Microsoft Metaphors
What are the best metaphors to use when talking about a browser and an operating system? Is the combination like a car and an engine, or a car and a roofrack? A pair of gloves? Or is it even useful to talk about a browser/OS metaphor in the case of Microsoft, since IE has been glued into the operating system in the form of .DLLs? Might that be more like the wheels of a car? -Declan
At 7:09 AM -0800 1/15/98, Declan McCullagh wrote:
What are the best metaphors to use when talking about a browser and an operating system? Is the combination like a car and an engine, or a car and a roofrack? A pair of gloves?
Or is it even useful to talk about a browser/OS metaphor in the case of Microsoft, since IE has been glued into the operating system in the form of .DLLs? Might that be more like the wheels of a car?
I think this is one of those cases where metaphors mislead. They cause more confusion than they lessen confusion. (I was thinking about the "car + navigation system" metaphor, which someone I think proposed, and how a car company is supplying a map/Etak, but other map makers want the Justice Department to force the car maker to remove their map/Etak, and so on.... but any browser-ignorant reader, presumably the target for your metaphor, will be misled.) My advice: Skip the misleading metaphors and simply describe what the Web is (duh!), what a browser is, and what Microsoft is bundling with their OS. Anybody who by now doesn't know what these three items are is too stupid to grasp metaphor, anyway. (Unless it's this: "Like, think of a beer company. The company wants to include a can opener with the beer. Like, they even want to include an automatic opening thing they call a "pop-top." Netscape, a maker of can openers, wants the Justice Department to force Microsoft to remove this pop-top feature so that more people wil have to buy their can opener.") --Tim May The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^2,976,221 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."
The new upcoming version of Windows gives the user the choice of using Internet Explorer as the main interface for access to the desktop icons, the computer files, internet services like AOL, or web pages. It is still the user's choice to use Win95 as they are accustomed to - they must manually select this option in order to use it - but it is a new way of using Internet Explorer, for more than just viewing web pages. You could say it is becoming the window from which to view the rest of the rooms in the house, including what's beyond, outside of it. .. Blanc
Blanc wrote:
The new upcoming version of Windows gives the user the choice of using Internet Explorer as the main interface for access to the desktop icons, the computer files, internet services like AOL, or web pages. It is still the user's choice to use Win95 as they are accustomed to - they must manually select this option in order to use it - but it is a new way of using Internet Explorer, for more than just viewing web pages.
You could say it is becoming the window from which to view the rest of the rooms in the house, including what's beyond, outside of it. .. Blanc
It is currently available for such use. No just upcoming. PHM
At 09:51 AM 1/15/98 -0800, Tim May wrote:
Skip the misleading metaphors and simply describe what the Web is (duh!), what a browser is, and what Microsoft is bundling with their OS. Anybody who by now doesn't know what these three items are is too stupid to grasp metaphor, anyway.
(Unless it's this: "Like, think of a beer company. The company wants to include a can opener with the beer. Like, they even want to include an automatic opening thing they call a "pop-top." Netscape, a maker of can openers, wants the Justice Department to force Microsoft to remove this pop-top feature so that more people will have to buy their can opener.")
Actually, to continue twisttied analogies, MS is a maker of those plastic 6-pack-holder straps, and has recently discovered that beer is an important market (!) and added canned beer to their list of things they can hold (along with MS NewCoke, MS OEM-Cola.RC, MS Canned OJ, MS Canned News, and MSBeans.) Netscape, a maker of bottled beer (available singly, in cases, or in cardboard sixpack holders), wants the Feds to stop Microsoft from selling their plastic straps integrated with beer. All of us old geezers who remember drinking Home Brewed Real Beer and the younger hackers who were exposed to beer from kegs in college (even if they buy canned Rolling Rock at home because it's cheap) have been telling people for years that canning beer is a Bad Thing and that Microsoft wouldn't know beer if it bit them on the wallet. Bottles aren't a bad way to store beer, if you must sell it packaged, though Netscape's got a lot of gall complaining that MS makes dealers of MSBeerCans and MSBeerCanRings sell MSBeer along with them, seeing as how Netscape got their start giving away free beer in paper cups using the Computer Science Department Recreation Fund, and got the idea for Beer from those Europeans anyway, even if they did add the innovation of selling it in cheap one-drink-sized containers.... [OK, it wasn't very good, but at least it was better than doing yet another bunch of Java metaphors. Hmmm - there _are_ several brands of canned coffee, most of which taste like Microsoft made them.... :-] Thanks! Bill Bill Stewart, bill.stewart@pobox.com PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639
participants (5)
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bill.stewart＠pobox.com -
Blanc -
Declan McCullagh -
Paul H. Merrill -
Tim May