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Microsoft Deploys Linux, Open Software in Test Lab
securitas writes "Microsoft has deployed Linux and other open-source software in test labs used by business customers to experiment with Microsoft's products. The products include Linux, Apache, MySQL and Open LDAP directory-access software on Intel-based computers, according to Martin Taylor, who is in charge of Microsoft's Linux competitive strategy. He said the goal was to learn 'what can you do and how can you do it' using open-source software in a competitive analysis. This step comes after Microsoft's recent admission that Linux is Microsoft's biggest threat after economic conditions. Mirrors at CMPnetAsia and InternetWeek." It'd be cool to see some patches come from Redmond, but that's probably wishful thinking.
Is a Microsoft flavor of Linux coming? It could be this week's sign of the Apocalypse.
www.freshlymixed.com
...that this will be a venue to generate more FUD as well as an attempt to get a competitive edge? Am I just paranoid or what?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Keep your enemy close to you so you can keep your eye(s) on it. A wise move by Microsoft.
He said the goal was to learn 'what can you do and how can you do it' using open-source software in a competitive analysis.
You can find the new revised feature set for Longhorn here.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
MS Linux
"She's a West Texas girl, just like me" - G.W Bush Iraqis
Dollars to donuts the primary purpose is nit pick every problem that occurs in a mixed OSS / microsoft environment and then turn them into talking points for sales people.
Now that they have offically declared OSS as the enemy, it only makes business sence to learn as much as you can.
And since its 'open' that wont be all that hard.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
that they did not bother to look at it so far?
New year Resolution: Don't change sig this year
You're being optimistic. 386 is my guess. Or even more dastardly, running it on a 286 and claim that Linux and its apps break on Intel hardware.
Jack
"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." - Oscar Wilde
...is the bit in the referenced article where Steve "Monkey Boy" Ballmer is claiming that not only does Windows have a lower TCO than Linux, but MS is faster at patching bugs than the OSS/FS community...
If it weren't such a sobering reality that many businesspeople actually believe such BS, it would be funny...
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
from the article: 'In an effort to better understand its main source of competition'
IMO The problem with MS is they no longer understand the customer
------
beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his mind he dreams himself your master
Once I read that, I felt a sudden compulsion to bathe...
There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
It's actually being emulated within Windows XP... that way engineers are exposed to a "regular" rate of crashing and don't get too suspicious.
The last thing Microsoft wants is for its engineers to switch over themselves.
The suggestions that this is an attempt to create FUD seem a bit off the mark to me. I'm sure MS aren't going to be touting the benefits of Linux, but in a closed environment they have far more to gain from honest testing and competition than they do from convincing a very small number of customers, presumably devoted ones, that Linux sucks.
Were they do do that, they'd just end up looking like fools. And while marketing may help in the desktop market, those who spend large amounts of corporate money on enterprise software research it thoroughly. MS won't beat Linux in the server market just by marketing, no matter how much they spend. They know that, and have clearly decided to take Linux seriously as a competitor.
From the article: "The end-to-end scenarios is where things don't work quite as well with Linux"
I would wager that they are going to simply let business customers loose in the environment, and those PHB will try to do the same plug-and-play things they are used to doing: downloading software off the internet, drag-and-drop spreadsheet into word, find servers across a network...
The key here, and what M$ is banking on, is their GUI, and their idiot-level engineering (clippy being the extreme example). No one will go down to a terminal to do their file transfers or configure a network, they will all want to compare GUIs and wizards. Admittedly, M$ has an edge of Linux on this.
Were they to compare raw computing power and stability, they would lose-- and they know that. This is about spin: M$ will spin the comparisons to their advantages (just like anyone would).
davejenkins.com |
This makes a lot of sense for Microsoft. They can pick at Linux all the want since it's OSS and they can also demo. it to their customers. They'll get great information about how Linux works and they'll be able to compare and constrast in their controlled environment to make Windows look good to their key customers. When a company like Microsoft says "Enterprise" on something they are talking about the really serious $$$ here, not a lab for the average Windows user, but a place to invite very senior people in Fortune x00 companies.
And the OSS/FS could do more of the same. It always worries me when OSS/FS advocates say bad things about Windows and then you find out that they never use it. If you don't know your enemy IN DEPTH then you are missing out. I think every OSS/FS developer ought to have access to a copy of Windows.
John.
Sorry for any MS bashing later in this post, but thier marketing department is asking for it.
