Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Proclaims Death of Free Software Model
geoff313 writes "
As previously mentioned here,
Microsoft's new wave of FUD has begun to arrive. This time it is
courtesy of Bradley Tipp, Microsoft's UK national systems engineer, who
spoke at the Microsoft IT Forum in Copenhagen. In this article
from ZDNet UK, he is quoted as saying that 'Linux is great' and 'there
are a lot of things we should learn from open source' but then is quick
to point out that 'We haven't talked to a single user who has said
they're using [open source] because it's better.' Another Microsoft employee was quoted as
saying 'At least if Linux takes off, their viruses will propagate and
we won't be seen as the bad guys any more.' I for one am happy to see that they are taking their new interest in security seriously, and I'm
sure you all are too. Most interesting is the assertion that the decision by Red
Hat to end support for its free distribution and Novell's
aquisition of SUSE marks not only the death of free software,
but actually is a validation of Microsoft's business model. Does anyone
besides Microsoft see these events as the end of Free software?" I use Free software because it's better; they just didn't ask.
I wouldn't be surprised in this atmosphere of fear and uncertainty for the USA to proclaim software is 'too important to be left to amateurs' and make the GPL illegal. Or you'd need a licence to write code or SOMETHING.
Since Reagan we have been seeing more and more acquiescence of the law to the bottom line of big business. Illegality of Open Source Software is not too much to imagine.
After all - TERRORISTS could get access to it, right? That's the root password to the Constitution these days, right? All it would take is one little incident...
A nation that can make booze and blow jobs illegal can do ANYTHING.
It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.
You can always tell the average age of people on Slashdot when the concern is wheither or not Linux is better than XP and has a bunch of games. For the record I think that Linux is much simplier to use after you learn it and many of the distros have the same nifty little configuration tools that you can find in Windows. And don't get me started on the number of times I've tried to do some simple thing in Windows XP only to get lost in config "wizard" hell. Win2k isn't nearly as bad about it. XP is a step backward.
More on Topic: What MS is most worried about is servers. They aren't gaining much ground in that area and Linux is poised to become the dominent player in that area. So MS does what they do best, the spread FUD, in hopes that some PHBs will get scared and stop considering Linux for deployment.
MS also knows that Corporate embracement of Linux is good for it (and thus bad for them). RedHat is focusing large companies who want top-level support. There isn't anything at all wrong with that as so go the bigger companies the smaller ones follow, until eventually you start seeing it on people's desktops.
FUD isn't making Linux or free software go away anytime soon.
The Anti-Blog
Ultimately, free software is long from dead, and all of us know this. However, deploying Linux system in a corporate environment generally involves investing time, and sometimes money, in a distribution. These investments seem to have led Microsoft to believe that there is great worth in these distribution companies. I'm here to tell you that there is NOT great worth in these companies.... Much of their work parallels community-based operating systems, and the only reason non-community distributions do so well is because you'll find them covered in polish and dummy-proofed.
In my office, for example, the slickest and most popular install was a simple Red Hat base, compiled software to fit the needs of that workstation or server, and a Ximian install on top, with Red Carpet managing packages and keeping the RH stuff up-to-date. The key to this system, all around, was simplicity. When RedHat decided to focus only Enterprise (which we did not need) and trust everything else on an unproven community, they lost me and my company as a customer. They've probably also lost a ton of support among those who've provided mirrors for their repackaging of our software, because this is nothing but a slap in their face and the disavowal of a long-term relationship with many schools and businesses.
However, it looks like RHAT's up around 4%.
Free software is not dead, but it could really use more polish and coordination among groups like Debian and less public focus on these repackaging companies...
There are people around the world who fight for their lives on a daily basis and we live in such as fantasy land that we see conflicting business models as a life and death struggle
Umm, the last world war was fought over 'conflicting business models'. You remember the Cold War, right?
Most wars are fought over possession of resources. Here there is a war over the defintion of possession itself for a certain sub-class of resources that mostly occupy space in the mind.
+&x
Or better yet, get a playstation that runs linux and write your own games. :)
If its just-as-good AND free instead of $200 per pc, that sounds better to me.
This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
I have worked with hundreds if not thousands of Personal Computers 99% of which have had windows installed as the primary [or only] operating system. Altho you ARE correct in that Windows SUPPORTS the multiple desktop, I have YET to see it implemented "out of the box" (ie:Software for multiple desktop and have only ONCE seen Multiple desktops used in ANY case with windows, and that was where a VERY nice graphics card [radeon] shipped the software for such with the drivers.
So, if by "support" you mean "allow", sure It _can_ be done, but if by "support" you mean provide a means by which to do so easially, NO microsoft indeed falls short in this area.
Lets call a spade a window, shall we?
ps. I may also have mispelled some things above, dont be a smart ass. just _try_ to mutter "throu". Thanks... from your local taboo dept.
You do realize that the Selected President*, his cadre of debt-exploding, job-decimating, occupation-failing chicken hawks and their AC flunkies like yourself don't equal the US, don't you? Even though the Selected President* has worked so hard to advance the notion of the imperial Presidency:
"I get to decide who's an enemy combatant.
Nobody has the right to judge me.
Everyone who advises me is free from oversight."
And even though the Selected President*, who was actually selected by the SC, keeps believing that he was chosen for the job by God.
This is an EXCELLENT post and I wish I had some mod points handy.
The furniture analogy is one I haven't heard before but it seems much better than the ones I usually come up with (deck work and siding for the house) in that furniture does indeed come in many forms all the way from very expensive designer furniture all the way to completely do-it-yourself.
