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Will Linux Save Microsoft?
Chait writes "Check this article out looks interesting!
Will Linux Save Microsoft? " Its a fairly logical piece, and certainly not
saying anything that any of us haven't thought about. My opinion has always been that as long as the source stays open, I don't care, but it'll definitely be interesting to see what happens.
This is a fine example of how stories can spread on the Internet.
The original story was told by Rex Ballard sometime in '95 in comp.os.linux.advocacy, at least according to dejanews.com searches.
His claim was that as part of the agreement to sell all rights to Xenix to SCO, Microsoft agreed to never enter the Unix marketplace.
I asked Rex for proof of this story, where had he heard it, etc. He claimed it was in the SCO Annual report. Asking him to perhaps provide pictures of this on the Internet resulted in a claim that he only does research for others at $100/hour.
I've went and tried to find this in the Annual reports and was unable to locate it. I've also tried to locate the story in news articles, and have come up blank.
Unfortunately every time I went looking for something to corroborate this story in the real world I came up blank. When I went looking for something to corroborate the story on the Internet all leads pointed right back to Rex Ballard.
Whether this story is true or not depends on one question:
Do you Believe Rex Ballard?
No, Microsoft isn't pure evil. Neither is it simply in the business of making money.
Microsoft still looks up to Bill Gates like a personality cult. Until and unless they change that, consider them less of a mere all-for-profit corporate entity and more of a large and powerful expression of Bill Gates' will. He may be just the CTO now, but he still has the authority of a monarch there.
This is important because Bill Gates believes in central control--his central control. I believe that this central control is more important to Bill Gates, and thus to Microsoft policy, than even profits. This centralized control is impossible to achieve using Open Source software, and that is why Microsoft has not ventured there.
My understanding is that Gates has a vision for user-friendly computing, and belives that he must control the entire show in order to provide that vision for the people. He's not evil, he's doing it for us, the users. I just think that his vision is sadly mistaken.
Open Source Software threatens Microsoft's corporate profits. It also threatens Bill Gates' world-view, personally. If and when Microsoft enters the Linux or Open Source arenas, it will be for one purpose only--to destroy it.
--The basis of all love is respect
I'm intrigued by ZooLib. I even downloaded the source code and I'm browsing it now. As a Windows developer, cross-platform compatibility is not my highest priority. However, I'm always looking for a way to simplify my code, to insert a well-architected layer between my C++ code and the grungy Win32 APIs.
The ZooLib approach looks promising because it creates idealized API. Unfortunately, it is a lot of code and there are few examples and no API docs! Where should I begin?
cpeterso
Even if Microsoft were to make their own linux distro, the *required* stuff would be open source, but all the Microsoft-contributed code would be closed. You better believe it. They will probably port over their Windows toolkit, and any versions of Office/IE/whatever that they make for linux will be dependent on their toolkit and ultimately their linux distro. If they're smart, they'll probably even make the underlying stuff freely downloadable and charge for the fancy windowing and UI (a la Mac OS X). They probably won't even use X.
That article brings up good points... they'll just capitalize on all the R&D that the linux companies have done. Typical tactics. Heh... MS execs are probably even reading this right now saying "hmm, that's a good idea, maybe we should look into this!"
I'm beginning to wonder what future the Open Source movement has, if there's not way to legally enforce some piece of code's open-ness. I mean, how do you take M$ to court? Cmon! Gates carries around more money in his WALLET as spending cash than most Linux-developing companies have as net worth. I'm starting to doubt the supposed MS breakup will ever happen. There needs to be a legally unshakeable means to protect Open Source from Micro$oft's usual hijack move. Or at least, in a perfect world there would be.
-Kasreyn.
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
MainSoft MainWin, a Win32 layer for Linux based on Microsofts source code and developed by both MainSoft and Microsoft [who own and control a large chun of Mainsoft] already exists for Linux. Historically it was used to port IE to Solaris and HPUX.
Get a 30 day trial of Mainwin here. You can also download Microsoft Freecell for Linux on the same site.
They also cannot derive revenue from product sectors they've integrated such as IE, and are trapped maintaining those without hope of being paid for it.
