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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.'"
The devil is not nicer, he is just trying to improve his appearence to seduce people easier.
The way I read that page was that they are trying to compare a homogenized Windows network with a Linux server connecting Windows clients together. Maybe I should read it some more times to see if they are also comparing a homogenized Linux network (or even a Unix-Linux heterogenous network).
They are really comparing whether Linux will run Microsoft applications / frameworks (eg ASP), not comparing similar or equivalent functionality.
No, I didn't expect them to be without bias, but all I really see is the same FUD presented in a different way.
Come on now. So we have a open source Unix clone or two. Now is the time to up the game and show them what we can really do. I work on mingw32, Wine and ReactOS. Why? Because of Linux and BSD. Linux and BSD have done to Solaris, AIX and HP-UX what ReactOS/Mingw and dlls ported from Wine will do to Windows NT/2K
Flame Off.
Free Unix? Free Windows. http://www.reactos.com
This happened in 1998, but only inside MS.
... ... Availability/Reliability ... Scaleability/Performance ... Interoperability ...
I'm amazed they're doing what they now are.
From the (http://opensource.org/halloween/halloween2.php) anotated halloween docs, which were leaked in 1998:
------
Here are some notable quotes from the document, with hotlinks to where they are embedded. It's helpful to know that ``OSS'' is the author's abbreviation for ``Open Source Software''.
* Linux represents a best-of-breed UNIX, that is trusted in mission critical applications, and - due to it's open source code - has a long term credibility which exceeds many other competitive OS's.
* Most of the primary apps that people require when they move to Linux are already available for free. This includes web servers, POP clients, mail servers, text editors, etc
* An advanced Win32 GUI user would have a short learning cycle to become productive [under Linux].
* I previously had IE4/NT4 on the same box and by comparison the combination of Linux / Navigator ran at least 30-40% faster when rendering simple HTML + graphics.
* Long term, my simple experiments do indicate that Linux has a chance at the desktop market
* Consumers Love It.
* Linux's (real and perceived) virtues over Windows NT include: Customization
* Linux is emerging as a key operating system in the nascent thin server market
* Using today's server requirements, Linux is a credible alternative to commercial developed servers in many, high volume applications.
* The effect of patents and copyright in combatting Linux remains to be investigated.
* Note, however, that Compaq and Dell merely have to credibly threaten Linux adoption in order to push for lower OEM OS pricing.
As much as I love this quote, and it is appropriate here, I worry about the unwritten part of this quote.
Ghandi gained India's independence, only to see his countrymen turn against each other (can you say muslem vs. hindu).
I hope there will be no parallel in our movement.
This idea is responsive. It attracted people like me to business and Slashdot in the first place. That they are new is almost beside the point. How will proprietary freedom be curbed, and Ballmer developed, in regimes that are interesting and repressive? Why would these interesting governments support the use of Microsoft to destroy an open society any more than they would sanction interesting business or abandon censorship?
Free Software is the hippest political idea around at the moment, perhaps because it has been hijacked so completely by the multinationals. Herd-like college kids and new political activists associate experience with a broad range of information, from cultural imperialism to Free Software to fascinating system.
But others (like me) see it as the best hope for a world in which gaps between the Microsoft and Free Software worlds are widening, and the have-nots are increasingly enraged at the fascinating information.
Proven, comprehensive operating system platforms delivering seamless integration, industry-leading scalability and performance, broad application support, and solid reliability.
Yes, given Linux's extremely widespread use, including at some of the biggest Internet sites in the world, Linux certainly has this advantage.
Faster time-to-market via powerful tools and an extensible framework.
Linux's Posix-based environment is proven, extensible, mature, and very widely used. Its Internet, services, management, and GUI frameworks are also highly extensible and industry leading. An additional time-to-market advantage is the immediate availability of updates and bug fixes throughout the community. This is in contrast with Microsoft's centralized development style, in which I am completely dependent on their efforts to deliver bug fixes.