First off, lets talk hardware. I'm assuming here that both sets of hardware are going to be identical and normalized. By that I mean no paladium test beds, or winmodems, or other odd hw pieces that would skew things in one direction or another. Just some off the shelf dell's would be good. This is the easy part.
Next, on to the software. We have a company that doesn't know much about linux (I do mean as a company. I'm sure there are some very smart folks up there that know what they are doing. Its just in MS's best interests not to have them around the linux machines.) setting up a linux system. Heck, this sounds like it is just slightly more shady than an "independant testing" lab doing the comparision.
Now, software tuning. Somehow I doubt that the win2k installs are going to be stock. They will tune everything to get every last cycle they can out of it. Now, I wonder if they will do the same in the linux boxen? Heck, I'd put money on them actually slowing down thier benchmarks for thier tuning efforts.
The only set of benchmarks/comparisons I'd respect is a side by side setup. One side has MS's lackies fiddiling with thier server to tune the heck out of it. The other side would have the folks from MySQL*, Apache, RedHat*, and probably ESR for good luck. Then some independant testing machine connected to both doing the same task. (i.e. an actual demo transaction). Why hasn't anyone done something like that?
And tell ESR that hacking the Windows machine before they had a chance to patch it is no fair.
[*] Please substitute your favorite software package if you feel the need to do so.
Karma: SELECT `karma` FROM `users` WHERE `userid`=138474;
diff -urN ms-linux/CREDITS linux/CREDITS
/*
--- ms-linux/CREDITS Wed Jul 31 17:39:29 2001
+++ linux/CREDITS Wed Jul 31 17:41:45 2001
@@ -973,8 +973,8 @@
-ALL YOUR BASE
+BELONGS TO US
*/
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
I know this is no big secret, but...
I have heard from MS employees, while talking to them in person, that MS uses Linux internally in certain places. One person stated that his first account there was on a Linux box. Apparently they also use Perl too. (Any MS employees care to comment? Even as AC?)
Which makes this story that much funnier.
With M$ realizing that they have competition, they will strive to improve their products (with how much success?). If they actually do improve their wares, the Linux community will ralley to improve the software in Linux.
Everybody wins.
BTW, my work was investigating Linux desktop environments to see what the state of the art was. Lots of the devs monkeyed around with Linux, but everyone was very hardcore about not touching the sources.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
The main argument is that Windows sysadmins get paid less than Unix/Linux sysadmins. I can almost understand this point, but I've gotten the impression that one *nix admin can handle more computers than one Windows admin can, so that would even out the sysadmin costs. In addition to that, I have a lot of trouble believing that the difference in sysadmin cost is enough to make up for the fact that Linux is infinitely cheaper than MS software. Also, with MS software, some companies have had to hire an extra person to make sure they are in compliance with all the MS license oddities, so that has to add to Windows' TCO.
And I'd be happy to get patches from them, especially since they'd be open-source, and reviewable. If they were helpful, of course they would be accepted under the GPL.
If you look at early white papers from Microsoft, it becomes obvious that some very intelligent people worked there at one time. Surely some of them are still there, as well as fresh talent. Many people I know "sold out" to Microsoft in college, but were actually experienced Linux hackers.
Software bloat (happens to everyone), company overhead (impossible to avoid in a company the size of MS), and economical agendas driving poor design decisions have all made MS' codebase an unsightly beast, I'm sure. But to think they are incapable of creating working, useable, and even secure code is preposterous. Some of the most talented programmers in the world work for MS.
However, I'm fairly sure that very little help will be given to GNU/Linux from MS, whether by the company as a whole, or specific employees. MS would consider it a waste of time, and dangerously helpful to a competitor. The only reason I could see them doing this is to convince a court they weren't "anti-competetive." Judging by the overly-lenient rulings as of late, however, I doubt they need to do so.
-Dan
Bill Gates claimed Microsoft is better at fixing software problems quickly than the open-source community.
And that's why some exploits found in IE in Windows XP are ALSO vulnerable in Windows 95.... and why it takes so long to put patches out... faster my foot.
Maybe they could put in a patch that would make Linux display a friendly blue screen when it crashes instead of a kernel panic message. Embrace and extend!
here is the linux computer
and here is the windows one
And the winner is......
the linux computer, since it didn't crash.
Why read the article when I can just make up a snap judgement?
Get 2 Pentium III 450MHz with 768MB of RAM .Net Framework - JSP in Tomcat
.Net developer tools (you need to be able to program that server) are around 1200 + 800 + 1200 + 900 for a total of $4100 (approx). Not too expensive but not free either.
