Linux Is Going Down

villoks writes "Doug Miller, Microsoft's group product manager for competitive strategies is trying desperately to find arguments against Linux." Many really good points, and many other equally bad ones.

Comments

Re:Why Linux is not the best option.

[digitalhermit]

That was nicely worded, but doesn't reflect what I have seen.

I install networks for small business (10 - 100) users. I do install NT for those customers that demand it.

Let's look at some problems with your reasoning:

NT admins cost (at least in South Florida) more than $30,000 a year. You can probably get a very good help-desk person for this salary though. With an MCSE and a CIS degree, $40K is closer to what you'll pay. Add in the cost of the site license, SMS, your mail server and so on, and this figure quickly eclipses a Linux solution. I won't bother with the extra hardware resources needed for a workable NT solution versus a Linux solution.

A Linux admin for $60K? Sure, if she also knows Sun, IBM and HP, and she has a couple years experience. True, unix admins get more money on average, but they also generally take care of more users. But it's deceptive to claim that a Linux admin is $60 and an NT admin is $30K..

As for the remote user machines, I had not even added *client* licenses into the above. Factor that in and your costs go way up. But what difference would it make for the server? A Linux install would be transparent to remote users. They wouldn't have to relearn anything. On the same token, I can't imagine anyone preferring to remotely administer a Windows box versus a Linux box.

I guess it does come down to what the users and company will tolerate. Does a 20 user company want to hire an NT admin or would they prefer to install a Linux machine once and forget about it? Or are they under the delusion that, because it's NT, they can take someone part-time to service the box.

If they want support, I'll sell them a service contract for $15,000 a year (potential savings for a 30 user company is close to $100,000 vs an NT solution). For NT it's more because I need to send someone on-site because even a driver update requires a reboot.

Re:Laptop incompatibilities

[Fervent]

700 mhz PIII, 192 MB of RAM, 20 GB hard drive, 8 meg video card.

It's strong, but not a monster.

Re:The point of the article . . .

[johnnyb]

VALinux has a great business model - they sell hardware to a niche market and make sure the proper software runs on it. How is that a bad business model? The only problem VA has is that they were over-ambitious as to how big the niche was, and how big a piece of pie they were going to get.

Re:What would you expect?

[cyoon]

For enterprise elements, I'm not sure what he could be talking about in terms of the kernel ... For kernel services, I'd say he's wrong. But without the word Kernel in there, he's right. Enterprise means management of several hundred installations of an operating system, which is something that Linux doesn't yet have an elegant tool for. Also, the ActiveDirectory feature of Windows is actually really cool, if properly implemented.

Regarding Linux on notebooks, I think you're missing the point. People tote around notebooks to do write memos while on the plane and do Powerpoint presentations at client offices. It's not that you can't install Linux on notebooks -- it's that the common applications and functions that you'd use a notebook for are better developed for Windows.

BTW, your sig no longer works.

Not Linux but UNIX

[sharkey]

Q80520 - How Microsoft Ensures Virus-Free Software

Not Linux, but UNIX is being used to master/duplicate their distro CDs, for a very specific reason. AFAIK, Hotmail runs their web servers on BSD, and uses Solaris for the email handling.

--

Re:An Example of FUD

[Fnkmaster]

I will definitely tell you that as a workstation, Win2k still doesn't match up to Linux in stability. I use both for very similar things, email/groupware junk, lots of emacs, lots of web browsing, listening to MP3s, lots of compiling and building Java apps, running and testing Java apps. I do as you said have to reboot my Dell Win2k development box at least once every week or two due to sudden bizarre failures of IE and/or Outlook that seem to have systemic effect (i.e. even killing the processes does nothing to make them run again).

My Linux box on the other hand has the occasional XFree86 4.0.2 crash which seems to be a weird interaction with my USB optical Intellimouse Explorer, but I can always kill the X process and restart X. I use ReiserFS so even the two or three times I have had to reboot it comes back up real fast (like when I kicked the power cord out of the wall by accident).

I haven't seen Win2k run as an active server really other than the low-usage PDC we have in the office here. It has gone down only once as far as I know in several months of usage, but then again, it doesn't do very much work. :)

Re:concerning NT ...

[johnnyb]

Aha! It appears you are correct. I was reading the same document, but mistook "The Journaled File System (JFS) provides a log-based, byte-level file system that was developed for transaction-oriented, high performance systems" as meaning that it was a log-structured filesystem. However, if you read on, you find that you can get essentially data-level integrity using synchronous writes. I don't know how this affects performance on that filesystem, though. The same _probably_ applies to XFS, but I am unsure now.

Re:Microsoft can't do anything about free..

[xtal]

Problem one: when all the Linux companies go "Tits up", hardware companies will no longer feel a need to release a few drivers for their products. They are only catering to the niche right now because they think that niche is growing.

Almost none of the drivers I have are written by companies. The best companies ever do is release register information, and sadly, a lot of the time it's reverse engineering work that gets things running. I don't buy this arguement for a second, and you should have a poke around in the kernel source sometime. Companies that are friendly to linux now have largely ALWAYS been friendly to linux, and I don't see any reason to think that anything more than goodwill is the cause - I doubt linux support affects huge percentages of their general revenue (linux users excepted).

Problem three: if we lose these companies, we will be losing many of Linux's best programmers. Reasoning: while some of the better ones are hobbists, a lot of the best coders work for money.

I work for money; I even make a pretty good wage. Even to the point of developing on microsoft APIs and microsoft platforms! I can say that some of the best code I've ever written has been for free or with an academic interest, and had very little to do with money. Most of the code I write for work is pretty mundane. This arguement doesn't hold weight. Back-in-tha-day, there was no commercial incentive, and there was still plenty of development. Although, XFree and Linux sucked more then. The suck less now, and will suck even less in the future! I love it!

They are coming to Linux not only because they see a development challenge, but a monetary opportunity through companies.

I laugh at you loudly. There are few if ANY jobs out there developing linux software. Mail me some information. They don't exist (relative to the opportunities doing embedded work, windows work, or generic network code, which I guess could be done in linux, but not exclusively for linux). Don't underestimate the 100-million-plus seat windows market, that's why you don't see games for Windows; Nice or not, we're not statistically relevant in that game.

Problem three: You seem to have many hours a day where you can code programs to give away for free. I don't. Most of us don't. Right now I'm going to college, but even now I'm swamped with work and expenses necessary to keep food on my table. I can only imagine it getting harder when I leave. That's why I can't help you in your idealistic ways.

I have very little time to work on free projects; That's why I hand stuff around - maybe someone else can do something with the little tidbit I wrote. Much of what I do is of little interest to anyone but myself - playing with genetic algorithms and 3D, for example. I do it for the love of the art, not the money. Linux was written by people that did it for the love of the art, and would do so regardless. There are very few things in this world I have any natural aptitude for, and coding is one of them. Why waste that gift?

That's why I can't help you in your idealistic ways.

Maybe I'm idealistic, but it doesn't change my original statement that if all the linux commercial involvement went tits up, very little of what I do would be affected in Linux. Linux exists outside of the traditional commercial world, and I see no problem with that. It will continue to evolve, and improve, with out without Redhat, VA Linux, etc. That's why we'll win (Eventually).

Re:FUD

[hammock]

And Linus saying so himself.

Torvalds on Linux (Q&A): They aren't laughing now

Re:can Windows be beaten on the desktop?

[sheldon]

That may be true.

But it's important to examine all your options. Running down the dual boot Linux path is something of a pain, especially if it's not the best solution.

Students receive substantial discounts on software, no need to pirate.

Duh?

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you expect them to say? Nothing? Only nice things? This is Microsoft, they're competitive. Judging from most people's attitudes on this particular website, so are Linux advocates. How many positive things about Microsoft/Windows do you read here?
Stop yer bitchin already. MS will never stop talking down their competition, and their competitors will do likewise to them. This isn't communism.
Posted anonymously for a reason. Duh.

Re:Duh?

[lrichardson]

Win95/98 are an extension of the DOS/Win 3.1 path. Win2K is more NT ish. Using the FAT file structure for one, NTFS for the other. There are some real differences in how things run. For instance, I can kill 99% of the background garbage in Win95, haven't figured that out completely under Win2K.

Heck, I only gave up on DOS a while back ... you oughta see how fast some programs run on the latest chips, when you don't have bloatware sucking back all the improvements.

There are also real reasons for having different versions of software ... WordX does not, in fact, actually save stuff properly in the WordX-1 format when you select it. There are a few glitches here and there, so running two copies makes sense. Even OS have the same problem.

My original comment was more pointed at WinMe. Why anyone would play Russian Roulette with their machine is beyond me. M$ won't give out the figures, but somewhere between 15-30% of all users have their machines totally fried by this 'upgrade' ... and the 'restore' feature (to be used when this happens) is even worse (seems to be working less than 50%).

Re:Duh?

[Jedi Alec]

Posted anonymously for a reason. Duh.

Actually, there are people more than willing to proclaim pro-MS feelings, and some of them actually have the guts to risk some karma at it. I happen to be running a WinME/Win2000 dualboot and I'm actually quite happy with it. I'm not saying that it's either better or worse than (fill in whatever open source piece of software you happen to be zealoting about), I'm merely stating that "it works for me".

Yeah, right

[unitron]

"There really isn't much value in free," said Miller

Except, of course, to the recipient.

Re:Yeah, right

[mpe]

Companies performing the benchmarks with $$$ from Microsoft.

Of course Microsoft could simply put something into their licence to say "this benchmark will never see the light of day if it dosn't show our software in a good light"...

Re:Yeah, right

[micromoog]

"There really isn't much value in free," said Miller.

I'll attempt to interpret what he actually meant by that, since it was most likely taken out of context. I believe he was referring to the "free" (as in beer) price tag of the OS itself representing only a tiny fraction of info tech expenditures for a company. When you include support, development, administration/operation, etc. of a system, the OS price (free or not) is nearly insignificant.

To a home user, OS price is a big factor, but to a business, it's pennies.

Re:Yeah, right

[klund]

> "There really isn't much value in free," said Miller.

What he really means is:

"There really isn't much value in freedom." At least, not from the Microsoft viewpoint.

--

Re:Yeah, right

[dlkf]

When you include support, development, administration/operation, etc. of a system, the OS price (free or not) is nearly insignificant.

MS recently "donated" about $50,000 in OS licenses to the university I attend. By not having to pay for the OS on some of the machines they can now do one of the following: build a new lab, hire another tech support person, support four more grad students for a year, remodel the office of the department chair, etc.

The cost of the OS is only insignificant when you only have a couple machines or you use pirated OS software anyway. For large institutions, with hundreds/thousands of machines, two to three hundred dollars per machine every two years to upgrade the OS can be very significant regardless of how much money you are paying for support, development, administration, etc.

Re:Yeah, right

[Fervent]

The "free" Balmer was talking about had nothing to do with the user's standpoint. He was referring to the Linux business model which (he is at least partly correct in saying so) is difficult because you can get the product for free.

Right now, companies like RedHat make a majority of their "good" cash off of support plans. The problem, though, is two fold:

1.) As anyone who's ever been to a CompUSA knows, most people hate support plans.
2.) Developers and Linux/FreeBSD users especially hate support plans. Why need support when all of the tools are already available.

There's the flaw. Most Linux companies are catering to the wrong niche. If RedHat worked more for companies like AOL, who are going to try to bring Linux to the "I'm an idiot how do you turn this thing on" masses, they will inevitably make more money, as the product they are selling will be more wanted.

Re:Yeah, right

[Greyfox]

Ironically it being free should be the least of their worries. Maybe they play up it being free so much because they can't really compete with Linux in terms of stability, support or security. So they throw "Free" out there, say free doesn't really matter all that much, and hope that everyone ignores everything else.

I'm much more worried about MS tying up the hardware. They can spread all the FUD they want. FUD worked on OS/2, but it won't work on Linux. But if they start making it impossible to drive the new hardware, we'll be in trouble.

Party Line

[rnturn]

Doug Miller certainly has the Microsoft party line down cold.

Wondering: Is this the guy Microsoft hired for that Linux position that they had posted on their site around, oh say, a year ago? (If so, perhaps this sort of attitude is what got him the job :^) )

--

The Real Corporate Linux

[Throw Away Account]

IBM, Compaq, HP, SGI, Sun, etc.

No matter what happens to the specialized Linux vendors, it is in the long-term interest of hardware vendors that currently support their own Unicies to reduce their development costs. Linux and the GPL allows these hardware vendors to implicitly pool their development efforts with each other and with a volunteer programming community, reducing costs.

you forget something microsoft

[gol64738]

what about next month when intel's 64bit proc comes out? microsoft won't have a product while linux is already there...
golgotha

Re:laptop support

[willfe]

Hey, neat! How'd you get your head that far up there?!?! Would a glass stomach help? :) Windows NT, up to and including 4.0 SP6.1a, does *NOT* support PCMCIA hot swapping. Linux, as far back as my experience goes (three years on notebooks), has supported PCMCIA hot swapping rather nicely. It's incredibly useful to, say, pop out a SCSI card to add another device to the bus and pop it back in. No reboot. No Windows warnings about "You shouldn't do that!" It just works. Blow.

Ghandi

[Moderation abuser]

First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win." - Gandhi

I think Linux is just about to get to "Then you win".

Bye bye Microsoft. I'd like to say it's been nice but I'd be lying.

Re:What would you expect?

[cje]

Enterprise means management of several hundred installations of an operating system, which is something that Linux doesn't yet have an elegant tool for.

The problem with buzzwords like "enterprise" is that they have no hard and fast definition. Is an e-commerce (another buzzword, sorry) site that depends on a couple of Web servers an "enterprise" operation? I don't see any common usage of the term that restricts it to shops with hundreds of installations. In this respect I have to agree with the other poster .. in lieu of a better definition, "enterprise" can only mean one thing: "the ship in Star Trek."

You're right about Linux not having standard, mature, large-scale administration tools, though.

Regarding Linux on notebooks, I think you're missing the point. People tote around notebooks to do write memos while on the plane and do Powerpoint presentations at client offices. It's not that you can't install Linux on notebooks -- it's that the common applications and functions that you'd use a notebook for are better developed for Windows.

Read the article. His specific assertion vis-a-vis Linux and laptops was that Linux is inappropriate for laptops because it has poor hardware support. This is not true. I would also contend that you are pigeonholing laptop users; certainly there are many laptop users who use them primarily for things like PowerPoint, but there are scads of them who use them for things such as Web browsing and catching up on e-mail on the road (which can be done equally well in either Windows or Linux.) Then there's people like me who do Perl hacking and C programming on them.

At any rate, his objection was primarily related to hardware issues, not software issues.

BTW, your sig no longer works.

I know it doesn't. This is blatant Google censorship, and is an act of sheer, unadulterated hatred towards freedom-loving people everywhere. I can only hope that those responsible for this little "intercession" are located and made to pay for what they have done. Perhaps we should all write to Google and complain about how we don't like the way they index other sites, and can they pretty-please change their database for us? Morons, all of them.

Re:Desperation?

[Myddrin]

Why are you expecting masses of spangly new goodness?
Because MS expects me to lay out a
significant chunk of change for them.

Nothing major has been added (IE could be installed seperately) because nothing major was missing (or broken (to be polite) like the linux VM) in the first place

Hmmmm, let's see stabilty and security were definately missing in my book.

Finally:Yes, the old VM wasn't that hot. But look at it this way. With Linux I get my bugfixes/redesigns for free, with MS I have to lay out $89+ every year to two years for them.

Plus, With Linux, if it's broke, I can fix the durned thing myself.

It doesn't take a economist to figure this one out. There is a large value to being free.
---
RobK

Re:concerning NT ...

[Salamander]

I was reading the same document, but mistook "The Journaled File System (JFS) provides a log-based, byte-level file system that was developed for transaction-oriented, high performance systems" as meaning that it was a log-structured filesystem.

No, those are hard to find nowadays. Off the top of the head I can't think of any that are used in production.

if you read on, you find that you can get essentially data-level integrity using synchronous writes. I don't know how this affects performance on that filesystem, though.

The effect on performance would be pretty horrendous - worse than data journaling, for most access patterns. Databases and such, which have their own ways of doing caching and logging and so on, use sync FS writes, but it's pretty bad for anything else.

Re:concerning NT ...

[LordNimon]

NT doesn't have a journaled file system. BeOS does. I'm not aware of any other x86-based OS that does.

OS/2 Warp Server and the upcoming eComStation (which is a repackaged OS/2 Warp with extras). In fact, the JFS that IBM is developing for Linux is actually the OS/2 version being ported.
--

Linux *does* support hot swap PCI - Motorola

[Moderation abuser]

Have done a bunch of hot swap stuff on Linux.

A trivial search on google finds loads of stuff.

Here's the URl to the motorola site: It's a crap URl so I'll let you sort it out.

http://www.mcg.mot.com/cfm/templates/swdetail.cf m? PageID=682&PageTypeID=10&SoftwareID=6&ProductID=17 2

Hmm?

