Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Ballmer Sees Free Software as Enemy No. 1

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the no-comment-on-enemy-number-two dept.

geekinexile writes "Bloomberg is running this Microsoft vs. Linux article as a top story on the Bloomberg system. Not so notable for what it says about Linux, but rather for the fact that the financial community is starting to actually get open source."

24 of 587 comments (clear)

  1. Figures... by Speedy8 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If someone was willing to volunteer their work to replace the product that I made for a living, I would be scared too.

    1. Re:Figures... by King+of+the+World · · Score: 5, Insightful
      In the last 6 months Microsoft's Balmer has revealed his strategy against OSS and Linux. He's trying to brand them an uninnovative rip-offs. That nothing original comes out of OSS. That if you trust in Microsoft's innovation you'll get a better product.

      (which is not to say that it isn't true, but hell, as far as I'm concerned it applies equally to the roots of Windows too, and it's no bad thing)

      They have also been trying to build up a community around them much more since .NET, but that's a lesser issue.

      --
      --Giving to trolls for the benefit of us all
    2. Re:Figures... by GreyWolf3000 · · Score: 5, Insightful
      But for most users of Linux, I believe being 'Open' and 'Free' is the #1 selling point of Linux. Think about it--you can try different distros, different software, etc., and get involved with cool communities. And *nothing costs money.* Microsoft is probably trying to snatch IT managers in such that aren't in it to just have fun and are paying to keep systems running--however they're getting cheap support from college students that come out of this community!

      MS and Windows can't compete with us here--ever. They'd have to do with Windows what Apple did with Mac OS--open source some of it and build it off of UNIX, and keep it UNIX 'enough' to keep people listening. That just wouldn't happen--they're commited to the position that Windows is an architecturally superior OS. And it will bite them where the sun don't shine.

      --
      Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
    3. Re:Figures... by Jace+of+Fuse! · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Actually, there is no reason why Microsoft couldn't eventually do exactly the same thing Apple did, except pride keeps them from doign it.

      WINE proves Unix can have Windows Binary compatibility. Mac OS X proves that Unix can be shoehorned into a usable Desktop environment.

      Microsoft proves they're too stubborn to evolve with the times. Instead, they would rather force the times to evolve around them. If they're smart, they're already working on aways to build a Windows OS on top of FreeBSD, but I'm guessing that's not going to happen anytime soon.

      --

      "Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"

      Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
    4. Re:Figures... by modecx · · Score: 5, Insightful

      While it may be true that MS will be spreading as much FUD as possible about OSS, I don't think that's where they will fight the war.

      If I were MS, I would do everything in my power to make sure that OSS users were isolated as much as possible from the main computing public, in what they do, and how they do it. As you have said, they are trying pretty hard to build up a community around themselves. .NET and maybe to a greater degree DRM with Palladium will be the things that form their community--by forcing those who disapprove to OSS. These are the devices that will enable them to wage war; and in regular MicroSoft fashion, I expect them to weild those weapons without mercy. They are banking on the fact that Joe Sixpack, his grandma and neice, and the rest of the non-professional (and possibly some professional) computer users will stick with their systems because it allows them to do the things they want to do--easier (or legally).

      If DRM legislation comes about, the sides may very well have turned. I, for one, am scared that the American Public will let it happen. Afterall, it's pretty clear that even with the outcry of hundreds of important industry leaders, the government doesn't really care about MicroSoft's anti-competative actions... This one will just be the action to end all competition.

      --
      Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
    5. Re:Figures... by jjoyce · · Score: 5, Insightful
      And *nothing costs money.

      The important point is not that it costs nothing, it's that as long as it's licensed under the GPL, you are free to make changes to it as you see fit and redistribute those changes. In turn, you give others the same freedoms.

      Stallman certainly has his detractors, but I think we owe him a huge debt for making this valuable point. Money is not the issue at all; freedom is. Too many people think the greatest thing about Linux is that it can be had for only the cost of the CD or download, but that misses the big picture.

      Microsoft always tries to misconstrue the GPL as a license that does not allow them to make any money, but they are perfectly within their rights to license some of their software under the GPL and sell it. What they conveniently fail to mention is that they loathe the idea of releasing their source code, and that is why they hate the GPL. That is my theory.

    6. Re:Figures... by Greebz · · Score: 5, Insightful


      One more time...

      YOU ... CAN ... NOT ... STEAL ... BSD ... LICENSED ... CODE ... JUST ... BY ... USING ... IT.

