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Microsoft Bans Easter Eggs! (Page 1)

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Author	Topic: Microsoft Bans Easter Eggs!
annette The Powers That Be	posted February 14, 2000 02:43 AM In late 1999, reportedly a memo was sent out to all Microsoft developers stating that easter eggs were not to be put into any Microsoft products and that any emloyee caught doing so would be fired. Also, supposedly people have already been fired. Do you think that this was called for? I personally feel that easter eggs are a fun way for programmers to personalize their product, to get a little credit, and to make working on a product more fun. No harm done. Is Microsoft taking away the programmers last ounce of freedom for expression? And what about we users who love to find these eggs? IP: Logged
sponge Old Timer	posted February 22, 2000 05:52 PM For once in my life, I agree with M$ in this. Microsoft has had way too many eggs. How big do you think the excel fly egg is? It's a 3D engine basically! Now that MS banned eggs, there will be much less. MS products are large enough, all of these eggs make it bigger. 1 or 2 eggs are fine, 3 at the most, but just look at the sections for Microsoft products! That's unacceptable, no matter how entertaining they are. That's my opinion on this issue. IP: Logged
davidswolf The Powers That Be	posted February 23, 2000 01:37 PM I disagree with the whole size thing. As a programmer, I can tell you that most of the 3D rendering engine is already written and installed on Windows systems in the form of DirectX. Not that I can say for sure, but I bet the size of the code for the Excel Flight Sim was very minimal - a few K - because it was mostly function calls into existing routines. I bet far more code bloat went into that stupid Paperclip guy than these eggs. In summary: just because something looks bloated doesn't mean that it is. And vice-versa. IP: Logged
sponge Old Timer	posted February 24, 2000 11:26 AM Ahh cool, from the consumer point of view (me) it looks like it was large =-) Well in that case, I guess MS could be worried that someone will hide offensive eggs, such as zzzz in MS word, but worse, such as racial jokes, etc. I'm sure they have a good reason for doing it though, I doubt MS was bored one day, so they banned easter eggs. IP: Logged
jabberwocky Old Timer	posted February 25, 2000 07:43 AM my POV , now that M$ have banned 'em, the proggrammers are gonna put more in just to p*** the big BG off!! ------------------ Jabberwocky IP: Logged
sponge Old Timer	posted February 26, 2000 07:51 PM Not if the programmers value their jobs. There will still be easter eggs in MS products, just less. Some people don't care about what the memo said, others do care - this is their carreer. We'll find out how well it worked come more MS products. And we will see if Microsoft is really serious, once some eggs get on this page, and start to be well known. IP: Logged
zm unregistered	posted February 27, 2000 03:15 PM quote: Originally posted by sponge: Ahh cool, from the consumer point of view (me) it looks like it was large =-) Well in that case, I guess MS could be worried that someone will hide offensive eggs, ... This is exactly what happened with the Chinese version of Windows 95 sold in China. The software was translated in Taiwan and some offensive messages got in... Microsoft was smart enough to recall every copy of the software. If you want more information, search one of the computer news sites. IP: Logged
sponge Old Timer	posted February 27, 2000 08:42 PM Exactly. That is why I sympathize with MS on that decision. People are going to hide vulgar eggs, and that's the only way to make an attempt to stop it. IP: Logged
sponge Old Timer	posted March 02, 2000 07:36 AM Look at the Word/Excel 2000 eggs now. The midi file takes up a little sapce, but look at the Dev Hunter one. Now I know david said the 3d engine won't take up much room, but what about the textures in this? The textures are pretty high quality too, so text can be read. A game like that would be about 1 MB. Now yes I know 1 MB isn't a problem, but if MS doesn't try to stop it, the eggs are just going to grow in size. If this had a list for the older Word eggs, you would probably see that the eggs steadily increased in flashiness. I don't know this for sure, but you can bet that they are getting bigger. IP: Logged
Burak : LiveC00l Old Timer	posted March 10, 2000 04:31 AM Bill Gates is really stupid? He can just limit the size of the eggs. Why does he ban them? Easter Eggs are the things that makes MS products better. Briefly, BILL GATES IS STUPID ------------------ Visit the first and the only Turkish Easter Egg site. gofret.tripod.com IP: Logged