Re:This reminds me...

[IntlHarvester]

If you use the language of a champion, you will project the fact you are the winner by default and people will all beleive you are the winner. That's the best advertising anyone can get. "Use Window2k, it's the future".

And that "language of a champion" is exactly how Microsoft got to where it is today. 2 years ago it was "UNIX? Oh, you're still running that? Expensive isn't it? Shame on you! We can help you get off that legacy platform and onto NT."

Unfortunately for Microsoft that attitude worked against Novell and OS/2, but it isn't working against UNIX. Microsoft thought that Windows 2000 would put them on the offensive against Sun (the company they hate the most) and other big server companies. Now, a year into it, not only have they not made any traction against Sun, they are fighting a defensive war against Linux in the small server market. This apparently has left them so confused that all they can do is babble about how bad UNIX and Linux is.
--

Re:can Windows be beaten on the desktop?

[Trepalium]

A $6 license would be hard to believe, unless the college/university has bought a site license cheap from Microsoft (and I would doubt they'd buy a site license for Win2K -- MS Office is a much more likely candidate). The regular educational discount for Windows 2000 Professional would be more in the area of $40-60, and for 2000 Server around $100-200. With the educational software, you're not legally bound to destroy the software when you leave campus, as you are with site licenses. You own the license for the software, although you often can't sell it outside of the academic community.

Re:can Windows be beaten on the desktop?

[Myddrin]

Well. Let's see. I use NT every day at work.

It simply does not have the kind of stability for me to lay out that kind of money (anything over $100 had better be worth it, since I can get a fairly stable OS for free).

However my wife wants windows, so we get the consumer version to save a buck.

In my book NT4 is not incomparably better. It is better. But from my experience the diference in the down time (a factor of about (nt crashes/98 crashes)~1.5) does not
justify the difference in price (about ~2 or more). [Same hardware with same software installed].
---
RobK

Re:Sweet troll

[WolfWithoutAClause]

"a static growth rate"

I actually laughed at that one. Not a flat market share. A static *growth* rate.

e.g. Linux is growing at 5% a year; i.e. exponential growth

That's a sure sign of impending doom if ever I saw one. (NOT!)

Re:Microsoft, +1 Insightful

[Fjord]

Whoever bought Win98

Re:Speaking of FUD...

[llywrch]

>> I'd ask him how well does Win2K run DNS? And if he can make it work better than the company that wrote it?
> Bra-vo. Way to rise above.

Aw, shucks, you missed my best shot: mentioning Steve Bartko.

In case you're too lazy to Google that name, take a look at http://lists.essential.org/1998/am-info/msg01529.h tml. It tells most of the story, but leaves out the fact that the reporters who uncovered it all found themselves unemployable within 12 months.

Geoff

Re:Just tried to swap the ram and cpu in my nt box

[ikekrull]

Uhh, the point of enterprise-class hot-swappable storage and other componentry is that you *can* do just that with total confidence.

Can you really see a reason why computers can't have their parts swapped out on the fly, or is it a Pavlovian thing, caused by years of psychological abuse at the hands of Microsft and Intel?

public void writetodisk(DiskArray d, byte[] mydata) {
try {
d.writeblock(mydata);
}
catch (DiskNotPresentException) {
sleep(100);
d.getAvailableDisk();
this.writetodisk(d,mydata);
}
}

obviously thats insanely inefficient and simplified, and probably just plain wrong from a systems engineering viewpoint, but if your hardware takes care of these kind of checks, you can just pull out bits, plug new ones in and the computer keeps running.

The x86 PC isn't actually the culmination of 50 years or so of continuous research into the production of robust, reliable and fast digital computers, and you certainly shouldn't assume that everyone engineers their computers so they need a reboot even to change their IP address.

Just tried to swap the ram and cpu in my nt box...

[Sabalon]

I just went and tried to swap the ram in my win2k/nt box since that is something they said Linux doesn't do - I assume they must do it.

Well, once I popped that CPU out (and burnt my hands) the machine kinda died. Hmmm....guess NT couldn't deal with it either.

I had a similar problem with trying to hot-swap the ram.

:)

Re: Linux on a laptop

[Convergence]

linux can do hibernation/sleep. I do it all the time.

This really says it all.

[ikekrull]

http://members.nbci.com/ikekrull/tux.gif

I think your "cool" gauge is busted...

[dimator]

It also has a much greater cool factor than Linux, which is important when in college.

Oh yeah, using the exact same shell UI that's been around for 6 years is way, way cooler than, say, KDE2.

OOH! but Windows 2000 has fady menus!!

Please.....


--

Windows is not necessarily easier.

[Convergence]

But it IS a lot more familiar to many users.

Re:This reminds me...

[dimator]

I wish this was my quote, but it isnt, and I don't remember whose it is:

Microsoft is an advertising company that just happens to sell software.


--

Linux vs. Microsoft OS + It's Software

[detritus.]

"And the recent security problems with Linux, coupled with the lack of key enterprise elements in the new kernel, really call into question whether Linux should be used at all," Miller added. "

I find it quite amusing that Miller is citing examples based on 3rd party applications, commonly bundled with the Linux kernel. Microsoft should be eating it's own words -- I have no doubts that the security advisories for ActiveX, IIS, etc... definitely exceed those of the Linux kernel itself.. It's funny how MS really has no choice but to point the finger at Linus Torvalds, when third party applications make up the popularity of Linux (distributions), while Win2K, IIS, Exchange, etc. flaws all point back to MS.

- Slash

Re:Hmmm....some fud, some truth....

[Jason Earl]

Heck, RedHat's doing pretty well for a company that literally started in someone's closet. I would agree that they will never have Microsoft-like profits, but neither will the Food Service company I work for. I imagine that they will manage to send their kids to college.

Linux is becoming popular enough, at this point, so that it is beginning to take a profound effect on the software industry. SCO is already gone, and who knows who will be next. Operating systems are becoming a commodity (and Office suites are right behind them).

MS Plays well with others....

[mcdade]

Has everyone seen the new adds that MS is running.. trying to give people the impresssion that it works well with other system. That's a joke!!

I have installed a win2k server with Services for Unix on it so it could 'co-exist' in our environment, mostly Sun equipment. That server does not want to play nice.. it's ME ME ME.. i have to be the Master DNS server, MASTER NIS server, Master DHCP server.. ME ME ME .. Active Directory!

Fsck MS.. they suck ass.. shitty software that costs way too much and doesn't do what they claim.

bitter!

Wrong reasoning

[Auckerman]

In my institute, we have 14 or so Unix boxes (Linux/IRIX/ULTRIX) and 7 NT boxes. Our admin spents his ENTIRE day fixing the NT boxes. In three years, I have seen ONE unix box crash ONCE . In the past week, I have seen WinNT crash on 2 seperate machines. Noone uses the NT machines, except for web browsing and printing.

If you are a cook and your 1 year old oven immittently dies for no reason, you have the stove replaced. If you new car decides every now and then to shutdown at stop lights, you would return it. If this happened to a LOT of people, there would be a class action lawsuit. Then why pray tell would you buy a computer that intermittently dies for no reason and let your customers business rely on it?

Re:one important point

[prizog]

Me: "Corel did, but they weren't contributing anything."

AC: "Corel _did_ contribute a _lot_ to the wine project"

True, I had forgotten about this. I guess what I meant was that they were not strongly committed to Free Software - they were a traditional software company, not a Free Software company.

Linux is ready for prime time - MOD UP

[erotus]

I have read a lot of material from Microsoft that is directed at Linux. Various Microsoft employees have said to the effect, Linux is not ready for the enterprise, it doesnt scale, major players don't support it, It's not really free, etc... Well, I did some research and while I see some of Microsofts points, the majority of their rhetoric is either pure FUD or libelous marketing because that's the only thing Microsoft can do now. Microsoft can't buy Linux, can't "embrace and extend", can't buy a company and put it out of business, and basically can't do anything. I will now list a series of excerpts from various articles suggesting that linux is ready for prime time. I have also put in the links if you want to read the whole article. Here are some strong backers of Linux and various contributions and/or excerpts:


IDC
has predicted that Linux will hold 38 percent of the market by 2004. Interestingly enough, Microsofts group products manager, Doug Miller, claimed that recently released numbers from IDC System Software Research show that "Linux growth in server OS share has been flat for two quarters, and Unix and Novell continue to fall." Even more interesting is that IDC manager, Al Gillen, would not confirm Miller's analysis. Wired News

IBM
Big Blue committed to spending $300 million on Linux services over the next three years. IBM has already committed to investing $1 billion in Linux over the next 12 months. President and COO, Sam Palmisano, said "IBM has made our choice....we put a significant amount of IBM's future prosperity behind Linux. We don't invest a billion dollars casually. Lou [Gerstner] and I don't write those checks without, shall I say, some engaging meetings." Big Blue also unveiled Linux-based network processor software development tools and services for ISPs and networking equipment vendors, including:

Domino Workflow on Linux -- software which enables customers to build, modify and improve business processes like employee hiring and CRM by streamlining and automating interactions

Plans to expand Linux support for Tivoli Systems management software

IBM Director for advanced systems management software available on Linux for the IBM eServer xSeries product line, including a "self healing" feature to predict server failures

Availability of the NetVista Thin Client, the N22001, running Linux

Linux-certified IntelliStation Z Pro workstations based on Intel's new 64-bit Itanium processor.

Citing such real-world Linux customers as Weather.com, Shell Oil, and National Center For Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois, Palmisano said people who doubt that the operating system can scale to the biggest of applications are just wrong. Weather.com, one of the Web's most popular sites, supports anywhere from 5 million to 27.5 million page views per day running Linux and can scale even higher to 40 million per day, according to the company's CTO Mark Ryan. Techweb or eltoday

Oracle
Has ported Oracle 8i already to Linux. They recently released "Oracle Internet File System" and "Oracle Parallel Server" for Linux. If this isnt a major move by a major company then I don't know what is. Databases need to scale and thus if Linux can scale then Microsoft is full of it... Read on. "Oracle Parallel Server is the most mature and trusted high-availability database technology available for the Linux platform. It provides sub-minute failover capability, allowing Linux environments to achieve significantly improved levels of application and data availability. Oracle Parallel Server allows applications running on any server in a cluster instant access to all data in a database, and will support up to a 4-node, 8-way cluster." Hello Microsoft do you see this?

"Oracle has announced all of its major Internet Platform software products on Linux, including Oracle8i(TM) Release 3, the latest version of its database; Oracle9i(TM) Application Server; and Oracle JDeveloper with Business Components for Java and Oracle Forms, two popular Oracle application development tools. In August 2000, Oracle announced an industry first with the shipment of the first enterprise-edition application server on Linux. Oracle adds to its firsts with Linux with the addition of Oracle Parallel Server and Oracle Internet File System." So much for the myth of no vendor backing. eltoday

SGI
Is looking at linux as the future. Much of SGI's work is underground and less advertised. Much of it is kernel level enhancements, such as scalability, NUMA, big memory support, etc... SGI has released several of it's graphical products for linux such as, Open Inventor, Open GL Performer, and many other high end development tools. In the filesystem arena, XFS is in stable beta and is very promising for mass storage management and reliability. Open Source at SGI

Dell
"Dell Computer and Oracle agreed Wednesday to establish a Linux center in Austin, Texas... Dell will use the facility, which is scheduled to open in the spring, to test and tune Oracle databases running on Intel-based systems running Linux. Oracle also agreed to use Dell's servers and storage products for building the Oracle 9i database on Linux, the companies said." CNet News

Not enough corporate backers? Think again. Here are some other companies who have started partnerships with linux companies, cooperated, released specs, or released products for linux: Informix
Compaq
HP
Sun
Cisco
AMD
Intel
IDG
Adaptec
O'reilly and Associates
Nokia
Tivo
NeTraverse Inc.
3dfx
Nvidia
Creative
this list goes on and on......

Hmm.. Calling a free product a buisness competitor

[mr_tenor]

This has been a symptom of Microsoft's lack of comprehension, or of their FUD campaigning, for a while now. They seem to be claiming that an operating system developed by hobbiests around the world is in fact some sort of buisness move against them.

Obviously, there are the buisnesses who try to sell 'solutions' based on linux, but instead of attacking them, Microsoft seems to want to instill distrust of linux in everyone - potential clients, users, everybody.

Linux might fall in the buisness world if Microsoft's aggressive tactics triumph once again, but Linux can't 'die' simply because it isn't a product, it's a hobby, and is -abolutely- nothing to do with any sort of buisness.

Re:Microsoft can't do anything about free..

[mpe]

The problem with Linux is that companies can't back it.

Exactly what stops this, they can't have a monopoly on what they do, which may really be where you are comming from.

There are a few companies that will be successful at supporting open source software, but for the most part, they need to rely upon individuals, either in-house or otherwise, to maintain the code.

As opposed to relying on nameless individuals at one company.

They want someone to be responsible and they're willing to back it -- someone so willing that they're going to put their money (their entire business) on it.

Companies don't expect this in any other area. Indeed many have explicit rules about avoiding single suppliers. Why should software be treated any differently.
In just about any other area a company betting their business on how another company behaves would be laughed at. That's what they have their own employees for!

Re:Did M$ miss the point of this movement?

[mpe]

To the ability to change it to meet your personal needs.

More to the point the ability to adapt the software to the needs of a business, rather than adapting the business to the needs of the software. Twenty or thirty years ago this was a major part of IT, called "systems analysis".

Re:one important point

[mpe]

not that 'commercial' (proprietary) software is better tested or documented. they don't pay people very much to do it, apparently.

More a case that it probably isn't that cost effective to properly test and document much commercial software. It only really matters in a highly competitive market where lack of quality (or documentation) will lose sales. In a captive market or a monopoly the customer dosn't have the choice. So you can push off more or less any rubbish.

Re:Features

[mpe]

So, assuming you weren't being subtly ironic, I would like to point out that Linux has pretty much everything NT has. (Does NT include support for hot-swappable CPUs and memory? I know Linux does not, currently, but Solaris (for instance) does).

Also an admin familiar with Linux is going to find using Solaris several orders of magnitude less difficult than someone familiar only with NT.

Re:MSFT on value...

[mpe]

"a drop in Linux-based companies stock value" -- again, very important if you're an investor in one of the Linux-based companies. All that means is that it's hard to make money selling something that's free. Bad if you're a shareholder in an overvalued "it had 'Linux' in its name!" company.

Though remember the entire "internet related industry" appears to have been overvalued by more than the amount of currency the US has in circulation.

Re:What would you expect?

[mpe]

Reeeeeeaaalllly. What "key enterprise elements" are those?

No one appears to really know, though maybe it's relevent that Sun have started running ads which look like Star Trek parodies....

I think we can chalk this up to simple ignorance; people just don't get that there is no single, controlling corporation behind Linux. They look at Microsoft and see them as the source of the software that runs their computer(s). They don't understand the Linux development model (or if they do understand it, they don't like it because it is so far removed from their expectations.)

In just about any other area of business the concept of a single supplier would be ringing alarm bells.

Re:What would you expect?

[mpe]

Enterprise means management of several hundred installations of an operating system, which is something that Linux doesn't yet have an elegant tool for.

How easy is it to create a generalised version of such a tool. As against a specific "in house" version which works for a specific organisation. After all these "enterprises" are hardly homogeneous entities. Indeed it's quite possible for "one size fits all" to translate to "this size fits nobody".

Re:What would you expect?

[mpe]

In this respect I have to agree with the other poster .. in lieu of a better definition, "enterprise" can only mean one thing: "the ship in Star Trek."

Which in itself means at least 6 different entities. So different in fact that someone familiar with one was out of his depth with another...

Microsoft, +1 Insightful

[Stickerboy]

""There really isn't much value in free," said Miller..."

...as opposed to paying $100 for the latest and greatest bug fixes?

Or maybe Doogie was referring to the value in paying hundreds of dollars per machine for a halfway stable OS (Win 2000).

Re:Microsoft, +1 Insightful

[the eric conspiracy]

Value to whom?

Microsoft has been great at offering products fro free to snuff out competitors. No when they face the same problem they are whining about it. Well, SORRY.

Target Audience

[Xibby]

Obviously the target audience for the recent Microsoft statements is for those who don't take a moment to compare the features, benifits, advantages, and disavantages. And most of the quotes are from marketing personell, so the bottom line is "make the sale" not "help the customer make the best choice for their situation."

There are some area's where Microsoft platforms do excel. Public internet servers and high security aren't one of those areas. But on an internal managed network of Windows 2000 servers and Windows 2000 clients, Microsoft platforms are excellent. The applications are there, and I'm not talking about Office. The real reason many companies are stuck on MS platforms are their business specific applications. Document Managment, MRP/ERP/EDI/etc, shipping software (From UPS, FedEx, and other shipping lines), MLS (reality), and others that I don't deal with on a daily basis are heavily tied to Windows.

