META Predicts Linux Software From Microsoft in 2004

trandles writes "According to this story at NYTimes (FRYYY), META Group is reporting that Microsoft will begin selling Linux software in 2004. It also goes on to report that a META Group study comes to the same conclusion as the earlier (MS-funded) IDC study that Linux has a higher TCO than MS solutions for some applications." Remember, this is speculation on the part of META, and has to do with back-end software, not Office. (But if Microsoft wanted to, they could become the world's biggest producer of Linux software.)

Comments

LinSolitaire?

[morbuz]

Will we finally see MS solitaire for linux?

Re:LinSolitaire?

[cscx]

Windows Solitaire was written by the well-noted eccentric Wes Cherry when he was an intern at MS in the 80s. He wrote it while goofing off one day, a manager spotted it, and said "we've got to put this thing in Windows!"

Re:LinSolitaire?

[operagost]

I wish you hadn't posted that link. I'd hoped that he was the "cool" kind of eccentric, like Woz, but he's more of the "trendy and demented" kind of eccentric.

Re:LinSolitaire?

[kenthorvath]

Repeat after me:

Aisle Riot!

Re:LinSolitaire?

[sg_oneill]

Yes yes, damn kids not taking this seriously. I fully agree, and I might add , not only do we need key apps like Office & IE, we also need productivity software like Clippy & Bob.

Re:LinSolitaire?

[Ponty]

Yes it is. It's really far away. Much further than you'd think. It's coded for Carbon, which is a subset of the old Toolbox routines which are about as far from a normal UNIX program as you can get.

I'd wager that Office v.x has almost no code that is helpful for a Linux port.

ActiveLinux?

[medscaper]

Or maybe LinuxX?

Or Linux Professional.

How about .Linux?

Visual Linux.

MSL?

Linux#?

Re:ActiveLinux?

[medscaper]

Insecure(tm) Linux?

Un-Free Linux?

Blue Screen of Linux?

Maybe All-Your-Torvalds-Are-Belong-to-Microsoft?

In Soviet Russia, Linu(*BANG!!!!*)

Re:ActiveLinux?

[1gor]

Naaay, X-Windows.

Re:ActiveLinux?

[Annoyed Coward]

You already have one :-D

Re:ActiveLinux?

[yobbo]

How about "Lindows"

Re:ActiveLinux?

[Skweetis]

Windex.

Re:ActiveLinux?

[GunFodder]

It will be called Microsoft Windows LX, because everyone knows Linux is just another first in the long line of M$ innovations.

Cool

[Squareball]

Hey, even if they wanted to put out Office for Linux, I say GREAT! If they started puting out apps for linux, maybe other companies will follow suit, and then maybe we can stop being dependandt on Microsoft for their OS.

Re:Cool

[turgid]

But still be dependent on them for their applications?

Re:Cool

[Junior J. Junior III]

I'm only in favor of MS Office if they open up the file formats so that .doc is fully interchangable with other office productivity suites. The level of interoperability we currently have is OK a lot of the time, but it could be better, and I won't be totally happy until the original application used to create the file is completely transparent to someone viewing the file.

Re:Cool

[DJPenguin]

Why not? At least you can [close|kill|deinstall] an application...

Re:Cool

[turgid]

I think the point is to stop the MS monopoly by there being alternative products to those of MS, and allowing other software vendors to participate in the market. If M$ Office were suddenly to appear on Linux and every other version of UNIX, it's just possible that MS would kill any last vestage of competition. Luckily, OpenOffice etc. have got some momentum behind them already so that probably won't happen. Can you imagine a world in which you could choose whatever word processor you like as long as it's Word?

Re:Cool

[MikeDX]

Can you imagine a world in which you could choose whatever word processor you like as long as it's Word?

Welcome to the world of 75% of all offices.

You will use the software we provide as installed, or not at all.

Re:Cool

[Squareball]

That is the thing. Most people don't use windows because of Microsoft applications, they use it because of other applications such as Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Flash.. etc. If Microsoft started porting their apps to Linux, then i'm sure Adobe would do the same and so would Macromedia. If you could run Photoshop, Dreamweaver and Flash on linux, then why pay the money for WindowsXP? Once other companies stop forcing you to use Windows to use their products, people can finally ditch Windows.

Re:Cool

[FyRE666]

Hey, even if they wanted to put out Office for Linux, I say GREAT! If they started puting out apps for linux, maybe other companies will follow suit, and then maybe we can stop being dependandt on Microsoft for their OS.

And you've just stated the sole reason you WON'T be seeing Office running on a Linux machine anytime sooH^H^H^ever. For many people, Office is the only package they need, so why would they pay for WindowsDMCA in the future if they can just buy Office and put it on a Free OS (which is also handily mostly immune to the virii that infest Windows machines)?

Re:Cool

[IamTheRealMike]

If M$ Office were suddenly to appear on Linux and every other version of UNIX, it's just possible that MS would kill any last vestage of competition.

Well that's already happened, anybody that wants to can run MS Office on Linux via CrossOver. Running an app under Wine is pretty much the same as running it on Windows integration-wise, the only difference really being themeing (or lack of it). But somehow most of use all use OpenOffice. Perhaps because, good though Office is, it isn't worth the price they charge for it?

Re:Cool

[m00nun1t]

...such as the XML support in Office 11? I've seen it and it's pretty cool. There's been previous threads on /. from people who know more about XML than your or I saying the Office 11 XML format is not perfect, but pretty good and certainly good enough.

Re:Cool

[Eagle5596]

The real problem with the .doc format is there is so much junk inside! Instead of being smart and making a clean file format for documents, .doc ends up including a lot of useless junk and redundancies. Not to mention some of the versions I have used of microsoft editors instead of removing old codes, insert new ones to to cancel out the old ones... bad programming. So I guess the problem is two fold, with a portion of it being that the primary editor is sooo bad. Personally I always used WordPerfect when I worked in a Windows environment. Now that I use only Linux, I stick it LaTeX.

Re:Cool

[Tim C]

More than that - I run Linux at work, but have Windows XP running installed in a VMWare virtual machine, for two reasons:

a) I do (mostly) server-side web work, and so sometimes have to test stuff in IE

b) despite being a programmer working in Java and HTML/JSP, I still have to deal with Word documents

Point b) is by far the most important. Why would any business switch to an alternative, when they already own Word, and all their clients and partners use Word? If the alternative's import filters aren't 100% perfect, it isn't going to happen.

Re:Cool

[Junior J. Junior III]

That's a good point, although I would assume that some of the redundant stuff is for version tracking and "Undo" layers.

I forgot to mention the prospect of being vulnerable to macro viruses isn't all that attractive, either.

And, doesn't MS implement some kind of hidden identification that attaches itself to files, so that if a copy of software you have registered in your name gets used to commit any sort of crime, from fraud to threats to virus propagation to free expression of political ideas that are unacceptable to the current regime, they can easily identify the source?

Re:Cool

[CyberDruid]

Give a man a fish, he owes you one fish.
Teach a man to fish, you give up your monopoly on fisheries.

Thus tricking the judge into letting you of the hook on the anti-trust suite regarding your other monopolies. Your ideas intrigue me...

Re:Cool

[joshsisk]

Most people? That is a bit general I think, unless you are talking about home users?

First off, yes, if you say something like "most people", you are generalizing.

Second, yes, if you say something like "most people", you are probably including home users. Most people aren't programmers who read slashdot, as much as all wish that were true.

Re:Cool

[Kashif Shaikh]

Which thus concludes Microsoft will never write software for Linux as long as they want to make $$$ from their OS.

To think it of another way, MS Applications are the 'value-added' portion of the Windows OS.

Re:Cool

[egreB]

Since English isn't my native language, I'm wondering if you meant that ironically or not. If you were, disregard this message, sorry, ha-ha and all that (-8

Else; why would you enslave everyone in your corporate? Why would you him to pay you off that first fish? If you give (taste the word) someone something, it's theirs. If you demand interests of it, it's a loan. I'm all for giving something, especially since I've got enough of everything.

Re:Cool

[diamondc]

Yes.. the MAC address of the NIC card is included in a .doc or anything you write using MS Office. This is how they caught the person in the Philippenes who wrote some virus that came out last year.

Re:Cool

[xchino]

Dreamweaver and Flash run fine under wine, Photshop I don't know about, I use gimp.. but I agree, actually having these companies port the software to a native linux format would rock.

Re:Cool

[mmol_6453]

That reminds me of a screw-up in some Fortune 500 company that someone on Slashdot mentioned a few years ago.

Sensitive information was removed from a Word document, which was then sent outside the company. A quick Edit->Undo revealed the information that had been "removed."

Someone followed up with a comment about how documents in the CIA and NSA were required to be plain ASCII. (I obviously can't vouch for the authenticity of that, though.)

Re:Cool

[mmol_6453]

I think you're right. That sounds more familiar. (I had to fill in information I couldn't quite recall.)

Re:Cool

[stephanruby]

"Running an app under Wine is pretty much the same as running it on Windows integration-wise, the only difference really being themeing (or lack of it). "

Mike, are you in propaganda-mode? or honest-trying-to-be-helpful-mode? Honestly, since when did Wine get this good?

Re:Cool

[Jucius Maximus]

"Yes.. the MAC address of the NIC card is included in a .doc or anything you write using MS Office. This is how they caught the person in the Philippenes who wrote some virus that came out last year."

That person in the Philippines didn't think to install the patch released by Microsoft that prevents the GUID from being written to Microsoft Office files.

Re:Cool

[IamTheRealMike]

You know me, just try-to-be-helpful :)

I should have paraphrased that with - when it works. Check out these screenshots: http://users.theshell.com/~vinn/ss/Mike_Hearn/

Blue screens...

[Anonymous Coward]

I always wanted a blue screen kernel module.

Sure..

[simpleguy]

But remember there is a difference between selling

1. Closed source, commercial Linux software
2. Open Sourced/GPLed Linux software.

Hah, they'll probably GPL notepad.

Re:Sure..

[OrangeSpyderMan]

Do you really know of no companies that sell GPL software? Can you see me from the moon? :-)

Re:Sure..

[IamTheRealMike]

Hah, they'll probably GPL notepad.

Why bother when Wine Notepad (an almost exact recreation) is LGPLd?

Re:Sure..

[jdkane]

Hah, they'll probably GPL notepad.

Up until Windows XP, Notepad had a weird bug whereby resizing the window might cause the internal typing position to become misaligned from the actual cursor position. As far as I can tell, that bug remained for years. Maybe it has been fixed in Windows 2000 too .. I can't remember.

It only makes sense

[oren]

Now that it is proved that Linux TCO is higher than Windows, why settle for a second best? Obviously they'd move to the platform more expensive to the customer. After all, they have to make a living, right?

Re:It only makes sense

[gazbo]

No matter how many unbiased professionally conducted surveys there are to show that Windoze is cheaper than Linux, it still doesn't change the fact that it is just clearly and obviously untrue.

Re:It only makes sense

[unoengborg]

Actually this time they said it was more expensive on the server side. This could be true or not, it all depends. If you are a small company and still have some windows boxes and just use Linux as a complement for some specific service it might be true.

Linux is typically good at handle many users, and a Linux admin can handle thousands of them. But what if you only have 100 people in your company, and still have to use windows for something on the server side. This could result in that you had to hire one extra sysadmin for Linux that was idle most of the time while you still had to have a couple of full time windows admins.

And to be fair modern windows version can keep alive for several months provided you only run one service/box. And if you have tvow boxes for each service you provide you can do schedueled reboots regularly like MS recommends and get very high uptime figures

This gives you slightly higher hardware costs and licensing costs but compared to hiring one more person it is still cheaper.

It is another matter if you apply Linux thin client systems for your desktops then you could expect large savings with Linux. This is waht the city of Largo did and cut their costs in half.

So what system that gives you the lowest TCO is something only you can calculate,it depends on your specific needs.

Re:It only makes sense

[digidave]

Why was this modded as Insightful? It's funny, people, F-U-N-something-something.

Re:It only makes sense

[zmooc]

It's the uptime of the service they're talking about, not the uptime of the server. Apart from that it's pretty common not to count scheduled downtime.

MS could take control of Linux

[91degrees]

All they need to do is create a free (as in beer) X-semi-compatible, but faster GUI. Then release Word for it.

Embrace, extend, control. After a while, everyone will write software for Microsoft X# or X++ or X-Windows(tm) or whatever they call it, and MS will call the shots.

Re:MS could take control of Linux

[Surak]

Shhhh! Don't give them any ideas! :-P

Re:MS could take control of Linux

[ishark]

All they need to do is create a free (as in beer) X-semi-compatible, but faster GUI. Then release Word for it.