sponge Old Timer	posted March 10, 2000 11:05 PM This isn't Bill's fault. From a company standpoint, this was a good decision, because of the possibilty of racist easter eggs, getting the company in trouble, and some crazy guy will eventually sue. When something goes wrong, people automatically blame Bill too, but it's not his fault! IP: Logged
imagoon935 unregistered	posted March 20, 2000 09:42 PM ummm, isn't it quality assurance that makes sure that there's nothing that could offend people in the program..... IP: Logged
Spyder Old Timer	posted April 09, 2000 06:59 PM What if they miss one? IP: Logged
sponge Old Timer	posted April 10, 2000 06:51 AM imagoon935: I believe quality assurance just tests for bugs and the such. If any of you want to correct me, feel free, but I think thats what QA does. Spyder: If they miss one, they'll release a patch along with other fixes. At least thats what a smart company will do if they were so against easter eggs. IP: Logged
annette The Powers That Be	posted April 10, 2000 05:06 PM Half the point of easter eggs is that they get slipped into the program, without management knowing. Therefore, they wouldn't be tested by QA. And it's probably a safe policy for a software company not to want to release anything that hasn't been tested. As far as racially offensive things, PM's usually are the ones to check that all the planned products are politically correct. Again, the point of eggs is that the PM's don't know about them! And I have to admit that sometimes dev's don't use their best judgement on what kind of egg is OK. IP: Logged
nil unregistered	posted April 26, 2000 03:39 AM Well, for a start, what is actually the reason why the programmers put easter eggs in the programs??? Is it for fun?? or to get a little credit?? IP: Logged
sponge Old Timer	posted April 28, 2000 06:38 AM Some will do it for credit, looking at how many credits egg there are. Others will do it for the heck of it, and maybe others will do it to get the company mad. I don't know, you'd have to ask the egg authors yourself. IP: Logged
SomeAnonymousTester unregistered	posted April 29, 2000 04:17 PM Easter eggs are not dead at MS. They just aren't officially sanctioned. Everyone knows about them, most of the people have a hand in them, but plausible deniability is retained -- As for the size issue that was posted earlier. Most of the 3d stuff is in direct X. The textures aren't that bad. If you look at the dev hunter game you can see the textures are small and have been stretched. Much less than a meg, I'm sure. Size is always a consideration in easter eggs, especially when you need to fit on an installation CD. IP: Logged
anthillary unregistered	posted May 02, 2000 09:31 AM I think eggs should stay! Why not ban the offensive ones and leave the others alone??? Or ban the ones that are to large in size??? They don't have to get rid of all the eggs just 'cause some are bad.... IP: Logged
sponge Old Timer	posted May 02, 2000 05:18 PM In a perfect world, that would be the answer, but QA shouldn't spend it's time looking for offensive Easter Eggs. There is enough bugs for QA to find, in some programs, to last them a year. They were justified in their banning of eggs. Do I agree with them, no to an extent. IP: Logged
Hermes Old Timer	posted May 04, 2000 07:07 PM Microsoft banned eggs for a good reason: potential problems. Let's say a programmer made an egg, but they did it incorrectly and something goes wrong when somebody uses it. Microsoft would either accept the blame, in which they would get sued for putting that program in, or say they didn't have anything to do with it, in which they would be sued for not monitoring their programs. The consumer might be mad, but in the position they're already in, it might have been a smart move. ------------------ Hermes, the intelligent fool. IP: Logged
ADRIAN COLLINS Old Timer	posted May 07, 2000 03:18 PM Thats cruel,Microsoft don't want any coll things in windows anymore,it will be just plain dull.BILL GATES IS EVIL!SPLIT IT UP,COURTS! ------------------ ADRIAN.C.COLLINS IP: Logged
Hermes Old Timer	posted May 07, 2000 05:35 PM I don't think they're evil. It's just a little disappointing. ------------------ Hermes, the intelligent fool. Bulletin Board Police To Protect and Censor [BBP] \..../ .\_/ IP: Logged
SomeAnonymousTester unregistered	posted May 08, 2000 05:44 PM It's really a non-issue though. Easter eggs aren't going anywhere, regardless of policy. The policy is there, everyone ignores it, and everyone knows that everyone ignores it. IP: Logged