Ease of deployment, interoperability, and manageability in a heterogeneous environment.
Indeed: score another one for Linux. Its POSIX foundations, widest support for network protocols and services, and multitude of options for management (including command line, GUI-based and network based), make it the clear winner.
Better business alignment with straightforward licensing and clarity of intellectual property ownership.
Yes, I very much prefer the straightforward licensing and clarity of the GPL over the muddy and complex legal agreements with a company like Microsoft. Furthermore, licensing costs for Linux are predictable in perpetuity. And, as an added bonus, I do not need to hire expensive lawyers to analyze the GPL--it is a known, standard, predictable agreement.
Quote:
An example of this risk can be taken from NVIDIA. An NVIDIA programmer, in the course of developing a driver for one of its products, used a portion of code from a freely available video driver. The developer failed to realize the code was licensed under the GPL and would therefore require NVIDIA to release the source code for its entire driver. Because NVIDIA did not want to release the source code to its commercial software, the company incurred substantial cost to develop a new driver that did not contain the GPL code.
So basically you are stating that if you steal the GPL code, and then someone catches you that you must spend time to write the code yourself. Wow. What a huge risk.
I wonder why they are worried about that type of risk....
This is true. Microsoft does tend to impose the One True Way (TM), which can simplify some things. However, other people regard the fact that you can choose the best technologies for your application as a positive.
Also often true, but: a) a lot of those capabilities are Windows tools that you probably wouldn't use in a Linux project unless you had to for compatibility reasons, b) a lot of them were open source packages that are usually packaged by the various distributions and are an apt-get away from installing, c) if they're open source, the extra licensing costs are zero anyway, and d) who says building everything into the OS is a good idea anyway?
And Windows is perfect?
It's good news that MS are changing their arguments to push their products over Linux-based solutions, because it tends to suggest that their customers (at least in this application domains) weren't listening to their old ones.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
The Linux community is not TRYING to make an OS that is as EASY as windows..The community is making a fast, robust, secure IS that works......and w/ power comes a learning curve. How come every one and their mother took MCSE classes when they knew UNIX admins made double? Because, they KNEW it was difficult, and windows was easy...
If you're not a Liberal in your 20's, then you have no heart.If you're still a Liberal in your 30's you have no brain.
Unix admins cost more than MCSEs, too.
I guess it's true - you do get what you pay for.
Funny how ?
It's obvious, they have to _pay_ people to keep using windows.
It makes economic sense with big customers (see government of Peru)
I remember an artical on /. that was talking about MS's implementation of Kerbros and they said that MS had changed it and it breaks some of the interoopability with standard Kerbros, and MS is saying that Linux doesn't support that standard.
Don't we all just love MS.
I agree with your description but disagree this is FUD. A very large percentage of the American business community's desktops are Windows based. In such a scenario Windows proprietary technologies do offer genuine functionality increases.
Active directory which is cited several times is an excellent example. This is far and away the best large corporate desktop resources location system ever written bar none. For Active Directory to work however virtually every server and every desktop needs to be using Windows 2000 / XP. Samba does not support Active Directory and further Samba is a long way away from supporting this (3.0 isn't even planning on supporting this feature). Now, without a doubt were Microsoft to simple publish the specs Samba servers would be able to read from LDAP and in this sense Microsoft is creating a problem for Linux and then using it as a point to bash Linux. But from a company / OEM perspective it doesn't really matter why this issue it exists; but rather as a result of its existence Linux based servers do lack a valuable feature that Windows 2000 servers offer.
Another example he cites is support for ASP. Again ASP is a Microsoft standard but it's a popular standard with Web Developers and objectively Apache is inferior to IIS in supporting it.
Certainly in a full fledged Unix shop (like many academic departments, or certain retail chains) you could make similar claims about the disadvantages of a Windows 2000 server when compared to a native Unix server. You wouldn't find those sorts of claims to be FUD but rather obvious truths. I don't see how this case is different.
