[goialoq]

You're exactly right and that makes me feel sick about how ugly the world works.

[hoodoof]

All business is a variation on this. If you're wanting to be a business person in a "nice" world where its not all about manipulation and sleight of hand then you can do that but you won't be mega successful.

Read up on Bill Gates Windows license contracts that the hardware manufacturers had to sign .... genius.

Truth is all in how you tell the story.

[carapace]

I remember the day a friend explained to me that MS Word, Internet Explorer, and MS Frontpage were the same DLL just with different entry points.

[throwaway613834]

What? That seems both wrong and meaningless. You can compile as many programs as you want into a single DLL. Doesn't mean a thing.

[carapace]

It wasn't N programs packed into a DLL, it was one program (in a DLL) that acted like three different programs depending on how it was "started".

They were selling the same software as three different products.

[throwaway613834]

You consider MS Word and Internet Explorer in the same DLL to be "the same software" rather than 3 different pieces of software packed in the same DLL?

[carapace]

I'm just telling HN what my friend told me. It's not as if I've ever examined the file, y'know?

[_ah]

Your friend was lying to you.

Source: I'm a former MSFT employee, and I've spent WAY too much time working in the Office codebase.