Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft's Platform Strategist Speaks On Linux
prostoalex writes "Martin Taylor, general manager for platform strategies at Microsoft, was interviewed by CRN magazine on Linux, open source development, and Microsoft's official stand on it."
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
No troll. Just curious. Anyone have pricing info?
So right away he takes a jab at Linux by comparing it to a Diet Coke, while comparing Windows to the full meal.
In credible. Big balls or no brains, you decide.
.sigs are for post^Hers.
I think it's more of allowing anything with a file extention of
Does that sound like a workable solution to your problem Bill?
I'm not arguing the merits of Linux vs. Windows here - just trying to get a handle on "free".
When you're talking about large enterprise installations, or installations where people want the backing or support of a company, Linux does cost money - ie: Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Yeah, you can download new packages and install updates, but it's easier to use RHN, etc.
Anyway, Iw ould like to hear waht you think of the tone of this article
Sigs are dangerous coy things
I don't know why I read this drek, because I could have known he would fling fud and mud like his job depends on it.
compares retail(?) windows with enterprise linux support contacts, tries to establish that linux has less offerings as reason for costing less (no it is because 'Linux' does not need no lizzard tongue PR drones like this one) etc etc.
This quote:" Just because you have a bunch folks out in the community that have the access to look at open-source product means that, by default, it will be more secure or higher quality."
Is that some error by the journalist or did he really say that? It is right after some dumb statment saying that just because thousands of people look at the source this will not lead to less bugs because those people are -supposedly- not qualified. Clearly this guy is trying to hide the delphi-effect (crowds of people are smarter than the average of the people they are made up of).
Anyway, time to ignore MS news even more.
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
...it is certainly a more tepid, sterile business jargon laden response. Essentially however, it regurgitates what has been the essential MS party line since they came to the realization that it may actually be a credible threat (yeah i know, real shocker there).
I can't really find any substantive material here. If anything, it's more offensive because it is so utterly devoid of anything that hasn't been rufuted already. Quotes like "We definitely see more conversations happening about Linux on the desktop in public-sector scenarios, primarily in emerging markets." mean nothing..."emerging markets" basically means all the markets MS heretofore ignored and doesn't want OSS establishing anymore beach-heads.
"By design, we've always moved out service and support from the core part of our pricing because we invest in the channel quite heavily. Our value-add is really in the R&D in the technology." basically means (1) we don't give 2 squirts of piss about service and support because it is a cash drain and we are so entrenched we haven't tpically had to wroory about because consumers had fuck all for choice, and (b) where R&D = taking ideas others develop and putting it through the Redmond filter. MS hasn't done anything spectacular in R&D since Myrvhold left/was ousted.
I spoke with an MS rep recently and he admitted that MS is scared that Linux would kick their ass. Maybe not at this time, (he mentioned it excels at servers, but went into a TCO talk then). Don't think that MS is impervious to Linux, they respect it a lot more than it looks like they do -- thats why they are taking their time with Longhorn. Perhaps this will quench some of the seething animosity that seems to fuel the Linux crowd.
Yes, just ask Netscape, Real, ProComm, the disk compression people, and all those other Microsoft partners who developed their technology on Windows. They are doing so very well now that MS integrated their successful product into the operating system and gave it away for "free" (except the OS costs more now.)
If I'm developing something, well, I'd pick Linux over Windows as insurance against the future, certainly not the other way around.
Dean G.
You should grep -v " " | sort | uniq
From man uniq:
DESCRIPTION
Discard all but one of successive identical lines from INPUT (or standard input), writing to OUTPUT (or standard output).
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
.. because they can't get it. They don't have the capacity for it. Whatever this guy's resume says, it's clear as soon as he starts using inane terms like 'monetize', and when he pulls out the TCO argument that MS loves to flaunt but seems unable to justify independently, that he's just another blind marketing goon toeing the Microsoft line without any real understanding.