What I find most pathetic about their argument is statements like this one (from the Microsoft Embedded page):
An example of this risk can be taken from NVIDIA. An NVIDIA programmer, in the course of developing a driver for one of its products, used a portion of code from a freely available video driver. The developer failed to realize the code was licensed under the GPL and would therefore require NVIDIA to release the source code for its entire driver. Because NVIDIA did not want to release the source code to its commercial software, the company incurred substantial cost to develop a new driver that did not contain the GPL code.
If you're going to use someone else's source code, you better sure as heck check the license they are providing it under.
This case is not much different than a hypothetical where a developer takes a chunk of Microsft's proprietary source code and uses it in a piece of their own proprietary software. The only difference is that with the GPL, the developer has the option of either making his license compatible with the GPL or removing the component from his project.
Look at these quotes from the story:
Perhaps now that they can't prop up their financial statements, they are trying to spin it by saying "we were trying to compete on price with something our competition gives away for free." Where have I heard that before? Let me see, oh yes, during the anti-trust trial, I believe, from that other browser maker.The recent statements about it being Apple's fault they haven't sold half as many versions of Office v.X as they had projected could also play into this strategy. "We would have made our quarterly projections, if Apple would have just advertised OS X more!"
Microsoft has consistently proven their ability to control their marketplace. Now that they must compete with a free and popular alternative it is interesting to see how they play their cards. When I wander stores and see Windows XP (Professional) selling for CAN $400 (note, these links may not work due to session tracking, check out Future Shop (Canada) for price details) and Microsoft Office for CAN $600 I am forced to ponder the corporate strategies involved. How long can I be a pawn milked for my money by a company that attempts to force overpriced products down my gullet? I am lucky enough to see the writing on the wall. Linux is the only competitive product capable to compete with the Microsoft phenomenon/monetary-monopoly and it is FREE.
As a frequent computer user I lean to the side of software written by people who write it to make a better product before considering the money they may make. Cheers to Linux.
As someone on the varbusiness site noted, Microsoft is *NEVER* friendly nor admits to FUD or mistakes *UNLESS* they are preparing some sort of new attack on their competition. I would watch that space for upcoming announcements with regard to new Microsoft licencing restrictions (Trying to make it illegal to use Win on the same computer as Linux??) or something else.
3rd option: Negotiate a special licence from copyright holder of GPLed work under which you can keep borrowed code in your software and still distribute it under other that GPL license.
hany
Some decent comparisons there, but then, along comes the FUD, I guess they couldn't resist:
Advantage of going Microsoft: Better business alignment with straightforward licensing and clarity of intellectual property ownership.
Let's skip the meaningless "Better business alignment" and skip straight to the part that keeps the bullshit detector pegged at 10.
No. Wait. Let's dwell on it some. Consider the mindset of the asshat sloganeer who cooked up this gem. They probably pay this guy a whole lot to come up with stuff like this.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
There will be. You don't really think that once Linux has "won" the zealots will settle down right? Then it will be Debian vs. RedHat vs. SuSe vs. etc. etc. People will always find an excuse to consider what they do superior to what somebody else does.
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
Looking at that microsoft comparison page, its amazing how most of the Linux features and such that they chose to dog on, are the ones that were implemented in order to be compatible with M$ operating systems.
Quite a few of the critisisms translate to "Linux dosn't do things the same way as Windows" or even "Linux dosn't use the same jargon as Windows".
Whilst Windows 2000 may support NFS, AFAIK it does not support NIS. Does Win2k support PAM either?
I think the GPL is pretty damn clear. If you redistribute the code, you have to license under the GPL.
The GPL is written in fairly easy to understand language. Also "redistribute" in this context only applies to distributing it outside your orgainsation. Distributing it within your own organisation is unrestricted. (Only likely to directly be an issue for something like Enron, with it's interlocking matrix of holding companies.)