They are in very bad trouble. Their only hope of avoiding a bloodbath over their stock pyramiding is for people to continue to believe, as you believe, 'it's MS, so it can't possibly fail'. However, the reality of the situation is so ugly that blind faith only buys them some time. Technically, what's happening is that while they spend more and more on upcoming projects (much like Apple at its worst, flushing money away), they rely more and more heavily on the stock side of their balance sheet. Unfortunately, that is the side that will collapse because it has nothing backing it but collective belief.
It is very possible that Microsoft will see the antitrust case totally (and illegally) abandoned, be cleared of all wrongdoing and _then_ collapse completely. At this point winning in court cannot save them, because they are just spending too much and earning too little- the earning is all paper, all stock, and revenues from actual products are both declining and insufficient to support the projects MS is undertaking.
Result: splat.
this all comes back to the Jobs' phrase "the whole widget."
the idea is that Apple controls the hardware, so the software will work better and vice versa. it's all about adding value to their hardware.
but to address your specific point, the relevant detail here is that when you control "the whole widget" you can make changes (hopefully for the better) much faster. a great example of this is USB. as you probably know, USB is an Intel standard, but in the PC world, it just couldn't catch on. Intel wanted to replace ancient serial and parallel port, but they ran into a lot of resistance. Microsoft didn't want to make the software widely available, and peripheral and PC manufacturers had non interest in making the hardware if Microsoft wasn't going to add full support.
we all know the eventual outcome. Apple releases the iMac, completely doing away with the ancient peripherals in favour of USB.Apple, in control of both hardware and software, made the necessary changes to support this much-needed movement and made the switch. they were hammered for this by the press because there were almost no USB devices at the time, but in the end it turned out to be a pretty good idea. note that none of this would have been possible if Apple had relied on Microsoft for their operating system.
now this method doesn't always work for the best. some Apple-only technologies didn't fly (NuBus come to mind), but when they get it right, it really works. now if only PC manufacturers would get the hint and start offering better support for Firewire we'd all be better off ;)
at any rate, i hope i've made my point. Apple's idea is that by controlling both hardware and software, they can make a better product, and provide value-added features in their software to better sell their hardware. this also allows them to charge a premium on thier machines: as a PC manufacturer they'd have a very difficult time justifying their profit margins.
in the end, it's an intersting model, and it may pay off for them. it works very nicely when Apple does their research and makes the right decisions (which they've been doing for the past few years). it fails miserably if they don't offer target the market effectively, for instance with the Cube and the lack of CD-Rs in their machines. i still think the model works for them however, and i own a couple of Macs myself for just this reason.
now, a model that may work for Apple in the future is to move to Intel chips (for dirt-cheap hardware and to finally break free of Motorolla who's more interested in the embedded market), but to keep an Apple-only OS. they could offer their machines, but still only run Mac OS X on them (albeit on Intel), and emulate classic applications. but that's a whole new argument all together, and involves a lot of creative workarounds ;)
- j
Honestly, has anyone noticed the sheer madness of this suggestion? For one, it totally ignores W2K- for the idea to make sense it almost accepts that W2K will be a total wreck. It ignores the very real issue that a lot of Linux (or Mac for that matter) is 'not Microsoft' by choice. It ignores the serious risk MS runs in their stock strategy (you'd think a stock reporter would be paying attention to this) and the uncontrolled spending MS is doing. All to prop up the following syllogism:
- Microsoft will never fail!
- Here are some ways they might not fail.
- (insert speculation here)
The fact is, companies fail. They fail when they overspend, like Apple- when they build stock valuation bubbles that burst, like dotcoms- when they try to sell crappy ideas, like other dotcoms. Microsoft has risk for _all_ those reasons- in fact at this point I find it hard to worry about them anymore. Years ago I was desperately worried about them, because I thought they'd seize all the mindshare in the world and refuse to let anyone else into the market. Sure enough, they did, but I had no way of knowing they'd be quite _this_ overextended, dumping their entire fortune into dippy ideas likeSome people are going to be _very_ surprised when MS crashes and burns- might take some IRS audits or investigation of their financial practices because they _will_ lie as a last resort and may already be lying like rugs. However, at this point I wouldn't be surprised.
