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Petreley On Microsoft And Linux
Quite a number of people have woken up early in the morning to submit Nick Petreley's latest column in Linuxworld. It's kinda a grab bag column but he does reference a rumour that Microsoft has rewritten portions of Linux for use in Windows. I doubt anything like that has actually happened - but it's a strange world out there.
It's good that MS adapt Linux code
... Because that is what the OSS spirit of sharing is all about.
If this were BSD code we were talking about, you'd be right, but since it's GPL'd Linux code we're (hypothetically) talking about, MS would be obliged to publish the entire source to whatever component of Windows this (hypothetically) is under the GPL too.
The Linux community copies MS ideas at every opportunity it gets - WINE, Samba, even the look & feel of the desktops.
That's a trifle unfair. SAMBA is merely a protocol implementation. The "idea" in SAMBA is filesharing: hadly a Microsoft innovation; and Jeremy Allison is on record as saying that SMB sucks as a protocol: nobody actually *wants* to use SAMBA: it's only there as a compromise. Windows won't do it our way (NFS), so we'll be nice about it and talk to Windows the way it wants. Mohammed going to the mountain.And, just so we can brag about it, we'll make SAMBA better than native Windows SMB....
WINE is similar: nobody *wants* to use WINE. Every WINE user would prefer Linux native versions of the applications they're running in WINE.
As for the desktops, I'll regretfully half-agree with you on that one. Whoever decided to make FVWM95 a default window manager wants shooting - it's terrible PR. Personally I use WindowMaker, which is sufficently dissimilar to any iteration of Windows as to totally confuse most people who try to use my desktop (and I get confused using Windows -- damn click-to-focus --shudder--).
Anyhoo: this is all moot. MS are not daft enough to be putting GPL code in Windows. I don't work for MS, but where I do work we have lawyers jumping through hoops to make sure freeware licenses are adhered to. If we do it, I'm certain MS will do it. If they're replicating Linux functionality, I'm sure they'll be doing it in a clean-room manner.
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to write anything. These salesmen posing as journalists are getting way out of hand. They pretend to be objective but they aren't. Clearly Petreley is owned by Sun and Oracle. He is so deep in their backpocket that he hasn't seen the light of day in years. But he wants YOU to know that HE knows everything and, if you disagree, you know nothing. He is a self-absorbed geek and his remarks do not bear examination.
Is this a joke? Seriously how did this piece of crap end up on Slashdot which recently has become almost respectable and unbiased? The overwhelming absurdity of this article is beyond the imagination and anyone who actually believes it must be smoking some mighty strong crack (and NO ONE in software development will believe this shit and will immediately discredit this fool as exactly what he is : A pandering rumor monger eaking up hits however he can with absolutely no integrity or ethics).
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Unbelievable. If any of you believe this, please become luddites and get out of the software and computer businesses, because you're very stupid.
..that indeed MS is examining certain parts of the source code to linux. From what I understand, they have exhausted their supply of Mac source code and are in need of YET ANOTHER OS to rip off!
Are YOU listed?
This claim is absurd. There is only one kind of hint you can take from the Linux code: Design decisions. If you think that any Windows instabilities are caused by flawed design decisions, then you have another thing coming.
Finding errors with design decisions could be done by purely looking at theory on paper. However, the problems are much more deeply routed. They are problems with the implementation. I don't see how spying at Linux code could improve this. Let's call this bullshit a product of hype and move on...
Michael Labbe
The claim that MS is stealing Linux code to make Windows more stable is absurd on the face of it.
Windows and Linux have almost nothing in common. You can't just stick the Linux kernel in Windows and expect it to fit. Nor any major portion of it.
Reliability has to be designed in from the ground up. Frankly, that's why I give more credence to the people claiming that W2K is unstable than to those who claim that it's stable. Stability wasn't an issue at MS until Linux started getting popular. By the time MS started talking up the stability line, W2K had already been in development for several years. I know they didn't go back and retrofit stability as an add-on, because it simply isn't possible.
Now if they were desinging a new OS from scratch they might be able to benefit from Linux. But there's not really even any need for that. Good OS design has been an open topic of discussion among researchers for decades. All you have to do is want it and then apply yourself.
The problem with MS and stability isn't a matter of know-how, it's a matter of care-how. They have always been more interested in bells and whistles than in substance. If they are suddenly interested in stability now, it's because Linux's stability has been killing them in markets that they wanted very badly to corner. Expect them to brag about new, improved stability for several years while they go back and design their third generation of Windows with stability actually built in. If they're still in business you'll be able to buy stable Windows systems in 4-5 years. Not sooner.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
My m$ sources tell me that the recent 'stability' in IIS is due to analysis of Apache and copying the strategy, namely forking the process and periodically killing the children and restarting new processes.
So ... whilst I would seriously doubt the existance of any GPL'd code in windows, there may be some analysis and subsequent adoption of sucessful stategies, but this should hardly come as a surprise to anyone.
I am an avid Slashdot fan for at least a year... and I am used to the Win/Linux "comparisons" popping up from time to time. Fair enough, it's a competitive world. But the fact that a newspaper publishes a whole column revolving around a *hypothesis* that there is code stolen, and bashing Microsoft over a whole A4 page for the supposition that this would happen - that's a bit too much for me. It's not logical, it's not funny and it's a shame for Linuxworld to publish something like that. Go on, flame me!