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Halloween VII
mjh writes "ESR has reviewed the latest Microsoft leaked Linux strategy document. A very interesting read. Summary: OSS is winning some battles, but Microsoft is poised to bring out bigger and nastier guns." To the extent that people read it and gain some insight into what Microsoft is actually thinking about Linux and Open Source Software, it's useful. To the extent that anyone draws a conclusion from this document like "we've got Microsoft on the run", that's just idiotic.
>>Microsoft's FUD attacks on open source have not only failed, they have backfired strongly enough to show up in Microsoft's own market research as a problem.
>This means we don't need to put a lot of energy into anti-FUD defending the open-source way of doing things. Indications are we've won that battle; effort should now go elsewhere.
That's exactly what *they* want you to think!!
Even though it may look legit at first glance. WHen you read it again, it seems apparant that almost someone who put time and effort into writing this article, could easily have made up the percentages, figures and results.
The door is open to crush any and all legitimate competition with unfair competitive practices.
The door is open to plunder the common people for the benefits of the wealthy few Microsoft shareholders.
The door is open for abject doom. Indeed, this is not the time to think we have them on the run. This is the time to ponder the horror to come. Who knows what power this unchecked monopolist will wield in a year? Two years? Ten years?
Not good, not good at all.
Stop corporate
While respondents cited OSS's 'low Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)' as one of the best reasons to support OSS, an 'alternative to Microsoft' did not lag far behind. A plurality (40%) of all respondents felt that a low TCO was the best reason to support OSS. One-third of all respondents cited 'an alternative to Microsoft' as one of the best reasons to support OSS.
I think that yearning among home and business users for, quite simply, "an alternative to Microsoft," is one of the strongest cards we have to play. Unfortunately, Linux is only really an alternative in the server markte at the moment. In the desktop market it's still not quite there. And that's where we need to put our efforts.
Woopty Doo Basil, what does it all mean?!
Until someone provides proof, this "leaked document" should be considered a load of crap. Move along please.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Office account for 60%+ of MS' profit and they are so far up the diminishing return curve that this is where the attack should be. There is a Office 11 beta review today that pretty much says that the user benefits of upgrading is small and more geared at developers and requires total MS on the backend. This is excellent as they are playing right into Open Source's strength: The backend. Foil this and Office 11 will have little to offer over OpenOffice et al.
Help fight continental drift.
This is a troll -- but I will bite.
.Net Pro Studio (1079). Now assuming you don't do anything else, you just spent 2 grand on software.
First of all, what is the total cost of the software you run?
If you built your own PC out of parts, you have to purchase your operating system, office, development tools, etc. Lets do a ballpark on just those 3 things (from Microsoft.com). Microsoft Windows 2000 Pro (319), Microsoft Office XP Pro (579), Microsoft
You could probably easily spend another 5 grand on other useful tools (depending on your trade) such as Oracle, ESRI, and much much more...
Do you steal software? That is illegal, and to some people that is unacceptable, so they use linux, rather than simply stealing what they want.
The interesting thing is that "Warez" is probably helping Microsoft by adding to network effect. If everyone had to purchase all the software they used their would be a much faster migration to linux (I believe).
Despite your personal beliefs, I think that linux is becoming a contender on the business desktop. For an array of reasons. The most important of these reasons is cost. Google(run on linux) for information about successful linux deployments, lots of big companies are starting todo it.
Exactly.
Reminds me of a story from "Zen in the Martial Arts":
The teacher draws a chalk line on the floor and asks the student how he can make it shorter. The student gives many answeres including dividing it into many pieces. The teacher says "no, no" and draws a longer line beside the first one. "Now how does it look?" the teacher asks. "Shorter."
The moral? It is always better to improve your own "line" (in the case of Linux, operating system) rather than "cut" that of another.
All I know is that the last time I tried to set up a wireless nic in windows XP it took 5 hours, 7 different drivers, and 2 reinstalls of service pack 1, and that was with a 2 year old wireless NIC, same nic under linux (since redhat 7.1) comes up during the install, thats the only hardware problem I've had with either system, on 6 different machines... but it was windows that didn't properly support the hardware.. not linux.
As far as desktop apps, the only thing I'm waiting for is good financial software, and then I can totally ditch windows... and so can all of my clients, and all of my family members...
Open Office is very much good enough for at least 90% of computer users... web browsing with mozilla is better, email/calendaring is getting close (if evolution had a server product like exchange, to share calendars it would be much better) but its still passable right now as a small/medium sized business solution and certainly for home use its great.
