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Ballmer: "We'll Outsmart Open Source"
An anonymous reader writes "Micorosofts Steve Ballmer is spouting off again in this ZDNet UK article. To an audience of Most Valued Professionals in London, he says 'We'll outsmart open source.' Among other things, he also says 'Linux is a serious competitor.' We've known ever since the Halloween Documents that they have been running scared, but this looks like a prelude to a whole new round of dirty tricks. It also looks like damage control for the statements of Microsoft's Sr. VP Brian Valentines last week."
Considering that the Palladium standard requires that the BIOS allow Palladium to be deactivated, I would say that it's more than possible.
The Visual Studio IDE integrates everything wonderfully, integrating a really slick editor, a world-class debugger, and a high-quality compiler.
I'm not sure exactly what compiler you are using but the C++ compiler is truly terrible. Besides that fact that they are using an outdated version of the STL libraries, the compiler will let all sorts of crazy errors through that gcc will catch. For those of you who use VC++, I would encourage you to set aside perhaps 2 weeks where you compile both on VC++ and gcc. You'll be stunned at the number of errors that gcc will catch but VC++ will let slip through. Lord only knows what the VC++ compiled code is actually doing...
GMD
watch this
Developers!Developers!Developers!
The one thing you're missing is that in 99% of the cases, Linux/Open Source doesn't have a bottom line they have to meet. Since the (vast?) majority of programmers working on OSS projects are donating time, there's no need to pay them. This translates into better project planning because they're not always worried about meeting deadlines that their jobs rest on. Not to say that OSS isn't stressful, just that you don't have bigwigs worried about their jobs because a deliverable wasn't met.
I'll admit, I like VC++ and Office for most tasks. However, after attempting to configure an NT/2000 box as a DNS/Web/FTP server that I can remotely manage, I will take Linux anyday. On my first attempt it took me roughly three days (~12 hours) to install and configure a box with 2 websites both DNS'd through the box with an ftp server and some basic user recognition on the web site. This was without ever having done it before. With NT, it took me weeks to figure out how IIS worked the first time, let alone trying to figure out how to do remote management and multi-user functions. When MS comes up with an easy multi-user OS that has literal plug and play (read: like RedHat's rpm or Debian's apt-get functionality) packages, give me a holler.
--trb
Amen. I make money using Open Source oriented tools, I never recommend using any MS stuff if possible, and it ends up saving me money, heartache, and spoils me. Once you work within a *nix / BSD environment for a while, using great languages made to be the best at their target task group, it's pretty hard to adjust to the limitations and complexity of these tons of MS GUI applications. I mean, they should have a school for "how to program using drop down menus" for everyone that just soooo loves their Interdev. The world does not need a million friggin' stock tickers and inventory management systems!
Two technologies, Visual Basic and FrontPage, made my choice for me many years ago.
Not necessarily...
It all depends upon the implementation of Request.QueryString() - as it would appear that the string would need to be quoted... so... ASSUMING that Querystring() processes the string entered by the user to double up on apostrophes, and puts the whole string between quotes, then your argument that this is a security flaw does not hold - any attempt to do something smart would result in a syntax error... which would not damage the RDBMS data.
I also see no reason why security need not be enforced by only running such queries in an RDBMS account which has only been granted select privilege... I would consider such configuration an integral part of any system - and would again mean this code has no security flaw as you suggest.
Of course... I'm not saying that these things are done correctly - just that you've presented no evidence for your arguments - your conclusion doesn't follow from the quote.
IDC also said that Linux desktop shipments grew 50% last year. I believe Microsoft shipments grew 1%. The desktop market is supposed to be Microsoft's strong area. It sounds like it is all over for them.
Of course that is all just one year's worth of statistics, and Linux had the fastest growing market share for four years in a row, and you have to install about ten NT servers to get the same results as one Linux server.