The DoJ is not needed to destroy the monopoly- that would just be nice, as a matter of procedure and law enforcement. The monopoly has destroyed itself in the traditional way- complacency, just as Gates has always desperately feared. It now presides over flagship products that are losing money, and wild new experiments that will never congeal into products. Microsoft's heart has stopped, and it has only a few steps remaining before it falls, DoJ or no DoJ. It might fall harder if there is NO DoJ or breakup, because that action could have provided vitally needed 'surgery'. A breakup is the only thing that can save MS because it's an outside action that could serve as an excuse for serious re-organisation and re-valuation. Without it- they are compelled to keep bluffing until it all collapses.
The reason I don't think they'll come out with a disto based on Linux is because, as a LinuxCare exec said in an LJ article about a year ago, even if they throw in some closed libs/APIs, its a hell of a lot easier to reverse engineer them when you see how they interact with userland programs on the top and the kernel on the bottom.
Nathan
If you don't have anything nice to say, say it often.
- Ed the Sock
I read this article earlier and while the author has some good points I really don't see his scenario coming to take place. The faults in his argument are: 1) That MS would give up it's windows source base and move to Linux. For this to happen there would have to be some serious changes in the market in the next 5 - 10 years. MS has a strong windows install base, it has a code base that's at least decent in terms of stability/security in win2k (not to the level of linux/bsd but it has good potential I think if MS would put more effort into it). In short, there's just no reason right now for MS to make such a drastic move. 2) That MS Linux would be able to differentiate itself enough in the market as to become more popular than Redhat, Caldera, etc. MS has no experience with Linux dev. Look at what happened when Corel, a company with no Linux OS experience tried to market a distro. Microsoft's only hope in making MS Linux more popular would be in porting the Win32 API to the Linux kernel and making that proprietary along with Office. In short I just don't see how any of this could happen. It's going to be Linux vs. Windows for years to come. MS can't use it's normal business strategies against Linux, they just won't work. They're only hope is to make Windows a better (or at least good enough that SysAdmins won't weigh the benefits of switching greater than the difficulty in switching to Linux).
Comment removed based on user account deletion
You want MS Linux? Here you are. :)
I thought one of the conditions of their first antitrust trial was that they agreed to never directly release a version of Unix that would compete with offerings from SCO, Solaris, et al, and it wouldn't be too far a reach to argue that linux could be included in there, too. Of course, as we all know.. Gnu's Not Unix.. (oh, the irony if GNU/Linux came back to bite RMS in a legal battle with Microsoft over this issue..
Maybe someone who knows more can comment - has the recent trials or breakup of the company changed this ruling from way back when (I feel old now)..
..don't panic
Which Linux developers would sell out to Microsoft?
Any of them that are publicly traded, if the price is right. They won't have a choice.
--
This space unintentionally left unblank.
You should only choose another license if you specifically intend to allow anyone to make closed-source, commercial use of your code.
That's why it's pointed out in an earlier comment that Microsoft wouldn't base an offerring on Linux, but on BSD - as Apple is doing, with Mac OS X.
The Free Software Foundation recommends against the general use of the LGPL - formerly called the GNU Library Public License but now called the lesser public license.
Generally, you'd only want to use the LGPL if there is already an existing high-quality library that is available in closed-source form and you want yours to be adopted by people who want to keep the source to their applications closed. This was done, for example, with glibc, to make a replacement for the proprietary libc popular.
But if you're writing a totally new library, or if you feel that your library is a significant improvement on an existing closed-source library, using the GPL rather than the LGPL will draw new free software into the world, and although it won't prevent people from selling your work, it will prevent them from holding the source closed.
Licenses that would be inappropriate for competing with Microsoft would be the BSD License or the MIT License, the Apache License or the Mozilla Public License.
That's why, despite Mozilla, we still need a good browser that is GPL'ed.
For lists of a lot of licenses, see the opensource.org approved licenses and GPL Compatible Licenses - these last basically can be combined in software with GPL'ed code. Also note License that are incompatible with the GPL.
Upon further examination, I see that if you are not going to use the GPL, you should at least use a license that would allow your code to be used in the same project with GPL'ed code. This is the case with the revised BSD license (without the advertising class) and the MIT license but not the Mozilla license, or, significantly, the Python license - in some cases the incompatibility is not caused by restrictions by what you can do with the code but in the case of Python it's because the licensed is governed by the laws of the state of Virginia in the U.S.A.
