Slashdot Mirror
Meet Martin Taylor Of Microsoft's Open Source Test Lab
securitas writes "Martin Taylor was recently appointed as Microsoft's open source and Linux strategist and is responsible for Microsoft's open source and Linux test lab, mentioned on Slashdot last week. Taylor says his goal is to change Microsoft's competitive strategy by pursuing a fact-based approach instead of continuing the previous discredit-and-undermine strategy that was characterized by calling open source and Linux software 'a cancer, un-American and bankrupt' among other things. Taylor says he plans to focus on (and fund) studies that 'will highlight Microsoft's advantages in areas such as security, feature-completeness and total cost of ownership.'"
The biggest 'fact' is that Microsoft is a big company that has the resources to actually pursue this kind of 'fact finding' mission.
No Linux company is in any position to set up a Windows lab to discover the relative merits of Linux in opposition to Windows. Luckily, the OSS fans are willing to gobble gobble up any anti-MS FUD available.
Not so with MS 'fans'.
I find it funny that Microsoft is actualy going to attack linux by learning it. They still have a strangle hold on the market, I don't even understand why they're going after linux as a 'competator' but hey everyone wants to rule the world right?
I am full of goo... black evil goo
Though I'm sure their "new approach" will still contain a fair measure of FUD, actually hearing factual arguments from MS will be a nice change of pace. I respect arguments based on fact, even if I disagree with them.
That Microsoft telling the truth about security would pretty much boil down to: "Please, don't buy our product."
Okay, enough M$ bashing. So what DOES Microsoft do right?
Well, okay, they have developed a pretty reasonable method for getting patches and security fixes out the door. They do so for free (as in prostitutes) and though they could have completely shut out Apple's MS Office line, they continue to develop it.
Apple and Red Hat both have competing systems to the Windows Update schema, and I have to say I like Apple's better. I haven't had much interaction with Red Hat's. Anyone?
Open Office I'm really really really really hoping goes Quartz native soon, but according to this posting it's not likely do to API updates. *sigh*
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
However, Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates, in a question-and-answer session at the same event, seemed to swerve off the factual course as the discussion heated up a bit. "The open source license is not open, because you can't take it and ever use it in a job-creating activity," Gates said. It's not open because I can't sell it!
Did anyone else feel bad for Bill?
The back of my old Linux Hardware Solutions t-shirt has the following quote from Ghandi next to the penguin:
First they ignore you,
Then they laugh at you,
Then they fight you,
Then you win.
I'd say Microsoft has now reached the third line regarding Linux. This is a good sign.
I agree, except I'd expect Microsoft to deal with Linux on a couple of different fronts. I mean, what company out there uses the totally honest approach? Everybody does what is in their power to keep customers.
.NET, Server 2003 seem to steps in the right direction. Linux probably hasn't hurt this effort.
Early on they could deal with Linux via FUD (although I'd argue there was a good deal of FUD flung from both sides.) Now they are going to start investigating other methods, heck maybe down the line offer Office for Linux? Who really knows? Would it kill Microsoft to offer a version of Linux, as well as keep the Windows platform if the future requires it? I mean, say Linux grabs 20-30% of the market. Microsoft is extremely big and powerful company with a lot of smart people and could offer a good distribution. So they'd have to decide between their ego and their bank account.
Microsoft has always been able to deal with changes in the market, and this is one of them. How fast they change depends on adoption of Linux.
I'd also say the MS platform has been moving along well -
Of course, maybe this is all a dream and they'll never touch linux. The future is exciting!
Bingo.
I recently got a development contract with this exact argument.
My customer is getting a fully tailored, customised solution to thier problem - a solution based totally on open source technologies. (Nice Linux server, PostgresSQL, etc.) To boot, all of that custom work came in at a price significantly less than anyone else who bid for the job. Significantly less.
I get a very nice paycheck, once it's done. Should be more on the way, too, since I get to re-sell the solution and customise it for other customers. And support contracts if the customer so chooses, will supplement my income, too. (BTW, they don't need to pick me for support, since they have the code, and that code is based on known OSS tools, etc. Certainly makes one pay attention to customer service.)
Microsoft got squat. Well, this time, anyway. I might need to throw Bill & Co. the odd scrap (if the customer gets new desktop machines, for example, and insists on XP) down the road, but that depends wholly on the customer. They can use Windows if they want, but they sure don't need Windows. Customers seem to like that.
Soko
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
What this really means is that Microsoft is smart, and has hired someone who will now find much better reasons to poo-poo open source and Linux. Maybe not good reasons or reasons anyone here would agreee with, but reasons that will make sense to the IT departments and executives that make up Microsofts customers.
On the plus side, if MS does come up with technical reasons against using Linux or other OS projects, that means those reasons can be addressed by technical people. Either rebut, or fix, whatever issues this new lab comes up with. Easy, and good for open source too.
God, I LOVE competition.