These people will never understand what's happening because they don't have any context for it. I mean - come on: citing the lack of a "lockdown, hardened firewall" as the area in which Microsoft is lacking when it comes to security merely demonstrates a lack of understanding of the extent of Microsoft's failings in this area. The assertion that a large peer-review process doesn't "guarantee a level of quality" supposes that those working on Linux are a group of monkeys -- although Taylor then goes on to basically contradict himself by saying "the end of the day, there are only about 14 to 25 guys that actually check code into the Linux kernel".
Microsoft will continue to try to marginalise Linux by suggesting that it's just "edge services" or "high-performance computing" (Windows is for "low performance" by implication, I guess!) - while pushing out the same hackneyed old nonsense about "hamburgers and bigmacs" and TCO. The only alternative to them, of course, is the true -- but rather circular -- argument, that Windows has supremacy because it's what most people use (and never mind the monopoly stuff). And it's here that Microsoft will eventually fall: once enough of the "key players" port to Linux in a variety of fields, we're going to see a critical mass as Linux becomes considered a "real platform" in the eyes of the masses. And Microsoft's tactics in trying to hold off that day simply don't seem to be working too well.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
the people who are telling you to "trust us, we're better" have left lots of people high and dry before. With open source one doesn't require blind faith to operate - one can actually look at the code. If MS had been better at its job or fairer to its users before, their word might be good enough for most people like me who don't want to look at the source code - but they've been neither good nor fair, and so their word is by no means good enough.
When MS tells you to trust them, the first instinct (as with almost anyone, not just MS) should be not to turn your back.
Jokes at the McDonald's analogy aside, if you've looked at your local McDonald's lately, you might understand what this guy is saying about Microsoft's future strategy.
McDonald's used to sell just burgers, fries and Coke. Not anymore. Now we have a McCafe, and salads and chicken wraps. Why? Because they were missing out on a market segment and want to dominate that, too.
Remember, everything Microsoft does, it learnt first from IBM. And market segmentation is the name of the game here. Invent three boxes, small, medium and large, and claim that's more choice than Linux gives you.
Apart from the fact that such tactics won't work against an open-source model, isn't it a strategic mistake to chop op a major OS/Applications platform like this? Joe Average might be confused enough to think that Linux is a simpler alternative :)
insecurity asks the wrong question irritation gives the wrong answer
I'm just simply saying that more in number does not mean it's more in quality.
.vbs (local or remote), which is to execute it. The VBS engine has free rein over the system, including being able to read addressbooks, open network sockets (most viruses now have primitive SMTP mailers) and do anything else they pretty much want.
So, higher Windows OS sales doesn't make it better than Linux?
Jokes aside, he says security concerns are because Windows doesn't ship with a firewall. Umm, it does, it's poorly documented, but it does. I'm not sure how a firewall would help against email viruses.
The scary thing is email viruses work because everything is working just the way it should (at least the way it was at some snapshot in time, a snapshot in time that many people are obviously still at). Outlook is hiding extensions, like it was told to. The people are opening attachments, like they should be able to (MS has taken the obvious action in some situations, made it dangerous, and then blamed the user for doing the obvious). The OS is doing what it is told to when opening ANY
Rant mode OFF
Our value-add is really in the R&D in the technology.
A disconnect with customers happens when Microsoft confuses who should be the beneficiary of added value from R&D. Have the enormous sums spent annually on R&D resulted in superior performance in areas that are most important to customers: security, reliability, affordability, and flexibility? Or is it the case that R&D spending is concentrated on technologies to displace existing products and vendors from the marketplace (Internet Explorer vs. Netscape, .NET vs. Java, etc...) in favor of Microsoft, but without seriously addressing the needs of its customers?
Have you ever used Microsoft's "support?" The Network Operations Center I worked in for a while had one problem that just wouldn't go away. I don't even remember what the problem was, but there were at least 6 guys working on it and nobody could figure out the problem. Microsofts solution: Reboot it every night when not very many people are using it. I can't believe they charge hundreds of thousands of dollars for that. And they were YOUR dollars (if you're an american) because it was government work.
