Slashdot Mirror
Ballmer Sees Free Software as Enemy No. 1
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."
If someone was willing to volunteer their work to replace the product that I made for a living, I would be scared too.
To a company that sells software for a living, how can free software not be enemy #1?
from the no-comment-on-enemy-number-two dept.
Would you talk negatively about your own company?
this story is not only on Bloomberg's website. It is on the Bloomberg system as one of the top stories when you do news research on Microsoft.
Michael Tiemman (sp?),CTO of Red Hat spoke to our LUG last night. He said that Wall Street is starting to use Linux to run custom number crunching software and I think Oracle. Big computational farm sort of things.
First they ignore you,
then they laugh at you,
then they fight you,
then you win.
-Mohandas Gandhi
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.
Somehow I doubt this. Anyone has any idea what he's talking about?
"If you think education is expensive, try ignorance" - Derek Bok
This space intentionally left blank.
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.
I totally don't get this statement. Can somebody please tell me how [hardware X + non-free-OS] can be cheaper than [hardware X + free-OS]?
.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
world + dog are surprised.
unless, of course, Microsoft really means it this time and they were just warning us linux users the last few times they said this.
Although.." Microsoft marketers must rely on studies that show the cost of maintaining a Windows system is lower than that of Linux machines. Research has yet to show that people are replacing Microsoft products with free programs, analysts said. "
So we're going to be seeing MORE "studies" showing that Windows is cheaper to maintain? I'm sure they will be able to skew that towards Windows, but it's pretty hard to skew the fact that it costs quite a bit more to initially set up a Windows-based server infrastructure than a Linux-based one.
As far as the other bit? The major software that people would be replacing is Microsoft Office. I wonder how many are replacing it with something *cheaper* - like Corel's office suite. Gateway is already doing that...
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.
I'd say that Linux is of course Enemy #1, but it has been for years, at least back to 1998. And really Ballmer could fix this whole linux "threat", but then he'd accomplish basically what customers want anyway.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
I like the last line in the article stating that Microsofts only option is going to be to out innovate the Open Source Commmunity.
I give them three weeks if they go down that path as opposed to the jack boot, "You vill use our Softvare" approach.
Free and low-cost alternatives to Win32/Office like Red Hat's imroving desktop and OpenOffice.org are being looked at seriously now.
Linux may have gotten alot of hype and speculative investment in the 90's, but the current economy is where its price/performance potential becomes evident.
Not only is Ballmer scared, but Sun announced 4,400 layoffs today. The demand for commodity operating systems is kicking them in the pants, and their quality, but proprietary hardware seems less of a bargain as commodity hardware improves in price/performance.
FWIW, open source is sending some proprietary UNIX employees to the unemployment lines already. Next, it's Redmond's turn as the desktop improves.
Quit Slashdot Movement.
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
Let's see 2002 - 40 = 1962.
Wow, All this time I thought Multics was in the late 60's and the first Unix came in November of 71.
Guess journalism and math don't mix.
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of congress. But then I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain
Research has yet to show that people are replacing Microsoft products with free programs, analysts said.
"Just because the research doesn't show it, doesn't mean that it's not happening", said wiresquire, from his former MS box, now Linux box running Mozilla and StarOffice.
So does Anonymous Coward have good karma?
He must be new ...
Let's inform him on some of the "innovating" that Microsoft has done in the past ... shall we?
DOS ... Nope, they bought it ...
... Nope, got it from the Mac ...
... Nope, got it from NCSA (Mosaic) ... in fact, they almost missed the Internet ...
... Nope, WordPerfect was already around ...
... Nope, got it from the RIAA ...
Windows (UI)
Internet Explorer
Word
DRM
Hmmm ... seems that Micrsoft needs a little improvement for innovating ...
BTW, don't miss the Dancing Monkey
Karma? Karma? I don't need no stinkin' karma.
A quote that didn't make the article:
In other news, Balmer has admitted publically that it is currently easier to move Unix apps to Linux than to Windows. May the mass porting begin!
F-bacher
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
big picture time: this isn't about the 'financial community' getting open source religion. there are soooo many markets out there that have a) OLD dos based software and/or b) poorly written windows software.
i've done support with companies in insurance, medicine, financial, libraries, etc. mostly small, but some of them were not. they all have *Wretched* software. i'm still supporting dos programs for insurance agencies and doctors offices. there are markets out there that are just now starting to write windows software!
this is a window (pardon the pun) of opportunity to take some desktops away from microsoft.
between the licensing issues and expense of microsoft tools *and* the growing expense of the end-user environment *and* a poor track record of security, this should be an opportunity to show what open source can do. and be.
eric
More precisely, if the Microsoft platform weren't a prison full of shit for which you have to pay a huge rent (to use a -1 Troll-able anti-euphemism), I really doubt that Linux, for instance, would have so many followers
The Raven
The Raven
Like my company was. However that being said, what got me to finally breakdown and switch to Linux/Solaris wasn't the Nonexistent Security, Monopoly, the consistant Patches, the piss poor support or even the high cost. It was when trying to get my Exchange Server back up after it crashed for no apparent reason a book I was reading for help in running Exchange said:
"It is often preferable to simply backup you Exchange Server Data and reinstall, instead of trying to find the one hidden setting that is causing the error in your configuration."
That almost made me fall over in my chair.
From that day on I decided on a course for MS freedom. We now run Apache/Tomcat for our JSP server, MySQL for our DB Backend (until migration to Oracle is complete), and QMail/Horde/IMP for mail. It took a little time but saved around $6000 in software licensing costs and $5000 in new hardware that would have needed to be purchased.
So in the end I could deal with all the MS shit until the UI for managing Exchange got so bad it no longer became worth it to run MS on the server side. It was the best IT decision I've made (IMHO).
Ok,
... maybe we actually should consider some alternatives to Microsoft!
So pretty much all us Slashdot readers know free software would be enemy #1 to Ballmer. The thing is, I can't help but think that he is adding more proverbial wood to the very same fire that is burning him at the stake.
IMHO, this statement would make many purchase decision makers wake up from their MSOFT induced coma and start to entertain the notion that maybe the geeks are right
I don't know for sure, but I tend to think that this is quite a SLIP up for Microsoft. It will do great damage in eroding their best and biggest customer base - the religious Microsoft fanatics that (up till now) refused to consider any other options.
