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Ballmer Claims Linux Is Top Threat To MS
Greyfox writes: "According to Techweb, Steve Ballmer now claims that Linux is one of the top threats to Microsoft going in to 2001. This up from his previous accounts of Linux as being nothing more than a toy etc. Expect to really see the FUD start flying now. As IBM found with OS/2, once MS percieves you as a threat, they attack like a rabid pit bull. I expect we'll see a lot more negative Linux press on zdnet, reporters paid to laud Windows and slam UNIX, fake grass roots movements, and all the other favorite MS tricks." Well, I'm not that quite that paranoid, but I'll be keping my eyes open
Right. Just like they didn't make any money from Internet Explorer, and so didn't have any motivation to do it.
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"I have a good idea why it's hard to verify programs. They're usually wrong." --Manuel Blum, FOCS 94
Don't under estimate their power and cleverness. Take for example a certain competator that decided to port their office suite to Linux and contribute heavily to the Wine project. While it may be debatable whether Corel has made a big difference in the Linux world, the M$ response is clear. Send some big bucks their way, show them a possible alternative (and windows friendly) way of surviving. What happens? Corel drops Linux. Look for more of the same in other places. Microsoft has the cash and the balls to do what every they can think of to strangle a competetor and Linux is the biggest threat they have ever faced.
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
1) Support tons of peripherals that Linux doesn't
.. if your definition of a "true OS" is "an OS that can run Microsoft Office", then by all means, stick with Windows. Microsoft needs your support. And keep those checks coming! :-)
Non-issue. Linux supports all of the peripherals that I've got, and it supports them quite well. Obviously, if a hardware company is closely partnered with Microsoft, Windows is going to support new devices before Linux does. But for the 99% of Linux users who aren't living life on the bleeding edge of technology, it doesn't matter one bit if a driver for such-and-such device isn't available for Linux until next month. If it's popular, there will be Linux support for it, whether Bill likes it or not. Tough titty, as the kitty is reputed to have said.
2) Have a nice standard, easy to use and intuitive GUI
This is only an issue if your definition of "nice, standard, easy to use and intuitive GUI" is "the GUI that Microsoft uses with Windows." If this is the case, by all means, stick with Windows. There are plenty of window managers and desktop environments for Linux (and Unix in general) for people to choose from. To suggest that these are all "non-intuitive" because they're not the one you used in Keyboarding 101 is fallacious.
3) Using MS means you never have to hear stupid arguments about licenses or asinine definitions of "free"
Ditto for Linux. If you want to partake in these arguments, read Slashdot. Incidentally, the only time that I've ever been presented with intrusive dialog boxes threatening me to read the license "or else" and either click on Accept or Reject was for Windows applications. No OSS application I've ever downloaded and built has required me to quibble over terminology or sign my life away.
4) Plus it will be a cold day in hell before you have Office for Linux anyway...
Who cares? Not everybody does "office-type" tasks with their machines. And those who want to do such things under Linux have plenty of tools to choose from, many of which can read and write the "standard" office formats. But in the end, this is like your GUI issue
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
They don't need their own *nix distribution. The Windows 2k kernel is a very nice kernel. Add to that a *nix filesystem and some GNU Tools and nobody would be able to tell the difference...
...except that Windows2k*nix would have better driver support than *nix.
Keeping
Fear not; most of the concepts have prior art dating back 30 years.
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All men are great
before declaring war
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
It's been a full fifteen minutes since the original post, and I've already seen many articles bragging about how Linux can't be bought or otherwise made to "go away." Yet the Halloween documents point out how M$ is going to try to smash open-source: not with copyright, but with patents. They will find (or buy $$$) some lousy, overbroad, fundamental patent which is relied upon deep in the kernel, and while that won't dissuade the hobbyist, it will dissuade the system adminstrator and company management. And they'll keep throwing this sand in companies' face each time they consider using Linux in earnest. ("You, the company are responsible for violating our patents, regardless of how open the copyright is", they will say.) I hope I'm wrong. Perhaps smaller, more self-contained systems such as the *BSD might be less vulnerable, but that's another discussion. Marshall
At the end of last year at a Microsoft Direct Access briefing (yes, I'm a member, yes I sell and support Microsoft products, yes I make money out of it - cope with it), they had a video intro type thing for Windows 2000 Professional in which they had a female actress kicking the crap out of a guy in a penguin suit with her saying, "Still using Linux, sissy?", plus other little gems of class and character that show Microsoft for who they really are.