So here is my plea. Let's not jump on the FUD bandwagon. Instead, let's sit down and start comparing. Platform A does this better than Platfrom B, but Platform B is better for this than Platform A... In the end you would have an extremely long list of strengths and weakness, and have a list of things to improve (or whine about if you're not into helping the community.) Really people, FUD from Microsoft is not news, it's old hat. It's them seeing their stock value drop a couple point and they need something to get those points back. (And be honest, they're only going to gain a point or two with this, then the next big bug will hit BugTraq.)

It's really time MS started being honest with themselves and their customers (heh...they're probally prefectly honest with their internal developers, after all, how else are the developers going to know what to improve?) but if they were honest with their customers and investors about what is good and bad about their platforms, new bugs, benchmarks, etc. wouldn't have such a huge impact on their stock value, their bottom line.

Re:Other OS's

[micromoog]

"Microsoft thinks Linux, FreeBSD, RISC OS, Solaris, BeOS, Mac OS, NetBSD, MINIX and many other OSs are doomed, and predicts that many Linux, FreeBSD, RISC OS, Solaris, BeOS, Mac OS, NetBSD, MINIX and many other OS businesses will falter and fail before the end of the year" just doesn't roll off the tongue as well.

Re:Another way of looking at it....

[arthurs_sidekick]

The kicker ... the last bit you 'regexed'

"Windows 2000 does lack serious system management tools"

was stated about "linux 2.4" BY a supposed Linux consultant. I don't know if I want to consult with someone who doesn't appear to understand the difference between the kernel and the other tools one might package with it.

Obligatory Gahndi quote

[Gothmolly]

First they ignore you,
Then they laugh at you,
Then they fight you,
Then you win.

Dumb indicators

[laetus]

His indicators:

1. a static growth rate,
2. lessening mainstream interest in the open source operating system,
3. and a sharp decline in Linux-based companies' stock value.

I'll address each.

1. Static growth rate - that's going to eventually happen with any software. Look at adoption of Windows as a internet server system. But here's the kicker, if anything, there's nothing to indicate that Linux's growth rate is doing anything but expanding.

2. Lessening mainstream interest - what a self-serving circular prediction! He's basically saying, one indication that buyers won't be buying Linux is that they're not interested in buying Linux! Umm, excuse me, but that's a) obvious if it happens, and b) again, there's no indication of that happening.

3. Sharp-decline in Linux-based stocks - wow, what a prediction of something already happening. Of course an industry in it's infancy such as Linux is going to spawn new companies that live for a while then die, some stocks will shoot up and then go down. But compare that to every other fledgling industry. Anybody see the same thing happening with some overpriced biotech stocks? But no one is predicting that biotech overall is going to die. If anything, it's going to explode eventually.

All in all, BIG CASE OF FUD.
----------------------------------

Re:Microsoft can't do anything about free..

[Erasmus Darwin]

I'm sure there'd be a lot of unhappy investors - but let me say it again, Linux is not about money.

Yes, but business is about the money. And with the exception of individuals who're independently wealthy or have someone paying all their expenses, most of us have to work in some sort of business.

As the viability of Linux in a business environment increases, so does my ability to deploy it where I work. The more Linux boxes and less Windows boxes I have to worry about supporting, the more my job becomes less "work" and more "fun". It's true that there'll always be a degree of work involved, but to get paid to do stuff you enjoy doing on your own time is a lot better than getting paid to do stuff you don't enjoy at all.

What's surprised me....

[AtariDatacenter]

I read the article and haven't had a chance to read the discussion chain, but this is quite an interesting article. Usually, someone talks to the Microsoft marketing drones, and then writes down everything they say as near fact. In this case, the writer did a complete 180 and balanced Microsoft's comments with views from other sources.

I'm sure that Microsoft is NONE TOO PLEASED at this type of reporting. If this were to become an actual trend, they might be forced to tone down some of their rhetoric.

Re:Keyword.. TRYING..

[Stonehand]

The kernel may be more secure, perhaps. But are the applications, and the configurations as shipped by distributers?

A new user shouldn't have to start by disabling hordes of services enabled by default with little explanation... and shouldn't have to search Deja or post regarding securing a newly installed Linux box; such documents would be good included on disk and *on paper* in a manual, given the utter importance of the topic -- and the number of new installations that are quickly rooted by people who can't believe they've been portscanned and analyzed that quickly.

How many show up with a reasonable hosts.deny setup, even?

Judging from the firewalling HOWTOs, the kernel has good support for this sort of thing -- but how often is this readily enabled?

And vendors could organize support better -- for instance, can you order a CD of updated packages from any vendor (useful for modem users who DON'T want to have to download 100+ MB of updates. I'm not kidding -- there have been distro versions whose updates occupy the better part, or more, of a Zip disk)? Can you subscribe to e-mail updates regarding package upgrades?

It has its good points -- but there are areas where many distros fall short, when used by people for whom Linux is primarily a platform for other tasks, not the focus itself.

Sweet troll

[Shoeboy]

I'm a fan (and occasional practicioner) of the noble art of trolling, and this one is amazing.
The second paragraph is the best:
These are three key Linux trends to watch for in 2001: a static growth rate, lessening mainstream interest in the open source operating system, and a sharp decline in Linux-based companies' stock value, said Doug Miller, Microsoft's group product manager for competitive strategies.
This is beautiful. It's irrefutable.
Obviously linux growth will slow, you can only grow at an exponential rate for so long before you run out of servers and people to run them.
Similarly with "reduced mainstream press." At linux ceases to be a novelty, the mainstream press will start giving it normal coverage.
Finally, the bankruptcy of linux companies will be a side effect of the venture capital spending spree having caused some linux companies to get funding without a solid buisness plan. With the bursting of the internet bubble, they'll have trouble making that second round of financing.
All three trends are clearly in evidence and obvious.
The clever thing is to use them as proof that linux is doomed.
Doug Miller, I salute you. You have a gift for inciteful comments that appear logically sound at first glance.
If you ever want to start trolling slashdot, let me know. We can hook you up with a low user id account with plenty of karma.
--Shoeboy

Apps over the net

[QuantumG]

Miller asserted that the "industry vision" centers around Web-based services, which allow software and data to be delivered over networks instead of having to be installed or stored on user's computers.

And "Microsoft is leading the charge with .Net," said Miller. "Linux is not leading anything, it is simply providing a 'free' operating system."

Industry vision? I thought this was Sun's vision! and I thought we all agreed that it was a pretty lame vision a long time ago. But hey, if Microsoft wants to enter the Java market (even though they wont admit it) and take on Sun, I wish them good luck. On your way out, dont forget to slam operating systems as being stupid and lame and "flat clients" as just being silly (sound familiar?) I'll be over here running my Free operating system with all my Free applications that I have to install and loving it.

SPIN!

[Maeryk]

first off, you gotta love Ballmer rating unix as a "phenomenon".. that sets the tone right there.. link the worlds oldest and most solid family of OS with the "new young upstart" Linux, and you immediately make people forget it is what the industry was built on.

Second, several posts have mentioned "its not about the money" but yes, it is, really. unfortunately, to a lot of potential purchasers, business model is *far* more important that functionality. Am I going to buy a couple of hundred thousand dollars worth of software and support from a company that says "its not about the money"? no.. because A) they probably wont be around long (business model projections like those in the article) and B) why bother, when MS will be here forever?

Unfortunately, thats how the people see it. "we save money" is far more important than "we get good stuff at a good value". Ask any company who has gone from HP to Lexmark. or from one tecnical service provider to another one provided by a certain 3 letter company. Saving money is *not* always the best thing on the front end. (you can get screwed down the road.. especially when you are dealing with purchasing, or support contracts)

Just my .02

Maeryk

Re:This is it guys!!

[maroberts]

An AC wrote:
Hah. Just like Netscape, Novell, Lotus and Wordperfect?
You're joking, right?


No I wasn't joking.

I think that MS have sorta shot themselves in the foot with regard to defeating the people you mentioned. All of the above were (are) applications developers for the MS operating system. In killing them, what Microsoft has said is "If your app is **really** successful on our OS, we'll write a competitor that will wipe you off the market.".

In short, what is the incentive to produce a world class Windows app if you know the 800lb gorilla will try and kill you if you are wildly successful ?

With Open Source, we're after kudos, not money (although if someone waves a wad of tenners in my face I'll bite his hand off), and we tend to contribute to development of products that we don't feel are good enough.

Re:Microsoft can't do anything about free..

[Stonehand]

Companies should NOT have to count on hobbyists who have other priorities than helping THEM. A company looking at Linux as a potential platform has to view it from the point of view of gain to the company, not gain to the OS. They can ask for such things as support for hot-swappable components, or whatever, but they cannot demand or compel it. And if they do it in-house, with the source, they may end up having to maintain their entire own personalized distro, with all the complications that entails -- what happens when the distributor breaks backwards compatibility with a compiler or library upgrade, for instance? It's not their core business, and it shouldn't be.

This is important. Linux development can be community driven, but that may not be good enough for customers with specific needs that aren't currently focused on by said community.

It's much more tenable to go to a vendor who sees a fiscal interest in doing things like patching the kernel for certain hardware, or for testing Oracle installations, or other foo -- if the vendor will remain in business.

And this is probably the segment that this piece is aimed at -- corporate customers looking to power servers and such. Whether or not Linux remains isn't that relevant to MSFT except regarding its impact on it's market share.

Re:*yawn*

[GypC]

You didn't support MS.. you basically just proved that Miller is a liar for falsely implying that Linux has a worse security record than NT.

"Oh twap!"

Re:On the other hand...

[Majix]

The DNS servers where not running Linux before the crash. Why they are running it now is because Microsoft outsourced the DNS handling to Akamai (you know, the distributed content serving network) to prevent this mistake from happening again. Akamai is one of VA Linux's biggest customers and run virtually all of their servers on Linux.

strange quote from the linux consultant...

[opus]

Linux also lacks some key features that you'd want for a data center such as hot swappable CPUs and memory.

Do hot-swappable CPUs and memory even exist on the Intel platform? The only machines I've heard of that support that are Sun's E10000s.

I currently work at a Fortune 400 retailer, an IBM shop, and we don't have anything with hot-swappable CPUs or memory in our data center.
--

Re:strange quote from the linux consultant...

[Animats]

I thought that was wierd, too. Tandem and Stratus machines used to support that kind of thing, but it's rare today. Windows NT/2000 doesn't support hot-swappable CPUs and memory. Besides, nobody does it that way any more. The unit of hot swapping today is a computer in a cluster, not a CPU or memory board. Hot swapping of RAID disks is more useful; that's where the state is.

There's even a school of thought, lead by Inktomi, which says that you don't repair at all; when a machine in a cluster fails, you remotely power it down and go on; when enough machines fail, you replace the cluster with newer, faster, cheaper machines. Once a machine is installed, it isn't touched again. Clusters are configured with enough extra hardware to allow this. Hardware is cheaper than techs, and a big fraction of failures are maintenance-induced anyway.

Re:strange quote from the linux consultant...

[the eric conspiracy]

This is typical MS straw man market-speak. They are great at pointing out some deficiency in their competition as a negative, regardless of whether or not it applies to their own product as well.

Re:My Linux Goes Down...

[Elbereth]

The problem is that "real" enterprise servers don't ever go down, even when they change the hardware. Linux doesn't support many of the features that have been in more traditional UNIX servers for a decade already. Likewise, there are several companies making PCs that have hot swapable PCI cards, CPUs, etc. Does Linux support any of those? Nope. Does Linux support disconnection and reconnection of SCA hard drives? Does it even have a completed journaling file system?

Don't kid yourselves, guys.

Linux is awesome for hobbyists, good for workstations, and debatable for enterprise servers.

OpenBSD doesn't even support SMP, so don't feel all bad. Nobody has every feature. It's just a matter of priorities. Linus hasn't put enterprise features as his number one priority (yet?). Maybe in the future, Linux will compete better.

Get out into the "real world" and see what a real server can do before you start talking about Linux taking over.

(not a troll) (--- that is how you can tell it's not a troll) (would I lie to you?)

Seriously, I'm just trying to inject a little reality into the blind advocacy. I've run Linux for some 7 or 8 years now, so I obviously like it well enough.

Free

[breser]

Microsoft rants about how free (as in beer not speech) isn't a good business model. If that's so much the case why aren't their shareholders having a cow about Internet Explorer? It worked for them against Netscape. So it would only be logical for them to be damn scared of a similar tactic.

Linux Stock depreciation

[daviddennis]

He fails to note some things:

(1) Linux stocks were incredibly overhyped, just like Internet stocks. Just because the stocks crashed doesn't mean Linux - or the Internet - has no value.

(2) The value of Linux products is only loosely connected with the viability of Linux as an operating system. Linux revenues could go down to zero and people would still be using it and working on improvements. If Windows revenues decline, Microsoft, the sole source of Windows, is in serious trouble.

(3) Hot swapping and the like are hardware features, not software. It would not surprise me if Dell or Compaq came out with drives for their hot-swap devices.

(4) I do see MacOS X gaining as the best client operating system due to its fine synthesis of Apple user interface slickness and Unix internals. But that's only going to help people who can afford Macs. Many Linux programmers affluent enough to afford Macs are bound to switch to MacOS X because they can run mainstream applications on the same platform they hack on; this is a wonderful advantage, and has really not been an opportunity before. People who can't afford Mac hardware, or who are committed to the ideals of open source, have Linux. I think of this as a very nice competition that will benefit everyone. It's just too bad Jobs can't create a cheap Mac with a nice big high-resolution screen.

D

----

Re:In many ways he's right

[sceptre1067]

Some nits to pick...

"The problem is that things are getting more and more complicated - very soon, things like SMTP will be obsolete, and only groupware like Exchange will be viable - simply because it's more productive for a company to have groupware."

Exchange is not groupware O.K. I'm biased, as and ex Lotus Domino/Notes programmer. But Exchange does not, in itself, contain enough to be groupware (add on VB and MS .Net, then it gets somewhere.)But this is similar too the O'Reilly book on groupware. In said book the author shows how to use various open source applications towards of the goal of creating groupware.

"There isn't the money in open source to be able to afford to produce things like this - because there's no revenue in giving things away, companies can't afford the programmers to produce the complicated products of the future."

IBM, amonst others would disagree with you. MS's revolution was showing that one can make a lot of money off selling software, regardless of platform. I think Linux will show one can make a decent living off services supporting software. For example, IBM will happily set up Linux and an Apache web server for you. Integrate that with a legacy database, and show you how to develop applications (preferably with Webshpere of course.) Now the OS and web server software are free, but how much money is IBM going to make helping you to set all that up, quite a nice profit. It these sorts of services where companies that support open source software will succeed. Companies, of various sizes, will always need and be willing to pay for experts that can walk in and help them out.

"Even Netscape, bankrolled by one of the world's largest companies, AOL, can't keep up, via open source, with expensive protocols like XSL and so on."

Errr... irrelevent, I would contend that AOL doesn't really care that much about Netscape, execpt to own the technology (hedge against MS) and to own the programmers that go with that tech (another hedge.)

This will take a while though - the first thing to happen will be the death of consumer open source. I posted an article on this to Kuro5hin, and although the poll died, the majority of people agreed with my conclusion that open source isn't viable for consumer software.

Here we somewhat agree, I don't believe open source will every take off for end-user applcations (The Gimp excetped of course).
But I do think it will continue with the writing of drivers and improvement of applications that provide services (like Apache, mySQL, in other words applications used to make end user applications, or provide services, via the web to end users.)

With the rest of your points (lack of funding, lack of innovation, etc.) I think your off base. Similar to Java applets will run everywhere, I believe the open source movement has moved passed the users will update/change etc. the code on thier machines. I think r+d will continue on those applications that provide services (again web servers, db's, etc.) and that the commercial potential will be in tying it toghether as a solution for a customer. The end user won't know what's going on because they'll access these applications via a broweser, or some other interface. Even MS believes this is the future, look at .NET, another attempt at distributed computing.
This is where the battle will be fought next. Will MS be able to market .NET as a unified solution, or will companies like IBM be able to market a collection of open source applications that can do similar things.

The future will be fun... pc

Re:Keyword.. TRYING..

[Fervent]

But the point is that Windows 2000 IS secure out of the box. Unlike *cough* RedHat *cough*...

Truth

[Ananova]

Troll or not, every word is true.

You can't just right off truth because of what the author is.

Why don't you actually address the real points there instead?

MSFT on value...

[Tackhead]

"There really isn't much value in free," [said the MSFT flack]

Funny, I think "free and it runs pretty well on an old PII-450" is pretty good value compared with the costs of four Athlon-class servers and four Win2000 server licenses, a MSexChange license, and another $500 per user for Orifice, $200 per user for the OS, when all I need to do is give my developers to send email to each other.