I doubt that many developers would work pro bono on mSFT code base should it ever become open source. Fact it, most OSS developers contribute for their own benefit, be that notoriety, experience gained or the sheer pleasure of it. Having mSFT comoditize their work would certainly lend to a very sour turn.
mSFT recognizes that they are a slowly sinking ship, and are rabid rats scrambling greedily to retain their mighty market share. They cannot compete with OSS; Ballmer has grasped the benefits (he's not as stupid as he dances) and must now obfuscate the issue.
Fear not, the mSFT heyday is over. Although very eloquently put, Taylors comments are but a shallow attempt to paint a happy face on Dorian Grey.
As much as I'd like to see Windows become OSS, I think that it'd probably create compatibility problems galore for software companies who are used to working in a rigid (but not really stable ;-) ) environment like Windows to an environment where certain versions of Windows have different faults and features than others.
Well, I guess that I mean other than the psuedo-linear upgrades. :-D
But there are some differences between the different Lini (ha ha ha) that require a little different programming in order to work around.
On second thought, I guess that making it work on lotsa lini would be easier than making it work on one Windows. Open Source Away!
This sig is certified free of self-referential humour!
>It's probably only a matter of time before Ballmer finally grasps the true benefits of Open Source.
I doubt MS would gain much by Open Sourcing Windows... for a few reasons:
1) OSS would put Windows on the same playing field as Linux and BSD. On the same playing field, Linux is just flat out superior to Windows in most respects.
2) It would be easy to make Windows API clones, given that there could be no more secret APIs. Microsoft would no longer have platform "lock in" to force things like Internet Explorer
3) The code is likely just plain bad. It may need a major rewrite before others in the community could start to contribute.
4) Making something OSS does not necessarily reduce your payroll. Someone has to do the development in OSS, and quite often those people are paid. Witness RedHat, VA, and IBM contributing to Linux.
I don't see MS open sourcing Windows until they're smaller in market share than Linux. Then they'll get desperate, but it will be too late.
Plus if you look at the Linux USB project, most of the commits come from Vajtech Pavlik, who aggregates patches posted to the linux-usb-devel mailinglist. Just because someone doesn't have commit access doesn't mean they've not written code in the kernel.
You have to love this shit.
CRN: Where do you see Linux being successful today?
TAYLOR: Definitely on the edge. You're just seeing edge services continue, such as firewall, appliances and those types of devices. Obviously, Unix migrations are happening. That's where, primarily, custom applications that people have written in-house are being moved over to Linux. But you're not seeing this huge ISV community created. Yes, some ISVs are being created, but not any massive ones. And the other place we see it is high-performance computing, scientific computing clusters that have lots and lots of servers.
Huge ISV's. Hmm... Wall Street. Amazon. Yahoo. Google. IBM.
You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button.
This is a a thread response, not necessarily a parent poster reponse:
Well, considering that Linus *did* write the original from scratch (and therefore can lay claim to creating it) and has also remained active in it's development for more than 12 years *and* that he holds the original copyrights, I think that your comment, while not necessarily inaccurate, is still irrelevant when the comparison to M. Gates is made - after all, Gates stated a while back that he has little to do with the day to day operations of "his" company.... didn't he?
Oh, and I have yet to see Bill state categorically that he has done any serious coding since the early days of DOS. One can't say that of Linus, eh?
Plus wasn't a lot of the code that Bill started his company on bought from someone else?
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
A quick trip to Netcraft reveals little supprise.
And then I remembered a particular piece from the artical that goes:
Well, according to Mr. Taylor it may not have much bearing on OS's, but it sure looks like it makes one hell of a difference with web servers.
__________________________________
Free your mind - Flush your toilet
One night on a whim I decided to install jabberd2 on my freebsd box. The port did not build (I foget the exact error). Included in the error message was the email address of the package maintainer who happened to be in russia. I cut and paste the error message to him. A short time later he replies to the email with a patch. I apply the patch and install the thing no problem. I let him know about the good outlook and that night when my system does a cvsup the fix is in the port.
Beat that MS.
The best way to support the US war effort is to continue buying American products.
You're not distinguishing between Linux the kernel and Linux the OS. The parent was almost certainly talking about the latter.