_____________
Belly
I've been a FreeBSD/free software user for over 5 years now and in my experience, free software just works better. When was the last time you had a windows server that went 270+ days without a reboot (when was the last time there was 270 days between security patches?)?
If microsoft wants to win the war against OSS, they need to make their software far more resiliant against crashing and security issues.
Scott
> ``I don't know what you do [...] except
> to out-innovate the Linux community.''
Hmmm - usually M$ has the reputation to out-innovate competitors by
a) including the same features "for free" in the next release of Windows
b) buying the product/company.
Where Do You Want to Go Today?
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.
1) First they ignore you,
2) then they laugh at you,
3) then they fight you,
4) then you win.
5) ???
6) Profit!!
C - A language that combines the speed of assembly with the ease of use of assembly.
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."
Slashdot is a quoted news source being used by Google News.
Be afraid, be very afraid
>Microsoft sponsored a booth for the first time >at the LinuxWorld trade show in August in San >Francisco. The company argued that Windows is >cheaper to maintain because it has more >compatible programs and comes with better >support. Using the same type of reasoning, Microsoft went on to argue that Windows is more stable because it costs more and has little animated paperclips.
On *this* article the half-screen ad that shows up is for visual studio.net?
Oh my..
Never trust an atom. They make up everything.
You mean that Microsoft is going to pay me to use Windows at my home, when I can download the three ISO's that make up Mandrake Linux for the price of the electricity and whatever coasters come out of the CD-R drive?? I'm not sure of the logic behind this - I mean, aren't corporations in the business of not giving away money like that?
This sig no verb.
This conversation overheard outside Steve Jobs' Cupertino office...
MINION: Master, your plan is unfolding nicely, Microsoft and the Free Software community are locked in mortal combat!
THE INSANELY GREAT ONE: (Steepling his fingers) Yes, this is perhaps my most diabolical plan ever, while these fools argue, I shall take over the world!!! (Maniacal laughter). Now, leave me...there is much to do...
"That naive cube! How long must I suffer this!" --Sheldon J. Plankton
Yes, it does. Big Iron was, and contiues to be, stable and reliable.
Most idiot CEOs already think free software is uninnovative and crappy.
Trying to bolster a platform that's already in place is a waste of time, and that can only serve to further the amount of free software in business, considering at this point its on a steady increase in use.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Once Wall Street will recognize that Linux is deployed already with very free, very programmable, fast enough and reliable enough DBMS (actually ORDBMS) PostgreSQL - then Oracle won't have much of chances either.
Less is more !
You have to realize that Bloomberg's specialty is not quality journalism, the WSJ beats them hands down, and they probably all know that. What make Mike a billionare, is that his service provides quantity journalism. That story was probably one of 500 published on Microsoft today. Not all of them were written by Bloomberg's staff, but quite a few were, and they do this for almost every company out there. This isn't an information service for acidemics, it provides near instantanous information for large investors who might just trade a million or more shares on the info provided.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
How much of the development of Linux is being done by for-profit companies like RedHat or IBM? It seems like most of the new development is being done by people that are getting paid to do Linux development. I think this idea of thousands of developers working in their spare time to make Linux is overrated.
In which case makes the battle between Microsoft and Linux more of a battle of business models than some overhyped free vs not free battle. And I seriously question RedHat and other Linux company's business models. Pay alot of money to develop software, give it away for free, hope people are kind enough to buy the boxed version? I know they sell various support services too, but will that actually be enough to pay the rent? And if the margins are that good, why couldn't Microsoft eventually just adopt a similar business model?
Bigger companies like IBM and Sun may have a better chance with Linux since they have other revenue streams (hardware, services) that give them much bigger margin to blow money developing Linux. However, what happens when times get tight and departments get cut? Will they cut the non-revenue generating departments first?
Brian Ellenberger
Some of the business people did yell - "do you really see non-technical people using this 'Internet'?" and when we slid Mosaic to a few people "Do you really see business people using this 'World Web' thing?" . Yes, yes I do. "That just shows what you don't know about business." I'll get back to you on that one, ok?
Everyone had Unix desktops (well, most). Sendmail for 6,000 machines run mostly by, er, me, with end admins actually tossing in the binaries and one of 4 config files that ran the whole thing. SMTP got mail from London to Toyko, desktop to desktop, in under 2 seconds.
Did we live on Open Source? Well, the infrastructure did.
Trouble ticket systems took 2 years to be selected and rolled out.
Our group compiled "req" in a day and used that while we waited for Remedy.
Monitoring systems were selected for THOUSANDS per machine. /me looks at ethernet on the NeXT and Sparc 2 "no, hubs and routers, that sort of thing - just pony up the money for each box and we'll monitor it").
We put up CMU SNMP (would now use Net-SNMP) and got better results, despite management ("see, now, snmp is for Network devices"
Most importantly most trading system software is not store bought. Sure, on windows, they use some rapid development stuff. folks I know use a lot of Java, but it's a LOT of custom software.
The Unix problem was that X and Motif were so miserable to develop for. It was like punishment for choosing Unix. My hat is off to the KDE and GNOME folks for picking up the ball that the X Consortium dropped. Mandate application look and feel. You must quit apps through FILE -> Quit. That beats the random ways that you quite in Wordperfect or XV or Lotus or XTerm or whatever.
The financial world will go to where better app development and better support are. That's been MS for a while, I hate to say. GNOME & KDE may save Unix.
I just installed Lindows 2. Using it right now in fact.
It isn't perfect, but its interface its pretty damned good.
The killer "app" that's holding companies to windows is MS Exchange, specifically the calendering piece and its integration with email.
But when the open source movement gets a really good, robust Exchange replacement, Microsoft essentially becomes redundant.
This new Linux stuff is powerful. When I look at it I understand why Microsoft is nervous.
I think the Lindows people are really onto something here.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
The EarthFirst website could carry ads from Weyerhaeuser.
I've always considered Microsoft my #1 enemy... I'm glad they feel the same way...
But there's no final source for MS software either.
The EULA disclaims all responsiblity for anything going wrong.