But let's take a closer look at his points:

• "Static growth rate" -- umm, first off, measured by what, and second of all, while that may matter to RHAT and LNUX shareholders, it doesn't change the value equation at the CTO level.
• "lessening mainstream interest [in Linux]" -- if the end user only needs email and they do it in Nutscrape 4.71, what do they care about what OS they run? Is there mainstream interest in Win2K or Win98 as compared to the enormous hype (sorry, "mainstream interest") there was in Win95? Again, sounds like he's more interested in the lack of hype resulting in a more realistic valuation of the stock price of Linux companies, not technology.
• "a drop in Linux-based companies stock value" -- again, very important if you're an investor in one of the Linux-based companies. All that means is that it's hard to make money selling something that's free. Bad if you're a shareholder in an overvalued "it had 'Linux' in its name!" company. But utterly irrelevant if you're making a technology decision.

Think about the pointiest-haired boss you ever worked for.

Now imagine him as CTO of your favorite bank or brokerage, and running into a board meeting, hollering "Oh my God! SUNW and ORCL are down more than MSFT from their 1999 dot-com-hype highs! Throw out that obsolete Sun E10K server running Oracle and get me a farm of Quad-Xeons, we need .NET, M$Exchange and M$Access!"

OK, maybe there are some PHBs dumb enough to base technology decisions on today's stock quotes, but not many. Evolution in action, and all that.

Re:*yawn*

[elmegil]

Interesting how the NT and Linux graphs are complementary. Must be a fixed pool of script kiddies, and they got distracted there for a bit by Linux.

Re:In many ways he's right

[drudd]

I'd argue that there's actually too much innovation in open source projects.

The design and initial development of a project is the most interesting, and most personally fulfilling. Debugging, hardening, and other tasks which are necessary for moving a project out of beta quality and into true stability are the least fun.

When you're getting paid to do these tasks, they get done, because you need to put food on the table. In an open source project, however, these tasks are only taken by those who are seriously committed to the project, while anyone who wants to ignore these tasks in favor of creating new features is free to do so.

Doug

M$ is confidant they'll win the anti-trust appeal

[ruebarb]

M$ hyped up Linux as a threat in an attempt to point out they aren't a "monopoly" - (see, we're not the only OS - look at this great thing giving us a run for our money)

With a business friendly Bush Administration, I suspect now M$ is confident it will win the anti-trust case brought against it. Time to start minimizing and dismissing Linux again.

And if things go badly in the courts, they'll support it again as a viable option

Re:Microsoft can't do anything about free..

[JWhitlock]

But money is a great motivator.

Yes, if all the companies started to turn their backs on Linux, it would still go on. But driver development is slower when hardware companies don't think enough of you to open specifications. It's harder to distribute software when you rely on DSL and Cable modems, rather than the fat pipes of businesses. It's hard to be inovative when you are playing catch-up with companies sinking billions into R&D.

The open-source movement crawls when money is scarce, and the developers are part-time. It screams when the money comes quickly. Money is fuel. A full-time "straight world" job lets the hacker work on the kernel part-time. The sale of CDs and books lets a Linux company hire full time staff to work on distributions. Big IPOs make MBAs consider what part of their business can convert over, what resources can be dedicated.

Time is one fuel for open source, but time is often fueled by money. If the money evaporates, you'll still get your drivers, it will just take months rather than days.

Re:can Windows be beaten on the desktop?

[c]

"So I'm a Linux user. But I don't think Microsoft cares. The reason is simple: both of my copies of Windows (one 95 and one 98) are licensed, as they came with my computers (both Dell). Microsoft is getting paid even if I don't use their software. Most of you probably know the name this has been given: the Microsoft tax."

Oh, I think they care. Did you get a complimentary copy of Office with those machines? Are you signed up with MSN? Are you creating content in their proprietary file formats or are you using your Linux box for that? Do you surf the net with IE or Netscape? Do you use Real Audio or whatever that Microsoft format is?

The operating system license is just the tip of the iceberg for Microsoft. They wouldn't be after their competitors so viciously if all they wanted was operating system money.

Microsoft wants it all. Right now, they're spending stupid amounts of cash on engineering and QA and just giving stuff away but, as they say, free is a pretty shitty long-term business model.

Of course, Microsoft and many others still don't seem to have grasped the free part. Nobody is trying to make money selling Linux. Linux is an operating system kernel and is freely available to anyone who wants it. People are making money selling Linux products, services, hardware, appliances, etc. These people aren't using "free" as the business model, they're using "cheaper, faster, better".

c.

Re:*yawn*

[Wakko Warner]

Then use this page to compare OSes. Notice that the total number of security holes in all Linux distributions is less than that of Windows NT and 95/98, and that the number in any given distribution of Linux is far less than that of Windows NT.

--
* CmdrTaco is an idiot.

Hmmm....some fud, some truth....

[Chanc_Gorkon]

While I like Linux as much as the next geek, I do realize that companies such as Red Hat, SuSE and the other distros don't have a way to truely generate REAL money yet. I think that Eazel has something, but they need to get the software done, and then work on the money stuff. Get companies involved. Make it easy to buy stuff from Nautilus. Red Hat has something too, but I think that they need something more. Maybe turn into a hardware company? IBM will be there even if everyone stopped using Linux right now. They have stuff they can use in place that works just fine, but costs real money.

The future of a Linux company will lie in 2 areas. Embedded systems is a match made in heaven. PDA's, Printers (linux and print server built in) and set top devices are places where Linux can work not because it's easy, but because it's free! The complexities can be covered up, and the only thing the company has to write is the interface code and any other code (which can be closed source) necessary to make the thing work. Just look at Tivo for a good example.

The other place it will be in the future is in typical servers AND desktops, with a manufacturer specific distro ala VA Linux. Doesn't take a math major to figure that one out. Hmm, lessee, do I want to pay MS or someone else 100's of bucks for an OS or do my own Linux distro for free? G let me think... :)

I wish the best for the distro companies, and I wish a few will stay around. In a short time, there may not be so many commercial (non hardware) distros any more. Fear not though, there will always be Debian!

What if they all do die? Does that mean Linux is dead? Not hardly. Someone else will pick it up.

Re:*yawn*

[Anonymous._.Coward]

The concon thing has been about for quite a while.

There's a concon bug prevention program available to stop this.

Alternatively, install Linux and you don't need to worry about these things.

Re:*yawn*

[Fervent]

It doesn't do anything in Windows 2000.

Re:can Windows be beaten on the desktop?

[skt]

I agree. I would say that M$ does have the desktop market under control and will have it under control for many years to come. The big question is in the server market... Why would anybody really want to use a Windows server anyway? Servers don't need GUIs, wizards, pretty icons, the bsod, etc. What servers do need is simplicity, standards, and remote admin tools. That said, Windows on a server doesn't make that much sense with the kind of money that M$ is charging.

Most of the statistics that I have seen also point to the fact that Apache is more widely used than IIS, and you know that Apache isn't being run on Windows systems; proof that the server market is slipping from M$.

The most successful attack on Linux

[mr]

Microsoft must be able to use short sound bites and attack Linux at its 'core strengths' that will be hard to impossible to change. It will not be on obscure technical issues, or saying "no, the Microsoft product doesn't suck in stability like the Linux zelots claim."

A perceived positive for Linux is the GPL license.

And it is the one thing that can not be corrected for with the addition of more code.

Another perceived positive is the wealth of distributions.

Again, this is fine point for Microsoft to point out. What 'linux' do you choose? None of the linux distro companies are going to say "Oh, gee, for the unification of the Linux market to protect it from Microsoft, we are going to close our doors"

Like the "free has no value" argument, the arguments have to be simple and reduced to non-technical reasons.

The final method will be the courts. They will beat others over the head with software patents/NDA's/the courts.

And, face it. The 'geeks' don't do well VS non-technical and legal based arguments.

Congratz! You have poked the 8000 kilo gorilla with sticks long enough that now its mad. The only thing to be resolved is, while poking the gorilla with sharp sticks did you just anger it, or will the blood loss slow the gorilla up?

Re:Keyword.. TRYING..

[mikethegeek]

"and shouldn't have to search Deja or post regarding securing a newly installed Linux box; such documents would be good included on disk and *on paper* in a manual"

Ever read the manuals that come with `Doze 2000 pro? Pretty useless aren't they? Where in the M$ docs is there instructions in how to keep Outlook from letting in every freaking virus that comes out? Or is that a feature?

I doubt there is a SINGLE Linux distro that does not include the HOWTO documents on the CD. Including the one telling you how to secure the system.

Re:huh?

[Rombuu]

Can someone tell this guy that BIND is not Linux?!

Too bad BIND wasn't open source, otherwise people would have seen all those security holes in it so much earlier... oh, wait a second...

Re:Laptop incompatibilities

[roman_mir]

My two years old AMD 300, 64MB, 3.2GB, 13.4 Active Matrix, USB, 3COM Nic, Sound Blaster, 8MB Video Memory runs Red Hat 6.2, Slackware 7 and Win2K no problem.
I had to get sound drivers separately, and there was a couple of problems installing NIC.
Rather than that it's fine.

concerning NT ...

[Anonymous Coward]

take a look at how quickly commercial operating systems like BeOS and Windows NT supported journalling file systems.

NT doesn't have a journaled file system. BeOS does. I'm not aware of any other x86-based OS that does. NT's data is not journaled; only it's directory structure is. In NT, if power goes out during a file write, data can be corrupted. In a truely journaled fs, this does not happen. The only thing in NT that is protected is the directory structure itself - not the data.

Re:concerning NT ...

[Salamander]

NT's data is not journaled; only it's directory structure is. In NT, if power goes out during a file write, data can be corrupted.

This is true of just about any journaled FS, except that data is usually lost rather than corrupted. Data-journaling FSes are extremely rare, mostly because of performance issues, and the only one I know of that's under consideration is Tux2 (which is technically atomic-update rather than journaling, but close enough for this discussion). Criticizing MS for this feature, which it shares with the supposed alternatives, is misguided.

Re:concerning NT ...

[Salamander]

I believe XFS and JFS are both journaled in this way.

And based on what do you believe that? Here's an excerpt from an IBM document:

First, JFS only logs operations on meta-data, so replaying the log only restores the consistency of structural relationships and resource allocation states within the file system.

I can't find anything quite as authoritative for XFS, but there is this, from an SGI document:

The log section (or area, if it is internal to the data section) is used to store changes to filesystem metadata while the filesystem is running

If the log section contained data, one would certainly expect them to mention it. There's also this, from a copy of the Fileystems HOWTO:

File systems update their structural information (called metadata) by synchronous writes...A journaling file system uses a separate area called a log or journal. Before metadata changes are actually performed, they are logged to this separate area

Again, the reference is to metadata but not data. As a professional filesystems developer, I know that even the overhead of journaling metadata is a big problem for journaled filesystem implementors trying to provide performance competitive with non-journaled filesystems. Journaling the data as well would be absolutely horrendous, and I certainly think I would have heard if there had been some breakthrough allowing this to be done efficiently.

There are some filesystem technologies that do provide safety for data in addition to metadata. Log-structured filesystems can include this feature, though they're somewhat out of vogue right now. The only current effort I know of in this direction is the atomic update ("phase tree") methodology in Tux2.

Re:concerning NT ...

[Salamander]

many OS environments actually *DO* have fully journaled fs (OS/400 and BeOS come to mind)

I can't find anything authoritative that answers this question for BeFS, and I can't be bothered looking for anything on OS/400 because I'm tired from debunking the exact same claim for IBM XFS and SGI XFS. Pardon me if I remain skeptical. Do you have anything to back up your claim re: BeFS, or do you just "believe" it without basis like the previous poster did about JFS/XFS?

In any case, whether any claims pan out regarding data-journaling filesystems exist on exotic OSes, the fact remains that Linux doesn't have one. That puts Linux in exactly the same boat as NT, which means that criticizing NT vis-a-vis Linux for only journaling metadata is an extremely poor piece of Linux advocacy. That's the topic of the thread, just in case anyone forgot.

Re:concerning NT ...

[johnnyb]

I believe XFS and JFS are both journaled in this way.

"Consistent user experience"

[Hard_Code]

Ok, it may sound like a buzzword, but I think what a lot of popular (commercial) operating systems (including Unix) have, and what Linux will need, is this gestaltic "consistent user experience".

What I mean by that is that the operating system feels self-contained. Each program, each application, works in a consistent fashion. The standard command line syntax, utilities, and man pages seem to fulfill part of this. But what about configuration files? Init methods? Filesystems? Desktop? (yes, we are finally getting this, albiet with two de facto and only partially compatible "standards"). Each part feels like it goes with each other. Currently, IMHO, Linux still feels like a kernel plus a bunch of utilities and applications which may come in any permutations...but not yet like an entire unified "system". When you talk about Linux, you are really only talking about the kernel...everything else is pretty much up for grabs, and dependent on distribution. And while you may justly counter that Open Source is all about flexibility and choices, I think that if Linux is to break into the mainstream (if that's actually what we want...I do), then it's going to have to pay attention to what the mainstream wants. I think this feeling as an integrated, unified system is what the mainstream, in which "user" may not be synonymous with "developer", wants. They don't want a kernel from here, and utilities from there, and applications from over there. And I understand organizations like the LSB are trying to do just this. I just hope they have some teeth.

I don't think you've thought long enough...

[SuperKendall]

To start with, as others have said Open Source (for most people) is not at all about money. In fact, you can almost always say that Open Source is about filling a need before that need was realized and money could be focused on it. A lot of commercial software follows from free things that were done originally because there was a vision beforehand. Browsers, editors, graphics tools, desktop publishing, etc. all have products that followed from Open Source roots.

Now, about the lack of direction. I would argue that Open Source can offer a much better sustained direction than any money driven project can - after all, if the source of the money decides to exert effort elsewhere then the effort WILL go elsewhere, and a project will die (you've all seen it before in countless companies) even if the project had some merit. I give you
XVFB (X Virtual Frame Buffer) as an example - developed long ago and not used much at all, it's making a comeback for server side Java programs and automated GUI testing, as well as some system admin work. In a commercal environment this program would be dead and buried and forgotten. Because it was Open Source, it could lie dormant until it was needed and wanted.

Some Open Source projects may have less vision than others, but in general will tend to at least be consistant - after all, most projects have a sort of leader or set of leaders whose only interest is in making the program meet thier vision - and even if they go away the program will only be picked up by others if the original vision matches what they want to do. I imagine this very consistancy is why you think Open Source projects lack vision, even though you also complain about lack of direction... they have no need of focus groups because the users are the focus groups. What Open Source really needs is some means of active distribution to get programs into the hands of more people, and thus provide better direction through more input. What if you could buy the Gimp in stores for the cost of packaging?

The big one for me is innovation, it seems to me that innovation in general is lacking everywhere, not just open source. But I see hope: Imagine if you will what happens when a bunch of programmers from the industry rich with profits from stock options grow older. I think the tendancy of many people as they grow older is to try and give something back to the community around them, and for most programmers that will probably manifest itself in various individual projects. Some will be companies, some will be open source projects headed by people that never need to work again, but it will not matter - that is where innovation will come from, from people who literally can try anything because there is no cost of failure. In Open Source, innovation usually means totally new projects which is why it can be hard sometimes to see innvation at work, because projects fly along under the radar for some time until they seem to spring up from nowhere.

On a side note, I believe there is already work on groupware in the open source world (Evolution, and probably some others). I agree that companies need groupware, but all of the parts of groupware have been there forever apart from calendaring. That is the most needed part of groupware though (to synchronize schedules) and so will take a bit of time to do right.

Also, the other trend you ignore at your peril is that the world is moving toward a much more distributed model of computing - even Microsoft. .Net at the heart of things uses SOAP, an RPC like mechanism that uses XML to transport method calls. That should make it a lot easier for Open Source projects to attach to commercial work, and vice versa. It should also make reverse engineering a lot easier so that totally Open equivilents that can operate with the Closed world are easier to create (which in some ways does serve to stifle innovation and increase imitation).

Not surprising

[griffinn]

Microsoft has been rattling about the impending death of Linux for some time. Example: This interview with Joachim Kempin, senior VP of Microsoft.

Re:Desperation?

[Myddrin]

Name 10 improvements from win95-winME.

Name 10 improvements from NT3.51-Win2000(this one is much, much easier)

These have to be substation improvements, like the ones the original poster pointed out for Linux.
(in other words "Supports USB" doesn't cut it).
---
RobK

Re:Stunning prediction

[iso]

Honestly, journalists should be forced to pass some kind of critical thinking test before being given a pen.

a pen? who needs a pen when you have Microsoft Word? ;)

- j

Real Issue

[mindstrm]

Is that linux isn't something that any of their traditional corporate methods of attack work on. You can't slander it, you can't sue it, you can't really do much of anything. You can get a bunch of people worked up and arguing over what's true and what's not, but none of that changes the development process... namely, people work on linux because they want to, not because of some corporaet reason. That won't change.

MS can bash it all they like... they are the ones wasting their energy.

My Linux Goes Down...

[EXTomar]

...only when I have to put new hardware in the box. Does this mean Microsoft will be forcing people who have Linux to install hardware?

I also think its cute they completely ignore BSD. They also ignore IBM which is not to be ignored. Lets give props where props are due. The combination of open and hardened BSD and open and innovative Linux will mean that Microsoft will on gain market share by strongarm marketering and strategery. ;-)

Re:My Linux Goes Down...