And if you don't like it, you can choose to completely ignore the GPL (thus falling back to copyright law).
Even if you disagree with the GPL you can still use the software. Most entities which want to use software simply arn't in the business of distributing software in the first place.
Microsoft's "licenses" (which may change during the next upgrade, and even change randomly depending on the version of the product
It's quite possible for a company to upgrade Microsoft stuff, then discover that something previously ok (by the licence) is no longer ok. So not only do they have the cost of ungrading the software they also have the cost of changing how they do their business.
They do not allow you to use the product you bought any way you like (even though this may not be enforcable, they assert it anyway).
This is probably the the major difference the EULAs (goodness knows how they make any sense at all where the software is owned by corporate entity A, installed and configured by person B and actually used by person C) perport to control how the software is used. Which IMHO isn't "copyright" it's "useright".
C'mon Microsoft, nobody except a few PHB's are buying this intellectual property cancer unAmerican anti-GPL crap, so GIVE UP!
You can reasonably easily relate the GPL to the IP clause in the US constitution. Try that with an EULA...
Trying not to drop into an ad-hominem cheapshot
The last project that I know of which Gates authored was a ROM Basic. The Basic interpreters which followed for various early microcomputers were written by his assciates at MSFT. Of course whether or not Bill still writes code I have no actual knowlege, but nothing I've read from MSFT suggests that he acts in any capacity but architect / vision-leader.
I think this 'aura' of a brilliant coder plus his wealth is exactly the primary MSFT strategic advantage. I know dozens of lawyers, MBA's, executives who seem to beleive the following:
This guy (company) is fabuloulsy successful so their product must be just wonderful
and:
He's this really brilliant programmer / geek and that's the basis of it all
And because these folks haven't got a tech background they're basically taking it on faith. honestly it's insidious, I've seen an entire company (very big one) in a different business say 'wow that's great, lets emulate it ... ohh and yes lets also go with MS in the Data Center! [doh!]. (They fired an MIS director and then a CIO who couldn't make this fine strategy actually work in practice.)
Now what *is* true about Bill (IMO) is that he's really bright (and that his early commercial coding was largely in either assembler or on DEC PDP / Vaxen used for emulation of 8080/z90/x86 systems). Where to my knowlege he applies this is strategy and architecture, and if I don't like his choices, I'm the first to admit they've been effective (if underhanded and illegal) in the market.
Second, for 2 decades MSFT aggressively hired the very best and brightest CS grads. A freind who teaches in one of the better university CS departments observed this and on that basis only started investing in MSFT. That was a very good investment strategy for him :-).
Today I think even the financial types are beginning to realize that some of this is smoke & mirrors. I think the combination of unreasonable licensing changes and the slap on the wrist they just got from SEC are just the sort of thing that these people pay attention to.
Microsoft has always been brought more or less kicking and screaming into standard technologies. netbui vs tcp/ip; WINS vs DNS; NT Domains vs Kerberos|LDAP. Often they have implemented open technology (DCE) in the internals, just not making these the preferred API's.
Of course the whole time I and other opensource types have been looking on and saying *yikes* you want to put this cruft in an enterprise??! MSFT is highly feature driven and lusers love features. Nowhere near enough coders (or architects) work to the priciple that the least code that will do the job is usually the best solution.
Througout, Gates has pushed Basic as the language of choice [shrug]. Gates I don't really want to meet, his original partner Paul Allen, also a billionaire who has said "Blame me for having to type the backslash" ... he doesn't want to meet me in an alley :-)
I will say that I'm glad Gates is focussing on technology again. .NET has promise, and the mono initiative will make it open. His foundation is also giving big money in important areas of medical research and he cares about the right stuff, (e.g. HIV/AIDS).
Linux is Linux, if One need clarify their dist: <Dist>/GNU Linux
bsds are of course just BSD
M$ knows the government is watching them. They know that any one of these days they can REALLY be split up.
What would you do if your company were in such a situation?