Actually, some of Bloomberg's stories are written by programs. Stuff like this is machine-generated:
In South Korea, the Kospi rose for a sixth day, gaining 2.9 percent. Singapore's Straits Times Index added 0.6 percent, led by Creative Technology Ltd., the world's largest soundcard maker, and Venture Corp., the island's largest electronics maker. Taiwan's TWSE Index rose 3.4 percent, paced by Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. and other suppliers to Nokia Oyj, after the world's biggest mobile-phone maker said third-quarter profit more than tripled. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 Index gained 1.1 percent, while New Zealand's Top 40 Index rose 0.7 percent."
Seriously, How many times do people need to say this? In every microsoft article on slashdot that I read I see a similar comment and it is always modded up. It's old! It's _not funny anymore_!
Fortunately for us who contribute software or programming to the world, we don't have to show a bottom line to a board that tells us what to do.
US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
I don't think the problems Microsoft faces are so much a matter of them not doing their job. Instead, I think it boils down to the fact that a lot of people realize the long term threat to their business of becoming dependent on one vendor for anything. If Microsoft continues to build market share and eliminate viable competition, they will have less and less motivation to respond to customer needs.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
i am starting a small business....privacy will be one of the top concerns of our clients.
i want an email server, a file server, a printer server, a web server, and a small database server....
can you give me one reason why the FUCK i would want to pay you...
-for the server software
-for the email server software
-and THEN - for every single person that wants to connect TO the server on TOP of the stuff that you already charged me for? And then want me to keep paying you every year?
good Lord - many small businesses don't want to keep paying your ass at every turn - our money is precious to us, because we don't have a lot, and so if we can save a buck or a few THOUSAND - we're NOT going to give it over to you when there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to do so.
AND... the lawyers tell me, like the medical folks are finding out - that if we are going to guarantee security and privacy AND be on the internet too - then you must think i'm wearing an ass-hat to go with software that hasn't fully told me
what data it collects
what data it sends back
what software it may or may not install
what software or data it may or may not watch
what format the files are in so that i can get at my data if i chance vendors later....
The reason that you are losing to Linux is because i get all of that for the supremely expensive cost of $0. TODAY.
If i don't want to be a linux geek, but still have the same kind of stability and software choice - i can hand Apple Computer $1000, and click my way to almost command-line free blissful servers.
And if you think that Palladium, Trusted Computing, and Licensing 6.0 are reasons TO RENT your software - you must be a gran mal ass choad.
Let me tell you what i DO want...
i want my privacy and i don't want to keep paying your ass, okay?
I don't keep paying the furniture guy, i don't keep paying the painter, and i don't keep paying the guy that i paid to run cable in my office.. so why the fuck do you think i should keep paying you after i've gotten what from you?
YOU ARE STUPID and YOU DON'T LISTEN TO US. And it won't be the DOJ or a bunch of lawyers that bring you down..
its your arrogance in thinking that i can't live without you...
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
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.
Uh, dude this PROVES Ballmer's point. Sun, a huge contributor to Open Source and chief Microsoft competitor, is laying off over 4 thousand people!
Look at Open Office. Sun acquires code, spends a bunch of money working on it, has staff devoted to it (ex Zaheda Bhorat (Sun; community growth) Stefan Taxhet (Sun, Coordination Manager)
Sander Vesik (Sun, Release Manager), and hasn't made jack squat from it. Blow a bunch of money, don't get much return back. Not exactly a successful business model.
Open Source today depends on big companies to basically make charitable contributions. Remember, open source came to life in the free wheeling "profit and money don't mean anything" late 90's. In a "penny-pinching and cost control" environment, corporate charity will become harder and harder to find.
Brian Ellenberger
early versions of IE were based on mosaic/spyglass, but more recent versions (since version 3, i think) were based on Trident, a complete rewrite of the HTML rendering engine primarily designed to allow interactive HTML editing (design mode). The design mode features were only recently enabled, however.
It's easy to see why Ballmer feels a little threatened... he owns almost a quarter billion shares of MSFT, worth $11.7 billion. Next to that, his $700,000 CEO salary looks like chump change.
He dumped 4 million shares in the past 2 years, but at that rate it would take several lifetimes to sell off his entire stake. His only chance of staying in the 11-digit club (as opposed to 10 digits or even 9) is to hope like hell that MSFT can maintain its current market share in the face of neverending pressure from competitor's innovation and open source. Steve's position is that of a fat guy on a treadmill, running to keep in place as it steadily speeds up...
Ballmer, in the article, says:
"We have told our sales force to really understand that this is kind of job one. 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.""
Awful nice of Steve to admit that it's true now.
My
Limekiller
I've worked with plenty of H1Bs, and some are good, some are bad. But that doesn't matter. Most management sees employees as replaceable parts, no difference from one to the next. They literally don't know how to measure the worth of an employee other than useless buzzwords or seniority. Thus when they see an H1B with the right buzzwords but at half the cost of a citizen, they salivate at saving money. The predictable result is that more H1Bs are hired, and since no attempt has been made to hire only the good ones, a lot of crap H1Bs are hired.
Thus the resentment by actual citizens trying to get the same job. Whether you fit the crap lable or not has nothing to do with complaints about H1Bs. You are tarnished by the management incompetency brush.
Infuriate left and right
It's kind of a shotgun effect. Sourceforge and freshmeat are perfect examples. At freshmeat you just need to filter on popularity to see what I mean. The well run projects that are tools community finds useful and stable will tend to be at the top. But you will typically have a choice among several project. You don't have to take the top one.
Microsoft can't do that in public. We've seen proof of that time and again. Their closed source model has gotten them in trouble time and again.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
In the past several years, M$ has attempted to alienate their user base in every way possible. From their increasingly restrictive licensing which assumes every customer is a crook to the outright slop they promote as 'software', users - especially corporate - are looking for alternatives.
Of course, for the press they paint the picture that users are misguided (read: ignorant) and are turning to open source. Further alienation.
The M$ business model requires selling upgrades early and often. From here, it doesn't look like they're actually producing anything 'ya gotta have' but people are buying it 'because they have to'.
.NET? Why? My impression is most seasoned IT folk see it as a marketing gimmick. Re-invent. New release. Have to upgrade because the previous release doesn't do whatever. More stable. Repeat repeat repeat.
Sooner or later, this becomes obvious to anyone that has to shell out real money to play this game.
The funny part is they could have probably pulled it off but now it's a trust and credibility issue. Thanks, Judge Jackson.
I know that.
You know that.