Install like software:
Windows 2000 Server - RedHat Linux 7.3
IIS 5.0 - Apache/Tomcat 4.1
Sql Server 2000 - MySQL Or Postgres Or oracle 8i
Exchange Server 2000 - QMail
Which perform better under a low, medium and heavy load? That is an excellent test because it takes the hardware out of the equation and does a real stress test on the OS & applications.
I did this and believe me it is like night and day. The linux server ran without a hitch. The windows server was painfully slow. I guess being able to run all your apps without a gui is an advantage. Hell ssh versus terminal services is no contest. If you need a gui just tunnel vnc through ssh.
Oh did I mention the cost for the software?
Windows 2003 Server, Exchange 2000, SQL 2000,
Plus the added bonus of checking technet for patches twice daily.
Since atleast October 6, 2002.
another example (a linux router for a day??)
a little freebsd in the mix
I wouldn't mind Linux patches from Microsoft if they were tastefully embroidered, and matched the color of my jacket.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
When I worked for the evil empire, I was amazed at how many Linux/*nix/*BSD machines they had on the network, either from users running it or for testing in the lab.
Because I supported the desktops for call center people, I didn't have direct access to the ITG (Information Technology Group) management software. So instead, I found an old DEC dual p200, installed Linux on it, set up Nagios and started monitoring the ITG servers. I could call ITG to alert them of a DHCP server not assigning addresses before they could. And this happened a lot actually.
The most shocking thing about working at Microsoft during the Code Red, and Nimda outbreak, was finding out how much Microsoft eats their own dogfood. And they really do, even if that means putting untested servers into a production enviroment. The Nimda outbreak literally brought the whole corporate network to it's knees. Even the phone systems were down.
But Microsoft running Linux? Old news, in fact I think the Linux machine I made and placed under my desk in my office, is probably still monitoring the network better than the Microsoft software they used. Probably has better uptime too.
Your mom always said, a PB&J is better than nothing, and God is nothing, is a PB&J better than God?
If anyone from Microsoft is reading this, take this advice to heart:
You would gain an amazing amount of respect that you desperately need if you stopped fighting Linux and made an effort to join the community. Many of my customers are chomping at the bit to dump Microsoft and go Linux on the desktop. The day is coming when that'll be possible. I've already begun the migration with the help of CrossoverOffice.
Inaction on your part is creating a vacuum in the marketplace. Someone will fill it like they always do. Unfortunately for you, this time you won't be able to use your competitive advantage to stop them.
*Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
If they do succeed in discouraging OSS coders from coding to fill application requirements of business, then this will not kill Linux but it will surely entrench MS as the only business software you can get. Do they deserve the market share that they have? No. How will they keep the market share? Like they always have by destroying anything they cannot absolutely control. Fortunately Intel has been getting a little pissed at them lately, as have alot of hardware manufacturers. Hopefully the industry will gang up on them and finally kick the shit out of Billy and Co.
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!
It's MS's worst nightmare that Windows would have GPL-licensed code checked in, as they could conceivably be forced to open-source the whole product.
Well, looks like you got modded up. But you're wrong just the same. The assertion that Microsoft might have to release Windows, Office, or some portion thereof, because a copyright holder, who happened to license under the GPL, claimed -- and proved -- copyright infringement within one of Microsoft's products, would therefor force Microsoft to release some or all of their product line under the GPL, is plain absurd. It would never happen, nor should it.
Suppose SCO is right and within a few files of the Linux kernel it's proven that someone illegally copied a section, or even whole files, from their source tree into the Linux kernel. Does that mean SCO owns all of the kernel, even those parts they didn't write? No. The outcome would be that those parts which were infringing would be excised and then rewritten.
Suppose it turns out that an engineer in Microsoft illegally copied gzip into Windows, and then Microsoft distributed Windows under their proprietary license. The FSF would have cause for a copyright infringement suit, and they would win. But could they demand a judgment that Microsoft release Windows under the GPL as a result? No. The best they could do would be to demand financial damages plus the removal of their code from the Windows source tree.
Suppose Microsoft management distributed gzip withing Windows, even knowing it's licensing terms under the GPL, could the FSF then enforce the redistribution terms license beyond Microsoft paying damages and removing the infringing code under court order? I seriously doubt it. And that's willingly breaking copyright law by corporate officers (which they have done -- see Stacker).