I'll tell you what I'd do. I'd purposely let my competitors gain a bit of market share, but keep them in check at all times. I'd invest in Apple so they don't go kapoof. I'd play up Linux as a competitor just so "they" think M$ isn't really a monopoly any longer.
Don't fall for this people. Not saying that it's happening, but be on the lookout.
Now for my second point:
M$ has a concentrated effort to kill their competitors, but Linux doesn't. When's the last time Linux embraced and extended a protocol to mess with M$'s implementation? Like never. And when was the last time M$ changed a standard and broke Linux compatibility? **cough**Samba**cough**
Until there's a concentrated effor on behalf of the Linux community to mess with M$ in return, this competition isn't really anything they're afraid of.
Let's just say a day comes when Linux gains so much market share that M$ really starts feeling the heat? What can they do? They can make their own version of Linux and "extend" it till they kidnap it all to themselves. And this would only occur "IF" (and that's a big IF) Linux ever gains THAT much market share.
eTrade SUCKS
But it's worth pointing out 51 times.
It seems that many of the points made on the MS website have more to do with Linux not working with windows. For example:
No support for SSO, thus requiring end users to use at least two logon names and passwords-one for Windows and one for Linux/UNIX
So, if you only use Windows, you only need 1 password, but if you use Linux, you'll need one for us and one for them. So automatically they decide that EVERYONE must use windows, and you have an option to choose Linux for a couple of minor things. And this is MS first point in all of the comparison, thus you'd think it was one of their strongest/most important arguments.
I demand a million helicopters and a DOLLAR!
Single Sign On isn't quite the same as a centralised authentication database. An organised Linux distribution could probably achieve SSO using PAM and ssh-agent, but I don't think any of them have tried yet.
ya, those clusters of linux machines they are using for things like the new lord of the rings movie and google are certainly low stress..
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
I assume you are an American ?
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
Woah a minute there cowboy... reading Billy's autobiography and books does NOT make for truth and an idea as to who and what the man is.
Falshood #1 - Gates is a genius programmer...
Gates SUCKED at programming... the absolute best thing to ever happened to him was the leaking of his basic sourcecode so that it was fixed by real programmers (Free and open programmers) that submitted the fixes back to him.
Gates is NOT a genius programmer, he used many geniuses and good programmers to get the job done.
Falsehood #2 - Gates is a visionary.. He has yet to come up with one origional idea that changed the world. Everything Gates did was based on other's ideas that he bought and rebranded/took credit for or he blatently stole. He is a visionary when it comes to making money and seeing that idea X will make billions...
Gates is a Genius businessman and Social engineer. not everyone can get customers to believe and happily accept horrible terms / contracts... He is a genius that every CEO and CFO look up to and hope to achieve... Not everyone can screw all their customers and have the customers come back happy... Gates is excellent at that.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
And it was rejected.
I guess Slashdot editors have something against me.
Go figure.
Expert Java EE Consulting
IIS is included in all their servers.
Front page which used to be a free download not cost $$$.
If it was not for Linux there would be a few $$$ with IIS. Chances are you would have to purchase it like exchange.
Just my $0.02
DRM? No thanks, I'll just get it somewhere else...
I read through that nice new comparison page. I laughed most of the way through because of Microsofts claims of increased time and cost for developing the integration of almost everything they comared. I find that most hilarious since when I install most Distributions right now, they come with most if not all of those features already enabled and integrated. Now I don't know how Microsoft came up with these claims of increased costs, my guess is they took someone at Microsoft that has never heard of or even tried Linux and said make a server that compares to our Windows 2000 Server offerings and write us a report on it.
If I was an OEM/System Integrator, once I have setup a working server for one customer, with the features MS Compares against Linux, I would be able to configure further servers for other clients with a lot less time involed. Microsoft makes it sound like with Linux you have to learn how to integrate software over every time you install a system.
Regards,
Ryan Pritchard
Fun Extends All Basic Life Expectancies