Cars don't do well as an analogy because of the high manufacturing costs that make building economy cars on a small scale impossible.
In fact, looking for some other industry to compare with Microsoft's position in the software sector is what should give Microsoft management and investors nightmares. There simply is nothing that comes close. There is practically no money making activity these days that both requires so little capital investment to get started in and yet still has such a high profit potential. As Microsoft has become more and more an Intel only company they have made their situation worse rather than better. At some point if Microsoft and Intel don't merge I think it will be Intel that survives the partnership and not Microsoft. A lot of people have trouble imagining Microsoft squandering that 40 billion dollar warchest they have now, but if they keep their head in the clouds long enough it could happen.
Umh, actually M$ Linux (or more likely BSD) can't actually be ruled out.
It's well known that M$ uses BSD within its own walls...you don't actually think the whole of M$.com is running on IIS do you? Gee, who'd have thunk it? M$'s primary backends look to be Linux.
And what would make them do this? They would simply write proprietary apps that work seemlessly with Windoze systems (M$ SQL Server for M$ Linux, etc) which would make managers who bought new servers feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
The most likely method of imlementing this would be to come out with a new version of Windoze that was Linux/BSD under the hood and market it as Linux compatible (M$ Windoze Advanced Linux Server) or something similar...
You can be certain that if M$ were to develop their own *NIX distro (Xenix doesn't count, it was too early) they would be at the top of the market. It's the whole idea of "if you can't beat em, join em"...
That's a big "me too". I'm not an open source zealot, and I use Win2k as my base OS, because some of my apps are Windows only (Atmel AVR Studio, for example), but I use numerous free (as in beer) or free (as in speech) apps because they are better for me than the closed-source alternatives.
Two examples:
Mozilla Firebird - leaner, nicer and more configurable than IE, and actually supports HTML and transparent PNGs properly.
OpenOffice - because I don't want to pay $400 to edit my letters to Grandma and to balance my checkbook. (Actually, even $40 would be stretching it.)
So, I guess Bill didn't ask me either.
Sean Ellis
Follow OfQuack's antics on Twitter.
Five years ago what young people were interested was technology. Raise a political point on slashdot and you would get slapped down with offtopic. Today what people are interested in is politics, there is a war going on out there which matters a damn sight more than what Hilary Rosen or Bill Gates might have said.
/. for quite a long time and the whole va-linux conspiracy theory is stretching things a bit far now, don't cha think?
Comment noted. However, a lot has changed in the last five years. Most of the web innovation is not being driven by a handful of companies, but is being controlled and, frankly, bitch slapped by one company and one company only.
I don't mind competition or even Windows itself. I choose to use it as little as possible where and when I can. However, when you come up against a monopoly of thought and culture as Micro$oft (and for that matter, any other closed-minded group) there is little room for you to move.
The technology is still interesting. However, there are forces at work slowing things down and trying to syphon off as much progress and innovation as possible. And frankly, when one company decides that they want to lead an initiative to tell me what I can and can't do with hardware I buy, then that's when the gloves come off.
Like any movement or group that gains significant power and interest from others, it ends up getting political and I accept that. When I'm 60 I still want the ability to write code and work with machines to do other things. I'll protest, pay money, bitch, moan - whatever, to get that because I know there are others that want the same. You might not and that's fine, that's your opinion and luckily, you're still allowed to voice it - for now.
Anyway, I've been participating in
One point missed is that no furniturecompany has got anything like what Microsoft has got when it comes to having their furniture already put in when you buy the house. If one did other furnituremakers would strive, because even if furniture is slightly uncomfortable it's a hassle to exchange it. Especialy when you can't use some furniture with the furniture already in your house. (Unless you install something that makes it compatible).
When it comes to one of Microsofts fastest advancing competitors they've got the strong side of offering several different models of their furniture. Where Microsoft only got one chairdesign (with different upholstery) "the competitor" provide several different designs. all with defferent looks and feels.
And what when you don't like something or something is unsafe?
Microsoft sais:
What? You don't like that wobly shelf? Well that's too bad, because it supports that cupboard, and if you take the shelf out the cupboard has to go aswell. And that cupboard is needed to store those cups because you really need them when you want to set the table, and you can't use other cups, and there's nowhere else to store them. And if you remove the table we don't see any point in having that sofa and those chairs there so we insist on taking those with us. And that open space really don't need that rug so well take that aswell. But now you can only sit in the kitchen. Too bad that we don't serve dinner in the kitchen so if you want your dinner you need to install the rug, table, sofa, chairs, cups, cupboard and that wobly shelf and just pray that it doesn't fall over and hurt you.
"The competitor" sais
What? You don't like that wobly shelf? Well we can take it out and the rest of your furniture can be exactly as it is. You just need to A) not use that shelf or B) find something else to take it's place.
If pro and con are opposites, what is the opposite of progress?
In my company there is not a single machine that runs Microsoft because it is expensive to run software that is full of security holes!!
.doc or .xls. While it makes practical sense for us to run servers and our own applications on OSS, I can't justify the hassle of using, say OpenOffice when word works better for a couple hundred buck more (than $0) for two or three people.
Linux, Apache and Postgres is stable and secure thank you very much.
I'm no fan of MS, but I have to ask: what exactly does your company do that you can manage to get by without any MS products?
EG people outside our business are always wanting to communicate with us in
My company is doing its part to promote OSS, and we use and develop OSS ourselves. But running a moderately sized business without any MS software is just not practical for most businesses YET.
Cars do make quite a good analogy. There are plenty of firms, at least in the UK, which will sell you kits to let you build your own 1950s Porsche Spyder, Jaguar E Type and other vehicles.