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O'Reilly Sez Ask Craig Mundie
There's a news article up at O'Reilly that hypes their upcoming Open Source Convention and also sets up a forum to submit questions to potentially be asked to Mundie when he gives a keynote at the convention. Should be an interesting, perhaps vitriol-filled morning there.
Having the webbrowser as an OS component isnt always a good thing
Not a good thing? KHTML is cool, IMHO. It allows many KDE programs to view Web pages right inside their program. This is good.
OF course, if you run Linux you don't have to have KDE, and therefore you don't have to have KHTML. I can't say the same thing for Windows. If I have Windows, I'm pretty much stuck with Internet Exploiter.
My journal has hot
Every time Ballmer opens his damn mouth, every other word seems to be "innovate". The more he says it, the less I believe it. If he was so busy innovating, where does he find the time to draw attention to it so much?
It reminds me of so many things, none flattering.
And so it is with Microsoft's "innovation" campaign. It just seems like you're more "laterally" innovative than anything else. You embrace open source, kinda, but in a way that carefully distances you from the whole "open" part of the equation, thus defeating the whole point.
For a huge, powerful company, there are a lot of ways to go about things, as you well know. For the /. crowd, true innovation could nicely start with really & honestly opening up your source code, but I doubt you'll ever relinquish that much control over what you have worked so hard for, and I won't begrudge you for that. And I do realize that there's a marketing role to be played, and that the perception of being an innovator can be just as useful -- and much cheaper -- than actually being one. Maybe there is something to be said for putting all your efforts into such "lateral" innovations -- getting people to think you're pushing the frontiers, and giving the public enough (profitable!) little shiny chrome frills and vaporware for the claim to be at least plausible, while not actually providing anything that is truly, fundamentally new.
But could I suggest trying to meet halfway here? Is it not the case that Microsoft earns more from support contracts than actual product licenses? (I don't know, this is just my impression, but I'd be interested in more concrete information). Do you *really* think people can be talked into going to a subscription model, benefits be damned, if it's going to mean having to pay a software bill every month? I think there's a lot to be said for it (I like Windows Update, Mac OSX's Software Update, and Debian's apt-get features, and these are all embryonic versions of the same idea), but I also think that people will strongly resist the idea of having to pay a recurring fee for something that they were allowed to use outright & in perpetuity in the past.
If you're going to plow ahead with this "innovation", can we at least ask for someting in return? I think I could actually deal with having to subscribe to a .NET system that allowed me to look at & modify the code I was receiving. Allowing others to share & modify it as well would be even better -- that's why they call it open & free software -- but if you at least agreed to publicize what it is that you're trying to get people to do, you might encounter a bit less resistance than you're begging for now. As it is, you're just singling out this particular demographic of clued up, tech savvy devlopers and saying we want nothing to do with your or your freaky hippie ways. The resulting "yeah well fuck you too" should come as little surprise. Maybe a truce can be reached? I'd be happy to see it, but the ball is in your court...
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
You said in one of your previous speeches that Microsoft is opposed to governments releasing source code under the GNU GPL Free Software license. I beg to differ.
Surely if the government has been funded by the taxpayer to develop this software, then it should be placed under a license that requires that it remains free to the funders? If the source code is placed under a less restrictive license such as the BSD license where the code can be integrated into proprietary products such as Microsoft Windows, then the customer will be forced to pay the vendor of the proprietary software for something they have in fact already paid for when they paid their tax to the government. Do you think that this secondary "Microsoft tax" is fair on customers?
Come on, don't spew the company line. Talk in plain English.
.NET will require Microsoft name resolution, Microsoft SMTP, and just about anything else from Microsoft as well. The internet will be a COMPLETELY different world if you are running Windows than if you are not.
.NET Microsoft hopes to do to the internet what they did to the desktop in the early and mid 90s - own it and leverage it. It will promise benefits to the consumer but provide none.
.NET is several things to Microsoft. First and foremost it is intended to kill Java and any other competition for internet based apps. Secondly, it is designed to interoperate with Microsoft's new revenue model in which each person pays $100 each year for the privilege of using Office, and varying amounts for other Microsoft apps. Thirdly, it is meant to give Microsoft a stranglehold on all internet based communications.
In short, with
Sir:
Much controversy has surrounded Microsoft's Shared Source initiative, particularly given the differences between the licensing terms that apply to MS Shared Source and the licensing terms that apply according to the GNU Public License.
Hypothetically, suppose I am a programmer with MS Shared Source in front of me on one hand, and a different GPL source in front of me on the other hand.
Suppose, further, that in both cases I have a brilliant idea, an idea that will substantially increase the feature set, reduce bugs, and increase performance.
For both application programs, each under its own license, describe exactly
- the costs (money, time, opportunity)
- the benefits (same)
that would pertain to each of three important parties- myself, the programmer
- Microsoft corporation
- everyone else (public users, other companies, other programmers, etc.)
both in the short term and in the long term if I were to improve the code for the respective application program.I would most appreciate a ranking of those costs and benefits.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Depends on what you mean by the "advantages of Java". The primary advantages of Java are a.) ease of development and b.) cross platform support.
- C# is primarily a Java based language that fixes a couple of things Java got wrong (there is now a const keyword, there are out parameters, there is a foreach construct, there are enums, etc) and also has some annoying holdovers from C++ (what's the deal with the virtual keyword?).
- Java is write once, run anywhere. This is a major advantage if you are running lots of client Java code on varying platforms. But since most Java development is server based then the fact that a program is WORA loses its charm. Secondly most Java communication between various platforms is done via RPC mechanisms (CORBA or RMI) and
.NET supports an XML based RPC format called SOAP which is as cross platform as you can get since all the other platform needs is an HTTP server.