The point they have completely missed is that people are not "still" using Linux, more and more people are just starting to use Linux because it's a more and more attractive option.
/* Linus is The One
Um.
First they Ignore you.
Then they laugh at you.
Then they fight you.
Then you get bought by AOL.
Then they laugh at you.
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
While I do agree that Linux is the biggest threat to MS, that's not saying much. While on the server front, Linux has a fairly easy trip to the top, the desktop market will be a much harder road.
/etc and replace it with something sane.
/usr, /home/_username_, /usr/bin, /usr/lib, /lib, /opt, /usr/local/*, ad nauseum, I doubt he could handle it. I barely can. (Of course I'm just terribly pampered by /boot/apps and /boot/home/config/lib)
/etc, in comes a nice, organized config structure. Out goes LinuxConf, MandrakeConf, RedHatConf, DebianConf, ad-nauseam (yea, I'm making these up, but you get the idea ;) and in comes UnifiedConf. Out goes modules.conf, samba.conf, XFree86Config, etc, and in comes a unified text file format. Out goes ipconfig and friends entirely. Use text files or use programs, but choose one for god sakes. Well, you get the idea.
A) Linux still hasn't proven itself on the performance front. Even after several months, the Linux NVIDIA drivers are noticably lower in performance than their Windows counterparts. This happens even at low resolutions where the bitblit thing is not an issue. And with DirectX 8 and, later, Whistler promising huge increases in 3D performance, I don't know how Linux will deliver. Of course, MS could be overinflating their performance claims, but if NT4 and DirectX7 (which essentially made DX faster and more featureful than OpenGL) are any hint, MS *can* make good products, it just depends on if there is the motivation. When you add mediocre 3D performance to the slow desktops (in comparison to Win2K's, anyway) and high memory use (same as Win2K) then you have little reason to use Linux if you're looking for (desktop) performance.
B) Linux's stability won't play much of a part in this. Win2K is very stable, to the point where the average user (meaning one that shuts down at least once a week) won't be able to tell the difference.
C) Linux is still hard to use, and problematiclly, disunified. MS has been taking more and more steps to make configuration and control of Windows more "sane." Linux has been taking more steps in the other direction, especially with new distro like Mandrake that introduce prorietory config scripts. Adding hardware in Linux is not the simple (plug the hardware and the disk in) that it is with Win2K, and doing anything non trivial (meaning intermediate level use) is decidedly difficult. While the desktops are more or less easy enough to use, the system itself needs major retooling. Here are the problems I see
1) Confusing configuration. Get rid of
2) Stupid directory structure. My dad can handle installing programs, but with the mess of
3) Make the system cohesive. Get back to the UNIX roots. You know how UNIX treats *everything* as a file? You know how all UNIX console apps work together in a nice harmony of streams and pipes? You know how UNIX programs can be chained together to do complex work? You know how UNIX (well, BSD one's anyway) tools have more or less the same interface? Starting to get the idea? That means out go GnomeAPI and KDE-API and in comes Unified-Linux-Desktop-API (with GNOME and KDE serving as implementations) Out goes
Sadly, I enumerate all of these EVERY time an article like this comes out, and while everybody screams about how Linux has come so far, all I see are more propriatory configuration files, more stupid config programs, and a more fragmented set of APIs. Disgusting...
BTW> Don't get the idea that I don't like Linux. I really do. I just can't stand to use it.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Linux is still hard to use, and problematiclly, disunified. [...] While the desktops are more or less easy enough to use, the system itself needs major retooling. Here are the problems I see
/Applications, /System, /Users, and /Developer. The BSD directories like /etc are still there, but they are hidden from the GUI and the user is not expected to interact with them. They are mostly there for running BSD apps. There are a few different APIs available (Carbon, Cocoa, Java), but all native apps use the same base application services for rendering and such.