Ok, and the situation will end up being identical to today, with people locked in MS X# or whatever instead of windows. In what way would this take control of linux? X11 and all the apps would still exists and you would still be able to use them.
The only consequence would be to get some extra kernel debugging and lots of linux kernels running in the background of desktop PCs.

They can't change X# to make it only compatible with the special closed-source Microsoft-approved linux kernel, because the kernel is GPL. Actually, Microsoft would give a lot of power in the hands of Linus: a few touches here and there and it would be update nightmare for Microsoft to make sure that their interface runs on every new release of the kernel.....

I think you are assuming that the only things MS wants is "control", while the aim is profit: control is only a mean to it. And this new scenario does not bring in any additional profit.

Re:MS could take control of Linux

[chabotc]

Wow wouldn't that be something! Now you might assume that this would be a bad thing; I think a lot of slashdot users might think this way.

However, the main downsides historicly for MS Windows is all the dirty tricks they pull to get more performance and features.. Putting graphics in ring-0 (kernel space), and even putting webserver stuff there!

Now imagine MS X-Windows(Tm). All the UI research and man-centuries of coding pooring into it, however without control over the kernel, file systems, and based on (and hopefully even contributed to) gcc/glibc/etc. Linux filesystems, network stacks, and the other alternatives that already exist on linux!

Then they might still call the shots for the UI (though XFree86 will still exist, so will kde/gnome) but the control over the 'platform' they would loose.

This would have the same positive effect as the sugested splitting up MS into sepperate Windows, User Apps and Server Apps companies..

Heh, if they ever do decide to do so, atleast we saved them the effort of porting linux to the X-Box They could even use wine as a basis to run 'legacy apps' ;-)

Re:MS could take control of Linux

[AmigaAvenger]

That is the beauty of the gpl, linus would be irrevalent. MS would for the kernel and never look back, why would they!

Re:MS could take control of Linux

[IamTheRealMike]

I think you are assuming that the only things MS wants is "control", while the aim is profit: control is only a mean to it. And this new scenario does not bring in any additional profit.

Well, the whole IE vs Netscape thing didn't really get them any profit did it. IE has only ever made a huge loss - the only reason it seems to exist was because Microsoft were afraid of losing control.

Re:MS could take control of Linux

[IamTheRealMike]

Embrace, extend, control. After a while, everyone will write software for Microsoft X# or X++ or X-Windows(tm) or whatever they call it, and MS will call the shots.

Considering the almost rabid hate of Microsoft that characterises a lot of the Linux developer community, I think that Satan would be going to work in a snow plough before that happened.

Oh, and who's to say X won't be better than the Windows GUI system by that time? X already has features that Windows doesn't even if you ignore network transparency. I prefer the graphics on my Linux box in fact, I get better antialiasing on it.

Re:MS could take control of Linux

[AmigaAvenger]

*dam sticky keyboard, should be FORK the kernel!* That is the beauty of the gpl, linus would be irrevalent. MS would fork the kernel and never look back, why would they!

Re:MS could take control of Linux

[Basje]

Because they cannot call it Linux then, that's why. Linux is a trademark, owned by Linus Thorvalds.

Re:MS could take control of Linux

[Big Mark]

MS wants control as it is the easiest way to make profits. MS are lazy, and they crave easy, hassle-free solutions to the problem of making more money. Controlling the Linux desktop software market would mean throttling one of it's revenue streams (Windows OS), and the non-Windows segment of the OS market is too small to stomach the massive price rises MS would need to put on Office to maintain their profits.

It's not going to happen, unless MS is forced to GPL Windows. Or WINE gets 100% app support... hey, I can dream, can't I? ;=]

-Mark

Re:MS could take control of Linux

[ishark]

Well, the whole IE vs Netscape thing didn't really get them any profit did it.

It "only" provided a 90+% installed base of browsers which support their standard instead of the normal one. A standard which, surprise surprise, is fully accessible when using their http server (otherwise, forget about the neat extensions).

This is the main difference with "free-as-in-speech": a 100% marketshare in free software does not give you leverage to extend monopoly in another market. On the contrary, proprietary protocols give you this power (proprietary = either that the protocol is unknown or that it's supported only by a specific proprietary app). Netscape was dangerous because, even if is now portrayed at the poor victim of the gorilla, was trying to play the very same game with their "agressively embracing open standards" (= adding new extensions) which, surprise again, were better supported by their http server. Microsoft had no control on the platform where that server would be running: in particular it would not have been NT Windows-only.

Re:MS could take control of Linux

[ColdGrits]

True.

However, they can just call it "Linucks" or "Linuk" or even "Winux".

Problem solved from their point of view.

After all, if such confusing nomenclature is good enough for the Lindows crew...

Re:MS could take control of Linux

[gazbo]

LOL! I get it!

You're saying that MS are like the Borg ROFL!

Re:MS could take control of Linux

[g4dget]

I seriously doubt it. X11 is a protocol, not a library or an API or and implementation. Microsoft can't "take over" that protocol. And Microsoft would be hard pressed creating an implementation of X11 that's much better than XFree86---XFree86 is quite good (in fact, XFree86 is quite good compared to the Windows graphics subsystem).

When people talk about X11 being supposedly slow, they usually mean desktops and toolkits like Gnome/Gtk+ and KDE/Qt. Microsoft could do better in that area by designing a better X11 toolkit, but I doubt they will.

Most likely, Microsoft will port MFC to X11, and they will end up with something pretty similar to Gtk+ and Qt: toolkits that work well enough but don't take good advantage of X11. It's just one more toolkit for X11.

Re:MS could take control of Linux

[moderators_are_w*nke]

Actually, Microsoft would give a lot of power in the hands of Linus: a few touches here and there and it would be update nightmare for Microsoft to make sure that their interface runs on every new release of the kernel.....

I don't recall Linus being particularly anti-microsoft (or anti anyone really). He gives the impression he would just be happy that somebody is using his work

Re:MS could take control of Linux

[Melantha_Bacchae]

91degrees wrote:

> We're safe for now.

For a very short now. Make good use of it by grabbing every bit of Microsoft's marketshare that you can.

> MS makes all their profit on Word and Windows.
> This would mean that they can only make a profit
> on the Word processor since they're giving away
> the GUI and OS, thus halving their profits.

No, they will be basically giving both Office and OS away, as free as AOL disks. Use of the software will be charged for, again and again, and the software will stop working when you stop paying.

At that point, it won't matter what the software is running on. .Net will let it run where ever .Net is ported to. A Microsoft port exists for OS X. And Microsoft has duped a bunch of open source developers into porting it to Linux, saving Microsoft the development costs.

The name of the game is "Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish".

And if you think Microsoft has played that game like hardball, you haven't seen anything yet.

"At this moment, it has control of systems all over the world.
And...we can't do a damn thing to stop it."
Miyasaka, "Godzilla 2000 Millennium" (Japanese version)

Homage to Fairy Mothra, who first appeared on this date in 1994.

Re:MS could take control of Linux

[Guppy06]

"In what way would this take control of linux? X11 and all the apps would still exists and you would still be able to use them."

In what way could Windows take control of DOS? GEM and all the apps would still exist and you would still be able to use them.

(Replace GEM with the DOS GUI of your choice).

Re:MS could take control of Linux

[Steve B]

However, they can just call it "Linucks" or "Linuk" or even "Winux".

Well, the T-Shirt for the last one is out there (but probably OOP).

Re:MS could take control of Linux

[HamNRye]

Actually, Microsoft would give a lot of power in the hands of Linus: a few touches here and there and it would be update nightmare for Microsoft to make sure that their interface runs on every new release of the kernel.....

Linux isn't done until WinX won't run?? I would certainly hope that this is not the case. For that matter, MS could release their own kernel and not have to worry about it. So long as they complied with the licensing and submitted changes and made the kernel and its source available via FTP, Linus can't stop them from doing anything but calling it Linux.

That's the point of Open Source. The EULA turns IP into a bludgeon, not the GPL.

As for the ability to profit, if 40% of the market turns to Linux, (as proposed in the report we are commenting on...) how many potential customers are there for Office on Linux??

Why would MS release a proprietary X?? Well, could be easier to port. No LGPL library issues to be concerned about, could only require minor changes to the actual Office codebase for porting. I think it is far fetched.

MS doesnt want control, it wants synergy. BIll G wants every consumer to need Office, so they have to have Windows, etc... If bill could get every consumer to walk out of a CompUSA with 1,000 $5 boxes or one $5,000 box, he wants them buying lots and lots of $5 boxes. (for $30...)

~Hammy

Or they could

[kingkade]

...revive Xenix?

Hmm, interesting. I think they'd more likely release software for *BSD. And probably colsed source at that or open source under a much more restrictive license than a BSD or GPL one.

Re:Or they could

[turgid]

Xenix is a 16-bit unix. It was written for the 286. :-) They already did release Office for BSD i.e. Mac OS X.

Re:Or they could

[kingkade]

Xenix is a 16-bit unix. It was written for the 286. :-)

Well, I don't mean release the last version they had in the boiler room in Redmond HQ, holding the door closed :)

They already did release Office for BSD i.e. Mac OS X.

Good point :), but its certainly not under open and it's probably under their standard EULA.

Well, if they wanted to release a new *nix variant, all they would have to do is go with a BSD system, like MacOS has done. Maybe even create their own windowing system like Apple. The BSD license will leave them free to do whatever they wish, to make a commercial BSD flavor without any IP/patent problems.

Re:Or they could

[turgid]

That's like saying OpenOffice doesn't run on Linux, it really runs on X, since OpenOffice runs on X which sits on top of Linux.

Re:Or they could

[Fished]

That's like saying OpenOffice doesn't run on Linux, it really runs on X, since OpenOffice runs on X which sits on top of Linux.

Yes, and if he did say that he would be correct. In many ways, a *nix kernel is a *nix kernel, and presents a very similar interface to the developer regardless of the particular flavor. OS X vs. Aqua, on the other hand, are totally different API's, in different languages, running on a different rendering backend, on different hardware. The differences between Aqua and X are much larger than the diffs between any two modern kernel api's.

It's Reuters, not NY Times

[agentZ]

This story was written by Reueters, not the New York Times. You can view this story at other sites with no registration. Yahoo.

Here's another source...

[Masa]

Here's a story from ZDNet UK about this:

ZDNet UK

No registrations required.

Re:It's free in Yahoo.

[RyoSaeba]

Actually, it should be this

Re:It's free in Yahoo.

[ParnBR]

Sorry, I'm not a copy and paste guru. No matter what I did, the above URL didn't work.

In other news!

[Hellkitten]

2008 winter olympics to be held in hell

I'll believe this when I see it. Microsoft releasing any kind of product for linux would be like admitting defeat. Customers would ask why they develop product for an inferior[1] platform. What we might see is some microsoft funded third party developing linux software (as in frontpage extensions for apache)

[1]: Not my opinion, but that's what they'll ask microsoft

MS OFFICE for Linux

[katalyst]

Microsoft is already planning to keep Office 11 on Windows 2000 and the XP platform only. It may make sense for them to actually market MS Office 2000 for Linux. After all, they make a helluva lota money from their Office suite. It's a product, it's an MS product and it's widely accepted. Ofcourse, that MAY encourage more users to jump to Linux, but atleast they will be generating revenues from the Office suite sales. The other questions is - will Linux geeks touch Office for Linux ? The point here is - if you are paying for Star Office, why not pay for MS Office, especially if it runs on Linux ?

Re:MS OFFICE for Linux

[ColdGrits]

" if you are paying for Star Office, why not pay for MS Office, especially if it runs on Linux ? "

Price of M$ Office - $499.99
Price of StarOffice - $ 59.99

You do the maths...

(Sourcfe - www.amazon.com - ymmv but not by HTAT much!)

Re:MS OFFICE for Linux

[katalyst]

Well.. its not like MS will sell an older version of Office for that high a price... but then again, its MS. And if MS is planning to enter the "Open Source Market", they would be fools to price their products so high. It's all speculation.......

Another approach

[leehwtsohg]

They could also write a faster, more secure OS, that does not crash. Then sell it for production cost+1$/copy, and release
the source code. That would ruin linux!

Re:Another approach

[ZeLonewolf]

They could also write a faster, more secure OS, that does not crash. Then sell it for production cost+1$/copy, and release
the source code.

Have you used Windows XP lately? Not to be a troll, but it really is faster and doesn't crash anymore... I installed it 10 days ago, and it's been up and running since, under heavy usage too, I might add...

As for secure, well, who knows...we'll see what the next big MS security holes are.. and as for price and open-source-ness, still a long way to go there.