Sometimes people do specifically choose to use things like the MIT License because they intend for it to be used for commercial use. My friend Andy Green who wrote the ZooLib cross-platform application framework is an independent consultant, and he had it in mind to make things easier for other consultants and small commercial developers, as well as free software developers. It was a complex decision but they people with an interest in the code ultimately agreed on the MIT license.
On the one hand, this allows people like Microsoft to write cross-platform closed-source products that would compete with free software - so MS could port their products to ZooLib and have source compatibility with Linux, Windows and Mac (and BeOS too), and this source would be closed, which could be a problem.
On the other hand, the ready availability of an open source but commercially-compatible crossplatform library gives power to the third-party developer at the expense of all OS vendors whether closed or open source, which I feel is arguably a good thing.
So it is a complex decision, really. But I think that, when in doubt, use the GPL. If you hold the copyright yourself, you can always supply a separately licensed version to people who pay you for it. For example, while the CygWin library (a POSIX API for Windows, part of a GNU programming environment that is largely source-code compatible with Linux) is under the GPL, you can purchase a proprietary license for it from Redhat which is actually pretty expensive from the terms they used to have on their page.
Michael D. Crawford
GoingWare Inc
-- Could you use my software consulting serv
The idea of Microsoft buying RedHat is equally silly. If they did then ALL the key technical RedHat employees would resign. They would take their money and do something else (or maybe the same thing).
Also, it would be to MS's benefit to fork as soon as possible, so no-one has a chance to change their license from GPL to "GPL minus MS" or "GPL with a fully Open Source disto."
If their aim was to sell hardware, they could beat the hell out of any PC vendor selling windows boxes. Imagine something with the industrial design of an iMac or G4 cube running Microsoft software. It would be tremendously popular in the more image-conscious business environments.
Taken from a purely business perspective, it would make a lot of sense for Apple to sell Windows boxes - they could come bundled with a lot of software to integrate them with Macs, for example, like AppleTalk networking.
But this was never seriously considered for largely religious reasons. It was clear it would have caused an employee revolt.
Michael D. Crawford
GoingWare Inc
-- Could you use my software consulting serv
If Microsoft decided to create its own distribution, Microsoft Linux, it would be forced to release it under the same license agreement that the Linux kernel is released under.
Where they could start charging more is with their own applications and extensions that do not rely on open source code. In this case, they'd become just an application development house, not an OS vendor any more, at least from a financial point of view.
That's fine, but that defeats the whole idea of the article. The point was that Microsoft could dominate the OS field by putting out their own distribution - simply not dominance that can happen.
Hal's MS Linux scenario is absurd, so I won't spend time punching the straw man. Office, on the other hand, is an interesting scenario. With OLE/COM and VBA, Office integration has become a coveted logo for business apps. Red Hat's dominance, as demonstrated by proprietary applications supporting only Red Hat Linux, raises fears of one official Linux distribution. Likewise, KDE's adoption of the pseudo-free Qt raised fears that TrollTech would establish a toll booth on the Linux desktop (no flames please, I'm speaking in the past tense). Far more imposing would be a blitz by Office and supporting apps. like Visio to a proprietary Windows-on-Linux layer. Such a layer could quickly become popular by emphasizing performance at the expense of X's flexibility.
The longer MSFT stalls, the less likely the scenario becomes. Reading about Bonobo and lightweight CORBA is just like reading about OLE five to ten years ago. Eventually, Linux will have a solid component architecture. In the meantime, MSFT has an opportunity to hedge its bets.
There's very little traffic on the list yet because almost all of the people on it have been using ZooLib for a long time and don't need to ask questions (or they mail each other directly) - it's only recently been released as open source but it was a proprietary API for a long time.
But many of us are happy to answer questions, I know I am, and ZooLib author Andy Green is very helpful too. I try to field the questions as much as I can so he can concentrate on development of the library itself.
API docs are coming, they will start as guides to the sample code, and additional sample code with Howto's on the various features. A proper detailed API reference will probably be a while in coming but it's pretty easy to get around the source code in an IDE or class browser or maybe you can run doxygen on it - one thing I mean to do is process it with doxygen and upload the pages and a tarball to the ZooLib website.
