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Ballmer on Windows Server 2003, Linux
no_demons writes "Microsoft's CEO, Steve Ballmer, has given an interview to CNet about Windows Server 2003 and Linux. He claims that 'our customers have seen a lot more innovation from us than they have seen from that [open-source] community'. Discuss." Also in the news: two critical security vulnerabilities (MS03-014, MS03-015), and this piece about Windows 2003 mentioning that Microsoft is trying to develop a command-line only server.
So just because the basic design is old, it's not "innovative?" I think this guy needs to spend more time with his programmers!
He claims that 'our customers have seen a lot more innovation from us than they have seen from that [open-source] community'.
Microsoft is trying to develop a command-line only server.
Isn't this a little backwards?
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What I think, is the open source community needs to work more on marketing, documentation, and support. I believe that's the area that is lacking the most. Probably one of the best ways to education people on linux and open source is to get it in the schools. Kids usually tech their parents how to use computers.
Go calculate something
Forgetting RedHat, Mr. Balmer?
Gosh, could that be because any not found address put into an IE browser redirects to an MS search page? Could that drive up traffic? Is that innovation? Like Arthur Anderson innovation?
I've always been impressed with descriptions of Window's technologies while they're being developed. Like it or not, Microsoft has -- and can afford to pay and retain -- some of the smartest minds in the field. I'd love to work with these guys, who seem to be open to using standards and who don't have so much FUD in their eyes or are so egotistical they can't learn from the *nixes.
The problem is that all these bright ideas go through Microsoft's "profit maximization machine" at some point and we get "embrace and extend" and other fun phonomena. I'll stop before I get back into that tired rant.
At any rate, here are two lessons learned -- by MS -- from *nixes, quoted from the article on the command line server. "Windows core technology guru Rob Short" says...
We'll be able to patch probably two thirds of the components without shutting the system down. That's an area where the Unix guys are ahead of us, because of the way they do redirection -- they can patch a file and then change the symbolic link. That's an area where we've got a problem, and we'll fix it in the near future when possible.
Later a quote on Linux:
[Question] Why is there no command line only version?
[Short's answer] We're looking longer term to see what can be done, looking at the layers and what's available at each layer and how do we make it much closer to the thing the Linux guys have -- having only the pieces you want running. That's something Linux has that's ahead of us, but we're looking at it. We will have a command line-only version, but whether it'll have all the features in is another matter.
It's all 0s and 1s. Or it's not.
Even if the entire OS shipped with no GUI, how much of the software you want would work with it?
It's a server platform.. Work it out.
"Oops, I always forget the purpose of competition is to divide people into winners and losers." - Hobbes
Example:
We created the SMB file server specs, and we didn't have the fastest one around, which was embarrassing. So we took our performance team and said "your mission is to make ours twice as fast as this other one on the market."
I understand this to be the admission that Samba was faster than any SMB server MS had in the past, right? See, this is competition at work. Granted, Microsoft tried to discourage people from competing (in the SMB case, by making small changes to the protocols with each release, I believe. Correct me if I my wrong, please) but the Samba team still came out with a better product.
I expect that by this time next year the Samba team will be saying "yeah, we got a faster SMB server than the one in Windows 2003, but hey, they ASKED for it! Do you remember that S Ballmer interview?"...
They're willing to take ten YEARS to let something come to fruition; they have no problem 'waiting for fullness.'
This is a HUGE advantage that a lot of OSS people simply don't have; whoever's coding NiftyApp gets bored around version 0.64 and drops it, and meanwhile, some other guys is making GniftyApp 0.4 because he doesn't feel like working with the first guy.
On the other side of the pond, Microsoft will let something fail, and fail, and fail, tweak, twist, fix, and then they have something worth having.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Ballmer says "The fact is that if you want to do some kind of integrated innovation that touches the kernel, that touches the user interface--there is no way.", because of the way Linus controls the kernel and someone else controls the user interface.
What he doesn't point out is that if you want to do anything - *ANYTHING* - with the Windows kernel or the Windows luser interface you either have to work for the company or sign your soul to them.
And he's also plain *wrong*. If you want to change the kernel and the user interface, and ooh, lets add, integrate the filesystem into your new UI/kernel integrated innovation, you can. Just do it. You've got the source. Do it, release it, its done. Linus might not like it, and you might not be able to call it Linux, but call it 'Xinul' or something. Freedom - aaah, smell it.