In terms of usability and stability, MS has really come a long way from then Windows 9X days...the latest Windows seems to, in my opinion, have caught up to Linux in terms of stability, and is close behind in terms of speed as well... Of course, the argument of MS being an evil monopolistic company with equally evil business practices still certainly stands :-)

Re:Another approach

[phil reed]

The actual OS is fairly secure and stable.

Yeah, as long as you don't consider a Shatter attack.

Re:Another approach

[ArtDent]

Have you used Windows XP lately? Not to be a troll, but it really is faster and doesn't crash anymore... I installed it 10 days ago, and it's been up and running since, under heavy usage too, I might add...

I have, I have! I was using it last night. Apparently, I tried to run too many programs at the same time. It warned me that it was increasing the size of my paging file, and then it started thrashing. I started closing applications, but it seemed painfully unable to reclaim memory from them.

I spent half an hour trying to properly close the 6-odd applications I was running, before giving up and killing them.

I can only wonder how it performs under your "heavy usage," when six desktop apps do this to it. I agree that great progress has been made since Windows 9X, but in my book, it still has a ways to go.

Re:Another approach

[evilpenguin]

"Inferior/superior" are such loaded words. Let's try to be a bit more objective. The design of NT is more "advanced" (incorporates more recent design concepts) than the Linux kernel (which holds to older and more "traditional" systems software designs). It is more "sophisticated" than the Linux kernel (again, a microkernel design where the "monolithic" part of the kernel handles only processes and interprocess communications) and thus permits a more modular OS that can be transformed, expanded, changed, with theoretically much greater speed and much smaller chance of unwanted side effects from those changes.

All of these advantages are theoretical. They also carry some disadvantages, notably in performance.

People have argued for years that traditional monolithic kernels must reach the point where network effects in the code make every change too expensive to make (too much chance of side-effects). So far, this hasn't happened with the Linux kernel. I'm only an amateur kernel hacker (working on reverse engineering an old framebuffer video card so I can make a kernel driver for it) and I don't claim to know much of the Linux kernel code (apart from the framebuffer), but it sure looks to me like the Linux kernel has managed to acheive a similar level of code independence by using good structure programming practice.

As for the superior "security" of the microkernel model, this comes from that same separation of service processes. Compromise a microkernel service and you cannot (in theory) leverage that into a compromise of other services. At the service level, this is true. A Mach or NT microkernel has this feature. The problem is that the Windows kernel isn't the Windows OS. The Windows OS is the gigantic flabby shared APIs written as DLLs. These are the things that are attacked and compromised. These sit on top of all of the sophisticated kernel plumbing and they provide a path to blithely leap between unprivlidged and privledged user space in the stuff that matters: network, file, and directory services. You don't need to compromise any kernel service to own a Windows box because it the is the Win32 APIs that have the holes, not the kernel services (Yes, I know I'm making rather broad generalizations, but the point is still true). Much of "Windows" privledge/authentication/authorization is in "user land" code. Microsoft emphasizes the sophistication of their underlying microkernel architecture. And I agree. The trouble is they have carried over the top much of the cruft from the design of the win16 and pre-NT win32 APIs in the name of backward compatibility and this has carried forward fundmental design weaknesses from those systems.

To be fair to Microsoft, these weakenesses weren't particularly problematic when they were introduced. At the time, each machine was an isolated, single-user device. Little or no networking was done with them. Also to be fair, Microsoft really didn't have a choice but to be backward compatible. They never would have got any users for NT if it didn't run all or nearly all existing software. I'll go further: they never would have got ISVs to switch to win32 if they hadn't done Windows95, marketed it like the second coming, and required ISVs to use win32 if they wanted the "Works with Windows95" logo. The much-maligned Windows 95 was the only reason every major piece of Windows software came to run well on NT.

So feel free to bandy the words "inferior" and "superior" but I defy you to provide and objective criterion by which you may fairly apply those words to the two kernels. "More advanced" v. "Less advanced", yes. "Sophisticated" v. "Simple", yes. I don't buy "superior" v. "inferior," unless you believe that newer necessarily means "better," which, obviously I do not accept.

I also do not buy the statement that these weaknesses "are a thing of the past." They have done a great job of cleaning up many of the holes, but the DLL hosted APIs are still a bridge that just circumvents the good kernel design. They have plugged thousands of holes, but the system design is still subject to them, just as the Linux kernel is.

I do agree that 2000 and XP are vastly more stable than any previous versions of Windows, but this is a product of API cleanup, not the inherent "superiority" of the NT kernel. The "NT" kernel has had these "superior" features from day one and it conferred no magic "superiority" or stability on early versions of NT.

Re:Another approach

[scrytch]

> (for instance that the task manager wouldn't kill "with extreme prejudice"

There have been command line kills for NT for quite some time. I found some of these will kill *anything*. Including SERVICES.EXE. My, does windows complain mightily when you do that. Forced reboot. I'm very fond of pskill from sysinternals, it's like killall (pkill on solaris) and you can use it to whack processes on remote machines (yes, you have to be authenticated). Of course there's ssh on unix, but it doesn't tie in to the system auth scheme. Methinks rsh needs to be raised from its scorned place and put back in a prominent position for system administration -- it can after all work with PAM.

Come to think of it, remote administration is the thing I really love and hate about NT.

Re:Another approach

[Graspee_Leemoor]

It's called FreeBSD.

graspee

Re:Another approach

[DunbarTheInept]

or will you claim that other operating systems (probably Linux) somehow magically expand the amount of memory that your system has?

Re-read his post. His complaint wasn't about running out of memory. It was about being unable to back out of the situation by killing a process.

Re:Another approach

[Henry V .009]

Sounds like bad hardware. Check out your drivers and try running memtest.

Re:Another approach

[evilpenguin]

Uh, I was the guy pointing out the Linux kernel is NOT inferior remember? I was asking the person calling the NT kernel "superior" to give me one objective criterion whereby it was. I already believe the Linux kernel to be superior in features and performance, although "traditional" in architecture. I was arguing that having a newer and "more sophisticated" design doesn't make it superior. A sledgehammer with a fibreglass handle has a "more sophisticated" design than one with a hickory handle, but I don't think it can be said to be superior. So, thanks for violently agreeing with me!

(Oh, just to prove that I'm fair to the opposition, "pluggable modules" and "kernel services" are similar in purpose, so, yes NT does have that. NTFS is a journaling filesystem. And if FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, and NTFS can be said to be "multiple filesystems," then, yes, NT has that too. Zerocopy was one of the things NT folks used to beat up on Linux about. Yes, in many places they have zerocopy for slamming on benchmarks, mostly on the protocol stack and IIS. Linux zerocopy was in direct response. Yes, you can run encrypted filesystems on NT, if you BUY some software to do it. Personally, I think the Linux kernel is in most respects superior to the NT kernel, most notably in being Free Software, a value people tend to overlook when the start "feature flaming." When it comes down to non-MS kernel people talking about the merits of the NT kernel, we are a) guessing, b) parroting, c) reverse engineering d) any combination of the above. The fact that I can't know ANYTHING about the NT kernel but what MS tells me is the largest way in which Linux is superior to NT/2000/XP/MP/UP/KP whatever.)

Re:Another approach

[jonadab]

> Have you used Windows XP lately?

I have at work.

> Not to be a troll, but it really is faster

I somehow failed to notice the "faster" part. I multiboot Mandrake 8
on the same hardware and it's very comparable, performance-wise. If
anything, I'm not stressing WinXP as much, because I'm not running
things like Apache and mysqld in the background, since I do most of
my work on the other OS. I just boot WinXP to test stuff on it.

> I installed it 10 days ago

Well, I'm sure that's _plenty_ of time to discover all the problems
with it. (Heck, I've been using Mandrake 8 extensively for going
on a year and am still finding problems with it...)

> As for secure, well, who knows...

The privilege escalation that the other user was talking about is,
in my opinion, irrelevant for most systems. Just don't give random
untrusted people an account, simple as that. (Windows is not made
for hosting shell accounts... any ISP that tries that is just asking
for trouble.)

Of course, there are a number of well-known ways to exploit Windows
systems remotely, but almost (?) all of them involve applications
or services, not the OS as such. In particular, we all know IIS
and Outlook and MSIE are insecure, but there's nothing stopping you
from running Apache and Pegasus Mail and Netscape on Windows XP,
if you actually care about security. (The question of so many
clueless people who don't know better using the default config
and allowing their PCs to become DDOS zombies is a separate
discussion. Anyway, denial of service is a separate class of
attack from actual breaches of security.)

All the shatter attack does is turn every remote exploit into a
remote root exploit -- but in most cases, a remote root exploit
is not substantially worse than a remote exploit with user privs,
because user privs are almost always sufficent to do Very Bad
Things (such as delete the user's data files, send personal
information over the internet, or run a DDOS zombie). The major
exception to this, of course, is when you have multiple internet
services running on the same box (e.g., the same computer is your
mail server and also is your web server). I'm quickly reaching
the conclusion that for any important application (such as ISP
stuff), one-service-per-box is a policy worthy of much repetition.

> In terms of usability and stability, MS has really come a long
> way from then Windows 9X

I'll certainly grant Windows XP is more stable than Windows 9x.
There really isn't any question about that. And it's stable
enough for most home users, who turn the thing off every night
anyway "to stop that noise". Some of us demand more... I use
Mandrake 8, and I've become annoyed with the need to reboot
each and every time I want to install new internal components,
such as a new sound card, more RAM, new hard drive... it's a
neverending reboot-fest. I want a platform that supports hot-
swapping of everything including the motherboard and power
supply, darnit.

Re:Another approach

[jonadab]

> I guess what I'm saying is that the way it used to be, speaking
> very generally, was that you had the choice between an OS that
> was stable and reliable and one that was easy to use. In the days
> hence, Microsoft has come leaps and bounds in the stability
> realm...and Linux has come leaps and bounds in the useability

Oh. Yes I can go along with that. Windows '95 was pretty easy
to use in 1996 (provided you didn't have to _install_ it, that
is), and Linux was fairly stable, so I'm told; personally I didn't
use Linux until early 1998 (though it was a secondhand copy of a
CheapBytes Debian CD set, so it was probably really 1997 vintage
stuff I was using), and at that point "easy to use" is not an
adjective I would have used to describe it -- nor would I ever
call Windows 95 stable (unless comparing it Mac System 6 or
something along those lines, and I'm not sure that would be a
useful comparison).

Big news?

[jki]

META Group is reporting that Microsoft will begin selling Linux software in 2004.

I think it is rather obvious. As they must by 2004 have realized, that they cannot kill Linux as an OS - they will just have to start making money with it - by SELLING their products ported and tailored to run on it. It is just so easy to actively forget, that Microsoft is much more than just the operating system - they have multiple products that could actually benefit many - even (and especially) if people want to keep running Linux. I could easily name some Microsoft products, which I would like to see running on Linux - ones that would enable myself to stop running two operating systems at work, for example.

Already producing Office for BSD...

[mhocker]

Microsoft already produces a version of Office for a BSD-like operating system - MacOS X - so the skills are clearly there. Explorer and a few other products are produced through their "Macintosh business unit" which has a supposedly healthy relationship with the rest of MSFT.

Actually, if you think about it, it makes a lot of sense for MSFT to have a "Linux business unit". Just like MSFT likes to keep Apple on a leash to provide them with cutting-edge ideas on user interface and applications, they could do the same with Linux in regards to security and server software.

Re:Already producing Office for BSD...

[cbowland]

There is something immensely satisfying about pulling up a terminal window on my OSX box and seeing ms office running as a process.

and bring clippy to linux...

[zensonic]

... thanks but no thanks. I like my linux box just the way it is. It's about time that clippy took a hint and stayed out of other peoples buissnes.

Office for Linux (was Re: Cool)

[Surak]

Admittedly, if Microsoft thought that OpenOffice or any other office suite on Linux or other OSes represented serious competition to Microsoft Office, all they would have to do is port Office to Linux and they would own the office suite market, but at the expense of their OS monopoly. The only reason Office for Macintosh exists is to keep the DOJ, the FTC, and the courts off their back.

Re:Office for Linux (was Re: Cool)

[Locutus]

You got it. It's the OS that is key to Microsofts existance and that is why they will only port to another OS, which competes against MS Windows, when they are half the size they are today. IMO, they will continue to use every legal and illegal trick in the book to keep the Windows monopoly intact.

Windows is their pot of gold and I doubt they will give that up for a bag of silver. Think about it. Everything they make or even lose money on leverages the Windows OS. When Microsoft makes apps for Linux it will be a great day indeed but only because it will mean the end of the evil empire. ;)

LoB

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:It's free in Yahoo.

[Technician]

The lamenesss filter stuck a space in the middle of it. I hate it when cut and paste is cut alter and paste.

Comapred....?