Interesting, for virtually every shortcoming you mention, Apple is working to address in Mac OS X. This isn't purely a OSX evangelist session (I'll save that for later). But perhaps rather that working so hard to emulate Windows, maybe Linux developers should look towards OSX for inspiration (though stopping short of making exact clones of Aqua). From a system design perspective, Linux is far more similar to Mac OS X than to Windows.
Apple has already solved a lot of the problems Linux distros are struggling with. Mac OS X stores a substantial amount of configuration information in NetInfo, a network-distributed database. This software is open sourced, incidentally. The remaining config information is stored in XML files in both the user's home directory and in system directories. Frameworks and Bundles greatly simplify software development and distribution. XML files (with DTDs defined by Apple) are used to store meta information about applications such as icons, localization information, and architecture-specific settings.
Most of the many directories are named normal things like
And to top it all off, the installation process is extremely easy and swift. Beats the pants off a Windows install. Don't be fooled by the casual appearance of Aqua. This is a brilliantly designed operating system, both in terms of architecture and interface.
Apple is even making strides in making unix-based server functionality accessible to just about anyone. I suggest taking a look at the completely revamped version of Mac OS X Server which will be available this spring. I've used things like Linuxconf before, and it just can't hold a candle to the first-hand demos of this new version of OSX Server I saw at Macworld Expo.
And in case anybody thinks I'm some sort of Mac bigot, please note that my servers currently run Linux, and I've been using various forms of Unix for around 6 years, including Solaris, SunOS and FreeBSD.
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
WildTofu
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
Open Source Software WILL make MS change their entire business model -- or die. And sooner that most people think.
I've long predicted that in the next recession, Linux use will grow by leaps and bounds. That's because licensing issues will be more important to people, and companies will be looking for more ways to save money. With OSS, no longer will companies need to pay exorbitant amounts of money to stay in the Windows/Office loop.
And the recession seems to be coming -- just after KDE2 and Helix GNOME, Nautilus, etc. are finished, and Star Office is made GPL'd, with its excellent Office interoperability. Just when Linux is REALLY ready for the desktop. And yes, with a few exceptions that will soon be rectified, Linux is ready for the desktop.
The best part is -- there's nothing MS can do about Linux! They can try FUD, but enough people know the truth by now to make it really effective.
and much more geared to security
I'm a Linux user and administrator, both at home and professionally. Do you really think Linux is geared towards security? I think the default permissions on most Linux systems are good. I think the default permissions on NT and 2000 are bad.
But at the end of the day, the popular Unix rwxs permission system is pathetic. No systems should ever exist where the adminsitrator logs in as root. No daemon should ever run SetUID root either. Capabilities are a hack, and a nasty one at that. Sudo is laughable.
As much as I hate to say it, the ACL permission system used in various trusted Unix systems, various Linux services, and Windows NT/2000, beats the shit out of Linuxs. The Linux Trustees project fixes it, but its currently not in the main kernel. As a result, if you be much easier for MS to make a Windows 2000 that was reasonably secure out of the box than for Red Hat to make a secure Linux.
This resulted in a lot of snide remarks and one-upsmanship from the Linux advocates. At the time, OS/2 and Linux were a close match (and are still somewhat competetive depending on what you want). The Linux guys finally won the debate with one simple point: no matter how much I (or Team OS/2) loved OS/2, it was IBMs decision to promote it, improve it or continue it. As long as there is one person who really wants to use Linux, Linux will be alive.
The only way Microsoft can threaten Linux is to put out a product so great that people will be willing to pay for it rather than get something free. In addition, Microsoft has to support it so well that people don't feel like they need to source so they can support it themselves. If that happened, we'd all be happy, but I expect it these events will occur right after the release of OS/2 Warp version 6 with accompanying Super Bowl ads.
The real issue is whether or not we get to use Linux at our "real" jobs, which is increasingly the case. That's something that needs to be fought for and counts on market share, etc.