Baz
They want support, they want assurance, they want compliance with existing standards
All of which FS/OSS offers at competitve prices, which is much better deal than you can get from MS. Btw, you get no assurance with MS software -- all software licenses explicitly deny any assurance. So that's just fuzzy buzzword thinking on the part of stupid executives who don't really know wtf they're talking about.
As for support, that is purchased at competitive rates which are much better than anything you can get from MS. Furthermore, you'll get better support, precisely because there is competition. On a personal note, I get better support for free from Gentoo Forums than I get from Gateway for $300.
The benefits of using FS/OSS also scale very well, in that the more computers you use an FS/OSS product on, the more money you save, compared to using MS NT/2k/XP/2.003k. Oh yea, and there's also the fact that you don't have to worry about hundred-million dollar extortion-attempts from the BSA. These benefits -- though providing the most savings for large companies -- are extremely crucial for smaller companies.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
I think you might be surprised to find that most OSS and FS developers do their work because they want to create software that fits needs. "Beating Microsoft" may or may not be a side effect.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
And they can fsck themselves, because I never ASKED them to look at us (or me in particular) as a competitor to Microsoft. I (and many others like me) write code 'cause it's fun, because we can fill a niche, or because we just need to scratch some itch we have. Taking down the Microsoft was never a primary goal...
Frankly, with all this poiticization of "Open Source", I feel a strong desire to distance myself from this "movement". I much prefer the days when Linux was just Linux and people used it 'cause it was useful, not for some ridiculous philosophical or political reasons.
Actually, OSS is very much based on capitalism in it's truest sense. Capitalism is based on the inalienable right of ownership. If you contribute to the kernel, you own your contribution and nobody can take that away from you. There are rules dictating what you can DO with your contribution but you are still very much it's owner.
By contrast, communism is based on the lack of ownership. The BSD license is a borderline example of this since it makes it very easy for someone to revoke your right of ownership with even the slightest modification to the source code.
On the other hand, Microsoft is a good example of fascism since you never own but rather license their software under their strict terms. Your are forbidden from doing anything with their software without their express consent.
There's your politics lesson for the day, now go troll elsewhere.
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
Open source software has a much longer history than 20 years. Software, in a sense, started out open source as hardware companies didn't view it as being very valuable.
I think it may be fair to say that there's been more technical innovation from Microsoft.
And what would that "technical innovation" be? Just about every single product category, UI idea, feature, or technology Microsoft is using and touting was invented elsewhere: the GUI, the spreadsheet, WYSIWYG word processing, speech recognition, handwriting recognition, databases, networking, web browsing, etc.
I'm no Microsoft fan, but they *have* introduced some real innovations. Cheap, shared-SCSI-bus clustering comes to mind,
I'm sorry, I don't get it. People have been sharing disks via disk interfaces since the 1960's. Microsoft puts a feature into their system that allows this to be done over one specific disk interface (which, not coincidentally, was actually designed to support this). Where is the innovation here? Sounds like engineering to me, driven by marketing ("hey, guys, we need to compete with the mini computers and mainframes on this disk thing").
as does Active Directory (although AD is certainly inspired by NDS).
Again, where is the innovation? We had Kerberos, YP, and NIS, and before that, we had generations of directory services on mainframes.
While Microsoft certainly followed Apple into the era of the GUI, they've made notable improvements to the GUI.
Like what?
There are others, of course;
Please keep going--you haven't named one yet.
only the most rabid anti-MS zealot could claim that they've *never* done *anything* innovative.
Oh, I'm sure they must have done something "innovative", but whatever it was doesn't seem to be related to their bottom line or have had much of an impact on their products.
Exactly, Microsoft is a mature company that is not likely to experience the astronomical growth that they have had in the past. There's nothing wrong with that, Microsoft makes a big fat pile of money.
Unfortunately, Microsoft employees aren't really focused on Microsoft's business, but rather they are focused on the MSFT stock price. You see, a great deal of their personal wealth is wrapped up Microsoft stock, and they want to see that stock go up. To Microsoft management and employees the idea that Microsoft is not a growth company is the highest form of blasphemy. You see, their Price/Earnings ratio still has them pegged as a growth company. If the market decides that Microsoft has stopped growing, then their stock price will drop so that their P/E ratio is much closer to 10.
Microsoft could kill Linux tomorrow simply by dropping their prices. Microsoft has profit margin to give. However, this would almost certainly trigger a market realization that Microsoft is done growing. To most Microsofties this would be the kiss of death for their own personal finances, and it would put a serious crimp in Microsoft's business plan. After all, Microsoft makes a great deal of money investing in their own stock, and they also use MSFT stock as a primary motivator for their employees.