[rant-mode-on]

• In a further shift, META Group said that Microsoft will also re-price or separate its Windows server operating system ``so that it can be favorably compared against 'free' Linux.''

Surely they mean including all of their server software so that can favourably^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H be compare against 'free'

Re:'Porting' doesn't mean 'develop'

[mirko]

Exactly, IIRC, Corel Office (previously Wordperfect Office) for Linux was running other some cpu-hog-emulation layer...
So, I guess it'd be easy to port but...
Do MS want this ?
IMHO, they'd rather keep Exchange clients on Win*.* only so that their customers won't migrate.

I didn't know Bill was sick

[wowbagger]

My condolences to the Gates family - what does Bill have? Cancer? Alzheimers? AIDS? ALS? CJD?

Whatever he has, my condolences. I know what it is like to hear your loved one only has about a year left. The next few months will be hard, but know that you will get through it, and while it never gets better, it gets easier.
</humor>

Because the only way Microsoft will start selling software for Linux is over Bill Gates' cold, dead body. So the only way you can say that MS will be selling Linux software in 2004 is to say that Bill is not long for this world.

And somehow I doubt Bill is even sick.

Re:I didn't know Bill was sick

[sql*kitten]

Because the only way Microsoft will start selling software for Linux is over Bill Gates' cold, dead body.

And he told you this personally, did he?

MS write and have written software for a number of platforms. Office for Mac, MSIE for Solaris, CLR for FreeBSD to name but a few. Bill and Microsoft do what they do because they believe it will generate the most value for their shareholders - if the competitive landscape changes, so will they. Look how fast they changed their Internet strategy, for example.

Re:I didn't know Bill was sick

[Fjord]

MS actually does already sell software for linux. For example, there is a SourceSafe client for Linux 2.x.x.

Re:I didn't know Bill was sick

[SAN1701]

My condolences to the Gates family - what does Bill have? Cancer? Alzheimers? AIDS? ALS? CJD?

GPF?

Re:I didn't know Bill was sick

[Locutus]

MS write and have written software for a number of platforms. Office for Mac, MSIE for Solaris, CLR for FreeBSD to name but a few. Bill and Microsoft do what they do because they believe it will generate the most value for their shareholders - if the competitive landscape changes, so will they. Look how fast they changed their Internet strategy, for example.

And Microsoft did these things( Office for Mac, MS IE for Solaris, and CLR for FreeBSD, etc ) for shareholder profits? The numbers don't show that. IMO, MS IE for Solaris was a way to pay the company that did the port so there would be one company who could afford to license the Win32 APIs and kill all the others. Remember the Bristol court case? As far as MS Office for Mac goes, that was provided only because of the DOJ case AND more importantly to get Netscape and Java off of the Mac desktop.

Microsoft only makes shareholder profits by illegally leveraging it's OS monopoly. IMHO. Palm still has a huge marketshare but when they were at +80% marketshare did you ever see a MS product? You saw Microsoft do a microAccess for WinCE though and with less than 10% marketshare. IBM, Sybase, and others had microDatabases for PalmOS. Their OS monopoly makes them money. period.

Because the only way Microsoft will start selling software for Linux is over Bill Gates' cold, dead body.
This is a true statement IMO.

LoB

Re:I didn't know Bill was sick

[Sloppy]

Because, after all, he would never change his mind about a platform.

"I believe OS/2 is destined to be the most important operating system, and possibly program, of all time. As the successor to DOS, which has over 10,000,000 systems in use, it creates incredible opportunities for everyone involved with PCs." -- Bill Gates

"Microsoft has not changed any of its plans for Windows. It is obvious that we will not include things like threads and preemptive multitasking in Windows. By the time we added that, you would have OS/2." -- Bill Gates

"The next generation of interesting software will be made on a Macintosh, not an IBM PC." -- Bill Gates

And let's not forget that the internet thingie is just a fad that Microsoft can safely ignore. Why would anyone waste their time writing something as trivial as a web browser? Online services like AOL, MSN, and Compuserve are where the action is. You see, the problem with Gates is that he is rock-solid stubborn and once he's made up his mind about something, he won't change or adapt. This inflexibility is why Microsoft, along with Gates' fortune, has vanished into obscurity.

Why would MS want there own OS anyways ?

[Quazion]

Darn the monopoly, sorry nearly forgot.

Dollars to donuts...

[Asprin]

This is refreshing - I've been saying this for a while now. I'll even bet MS has Office running on Linux in a lab somewhere in their unbelievably-secret-R&D department. Have you ever known MS to *not* hedge their bets? They'd have bougth Linux outright several years ago if that were possible.

Re:What do you mean if they wanted to?

[perp]

"But if Microsoft wanted to, they could become the world's biggest producer of Linux software."

If Microsoft wanted to, they could become the world's biggest producer of fishing lures. Or coffee warmers. Or pencil lead. They have the money to be the largest producer of anything.

MS is currently trying to become the world's biggest producer of game consoles (or at least a serious competitor), and it doesn't seem to be working very well from what I've heard.

too late

[oliverthered]

I went to pick up some RAM last night, and saw someone with a Microstar PC, running Windows XP Home, it had StarOffice plastered all over the box.

Microsoft are slowly loosing there Office Monopoly, once that starts to dwindle then there OS monopoly is up for grabs.

Async IO and N:P threading in the 2.6 kernel will help along the way.

Re:too late

[Jace of Fuse!]

once that starts to dwindle then there OS monopoly is up for grabs.

Yeah! Because the moment they lose their Office Monopoly (which is illusionary anyway, but...) games will just MAGICALLY APPEAR on the Linux platform, causing a huge wave of gamers to switch to Linux.

Re:too late

[oliverthered]

Umm....
Gamers all have licensed copies of Windows? come-on.
Anyhow the majority of M$ software is in companies not in homes, Games aren't the big thing on Windows, Office is.
WineX is coming along quite nicely if you want to play game not-on-windows or you could be a PS2.

Re:too late

[Surak]

Games aren't the be all, end all. Most consumers don't buy PCs for games, they buy them for word processing, bank account management, and Internet access. If it happens to play games, too, that's just icing on the cake.

And for people who do like to play games, except for a few of us geeks, most of them are using systems *designed* to play games, like XBox and PlayStation 2 and GameCube because the games that are available for those are often just as good and without the overhead of a full desktop operating system, this boxes are just as good, if not better, for playing games than the your average $3000 overclocked, liquid cooled gaming PC. And they're available for about $200.

Re:too late

[Jace of Fuse!]

You would love to believe that, wouldn't you?

If video game players on the PC were such a minitor, I doubt companies would have such high-end lines of gamer PCs. Alienware, for one, caters exclusively to the gamer crowd. Nvidia didn't grow from crap to the top video card chipset designer in just a few short years because nobody was playing games.

Like it or not, video games ARE the driving force behind PC sales. If they weren't, we'd all be using 486's to write our e-mails and browse the web.

And even if games were secondary, nobody is going to buy a system that isn't going to play games.

Re:LinuX

[Zebbers]

only if Linus lets them use the Linux name ;)

Think of it from a business strategy perspective

[pubjames]

Is this likely? The question we need to ask ourselves is, could Microsoft profit from doing without hurting current cash cows?

We all know that MS Office and the "Microsoft tax" (the price we pay for buying Windows desktops and servers) are by far Microsofts main sources of revenue. Could Microsoft support Linux and maintain these cash cows? I believe they could.

Firstly, there is no reason why Microsoft couldn't sell their own version of Linux for the server, and charge the same as they charge for their current Windows server software. I am quite sure that it would sell well, and could reduce the numbers of people migrating to Red Hat, for example. Secondly, I see no reason why they couldn't come out with a version of MS Office for Linux and charge a similar price for it. This might also prevent people migrating to OpenOffice.org or Star Office.

If they did this, they could also try to use their considerable muscle to sway people away from technologies they don't want people to use. So for instance, the MS Linux would probably not include MySQL and PHP, and perhaps not even Apache.

I don't see any reason why they couldn't do this. Of course, they still have the long term problem of the erosion in value of what they offer as free competing solutions improve, but there's not much they can do about that other than try to fight off the inevitable.

mslinux.org

[Gerry Gleason]

A friend sent me a link to this a couple years back. We had this posted along with the story about MS patenting ones and zeros. Pretty funny stuff.

Re:mslinux.org

[Captain Large Face]

You must mean this beauty from The Onion:

Microsoft Patents Ones, Zeroes

Web Services

[Earl Shannon]

I can't help but think that Microsoft will back into production of Linux software via Web Services ( .NET ? ). If an application runs in a web browser then why won't it run on Linux AND Windows. Yes, I know there are issues with Microsoft and proprietary extensions. But by 2004 I bet that Linux on the Desktop will have begun to make inroads in the corporate workplace to such an extent that Microsoft will be unable to ignore (corporate) customer demands for compatibility. And open source software providers/developers will have some of the proprietary extension reversed engineered. At least, I can only hope.

Hmmm...

[Ektanoor]

If /. had stated:

But if Microsoft wanted to, they could become the world's biggest owner of Linux software ... I believe that BG would be calling now a major pow-wow in Redmond.

.NET

[DevilM]

As more and more of Microsoft's software is built on top of .NET it will become increasingly easy to move that software to other operating systems.

Re:.NET

[StrawberryFrog]

And that is one of the covert aims of .NET. Having used Borland products for years, I can appreciate thier situation - for them Microsoft is both an opponent (in MS VC++, VB etc) and the owner of the playing field (Windows).

MS's favourite tactic is not just to play the game well, but to move the goalposts, tilt the playing field, change the rules of the game, and mangle other sports metaphors :)

.NET is a major shift, no doubt about it. In part it is there in order to give Micrsoft viable ways to deal with the challenges that they expect to face in the next few years.

OS-dependence seems to be one of those. The option of rapidly decoupling thier apps from the Win32 OS kernel may be important to them, for Linux, WinCE or whatever reason.

Re:.NET

[sheldon]

Having worked with .NET a bit over the past year, and having had experience doing C++ and VB over the past 6 years or so...

The main advantage of .NET is to Windows developers as it gives them the flexibility and functionality of C++ with the ease of rapid development of VB. It's all about efficiency.

Efficiency of development is the primary goal, anything else that .NET gives Microsoft is nothing but gravy on top of that. Such as ease of moving from 32-bit to 64-bit Intel platform.

Web services and server software?

[oliverthered]

It looks like most people didn't read the artical.

'SEATTLE (Reuters) - In a major strategy shift, Microsoft Corp. (NasdaqNM:MSFT - news) will introduce software based on the Linux (news - web sites) open source operating system in 2004 for Web services and server software, market researcher META Group predicted on Monday. ' .......

; this will gradually include the major Microsoft back-office products, such as SQL Server, IIS, and Exchange," META Group said.

So there going to sell insecure web services, over say Apache, web services is M$'s weekest market, and IIS i can see people buying IIS on Linux.

SQL server, hmm... why.... Oracle, DB2, anything else except SQL server is already on Linux, they havn't a hope.

There only viable Server port would be Exchange since there isn't a non-windows variant, but that would be dangerious for M$, since there are a few companies who only have windows boxes for Exchange.

MONO are already doing .NET, so no room for M$ there either.

I think there talking shit....

Microsoft *NIX

[seamustheshark]

Well, I might be showing my age here, but didn't our old pals MS produce a desktop version of UNIX way back when? (wasn't it XENIX or somthing?? 'pologies if I'm wrong...)

So really they're not *that* new to this, but, depending on your point of view, then either MS are trying to do a passable cover-the-bases routine, or they have some other plan in mind.

Let's be honest here - and I think we all know this - if Bill & The Boys did go down the linux route, then it would change linux completely; can you see MS open-sourcing all their code for this project?

No, me neither!

Re:Microsoft *NIX

[Nonillion]

You are correct, I remember when Microsoft was pushing Xenix adds around the time of Windows 3.1. In fact, my employer still uses Xenix and SCO Open Server (another Microsoft product).

Re:Microsoft *NIX

[spitzak]

I worked with a Tandy machine that had Xenix in 1983. It was a typical Unix clone, I certainly did not know enough then to be able to tell if it was better or worse than other offerings.

A little known fact (because as far as I can tell MicroSoft is trying to rewrite history and hide any mention of this) is that after the success of MSDOS1, the engineers decided that the future would be a Unix system and that everything they could do would be aimed at making MSDOS2 Unix-like in the hope that MSDOS and Xenix would be merged (I think they even predicted the next major version would be such a merge). There was actually a huge number of imporovements to MSDOS in less than a year: it added Unix open/close/seek calls, a hierarchial filesystem (they made it take both forward and backward slashes), some ideas for installable drivers and using file descriptors to talk to all services. They even had switches (since removed) that made "prn" and "com" only work if prefixed with "/dev/" and that made all their applications accept '-' instead of '/' as the switch character.