Microsoft is going to have to start establishing a long term track record of having rational discussions and doing things right. At this point, most people associate Microsoft with that company that wrote the thing they use at work the reboots on them and gets slow. They MIGHT have heard about how they were judged a monopoly. Go a little higher to the technical manager level, and they might know about a few of the highly embarassing things that have happened to Microsoft like the lawsuits or the navy ship getting towed back to shore that was running NT, etc. The prevailing attitude has been:
"We have to like it. It's the only choice".
Or for the more hardcore fans,
"we have to love it and defend it because they have all the money and power and I always side with the winner because that's all I know to do. I am afraid of change".
And even though that gets them what they want in the end, market domination, not many people actually take them seriously. I can remember being at a coffee shop recently and 3 older, more mature looking suits were joking about how Microsoft was getting "more secure" and remarking on a outlook trojan problem they were having currently. Nobody buys it. They just have accepted that they have no choice. That's why a effort like this, no matter how much money they throw behind it, won't convince too many people. It will create some really great boilerplate for the zealots to recite. That's about it. They are going to have to actually make their products better and actually work very hard to clean up their public image before anybody takes anything like this seriously. Just look at the general body of the responses to this article already! If Linus submitted a story saying he was going to do some sort of security audit, he would pretty much universally be taken seriously. You'll never have that with Microsoft given the reputation they have forged for themselves. Windows Server 2003 is a good step in the RIGHT direction for once. It's the smartest thing they've done to DATE to combat Linux in any way. Why? They actually listened to what their customers wanted, and sorta did it instead of doing what THEY deemed right and push it on everyone. It actually looks to be a decent product. But, it doesn't help that Oracle put out their July/August 2003 magazine and there is a HUGE Penguin on the front cover. Pages 46-62 can be summed up like this:
"Get redhat and a dell and oracle9 or you are stupid."
They might as well have said:
"SCO is completely batshit. This is what you want to do now".
And they basically came out and said
"Federal Aviation Air Traffic and Control, as well as these hospitals are now running Oracle on Redhat on HP and Dell servers. We are now meeting the holy grail of reliability with Linux. You can trust it with your life, and the lives of your loved ones".
The message is pretty clear for any CIO or manager type that I've shown this issue to. With the momentum behind Linux at the moment, I don't see Microsoft being able to do much of anything to lower their TCO in time. Every time a CIO, CEO, VP, etc. hears about all the money Amazon have saved, They want some of that luvin.
For every annoying gentoo user, are three even more annoying anti-gentoo crybabies. Take Yosh from #Gimp for example.
Nah, I'd consider IBM a friend. They're making good quality PPC processors (good business move, a happy side-effect these days), They've been helping a lot with Open Source lately (Although they _are_ under scrutiny and will lose a lot of that respect if it turns out they did actually put SCO code in the Linux kernel, because it would mean a lot of necessary cleanup on the part of linux distributers... but SCO has been doing relatively stupid things like violating the GPL since then so I'm willing to go on the side of IBM for now).
A while ago I took a software engineering class by someone who works for IBM and he actually brought up the term FUD and started talking about how you want to avoid it. That amused me to no end.
Karma: Non-Heinous
What's to keep them from pulling an Apple Maneuver and making a version of Windows that runs totally on top of a fork (containing serious DRM mods, naturally) of BSD? With Personality Modules that let you run Classic Windows programs (and device drivers? A better WINE than WINE?) as well as proprietary binaries compiled for Linux. If necessary, they could have portions of the OS that are GPL'ed (although I'm sure they want to test whether BSD code is good enough) but these extra PMs technically licensed separately. One of the things the SCO tactics will test is just how 'viral' various licenses are. In the meantime, if they can figure out the technical aspects to making money off Open Source, whichever way the legal winds blow, they'll have a plan in place to exploit it.
So, don't be surprised if a whitepaper comes out talking about certain advantages that certain OS designs have, ultimately translating to:
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
ya, I know it was a troll ...
... the MOUSE DRIVER tries to contact MS.
but what people don't get is it's about freedom.
that's in. period. choice, freedom.
Is it illegal NOT to run ms software yet?
drm/dmca? can you honestly buy a pc without
paying a tax to ms -- even if you don't get
the software?
when you go to ms to give feedback -- you almost
have to put in a product code... why do I have
to fill out a 4 page form just to give feedback?
ever receive one of the embarassing ms fud letters
where ms whines about "freedom to innovate" ?
ms doesn't understand the concept. they are 100%
responsible for stifling innovation across the board.
freedom. I do have the right not to use ms software and not to have it forced on me. of course, with the legislation that has been getting passed -- this right may lot be around for much longer.
riaa? kma. mpaa kma. ms, kma. get real, grow up.
so, I found one product from ms that I actually like! it's those white mice with the red light
-- the optical mouse. I install the software....
why does the software need to know who I am?
it's a MOUSE DRIVER. at least it installed
somewhat easily (click click click, next next next -- anyone actually ever read that bs -- you know it's not binding!)
what happens? 30 minutes to the second later (or so)
zone alarm blocked it.
folks... this is a MOUSE DRIVER... trying to
contact ms. doesn't this worry anyone?
