls that they do not think would help them in a
particular area? I hope not!

    There is even one case (QCWin) where the "documented" use for the
API SetMessageQueue enables QCWin to wait until the app it is debugging has
a msg queue in place before sending it messages; this is clearly
advantageous....

    Stop trying to pretend that we did not do this to gain a competitive
advantage, however slight. If that is not why these programmers used the
undoc'd APIs in there [sic] code, then give me a plausable explanation for
why they did.... truthful would be nice too. "

& then

"71. During the development of Windows 95, Microsoft's executives
schemed to integrate the browsing functions into Windows 95 in a manner
designed to cause the maximum possible damage to competitors. ... For
instance, Microsoft intentionally made the use of any browsing technology
other than Microsoft's browser a "jolting experience" for its own
Windows customers, solely to create the false impression that other
browsers were not effective. ...

72. As a result of Microsoft's integration of the browsing functions into
Windows, ISVs needed documentation of the browsing extensions to design
their applications to perform the most basic file management functions.
Microsoft initially documented the browsing extensions in the beta releases
of Windows 95 and otherwise appeared to cooperate with ISVs in developing
applications for release with Windows 95....

73. Microsoft "evangelized" the benefits of using the browsing
extensions. In the early stages of developing WordPerfect for Windows 95,
Novell thus devoted significant resources to ensuring compatibility with
and otherwise exploiting the benefits of Windows' integrated browsing
functions. Further, as encouraged by Microsoft, Novell expended additional
resources to expand upon the extensions, providing still greater
functionality for its own customers and potentially for other ISVs and
their customers. ....

74. In an e-mail dated October 3, 1994, however, Bill Gates ordered his top
executives to retract the documentation of the browsing extensions, but
only until Microsoft's own developers of the Office suite of applications
had sufficient time to work with the hidden extensions to build an
insurmountable advantage over competitors such as WordPerfect. Gates
further explained that without this advantage, Office could not compete
with the major ISVs.

75. In public test versions of Windows 95 released a few months before the
final product shipped to consumers, ripped out these programming interfaces
without warning to Novell. After Microsoft withdrew the documentation of
the browsing extensions, Novell was suddenly unable to provide basic file
management functions in WordPerfect; in many instances, a user literally
could not open a document he previously created and saved. Indeed,
WordPerfect could no longer use the functions that Novell had innovated
atop the extensions, while Microsoft Word could still take advantage of
such innovations.

76. When Novell asked Microsoft why it removed the Explorer interfaces and
browsing extensions, Microsoft claimed that it did not have the time and
resources to complete their development. But in fact, the Explorer
interfaces and browsing extensions had been complete and functional before
Microsoft removed them. ...

77. Thereafter, when Microsoft released Windows 95 and Office 95, at
virtually the same time, Microsoft suddenly reversed course and documented
the programming interfaces. Doing so voided the alternatives that Microsoft
previously forced Novell to expend an entire year developing and, at the
precise moment when WordPerfect needed to enter the market, forced Novell
to spend additional time designing basic functions of WordPerfect all over
again. . . .

83. In addition to withholding technical information, Microsoft created and
controlled new "industry" standards and established unjustified
certification requirements to delay the release of Novell's applications
and to impair their performance for Novell's customers.

"

"88. Seeing that Microsoft's anticompetitive acts would ensure the
demise of OpenDoc, ISVs were left with no choice but to adopt Microsoft's
proprietary OLE protocol as the de facto industry standard for linking and
embedding. Even after making OLE the industry standard, however, Microsoft
still withheld specifications and final, debugged versions of OLE until
after Microsoft released its competing applications. Microsoft's
anticompetitive acts concerning OLE further increased the
"time-to-market" lead that Microsoft's office productivity
applications unlawfully achieved over Novell's applications."


etc.etc

most of which was dismissed By MS & it's spokespeople....now.....

So MS telling the world one thing while doing another is SOP.

Adam

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