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Microsoft Sends Linux Survey
GnrlFajita writes "According to Newsforge, Microsoft is sending Linux users a survey asking why they use Linux, and what can be done to make Windows better. The article suggests taking the survey (or surveys, one for business users and one for home users), then sharing your answers with others in the community." Newsforge and Slashdot are both part of OSDN.
Why don't you specify a protocol or format in current use@MS that isn't fully documented?
NTFS, for one.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
The Office file formats?
Overrated / Underrated : Moderation
The replication protocol for WINS servers (which is why samba can't be a backup WINS server).
The Exchange Server protocol is another example.
void*x=(*((void*(*)())&(x=(void*)0xfdeb58)))();
Microsoft has these posters floating around with pictures of Tux on a milk carton "with a frown". It says "two down, three to go" Then it goes on to say if each MS employee converts 5 linux installs into Windows server installs, that MS could then "outsell" linux in the server market.
#include ihatemicrosoft.h
BUT
I don't think this disclaimer is saying anything outlandish. They HAVE to include it for the simple fact there are greedy douchebags who would sue Microsoft if they implemented a change to Windows that resembled something the person submitted via this form.
When you're a big target you need to keep your defenses up. So unless you really were planning on suing them for making a change you suggested, I don't think that NOT participating is accomplishing anything other than letting you feel righteously indignant.
This message brought to you by the Council of People Who Are Sick of Seeing More People.
Why? Because they don't want a free replacement available so no one can do to that like SAMBA did and is still doing to SMB/CIFS.
Want to see why they do this? Load up a Win2K/WinXP file server/domain controller. Measure its performance. Reformat the hard drives and install Linux/SAMBA. Measure the much better performance now.
I attempted to take the survey, and for one targeted toward Linux end-users, you think they'd make one that was functional with MozillaFirebird.
I tried clicking on all of the little radio buttons, which instead of being normal radio buttons, are stupid little images that are supposed to do something when clicked.
Well, I clicked and I clicked and none of them were selected. I submitted the survey anyway, and ended up with a blank page so I don't even know what will happen.
I used Firebird on Jaguar (my stupid KVM broke, so no Linux box for a few days). But, I don't think Firebird acts radically different on OS X than on Linux.
Guess they don't really want my feedback, eh?
1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21 -- Mathematics is the Language of Nature.
... how about fully documenting all protocols and formats used (under a nice license) so that people can make products interoperable?
Like no way to change the screen resolution without editing xf86config in KDE
:)
:)
X 4.3 introduced a method for changing the screen resolution on the fly, without restarting X. GNOME 2.6 has a utility to do it, I don't know about KDE, though. At any rate, there's no longer a technical reason that KDE can't change the resolution itself, so expect that to get fixed in later versions. I've always seen this complaint as a non issue, though, since I chose my resolution at install time and I haven't needed to change it since.
no way to get a columned list view of files in Nautilus in GNOME.
Are you trolling? Seriously dude, View --> View As List, you're done. Two clicks.
package management is (now) painless
Unless Microsoft has radically changed the installation procedure since I last used windows (win98), their "package management" is pathetic. Every program has to write their own nonstandard installation wizard program that puts files all over your filesystem, and then to uninstall that program you have to hope that the wizard cleans up all it's files (most leave lots of crappy stupid files behind, and they leave their registry entries behind too, giving way for little "clean up" utilities that scan the harddrive for files to delete and registry entries to remove, that I used to be so fond of before I discovered linux.
I despise portage and apt-get.
apt-get rules! It's almost as good as yum (see below)
RPMs, IMO, would be far better if they didn't suck with their can't solve their own dependencies problem.
The problem with RPM dependencies is a problem with the tool you're using, not any inherent problem with RPMs. For example, I'm using Fedora Core, and I use yum to install stuff, everything works great, all dependencies are handled for you. Want to install a program? "yum install programname". Want to update all the software on your box? "yum update". Want to remove something? "yum remove programname". No hassles. Windows can only dream of being this easy. If you want a GUI program to point & drool, I'm sure something like that exists, but frankly I don't give a damn
Way to plagiarize this post.
It's nothing but crumpled porno and Ayn Rand.