But does the CEO, or even the CTO know that?
What they do know, as a customer, if they bitch enough and they're big enough, they'll get a fix.
And the average bank has a lot of computers.
Dan
Let's see, 20,000 inboxes times about $6/seat is $120,000 -- versus -- free. Yeah, Exchange does more than just e-mail, but for that kind of cash in a cash-strapped educational institution, it's just insane. Add in the need to retrain some of my unix systems administrators or fire and rehire (not easy in a government institution) and it approaches an impossible scenario...
Win2k/XP is a rather nice Desktop OS. Its come a long way, finally stable, good features, and lots of applications and games. (Ya viruses too)
Truely, I dont think linux has a chance on the desktop. Hardware support isn't there, Application are not isn't there (Loki is gone). I know everyone is working thier ass off to make it, but until the average joe will want to drop Windows boxes for a Linux box, linux will be mostly a server os. (I'm not counting the slashdot crowd, most of us dual boot, and/or have a dedicated linux/bsd server.)
Servers are another questions, Unix is the only way I run my shops. After running DNS/SMTP/HTTP on unix and windows, I can tell from experience, a unix type os is the only choice. (We run Solaris) But hey m$ wins again, seems 1/3rd of all unix admin programs run only on windows or if they use a web gui, only IE is supported. (sigh/disgust)
-
Do you GLTron ?
And it's an enemy you can't just take to court or buy. He's fighting against an ideology, not a company.
``I don't know what you do to protect your shareholders and preserve your market capitalization except to out-innovate the Linux community.''
Did he actually say 'out-innovate'?
"As part of Ballmer's plan to woo open-source users, Microsoft is sponsoring Web sites to provide advice to developers and let them pool resources. He's seeking to emulate the way hundreds and sometimes thousands of developers collaborate on open-source programs. "
News flash, Mr Ballmer:
You can't emulate Open Source development with a closed source OS. Nobody is going to contribute to your code base if they know that MS retains all the rights to your "shared" source code.
You can go ahead and mod me down for being troll, but, are MS Execs really this clueless?
Error Reading Steve Ballmer. Abort, Retry, or Fail?
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.
There was a study shown on Slashdot a few weeks back about the number of lines of code between Microsoft releases and Redhat Linux releases. The Linux code is growing almost exponentially (or let's say just really darned fast, for accuracy's sake) and the code for Microsoft is stunted. That's because there's no focus group to tell us to re-write the way something works and start from scratch. The longer code lives, the less bugs it will have, due to maturity.
There will come a time where Linux will be comprised of so much code that it would be impossible for any corporation, even Microsoft, to compete. Linux starts from a mature base and improves; Microsoft starts over in areas. Even though they're hideously tied to the DOS-days and such.
Sure, they're gonna have (mostly) functional drivers for the spiffy new hardware, but we get it, too, after a fashion. I just know this; desktop OS's increase in complexity, not decrease: at some point, no one will be able to start from scratch and start competing on the closed-source side, it's just too expensive...even if we're just measuring the price-per-line-of-code yardstick. Even with cool new programming environments.
Be afraid, sweaty-freak...be very afraid.
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
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.
Hmm...if free software is the enemy...wouldn't it make sense to counter free software by creating an Operating System that will only run programs that you deem acceptable to run, and then make it so that no free programs are "trusted", virtually eliminating free software as competition for the operating system within your control? Oh wait...they are already doing that with Palladium. I guess Free Software is the enemy for MS right now, with 2000 and XP...but we all know that if you right buggy code and then don't fix it before a future OS release, and then end maintenance on the old, people will have to upgrade in order to protect themselves. (I will comment on this in a second) So in essence the "plague" of free software will disappear within a year of the release of Palladium. What MS does with its purposeful bug-filled OS releases is just plain terrible. Create something purposely that has security flaws, then never fully update it so that those flaws are never completely fixed, and then end maintenance once a newer OS is released is just sick. The last time I checked, praying on people's emotions, like sense of lack of security, in order to "force" them to purchase something newer (which is I guess "not flawed") was called a SCAM. I'm also fairly certain that SCAMMING is ILLEGAL and that SCAM ARTISTS go to jail when caught. I guess money does buy freedom.
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.
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
-
China is a communist country. The government controls the majority of the chineese economy and can mandate standards and shared cost allocation. China may ban Microsoft products from all state run businesses and government functions, although I doubt they would interfere with sanctioned, entreprenual computing systems.
- China has unreliable relations with the United States. China needs control over its critical infrastructure, including its computing systems. A sudden change in relationships with the United States, e.g., an invasion of R.O.C. (Taiwan), could cut of imports, upgrades, and technical support from Microsoft. It is as prudent to mandate self-determination of operating systems as of electrical power.
- China can take a long term view. China is the Middle Kingdom, with thousands of years of continous civilization. China, unlike the United States, could decide to embark on a path and resist pressure until it pays off.
- China is large, really large. The factbook states China is 1,200,000,000 (1.2B) people with a GDP of over $5,000,000,000,000.00 ($5T). China is the only country that could easily decide to commit a million people to full time Linux development and support.
The nighmare senario for Micosoft is that China makes the Linux operating system and open source applications a national security priority. Think of the effects of this quadrant of the planning grid:China leverages support for open source to build tighter relationships with countries besides the U.S. Open source authors are invited guests at massive conferences in Beijing. X-windows is replaced in two years. ChinaLinux preconfigured desktops surpass Microsoft in terms of reliability, ease of support, and scalability. Attempts to foster opposition in China due to massive revenuse from 100,000 person export-only support center.
A good future.
Cheers,
Chasm
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.
Small to medium business is the largest target market out there. A small business can invest $5,000 in a Microsoft software/ Intel hardware solution, and $5,000 in consulting, and get a solution that will work. The consulting market price is low due to competition. The system will run, and there are many people that can provide this service.
Linux.. I can get the Intel hardware cheap, and the OS out of a book, or free. Not for the novice. I have to find someone who really knows what they are doing to get the apps set up and running. This takes time, and the cost can go through the roof.
Don't confuse inexpensive aquisition costs with inexpensive solutions. Until the mom and pop shops of the world can get accounting systems and small business software up and running inexpensively and easily, Microsoft will be around and making money.