And even if you don't plan to go cross-platform, it is in fact a nice API. I find it lovely to use. It makes multithreading your apps much easier for example, gives you nice high-level C++ class interfaces to TCP networking. If you don't plan to be cross-platform at all, you can use ZooLib without any proprocessor guards and freely intermix windows and ZooLib code.
Probably the hardest thing to figure out is the widget layout - the use of the ZPaneLocators. Widgets don't store their location in a member variable, whenever they need it they ask their pane locator where they are. Similarly buttons ask their pane locator for their highlight state.
You're free to store these things in member variables of the pane locator but you can also calculate it at runtime, and a common thing to do is to say "He's just below this pane" or "He's to the right of that pane" and recurse until you hit the top-left corner.
This makes adjustment for different text widths in localization or changing font size as a user preference automatic. If you change the width of the text in a button, just invalidate the window and everything will lay themselves out again.
Michael D. Crawford
GoingWare Inc
-- Could you use my software consulting serv
The only really funny thing about this post is that it is so true that nobody can really comment on it. /. mindshare than other garbage posts do. Ah well, that's the way of /.
...
And since they can't comment on it it will get much less
Every Linux user seems to think MS would use Linux, but they don't need to even deal with the GPL if they use code from the BSD's. Most would say that they already have borrowed from at least the Berkely TCP stack (finally)
Is this the end of the world? No. If MS code is better we all benefit a little. Just think how much better at least US productivity would be if MS code wasn't so freeking buggy. If business apps didn't crash 10 times a day
Tim
Linux does not have the capability to replace Windows in it's current incarnation, and I can't imagine a way that it could change in the necesary direction.
Any Linux distribution needs to have the proper geek toolset if they want any help from developers. That geek toolset is exactly what a consumer OS cannot abide. X Windows, for example. I wouldn't run Linux if I couldn't do remote windowing (overlapping, not like VNC), but I can't imagine any non geek would prefer that to the GDI accelerated Windows interface. No matter what pretty interface you put on top of it, it will be too unresponsive.
So. If a Linux distro wants to slay Windows on the desktop, they might need to do something drastic like ditch X. And then they wouldn't get enough attention from the geeks they need to survive in the interim.
--
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
There's something that I find (all be it intuitively), odd about this line of reasoning. It's as if whatever MS does, they will succeed. If MS started selling cheese tomorrow, every other cheese maker on the planet is supposed to ceremoniously drown themselves in big vats of milk?
No. Linux is a platform. Windows is a platform. Be is a... you get my drift. MS is not going to drop Windows and port everything to Linux. MS is Windows. MS is Office. MS has built a whole ecosystem of OS's & Apps and user base and image and market share and user attitude ("do it all the MS way"), that they cannot simply cut off a large part of their anatomy. Simply announcing a MS Linux distro would weaken their position.
Witness the traditional way MS deals with competition, namely, 'Duplication': VBScript v. JavaScript, Direct3D v. OpenGL, Cool v. Java. etc. They don't challenge you on the playing field; they go off and build their own playing field, and charge you (the competitor) to get in!
MS would not simply 'adopt' Linux, like some long lost child, who turns up on your door step a teenager, saying "hello daddy". MS could not be seen to be supporting and validating Linux. They would have to develop their own open source OS, and it wouldn't be called "linux", but "SourceX" or some such. They would start a big 'open' research project into the next generation global knowledge network or something. In short, they would try to take over the idea.
Oh, but wait. A big company starts an open source project... that's like, Darwin, or Mozilla ... and Darwin's innards were mostly open before Apple got it's hands on it anyway...
I think what we're seeing is that this idea of openness, propagation by usefulness, freedom to adapt, is more integrative and encompassing than what a single company could "suck up" and decimate in it's corporate vacuum cleaner. But I don't think we're going to see 'human freedom' transformed or anything like that,* but I do think that those who sought power and control via software, are going to have to go elsewhere for their kicks.
* IIRC, the Church was real upset when the Bible became something that could be printed and widely circulated. The 'Word of God' was now something people could read for themselves, rather than have to ask a priest. Anyhow, the Church adapted and kept some power by other means