So, the assertion that Microsoft doesn't allow it's engineers to view GPL'd source under the assumption that said source could illegally make it into their product line and then force them to release their product under the GPL is patently ridiculous. It wouldn't work that way, period. This is, of course, speaking as a layman and not a lawyer.
Cheers,
--Maynard
No, not Darwin...
In the next few years, prepare for - Microsoft Hurd!!
And you were wondering why the nextgen OS was codenamed "Longhorn"....
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Coming Fall of 2092.
Karma whorin' since 1999
They're not afraid they'll lose their source for their entire product line. They ARE however afraid that they will lose the source for a single product.
Your interpretation of the GPL also differs quite a bit from the way most people here interpret it. The typical interpretation I read is "if you put GPL code in your software that you release as a binary, you have to release the source, no exceptions." Since nobody has taken it to court yet, nobody knows if it can be enforced that strictly -- and likely, as you suggest, nobody would force MS to release the source code for, say, Office.
However the risk IS there, and they'd be incredibly stupid if they did have a policy that allowed a single employee to open MS up to that kind of damage.
They will probably put Red Hat 6.0 with "everything" installed. Hey, even an M$ tech can figure that one out, right?
All kidding asside, this lab is getting set up because they were tired of how lame their lies were. It was so obvious their FUDsters have no clue. They can't even hire a PR firm to lie for them as is.
Check out the quality of the FUD from just a few articles back in Computerworld The poor meat head tell about chasing down M$ worms and finding "rogue" computers running Linux. Though he's forced to run all over the place by Windoze poor remote administration tools, he worries about the security of boxes he did not know about because they never had a problem. He worries about the security of "third-party" applications like " file transfer protocol, sendmail and Apache. And other open-source software ..." Total cluelessness. They don't know what they are talking about, so they can't lie about it. It's as simple as that.
Their biggest problem is going to be finding people with both the comptence to run their lab and the the ability to lie enough to please meat heads like Steve Balmer. The truth, "dude, this is kicking our ass." is something they already know and don't want to hear. I can just hear Mr. Baller, "That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard, tell me something bad about it, bitch or you are out of here!" Yeah, everything I read about life at M$ is like that, they call such abuse "elite". It must take a really wierd combination of high intelegence, low self esteem, big ego, bad morals, and greed to put up with that.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Wow, somebody actually did pay SCO to license and use Linux!
--That's the point of being root, you can do anything you want, even if it's stupid.
First Linux gets deployed for testing in a test lab at Microsoft.
In order to get it's performance down to a level that they can compare Microsoft software to it they start storing internal documents on it and tell internal users to use that store to stay current.
Since the internal servers are now getting fewer hits, they start consolidating some of the services they had spread across several servers onto fewer servers, freeing up those servers.
A few of the free servers get rouge installs of Linux with Samba, and people discover that they can actually store files on these servers with some reliable expectation of seeing the files again a couple of minutes down the line.
The Micorsoft Win2k+3 servers start to respond even faster to the test systems and more consolidation goes on.
Someone in the test lab isn't happy that the Linux boxes are still outperforming the Win2k+3 boxen, so he convinces management to use them as DHCP servers for the campus.
This frees up even more of the internal Win2k+3 servers from consolidation, and someone says, let's show that SQL Server is better than (insert favorite Open Sourc or proprietary RDB engine that runs on Linux here) and people in the company realize they are actually getting close to real time results off of these servers, and start migrating applications over to them.
Since Microsoft is trying to move to a dbfs anyway, even more of the internal infrastructure starts getting moved over to Linux as the original Microsoft OS servers are relieved of the duties that they were originally tasked with.
Marketing comes along and asks how the new Windows 2K+3 is going, and IT is able to say with a straight face:
"We were able to consolidate the entire campus server farm down to a single system runing Win2k+3. And since no-one in house is actually using it, response time and recovery from failures has become a non-issue. We are saving millions of dollars every year because the quiet migration to an all Linux infrastructure has reduced the actual demand for systems to the point that we have been able to reduce our electrical usage by shutting down systems and reducing the demands on the cooling systems significantly. Our phone support teams are somewhat confused as they are getting calls about server issues that they have never experienced, however our developers have been able to get Win2k+3 running on a VMWare image under Linux and we have been able to simulate the issues that customers have been experiencing, without actually loosing any data or having any significant down time."
Marketing, "Huh?".
Ok, it's not likely to happen, but we can fantasize.
-Rusty
You never know...
I really hope MS is planning to use these tests to implement missing features into Windows.