Linux, according to Netcraft. But then, when I tried to go there, it was down. Maybe that's part of Ballmer's cunning plan...
is a good example why Ballmer should fear OSS. With M$'s push for .NET, the "OS for the internet", it still faces competition from J2EE and perhaps Mono. Windows is still the thing M$ uses to whip the software world to submission. Software incompatibility (between Windows and Linux) is, I believe, the only stumbling block that keeps corporations from adopting Linux. With technical difficulties aside, IF Wine manage to implement more than 80% of the Win32 API then bibi Windoze.
Go Wine! embrace, extend and extinguish!
VIVA1023.com | Political Fashion.
Bloomberg is a company that lives and breathes tech. They have a huge investment in technology, and tend to stay ahead of the curve. It isn't surprising at all that they get linux.
I don't understand why you guys keep pinning your hopes on China. China has a long history of ignoring IP rights. Why should the GPL be any different? Is the source code for Red Flag out yet? (Has anybody looked at it to see what it's doing while it's booting w/a totally blank screen? Installing a keystroke logger, maybe?)
They're already pirates on a grand scale, so what revenue would Microsoft be *losing* if they switch to Linux?
Actually it is enemy #10. It is just that enemies 1 thru 9 have already been squashed. This one is just different because their money cannons are not working against it very well.
Table-ized A.I.
And despite all warning signs, the US government sucks up for the
communists. They believe that China will fully open up their markets
for American goods, but forget it. China wants to be self-sufficient.
That's why they build their own Linux version, their own CPUs, their
own motherboards etc. The communists doesn't see the west as a reliable
partner, and just as you stated... they want to be able to say fuck off
to the west if necessary.
I make a big distinction between the Chinese people and the communists.
(after all, the Chinese communist party just have 50 million members.
The Chinese people are in general very nice and hardworking people, but
the communist regime is a bunch of unreliable liars.
the quote from this guy as well as the wells fargo and mcadams wright ragen reps point to the biggest threat to open source: the money it can take from funds that include m$ and other entities.
these deep-pocket funds are going to get pretty twitchy when the value of their holdings becomes threatend by a movement that cannot be bought, sold, or owned.
no matter the quality, if the money people can't get richer from it (or worse still, it costs them) *that* could prompt a bigger threat as bill and his minions could be
Beat SGI up for it.... Remember the fahrenheit project. From one of the *many* press releases...
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- Agreeing to put aside aside differences over 3-D graphics, Silicon Graphics Inc. and Microsoft Corp. said last week that they will work together on a common set of application programming interfaces.
They forgot to say, "As long as the API is a Microsoft one."
Blogging because I can...
Odd that they would use the acronym N.O.I.S.E. -
Netscape, Oracle, IBM, Sun, and Everyone else...
The article says they don't talk much about Netscape
anymore, or Sun, or Oracle. They still talk about
IBM and Everyone else, plus Linux. I guess that
means that their new acronym is L.I.E.
They're taking their dog to get its two shots before it's too late. You're taking your dog there too, right?
While the effort to isolate the Linux community may be a nobel one in terms of Microsoft's squash 'em mentality, it would be smarter for M$ to try to capitalize on the linux rage by releasing their own distribution and charging for support. People seem to forget, while the actual software is free, implementing it into a specific environment/system is not! There is plenty of money to be made with Linux, just not directly selling it. While I can see there would be plenty of resistance to anything put out by M$, it would be the smartest move on their part -- might improve their image, and have the potential for gaining market share in the Linux sector (While linux is great and all, it's just not quite a viable alternative as a desktop OS for the general public yet. I believe it to be a strict contender in the server market).
The DRM thing could be a problem too, but I really think it will be such a disaster that it will be completely rejected by consumers. The sticking point is not the basic erosion of fair use copying, but that it is going to be so broken in implementation that it will keep people from doing what they are supposed to be allowed. Average comsumers don't have a lot of patience for bogus technology that won't do what they want, and DRM is likely to screw them over and over. At least the single function DVD player will play the DVDs they rent and buy reliably, and a DRM enabled PC will fail to do this often enough to make them royally pissed off. Put that in your business model and smoke it!
I've seen more than a few companies that simply will not run Linux (or BSD, or Plan 9, or BeOS, or whatever). My wife's company is going to bankrupt itself because it *has* to get on the MS license subscription bandwagon. Which is fine. If MS can sell that bill of goods, then bully on them. But the people at my wife's firm think that they can't even run Linux. They don't even consider it. I don't know why that is.
If they need to run Exchange, then so be it. Does that mean their web server needs to be IIS? Not at all. They don't know that.
You're right: MS is competing with Linux. But there's a lot of room to move in the small server/edge network/whatever area; it's a huge playground, and they choices don't have to be mutually exclusive.
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
Software piracy is enemy number two.
The enemy isn't Linux as a compeditor but open source as a method of develuping software for free.
Just as software theft hurts the ability to sell software open source makes it difficult to make commertal software available.
People are not willing to buy what they can have for free.
What makes open source a greater enemy than piracy is simple.
Piracy is theft: Somebodys hard work is used with out paying for it. This is moraly, ethicly and legally wrong. The software is not free but taken as much so as one who steals from the store.
Open sorce is a free gift given in good faith to be used by anyone who will have it.
A way to prove your skill. Co branding may be done eventually. "Download Kelloggs Linux from our website or get a CD free with Kellogs brand cereals".
Oh I see your using Pepsi Office.
AOL gives away millions of CDs to keep the AOL name in our faces. Coke, Pepsi and other companys do put a great deal of effort into the same. Free software keeps odd names in our minds all the time. xmms, ogg, gimp all household names in the Linux world.
Plus the job potental for a graduated OS develuper improves with the success of his software.
Transmeta got lucky Linus didn't want to be a consultent a strong posability for populare OS develupers.
Software has become like air. You can buy it or you can get it for free.
Even if it's better quality when you buy it you'll only do it when the free stuff won't take you where you want to go.
(Under water or some new FPS game)
Microsoft makes it's money making the kind of software anyone can make. In the future commertal software will do things that take years of R and D to make possable. Stuff thats not going to come from a team of hobbyests.
Microsoft dosen't make that kind of software. Not yet anyway.
But excluding cutting edge games the mass market dosen't buy such software. They want stuff thats relitively easy to make.
Microsoft is facing the fact that the alternitive to software theft isn't buying software but downloading open sorce.
