Microsoft Unhappy With Bungie's Use Of Linux

Noctavis writes: "According to this article at Inside Mac Games, 'Mat Soell [of Bungie] indicated in a forum post several days ago that some Microsoft employees they have spoken with were unhappy that the Myth servers ran on Linux, as of course Windows NT is the platform of choice at the Redmond campus.' For those who may not know: Bungie Software, now Bungie Studios, was acquired by Microsoft earlier this year and its upcoming title Halo will apparently be the flagship game on the X-Box in a year from now; some say its "killer-app." It has since been reconfirmed for the Mac & PC, but the timetable for such a release has not yet been revealed. (Anyone think we can realistically expect it sooner than 3-6 months after the X-Box release?)"

Comments

Lies, Damned Lies, and "Journalism"

[msoell]

Hello-

Matt (two t's, IMG) Soell here to hopefully clear the waters that people have thoughtfully muddied in my name.

There is NO ugly corporate pressure from MS demanding that we change our servers. None, zilch, zero, null.

There have been a few scattered individuals who've made comments to the effect that we might want to consider an MS server solution. This has never come from anyone in a position of authority and has never been more than a passing suggestion of that individual's own opinion. They are as entitled to their opinions as we are to ours. The decision is still ours to make. In other words, it was no big deal, and that's all I've ever said about it.

It's like me sending a letter to Inside Mac Games suggesting they fact-check their articles so they can avoid presenting biased inference as fact or at the very least spell people's names properly. They might feel a wee bit of annoyance at my suggestion but they'd still be free to ignore it completely. Know what I'm saying? :-)

No doubt some of the conspiracy theorists already think I'm typing this with a gun to my head, so there's probably no point in dragging this out because people are going to believe whatever they want to believe. But I'll say it again in a way that hopefully no one can misinterpret:

There is no interference from Microsoft in our choice of servers or anything else.

-Matt

Of course...

[NecroPuppy]

Well, realistically, why wouldn't they be upset? It's equivalent to, say, Ford Motor company reacquiring Hertz, and finding out that all their executives drive Cadies...

It doesn't really mean anything tho... People aren't buying and playing Myth because of what server it runs on...

NecroPuppy

Re:Of course...

[sphealey]

"Well, realistically, why wouldn't they be upset? It's equivalent to, say, Ford Motor company reacquiring Hertz, and finding out that all their executives drive Cadies..."

About a year ago I was reading an intervew with Novell's CTO (for internal services) in which she described Novell's internal architecture. The inteviewer asked some sharp questions about why there were a number of NT servers in production on the Novell network. She replied (a) there was a business application required by her clients which ran only on NT (b) Novell's external clients use heterogeneous networks with Novell, Microsoft, *nix, etc products, so she believed her internal network should reflect that reality.

Now, as a technology strategist, which company would you trust more to be your supplier in the long run: One which tries to eliminate all non-internal products regardless of functionality? Or one which works intelligently to work with the best of all products on the market?

sPh

strange "news" story

[crgrace]

My, my is this a strange "news" story. Someone looking at Slashdot for the first time would think that to Nerds, the stuff that matters is constantly whining about Microsoft and how evil they are. We've discussed things just like this over and over again (remember hotmail and BSD)? and got nowhere and said next to nothing.

I'm tired of little digs at Microsoft masquarading as news around here. I use Unix and I don't like Microsoft very much. But I don't want to whine like a spoiled puppy about it either. Can we stick to the real stuff the matters, like new products, on-line rights and privacy, and science?

The news travels up MSN to Redmond - Delayed

[ackthpt]

Bill: ...and of course they use NT so they're a perfect acquisition
Ballmer: No, my leige, they use ...er... some free operating system
Bill: What?
Ballmer (perspiring): Uh... It's not one of ours...
Bill: OF COURSE IT'S NOT ONE OF OURS! NONE OF OURS ARE FREE!
Ballmer (wetting pants): It's Linux, my lord...
Bill: Well fix that, you imbecile! What's the point of being a Mighty Evil Master if I can't have my whims!
Ballmer: Yes, my liege! Your lordship!

2 years later

Ballmer: News, my liege!
Bill: It better not be another one of those damnable snipes about the International Space Station plummeting in flames into Lake Erie after Win2002 hung the piloting systems. I'm sooo tired of that.
Ballmer: No, my liege, we have converted the Myth servers to our own O/S.
Bill: Ah, good, how's that going?
Ballmer: Err.. Well it's funny you mention 'plummeting in flames'...


It's all true! ±5%

Re:OSs

[Fross]

btw, What is the plural of OS?

If it's Microsoft operating systems, the plural is SOS.

Fross.

The actual quote:

[Xzzy]

Matt Soell said this under this URL:

"We've spoken to a couple people here who've made snarfy comments about us not using an MS server for b.net and we've ignored them."

Sounds a fair bit different than what Inside Mac Games reported, doesn't it? Sure, you can translate that to mean "M$ is unhappy", but he never actually SAID that. It's just people falling prey to a media organization (insidemacgames in this case) who are buttering up their stories with scandal and comments that scare people.

It increases page views (heck, how many of you visited the url given in the story?), and that's all they're trying to do.