[gimpboy]

Does Linux support disconnection and reconnection of SCA hard drives?

well sortof. i have all my scsi stuff in an external box, but the disk / is on is an internal ide. when i want to install new scsi stuff i unload the scsi module, disconnect the scsi box, install the drive, reconnect the box, and reload the module. then my new drive is installed, and i didnt have to reboot.

use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that

Re:My Linux Goes Down...

[NecroPuppy]

True, however, history shows that these are areas where Microsoft is second to none. It's obviously worked so far. If there's anything we should have learned from the past few years of American financial/technological history, it's that What's right or what works better means nothing in the face of what people think is right and works better. Public mindshare tends to lead to market share...this is how Windows won dominance in the first place.

Exactly. A saying I've been using for a few years now come to mind:

Perception is 9/10ths of reality.

Until the general public, and not just us geeks, sees the true potential and usefulness of Linux, that mindshare won't perceptablly change.

One of the ways to do this is to provide the tools that the 'average user' needs to enjoy his computer experiance. Of course, easier said than done.

Re:My Linux Goes Down...

[Chewie]

The fact of the matter is that with Compaq and IBM getting behind Linux, we are getting enterprise-level and datacenter features. Hotswap PCI cards? Oh, every Compaq Proliant with hot-swap PCI slots fully supports Red Hat. Hot-swap memory and CPU? Don't even exist in the IA world. Not yet, anyway. Compaq is expecting to announce true hot-swap memory sometime this year (note that MS can't possibly support it at this point either), and the ideal is that with IA-64, hot-swappability will be part of the chipset spec. Now, whether this even happens or not remains to be seen. Now, granted, Linux still has a ways to go (JFS, more enterprise and datacenter hardware support), however, the picture is not nearly as bleak as some would like to have you believe.

Re:My Linux Goes Down...

[Ereth]

The problem is that "real" enterprise servers don't ever go down, even when they change the hardware.

(sigh) If only this were true. My Sun E1000 went down when Sun had to replace the PROMS for Y2K compatibility. My E450 went down when we had to add an additional SCSI backplane. I've even seen a mainframe go down (though, admittedly, that doesn't happen very often). Heck, in college, I even CAUSED a mainframe to go down (unintentionally, but I was not very popular for a while afterwards). I've seen Oracle crash. I've seen a Sun Kernel Panic, I've seen Windows NT BSOD (far too often).

But I understand your point that downtime on the really big servers is very very minimal. However, Linux is working it's way up to those servers. Linux works very reliably in the rackmount space, and the individual server space, and even the cluster space. We haven't made it to Mainframe-reliability Raised Floor Rooms yet, because those types of Enterprise situations have different requirements (as you state). But Windows NT isn't going to be up for decades, either, and certainly not while changing the hardware (hot-swappable SCSI drives excepted). With IBMs help, I wouldn't be surprised to see Linux get there in a few years, and significantly ahead of Microsoft.

Re:My Linux Goes Down...

[Chewie]

...but linux is not limited to intel hardware. it doesn't even have those features on the hardware that does support them True. In an earlier version of my statement (not the one I eventually posted), I stated that IA is not the be-all end-all of computing hardware. Far from it. However, MS's playing field is in the IA space (since they pulled Alpha support for NT), so those are the features we have to examine.

*yawn*

[seizer]

"...recent security problems". Compare NT vs Linux intrusions here.

Re:*yawn*

[sheldon]

It's not quite clear that it is all that simple.

The RameN Worm was first reported on 1/18 I believe, yet according to attrition.org only like 5 servers have been impacted by it.

That doesn't seem quite right, since I've seen more reports than that just in usenet groups.

What seems clear to me is that attrition.org obviously bases their stats on reported defacings, and the pages defaced by the RameN Worm were not reported because nobody had a direct hand in making it happen.

I guess the point, the attrition.org statistics aren't really saying what you want them to say.

Sorry.

Re:*yawn*

[twitter]

OK, but why be rough about it?

OS....cracks.%share..cracks/%..normalized:
nt......4750...0.59...8050.84...0.9630
linux...1750...0.21...8333.33...0.9967
solaris..700...0.08...8750.00...1.0466
bsd......500...0.06...8333.33...0.9967
others...500...0.06...8333.33...0.9967
average: 8360.169492

It looks a little odd, but those are the numbers. No numbers, however could make me use MS junk. There's always more than numbers to think about.

Re:*yawn*

[Throw Away Account]

Don't click here if you use Win9x.

Er, why not? I clicked there, and nothing happened.

OTOH, I am using Mozilla 0.7. Perhaps this is an IE bug?

Replace Linux with Windows and re-read

[beebware]

It's quite a good article, but I re-read it mentally changing Linux with Windows and the arguments still stood. This time against Microsoft...

If you want to make a convincing argument against something, first make sure that the reasons can't be turned against you...

Richy C.

Re:Replace Linux with Windows and re-read

[irix]

Apart from hardware that supports it, how does NT support hot swapping CPUs and memory?

AFAIK, NT does not support swapping CPUs and memory. To get that kind of stuff, you have to move up to very high-end Sun gear or mainframes.

Swapping hard-drives from a RAID array is supported through hardware drivers on NT just like it is in Linux. As someone else has pointed out, with people like Compaq supporting Linux you'll start to see more of this type of hardware support on Linux.

Mind you, I've seen somone pull a "hot-swappable" drive from RAID array on a Compaq box and NT froze solid, so YMMV.

Re:User interface

[Lotek]

Hm. I'm beta testing this, so I kind of think I can weigh in here..

I agree with you about the fact that the whistler UI is orders of magnitude more advanced than that of Gnome (and it's going to be skinnable, too! woo hoo!) But not that hardcore geeks won't want to use it.

The annoying things (You mentioned the search assistant, which is a true abomination spawned by people who fondly remember MS-BOB.) can be turned off. Also, its wicked fast, and at least as stable (in pre-beta 2 form, even) as Win2K.

Personally, I am really excited about the Skinning functions. Right now, they have one kinda neat skin, and one horrifically butt-ugly one, but it shows a lot of promise.

The registration stuff is going to be annoying, but its not going to bother me, as I only run MS os's on my game machine, anyway.

Re:SPIN! or how I learned to love quality

[WillSeattle]

It isn't about the money. It's about the Quality.

and at Linux, Quality is Job One.

We let you check under the hood - good software at a better price.

Why settle for an OS that only gives you half of what you need?

Re:In many ways he's right

[Samrobb]

For the moment, companies are happy to except vanilla products like Apache and qmail, which do something simple, but do it efficiently.

Whoa, there - Apache is most assuredly not simple software. Companies prefer Apache, qmail, BIND, and the like on the server side because the cost/benfit ratio for server-side OSS is so blindingly obvious that even an accountant can't ignore it. $10K+ for an unlimited IIS license vs. free for Apache? $20K+ for an enterprise Exchange license compared to 0$ for sendmail?

Sure, if you want a commercial support service for Apache, you're going to have to pay for that. But... you do realize that the base license for most "enterprise" level software, including Microsoft's, does not include support, don't you? That's typically another %10 - %20% of the base cost, per year.

That doesn't even get into the "not supported here" syndrome you'll find from MS. "What? You installed a third party CGI program under IIS? Sorry, sir, we don't support that configuration. You have some in-house monitoring software on your Exchange server? Sorry again. Rebuild the machine from scratch, and then we'll talk."

I agree with your points about client-side software - MS and other commercial companies have capabilities there that give them a definite advantage over open source projects with the same general goals. As far as server-side goes, though, I think MS and others will just have to admit that open source typically offers the same or better capabilities for a heck of a lot less.

Re:Microsoft can't do anything about free..

[remande]

IMHO, Microsoft knows exactly what Linux is about. They just want to make sure that the user base is sufficiently confused that they don't get it.

That must be why companies are switching...

[Idaho]

"There really isn't much value in free," said Miller, who also contends that the latest release of the Linux kernel, 2.4, doesn't have the features required for widespread business use.

So I guess that must be why the company I work for is letting their employees switch to Linux if they want, because it saves them money and makes some of the employees (like me) very happy :-)

It is not a very large company, 100 people or so, but still..

Re:So why are they using Linux DNS Servers?

[mlamb]

Actually, they're using NT servers. They just forgot to remove the linux identifiers from the stolen code. I'm surprised it doesn't say "Stacker".

In Related News . . .

[SimplyCosmic]

Pepsi issued a press release noting Coca Cola's weaker product points, while Ford shocked the world with the stunning announcement that Chevy "sucks".

Over to you, Bob . . .

Re:In Related News . . .

[wiredog]

And, on slashdot, Chevy responded with "friends don't let friends drive Fords"

Re:Microsoft can't do anything about free..

[ajs]

Yes, Linux is not about money. However, if Microsoft can convince the market that Linux is not only not about money, but not a stable business, they will win back huge market-share from businesses that will not use a product that does not come from an identifiable, stable business.

Real Life == The Onion

[istartedi]

Yet again.

Re:Microsoft can't do anything about free..

[rgmoore]

They can ask for such things as support for hot-swappable components, or whatever, but they cannot demand or compel it.

And how, pray tell, is this different from buying from a closed source vendor like MS? It's not as though my company can go to Microsoft and demand that they implement feature X in the next service pack, or at least not demand it and expect it to happen. With Free Software, at least, you can develop it yourself and implement it if it really is crucial. You are correct that it may not be merged into the main source, but again that's not as big an issue as you think. If it's a big enough problem that a closed source company would actually integrate it into their produce, the chances are that, given the code to do it, an open source project will maintain it, too. That's particularly true if the company is willing to devote some minimal resources to maintaining that bit of code in the source tree.

Linux development can be community driven, but that may not be good enough for customers with specific needs that aren't currently focused on by said community.

Again, this is true, but you could just as easily replace Linux with [closed source company of choice] and the concept wouldn't really change. If there's not a market for it, there's not a market for it and you'll have to pay the costs of maintaining it yourself, whether that's in the form of custom built closed source software from a commercial company or paying your own developers to maintain a fork from an open source project.

Microsoft is going down

[warpeightbot]

Microsoft admitted defeat a while ago, when the BSD Inet Daemon (complete with "Chuck" icon) showed up in the W2K Server control panel. They committed seppuku last week when they nearly simultaneously gave up all pretense of ever doing Java again, and admitted tacitly to the world that they needed Linux technology in order to do business in a secure fashion (i.e. hiring Akamai to do DNS for them). Only thing about seppuku is that sometimes it takes a while for the abdominal infection to set in....

Without a standards-based, crossplatform language, any hope of "taking over the Net" is so much vaporware. Such an effort is even more pitiful when you have to contract out to the competition for basic services.

The irony of the situation is that IBM, the company Bill nearly killed off in the 80's, is at the vanguard of the host of companies set to sweep the 800-pound gorilla off its feet of clay. Big Blue has spent the last 20 years turning itself into a 600-pound Rocky Balboa, a lean, mean, fighting machine.... and, at the end of it all, Tux is their mascot.

But as I said, it's not JUST IBM, not JUST Linux even.... it's BSD, and Apple, and the Alpha platform, and Sun.... and the fact that Windows STILL doesn't run on ANY 64-bit platform and at this rate may never....

Open Source has been around a lot longer than Linux. (I remember downloading "less" in 1986... and the comp.sources.* archives were pretty huge even then.) It's not going to die anytime soon. Furthermore, IBM is not stupid, not anymore. It wouldn't have put such a huge investment into this if they thought it was a short-lived technology. You don't see IBM stock losing 80% of its value, do you? In fact, IBM is outperforming the S&P, the NASDAQ, and the Dow. The Street prides itself in being able to predict future performance very accurately. (Please also note that MSFT does none of these things...) So I'm not just blowing smoke here... IBM will have its revenge - living well while a greying Bill stands off an I-405 exit ramp holding a sign, "I will code for food"...

User interface

[RandomPeon]

I know this is an old hat, but I think we won't see Linux on desktops anytime soon.

I saw a demo of the user interface for MS Whistler last night. From Joe User's perspective, it's at least a decade ahead of GNOME or KDE. There's no way we're gonna see Linux on user desktops anytime soon, with Apple and MS going all out here. Add in a couple million dollars of research on making the thing intuitive (even if all the research is crap) and you've got a tough cookie to crack. Whistler finally allows remote login, just like Unixes have decades, but it sure seems neat to non-geeks that you can access your computer from home.

That said, geeks will never want to use this system. It has hundreds of wizards, IE 6 has a dancing puppy dog who will "fetch" your searches, etc. MS has made their consumer OS so hard for high-end users to work with that any geek who runs Win9x now will run away screaming in terror, possibly to Linux (but more likely to Win2K).

Obligatory de-FUD-ing...

[TrentC]

I'm sure everyone's caught this one, but I've only seen it mentioned once so far; I wonder if it's an error on Wired's part or Mr. Miller's?

"And the recent security problems with Linux, coupled with the lack of key enterprise elements in the new kernel, really call into question whether Linux should be used at all," Miller added.

Now, if you were smart enough to remember that you were reading a web page and not a paper article, you'd find at the other end of the provided link a notice on SecurityFocus... for BIND.

Yes, BIND. Not "Linux", not the kernel; one network service which, AFAIK, has been around a lot longer than Linux has.

I find it funny that the Wired article also links to the article about Microsoft's network outage, due to... wait for it... a problem with their DNS servers! I would love to know if the problem with their DNS was due to a similar bug/exploit as the one Mr. Miller (or Wired) tries to take shots at Linux for.

Other than that amusing tidbit, I just find the article a total non-issue. Gee, a major software vendor claims that it's biggest rival (or some upstart flash-in-the-pan, depending on which side of the PR department you're talking to) isn't all it's cracked up to be. Truly, a moment to be entered into the history books...

Jay (=

Ahh...

[Auckerman]

The author mis-spelt

"And the recent security problems with Windows2K, coupled with the lack of key enterprise elements in the new system, really call into question whether Windows2K should be used at all"

Being a Mac user I see/read/hear Trolls all the time. If I responded to every Troll, I would spend the rest of my life doing it. Granted, this is coming from MS, and as such the press is gonna post it, but that doesn't make it anymore than it is: A Troll.

Flame Bait

[kennedy]

Score: -2 (Flame Bait,Redundant)

c'mon guys, do we have to see this story posted YET AGAIN?! all this is going to do is jerk off all the linux zelots.

So when can we expect to see the freebsd VM code in a linux distro?

On the other hand, again...

[Svartalf]

I thought that W2K was robust and that they had the financial resources to be able to manage their own DNS. Says a lot for a company that's running their own ISP and claims that W2K's better than UNIX, don't you think?

Leading

[clinko]

And "Microsoft is leading the charge with .Net," said Miller. "Linux is not leading anything, it is simply providing a 'free' operating system."
Ahem... You might want to look at this...

Re:Leading

[CoolVibe]

Yeah, and .NET isn't even officially released yet. Who are they kidding? Typically Microsoft to say that they are leading iwth *vapourware*
--
Slashdot didn't accept your submission? hackerheaven.org will!

Re:Microsoft can't do anything about free..

[Fervent]

Problem one: when all the Linux companies go "Tits up", hardware companies will no longer feel a need to release a few drivers for their products. They are only catering to the niche right now because they think that niche is growing.

Problem three: if we lose these companies, we will be losing many of Linux's best programmers. Reasoning: while some of the better ones are hobbists, a lot of the best coders work for money. They are coming to Linux not only because they see a development challenge, but a monetary opportunity through companies. Watch how quickly they'll go back to Windows if they realize they need more money (or if the market bottoms out). Problem three: You seem to have many hours a day where you can code programs to give away for free. I don't. Most of us don't. Right now I'm going to college, but even now I'm swamped with work and expenses necessary to keep food on my table. I can only imagine it getting harder when I leave. That's why I can't help you in your idealistic ways.

Microsoft can't do anything about free..

[xtal]

I'm shocked that people that high up in Microsoft and other "consultancy" firms completely miss what Linux is about. It's not ABOUT money. It never WAS about money, and frankly, redhat, VA Linux, and everything in between can go tits-up tomorrow and it won't make a lick of difference to me. I'm sure there'd be a lot of unhappy investors - but let me say it again, Linux is not about money.

Linus Torvalds did not write linux because he wanted to be rich - although a nice side effect - he wrote it because he wanted to do something; he wanted an operating system that just sucked a little less than all of the other ones out there. That's the beauty of the GPL. That's why I give code away - It did what I wanted, and if someone thinks that it sucks less, then all the power to them!

I use linux because it does what I want, and so do a lot of other people. Linux won't lose because a bunch of ill concieved business models go up in smoke - all that GPL'd code will be there, waiting for the next Linus Torvalds to hack on it and make it suck less. Those drivers weren't written by people who wanted money; they were written by people that just wanted their hardware to work. There's no rocket science in there - just a pile of time.

Unless microsoft is proposing that they ban free development - free as in speech - then there's a segment of the market that they'll never, ever get - and that's the real linux mainstream, the core of people that use it because it sucks less and makes their lives easier. Does anything else really matter? If you're happy with MS, fine. Enjoy. I'm not.