I don't actually exist.
They cant get into their heads that many of the people looking at linux doesnt do it because of linux superiority. Microsoft has done a great job of alienating their own customers with high prices and shoddy quality. Not to mention how they have made a clear mark that anyone working together with them get a stab in the back.
If they had cared anything about their customers they wouldnt be in this situation.
All their talk about "fighting linux" is just BS. How big part of the market has linux? I think there are enough space to cater both but MS seems to think that ANY competition is dangerous.
Why do they have such little faith in their own ability to compete on fair grounds? It feels liek they are grasping for straws. Maybe times arent so easy when there arent many companies to steal ideas from any longer. Any smart person with a wild new idea for a killer app just think Netscape and then puts it in a drawer until MS gets under control.
HTTP/1.1 400
This has been up for a little while at OSNews, but I think it's really funny that this new Unix Code Migration Guide suddenly appears at roughly the same time Bloomberg runs an article in which Steve Ballmer says, "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."
I guess they're doing their best to make sure that that's "untrue."
Eventually someone very visable is going to point out that the OSS community is a giant, loose-knit volunteer organization, among the largest in history.
It won't be this year, next year, or the year after that, but politicians around the world have already noticed the movement.
That's where I think the 'Then you win.' comes in. Someone makes a speech that encapsules Microsoft's position in two or three easily understood sentances, that sends public opinion through the floor.
I am a science fantasy fan
hmm...i wonder what the click scores of the following would be :
1) microsoft article
2) linux article
3) microsoft vs. linux article
my bets are that #3 gets the most press, at least in technical circles
or at least the most shock-value attention
PC moderators can suck my White pierced, tattooed dick. If you think pride == hate, s/dick/Aryan meat mallet/g.
That kind of resistance only works against a relatively civilized opponent, who will not go to any lengths in their fight. The Soviet Union or Nazi Germany would just have slaughtered Gandhi and his followers until none were left, and be done with the issue.
How does the analogy map to Linux vs M$? I don't honestly know. Maybe it just doesn't. But I don't see M$ shying away from doing anything that might help them win the fight.
Well no. Just a lot of flat files tied together by journalling. If something goes wrong, we have the source code and can fix it ourselves. With open source you can get the same benefit.
Hardwrae replication by itself is not an answer. You can't split an order book for a product up without an associated performance cost.
We'll do what we've traditionally done: get paid to write software. I'd say about 80% of software is by it's nature not amenable to being widely distributed. For example, a point-of-sale system tied tightly into the pump-control, tank-monitoring and other hardware of a truckstop. Half a million or so lines of code, all told, and all of it so specific to one company's way of doing business that there's only a handful of other people who could use it without major modifications and customization. For all that, though, it's so critical to keeping the company running that abandoning it in favor of more generic solutions would be corporate suicide. It would simply cost too much in lost opportunities to have to wait 5 years for someone else to implement an idea, not to mention the costs of customizing it to match the way the company works (or alternatively changing the way the company works, but that's letting the tail wag the dog).
In that kind of situation, open-source is infrastructure. It's the generic code that handles the routine jobs and the well-known tasks so the programmers can concentrate on the critical parts that aren't generic.
... if everyone who used Linux bought a copy of XP =)
I saw this quote from someone working for the state of Utah and found it rather interesting (not surprising of course) "We buy Microsoft products, and we have this sort of love-hate relationship with them like everyone else, I suppose," said Phillip Windley, chief information officer for the State of Utah. "Last year, they forced us to conduct an audit, which was very painful. And it turns out that the bottom line was that we have overbought. They didn't offer to refund any of those overbought licenses. But if we had underbought, they certainly would have required us to pay more money, I trust."
Well its seems that pepole in general are starting to open their eyes for the possibilities in opensource. Although, like some of you have already mentioned, its not necessarily the superiority of Open Source software as much aas it is prices for MS products that is turning the tide.
In Denmark there are trial runs for all the regional councils to change all their public services onto open source machines, completely dropping MS products. Although there are soem technicalities about reliability, the millions of $ that are to be saved has made almost every politican there a supporter of the open source environment.
-.sig sauer-
But they wont do this; the Chinese Government will understand that by obeying the GPL and releasing the source the American economy can be radically altered, if not disrupted as everyone switches over to "Free Chinux".
This will be nothing short of a revolution.
ATH0 Bitcoin: 1DnwFLXczVZV8kLJbMYoheUrpqHesjxrSi
Even if they would out-innovate GNU/Linux (which I find hard to imagine), the free software community will still not switch, since they care more about freedom than about having the technically best product.
Under communism, man exploits man. Under capitalism, it's the other way around...
Sometimes the best solution to morale problems is just to fire all the unhappy people.
Lets have a look at the facts besides Steves paranoia fud. Linux not really is the enemy, Microsoft or at least the twist the company did since Steve took over is it. Companies never really considered to switch to Unix until Microsoft almost blackmailed them with their new subscription program. I think the critical point will be around 2004 when the public support for win2k runs out. Most companies never really considered an alternative, many of them were happy to go the windows route (well the suites were, buy Microsoft dont have any issues in the management), but things have changed with the new licensing scheme. There is an alternative, a good community also is there, you can buy support if needed and it works and doesnt have all the licensing issues connected to Windows.
The next stupidity out of Redmont now comes with Palladium and TCPA, do you really want to trust a mission critical system to an operating system where somebody might nail unasked an update onto. Do you really want to develop for a system where you in the long term might have to pay an annual tax to keep a signing key alive and do you really want to have somebody else decide if your program is allowed to run anymore or not... This is simply personal computing without personal computing. I think Microsoft and all the others will fall flat on their faces in the long term with this. And at that time, non TCPA implementing systems will be good enough so that you can push them onto the average joe.
Yes, I *know* that Bill told you last month that security was our absolute number one priority here at Microsoft. That was last month. This month, destroying Open Source is our absolute number one priority. Open Source threatens our revenue stream, whereas nobody cares about security - we can just bolt that on later if we need to.
This is going to hurt a little for all of us that make our living off of software, particularly system software, but:
.NET important? Hint: it differentiates the MS Windows platform from open source OSes. MS understands very clearly that developers write software, sofware dictates platform, platform determines hardware infrastructure and therefore they are gunning for the only real points of control. First, software developers then business owners. If the business owner demands .NET, the developers develop for it. If the developers develop .NET software, business owners will buy it.