As far as I can tell MicroSoft fired or demoted those people afterwards and has since then denied quite loudly that they ever intended to make MSDOS into a Unix.

distro

[leomekenkamp]

But Microsoft already has it's own linux distribution ready slated for release in november 2003. Knowing MS and it's slipping OS release dates this will probably end up being released in 2004.

Microsoft's Surrender? Not by a long shot.

[Badgerman]

I'm not sure I see it happening by 2004, but I can easily see Microsoft selling Linux products and even their own version of Linux.

There are several reasons I can see:

• Microsoft goes where the money is. Linux is going a lot of places, and M$ would want a cut from that.
  
• Microsoft has to spend money on R&D and/or aquiring people. Linux work is being done for free around the world. There's a money-saver right there for Microsoft.
  
• Linux has a good name. Microsoft can piggyback onto that. Ever heard that no one got fired for buying Microsoft? What if people could get Linux and have the M$ name to show to the boss?
  
• Getting into the Linux game (and related?) is another way to jack up pressure on competitors and use leverage.
  
• If M$ gets into Linux now they can avoid a potential future where Linux becomes a more serious enemy.
  

I'd say getting into Linux would be in character for Microsoft.

However, DON'T expect them to make it look like anything but a Oh-We-Care-For-Consumers routine. Expect something more along the lines of "Microsoft produces an advanced, user-friendly version of the popular operating system. Now you can take advantage of the best of both worlds" or something.

BTW, if this happens, there may be a massive shift in what skillsets employees are interested in. Something to watch.

Cute...

[wesmo]

Microsoft's argument against Linux sounds strangely familiar. Didn't Apple use this same tactic against Microsoft back in the 90's?

"It's initially cheaper to purchase and install a [insert competitor here]'s hardware and software, but more expensive in the long run with regards to administration and people."

Could this be a sign of desperation?

Anyhow, the chances M$ will come out with a GPL'd version of Linux are like nil. Now, a proprietary version of Linux... that is more likely, especially if the level of desperation rises!

Re:Cute...

[CaptainZapp]

Now, a proprietary version of Linux... that is more likely, especially if the level of desperation rises!

Wouldn't that be impossible, without blatant violation of the GPL?

So, if they really have the balls to do this (they sure as hell have the money and the lawyers to try it), this would totally, utterly and indefinitely invalidate any claims that Microsoft ever had on intellectual property.

I don't mean only from a moral and ethical perspective. But it's really hard to send the BSA thugs over to punish violations, while you on the other hand are the biggest violator of all, publicly pissing on intellectual property rights.

Possible, that US courts would hold up such an atrocity, but I don't think that this is applicable for the rest of the world.

Interesting Idea

[glh]

What's to stop MS from creating a free linux compatible distribution ("Bill Hat"), but not open source and then competing with the likes of Redhat? That would seem to me the only way they would do Linux software.

Re:Interesting Idea

[glh]

Re-read parent.. I said linux compatible .. meaning, just like Linus did- making a kernel that works with most of the GNU stuff out there but isn't quite Linux... (just "linux compatible" and everything magically runs linux stuff)

Necessary but insufficient

[Epeeist]

All the TCO studies I have seen include elements of initial capital cost, software maintenance and support.

What they do not include are estimates of the cost of non-availabilty. Obviously this is difficult to quantify, since it varies according to the application and business. However since we are talking about Linux and Windows in the entreprise one ought to be able to put some kind of estimate or estimates together (this much per hour of down time in a small development shop, this much in a bank). I think one would then see what the real cost of ownership of each platform is.

Re:Necessary but insufficient

[sql*kitten]

What they do not include are estimates of the cost of non-availabilty. Obviously this is difficult to quantify, since it varies according to the application and business. However since we are talking about Linux and Windows in the entreprise one ought to be able to put some kind of estimate or estimates together (this much per hour of down time in a small development shop, this much in a bank). I think one would then see what the real cost of ownership of each platform is.

It doesn't matter as much as you think. What the business cares about is application availability. The OS is irrelevant to them. If you have half a dozen machines in a cluster, it doesn't matter if you have to reboot one of them from time to time. If hiring a monkey to reboot is cheaper than hiring a different kind of monkey to telnet in and take a look, then that's what the business will do.

Re:Necessary but insufficient

[Epeeist]

> What the business cares about is application availability. The OS is irrelevant to them.

Agreed and agreed. However rebooting a system is not an option if it loses you a transaction. I happen to work in a bank where transactions up to £1 billion are not uncommon. We schedule IPLs of our mainframes 6 months in advance. We simply can't afford to run with systems with 99% availability.

I see it now

[suman28]

``and we're going to continue doing what we've been doing for customers.'' I guess I had Microsoft pegged wrong. They have been practising anti-competitive behaviour for me and the rest of its customers. So it's all ok now.

Re:There goes the neighborhood

[wadetemp]

Don't you mean "There go My Network Places"?

Nonsense.

[zatz]

Micros~1 will not release any of their core products on any platform but their own. (IE doesn't count, since you don't directly pay for it; instead its popularity as a client makes their server offerings more appealing.) They are almost down to one supported kernel (no more 9x/ME), and they certainly don't want to throw away the development effort spent on all those undocumented OS features :)

Looking forward, Microsoft is very serious about Yukon (their SQL-server-for-a-filesystem project), and that will almost certainly not be available in a compatible form on non-MS platforms, nor would they encourage its use if it was. The last thing they want to do is let anyone think they endorse something other than an all-MS shop as a reasonable way to do business. (Although I suppose someone might have said the same thing about IBM a few years back, given their even greater vertical integration.)

I can't even imagine them releasing watered-down versions of Office et alia on other platforms. They just have too much coupling in their designs. And Windows as a system is all about proliferation of interfaces; new software built on .NET might be more portable in theory, but I suspect their own products will always rely on things which are only implemented as black-box binaries on Windows.

Re:Nonsense.

[bigdavex]

Micros~1 will not release any of their core products on any platform but their own.

What about MS Office on the Mac?

Unlikely, but possible

[ggeens]

Microsoft's strategy has always been to bind everything to the Windows environment: develop on Windows, run on Windows. That is one of the reasons they went after Java: Java would allow people to easily develop programs that don't run on Windows.

Occasionally, they have made software that ran on other platforms: Office for Mac (mainly to avoid anti-trust issues), .Net for *BSD.

From MS' point of view, it doesn't make sense to create Linux software. They'd lose their main advantage: expertise of the Windows platform. Not because of "hidden APIs", but just because their application developers are Windows developers (rather obvious). It would take a lot of time before they know Linux well enough to develop for it.

On the other hand, with Microsoft, nothing is impossible. It wouldn't be the first time they'd change their policy. Just don't bet on it.

On the gripping hand, even if they would produce Linux software, it won't be open source (as noted by other posters). Shared Source seems likely, BSD licence for a few parts. GPL is out of the question. (As noted above, nothing is impossible, but Microsoft releasing GPL'd code is extremely unlikely.)

Also...

[Mattygfunk1]

... how would this effect their plans for DRM? I'm sure hollywood and the music industry wouldn't like this at all if it came about.

------
and I would have gotten away with it too if it wasn't for you lousy kids - Amusement park operator

Why would MS go Linux

[TerryAtWork]

When the BSD license is so much less restricting?

Re:Why would MS go Linux

[TerryAtWork]

Good point. But here's a dirty little secret. All Unix's are alike. Further, The Will of Bill can force any software onto the market.

Since OpenBSD is much higher quality than Linux, why not go for it?

Not surprising

[tigress]

It's very doubtful that Microsoft will ever be able to defeat Linux, so the obvious choice would be to become part of it. The question would be, what part would Microsoft take?

The desktop side of Linux is, unfortunately, rather lacking. Sure, you can do a lot with Linux, if you only know how, but that's also one of its biggest weaknesses. The average desktop user Does Not have the necessary skills to hack textconfigs and xdefaults, not to mention changing window manager. A company such as Microsoft could easily build a desktop GUI that would outclass all current GUIs for Linux. Of course, it's been done before, and perhaps I'm just comparing pears to Apples. =)

On the server-side though, would Microsoft really give up their strategy and platform? Wouldn't a Linux-adoption indicate that they feel Linux is as good as, if not better than Windows? I doubt it. Admitting that Linux is good enough for home use, or possibly even small office is one thing. Admitting that it's capable and stable enough for enterprise class configurations is an entirely different matter.

Of course, I might be mistaken. A few years ago, I'd laugh at whoever claimed that Macintosh would be a serious contender for the Unix desktop market. And for that matter, anyone remember a Microsoft that didn't believe in the Internet? Just look at them now.

No, I wouldn't like it, but I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft went with Linux in the end. Well, not much anyway. =)

for those that read the article

[dollargonzo]

gates wantes to release software for "servers and webservices." since linux has the biggest appeal in the server market, it is only natural that m$ wants to harness that power. why would they want to touch the desktop. on the desktop, most users know little (and more importantly care little) of security, and the current OS is "enough" by most users' standards.

No thanks.

[mnordstr]

Linux is not Windows... Let's keep it that way.

Grain of salt

[whipping_post]

Take this with a grain of salt, people.... this prediction is coming from META Group, which in my experience, is nothing more than a tech-sector cheerleader. These are the same people who predicted the B2C market would be 80 zillion by 2004, then that the B2B market would be 80 zillion by 2004, etc etc.

Believe me when I tell you, these guys can't even solve their own technology issues, never mind commenting on other companies'.

Disclaimer: No I am not a disgruntled employee. No I am not a Microsoft Zealot. I run Linux on my desktops and FreeBSD on my servers.

Older news already reported something like that

[Kajakske]

Original article

I woke up one morning to the realization that Microsoft was going to announce a port of Microsoft Office to Linux. Now that would really be an icebreaker at LWCE. Such a port has been the subject of speculation for some time, so much so that Microsoft has actually denied it, thus giving the notion even more credibility.

This was taken from an article on linuxworld 2000. So the point is already know for a longer time ...

Re:Older news already reported something like that

[nsayer]

Such a port has been the subject of speculation for some time, so much so that Microsoft has actually denied it, thus giving the notion even more credibility.

Doesn't that sound like the scene from "Life of Brian" where someone in the crowd says that only the true Messiah denies himself?

No fscking way

[CaptainZapp]

Hah, they'll probably GPL notepad.

As William Henry Gates III (also known as billg@microsoft.com) proves in this letter, he's a tad paranoid regarding the use of his software.

I conclude from there (and from the evil empires behavior in general), that he would be even more paranoid to reveal any source code to the general public, because somebody might er! steal it.

It's likely, that this involves all of Microsofts software ("Shared" source initiative not whitstanding) up and including WinHelloWorld(tm)

Has META ever predicted anything useful?

[Fefe]

What is all this hoopla about? Some soothsayer makes some outrageous prediction that is not backed by any data whatsoever, and all the world is acting as if it already happened!

Hold your horses, gentlemen.

Their German subsidiary just sold a well researched and completely unbiased prediction that Linux won't stand a chance against Windows on servers and desktops to the Swiss a few months ago. The study claims that Unix scales better than Linux and yet Unix will become a back-end, legacy OS platform by 2003.

Oh, and they also pumped out a different study (which is, by the way, also completely unbiased and astoundingly well-researched) where they predicted Linux will grow from 25% to 35% in the next 2 years, only to be outpaced by... Windows 2000?!

ROTFL! Nobody in their right mind can take these people seriously! I don't even have to contradict them, they do it themselves!

BTW: The PDF is in German, but the pretty figures are all English, so you should have no problem understanding what they are saying.

PS: What good luck we have that their study is a PDF! In it you will find the assertion that Star Office has "uncertainties" opening MS Office files and thus you can't use Linux. Um, well... ;)

TCO depends on lots of factors

[g4dget]

TCO depends on a lot of factors. If you hire good UNIX/Linux system managers, you only need a small number, your systems will run like clockwork, and your TCO will be low.

If you are running a Windows shop and put people with only MCSE training to work on UNIX/Linux machines, they won't know what to do, they won't even know how to find out what to do, and they will hate it. Your systems will run miserably and your TCO will be high.

What does that mean? Your Linux TCO depends on how your run your shop. If you do things right, the achievable TCO is better for Linux than for Windows.

Re:TCO depends on lots of factors

[TeknoHog]

Isn't that quite obvious? Hire the people who best know the systems, and TCO will be low and things will go well.

On the other hand, it often seems that people assume Windows experience as default, and Linux training is treated as an additional cost. Whereas in reality Windows also requires training and experience.

