by Michael S. Kaplan, published on 2007/10/06 23:16 -04:00, original URI: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/michkap/archive/2007/10/06/5329820.aspx
Everyone is always saying Microsoft is evil, right?
I think I can prove that they are conclusively, depending on your political opinions.
To start, remember how I pointed out that Even every version of XP Home is fully internationalized....?
Well, to that bit of knowledge add the [reported in Language Log] issue that multilingualism is evil (according to some).
Thus as Microsoft strives with each version to be more fully supportive of all languages, it becomes more and more evil.
In fact, in my position as the software developer who made the initial checkin of the new setup manifests that install all language support by default in Vista, one might even call me as sort of בעל זבוב (Beelzebub) of this enduring campaign of evil.
I wonder if I can trade in the blue T-shirt with bull's horns they gave me for doing all setup those manifests in Longhorn M6 for one that says "I helped ensure Microsoft would be considered enduringly evil, and all I got was this lousy T-shirt!"
Though I would settle for a "Bad to the ⻣" T-shirt. Or at least recognition of being a Vista anti-hero? :-)
This post brought to you by 𒁁 and ⻣ (U+12041 and U+2ee3, a.k.a. CUNEIFORM SIGN BAD and CJK RADICAL BONE)
WM on 7 Oct 2007 12:06 AM:
I always wanted to read the blog of an evil Microsoftee ...
Alexandru Bogdan Munteanu on 7 Oct 2007 5:50 AM:
You're ironic, but unfortunately Microsoft IS evil because of the ongoing internationalization process for its software. The company as a whole is not to blame, only those employees (at all levels) that are incompetent and do a sloppy work.
Take the case of the romanian localization of Windows OS (Vista and XP) and Live services. The translations are awful, to the point of being unusable by someone that knows the romanian language. It is not conceivable to use automatic translation (LocStudio, most probably) in order to translate software interface. It just doesn't work, the result is a robotic dialect, not a natural one similar to the language spoken by individuals. But that's what the romanians that worked on the translations just did, they didn't care if the image of the whole company is tarnished, as long as they continue to receive their (high) salaries. The romanian translations for Windows and Live are not usable by human beings that want to use proper romanian. They are a shame for Microsoft and they have established a very low level of quality for the localized Microsoft products. I discussed in detail this problem on the blog of Tudor Galos (Windows Business Group Lead for Romania), but he doesn't care that the translation is bad, probably because Microsoft has a virtual monopoly in Romania, so the romanian branch can force a product on the local market even if its quality is very low.
Many romanians resent the fact that the translations of Microsoft products are done in a broken language, that sometimes doesn't follow the grammar rules of the romanian language. So yes, some of them will think that Microsoft is evil because it wants to break the romanian language and replace it with a language that is suited only for robots.
I post below the addresses of the two blog posts of Tudor Galos on the localization of Vista, where I have exposed my views in detail under the nickname MunteAlb :
http://studentclub.ro/tudorg/archive/2007/06/11/de-ce-software-n-limba-rom-n-sau-cum-localiz-m.aspx
http://studentclub.ro/tudorg/archive/2007/04/17/windows-vista-romanian-first-preview.aspx
timts on 7 Oct 2007 11:05 AM:
apple creates stupid mac machine, charge super high price for it but still considered non-evil. it's more about the stupid PR things microsoft is doing, not exactly about the software they create.
andj on 7 Oct 2007 7:13 PM:
I thought the most evil people would be those that advocated for support of minority languages or lesser used languages.
And if the English Only crowd got their way, would that mean that Microsoft is unAmerican?