.NET or the .NET tools.
* The OS is a commodity now. It should be priced accordingly.
* Networking software is a commodity and should be priced accordingly.
* The relational database is a commodity now. It should be priced accordingly.
* Basic productivity applications are a commodity, and should be priced accordingly.
Why do you think MS is moving into the enterprise software market by purchasing Great Plains (Accounting/ERP) and developing a CRM package? Why is
MS's lone hope is that their "bookend" strategy of generating end user demand and developer affinity will keep the market from seeing that there's nothing that you CAN do with Windows that you CANNOT do with another less expensive OS/development tool/platform.
I think MS will loose long term: the enterprise software market is very, very specialized and therefore there are smaller segments. There are no "universal" markets like desktop and server OSes that everyone needs. Interoperability is happens fine without
Can't wait for the market to sort it out.
$G
-- $G
Actually I run OS X on the client side using Dreamweaver and sftp (via terminal/console) to get my jsp's.
So I switched from Server Side Windows to Linux and Solaris (avoiding RMS wrath by typing Linux/Solaris) and I switched from Client side Windows and Linux to OS X.
So I am a double switcher! lol.
Swing baby, yeah! (in Austin Powers voice)
Is that they want a lot of apps developed for free under the Windows enviroment, with no counterpart in the Unix world.
:-)
As a last resort, their "free software" comunity would be based on their products. They will figure out how to profit from it (...as if they haven't figured out already
Today, Windows developers think of selling their product, no matter how crappy it is. Or they have these clones of Word like OpenOffice that do NOT rely on their technology. Well, they want to change that.
If there should be a free Word, it must be based on their patented / owned technology. They "why's" we will find out later on...
unfinished: (adj.)
The open source model has produced VERY little that is impressive.
KDE is largely funded by Trolltech to build an additional market (X11) to their development platform. The full software package (Win32 + X11 + Mac OS X) costs over $4k per developer. Even if you only have 1 build engineer for all but the target platform, you are still over $2k/workstation.
Apache was a university project.
BSD was a university project. BSD developed a completely free Unix work-alike. GNU redid that work, but sometimes uses BSD code to do so. This is fine and legal, but it is a bit morally suspect to take BSD code, improve it, lock the changes away from BSD (all fine, part of the BSDL), AND TALK ABOUT HOW MUCH MORE YOU FOCUS ON FREEDOM, that's the rude/morally suspect part.
PostgreSQL was a university project.
University projects tend to have academic methodologies applied, so they are properly designed, and people paid to work on them. There are a few corporate projects that are equally impressive.
Linux picked up corporate support, and now the kernel is being redesigned (revision by revision) to not be backwards. Many things that were solved in academia in the 60s and 70s of computer science (and read by every MIT Comp Sci undergrad in our systems class 6.033) were don't "incorrectly" by Linux which has been recovering.
Mozilla has been almost ENTIRELY funded by Netscape as a company and as an AOL Time Warner division.
Apache was derived from a publically funded project and further developed by professionals maintaining the patches for their corporate/academic jobs.
Open Office has been almost ENTIRELY funded by Sun Microsystems.
These massive hobbiest projects that we hear about don't really exist. The big projects are developed by grad students paid to do so or corporations whose employees work on them. The open source development model is 80% myth. However, Linux is a large "niche" system, the third largest marketshare of any OS. As a result, if you are a company that doesn't think that they can directly sell (and compete against the Microsofts and Suns of the world, releasing it open source helps you get deployment.
It helps a bit with bug fixes, and a LOT with mindshare. It doesn't, however, get lots of code written. There are lots of 1-person development efforts that are released GPL, and a bunch of corporate/university projects. This "grassroots" development is mostly myth. Myths are important, they teach lessons, values, and are motivational. However, they aren't real.
Alex
Microsoft is scared, and the SEC makes them show it. While Steve Ballmer is running around making statements about how Microsoft is "pretty close" to making it easier to move from UNIX to Windows than from UNIX to Linux, his company's annual statements are painting a different picture. Every year since 1995 Microsoft has described UNIX variants such as Linux as having "gained increasing acceptance." The space devoted to these operating systems, particularly Linux, has certainly increased in Microsoft's annual statements.
.
In 1995 Microsoft's 10-K filing with the SEC stated:
"Variants of UNIX run on a wide variety of computer platforms and have gained increasing acceptance as desktop operating systems."
That sentence is the foundation upon which Microsoft has voiced its official concern at the encroachment of the Linux operating system; it has remained intact in every annual report Microsoft has filed, including its most recent filing of September 6, 2002.
More here . .
Read any good sonnets lately?
Oh, I get it, all right. And you've just repeated what I said about why MS's attempts to do this won't work.
Spread this far and wide.
He should see see it as enemy #1. It could very likely prove to be the source of Microsoft's demise.
.NET programming tools will come out for Linux and keep the cash flow going. MSN online will be far more popular than AOL. They will quickly thrive on TabletPC software while thrive while Open Source takes its time getting there. And so on. They'll survive on that while they expand to other ventures and plan ways to move back into previously profitable areas. Keep an eye out for a MS-Linux.
There's no way that open source could turn into Microsoft's downfall. Microsoft is smart -- they have a strategy. Keep moving, keep changing, keep expanding. Imagine that StarOffice / OpenOffice / WordPerfect etc. and Linux / BSD / OSX cut off 90% of Microsoft's current revenue. By that time Microsoft will have turned their XBOX venture into a very profitable business.
Look at Apple. Early in the fight between Jobs and Gates people would have laughed at the idea of Microsoft producing software for Mac. There is a MS-Office for OSX. Today Microsoft owns part of Apple. If tomorrow everybody switches to Mac, Microsoft still makes money. (I'm reminded of a Dilbert cartoon where Wally invests in the competition and becomes rich.)
Not only that, but they keep learning. I'm not trying to sound like I'm worried about the Borg here but Microsoft is smart and can see pitfalls in the road. They're like a successful virus or disease, it will evolve to avoid any cure far faster than the cure can take it out. So you've cured the cancer in your chest? Good, but it has already spread to your brain.
Open source may be an irresistable force, but Microsoft doesn't believe itself to be an immovable object. It will just live around open source.
