If you want to defend MS as the great promoter of standards then I
suggest you bring some facts to the table. Until then keep your
shallow viewpoint to yourself.

OK, my friend, let's look at just whose "viewpoints" are indeed "shallow".
We'll take them one by one, from your very first mistake: posting about
something of which you obviously have only limited knowledge, a point which
you indeed prove.

For someone who supposedly "attended meetings" on USB (which YOU brought up
and tried to shoehorn into context), you appear to have slept through most
of them.
It is very easy to sleep through technical meetings where the
discussion is irrelevant because the answers are dictated in the back
room through force of the MDA.


MSFT was only a small part of the consortium that brought USB into being.
Try Compaq, NEC, Northern Telecom, IBM, Intel and Digital as "CO-DEVELOPERS"
of the USB protocol as we know it today, NOT as you suggest something MSFT
"tried to force down the throat ..." (sic).
What I cited, had you read my response, was that MS and Intel forced
PC suppliers to ship USB hardware before the technology was finished
or proven. A tremendous number of PC mfr service calls (in fact a
couple of class action lawsuits) were generated in 1995 through 1998
simply because the equipment had this USB feature that no one could
use. That is a fact.


(That is an actual, and inarguable, FACT!)
The fact is that USB is an industry consortium, set up by MS and
Intel, with very restricted rules regarding Intellectual Property (IP)
and process that prevented anyone who had significant IP to contribute
from participating without giving away the family jewels. In fact IBM
did not participate in the consortium, despite claims in the spec to
the contrary, for precisely this reason. That is a fact. There are
numerous other examples of this practice.

You will find that the MO is for MS to avoid participation in real
standards committees where the implementation is not guaranteed and
subject to public debate and, instead, takes one of two paths: either
publish the spec as a Windows specification - take it or leave it (and
if the industry is real lucky the specification accurately represents
their implementation which is rare), or set up a consortium where the
outcome is controlled and gives the appearance of a democratic
collaborative process.


With regard to "Apple" and networking ... to suggest that AppleTalk is a
"networking standard" in the industry is as laughable as it is ridiculous.

(And that is a reality based FACT, which only a fool would argue against.)
It is also a false argument since I never said AppleTalk is a
networking standard. I said that Apple shipped the ability to network
between devices without hassle long before MS ever did, using IETF
standards or otherwise. Maybe if you read what I said rather than
what you think I said we would actually get somewhere with this
discussion.


snip of more meaningless misinterpretation of what I said

TWS