One placeFor ease of development I'd rank them about equal. If the development is Windows based then C# beats the pants off of Java since it has access to certain APIs directly instead of having to go through JNI as would be done in Java.
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What, exactly, is .Net?
.NET is the next generation of Microsoft's component technologies (COM, COM+, DCOM) which incorporates lessons learned from Java. COM is a technology that allows you to interact with components written in different languages transparently and is descended from OLE (Object Linking and Embedding which is the technology that was developed to allow being able to drag an Excel spreadsheet into a Word document) and . The languages that support COM are the Visual Studio languages as well as Object Pascal (Delphi). COM has its own binary format and while works almost transparently from Javascript, VB, and VBScript is a bitch to work with from C++. DCOM is the same as COM but it adds being able to do RPC (remote method invokation for the Java heads) from components irrespective of what language they are written in, kinda like CORBA without the ORBs.
.NET simplifies this by having a Common Language Runtime which is analogous to the Java JVM. COMable languages simply compile to the CLR format instead of to assembly code or a weird binary format. So this should lead to the best of both worlds by giving you all the functionality you have come to expect from the Java platform with the added benefit of using languages other than Java (C++, C#, VB, Javascript, VBScript, Perl and a few others) and transparently interact with objects written in these languages. Because all .NET languages have access to the CLR they can utilize it to extend themselves, e.g. Visual C++ has "managed extensions" that allows for garbage collection via the CLR.
.NET is Microsoft's XML Web services platform. This is the next generation of Internet computing, using XML to communicate among loosely coupled XML Web services that are collaborating to perform a particular task. Microsoft's .NET strategy delivers a software platform to build new .NET experiences, a programming model and tools to build and integrate XML Web services, and a set of programmable Web interfaces.
Developer View:
The major goal is then to use this technology to build XML based web services.
Marketting View:
Microsoft
PS: Please do not take this as some official MSFT response, I'm merely an intern and in fact this is a reprint of a post I made before I got to Redmond.
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Isn't this what we want? Engaging Mr. Mundie in a controlled debate of the issue definately favors Free Software, IMO. What better way to confront the FUD than face to face.
I also believe that as a community we need to stay focused on what is important and avoid falling into the same headline chasing FUD tactics that Microsoft uses. Competing with MS on their terms is foolish. Remember when Clinton's '92 campaign reverberated 'It's the economy, stupid!'? We need to stick to that same sort of level, but substitute economy with technology and freedom.
Does Microsoft have any plans to release binary versions of some of their more popular office applications for Linux or other open operating systems?
After all, apparently Microsoft makes the lion's share of its profits from applications rather than windows. I'm sure there's a decent-sided market for Office for Linux. I use Linux, and I'd certainly like to be able to use Word and Excell nativly - if nothing else then because their formats are the "defacto" standard these days.
Currently Corel's WordPerfect is the (more or less) standard office product for the Linux world, and I sort of wonder if Microsoft would be willing to challange that dominance, and perhaps gain a (little) bit of good will from a community that it has otherwise sorely alienated (to say the least).
credo quia absurdum
OK I can see why you mighn't like the GPL, since it doesn't do corporations any good, but why don't you try releasing software, or using software under the BSD license, much as Apple did with Mac OS X? Perhaps that would allow programmers to have a deeper understanding of the workings of your software.
credo quia absurdum
Every time there's a headline here with the words "interview" or "ask" people start frantically posting questions. I confess I've been guilty of that a couple of times myself... ;-)
(Original subject: First "This Is Not A /. Interview!" Post! Apparently that trips the lameness filter.)
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
or long int?
We are talking billions and billions here.
Or would you use a real number for the decimal accuracy?
Windows NT, Windows 2000 and presumably Windows XP had a "native" API that Microsoft never bothered to document publicly. Microsoft has used this on various occasions to aid favored 3rd party vendors (Exececutive Software received access to the native API for "Diskeeper") and to hobble despised 3rd party vendors (Netscape's web server was much slower than IIS, because IIS used the native API, and Netscape used Win32).
Once Microsoft lets people view NT/2000/XP operating system code, the "native" API will be out of the bag. Microsoft won't have semi-secret "native" APIs to barter with.
How much of a force *against* the "shared source" approach was the existance of the "native" API?
1) Do you pronounce "Monday" and "Mundie" the same, or do you emphasize the "day" in "Monday"?
/. ID, or do you troll anonymously?
2) Before you came to Microsoft, what special talents did you possess?
3) If I were to grep the Windows source code, how many "We'd be totally fucked if our customers knew we did this" comments would I find?
4) Are you wearing a hairpiece?
5) What's your
6) When Bill or Steve makes a joke, does everyone laugh? Is it a fearful laughter?
7) How much Linux code is actually in Windows? Haha, just joking. Windows would be a lot stabler if it had any.
8) If you were a Hostess snack cake, which one would you be and why?
9) Why are manhole covers round?
10) Have you thought about suing tobacco companies and making a quick billion or two?
Dancin Santa
If the GPL is described as a "cancer", what malignant term does that leave to describe Microsoft's behavior? Microsoft bills itself as "software for the agile business". How does having the XP software force customers to call Microsoft when they change hardware contribute to agility? Similarly, how does having the XP software require the exact same CD that was used for installation be on hand for verification, applying service packs, etc. contribute to agility? Where do you get your drugs, and do you have any to share with the rest of the class? Seeing as how the linux faithful already view Bill Gates as the antichrist, do you have a particular character from Revelations that you would like to be viewed as?