      The only way to steal BSDL'd code is to use it without attibution - which, so far, Microsoft has always done. Unlike Linux, with the infamous RedHat-supplied ATA header code...

      If the license terms are complied with, it's NOT stealing.

  2. No brainer by el_mex · · Score: 5, Insightful

    To a company that sells software for a living, how can free software not be enemy #1?

  3. a fitting quote by CoughDropAddict · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    -Mohandas Gandhi

    1. Re:a fitting quote by Dyolf+Knip · · Score: 5, Insightful
      "refuses to resist"? Come on, this is slashdot, one of the most Microsoft-hostile communities around.

      Let's see. Anti-Microsoft rants on Slashdot on the one hand; on the other, millions of dollars spent on FUD campaigns, threats and bribes to politicians worldwide, blatant lying from company officials about relative levels of security and reliability (combined with internal memos about how much better The Enemy's software is), prosecuting people who point out mistakes, shutting down anyone who dares to alter a product they paid for, etc, etc, etc. Yes, those OSS developers are certainly in the same league as Bill.

      Bear in mind that about the only action taken by the OSS crowd 'against' a giant like Microsoft, and about the only action a bazaar could take, is to steadily improve their product and public awareness of same. Compare that to MS, whose lawyers cry foul every time someone points out a flaw in one of their products. The GPL reads like the Golden Rule. Microsoft EULA's are a few steps away from demanding your firstborn child.

      --
      Dyolf Knip
  4. Balmer says ... by BoomerSooner · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We have told our sales force to really understand that this is kind of job one, Ballmer, 46, said in an interview last week. People are saying by and large, It might be easier for me to move my Unix apps to Linux than to Windows, although we're pretty close to making that untrue.

    Lol, what apps are easier from Unix to Windows? Viruses? that is about it.

    I've switched all my companies servers to Linux and Solaris. I am slowly bringing linux on board at my full time job. When the shoe fits, wear it. Unfortunately for MS their shoe is a size too small.

  5. Of course... by neksys · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Of course the financial community is starting to "get" open source software. It makes perfect sense that a group of people who are experts in money would opt for a system that is just as good, at a fraction of the cost. These people know money - and financially, it just makes sense for them to go open source for at least some of their applications.

  6. Re:financial community by DrMaurer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Having worked in the financial industry, I'm willing to agree.

    They're afraid of software without a final source. Yes, there are the free software developers, but they understand that linux is made by hackers.

    Red Hat et al. is actually making inroads in this, because they can be a "final source".

    But until the huge amount of software that an average bank uses that is seen as important for their job is available on another platform, then linux will be on the sidelines.

    --
    Dan
  7. out-innovating linux by oh · · Score: 5, Insightful
    From the article.

    ``I don't know what you do to protect your shareholders and preserve your market capitalization except to out-innovate the Linux community.''


    If Microsoft can do that, more profit to them. If they can provide the products people want and can afford, then they have nothing to worry about.

    The problem is that they are a monolithic company. They have an official policy, some one decides to run a project, and throws programmers at it. They can make large scale (if not reliable) software quickly because they can afford to pay hundreds of programmers.

    What they can't emulate is the ideas that come from a grass-roots community. If any one person has an idea, they can start to work on it. They have a huge body of software to research and re-use code from, and if they can demonstrate something that other people find useful, they can quickly gather programmers to the project.

    Because it starts small, it may take longer to finish. But because it starts small, hundreds of ideas can be quickly tested, with the best being developed and improved by the community.

    Haw can one company out-innovate that?
    --
    Democracy isn't about no one telling you what to do. It's about everyone telling you what to do.
  8. Emperically logical by Ghoser777 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No it's not. The jump in logic may not be obvious, but it is valid. This is essentially the way that India's independence from Britain came about, by passive resistance. When the British people saw all the horrible things that were being done to non-violent Indians, support for continued colonizations quickly dwindled. So, after the British fought, the Indians won.

    It works here to - as soon as Microsoft starts fighting Linux, guess what gets free advertising? Even more, anyone in the business community can smell blood when they see one company getting so worked up over a competitor. If Linux wasn't the real deal, Microsoft wouldn't have to worry about it. So essentially, Microsoft fights Linux, Linux wins (in the sense that it gains larger name recognition, and hopefully, larger deployment).

    Matt

    --
    James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
  9. Re:This is almost TOO easy ... by ender81b · · Score: 5, Insightful

    While I agree with your post the same could be said of linux, linux very rarely 'innovates' (i'm talking about general Unix software now) other than you know that the software will likely be secure and stable. I mean, really, what was the last 'innovation' that occured in the *nix /world? Wow, we finally got journalling databases, and we are finally starting to get user-friendly UI enviroments. Whopee. Not the most technical of people so maybe the linux kernel does do some wonderfully modern stuff but to me it doesn't look like much.

