Ballmer Admits 'Linux Changed Our Game'

wackybrit writes: "We've all known Linux has got Microsoft all worried, but they've always denied it. On Monday at a conference in LA, however, Steve Ballmer (of Microsoft) confessed that the FUD surrounding Linux isn't quite what it was made out to be. The Register has also covered the story in an easier to read fashion. They point out that Microsoft has just changed a page on their site which originally derided Linux, but now simply states what 'Windows does better.'"

Comments

Re:Licensing

[Planesdragon]

I find the GPL to be more straightforward than any MS licence I have read, but they really are right about the IP ownership. "All your IP are belong to us" is pretty clear!

You're not a lawyer, or even someone who's taken a freshman business law class. (I'm the latter + more, not the former.)

The GPL is simply structred, but it creates conditions that aren't. MS's EULAs are complexly strucutred, but the end result is pretty simple.

GPL: "We offer no warranties."
MS: "We offer no warranties."

GPL: "Your software is our software, unless you only used a library, but only if that library isn't part of the same program. See legally inadmissable anectode and rant for clarification.

Oh, and don't use some other license for your software. Your software is our software, and all our software is FREE (as in sheep and boobies, not as in beer)"

MS: "Our software is your software. Your software is your software, except for the parts that you didn't write. But you can put those parts in your software since that's why we sold you this software-making-thing."

There's no doubt that MS's EULAs are more complex, and make some rather distasteful tactics. But they are, compared to the GPL, a hell of a lot simpler to use to make software that you're going to sell for a profit and not have the FSF take you randomly to court over.

Please, don't spread anit-MS FUD. The GPL (and other OSS) beats MS on moral ground, end-user fiscal cost, and average reliablity of the software. It *doesn't* beat MS on ease-of-end-userness or ease-of-making-money-with.

Pretending that it does won't change anything. Go out, fix the @#$ing spellcheck in OpenOffice so it doesn't @%ck up em-dashes, and get me an OSS word processor I can use!

The Irony

[Quicksilver31337]

I find it ironic that on their site the only cons they abould list about using Linux is with problems interfacing with MS/Windows systems. Seems to me like thats their problem, not ours. pH34r 7H3 P3|\|GU1|\|!

Re:How do they do it?

[psavo]

Unix admins cost more than MCSEs, too.

I guess it's true - you do get what you pay for.

Yes, and remember that TCO is totally another matter. Would you take pr0n peering kiddie watch out for your NT farm, or a motivated nixXor (this is what i've observed -- mcse:s overdose pr0n, while nixXies code).