I captured the screen to remind me and anyone
else who thinks ms is innocent.
linux is freedom. ms hates it... seems ms is
anti-american or at least anti-freedom. linux is free and SCO is more ms puppet FUD -- and free linux is a direct threat to MS's extortion.
I don't care if anyone else ever runs linux...
I run freebsd... but I have the choice to run
what works for me.
ms, I will never ever ever ever believe what you
alone say. The truth doesn't need to be
funded or bought.
Security,
Linux: Secure from the get go.
Windows: Secure depending on which set of patches you've applied today. And depending on what exploits Microsoft has admitted to and are willing to fix.
Feature Complete
Linux: New things every day and there's diversity so you can get a system styled to you. Though there are still a few sticky issues such as out of the box home usability such as dvd playback and games.
Windows: Asorbs features of other companies and puts them out of business. Takes standards and makes their own standard, deploys it to all their OS systems thus forcing those who learned the standard to use the MS version of the standard and killing off the interoperability.. *cough* HTML *cough*
Even Windows does not have out of the box usability. It cant play DvD's out of the box though MP 9 might do it. Games... well refer to the above paragraph they've taken over the gaming world with DirectX thus stifiling out any hopes of most games working on Mac or Linux OS's
TCO good one.
There are several schools of thought.. however for stock deployments to a business who need these things..
Common Desktop, Mail, Web, and Exchange then your TCO is the cost of what you pay Linux Admins to get it all setup. Plus a per machine cost if you decide on corporate versions which even then are not some crazy license requirements and have good support and updates.. SuSE and RedHat have both made great strides in this sector.. MS on the other hand have techies you have to wade through with the common customer says this, you look in the idiot book and tell customer this.
Microsoft: is quick to point out that it costs more in the long run but that's only when you get into the world of custom application programming which you may or may not have to do with Windows. How many people will finally have to dump legacy 16 bit apps for Windows when Longhorn shows up? Many of those customers will either 1 port to 64bit Linux or 32bit.. or just stick with what they have on Windows and only use the latest OS where it's required. I know many companies who've finally dumped their DOS programs re-written them into Linux compatible code and went that route. Others are still sticking to what they have until it completely falls off teh companies backs.
I'd type more but it's time to toss the pizza into the oven!
I know nothing about NIS, but the way it works in AD is that you can make changes to the same user on two different domain controllers, and provided the changes don't conflict, both changes will replicate round. Or you can make changes on any domain controller and it doens't rely on there being a master arbiter of change. Not sure if NIS does this or not
The holy grail of systems administration is host and terminals, and there X Windows exceeds by enabling X terminals
They tried that once - it wasn't always the best solution for the users. Then they went too far the other way and put everything on the client. That wasn't the best solution either. It's starting to return to a more balanced situation, where people realise that some tasks are suited for host & terminals, others are suited for "fat" clients. The holy grail of system administration it might be, but it's not always the holy grail of users getting stuff done.
Exactly. Just like that mindcraft "report" from a couple years ago, where they pointed out exactly where Linux was lacking compared to Microsoft -- and weeks later, Linux had taken the lead.
Anything pointing out differences is really just asking for those differences to be fixed. I somewhat pity Microsoft; Linux is their number one concern (because "economic factors" are a concern for every company in existence).
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Proof? They have just hired a PR firm to do the dirty work while they polish their image.
Before: "they are the cancer of IP"
Now: "they stole our IP"
Same message, just better wording.
By the way, every time the OSS community reads and discuss the MS FUD of the week, that is time wasted not focusing on its own strategy. Just as the Linux desktop needs to break away from the MS path and be innovative, the community needs to stop acting as complements and substitutions of MS products but as an autonomous end-to-end solution provider.
Fight Microsoft where it hurts: ignore them.
I know it is fun to ridicule them, but they provide a cheap entertainment that is working for them the long run: we get accustomed to their style, they shape the "industry standards" at that level, and we don't get our work done. And we learn about all of their products.
Do yourself a favour, stop reading about the MS crap, there is never anything really new, and take it to the next level.
I am getting really sick of surveys and studies that start with the answer, then search for the question. How about doing some unbiased research, then after studying the results, announcing the results and maybe inferring a conclusion or two?
I wish the press just wouldn't cover these kinds of publicity stunts. Next week: Gartner advises world to buy Microsoft because of results of microsoft funded, microsoft staffed antiopensource lab research findings...
-- $G
I wonder if they will take what they learn and try to use it to improve Windows. You'd have to be completely blind not to see that Windows is seriously lacking in the server OS arena, but it wouldn't cost MS all that much to make at least a nice improvement. Maybe Windows will finally get a decent console shell and a set of utilities, just to name two severely missed features.
Some of us poor bastards out here actually have to program and administer MS OS's for work, and it sure would be nice to see some common features added. I don't give a rats ass what they say about Linux. Just throw me a friggin' bone here!
Surely if Microsoft does the research and points out 'facts' this will just give GNU/Linux developers a checklist of things to squash. The arms race that this will produce can only be good for GNU/Linux and ultimately backfire (again) on Microsoft. _Almost_ as good as free kernel patches from Redmond....
for their experiments? That would be more honest than the current approach.