Re:Microsoft can't do anything about free..

[igaborf]

Companies should NOT have to count on hobbyists who have other priorities than helping THEM.

But the same is true of relying on commercial vendors. Their interest is in helping you only when that intersects with their own financial benefit. It's not clear that YOU are helped more by one model than by the other. I have many more horror stories about trying to get support for closed-source products (including MS') than open-source products.

They can ask for such things as support for hot-swappable components, or whatever, but they cannot demand or compel it.

When was the last time you (or anyone else) compelled Microsoft to add support for something to Windows? Frankly, if your needs are not widely shared, you have little chance of seeing support for them added to Windows.

Linux development can be community driven, but that may not be good enough for customers with specific needs that aren't currently focused on by said community.

One reason Linux and BSD are so prevalent as Internet servers is precisely because Microsoft was late in focusing on customer's Internet server needs. So that argument cuts both ways.

It's much more tenable to go to a vendor who sees a fiscal interest in doing things like patching the kernel for certain hardware, or for testing Oracle installations, or other foo -- if the vendor will remain in business.

Well, yes, but if the kernel needs to be patched and the OS is Windows, what vendor do you go to? On the other hand, if the kernel and its patches are open sourced, it doesn't matter if the vendor goes out of business because another vendor can pick up the source and continue development.

Whether or not Linux remains isn't that relevant to MSFT except regarding its impact on it's market share.

Agreed. And the only reason I care about market share is because a technology that has a significate market share is more readily viewed as viable by PHBs.

Re:Microsoft can't do anything about free..

[SquadBoy]

Yes and of course we all know that demanding bug fixes and enhancements from Microsoft works really well. Just the other day I called them up and demaned USB support for NT 4. I expect to get the patches any day now. I'm in fact holding my breath waiting for it. :) And we all know that MS never ever breaks anything when you upgrade. The fact of the matter is while the hobbyists certainly have helped and continue to do so that *many* OSS developers are in fact paid to do so and are working on tools to help them do their real jobs. See this is the problem and the myth of support any company small enough that they really will provide the level of support people like you talk about are going to be dismissed and any company big enough that the PHBs will look at them are big enough they don't care anymore. The key is to find a small cluefull systems consultant who can and will work with you. And there are plenty of us out here. Also do not dismiss the fact that in many cases you are talking with and too craftsmen in this area. These are people who take pride in doing a job well. Ask them in a nice way, explain it to them, you might even offer to throw a few dollars their way and you will get a much better response then you ever will out of Microsoft. Come on grow up and be human. Get on the cluetrain.

So why are they using Linux DNS Servers?

[matth]

So if Microsoft is so against this horrid O/S because of security problems.. why are they using some Linux DNS Services?

Look Here For The Info

Let's see which name servers Microsoft is using right now: microsoft.com. 1d20h7m8s IN NS DNS4.CP.MSFT.NET.
microsoft.com. 1d20h7m8s IN NS DNS5.CP.MSFT.NET.
microsoft.com. 1d20h7m8s IN NS DNS7.CP.MSFT.NET.
microsoft.com. 1d20h7m8s IN NS DNS6.CP.MSFT.NET.
microsoft.com. 1d20h7m8s IN NS z1.msft.akadns.COM.
microsoft.com. 1d20h7m8s IN NS z2.msft.akadns.COM.
microsoft.com. 1d20h7m8s IN NS z6.msft.akadns.COM.
microsoft.com. 1d20h7m8s IN NS z7.msft.akadns.COM.

Let's do a queso on the last four.

$ sudo queso z1.msft.akadns.COM:53
216.32.118.104:53 * Linux 2.1.xx/2.2.xx
$ sudo queso z2.msft.akadns.COM:53
32.96.80.17:53 * Linux 2.1.xx/2.2.xx
$ sudo queso z6.msft.akadns.COM:53
207.229.152.20:53 * Linux 2.1.xx/2.2.xx
$ sudo queso z7.msft.akadns.COM:53
213.161.66.158:53 * Linux 2.1.xx/2.2.xx


It's Linux, all right.

Re:So why are they using Linux DNS Servers?

[Salamander]

That's not quite the same as saying that Microsoft uses Linux. Microsoft has outsourced certain functionality to Akamai, which uses Linux. The reason the distinction matters is that Microsoft gets a bunch more from their deal with Akamai than just a bunch of Linux boxes. They get a certain level of guarantees regarding functionality, and it's up to Akamai to make good on those guarantees regardless of the quality of the underlying technology.

Microsoft may in fact use Linux in other areas - I've heard that Hotmail or some such was Linux-based - but this particular piece of information about Akamai DNS servers doesn't really mean much.

Stunning prediction

[gregbaker]

The first line of the article:

Microsoft thinks Linux is doomed, and predicts that many Linux businesses will falter and fail before the end of the year.

I think Microsoft is doomed because many businesses that make products for Windows will fail before the end of the year.

Honestly, journalists should be forced to pass some kind of critical thinking test before being given a pen.

And while we're talking about critical thinking, does anyone notice anything fishy about the assertion that "MS's number 1 threat will fail by the end of the year" and on the other hand, "What monopoly? We don't know what you're talking about."

.NET as an Enterprize solution????

[selectspec]

What enterprize is going to use .NET? It's completely incompatible with anything other than Microsoft platforms! If Microsoft really believes that Biztalk is going to solve its interoperability problems, the've got a serious wake up call coming to them.

NT doesn't really HAVE a Journaling filesystem...

[Svartalf]

Well, not in the sense of something like XFS or JFS.

Re:Why Linux is not the best option.

[Plankowner]

Your comparison between the costs of supporting NT and supporting Linux are completely wrong.

In your analysis you forgot the cost of the acolytes of BigShaft that have to run NT. From what my experience has been supporting both the Unix environment and the NT environment has been you end up needing more NT folks to support the same number of Unix machines.

In point of fact at one place I worked the ratio of NT admins to machine vs. Unix admins to machines was staggeringly out of sync.

We had roughly 8 NT servers and 4 NT admins. We had 4 Unix admins to service nearly 100 unix servers.

If I add in desktops then there were more like 16 NT admins with the same 4 Unix admins taking care of both servers and desktops. There were half as many Unix desktops, granted, but still the numbers don't jive.

Part of the reason you needed more NT admins in proportion to the number of Unix admins is there was more for the NT admins to do. Always some machine or other was screwed up and the NT guys had to straighten things out.

Now if you add in the fact that I was helping out the NT folks and I'm predominately a Unix guy then there were 17 NT admins and 3 Unix admins...

Re:Laptop incompatibilities

[Fervent]

Of installed Windows 2000 on 3 of my home machines (the other runs Linux). 2 of the Windows 2000 boxes were desktops, one was a laptop. All installed beautifully.

Try to install it yourself before making a stupid comment about it's usability.

PC's aren't good for Enterprise servers

[Greyfox]

If you're looking for real reliablility, are you going to call some limp dick PC box, even one with 4 xeons in it? No. You're going to go for a big hunk of Big Blue Iron. There's simply no comparason with an IBM S390, which tend to measure their uptime in decades, RAM in double or triple digit gigabytes, and hard drive storage in double or triple digit terabytes.

Oh, and that S390 will run Linux. So if you want a true enterprise OS, it seems VM/CMS, MVS or Linux are possible choices.

Re:Laptop incompatibilities

[witz]

I'd also be interested in knowing about BSD and Linux on newish laptops. Most OEMs are focusing on Win2k for laptops in terms of drivers/compatibilities. For example, Compaq's MX00 line is fully Windows 2000 Logo'd. The brand new M700's run 2000 without a single driver needed outside of the Windows 2000 CD, with full ACPI/USB/PCMCIA support. Hard to beat that.
Does Linux or BSD install? Do you get network functionality from the built-in NiC? How difficult is it to get X to run on something other than the standard VGA server? I'm not flaming here, I'm pretty curious, I've never even tried a BSD or Linux on a laptop.

I understand now...

[f5426]

From the artice:

"Free does not sustain a business," Miller said. "Development costs money, QA (quality assurance) costs money, support costs money."

That's *exactly* why microsoft have such a high margin...

Cheers,

--fred

one important point

[kaisyain]

That is hinted at is that in the free software world it is often much harder to get "big" features implemented in a timely fashion. (In the article they are specifically talking about enterprise features but those are just one particular kind.) I mean, take a look at how quickly commercial operating systems like BeOS and Windows NT supported journalling file systems. Then take a look at how widespread it is among free operating systems. How many clustering solutions are there for linux? Now compare that to the number of mp3 playing front ends. The easy stuff gets done over and over again while the hard stuff gets done once. If it gets done at all.

With free OSes there is often little in the way of financial backing for more ambitious undertakings. Look at who extraordinary the recent support of the perl hacker is. I mean, it makes front page news that some guy gets to spend 100% of his time working on improving the product. When was the last time you saw Microsoft trumpeting the fact that they had hired a person to work full time on Visual Basic?

Of course, it's not IMPOSSIBLE to get good funding to implement more difficult features in free software. IBM and SGI are both doing so, more or less. However, the article does mention that many/most linux based companies are suffering from financial difficulties, which in turn will make it harder for people to get the kind of funding they need to do more ambitious work.

Re:one important point

[Salamander]

The easy stuff gets done over and over again while the hard stuff gets done once

It's not just the hard stuff that doesn't get done; it's all the boring or tedious or unpleasant stuff as well. Specs. Test tools. Documentation. Standards compliance. Everybody wants to be coding, and only on the easy whiz-bang GUI/web cruft, and very few want to hunker down and do the stuff that commercial OS vendors pay people to do even though it drives them nuts.

Re:one important point

[prizog]

"I mean, take a look at how quickly commercial operating systems like BeOS and Windows NT supported journalling file systems. Then take a look at how widespread it is among free operating systems. "

Well, Microsoft has been making OS software since the 80's, and they first got it in the mid 90's. Linux has had working journalling for about 6 months via ReiserFS. It's not official, but I have heard of several large organizations running it succesfully.

"How many clustering solutions are there for linux?" Well, depending on what sort of clustering you want (speed? reliability?), there's Mosix, Linux-HA, Beowulf, TurboCluster, and more.

"With free OSes there is often little in the way of financial backing for more ambitious undertakings. Look at who (sic) extraordinary the recent support of the perl hacker is. I mean, it makes front page news that some guy gets to spend 100% of his time working on improving the product."

There is all sorts of financial backing, from the companies and organizations that use the software, such as IBM, Los Alamos National Labs, and many more. Larry Wall has been paid for many years to work on Perl by O'Reilly - Damian Conway is an unusual case because he was sponsored directly by the community.

"However, the article does mention that many/most linux based companies are suffering from financial difficulties, which in turn will make it harder for people to get the kind of funding they need
to do more ambitious work."

Because Linux companies don't compete in building the software, the loss of a few does not mean the loss of any pieces. Would you say that IBM, RedHat, or any major Linux company is going under? Corel did, but they weren't contributing anything.

Re:one important point

[johnnyb]

Actually, Linux has excellent documentation. I've never wanted to do anything that hasn't been findable on the WWW, or even in /usr/doc/. This is both from the programming and the using end.

In many ways he's right

[Metal Machine Music]

I think in the long term open source will fail.

The problem is that things are getting more and more complicated - very soon, things like SMTP will be obsolete, and only groupware like Exchange will be viable - simply because it's more productive for a company to have groupware.

There isn't the money in open source to be able to afford to produce things like this - because there's no revenue in giving things away, companies can't afford the programmers to produce the complicated products of the future.

Even Netscape, bankrolled by one of the world's largest companies, AOL, can't keep up, via open source, with expensive protocols like XSL and so on.

There's just not enough money.

However, that comes a stage down the line.

For the moment, companies are happy to except vanilla products like Apache and qmail, which do something simple, but do it efficiently.

For these products, open source is viable - there is none of the strategic problems involved with say co-ordinating an open-source GUI, which only a commercial company, with control over its staff can do.

This will take a while though - the first thing to happen will be the death of consumer open source. I posted an article on this to Kuro5hin, and although the poll died, the majority of people agreed with my conclusion that open source isn't viable for consumer software.

I invite you to read my arguments, which, briefly summarised are as follows:

no direction - there's no-one who can find what the focus groups want and then enforce it

no money - you can't afford to compete if you don't have enough money to do so]

a mistaken belief as to the ability of users. Open source relies on a hobbyist's views of computing, which states that everyone knows how to program - false; modern programs are exceptionally complicated and most users are not programmers.

no innovation. Because there's no money for r+d, there's little innovation and open source plays catchup all the time. Furthermore, there's no incentive for improvement - open source doesn't have to make improvements like MS does - they don't have to make qmail v6 much better than v5 ytto get people to upgrade as MS would with Outlook 2002 vs 2000.

The giants have woken up.

[Lover's Arrival, The]

Before this point, Linux could wallow in its obscurity. But now it is being attacked by marketing. Marketing will be the death of Linux, from within and without. Within, Linux is mainly promoted by marketing companies these days. The ere of the lonely advocate is gone.

Problem is, the marketers always make unfounded claims. Hence, the promotion of Linux is gradually deviating away from what it can actually do. This puts off the core group that would be interested in Linux.

From the outside, it is being attacked by the mighty marketing machines of MS, Apple and Sun. This two probged attack is bad news.

Perception id the most important part of making something popular. When the perception varies from the performance, people get disappointed. This is beggining to happen with Linux.

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.

Re:The giants have woken up.

[Helmholtz]

Okay, lets take this paragraph by paragraph.

I don't see how marketing will have much effect at all on Linux. Most of the people I know who seriously run a Linux distribution dont' use it because they saw a ZDTV splash or a PCMag splash about it. They run it because in their research, they found it to be the best solution to their problems ... that research being a gathering of facts, not hype. Marketing can have a lot of sway with people who don't know or aren't concerned about the facts of a situation, but this is a short term effect. Eventually, the facts win ... I think this is why Linux has not gone away already.

I've already addressed some of this above, but the core group of Linux developers/users don't use Linux because it's "cool". If your user base is based on people who think your product is "cool" then you are playing a dangerous game, because they are liable to leave at a drop of a hat, regardless of what the marketing droids say.

Once again, Linux is best served by its lack of marketing. Spending resources on producing the best solution to a problem is always better in the long run to trying to grab the quick buck. Personally I prefer Linux to be respected than be popular.

I really thought there was more to this post, otherwise I wouldn't have even bothered replying, but I've already typed this much ... so there it is.

Large Company says Rival "Rubbish" Shock!

[nagora]

In an astounding move today the head of a large company stated that people really should buy their computers from them. When pressed as to why this was he said "I dunno, really. Perhaps our competitors are no good. Yeah, that's probably it."

He then went on to say that he had heard that quality assurance costs money but was not clear as to where he was getting his figures from. "I think we tried it on one of our early products," he said, "But, of course that was before we realised that IT Managers would buy our stuff no matter how many bugs it had. Linux is at a disadvantage because people expect it to work."

MSFT shares did exactly nothing at all on the breaking of this news.

TWW

An Example of FUD

[llywrch]

Miller's interview in Wired is not FUD. It is nothing more than trash-talking. The same thing Larry Ellison indulges in when he talks about Sybase or MS SQL. Or Larry Augustine or Robert Young might do about a Linux competitor.

Trash talking is not FUD. People laugh at trash talking, but are not convinced. FUD attempts to convince its hearer.

FUD is subtle & shadowy. It is the voice of anonymous cowards or people with made-up names like Steve Bartko, who descries himself

> As someone who used to love Linux a lot more than Windows,

but has found that

> I have no come to see that they are both neck and neck in stability.

And characterizes his opponent as

> Here we obviously have a foaming at the mouth Linux zealot. Careful,
> don't touch that white foam coming out of his mouth, it is contagious, and quite possibly deadly. Let us look at Mr Celtic's claims now. They are all
> (not suprisingly) unfounded. He even has the wherewithall to make certain claims bold.

Wow. This guy reads a lot into a simple post stating that

> but the bottom line is that Linux is more stable, more flexible and more secure! Let them attempt the FUD.. it won't work and
> they know it. -Celtic

Maybe Mr Celtic is wrong. But this two line post doesn't strike me as coming from a frothing at the mouth zealot. (Well, maybe a zealot.)

Our FUDster tries to appear more rational than his oppenent with a carefully qualified statement:

> With Win2K, I think I've had 1 lockup in 6 months,
> and that was my fault for installing 7 year old ASPI drivers.

If Win2K was truly as stable as Linux, why isn't he telling us what he is using it for? More than surfing the web & writing the occasional email? Is he running an enterprise-level application (e.g. a multiuser database, or a webserver)?

(Hey, if I wanted to really slam this poster, I'd ask him how well does Win2K run DNS? And if he can make it work better than the company that wrote it?)

And notice how he discusses security:

> Ah security, one of my pet
> hobbies. I've come to the final conclusion that you spitting zealots don't even have the slightest clue about security, so I'm not going into details.