Hermes Old Timer	posted May 13, 2000 09:41 PM I agree. Who cares? Fanatics do. That policy is only going to provoke them into making more. They might even do it to annoy their bosses. Who knows? They do. ------------------ Hermes, the intelligent fool. Bulletin Board Police To Protect and Censor [BBP] \..../ .\_/ IP: Logged
Inv unregistered	posted May 22, 2000 07:38 PM The main concern MS have with Easter Eggs is possible errors and offensive material. Size or running speed is almost totally irrelevant, I've made 3D-engines before, even in Qbasic, and the files is no more than 5K. There are many tricks to 3D programming that can produce a good result using minimal processing power/memory For example, in the textures for excel fly egg, they appear to be very detailed. But they're are only tesselated and the graphics would only be 20K. The scrolling text are not graphics, they are simply normal text tilted. I understand MS' worry about easter eggs, but I feel that the programmers should be allow to express themselves by implanting easter eggs, as long as they are harmless and not offensive. However, this where another debate starts up: What is considered harmless and inoffensive? As a user, I would also appreciate easter eggs, they can be fun things to look for and do. IP: Logged
eggresearch@excite.com New Kid on the Block	posted June 19, 2000 03:05 PM The problem with allowing eggs is the potential for disaster. If a developer can include a funny egg, they can just as easily include a malicious egg. If Microsoft releases a product with such an egg, the loss of revenue do to law suits and liability could be catastrophic. Until there is a way to identify and classify all eggs before the release of a procuct, eggs cannot be condoned in the eyes of a software company. ------------------ eggresearch@excite.com http://clubs.excite.com/EggResearch IP: Logged
Hermes Old Timer	posted June 21, 2000 12:34 PM It's not an egg if it's malicious. IP: Logged
jabberwocky Old Timer	posted June 24, 2000 11:58 AM if microsoft has banned eater eggs, how did this get into the latest version of pocket excel? ------------------ "Happy Birthday to me!!!" Jabberwocky - Bulletin Board Police http://www.jpage.org IP: Logged
yeti New Kid on the Block	posted June 25, 2000 09:39 AM It seems to me that embedding eggs in software opens the opportunity for lawyers to file class actions against the product companies. Such eggs take resources and do not add value to the related products. Customers are not made aware they are buying adulterated products. Personally, I�d have to encourage the lawyers on this one. As for the argument that eggs are ways for programmers to express their creativity � they are getting paid to write creative applications not waste the resources of millions of product users. IP: Logged
lucienne Old Timer	posted June 26, 2000 12:34 PM I think that easter eggs are OK as long as they dont take up too much space in the program. I also do not think a note is going to stop people from putting easter eggs intheir programs. BTW, happy B-day, Jabberwocky! I'm still looking for a new signature... ------------------ Romana, a.k.a. Skipper (Banger 4Life!) IP: Logged
jabberwocky Old Timer	posted June 29, 2000 11:32 AM quote: Originally posted by lucienne: I think that easter eggs are OK as long as they dont take up too much space in the program. I also do not think a note is going to stop people from putting easter eggs intheir programs. BTW, happy B-day, Jabberwocky! I'm still looking for a new signature... thanks wan telp with the sig? u know my email btw, found the egg yet? ------------------ "Did someone say - Walls?" Jabberwocky - Bulletin Board Police http://www.jpage.org IP: Logged
ViperSniper32 New Kid on the Block	posted July 16, 2000 01:58 PM I have a few arguements about this page: sponge: zzzz in word isn't doing that on purpose. It's expected behavior. All the spell checker does is look at the word, look through the dictionary, and make a guess about what the word is supposed to be. It's not an egg, and even some spell checkers I've seen on Macs do that. yeti: wasting resources? adulterated? davidswolf is right, the egg doesn't work without DirectX, and the names don't show show up if you remove the Tahoma font. So what does this tell us? all the XL flight sim is is 2 textures (couldn't possibly be more than 100k) and some DirectX calls. The whole thing could fit on a floppy ten times. If M$ should cut back on anything, it should be the irroneousness (spelling?) of the paper clip guy. I mean, who really cares if he unfolds himself and does whatever the heck he does? Keep going, Inv, it's all true. yeti: adulterated? wasting resources? Are we talking about easter eggs or the office assistant? You'd figure for all the money they ripped us off, we should at least get some unfiltered enjoyment. It's like one of those TV V-Chips that you can't turn off. God! ------------------ I don't make the rules, I just break--er--enforce them. Email Vipersniper32@aol.com The Undead Squirrel IP: Logged