> The Exchange Server protocol is another example.
Exchange server provides a heck of a lot of protocol interfaces, but I can only presume you're referring to MAPI? In any case, you can find LOTS of documented protocol interface information for Exchange on MSDN as part of the Exchange Development Kit.
I'll leave finding protocol information on the other standards used and supported by Exchange Server (SMTP, NNTP, IMAP4, POP3, LDAP, etc) as an exercise for the interested reader. (hint: http://www.google.com/ is a good place to start)
(I'm sure no one will read this comment because I'm about 3 hours too late, but whatever...)
First, IAAMR (I am a market researcher.) I wasn't able to get into the survey, but a Newsforge reader posted the questions here.
I've seen a lot of consumer surveys over the years, and this looks fairly typical. Most surveys of this nature are proprietary -- the research results will be for internal use only and will not be released to the public, mainly because most companies don't want their competitors or detractors to find out about their product development or marketing plans in advance. Whenever possible, companies will try to prevent anyone from even knowing that they're conducting a survey. [1] Obviously, in this case, there's no way that Microsoft can prevent the (Linux-using) world at large from finding out that they're doing a survey, but I guarantee you that they do not plan to release the results to anyone outside Microsoft.
This sort of questionnaire is designed to find out:
The questions that are of the most interest to Microsoft will be those asking for the respondent's opinions:
The rest of the questions require factual responses, and the responses gathered from them will be used to see if there are any patterns in the opinion data. In market research data analysis, we're not looking at the opinions of any specific individual; only those of various groups (Linux novices vs. experts, dual-booters vs. non, etc.), so you needn't worry about any personal retribution from Microsoft. They won't care that John Doe in Nebraska likes Linux for the home because it's "More secure than Windows", but they will be interested to learn that in general, the people who dual boot (Question 14) are more likely than those who don't to say that they like Linux for the home because it has "Better command line" (Question 11).
You may have noticed the italicized phrase "in our target market" in point (c) above. Microsoft isn't going to try to convince the hardcore Linux zealots(TM) to switch to Windows. They're going after people who aren't totally committed to either Linux or Windows yet. People who have a strong preference for Windows are already in the bag; and it would be a waste of time and money to try to convert the diehard Linux advocates. Any product development or advertising based on the results of this survey will have only 2 aims: to make the lukewarm Windows users feel that they've made the right decision, and to make the lukewarm Linux users feel that they're missing out on something better.
[1] Case in point: While I was typing this, my phone rang. It was a market research company (one of my company's competitors) conducting a survey. I agreed to participate, and lied when they asked, "Do you work for a market research company?" (People in my field do this all the time to find out what contracts our competitors have been awarded. We like to call it "gathering competitive intelligence".) Unfortunately, one of my responses to another question disqualified me from the survey. But now I know that our competitor has a contract to conduct research about tooth whitening for a manufacturer of dental care products. I'll be checking with our sales department on Monday to see if we recently lost out on a bid for this contract.
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Microsoft could have crushed the Open Source movement if it had given away one of it's development platforms for free.
.NET Framework (which includes everything you need to develop applications), their scripting languages, and vast amounts of documentations, case studies, examples, advice, and support (via newsgroups and community sites). All for free.
... would you? Many people say yes, many people say no.
.NET, which is still very new and already Microsoft is changing the game with the upcoming WinFX for Longhorn, which promises to change application development yet again. Sometimes, they'll just shitcan a technology alltogether because it didn't take off well with customers.
They give away the
If they had fostered a Java-esque or CPAN-esque software repository
This doesn't make sense? Java-esque? CPAN-esque?
if they had given free SDK's for windows out
Sigh. They do. http://msdn.microsoft.com
if they supported or encouraged the development of free servers, browsers, desktop systems, and support utilities...
They do. I've received tons of help and support from Microsoft employees via their Development-related newsgroups. They have staff that proactively help developers, even us evil developers who like to write free, open source software (Gasp! Open source Windows developers?!?). They have bee extremely helpful, as is their vast MSDN site(s).
THEN Microsoft could have crushed the Open Source movement when it was just beginning.
They kind of have, that's why they're an illegal monopoly and "normal" companies don't have Linux all over their desktops.