Oh wow, have we've been dissed! We might actually feel more than slightly miffed if this poster could give any examples that he knew what he was talking about.

A note to those who want to defend Windows here or anywhere: provide specifics, provide verifiable facts to back up your statements. I won't deny some people are very happy with Win2K, but unless you explain why, you're going to be dismissed as another troll earning a paycheck from Ballmer & Co.

Geoff

Features

[Tony]

For MS-Windows NT, JFS was introduced in 1995, near as I recall. This was pretty early on. However, it was not robust, and not many people trusted it, and it killed performance. Microsoft did fix most of these problems in the ensuing releases.

ReiserFS has been around since (at least) late '96. However, it was not robust, and not many people trusted it, and it killed performance. The ReiserFS development team has fixed most of these problems in the ensuing releases. ReiserFS is now included in the kernel source.

Clustering? What kind? Load balancing? Failover? Computational? NT has the first two, but not really the third. Linux has all three, several versions.

So, assuming you weren't being subtly ironic, I would like to point out that Linux has pretty much everything NT has. (Does NT include support for hot-swappable CPUs and memory? I know Linux does not, currently, but Solaris (for instance) does).

Anyway, just a small rebuttal. There is plenty of support among software enthusiasts for even the more-complex stuff. In fact, some of us prefer the really complex stuff (like a complete kernel).

Analysts

[gimple]

I work for a small (in body count) enterprise software company. One day I was poking around looking for what analysts were saying about us, and I found a report that the Gartner Group had done on our market space.

On Gartner's Magic Quadrant, we were placed smack dab in the lower left--meaning niche player, don't think about them. I contact the analyst who wrote the piece and challenged him. His response was, "You should count yourself lucky to even be on my radar."

Being slightly naive, I told him that given the opportunity, I could prove that we were not a niche player. He recommended scheduling an analyst review, which I did. It turned out that an analyst review was merely a sales opportunity for Gartner to sell their services.

The point of this little missive is this. You can't trust analysts like IDC, Gartner, Aberdeen, etc. There may be exceptions, but they are primarily on the payroll of those whom they write about.

funny

[wishus]

funny how microsoft just doesn't get the open source development model. they work real hard and put together windows 2000, and, except for some service packs, call it good for another few years.

they don't seem to understand that a kernel release isn't like that. sure, it's a new kernel, and it has some cool new features, but "linux" isn't putting all it's hopes on the success of this one kernel.

and if we decide we want a new feature, we'll code one up and release it as the next kernel.

if microsoft wants to "beat" us, they should first understand how we work, instead of assuming that we use their glorified concept of business operating systems.

wishus
---

What would you expect?

[cje]

Microsoft's typical method of dealing with competitors has been to either buy them out, strong-arm them, or yank the carpet out from under their feet with shifting standards and "embrace-and-extend" scenarios. Now that they have a competitor that they are virtually powerless to do anything about, there is little left for them to do than to try to spread a little bit of FUD around. This isn't new, after all. Microsoft realized (perhaps wisely) that attacking Linux's image is probably the only viable means that they have to go after Linux. We've seen this for a couple of years now.

So let's see where we're at:

• "The Linux kernel lacks key enterprise elements .."
  
  Reeeeeeaaalllly. What "key enterprise elements" are those? With the latest Linux developments, we've got everything from a journalling filesystem to enhanced multi-processor support. Sure, it's tough to make the claim that Linux is going to be superior to Solaris or other "big-iron" Unices for "big-iron" applications, but IMHO it's tough to make that claim about Windows, as well.
  
  This, of course, conveniently ignores the fact that the vast majority of Linux installations (just like the vast majority of Windows installations) do not require these "key enterprise elements" that Ballmer is bleating about. And what are these elements, anyway? Mindlessly throwing out buzzwords might make "PC Magazine" swoon, but people who are interested in specifics are going to yawn and be on their merry way.
  
  
• "You wouldn't want to install Linux on a laptop .."
  
  Is that so? Funny; I just installed Mandrake 7.1 on a Dell laptop last week. The installation went flawlessly. I was up and running and connected to the Internet, reading Slashdot, within two minutes of finishing the installation. As a matter of fact, the PCMCIA modem that I'm using with the laptop was not recognized by Windows. Linux didn't have any problems with it. What was this nonsense about lack of drivers again?
  
  
• "Free does not sustain a business .."
  
  Maybe, maybe not. It depends on the business. But the real issue here is the one that they missed; if every Linux-based business goes belly-up, that does nothing to hamper the continued development and release of the Linux system itself. Sure, companies such as Red Hat have got people working on value-added software such as RPM, but if Red Hat were to vanish from the face of the earth, it would not prevent the Linux kernel from evolving and undergoing continual development.
  
  I think we can chalk this up to simple ignorance; people just don't get that there is no single, controlling corporation behind Linux. They look at Microsoft and see them as the source of the software that runs their computer(s). They don't understand the Linux development model (or if they do understand it, they don't like it because it is so far removed from their expectations.)
  
  
• "Linux growth is leveling off .."
  
  Show me the numbers, baby. At my workplace, we've got Linux replacing Windows NT on many of our development workstations. We've got Linux servers coming in the door to handle many specialized data applications. We're putting together Beowulf clusters to do distributed data processing. We're getting rid of clunky Oracle Forms-based user interfaces and replacing them with ones developed using Troll Tech's Qt toolkit. In short, we've seen a Linux explosion over the past year or so, and I know that the same is true of several other places.

I think the CEO of LinuxCare said it the best: the significant thing here is the degree to which Linux is registering on Microsoft's public radar. We must be doing something right, folks .. because if we weren't, they would be better off ignoring us. The challenge that we have to accept is combatting FUD like this in a logical and reasonable (read: non-emotional and non-combatative!) way. If we do that, Microsoft will remain as powerless to stop Linux as they are today. And that is a Good Thing (TM).

I have to say...

[Eil]

There really isn't much value in free," said Miller

Right from the very first sentence of this article, I just had to let out a large belly laugh. Guess I don't actually need to comment much upon this, as the rest of the /. crew knows this statement to be pretty much ridiculous.

Mentioning the "recent security problems" and "lack of key enterprise features," I just have to point out to the doubters that Linux is still (for all intents and purposes) a brand-new operating system. It is at the point now where most people have heard of it, but still haven't seen it let alone bother to check it out. Development is still very much an ongoing project. True Linux supporters and developers have never stated otherwise.

The security problems aren't any particular surprise to me, as it's pretty much obvious that things like there are only going to be discovered until Linux popularity reaches some sort of critical mass and enough people begin tinkering with it.

As for the enterprise-level features not being there, this is an easy case of counting your chickens before they hatch. 2.4.x is just the beginning of the modern linux kernel. The framework is there, now we have to refine things and add in whatever else is desired. Unlike certain other OSes that have *some* of these features but neglect the fact that the framework is fundamentally flawed.

I think those (including M$) that bitch about Linux development being too slow to change need to step back and realize that just a few years ago (in the 2.0.x [where x is a single digit] days) there were many of us who never in their wildest dreams would have imagined that Linux would become a household name.

Clearly, that has changed. And will continue to do so.

Other OS's

[beebware]

Don't forget that there is FreeBSD, RISC OS, Solaris, BeOS, Mac OS, NetBSD, MINIX and many other OS other than Linux and Windows.

I think Microsoft remembers how it became so big, and just doesn't want any other OS to do the same - hence just 'attack' your biggest competitor and leave all the others alone for the time being.

Richy C.

Why do we care?

[Lord Kano]

I personally don't care about the adoption of Linux by "enterprise". I couldn't care less, in fact I think that the more Big Money Computing gets into it the more likely OS forks are.

Let's say that IBM forks the code to get a special function out of one of their high end boxes, and Compaq thinks that it was a good idea, because of the GPL they will have access to that code and make the changes that they see fit. BANG another fork, then HP changes Compaq's code. BANG another fork. Then Cray changes HP's changes, BANG el forko.

Is this about lining executive's pockets with more money or with making the best free software possible?

LK

How free software can compete

[Per Abrahamsen]

> open source isn't viable for consumer software.

You may be right as long as consumer software is defined as big, monolithic chunks. As soon as it can be split up into isolated parts, open source solutions can compete. Take OS'es. IBM's OS/360 took a thousand mand year to design an implement. No feasible open source business plan can compete with that. Unix, however, was much smaller and divided into simple components. The GNU project could replace these, one by one.

Monolithic software solutions are intrincicly both errorphrone and difficult to change, a become more so with time. Manpower can compensate for this, but in the long run non-monolithic designs will win in the marked, creating an opening for free software.

> no direction - there's no-one who can find what > the focus groups want and then enforce it

Free software follow the market much more closely than proprietary software, in fact because there is no owner who can force it to follow some arbitrary business plan. The market, however, is not defined by "focus groups". More about that later.

> no money - you can't afford to compete if you
> don't have enough money to do so

No money means free, a price that is hard to beat.

> a mistaken belief as to the ability of users.
> Open source relies on a hobbyist's views of
> computing, which states that everyone knows how
> to program

Not entirely correct. The market for free software consists of two groups, people who can program, and people who can affort to hire programmers. This means that ordinary consumers are never the primary market, but they can be an indirect market if they work for companies or organizations who can hire programmers.

> - false; modern programs are exceptionally
> complicated and most users are not programmers.

Maybe consumer programs shouldn't be that complicated.

> no innovation. Because there's no money for
> r+d, there's little innovation and open source
> plays catchup all the time.

I follow the GCC list, they typically implements new optimizations that have been described in academic papers. This means that the universities work as a "R&D" department for GCC for more theoretical work.

In the less theoretical area, there is a huge mass of small free software projects that implements crazy ideas, most of these are just stupid and will die out, but a few will have good ideas that will eventualy be incorporated in the more high profile projects.

> Furthermore, there's no incentive for
> improvement - open source doesn't have to make
> improvements like MS does

Improvements will tend to be centered around the consumers existing work situation, many consumers will like that.

Re:Keyword.. TRYING..

[lrichardson]

But the point is that Windows 2000 IS secure out of the box

Of course, then you have to stick that pesky thing called M$ Office 2000, and you're back to having every virus run gleefully through your system, just much faster than before ;)

Re:can Windows be beaten on the desktop?

[sheldon]

You realize of course that Windows 2000 would satisfy most all of your requirements.

It would be able to act as a FTP server without rebooting daily, and play games and the other software you require Windows for.

It also has a much greater cool factor than Linux, which is important when in college. :)

People should start looking at the REAL issues.

[icedtang]

I think there is a major overlaying issue here that people seem to be missing. The issue here is not about which OS has more features or not, or about which one is more stable, the issue is totaly about money.
If you read what Miller has to say it's all about money, and trying to convince people that paying for software is a good thing for quality control and R & D.
Take a major look at the difference's between the two operating systems. One is put together to be marketed. The other is ment to actually <b>DO</B. something.
What Microsoft is worried about here is people starting to relise that they do not need all these wizbang features. Lets take Millers example for instance. According to Miller Linux does not support "hot swappable cpus and memory". Ok, that's a fair point, but I'd like someone to so me some intel hardware that can do this, and lets not forget that you can only do this in win2k (if it works at all).
I think one of the reason's that Microsoft is so successful is because they have convinced parts of the IT business that the Windows way is better because of all these featres. I will be one of the first people to admit that Microsoft has done a really excellent job of getting it's product out into the market place onto desktop's and servers. I think it would be very hard to pull off a better job than what Microsoft has done.
Enter Linux. Linux should have Microsoft worried for the simple reason that it's not really being marketed and yet people are still picking it up and installing it on server world wide. What more and more people are starting to relise is that wizbang is fun, and you can do some realy neat things, but it's not always the best solution for the dataroom. Sure, I think hotswaping a CPU is REALLY cool but I know the chances of a CPU packing it in are rather slim, much more slim than say windows 2000 doing a bluescreen. What I want in my dataroom is rock solid uptime. Sure, I may not be able to see my menus fade in, but I do see my uptime climbing all the time.
I think what Microsoft is getting worried about is that people are starting to relise that they actually want uptime rather then fancy features, and this makes Microsoft worried because that means a cut in sales for them.
I think everyone should remeber, Windows was built to be marketed, Unix (and in extention linux) was ment to actually <b>DO</b> things.

Lots of folks do linux full-time.

[cduffy]

Howdy. I work for MontaVista Software. We support embedded systems development on Linux. Incidentally, many of our full-time employees are among the core developers of Linux/PPC. Many of our clients use PPC-based systems. Thus, we pay these folks to work on the issues our clients experience -- but the source goes out to everyone.

I package and port applications. Should I make a significant portability fix, it goes back to the author as a matter of course, to be included in the next version.

This isn't an unusual thing; not only do we operate like this, but Lineo (our primary competitor) does the same. I expect that non-embedded support companies also have very large numbers of individuals doing linux full-time.

Why some other companies put out press releases when they hire folks to work on open source full-time is something I don't understand. We do it as a matter of course.

Desperation?

[Grendel Drago]

What are we supposed to think? They're acting as if they were in the throes of death (which they're not, are they?), what with the "Linux will destroy us!"/"Linux is nothing!" flip-flopping.

I don't think that Miller really addresses anything, except the fact that Microsoft has an assload of resources to put behind service and support, while anyone using Linux must rely on their own IT department or third-party providers.

Innovation? Aside from cosmetic improvements, what's so much better about Windows now than two years ago? Linux, on the other hand, has a completely new VM (the benefits of which will start outweighing the pain that it's brought to kernel hackers any day now), the LVM, journaling file systems which will be included in the mainstream kernel RSN, a completely overhauled windowing system... (I know, X runs on BSD and Solaris too.)

Besides, what major improvements *haven't* been thought of in some university/IBM thinktank and implemented in a mainstream distribution by someone else?

Bah. He's only making himself look ridiculous.

-grendel drago

Miller's track record

[smartin]

Doug Miller does not have a great track record at predicting the future, considering that M$ scoped up his previous company Softway Systems for a song.

Another way of looking at it....

[ajs]

Let's see if regular expressions improve this glop any, shall we?

"Based on the warnings from the developers and confusing messages from the company, it is clear the long-heralded Windows 2000 is a long way from being ready for business use," said Sherman. "The features in it are just the beginning, still raw technology."

But some Windows developers say that the newly released OS was just meant to be a beginning.

"Windows 2000 does lack serious system management tools, but there's a slew of new products coming down the ramp very soon that will bring Windows into even more enterprises," said someone....

"Recent security problems?"

[omarius]

For Bob's sake, it took me like 15 minutes to download, compile, and install BIND after I got the security notice from CERT.

Meanwhile, I found recently that someone FTP'd a packet sniffer to my w2k box. Why? How? I don't know. I have anonymous access disabled, and passwords on all the accounts. Maybe if this product came with some reasonable fscking documentation I'd have a clue.

The only reason I have this win2k POS is so many of my customers have bought into MS's "if your ISP doesn't support FrontPage, you don't have a real ISP" bull.

It pisses me off.

Rant off,

-Omar@bastards!

Re:"Recent security problems?"

[omarius]

I am a professional, sir, and resent your insinuating that I am incompetent. If IIS5 came with usable documentation, which I had either read and misunderstood or refused to read, then that would be a sign of incompetence. The only reason I have this box is because I was not satisfied after reading about all the security holes installing FP extensions for Apache opens.

I even read the IIS portion of the MS resource kit, which was an odd clash of 'under-the-hood' details and MS propoganda that was wholly devoid of useful content (Sentances like "MS IIS 5 is the [easiest | best | fastest] product for [task]" belong in marketing media, not technical manuals). So, I have ordered a third-party book that looks promising. But my points, which may have escaped you, are: why should I get more and better documentation on a product that I use for free that for a product that cost several hundred dollars? Or for that matter, why should an FTP server need securing beyond denying anonymous access and having good passwords? And if more is necessary, where is the documentation that tells me what steps I should take? Does it make me incompetent that I cannot, a priori, figure out IIS server 5 from what I have been provided -- a broken-out-of-box system with online help that does not go beyond "click add, then new, then FTP service?"

-Omar

Oooo.

[Chris Johnson]

_Stop_ the presses. My god- Microsoft says Linux is going to fizzle! This is clearly hot breaking news worthy of a special story.

Next, a special exclusive in which tobacco company execs shock everyone by suggesting smoking isn't that bad for you really!

Who gets the money?

[Millard Fillmore]

Miller is right - development and QA cost money. As a project manager for a software development interest, I know that all too well. But the question is who gets the money. If he is suggesting that out-of-the-box solutions from MS can spare you the costs of development and QA, he is sorely mistaken. I can pay him to do that for certain elements of my development environment, but then I still have to pay developers and QA professionals to build and test my own software. So, by using a stable development environment and open-source development tools that don't cost me anything at all, I can pay my developers and QA guys more, which means I get better quality people and probably still save money. Oddly enough, it took one of my developers less time to set up a linux box and begin loading under-development software than it took to do the same with a Win2K box. If time is money, Miller loses again...