If Intuit ported Quicken/Quickbooks tomorrow, 4 law offices, and 2 accouting offices that I do IT work for would all be moved to linux by the end of the year. So its really getting close, and its not nearly as far off as you make it sound.
TCO is much lower for linux, 2 of these offices have linux file/email/web servers running on old p200's with 64mb of ram... the other 4 have windows 2000 servers which require much better hardware, and are constantly breaking. I haven't even looked at the two linux boxes for 4 months (well, ok I've ssh'd to them and typed "up2date -u " to get the latest packages...but that takes less than 30 seconds, and is included in my monthly retainer fee), but I've seen each of the win2k servers in the last week... so you figure who's paying me more money... yeah the windows users...
point is, its getting close, closer than I think most people realize...
as a consultant i am ACTIVELY moving my customers (small businesses and home users) over to GNU/Linux.
how do i do it?
i give every customer a free 1/2 hour of consulting to bring them up to speed on the state of the computer industry. all of my customers love getting the free 1/2 hour. after the talk they feel empowered to make informed decisions about the computing technology upon which they rely.
what do i tell them?
just the same stuff most folks on slashdot already know. some details about Microsoft's focus on customer lock-in. details about long-term computing reliability via the GPL (since most folks have experienced a forced Microsoft upgrade cycle, this is music to their ears). i note that large reputable corporations are switching to GNU/Linux (IBM's seal of approval carries a lot of weight). also, i use simple analogies like Microsoft products being automobiles with the hoods welded shut.
after that 1/2 hour talk my customers usually want to make the switch immediately.
That good work already includes respond to verbal, legal and whatever other action comes along, be adaptable, and continue to make good software. If you want to encourage supporters to do MORE OF THE SAME GOOD WORK, then "Stay the course"!
[This is about the interpretation of "Stay the course", not the rest. Encouraging more work and action is always good.]
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
Which countries on which Microsoft has the
firmest grip? Anyone have any ideas (or even
better, facts?)
My bets for the countries Microsoft has most
completely sewn up (at the Government and
therefore legislative level -- public and
industry opinions would be even more
interesting and probably give an interesting
contrast):
(1) Canada:
So vulnerable to trade sanctions with the US,
Canada GROVELS before all American big
business and corporations, more so than an
other country in the world (even America itself).
(2) USA:
Let's face it. Microsoft has the current
administration in its back pocket.
(3) Great Britian:
Over the past few years the British Government
has seemed perfectly happy to contract out
public services to Microsoft without a seconds
thought. I'm surprised Microsoft isn't buying
British Telecom...
I would say the opposite. Microsoft has from the start aimed at recruiting people "with clues". Personally, I haven't had an offer yet :-) but I know two guys who went on the PhD (most PhD:s have at least one clue) path and in the end ended up at Microsoft. It is funny that one of these guys were VERY anti-Microsoft back when we took classes together...
As we are politically inclined readers might think we're asking him the wrong questions, perhaps, but we are interested in what connections he sees in Open Source and the world at large (if any) ... and anyway we love politics....
Feel free to point browser at DIGITALAGORA.COM
---- The Open Source Record Label : : LOCARECORDS.COM
Actually... "upgrading" with Windows is anything but smooth. When I upgraded from Win 3.1 to Win95, my video didn't work (the display was monochrome red), the system was completely unstable. When I did a clean install on the same exact system, Win95 worked like a charm. In my early days as a RedHat user, I also tried an upgrade. NOT SMOOTH. It was just as bad as the Win 3.1 -> Win95 upgrade. However, after having gained a lot of experience with Linux and Windows over the past decade, I've found that you can pretty easily move to the next version of either OS as long as you know what data to save and restore. You won't lose any functionality in Linux and you won't lose most functionality in Windows.
However, the original parent poster is partially correct. It is wrong that any company should be able to extort money from anyone for something as trivial as an OS or a basic application. However, history proves that this, sadly, IS sustainable. Just look at the auto industry. They can extort large amounts of money from people around the world no matter what the economy is. But you wind up with certain consequences. Go into any impoverished region (city, state or nation) and you won't see many of the exotic or luxury cars zooming around on the road. You will see beaters, maybe some mid-level used cars, but that's it. If there does happen to be someone who has a really expensive ride, chances are that they didn't get it by totally legitimate means. (Meaning that all Apple users are crooks. Just kidding, I Love the Mac.) The one things that distinguishes computers from cars is open source-GNU/Linux, etc... It's the equivalent of being able to get car parts for your beater or mid-level used car that can improve it's performance, but not having to pay. So... while the Windows user's don't have a lot of options to upgrade their OS that are non-MS, ANY user of any flavor of Linux does. It just takes a little more effort, but it's effort well spent.