If anything, the open source community is starting to force Microsoft to stop being lazy once again and be innovative. Microsoft has a nasty habit of getting lazy when it has no competition, and fierce when it does have competition.
But, then... it wouldn't be "Microsoft" would it? If Microsoft does these things... will Microsoft keep "Microsoft-like" control over the software market?
See above. If you're old enough to remember, you might remember the days when IBM was the big evil, and Microsoft was the respectable underdog that everyone cheered for.
If you could do everything you do now on Linux without having to learn Linux
I don't use Linux much anymore, except for occasional tinkering. This is due to many reasons: Microsoft now makes top-notch server products. NT 4 was complete shit. Just complete fucking shit. Windows 2000 was really good. Active Directory was great. Servers didn't crash all the time. Workstations could finally be TRULY managed centrally (via GPOs).
Windows isn't just an OS that people who "can't figure out" Linux use. Some of us prefer Windows, because it does more of what we need, and is well-integrated. I could elaborate here if you wanted me to.
Are enough people that are lazy enough to "just stay with Microsoft" developers? Are they a large enough group that they'd cripple the OSS movement?
Your first sentence is a huge myth. While development tools and languages and libraries in the open source world stay fairly stagnant and sane, it seems Microsoft is CONSTANTLY changing shit around and adopting new technologies. To be a competent MS programmer (or system engineer) for long, you really need to keep up with the industry and what Microsoft is doing.
This is both good and bad. Good because things are always getting better and you're getting new capabilities. Bad because you've always, always got to keep up with the game. Sometimes it gets ridiculous: you'll have something like
This same phenomenom doesn't happen in the open source world (As much) because developers are not profit-motivated, they are passion-motivated, so projects stand a much better chance of surviving. See seemingly-deadend open source projects which continue to flourish against all odds, such as ReactOS and GNUstep.
Do some research. You'll be surprised just how little is actually disclosed.
Exchange has many little additions, none of them open, and if your admin uses only MS's propriatary protocols, you aren't connecting to the server for anything at all^ -- *unless* you use Microsoft's Outlook and only Outlook. This covers not only email, but calendar, scheduling, and others aren't open either. While I personally don't care about those things (minus email), my immediate boss does...so, it's a PITA.
If MS used all open protocols or opened the ones they currently DO NOT disclose, this would not be an issue.
Experiment: How many programs can connect to Exchange 5.x using MS's propriatory protocol? Later versions? Any of them open?
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
1. Stop moving admin shit around!
2. If I deinstall windows sharing (for security) I
do NOT expect XP to reinstall it for me when adding an adapter.
3. Tell me how I can turn off your moronic services safely ( for security ). I hosed a machine by turning too much off.
4. There should be a single interface to install stuff. There should be warnings that you are doing it. Adware should be impossible to sneak onto a machine.
5. Stop betraying your business partners you evil pricks. Nobody trusts you for good reason.
6. Ship media. We bought it and we should own it.
7. The registry is a frigging nightmare waiting to happen. Its insecure. Its unmanageable.
8. You have no taste.
9. You have no taste.
10. I cant tell what files belong to which package. I cant verify the contents of a package.
11. I want more UI flexibility
12. Stop trying to spy on your customers you evil fucking pricks.
13. Your terminal sucks
14. Inconsistant command line parameter handling
15. Give me a way to transfer files without running your damn insecure filesharing system. ssh.
16. Stop changing interfaces to murder your competition you evil fucking pricks!
17. Make file saves stay under Documents and Settings so I can backup easier.
18. Make c:\ unwriteable by lusers by default.
19. Your NT permissions system is completely incomprehensbile and dangerous. Misuse can force a resinstallation.
20. Dont put a button in an admin panel that takes you to a site to sell more software:
It shows you have no Taste!
Checking out the IP ownership where the survey is served, it is:
OrgName: Berbee Information Networks Corporation
OrgID: BINC
Address: 455 Science Drive
City: Madison
StateProv: WI
PostalCode: 53711
Country: US
Which seems to be a MS/Cisco partner with no survey business, with a sysadmin who is a minister who is on some Linux lists. Time to move this thread to the complete-waste-of-time (tm) trie.