Re:TCO depends on lots of factors

[bilbobuggins]

thank god someone noticed

the TCO may in some cases be cheaper for Windows now, but only because the market is saturated w/ windows admins.
what about in 10 years when the tables turn (it's entirely possible) and the market is saturated w/ *nix admins?
all of a sudden those constant license upgrades are a major financial burden

honestly, every time i see one of these reports trying to convince me that paying is cheaper than free i flip through looking for the page that proves water isn't wet and politicians are honest.

Re:TCO depends on lots of factors

[g4dget]

Isn't that quite obvious? Hire the people who best know the systems, and TCO will be low and things will go well.

Well, apparently not to these research firms.

In any case, I claim that they make a methodological flaw: they generally assume that they need about as many people for Linux maintenance as they do for Windows and that those people are more expensive. The Linux sysadmins may or may not be more expensive, but you need only a fraction of them, so overall, TCO for Linux is lower in the long run.

Damn, Slashdot ate my link! ;)

[Fefe]

http://www.isb.admin.ch/dok/dokumente/opensource/m etagroup-linux-w2000_2002-10-17.pdf

Makes Sense - But When

[4of12]

It's very logical for Microsoft to make Linux software at some point in time.

They're still in the phase where they're fighting tooth and nail to swallow up the server market (as well as the console game, PDA, cell phone, and ISP markets:)

Only when Linux makes more serious inroads into the server market will they commit to a product for Linux. For now, the more profitable strategy is the one they're currently pursuing.

Microsoft's dilemna, though, will be that various free and open source software will fill in the holes of providing MS services on UNIX. SAMBA and Mono, for example. If they released it now, they could own .NET on UNIX, but it would unfavorably leverage against their other strategy of having Windows take over more of the server OS market. The latter strategy puts them more in the drivers seat as far as coming out with new products, calling the shots for upgrade cycles, etc. and is therefore preferable to them at this point in time.

Who's saying this?

[Phil Wherry]

I think it's worth noting that it's the META group that's saying this, not Microsoft. META's in the business of selling their prognostication services; it's therefore to their distinct advantage to make headline-grabbing bold predictions like this from time to time. Magazine columnists do this sort of thing sometimes, too: controversy and bold predictions really do help sell publications.

I'm not suggesting META's conclusions are right or that they're wrong--merely that there may be some "publicity stunt" component behind their analysis.

Phil

Highly unlikely - and here's why

[dipfan]

Microsoft's not yet ready for the "join 'em" part of the "If you can't beat 'em..." argument - especially as today's Wall Street Journal has a very long, detailed article on Microsoft's efforts to lure national governments away from open source software, using carrots and sticks familiar to many /.ers. It's worth reading, and good to see the mainstream press like the WSJ taking an active interest on how Redmond deports itself.

It's a good piece, but it's subscription only ... so here (for review purposes only) are highlights of the article - well worth the time:

Microsoft Wages Campaign Against Free Software
By WILLIAM M. BULKELEY and REBECCA BUCKMAN
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Sometimes it seems as if Microsoft Corp. doesn't want government to save money -- at least not if it comes by using free software. Microsoft is waging a major lobbying and public-policy campaign to stop government agencies in the U.S. and abroad from embracing free, "open-source" software, especially the Linux operating system, which poses a growing threat to Microsoft's Windows.
In the past year it has argued with the Defense Department over the content of a report extolling free software. It has organized a world-wide lobby to oppose laws that mandate using open-source software. It has persuaded some congressmen to ask the new Office of Homeland Security not to fund research that uses certain open software.
But even Microsoft is having a tough time persuading governments from Washington to South Africa that getting software free is a bad thing -- especially when rivals like International Business Machines Corp. are telling them that open-source software works just fine.
Open-source software is software whose source code, or base layer of commands, usually can be copied freely and then modified, unlike most proprietary software, which is generally controlled by a profit-making company. It is championed by a far-flung community of programmers, researchers and companies who share their work over the Internet.
Open-source software has grown in recent years to become a full-fledged rival to Microsoft, used by companies, universities and others in their computer rooms. Many open-source programs are free, or nearly so.
The best known open-source software, Linux, increasingly is being embraced by computer companies including IBM, Dell Computer Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co. as a way to sell more hardware and services. According to International Data Corp., a technology-research firm, sales of server computers that use Linux grew 6% in the most recent four quarters, while sales of Windows-based servers grew just 1% in revenue.
Microsoft says it isn't against the concept of open-source software. But it is working hard to prevent government researchers from adopting software covered by the general public license, or GPL, that governs reuse of much open-source software, including Linux. The GPL requires anyone who copies the software to freely share any improvements or additions they make to the code.
Because commercial companies often adapt programs written by government-funded university scientists, Microsoft argues that wider use of GPL-licensed software would stifle innovation. Commercial companies, it argues, would have no incentive to sell "free" software derived from the research. What's more, Microsoft worries that its own developers could inadvertently combine Linux or other GPL-licensed programs with Microsoft programs, which could potentially make the Microsoft programs subject to free-sharing as well.
"The GPL, in my view, is bad in all its dimensions," says Jim Allchin, the Microsoft group vice president who heads the powerful Windows group.
In some cases, Microsoft has leaned on government agencies directly. The U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency, an arm of the Defense Department, says that last spring it granted a Microsoft request for an exclusive advance look at a report by research firm Mitre Corp., Bedford, Mass., on Pentagon use of open-source software.
After Ira Rubinstein, a Microsoft lawyer, detailed Microsoft's objections, Dawn Meyerrick, chief technology officer at the agency, says she asked Mitre to make changes in the report. Among them, it dropped the conclusion that open-source software was more secure, and it added cautionary words about the GPL.
Open-software advocates also perceived Microsoft's influence in a letter from a group of congressmen to Richard Clarke, who heads cyberspace security for the newly created federal Office of Homeland Security. The initial letter urged the government to continue past practices by "explicitly rejecting licenses that would prevent or discourage commercial adoption" of software developed under federal contracts.
But as the letter was being circulated, Rep. Adam Smith, a Washington Democrat -- who receives the most donations of any representative from Microsoft's political action committee -- added a "Dear Colleague" letter to further explicate the original. That letter said that "licenses such as the General Public License (GPL) are problematic and threaten to undermine innovation and security," and suggested such open-source software shouldn't be developed by the government at all.
That echoed Microsoft's position. A Microsoft spokesman acknowledges that Rep. Smith met with its chief technology officer, Craig Mundie, before the letter was sent, but only for "informational" purposes. Mr. Smith's press secretary says that the "dear colleague" letter was meant to clarify the original because "we believe in innovation."
Open-source fans believe Microsoft is bringing its political power to bear because it sees a market threat to its desktop-software monopoly. But in some cases, Microsoft's appeals have fallen on deaf ears. Last year, according to people familiar with the situation, Microsoft objected "vigorously" when the super-secret National Security Agency developed a secure version of Linux and then posted it on the NSA Web site for anyone to download. But NSA didn't back down and the software is still available.
In the developing world, where free software like Linux may have its greatest appeal, Linux advocates say they have "noticed that Microsoft has made a substantial portion of their quote 'gifts' to developing nations that have indicated a strong preference for open-source software," says Mark Webbink, general counsel of Red Hat Inc., a Raleigh, N.C., company that sells versions of Linux.
In India, where at least one state government endorsed Linux recently, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates last month announced a $400 million gift of donated software and business-development aid.
In South Africa, a Microsoft offer to provide software for 32,000 schools came just days after that country's National Advisory Council on Innovation called for the government to adopt open-source software to build local programming skills and avoid sending hard currency to the U.S. to pay for Windows. Nhlanhla Mabaso, a government chief information officer, says that while the free software from Microsoft is tempting, "Personally, I believe this is not good for South Africa."
Bradford Smith, Microsoft's general counsel, says any donations "are made to meet a social need" and not to counter Linux.
Microsoft concedes that its opposition to open-source software has sometimes backfired, and it says it intends to move the battle to more straightforward commercial issues.

* * *

Re:Highly unlikely - and here's why

[mgblst]

Surely if a lot of governments considered passing laws insisting on open source software, this would cost Microsoft a lot of money in lobbying...

MS Linux == NEVER

[mrkurt]

The repeated publicity that the MS-sponsored study from IDC has recieved, followed by this study from Meta, is beginning to bother me. TCO isn't everything; as we have seen from the events of the past year, Microsoft has done a lot to change its licensing program and piss off a lot of its customers in the process. It's about control, baby. As in, Microsoft holds all the cards in this poker game. Don't be fooled; why would they give up on their biggest cash cow-- Windows? Why would they port their second biggest cash cow-- Office-- to Linux? Star Office and OpenOffice have already figured out how to open up MS Office formats for .doc, .xls, and .ppt.

In the same vein, .net is just a strategy to hold their developers in place, and to try to attract developers from the Java world. They have adopted a Java-like language runtime. .net runs only on Windows and FreeBSD, and the BSD port, as well as the Common Language Infrastructure, have a subset of the classes that are available under the Win32 CLR. Don't expect to see a port to Linux or other *nixes.

The Times story has got to be pure speculation.

Re:MS Linux == NEVER

[Znork]

The TCO studies are also complete bullshit; make a quick comparison between mass hosting providers and see what price difference they have between Windows and Linux machines.

The Linux machines save you 30% or more. Somehow I doubt they're calculating with a loss on the price.

I would like to see the exact methodology used; you'd have to have a very inventive way of calculating TCO to get that result.

Re:BSOD

[Corporate Troll]

I think there is a screensaver under Linux showing different error/panic screens on different OSes. It does include the BSOD.

Re:Think of it from a business strategy perspectiv

[Christianfreak]

But since Linux is GPL'd all they can copyright is the name. Someone else could make a competing MS Linux and include Apache, MySQL, PHP etc...

Who the hell predicted this??

[mustangdavis]

Did META hire Ms. Cleo?????

META Predicts Linux Software From Microsoft in 2004

*****bzzzzzzzzzzzzz*****

wrong!

Go take another look at your terrot cards or crystal ball!

Right

[fizban]

Remember, this is speculation on the part of META, and has to do with back-end software, not Office.

And if META's conclusion was that the TCO of Linux was *lower* than Microsoft, would that be speculation too?

Re:Think of it from a business strategy perspectiv

[pubjames]

Someone else could make a competing MS Linux and include Apache, MySQL, PHP etc...

Not really. Microsoft could include loads of different proprietry applications, all tied tightly together. They wouldn't have to GPL it and you wouldn't be able to copy it.

Yay!

[Greyfox]

Soon I'll be able to install a virus on my favorite platform just by opening an E-Mail or a word-processing document! Anyone wanna bet that MS Word for Linux installs setuid root?

Yeah, this may sound like a troll, but it really bugs me in an irresistable itch kind of way that apparently even the top IT companies in the country feel this state of affairs (Having a platform that is so easily subverted) is fine. "Just don't open E-Mail from people you don't know" they tell you. That head-in-the-sand attitude makes me VERY ANGRY! SMAAAASH! BRUCE SMAAASH! *Ahem*

Great way to kill Linux

[NineNine]

If MS has done any research, and I'm sure they have, they know that this will very seriously impact Linux in a negative way. Not too many currect OSS developers are gonna continue to develop just to line the pockets of MS, who just repackages and sells their product as their own. Already IBM and Oracle are profiting from their work. I can't believe that many developers will continue once MS starts profiting from them too. I quite honestly think that the whole OSS idealology will fall apart.

naw...

[Sj0]

I seriously doubt Microsoft would do this. Why? Because they've never been all that logical to begin with. If they decided to port their software to other platforms just because they were superior, we'd have MS software all over the place.

Re:The truth about Linux cost

[thasmudyan]

OK, I'm replying to this even though it seems to be a troll, because some of the points stated are very widely believed to be true (outside /. mainly).

Linux seems to be needing maintenance continuously, to keep it from breaking down.
Theoretical mumbo jumbo aside, let's talk about personal experience. At our shop we have a few Windows servers and a few Linux servers. One of the Windows servers is always down. OS code and design aside, it's hard to automate housekeeping system tasks in Windows - that's why Linux will run a lot longer.


Linux' native file system, EXT2FS, is known to lose data like a firehose spouts water when the file system isn't unmounted properly.
All non-journaling filesystems are prone to interruption errors (like FAT32, too). Luckily there are many other filesystems available that are native to any decent Linux distro (I like ReiserFS personally). My impression is also that systems like ReiserFS store files much more efficient than, say, NTFS - but a minor gripe is that you can't have compressed folders just like that (like on NTFS).