Bring on the bukkake comments...
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
From the article:
;-));
Overall, the greatest challenges we face are with the International audience -- especially the French, Germans, and Japanese.
I would say they will face a pretty strong challenge here, in Brazil. Recently we have elected a new president, Lula, and he was the only candidate to specifically say the words "Software Livre" (Free Software) while on campaing.
Besides, there are many other points:
1) Our strongest organization that promotes free software, Cipsga, was based at a state (Rio Grande do Sul), that had a governor from the same party as Lula (PT);
2) São Paulo (Brazil biggest city) uses Linux a lot on governamental projects. Over 250 "Infocentros" (info-center) are being built or are already done and they run Linux exclusively. São Paulo's mayor (Marta Suplicy) is from the same party as Lula;
3) Connectiva is from Brazil, it's a profitable Linux company that owns a lot of the South American market share. Also, a Conectiva employee, Marcelo Tosatti, is the maintainer of the version 2.4 of the Linux kernel (but we all knew this, right
4) Lately, there has been going a lot of speculation about who will be part of the governament. The top contender for the most important Tech and Science position of the governament, the minister (sp?), is a strong advocate of free software;
Here's an evidence that will put a lot more reason into what I said: One week before winning the elections, favorite in every survey, Lula received an invitation from Bill Gates to go to the USA and have a meeting with him. True! This means uncle Bill already understand the "threat" that Lula represents to his company, and its business model.
On a side note: I have a website called Inércia Sensorial with news about technology here in Brazil, and looking at my referers log, I see a lot of Google searchs that have been increasing lately, associating Lula and the free software dream and fight. Check it out what some people have searched:
Lilus Lula
Mr. Gates and Mr. da Silva (actually, that's a title from an article which I linked at my website)
So, look at Brazil for the next couple years. I am sure a lot of pro-active actions will be taken by our governament.
Buy a Nintendo DS Lite
I can't comment specifically on sound and video editing, but I've never had any of the dependency problems you mention since switching to Debian at work and Gentoo at home.
I can already hear people saying, "But those aren't particularly user-friendly distributions either," and there is some validity to that; you have to know a bit to set them up. But my point is that we have options, and once they're set up and running a Gentoo or Debian system can be quite friendly to the casual user.
I've flushed an incredible amount of time down the toilet over the past few days playing Tribes II on my Gentoo box (works just spiffy, thanks), and plan to get Unreal set up with my next round of mad money (demo worked flawlessly). I was a Red Hat cheerleader for years, they're still good for a lot, but it's the great boon and curse of any set of flexible, powerful tools that when one approach doesn't work, there are infinitely many more left over to try.
Sorry your experience didn't go so well, yes that still happens far too often, yes Windows is still easier on the initial upswing, but no, this particular at-least-as-lazy-as-the-next-guy user will not be going back to Windows any time soon, because my current setup works a lot better than any Windows box I've used ever has. YMMV.
... so now you need to rebuy all that software. The student discount prices only apply WHILE YOU ARE A STUDENT. Once you stop being a student you have to purchase the full copies. If you're still using those "cheap" student versions then you're no better than a warez pirate.
Microsoft software is expensive. You have already admitted that you're stealing it, so of course it seems cheaper to you.
Today I offer a consulting service to companies that want to use or produce Free Software. In order to do this, I enter into non-disclosure agreements with the companies, so that they can discuss possibilities with me without them ending up on Slashdot. Often I ask for the right to talk about things after they are released, if they are released, and sometimes I get it. The companies simply will not talk to me otherwise. So, I had to balance the cost of having information that I could not divulge against the benefit of being able to get some additional companies to participate in Free Software. Guess which one won?
And yes, some stuff I do simply ask them not to show me, and there are some people in the world with whom I would not enter into an NDA.
They can't pay me to change my mind or to shut up. They can pay me to honor their secrets, and once I take that payment, I'm honor-bound much as it might irk me. The point is not to take it from someone who would be hostile to us.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.