Hermes Old Timer	posted July 20, 2000 12:44 PM Try clicking the "X" button on the upper right hand of the paper clip screen. ------------------ Destroying prodigies (spelling error intended) at the speed of light. IP: Logged
jump3r3ebn30 New Kid on the Block	posted March 12, 2001 10:13 PM Size isn't the issue here. Anyone who buys a M$ product isn't worrying about size, because the program is big to begin with. As for the offensive comments, QA could just hex edit the program and search for a list of offensive words. Of course, the programmers could just encrypt the string and write a sub-program to decrypt it at runtime :-p. IP: Logged
Aquila Old Timer	posted October 17, 2001 10:36 AM quote: Originally posted by davidswolf: I disagree with the whole size thing. As a programmer, I can tell you that most of the 3D rendering engine is already written and installed on Windows systems in the form of DirectX. Not that I can say for sure, but I bet the size of the code for the Excel Flight Sim was very minimal - a few K - because it was mostly function calls into existing routines. I bet far more code bloat went into that stupid Paperclip guy than these eggs. In summary: just because something looks bloated doesn't mean that it is. And vice-versa. For the record, if you've ever checked the underground programming/demo scene, some clever programmers have successfully created a 4-minute long 3d presentation in under 16k! Proof that the flight sim should not take too much extra space in xl anyway. IP: Logged
kokopelli New Kid on the Block	posted November 24, 2001 10:04 PM I don't remember how to trigger it now, but in IE (iirc) there's a way to bring up "Netscape engineers are weenies!", written backwards. This came out during the anti-trust trial where MS was trying to argue that it was just a poor little company that did nothing wrong, but the big nasty DoJ was beating up on it because Netscape couldn't compete in a fair marketplace. I don't think this was officially noticed by the court, but in the real world it reinforced many people's opinion that Microsoft and its employees are out of control. Are their other eggs that name individuals? That defame individuals? I don't mind easter eggs put in by design, or buried deep in the source code. But I agree that an unapproved easter egg is grounds for termination - the potential consequences of a bad egg discovered at the wrong time can be enormous. IP: Logged
kokopelli New Kid on the Block	posted November 24, 2001 10:21 PM I heard about an easter egg in SimCity 2000, or something like that, where under rare circumstances (the 13th of the month falling on a Friday, or maybe it involved a full moon) the game went gay. Muscular dudes in bikini briefs and nothing else walking around hand-in-hand, things like that. Some people defended it, claiming it was a political statement about the lack of same-sex characters in the regular game. Others just laughed at it. But still others were outraged, claimed it made the game unsuitable for children, and generally did their part to achieve Hell on Earth, at least for the company and its employees. On the one hand, it's easy to say that this egg would offend some people and the guy should have never put it in. But what about eggs which are offensive to fewer people, perhaps without the author's knowledge or intent. (E.g., try making any joke about witches around a Wiccan....) IP: Logged
mes4v4 New Kid on the Block	posted April 07, 2002 03:53 PM im gonna try to go to bill gates personal webpage http://www.microsoft.com/billgates/ and see if i can send him a letter. edit: i couldnt find any link to send him a letter. anyone know his snail mail address? ------------------ <-_-> (.:_:.) William e s 4 v 4 [This message has been edited by mes4v4 (edited April 07, 2002).] IP: Logged
jabberwocky Old Timer	posted April 11, 2002 09:22 AM bill.gates@microsoft.com bgates@microsoft.com billg@microsoft.com try those... one of them is his ------------------ "computer games don't affect kids, i mean, if pac man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive music... " Jabberwocky - Bulletin Board Police - To protect and serve JPage\|Source Guru *Help Support The Easter Egg Archive* IP: Logged

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