Factor in also the fact that crashes happen much more often on Linux than on other unices. ... Linux advocates try to hide this fact by denying crashes ever happen. Instead, they have frequent "hardware problems".
Linux should theoretically be more stable than Windows and many other unices. But there is indeed a problem with Linux' fault tolerance regarding hardware. This is more a philosophical problem, as Linux developers tend to say things like "if the hardware isn't 100% reliable my software won't run and you shouldn't have faulty hardware in the first place". Reality is, many hardware pieces are partly broken (be it some circuits on the board or a few faulty sectors on the harddrive) and Linux reacts very badly once it encounters those errors. But looking deeper that's not so much an inherent kernel problem as an issue in device drivers and filesystem code.

The system is a mix of features from all kinds of unices, but not one of them is implemented right.
In fact my experience with open source projects in general suggests that standards and specifications are implemented VERY strictly and correctly.

On top of that a lot of them spit out the most childish and unprofessional messages, indicating that they were created by 14-year olds with too much time, no talent and a bad attitude.
Yeah, some messages are a bit silly but hey, its not as if system messages have to be presented to the CEO each morning or something ike that. I think more serious problems are cryptic messages that defy any meaning (every system has them) and bad/lacking documentation.

Linux is not an option for any one who seeks a professional OS with high performance, scalability, stability, adherence to standards, etc.
And yet, Linux is deployed on a large scale for many environments, in some areas it pervades even more than MS and other unices combined. Why do you think IT people do that?

Strength of Office is Expandability through VBA

[unfortunateson]

For all its shortcomings in stability, openness, Clippy... Office's huge strength is its programmability in Visual Basic for Applications, soon to be Visual Studio .NET for Applications*. It's more than a suite, it's a platform.

It's provided probably thousands of programmers with jobs creating add-ons, templates, and most especially, vertical market apps in Access.

Sure, it was also the open hole that pretty much spawned the scripting age of viruses with MS Word Macro viruses, but I have yet to see anything equivalent from Star Office or OpenOffice in terms of access to the document model or program control.

On the other hand, the Chandler project at OSAF is looking at Python in signed XML modules for its extension mechanism -- they've got a chance to be a platform.

* VSAN unfortunately will kill one huge productivity gain that VBA (and VB) have: the ability to attach code snippets within form modules, which tie the visual appearance a little closer to the function. Model/View/Controller fans rejoice, but long-time VBA wonks are sad.

I sometimes question this

[drew_kime]

I think you are assuming that the only things MS wants is "control", while the aim is profit: control is only a mean to it.

I'm not so sure about that. In the long term they are threatened by the emergence of new competition. It is in their best interest to prevent that emergence, so I think in any given decision control is viewed as a higher priority than profit.

Whether the ultimate goal is profit is, I think, immaterial when the result is that every decision is made to favor control above all else.

Sha, Right, and monkey might fly out of my Bash

[briancnorton]

Is it just me or is this the stupidest thing ever said, in the entire history of the world, EVER. I mean it must have taken a real outside the box mind to think of this. Unfortunately the box is reality. What retarded chimp flinging feces could possibly believe that Microsoft would abandon it's

• Billions of dollars of code investments
• Generally more advanced technology
• client server interoperability and fammiliarity
• it's ease of use and configuration
• Cash cow licensing
• it's entire business strategy for the previous and future decades

I mean seriously, why did this make slashdot, it's not april fools day! This is raw liquid stupid and it makes me queasy that Reuters would run an article that is so blatanatly lacking merit or at least a shred of intelligent reasoning.

MS Active Directory implementation on GNU/Linux?

[QuietRiot]

I can see Active Directory products selling well for the GNU/Linux and xBSD platforms.

Letting IT managers run real AD services in the server room on their Linux/Samba boxen might allow them to keep selling 2000/XP desktop licenses for the drones in the cubicles.

Microsoft got the desktop right with 2000 (except for the stupid "see more" arrows in the menuing) but the server ball was dropped long ago with the advent of NT3.51. Trying to pick it up after that was just fumble after fumble. Windows on a server is a nightmare.

What MS needs to do is allow Linux binaries to run "natively" on their system. This would allow a much greater software base and increase the power of their system. This is the part of their system they should open up to developers. Imagine a Debian-based subsystem built into Windows??? Port the Linux ABI as the BSD's have done, swallow parts of Cygwin, and allow people to install RPMs or .deb's. Wow. Now THAT would sell.

Sure, .NET

[Trinition]

No big surprise to me. We all just read that Mono works with ASP.NET, now, along with all of its past successes. Why shouldn't a future, fully .NET version of Microsoft Office work on a Linux implementation of the .NET platform?

Honeslty, I think .NET is very akin to Java (not just the language similarites, but the bytecode/CLR, VM, libraries, etc.). In fact, I think Microsoft will give up their OS monopoly that they've been beaten up about. Just before they giove it up, though, they'll finsih porting everything to .NET amd then sue any platform running .NEt without a license. Trading one monopoly for another.

Even worse...

[familyzombie]

META Group is reporting that Microsoft will begin selling Linux software in 2004.
What if they make their own distro that has some "secret" programs to exchange information between M$ LinuZ and Micro$soft (without user having any idea of) as in "normal Windows OS".
When they have a distro of their own, they can sell it with their own prize etc.
All corporations etc. that uses M$ OS and Unix are forced to change their Unix OS to M$ LinuZ (when they accept another critical Service Pack with a slightly modified EULA).
Think about that!

Another thing. When some people were calculating TCO between M$ and Linux, have they calculated how much M$ products have already cost to companies allready?

It wont happen soon.

[miffo.swe]

Microsoft would give to much credibility to linux by releasing applications for it. It would be a standing invitation into linux land. Maybe if they somehow loose half their market they would think about it. If that would happen im sure that something else than linux will popup pretty fast. the only thing holding new OS back is Microsfoft, the rest of us are waiting anxciously.

As of the TCO studyes, dont take that for truth. How can you make a five year study on something that has a life expectancy of three years? It's soon update time in Windows 2000 land so this TCO study "missed" that fact by mistake? With linux you dont have to update everything at once. What about training cost after the initial two years on linux? Surely they wont stay the same all the time? The study misses alot of factors that seems to have been left out intentionally.

I would say that this study is badly skewed and has no real value.

Re:LinNotepad - the *killer* app

[CastrTroy]

Hey, Microsoft was the only one who got it right for once. They put a carriage return and a line feed at the end of every line. This of course, makes sense when you consider the days of typewriters or outputting directly to a dot matrix printer. The unix world is the one that screwed this one up.

Windows for Linux

[sunset]

MS Windows started life as a DOS application and remained that way, at least internally, thru Win 98. Over time it claimed mindshare and DOS died.

Of course the equivalent Linux strategy is offering a replacement for X, including a Windows-like desktop and support for the Windows API. I'll bet they are already experimenting with this.

Point-by-point rebuttal here

[leonbrooks]

http://cyberknights.com.au/articles/true-value-of- linux.html

If Micro$oft releases their version of Linux...

[rawrslashdot]

They will call it Windex(TM).

MS already writes software for Un*x

[melonman]

What about the FrontPage extensions module for Apache? MS are not ideologues, they will do whatever suits their bottom line. And, as has been demonstrated on numerous occasions, they really don't care about performing u-turns.

I can't believe some of the arguments being posted here, especially the 'no-one would buy MS products for Linux' one. That's been the argument for just about everything they have ever produced, and, in almost every case, they have ended up with the lion's share of the market. A couple of years ago, the story was that no-one would use Media Player instead of RealPlayer.

And OSS wps are just so bad! Do any of the people singing the praises of Open Office actually use it in a corporate setting? I'm about to install W2K alongside my Linux network just so the clients can produce CVs that anyone else in the world can read more than one time in three.

Re:LinNotepad - the *killer* app

[jonadab]

> The unix world is the one that screwed this one up.

Ah, but Apple screwed it up even *worse* ;-)

CNN is also carrying the story

[DaveAtFraud]

Microsoft to offer Linux software?

Now it makes sense....

[Baracus]

I have often heard from my friends at MS that they like their engineers to have a strong UNIX/LINUX background. As laughable as that may seem given the immaturity of MS products, this seems to make sense if MS is looking to get into the Linux market.

For instance, if MS were to release Office for Linux I wouldn't be booting into Windows as often as I do (I have a dual-boot setup). I also think that by releasing Office they would succeed in luring in a whole new demographic into trusting MS that had previously only bashed them. The result would be Linux people using MS and Linux gaining respect in the eyes of non-techies. How is this good for MS? All MS would have to do is release MSLinux and everyone would migrate to it in a flash. If anything I think MS's OS business would grow along with their apps.

I hate to admit it but when it comes to usability (GUI, ease of software installation, system navigation) MS is tops. A lot of you are probably grimacing at that last statement but after having seen my grandmother (age: 70+) competently surf the net, write emails, and install software only after a day or two of help from my 10 year old cousin I'm a believer. If MS comes out with Linux tomorrow I know I wouldn't have a dual boot anymore....

Re:Now it makes sense....

[autechre]

I think you probably meant to say, "I hate to admit it, but when it comes to usability (GUI, ease of software installation, system navigation) MS is what I believe to be the easiest system that I have used."

Are you really going to try and back up the claim that Windows XP is easier to use than MacOS X? For everyone? Apple did lots of usability testing, and created an operating system that new users can just pick up and run with. Software is also distributed as one file, and the GUI looks much nicer than that of Microsoft.

Of course, these are just the opinions of many happy MacOS users (except for the usability testing and the software distribution; those are facts). Personally, I can't stand to use Windows. I find Enlightenment _far_ easier to use for my daily tasks. I find the software to be much better for my needs. I even like it better than MacOS X.

If set up properly, Linux can be easier for end users to casually use (Web browsing, word processing, email) than Microsoft operating systems. I know; I've helped to do it at the Agape House and I've done it at The Retriever Weekly . It can be customized down to the point of being as simple as possible, without the complexity of a Start Menu and other things which are unnecessary to the user of a few applications.

I find that using Linux as my own desktop is like using vi as my editor. Yes, it took longer to learn than Notepad. However, I can do so much more with it now, and work so much more efficiently. Windows (on other people's machines; I don't dual boot) feels clunky in comparison.

For new users, I think I'd recommend MacOS X. For serious computer people, I'd recommend taking the time to learn a free *nix type system (such as Linux or FreeBSD). I would really only recommend Microsoft Windows to people who are used to it and who don't have the time to learn their way around anything else, or the money to buy a Mac. Sorry, but not everyone feels the same way you do.

the ruling

[zogger]

--going on memory here, but seems to me they got a get out of jail free card in the latest punishment ruling. Microsoft doesn't have to release any code if-in THEIR opinion- it would open up security vulnerabilities. All they'd have to do to release a closed source linux is state thusly. "We can't release the source code due to security issues". Their lawyers could claim they were following the court's mandates, which they could easily interpret as superceding any GPL "license".

Anyone please feel free to correct this if I am understanding the ruling incorrectly.

Re:the ruling

[spitzak]

No, they would be violating copyright. They cannot do this because their own business model relies on copyright being upheld.

And there is no need. They can easily add closed-source add ons to Linux to make it into a system they control. The addons don't have to be parts of the kernel or even kernel modules. They don't have to make it *ALL* closed-source and they will get exactly the same benifits.

A trivial one that they could do in 1 minute: add their copyrighted fonts to a normal Linux distribution. Presto, they have added value that no other distribution can match! They could then make applications that only works if the fonts are installed. Yea, hackers might copy the fonts to their other distributions, but a business won't because it is against the license agreement with MicroSoft.

No longer speculation

[Uhh_Duh]

This is no longer speculation. I was listening to CNET Radio on my way into work this morning and the Chief Research Officer of Microsoft was the guest.

He confirmed that Microsoft was going to start developing Linux software and said Office was not on the list of things they had planned right away. IIS, SQL Server, and other such products would be placed on the burner first.

He also admitted some other interesting things. Namely that by 2006 they expected Linux to be shipping on 40% of Intel servers and that over time, the TCO of Linux would come to be the same as Windows in the server market.

I can't find any references to an announcement by Microsoft yet.. but you should be able to hear the interview in archive format at cnetradio.com.

Re:No longer speculation

[_Sambo]

I can't wait to see IIS running on LINUX:

NEWSFLASH: Microsoft extends Windows vulnerability to Linux!
Redm0nd, WA

Micro$oft executives today announced that they, too, would be jumping onto the Linux bandwagon by producing server-side software such as IIS and SQL Server for Linux.

They added that all vulnerabilities that are inherent in Windows architecture will be available to crackers in the Linux environment.

"We wouldn't want our Asian and Russian 'Security Engineers' to become bored." said an anonymous Microsoft Executive.

Upon hearing that microsoft tools would be ported to Linux, the open source community (who all still use Microsoft tools of one form or another) had mixed feelings.