Remember "Bring 'em on"? *sigh
No, I understand that point all too clearly. If the media, hardware and software people team up to radically change the way things work, you will have four choices (as far as I can see). Number one: being a nice cooperative consumer of DRM enabled hardware, software and media. Number 2: using systems that have no DRM (older platforms, Chineese Dragon* chips, etc.) Number 3: be a cracker of DRM computers, and fraglantly ignore the law (DMCA, etc.) Number 4: do any of the above, and remain to be a strong critic of DRM, and make sure the people who matter know what you and the rest of the people like you feel about DRM.
:) On the other hand, pizza with Sesame Chicken, Lo Mein, and some cabbage might be pretty good!
*You want to buy silicon designed by a country that is probably most well known for ignoring the human rights of their enormous population? Sounds like bargining with the devil to me. They censor everything; what makes you think their chips won't have some nasty stuff in them as well? It's too early to say they do, but you must admit, the possibility is there. In any case, with this Palladium free computer you may be missing out on your media of choice. You'd better get used to Chineese Pop Culture
I realize I paint an apocalyptic picture here. It might happen, and it might not. The thing is, there are people out there who want to see this scenario unfold (the faster the better.) On the other side of the coin, there are people who don't care (lets face it, some people have more to worry about besides computers and technology.)
While being outsiders, castaways and criminals may be ok for some of the Open Source community, the vast majority of people don't know anything outside of AOL, MSN, Internet Explorer, Brittney Spheres, etc. To them, Linux is not an option at the moment; perhaps that will start to change in the near future, perhaps not. If (when) DRM gains steam, these people will be a fulcrum for the crowbar that will pry many more into the grasps of Evil. *insert melodramatic music*
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
Yup I agree with most of your concerns. With some luck and enough press-coverage about users not being able to run the software they want on their computer, people will look to alternatives. Apple just may gain a wee bit more marketshare, especially since they're looking to use IBM's 64-bit chip, freeing them from their aged motorolla processor, and most likely enabling them to hop on the whole "Gigahertz-whiz-bang" bandwagon. Prices might come down too as they'd gain marketshare.
Extraordinary Vacations. Exceptional Prices
Thank you.
This will be of great interest.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
These are Still Open Source Communities.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
After all, he has a tough job.
"Hi, I'm Steve Ballmer, I made $758,810 last year running a company whose value dropped 25%, selling stuff you can get elsewhere for free."
Todd, it could work, people are lazy and non-vigilant. It means they forget easily and try to take the shortest path. Microsoft is trying to clean up image a bit (in the developers minds) and offering a good framework.
... believe what you want anyway (I am _not_ trying to prove myself right, I only see they are fixing things that where harming them, and that developers WILL turn a bit more MS-friendly)
Also, offering it for free. It's much better than what they offered before. They really are delivering, but
unfinished: (adj.)
Developers won't matter. When the legal department looks at the agreements and says "What are you doing letting someone else make a profit off our property without us getting a cut of it?", management will sit up and take notice.
Mplayer (playing windows media files)
..., Linux, ... }. The lines you're drawing between these various projects and how matter in the grand scheme seems to be based wholey on this concept of the survivability and marketablility of Linux. Everything you mentioned, with the exception of WineX, can run on any platform (Windows included). So, with that in mind, the issue is, well, a nonissue.
Mplayer plays a plethora of media formats. Most of them are not Windows specific. It's quite (mostly) popular for watching DVDs and DivX encoded video. Are either of those "Windows media files"? Only if the MPAA has their way.
SAMBA (comunicating with Windows machines)
That kind of makes sense. But machines have got to interoperate, right? We have a need to be able to talk to any other computer, regardless of its OS. I don't think this fits your category.
Apache server (serving http documents to 98% of IE users + the rest)
This just doesn't make sense. It can serve documents to any web browser. How does this make it Windows inspired? Besides, before Microsoft broke law, the web was viewed by browsers that weren't IE. (Note that IE was inspired by *nix software development, Mosaic if you remember.)
OpenOffice reading and saving MS Word/Excel compatible files
By the way, OOo's native file formats are far superior to those of Microsoft's Office suite. The reason for the interoperability is so that people who need an inexpensive, portable office suite can easily move over. Again, not inspired by Microsoft.
GICU or GAIM: comunicating with Windows IMgrs.
So Windows is responsible for the advent of instant messaging on the Net? I think this happened with IRC a long time ago, and before that, `talk'... began on, you guessed it, *nix.
WineX: playing Windows games
There's nothing about games that makes them Windows, other than the fact that they were written so poorly as to not be portable. WineX is picking up the slack of poor game developers (both in skill and financially speaking) that won't develop for other platforms. Mac users have the same complaint.
Mozilla 1: at last being able to see the web IE users see it.
We've never had a need to impliment proprietary, broken Microsoft extensions to web standards. I'd much rather view the web without them. Even to this day, Mozilla still does not see the web how IE users see it because it is standards compliant (mostly). What IE users see isn't the web... it's Microsoft's own little thing.
I mean, ok you can do other stuff that does not involve Windows compatibility, but why then are these the most popular applications. Take away those apps, and our Linux dies in a month (my bet).
The only one you could take away that might even kill Linux is Apache. Linux is strongest in the server room where Mplayer, OOs, IM, WineX, and Mozilla should not even be found. Samba is debatable... I would never use it because it's a pathetic protocol. Linux is strong now because of its formidable server position. It's only the desktop that we're still weak on. Soon, that will be solved.
Incidently, Linux != open source. Instead, open source = {
Why bother.
People - and I'm particularly calling on all Islamic /.ers - we've got to do something about this.
Well bugamededsedfred. Somebody - the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils did something, according to this story from the Australian IT news. I'll quote it in full to pre-emptively prevent the /. effect :
Obviously Rohan Gunaratna isn't quite familiar with the Australian concept of "Freedom of Speech" - it's not protected by our Constitution, just by custom (a far more solid guarantee IMHO). As long as it doesn't actually incite hatred and/or violence, it's best if the Government buts out, regardless of the article's nausea-index. This one comes close to overstepping the mark, but such cases should be and are given the benefit of the doubt.For the Mainstream of Islam to take notice that the Islamofascists have brought the whole of their religion into disrepute, that's another matter. Good on 'em.
Zoe Brain - Rocket Scientist