    Of all the modern OS's I feel the *nix world copies the most and does the least innovation. Think of all that could be done with kde/gnome - but instead they became win98 clones until just recently. Not that *nix software is bad it just being a wee bit hypocritical.

    BTW, you missed .Net which is basically a suped-up version of Java to replace MS's previous failed java-usurper ActiveX. =).

  10. You're talking about Minix by Wee · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Same with Microsoft. If they would be able to do their job, there would be no Linux and nobody would cry foul.

    Ummm, I hate to shatter your world-view or anything, but Linux was created because Minix was not able to do the job (or, more accurately, Linus was not able to do any job with Minix, but it's the same difference). The creation of Linux had nothing (or "very, very little") to do with the existence of Windows. Put another way, the two would still have been created in absence of the other; their creations were orthogonal to one another.

    Call me crazy, but I just don't know why Linux and Windows always have to compete for the same space. Sure, there's a little overlap, but generally the two (inter)operate separately and nicely. Right tool for the job... choice is good, eh?

    -B

    --

    Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.

  11. What Ballmer and the others don't get... by Todd+Knarr · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There's one aspect of Open Source that Ballmer and his friends don't get yet. He talks about trying to adopt the open-source ideas to benefit Microsoft. That dooms him to failure right there. People don't contribute to open-source software to benefit someone else. They contribute to benefit themselves. They fix bugs and add features because they need that done. And the contribute it back because they've already benefited from previous contributions from other people. It's all aimed at the benefit of the customer/user. When anyone, whether they be Microsoft or Sun or whoever, sets up a similar system aimed to benefit someone other than the people actually doing the work, those people don't buy in and the whole thing kind of shambles off into oblivion.

    If Ballmer wants to adopt open-source ideas, the first one is going to have to be "How can our users add to and change Windows to benefit themselves?". As long as "How can users add to Windows to benefit Microsoft?" takes priority, it'll fail.

  12. Innvation isn't just about features by driehuis · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Let's inform him on some of the "innovating" that Microsoft has done in the past ... shall we?

    I'm not someone to stand up for Microsoft, but this comparison _really_ is too easy.

    What Unix users tend to forget is that Microsoft actually did some things right in Windows that Unix (or rather, the X Windows toolkits) to this date doesn't do right consistently. Take cut&paste. It's a basic feature, but the sheer scope of deviation among toolkits is just revolting. Tabbing between fields, same story.

    As a matter of fact, the thing that I hold against Microsoft is precisely _not_ borrowing successful concepts from other companies. My favorite: Apple for years had a highly successful magazine for Apple Developers, called (wait for it!)... "develop". If a developer asked "develop" a question illustrated by an example, it would be answered with regards to the technology, but equally important, UI goofs would be pointed out.

    If you look at MSDN, you will invariably see UI questions answered with "sure, you can do that, here's the code". No matter how counterintuitive or outright stupid the proposed UI is.

    Microsoft sucks at trying to sway developers to pay attention to the looks of the UI (and, matter of fact, the WIN32 API doesn't make it particularly easy to do screen layout right), but much of the groundwork for UI behavior is done right, and screwing it up takes a conscious effort. A shocking innovation? I don't think so. Done better than the average Unix tool? You betcha.

    Of course, Apple has much to answer for after they set the Dung Standard for user interfaces with their glitzy but totally unusable quicktime player.

    --

    Bert Driehuis -- All I asked was a friggin' rotatin' chair. Throw me a bone here, people.

  13. Balmer is a fool. MS efforts will go nowhere. by Lethyos · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Know why? Because open source never has been, isn't, and never will be in competition with Microsoft. Ask Linus - he doesn't give a rats ass what Redmond or the world thinks about Linux. He just wants to make a good product, which is the crux of the issue.

    Open source is not a business. It's not an establishment. It's only a set of ideals that are suited to fulfilling a set of needs. For example, people who use open source software have a need for inexpensive, dependable, stable, secure operating systems. As a result, several such operating systems have been produced from open source development efforts. Microsoft does not, cannot, and will never fulfill those needs. Therefore, open source software and ideals will always thrive, just as they have for several decades now. (This nonsense about making software proprietary is still a relatively new one in the computer industry... and it's showing that it will soon fail).