Juan, an MCSE-turned-Linux-Guru, felt initial joy at being able to use IIS, then experienced the 'OH SHIT' effect of realizing the whole vulnerability factor. On the subject, Juan said, "crap".

Re:No longer speculation

[mwa]

Found the archive. It was the CRO of META, not Microsoft. It's no more "authoritative" than the predictive report.

Re:It's free in Yahoo.

[Technician]

Thanks, I just made note of it. I'll try it.
Yahoo Article

Re:Think of it from a business strategy perspectiv

[nsayer]

Firstly, there is no reason why Microsoft couldn't sell their own version of Linux for the server, and charge the same as they charge for their current Windows server software. I am quite sure that it would sell well, and could reduce the numbers of people migrating to Red Hat, for example.

Let's look at this scenario in detail.

Let's say that Microsoft ports Exchange to Linux and sells a Linux distro with this Exchange server bundled. History repeats itself, as doing so violates the Sherman act the exact same way that bundling IE in with Windows did. How? Exchange is an instrument of monopolistic leverage. Using LinExchange to sell MSLinux is the same as using Windows to "sell" IE. Red Hat gets to play the part of Netscape. Microsoft could negate the damage by decoupling LinExchange from MSLinux, but given their success in the past at brushing aside pesky anti-trust actions, can anyone really think they would?

Aaargh, wrong setting, sorry...

[jonadab]

> I can't wait for Notepad to get ported, the true killer app.

Actually, I'm waiting with baited breath for Microsoft Emacs. I'm hoping it will sport the following features...

• Ability to treat .lnk files as symlinks.
• Backward-compatible, so you can run all Gnu Emacs lisp modules.
• Windows-user-friendly default keyboard and mouse bindings.
• Microsoft Lisp extensions for your Windows desktop, to help you perform common Windows tasks.
• Integration with Windows Explorer to make common file management tasks easier.
• Editing modes for all .NET and MS Visual languages.
• Modes for working with the Windows registry and ActiveDirectory.
• Wizards to help you through common text-editing tasks.
• All documentation repackaged as Windows .hlp files.
• Integration with Microsoft Office, so that Gnus can easily display documents that you receive by email, using Word, Excel, Internet Explorer, or Outlook.
• Easily embed Office documents in your text files.
• Helpful Office Assistant, so Emacs can finally compete with vigor in the desktop text editor marketplace.

Feel free to mod down the mis-posted original; I have the karma to spare.

Re:Aaargh, wrong setting, sorry...

[abulafia]

God, just the thought makes me want to take a bath.

And what sort of bait do you use for your breath?

They already have the software...

[felipeal]

It's called "MS FUD for Linux".

Re:Think of it from a business strategy perspectiv

[fferreres]

Firstly, there is no reason why Microsoft couldn't sell their own version of Linux for the server

Their own version of what? They couldn't even touch GPLd code with a 10 feet pole. They can't buy all copyright holders.

They can only plant the seeds that will mutate Linux into one of their allies, and yes, this will be a very unhappy day for many folks. .NET is part of it, they are trying to seduce companies into using whatever developement framework they want, as long as it's theirs.

Java is the only thing standing in the way, but as we all know, it's easier to develop for .NET and the will hedge te best by forcing everyone (as in sufficient critical mass x 3) to have to interface to .NET (F) code whether they like it not.

Re: reasons for .NET

[StrawberryFrog]

The main advantage of .NET is to Windows developers as it gives them the flexibility and functionality of C++ with the ease of rapid development of VB. It's all about efficiency.

That is the selling point and a very good one it is too. If my company was about to start a project in VB6 or MSVC++, or even in Borland Delphi I would have no hesitation in recommending C#.NET to them instead for that reason.

But is .NET the only way in which that goal could have been achieved? I mean, Java or Python would have worked well too. Heck, Delphi's not that bad if you are looking for "the flexibility and functionality of C++ with the ease of rapid development of VB."

As I said, there are many reasons why .Net is the just the way it is, and many of them are not engineering ones, but are to do with Microsoft's strategies and their threat assesments, as I outlined.

I don't care what META says...

[rock_climbing_guy]

I read the article. You can mod me down if you want, but based on what I have observed, I still think it will be a cold day in hell before Microsoft does such thing. Remember, the GPL is a cancer, right? Furthermore, if they were to release their programs on *NIX, it would be a huge investment of resources to port existing and new products. I just don't think it will happen anytime soon.

Re:I don't care what META says...

[axxackall]

GPL is the only way for commercial contributors to protect IP from being hijacked by competitors. Any BSD contribution is usually done for advertisement (demo) purposes.

But open source licensing is not the only way to make business on Linux platform. Loot at Oracle, for example.

Making software for Linux 3rd party distributions is not the only business with Linux technology. Microsoft can port their GUI to Linux and sell it as Microsoft Linux, why not?

And, of course, Linux is not the only open source OS. It's not finally decided and Microsoft still can come with new MS OS based on BSD - like Apple did.

Consider the source

[tomhudson]

It might be a good thing to check out META's financials before giving this company any credibility. They're currently operating at a loss of almost 29 cents on every dollar of revenue - your typical dot-bomb / dot-con see biz.yahoo.com listing

Looks like an attempt to get free publicity, rather than do any serious analysis. No wonder they're tanking. Any guesses on how long before we see them on FC?

[OT] The *only*?

[BurntHombre]

What about Klerck? Why isn't he legit?

Deer in the headlights

[Jerry]

Longhorn development is not going well. WinXX users are migrating to Linux in ever increasing numbers. Microsoft has nothing to sell them that they don't already own, except for higher License 6 fees, so what to do? The old vaporware trick. It keeps the deer frozen in the headlights until the truck arrives to run them over. The idea is, of course, to keep Windows users from jumping ship to Linux and OpenOffice with the promise that Microsoft will be converting its major Office apps to Linux, perhaps even a MicrosoftXL OS. (Extended Linux - propriatary and expensive bits added.)

Personally, I believe it just a ploy. Hell will freeze over first.

QT?

[Dr. Evil]

If they bought QT, they would have a great toolkit with a strong foundation of open source software along with a toll-both for all derived closed-source development.

I imagine they would just have to leverage their patent library against Troll Tech to encourage them to accept any offers they may have refused on moral grounds.

I know... conspiracy theory....

Announcing...

[kitzilla]

WinLin. It's only fair.

Re:What do you mean if they wanted to?

[sheldon]

"MS is currently trying to become the world's biggest producer of game consoles (or at least a serious competitor), and it doesn't seem to be working very well from what I've heard."

A few years ago people were saying the same thing about WinCE in relation to Palm.

We're now starting to see news indicating PocketPC is outselling Palm in many markets.

If Microsoft feels they can't do well in the market, they'll dump out of it like they did with UltimateTV, Bob, etc. That's one of the key reasons why Microsoft is successful, they'll admit their mistakes frankly and either improve the product or abandon it. Right now MS feels they have a chance with XBox and based on their sales performance I would agree. They're the #2 seller of game consoles right now, which is not a bad position to be in.

Re:The truth about Linux cost

[sheldon]

"OS code and design aside, it's hard to automate housekeeping system tasks in Windows - that's why Linux will run a lot longer."

Well actually this is one of those myths that's widely regarded to be true on /. but isn't in the real world.

Perhaps you should offer specific examples of what types of system tasks you wish to automate on Windows. Then we can see whether you are being honest, or perhaps you just aren't aware of the solution.

Re: reasons for .NET

[sheldon]

"But is .NET the only way in which that goal could have been achieved? I mean, Java or Python would have worked well too."

Does Java or Python give you easy access to the DTC? MSMQ? Win32 APIs like WMI?

Java, Python, Delphi and such are nice solutions to some of the problems offered from VB, but not to the extent Microsoft has provided with .NET.

Actually I'm not even sure why you mentioned Python.

Per Use Metering would kill Microsoft

[Jason Earl]

Nothing would fuel a shift towards OpenOffice faster than Microsoft charging for their software "per use." The fact of the matter is that Microsoft is already squeezing their customers as much as they can afford to. Any scheme that would raise revenues by raising prices will simply drive Microsoft's customers away.

Nonsense

[Ogerman]

(But if Microsoft wanted to, they could become the world's biggest producer of Linux software.)

Only if they didn't try to sell it -- and that will never happen because it's their whole backwards and antiquated business model.

Nope.. we don't need MS at all. Not for Office, not for anything. Half the point of using Linux is to get away from their proprietary crapware.

MS Combat Flight Simulator on Linux...

[Eric Damron]

At least I would know when I'm going to crash...

A brilliant strategy!

[inkswamp]

What better way to undermine faith in a platform than to release Microsoft products for it?

Value? what value?

[di0s]

We have made a bet on Windows, and we believe that customers are getting value from the bet we made,'' said Houston, ``and we're going to continue doing what we've been doing for customers.

Is that so, Mr. Houston?

Microsoft Bob for GNU/Linux?

[Christopher Doopov]

Do you think there is any chance Microsoft could release GNU/Linux or GNU/Hurd version of Microsoft Bob in a form of X11 window manager? It has very low system requirements (80486, 8MB RAM, 32MB HD) which makes it perfect for teaching kids the basics of computer usage (together with such projects like Debian Junior, GNU and Education, LinuxForKids, SEUL/edu, etc.) on low-end PC hardware. Some time ago, I was looking for a good window manager/desktop environment and, while there are many good applications, I couldn't find any graphical user interface itself, which would be similar to Microsoft Bob. What I need is not only something easy to learn, but also actually fun to play with, so the kids will want to learn the basics of computer science. Do you know any projects, which I could use here? (Free software would be the best.) Thanks.

Don't expect MS Office

[Julian Morrison]

...and not for the first reason you might think, either.

I suspect MS Office for linux will certainly not arrive soon - the reason being: linux library versions. To release a binary executable, you have to target it at a precise distro or set of distros, and specify this is a virgin, unpatched distro at that. But who in the real linux world keeps to the exact default-install unpatchced version of their distro? Nobody. Everybody tweaks to keep up wth the prereqs of their fave programs, or at the very least installs security patched updates.

Hence, the only software I've experienced as persistently stable and workable on all linuxen is compile-it-yourself source. Which does me no hassle at all, compiling is trivial. Still, it would panic MS, they shure-as-shit don't want to give out the MS Office source to Joe Hacker.

MS SHOULD take control of Linux

[MadCow-ard]

No this is not flamebait.

Your point is taken. The control of X# would be easy, and would not need to be GPL to conform to partial compatibility. Or at least temporary compatibility.

Its simple. Take the desktop over by offering the XP look and feel to Linux users. Review XFree86, but code it yourself. Offer compatibilty to existing Win products. Close the source (of course everyone will hack on it), and give it away (IE style). Gain the desktop market share. Move slowly away from compatibility. Stop publishing the API. Voila, Windows and Linux Kernel. Cripple it later, or even in all irony, keep using the kernel and move the windows dynasty to linux-under-the-hood instead. Why not? Costs less, less filling.

In all seriousness, its not a bad strategy to extend and embrace Linux. It would work!

we should all sit up and take notice.

The Real Name...

[duck_prime]

X-Windows P!

Re:LinNotepad - the *killer* app

[countach]

Who cares what dot-matrix printers did? Using two characters just wastes space and complicates parsing.

Re: reasons for .NET

[sheldon]

I think perhaps the issue is a confusion of a platform versus a language.

What makes .NET powerful is the platform as well as the languages like C#. .NET is not a clone of Java, because it offers so much more than just Java. C# is a clone of the Java grammar, perhaps.

Then to make it even more confusing, nothing precludes you from running Python on top of .NET.

I happen to like C# as well as .NET for what it provides to me as a developer. Back in '97 or so I took a look at Java and while I did like the language grammar, I was rather appalled with the platform and it's implementations. We do have some people using Java here at work and many of those implementation problems with the platform still exist. I think Sun made some horrid design decisions, and doesn't have the fortitude to stand behind those and fix them. I don't have that same concern with Microsoft.

From a religious perspective maybe that's an issue to you, but I am more concerned with my ability to provide technical solutions. I try to avoid religion when possible.

Re:Non-Compete

[Zarf]

I thought that after the sale of Xenix to SCO, MS made a non-competition agreement stating that they could not develop or sell UNIX type systems....

And that will cause them to put the screeching halt on their plans for world domination. Screee! Deary me, we forgot that Non-Compete agreement we signed! Well, I guess we'll just have to sulk and not try to make more money.

If this move really happens it amounts to a "don't lose the sale" move. The sales staff can quietly and noiselessly state: "Yes we can work with your existing Linux platforms." and then cry "Embrace and Extend!" to lever products in the door in places that would normally say just: "Well, we're a Unix shop" and hangup.