The thing I dislike most about windows is the lack of a decent command line. If Windows had a full command line environment similar to Unix, I'd really love it. And no, cygwin and friends don't cut it. I'd like much more unix compatability than that. Not to mention something more integrated into the OS so that it runs similar to a UNIX as well.
I heard such features are coming. That would be slick.
Lets forget about the jokes. And instead lets try to imagine, what Microsoft Linux would really be like, if it was ever released.
I'm pretty sure it would include patches to the kernel, and they might even play by the rules and release the source for those. But there might very well be some closed source kernel modules as well. In addition you will not be allowed to copy those kernel modules. We can start guessing about what modules there will be. But I'm pretty sure one of them would be an ntfs driver.
Microsoft could get their usual GUI to run on top of Linux. Since others have done most of it, Microsoft could do it as well. The exact details about how Microsoft would do it are not easy to guess. They could use parts of Wine, but maybe, Microsoft want to do it another way. If they are going to use Wine, they could either use the latest version, or the last non GPL version.
But Microsoft could take a completely different route and not use any Wine code at all, instead they could use as much of the existing Windows code as possible. I wonder if this would be best done in a library or a kernel module. Probably they would like a real binfmt_exe.o kernel module with its own personality. It is probably going to map some large DLLs into the process address space, and maybe even some shared memory.
I believe programs written for Windows when running on this Microsoft Linux will have access to some NTFS features, that are not easilly accesible by normal Linux programs. It could be done either by the closed source library knowing about some secret ioctl implemented by msntfs.o, or by cooperation between msntfs.o and binfmt_exe.o. Possibly a combination; an ioctl, which is not only secret, but also only allowed to programs running with the exe personality.
I wonder what graphics drivers are going to look like. I guess they will probably ship with closed source kernel modules implementing drivers for various graphics chips. But of course they are probably going to be incompatible with XFree86. And might even prevent the ones needed for XFree86 from being loaded at the same time.
Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
I'm sure they have had a test lab setup for quite some time now...Have you ever worked for a company and they have NOT bought the competitors product and put it in a restricted area... Our old company used to do that all the time... No one had access to the area, but a select few... Microsoft is doing the same...Yes they will improve there software by copying or at least duplicating the hard work the OSS community has done... They arn't a threat to us people... How many of you WANT all of your users in your office to run Linux? Honestly... at this point in development? It runs GREAT on our machines... Could stay up years if you know how to maintain it right... and WE do... but the average user wouldn't. If Microsoft comes out with some new feature that interests us... Trust me, we will have programmers on it in two seconds to duplicate there new feature and add it into our system. Remember Internet Connection sharing? well we came up with that first... ipfwadm.... The stupid little Start button... well I THINK (don't quote me on this) we took that from them... We definatly took the "control panel idea"... Mix and match... If WE want it bad enough... It will be done... A good example is new hardware... If it only works on windows... and it's crap even while working there... no point in making drivers for it here...but if it's something good... Watch out for a new "so and so driver coming next month"... - Just my 2 cents... but you'll have to give the 2 cents back if you will, I'm kinda on social assistance.
Be careful what you wish for.. The last case of a competitor contributing to Linux isn't going very well.
It would shock and amaze me, for all the energy Microsoft has put into Linux FUD, if they DIDN'T have a secret test lab somewhere with a Windows compatible desktop for X, a Linux Active Directory integration module, and ports of MS Office and all of their other software underway. It makes sense for them to speculate in secret about what they would do if they needed to shift their market focus.
Doesn't anyone else find it a little bit bizarre that MS has submitted the specs for their next-generation platform technology to ECMA for certification as a standard?
Nobody finds that to be weird?
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
r figuring out a strategy to get the GPL tossed out so they could use other strategies to be able to use the code.
hmmm, I wonder what this whole SCO ordeal is?
Yes. That is my worry. First, by drawing legal parallels (not neccessarily common-sense parallels, you understand) between the viral licensing nature of SCO's UNIX (all your derivitive works are belong to us) and the GPL and then by having a massive court battle where IBM ruthlessly smashes SCO and sets precendents...
The danger? Should SCO succeed in drawing the correct parallels and loosing the case in the right way, the variety of viral licensing and viral copyrights that are important to open-source may be legally nullified. Kaboom! The GPL is smashed like so many rotten eggs...
Spread this meme - it is important to get this dangerous scenario into the minds of the people who can do something about it.
It is your personal duty to fight for what is right on a daily basis. Ignoring injustice is identical to approving