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Comment by RL_Quine | Hacker News Reader

By and large, every piece of software that comes from China like this is the same. Barely functional when it comes from a random FTP server in a rarball you got from a link in an email, works best on a pirated copy of Windows XP, and half the time bundles a pirated copy of other people's software itself. You would be extremely foolish to simply look past this and declare that the origin of the software is irrelevant for the sake of dispelling imaginary xenophobia.

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I don't want to get into an argument over the truth of that generalisation. However, you can presumably see that it is a generalisation of the sort that might offend people. That's really the only point that's being made here. The post could be edited to make specific criticisms of that one piece of software without unnecessarily antagonising people.

I don't think it is positive to shy away from calling something unsafe because somebody might be offended by it.

The point of my comment really wasn’t “don’t say things that might offend people even if they’re true”. My point was that the article, before it was edited, made vague insinuations that were both uninformative and likely to get people riled up to no purpose. Making specific criticisms rather than sweeping attacks is pretty much the sine qua non of a productive technical discussion. The revised article is both more informative and less potentially offensive. Offending people is sometimes necessary, but usually it’s a sign that you’re not zoning in on exactly what it is that you actually want to say.

The truth is very often offensive and being upset by it is the first step in solving the underlying problem. All of us know exactly what the article means by that phrase and everyone (especially the Chinese) would probably be happier if the Chinese (and US) hardware industry was more professional with its software.

You can say the exact same thing about US-made Windows software.

I have never seen a company based in the US distribute such absolutely terrible software unabashedly, no. I recently looked at the software which came with a laser cutter, which included a cracked copy of a CNC controller software, some random utilities with no confidence inspiring features whatsoever, burned to a CD-R and shoved in the box. That's the sort of level of quality and polish which didn't even strike me as abnormal.

Ever heard about Oracle? Or RSA, which I remember only worked correctly on one particular language version of Windows?

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