ell me why I want .NET again Uncle Billy?

#1 wow, that's disgusting...i'm furious...stuff like this makes me ashamed to be using Windows.

#2 That's just plain pathetic. They should have shut down Microsoft, IMHO.

#3 As much as I don't like what Microsoft is doing, it's nothing that amazing. If I can remember my dates right (uh...maybe I can't), less than 60 years ago the same thing happened in government. Candidates would hand out money to low-class voters to get their votes. Dead people would "vote" (be voted for by someone else). That's where "vote early and vote often" CAME from.

MS isn't being creative, they're just stealing someone else's illegal idea. ;)

-Evan

#4 OK, lets sit back and try and use our brains for a moment. This has nothing to do with MS policy, or anything like that.

No, this came about because someone saw the poll, and that .Net was not doing so well. Maybe they thought to themselves, hey - I know a lot of people who are going to be using .Net in their websites - I will forward this on to them, and have them log their vote - that will make MS look better.

I am sure that everyone that responded IS planning on implementing .Net technology for their website - the fact that they all happen to work for the same company, is just kind of silly.

HOWEVER, IMHO, this is not a reflection on what the company is doing - but rather misguided individuals within the company (and I would not be surprised if the person that forwarded the link did not get a little talking to - mainly for doing something stupid that give MS more bad press they do not deserve)

Justin

#5 Please reread the article.

It is very clear that this was not one indivdual doing this. The was a large group of people within Microsoft sitting at their desks and flooding the poll with false .NET claims. This was a group of people designing programs and e-mailing them to others that would send votes in to ZNet when they were opened and clicked on. There was a set of programs designed to attempt to log .NET claims using spoofing techniques to try and get around the one person, one vote rule which Znet required.

This was not one person, it was not an arbitrary action by a small group, it was a deliberate attempt by the company to promote it's product by misrepresenting its success to a third party and attempting to coerce the press into falsely reporting it's success. Now it may not legally be fraud but it skirts awfully close in my book.

#6 No - There is NO WAY that you can say this was the concentrated effort of a company. Yes, I know that some individual (or maybe a couple) created a script to vote for .NET repeatedly. However, that is still an individual person - who is lucky to still have a job (assuming they do).

You can go off the deep end and rant all you want about issues of which you obviously have NO CLUE (yeah, you read an article - and you based your assumptions on your own personal biases). Unless you can tell me you have undeniable proof that MS as a company is responsible, as opposed to a small group of people within the company (that do not make decisions) - then you are just blowing smoke - and perpetuating FUD.

#7 Err... The actions of a company's employees are it's actions. Microsoft is responsible for the actions of Microsoft employees using Microsoft equipment.

A companie's employees are like it's appendages.

I'd still hold you responsible if you had an arm spasm and punched a hole through my window. I'd also hold Microsoft responsible for employee's actions whether management told them to do it, turned a blind eye (likely the case here) or was genuinely ignorant.

#8 I'd have to agree with Mark, *ESPECIALLY* when these actions were performed from within the workplace. It's one thing for Microsoft employees to do these things from their home, but it is another to do these actions WITHIN the company DURING company time.

#9 Just becuase you are an idiot, does not make your employee and idiot.

Though I understand your comments - yes, since it was done on company equipment and time, it still reflects bad on MS - which is why I hope they got beat up bad :)

#10 Hmm.. ok guys before we start calling each other names, and taking a side in this "flame war" I would like to point out some simple facts

1.-zdnet is not such a reliable source for news, they oftenly exagerate in most news to get a better response from their reader (this looks like the case here)

2.-Even if zdnet wasnt lying or exagerating is not like they actually have a case against MS they have little and poor evidence on what they are saying and anyhow I doubt they would try to use it in a real trial.

3.-Who cares? so MS may have cheated in the poll so? all comercial ads and advertisement lie blatantly all the time, or you actually expect to become very "cool" because you drink a brand of orange juice and elegant because you drink some fine booze? ads are totally biased and not to be trusted anyhow.

So what you have here is a piece of information with basically no other but "entertainment" value, is pretty weak on both ends, against and pro microsoft.

So what do you say we leave this here and return to our regular game programming schedule, shall we?

Anyhow im not using .net I dont even know what the damn thing is, and to be honest I dont even care enough to investigate.

Now if you excuse me, I will be around here, trying to change the sky color on real time.

May the torque be with you all.

#11 .Net is a bunch of modified programming languages basically.

Lord Gates is tryting to replace C++ with his new .Net language, C#. It will never work.

He also has .Net versions of Visual Basic, Java and JavaScript and probably Delphi too, but like you, I don't reallly care.

#12 I think some of you need to check your facts on Visual Studio .NET before making assumptions about it, the products it includes, and the languages with it.

#13 Hey, linux is over there ! let's go! woo hoo!