    We're not in competition with Microsoft. We can just sit back, laugh, write good code, and use the execellent software we've created to complete our tasks and solve our problems. Meanwhile, they'll run around like mad, trying to compete with an entity that cannot be competed with, spending billions in the process while we go by without burning a single cent! Sure, some people use open source software to compete with Microsoft (RedHat, IBM, et al). But in the end, we are not a business and the fools at Microsoft don't know how to deal with it. Soon, they'll go the way of the dodo and that will be that.

    Microsoft will fail because they cannot identify needs and fulfill them. All this time, they'll be busy spinning marketing campaigns, filling magazines with FUD... when they could have been developing quality, open code. I suppose the customer is their last priority. This is a business doomed to fail.

    --
    Why bother.
  14. M$ wants to compete...LOL by dh003i · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The idea of M$ actually wanting to compete on a level playing field is laughable.

    They don't want to compete with Free Software. They want to illegalize Free Software, and force any would be Free Software developers to release their code into the public domain or under a BSD-like license: so that M$ can take all of their ideas, embrace them, extend them in their own products, and then give nothing back to the community.

    Basically, if it were up to M$, what's your's would be their's and what's their's would be their's too.

    Btw, for those of you blabbing about the Free Software community not doing any innovating, that's bull. Let's just take WM's for the moment.

    PWM -- any proprietary window manager out there that can adequately handle tabbed windowing, a vastly superior system?

    WindowMaker -- better than Win9x's UI or that of OSX, though WindowMaker and OSX share the same heritage, NeXT. Sure, WindowMaker was based off of the OpenStep standard, but it was an *open* standard. Can't blame the Free Software community for keeping something alive in a viable form when its own company had abandoned it.

    Those of you saying that KDE and GNOME are exactly like Windows are wrong; its similar to Windows to make transition easier for Windows users. However, KDE and GNOME each have their own unique features which distinguish them from Windows.

    Xfce is an excellent Free Software implementation of CDE; original? no, but excellent, yes.

    Alot of you people saying that Linux WM's and Desktop Environments are just Windows clones need to actually use these things instead of just looking at the screenshots from themes.org. They offer many useful features which aren't found in Windows or Mac. There are also areas where Windows and Mac are better. Mac gets points for their universal file menu (any hope of them allowing us to make it hide-away?). Windows gets points for allowing you to make your desktop background a web-page, and for allowing you to add "docks" to the sides of it with your choice of applications/folders on them. WM's in Linux like WindowMaker get points for their elegant look and feel, simplicity (dock); PWM gets points for its excellent tabbed-windowing feature; Xfce gets points for being a nice desktop environment.

    Check out my website for some of my suggestions on what would make an ideal WM.

    --
    social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
  15. Re:Then he's failed already... by Greebz · · Score: 5, Insightful


    Most open source software is indeed completely lacking in innovation.

    However, you appear to think that CEOs actually think about software...

  16. Re:Then he's failed already... by di0s · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Most open source software is indeed completely lacking in innovation.

    Yea, but "innovation" in Windows is simply switching around a few menu items here and there, integrating freeware, and selling it for a premium. How is that innovative? I think Ballmer throws that word around way too much. Microsoft hasn't done anything truely "innovative" in a long time. Ballmer has some nerve calling OSS "cloned" software when Windows has cloned features from many other OS's.

  17. Workstation vs Server licensing by bertok · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Microsoft will never win against Linux unless they drastically change their licensing model. Currently, a copy of Windows 2000 Professional costs AUD 685.00 here in Australia. Compare this to their server products: Windows 2000 Server costs AUD 2184.00 and Advanced Server costs a stunning AUD 7900.00. The difference in cost between the workstation and server products is an order of magnitude, but the install CDs are virtually identical except for a few marker files. They even share service packs. It's not like the Server editions have email or database functionality thrown in for free, they just costs more and have different logos.

    Believe it or not, most PHBs actually believe they are getting more when they are buying Windows 2000 Server, and that's how Microsoft likes it. To be fair, it's not just Microsoft doing this kind of thing: Have any of you noticed how SMP servers always cost at least a thousand dollars more than single CPU servers or workstations? Are one extra CPU socket and a slightly different North Bridge chip a thousand dollars worth of extra hardware? I think not. Dual CPU machines are largely sold as servers, and most large OEMs have worked out that they can charge more money for server hardware, even if it is almost exactly the same as their workstation products.

    Linux, and open source in general, challenges such marketing hype. There is no workstation Linux or server Linux. Any home user or small business can set up a mail or database server without having to fork over five or six digits sums for software that isn't really all that special.