Microsoft DNS Is Going DOWN

[Merlin_]

Ironic? Just last week the Microsoft DNS system was down, and they point to the BIND exploit as being a major _LINUX_ security hole! LOL... It doesn't get better than this!

Watch out. The FUD is coming

[rgmoore]

From the article:

Lately, Microsoft has vacillated between dismissing Linux entirely and seeing it as a vast and looming threat on the competitive landscape.

That's not Microsoft vacillating. That's MS's typical FUD machine in action. They've decided that Linux is a serious threat, so now they're trying to undermine it with vague fears. This is typical Microsoft in action. The more they fear a competitor's product, the more they try to dismiss it publically as a credible product, claim that its suppliers are going into the tank, etc. Vigorous blasting by MS is just evidence that it really is a threat.

Re:My Comments.

[johnnyb]

Actually, some of the really expensive sun machines support this. On an E10K, you can even hot-swap the motherboards.

Re:huh?

[johnnyb]

Actually, they did notice that the whole architecture sucked, and came out with BIND 9.

MS *is* better than Linux

[CleverNickName]

From the article:

Doug Miller, Microsoft's group product manager for competitive strategies,says, " the new Linux kernel lacks some of the key elements required for enterprise use".

Well, there it is right there. Now we know why there were so many problems with the Enterprise: Starfleet was running Windows.

Sigh...

[sheldon]

Microsoft didn't subcontract to Akamai to manage their DNS servers.

They subcontracted cached content delivery to Akamai, basically as a means to reduce the effects of DoS attacks by distributing their content across multiple Akamai servers across the globe, thus preventing an attack against one machine from taking everything offline.

So now when you contact the microsoft web site to grab something, instead of going to Seattle it may be routed to a Akamai server in Chicago which has the content cached.

Obviously in order to do this, Akamai has to be able to manipulate DNS entries for Microsoft's web servers, thus you now have Akamai DNS servers listed as authorative for Microsoft.com.

This was all discussed in numerous news articles this week, which you apparently missed.

Re:Sigh...

[sheldon]

Hmm. Now that you mention it, yes I guess it does make me superior.

Nice try at digging yourself out of a hole.

can Windows be beaten on the desktop?

[dboyles]

I'm probably a typical Windows > Linux convertee. Up until about 18 months ago I used Windows and Windows alone. A few months before I switched to Linux I started a private FTP server (for legal files, mind you) on my computer that was in my dorm. Well I got tired of rebooting every day, so I made the Big Leap. I started off dual booting, then moved to a Linux-only system about a year later. I recently got a laptop that dual boots, but only because I have to use certain Windows applications for school.

So I'm a Linux user. But I don't think Microsoft cares. The reason is simple: both of my copies of Windows (one 95 and one 98) are licensed, as they came with my computers (both Dell). Microsoft is getting paid even if I don't use their software. Most of you probably know the name this has been given: the Microsoft tax.

So I really don't think Microsoft gives a damn about the desktop market, for the most part; they've got it locked up. Server market is a different story. The article makes some good points. I don't think there's much of a market for "Linux companies," perhaps with the exception of the well-knowns like Red Hat. But does Microsoft really have to fear Red Hat? I don't think so.

Re:can Windows be beaten on the desktop?

[Dr.Dubious DDQ]

both of my copies of Windows (one 95 and one 98) are licensed, as they came with my computers (both Dell). Microsoft is getting paid even if I don't use their software.

Ah, but you've missed the key factor in their OS income - you've stepped off of their Upgrade Treadmill&#174. According to industry accountants, it seems, "Not selling" is the same as "losing money" [whether you would have bought anyway or not]. Therefore, according to MS's accounting department, you could be costing them $100's or even $1000's each year because you didn't buy 98SE (and then W2k and then Whistler...) and you aren't buying Office 2001 (and 2001+ and 2003 and...), and you aren't buying IIS, and ....well, you get the idea...

Therefore, whether they admit it or not, they do care...

---
"They have strategic air commands, nuclear submarines, and John Wayne. We have this"

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's...

[Dirtside]

SuperFUD!

Re:Why Linux is not the best option.

[johnnyb]

Please tell me where Linux people make that much money. Where I work, UNIX admins make about 30K. Where I used to work, Linux admins were hired from the local college for about $10-$20/hr. Also, if you run a Linux box, chances are you won't need an admin. In my last job, I set up scripts according to my employer's business practices, and he hasn't needed an admin since. By the way, he runs a small-time hosting business. I gave him the following scripts:

adddomain
addemail
adduser
probably one or two others I can't remember.

which did everything he needed for our setup. He's only had to call me once, and that was because the ISDN line wasn't working (yes, I _meant_ small-time), and it turned out he hand't paid his bill.

Sigh...

[sheldon]

Hotmail.com used FreeBSD on their external hosts, and Solaris internally per all the articles I read.

However about 4 months ago Microsoft removed all the FreeBSD servers and replaced them with Windows 2000 servers.

This was reported by netcraft and a number of news agencies, which you apparently missed.

Why Linux is not the best option.

[interstellar_donkey]

From time to time, I am given the task of making recomendations for small and medium sized orginizations. I tell them to use NT.

Often I will hear this: "What about Linux? I hear it's better then NT". I have to explain to them that it is better, but it will cost them too much. Any trained monkey with a community college degree in computer science can keep NT running (albeit not with the relibility of Linux). But it costs a lot more to find a Linux system admin who knows what he/she are doing.

So the question is, do you want to pay for an NT site licence and $30,000 a year for a decent NT admin, or do you want to get a free OS and have to pay $60,000 a year to a good Linux admin to make sure it's run right? Oh, and did I mention, your good Linux administrator will not want to be bothered with servicing the users' windows machines?

And of course, speaking of the users. I manage quite a few remote user machines. I would never recommend putting Linux on those machines. I'd spend all my time trying to teach the users how to do things all over again.

The thing is, Windows is EASY. People understand when something goes wrong, you just restart it. Something breaks badly, I just backup the important files and reload everything off a disk image. Sure, Linux doesn't break as much, it's more secure, it's more stable, and is great for mission critical applications, but unless you really have a genuine need for that type of reliability, Windows will always win.

Well, let's see..

[update()]

Many really good points, and many other equally bad ones.

Honestly, I don't see much in the way of either. To summarize, with my take on them:

Free software is not turning out to be profitable for developers

I'd say so far no one has proved him wrong. Hell, the distro makers are selling software someone else writes and they can't make money.

The 2.4 kernel is "raw technology" and not "ready for business use"

I'm not sure what he meant by that -- he and the people responding to him seem to be confusing the kernel with the platform.

IDC says Linux server growth has stopped

IDC suggests otherwise.

"Microsoft is leading the charge with .Net. Linux is not leading anything, it is simply providing a 'free' operating system."

Well, Linux certainly is never leading anything except for ever more ornate window managers. And MS is blowing their usual hot air with .Net.

Linux development is slower than Windows development.

Probably true for developers with Windows experience, not true for Unix developers.

Linux businesses are doing badly. "For a so-called exploding market, this should not happen. Sales of actual products are relatively flat."

If we're talking about desktop software, that's certainly correct. Corel Linux apps, Applixware, Quake III - pretty much all bleak news on that front.

This reminds me...

[Auckerman]

THis reminds me of George W. Bush's campain for the Republican nomination. Vote for me, I'm a winner. You say it long enough, people beleive it. Take this comment from the Troll quoted in the article:

"So in some senses (that) puts the Linux phenomenon and the Unix phenomenon at the top of the list"

Unix phenomenon? You mean the fact that most servers run Unix and not WIndows? This is very telling. An uneducated businessman will read this and think, "Gee, Windows must be under attack by this thing called Unix." which by impication means Unix is the minority.

If you use the language of a champion, you will project the fact you are the winner by default and people will all beleive you are the winner. That's the best advertising anyone can get. "Use Window2k, it's the future". But the problem is, there are a lot of people who don't know that Microsofts future is Unix's yesterday...

Difficult to install Linux on a laptop, try Win2k

[JeffL]

"But you probably wouldn't want to run Linux on a laptop, unless the manufacturer supports Linux; otherwise, it's a real chore to find and install the right hardware drivers.

Has this guy ever tried to install a version of Windows that the laptop did not ship with on a laptop? I have just been going through all kinds of painful hoops to get Windows 2000 on some type of Thinkpad (use a mini Linux distro to copy ME to hard disk, install; copy Win2k to hardisk, upgrade). I also have to deal with a Sony Vaio where not all of the Windows 2000 drivers are available for download, so no memory stick under W2k (works fine under Linux).

At least with Linux the hardware drivers are mostly in two spots: the kernel and XFree86. 99% of the time if Linux supports the hardware the driver is in the latest kernel. Run make menuconfig, do you see your hardware? If so it is supported at at least some level. Under Windows it is can be goose chase on google to find the manufacturer or oem and see if they have a driver, which may or may not work.

I realize this guy is just FUDing, and I have down the equivilant of rise to his troll, but I have more difficulty installing Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2K on random hardware than I have in installing linux on a bleeding edge laptop.

One possible way Linux could change the world.

[Damon C. Richardson]

What Microsoft is afraid of here is a de-centralization of technology. You see it's a very old war. One that I have seen fought at least twice on a grand scale. It's a war that is only now is starting to expose possible Information models. This profound impact on a info culture could be better understood by once again looking at how it was when Microsoft was fighting the good fight against centralized Technologys. Yep thats right. There was a time when people toughted MS as the savior of the age of computers.s

So what do i mean by centralization of technology? I'm talking about the way one group can control the use and propagation of of technology. Back in the day when hooking a computer to a TV was a neat idea. IBM ruled the jungle of technology. It did this because at that time no one shared computer design. IBM won the hardware war and as a spin off also dominated the bussiness software side too. One thing that IBM did was to aquire companys that had solutions that IBM could put to advantage. Yes even Microsoft was looked at as a possible purchase solution. What Microsoft used was the fact that everyone ( I say that very loosly because only a few people were real excited about the pc revolution back in the early eighties ) wanted there own computer. It was not good enough to run down to the campus (school/work) inorder to get computer time. Accountants could not work at home with the latest marvel spreadsheet. But we have this theme of wanting a personlized and handy form of computing. It was this notion of not personal use but personalized user of the computer that took IBM by surprise.

Microsoft provided what seemed like the greatest solution. A OS that ran on the cheapest computer hardware. ( sound familar? ) Apple showed the market existed and only controled it till someone did it cheaper. Also lets look at the competition. To the public at that time which computer to get was confusing. ( I had a Vic20 ). When IBM backed a cheap off the shelf based computer the bussiness world made the plat-form stick. ( how many times have you heard RISC is better and wondered if it was better then why don't we use it). There is a push for the home computer not because everyone wanted the same thing but because everyone wanted the convence of personal computing with out the access restrictions of central computing on MainFrames.

What changed? Well we have had may years to enjoy the advantages of cheap hardware that has de-centralized our need for large computer with less then friendly access restrictions. Now we have this great platform to automate our more mundane calculations. But it's the thing we would not give up that gave MS it's power. That thing was interoperability ( sorry but I'm not going to correct spelling on something this long when i should be working ). with other computers. We all wanted to run the same programs. Share files and print with the same fonts. This translates into centralizing the software as a trade off for computers in the home. And for the most part its a great trade for everyone.

Microsoft is now the target of de-centralization of Technology. Well we all have cheap computers. And they all come with MS because everyone wants to shop at the same place and eveyone wants to send there thought to others that will be able to understand them. But wait! What about the people that are looking for a different way? The Heretic of centralization in all of us looks around and thinks that maybe I want it to do this. And I want it to do it this way. When your a developer this seems to come up more then when you bought your computer for e-mail. but as more people start wondering what they want to do with there computers they are finding out that it can't be done like that. The reason is allway because the central controling forces just don't have the resources to make everyone happy. "Do you want one thing done right? or Manythings done half assed?" The people that want one thing done right are not happy with a Operating system that wants to do everything you can think of and not let you see the gears.

Does the fact that Microsoft is the largest mean that Microsoft is the best? I don't think so. I think i means they were able to take advantage of the fact that they did not have to worry about the Heretic in the early days. And why would they? At that time I had to go to the local college or too my mothers place of work to get computer time befour the Vic 20.

Do i think linux will ever "Go Down!" ? No I don't. and here is why. Opensource packages like linux distributions come with source code. that everyone knows. But what makes source code valuable? It opens up the software for de-centralized evolution. This is the same de-centralized evolution that gave us leaps in Video card technologies. The more people find out that they can do exactly what they want instead of what the instructions will let them do the more de-centralization wins.

So we get to the linux changing the world part. With out the cost of a centralized Operating system companies now have a choice to invest licence fees into people instead. People that can get technology to do that one thing really well. If you have ever had a Microsoft consultant come out to look at a deployment the first thing you will mostlikly notice is that person doing all the things you've been putzing with for the last few weeks. This is because the world of Canned software does not have much in the way of configuration choices. This is great if your people are not so brite. It also helps bring the cost of people down. One reason why I saw IBM's OS/2 lose it's base was because of a lack of people to write code and admin. Actually there were people there. But Microsoft knowlege was cheaper then IBM knowlege.

What you get with the Microsoft solution is the same solution that your competor has. You will be more at the mercy of MS for inovation then your own IS staff. You will have to spend more money on software that could go to keep people and hire new people.

The winning motion of linux is the ablity to foster real inovation from the ground up. Take what you need from the CVS repositorys. Beat it into submission till all the data is processed right and you have inovation. Real inovation. And Technology is fed with de-centralized revolution not centralized predicted evolution.

I don't think linux will ever die. And I know it will not get less "market share" in future years. I'm sure that de-centralized revolution will change linux well beyond what we know as linux. If linux did go away then I'm sure that instead of MS saving market share it would be because a new and more malable Operating system grabed the attention of the inovators.

When I grew up and went to school I was taught that a good programmmer writes portable code that was expandable. To me portable meant any operating system and expandable meant being able to be used for purposes that I did not forsee. Linux lets me see things that windows hides from possiblity.

Embedded

[WasterDave]

I know I'm late to the fight, and can only cite the fact the earth is more or less spherical and rotates as a reason, but...

This pissed me off:
Miller also believes that Linux has hidden costs, something he believes is particularly true in the embedded device market, where developers need to get their products to the market fast.

"Using Linux does not help the developer deliver their product faster," Miller said. "In fact, it can actually take longer due to platform development work that would not be necessary with a platform like CE."

Look, I develop embedded software using BSD. There is NO FUCKING WAY it would even be POSSIBLE under CE. None. Forget it.

Re:Why windows is gaining as a server OS...

[johnnyb]

Look at the IBM JDK for Linux - it kicks butt.

Re:Difficult to install Linux on a laptop, try Win

[JeffL]

RTFM is all real nice to say and everything but when the drivers aren't available it makes no difference in what order I (don't) install them.

<sarcasm>

Hello tech support, I tried not-installing the card stick non-driver both before and after I installed the special Sony hardware detector, but it still doesn't work.

<\sarcasm>

Also, (this is a serious question) how do I install Windows 2000 on a device that does not have a cd-rom or any pre-existing OS on the hard disk?

Pure FUD... but in a funny way

[Boone^]

"And the recent security problems with Linux, coupled with the lack of key enterprise elements in the new kernel, really call into question whether Linux should be used at all," Miller added.

Oh, because clearly, Windows' kernel has been feature complete since Win95/NT3.1, and there's *never* been any security problems in Windows boxen, especially now with Win2k. Jeez. Pure FUD.

Re:Keyword.. TRYING..

[Fervent]

Why? I use Staroffice for Windows.

Who is this Doug Miller Guy?

[renaudw]

I've worked with Douglas Miller while at Softway, when he and his team were developing OpenNT (later renamed Interix, and then quickly bought out by Microsoft before it could do any real damage to their market share).

OpenNT (Interix) was about porting the Unix (POSIX) environment to Windows NT. There was some heavy wizardry involved, and the OpenNT crew had to rewrite most of the NT POSIX module (with source code available compliments of Microsoft). But it worked, and you could build & run Apache/bash/sendmail/gcc/etc. on OpenNT with minimal effort. Sort of like the Cygnus thing, or the MKS toolkit, but this was no emulation, rather true POSIX compliance brought by building the necessary layers above the NT kernel.

The market was there, and OpenNT (sorry, Interix -- never got used to it) started taking off, mainly in the governmental/educational markets, people with Unix apps that they didn't want to let go off, and at the same time pushed to NT for multiple reasons. But before Interix could really penetrate the market in any significant way, Microsoft quickly zeroed on it and swallowed it whole. Quite typical really.

Doug's background is fairly technical, and he was a Unix freak for years before moving on to the Dark Side. :) Coming from someone with that experience and broad knowledge of the Industry, his argument cannot be readily dismissed. Even as I'm reading this thread I see some heads, colder than most, agreeing to at least to some of his points. Do not make the mistake to dismiss Doug as yet another Microsoft flack. After seeing the Unix market fragment and ultimately fail in the 90s, he knows what he's talking about.