Userland backwards compatability on Linux is OK but we've certainly had our fair share of cockups. The rollout of the new threading systems (NPTL and the new TLS system) was pretty much a backwards compatability disaster. I currently have to run XMMS of all things with LD_ASSUME_KERNEL because of NPTL. Oh sure, I tried to debug it. Doesn't work when gdb pukes and dies - again due to threading. Don't even get me started on the breakage Wine has had to deal with.
The glibc/kernel guys claim they know how to write backwards compatible software but in reality they don't. They don't, because unlike Microsoft they treat backwards compatability as a science, as a fixed set of rules that if they follow they think can be held blameless. Of course when you get situations like NPTL where the old system was so broken everybody had workarounds which stop working in obscure ways when the underlying bugs were fixed, this logic breaks. They still break backwards compatability, they just end up playing the blame game instead, which is stupid.
We could have much better backwards compat without the huge hacks Microsoft use with even a few small changes to process, but I'm not seeing people interested in making those changes.
Given the intensity with which it is probably being scrutinised, I'd imagine any "obvious" embarassments would have already surfaced by now.
Hell, if you want a laugh (and if you're a win32 dev you will learn something too) go read Raymond Chens blog. Not only is this guy a near-genius level coder, but he's been working on Win32 (and USER in particular) for a very long time now. Yes, I know some of you think that's an oxymoron. He often posts interesting stories about its development and about the bizarre hacks they put in to work around broken apps (some parts of windows even go so far as to detect and correct stack corruption).
There is a point in what Martin says. Just because there are a lot of eyes looking at the source it doesnot mean that it is secure. What is more important is that every piece of software undergoes a rigourous test procedure testing all (atleast most of) the possibilities. And hitching on an anti-microsoft feeling would not help the open source world. If they want to prove that open source is better then they need to make sure to deliver quality products, and then the customers would adopt open source software. Also take note of a valid point made by Martin when he quotes the diet coke example. Most of the linux distributions are overloaded with stuff that an average user would hardly use. It is not just the products but also the packaging that matters and if the linux distributions can pick up a cue from Microsoft I think there is nothing wrong in that. In the end it is the customer who will benefit.
Looks like its simply a market segmentation approach through increased componentisation that they are doomed to adopt.
In plain terms this means taking their one product and de-featuring or crippling it to suit what Microsoft thinks is best for a particular customer. They will always get this wrong for two reasons:
because everyone has unique demands on technology and
all GNU/Linux distributions are highly componentised from the very first day because thats how they are created using very different development teams.
A typical Linux distro is intrinsically componentised and so is years ahead of Microsoft. A typical full-fat GNU/Linux distribution will always be the whole product and will (nearly) always provide the right product offering to its customers without having to crow-bar your requirements to fit Microsoft's view of who you are.
Who do you want to be today ? - I just want to be me not what you tell me to be !
This is why Microsoft just can't win by using market segmentation against Linux. It may work if the competition was commercial e.g. Microsoft verses Apple, but Linux development is user-demand driven not marketing-demand driven.
No mention is made of GPL/LGPL in the article. In my books this is also a key customer requirement of derisking single-suppliers through open source licensing. Shared source is not the answer as you cannot build from that source whereas I can, and do, build from kernel.org (now at 2.6.3 and very happy with what I see on my SMP machine).
No matter how rigorous, hands-on testing is not going to find the security holes that can only be uncovered by a source code audit. You've got to have proofreaders that are (at least instantaneously) more knowledgeable, more detail-oriented, and more alert than the original author.
Even closed-source software such as Microsoft's typically has hundreds of people with permissions to view the code. Recent events have shown that not all of them are going to be trustworthy.
And when any of that stuff runs with different credintials than the user, or accepts foreign data locally or from a network, you have a potential problem.
So ? We're allegedly comparing relative intelligence levels, not coding experience.
No probably about it. But as to the intelligence factor, look at how much time each of them has spent actually coding, vs. doing Business Management. Now, you may consider BM as requiring more intelligence to accomplish than creative coding; personally, I don't. But we can agree to disagree on that.
I didn't say more, I said comparable. Added to that, there's probably a reasonable sized chunk of people who'd argue not only that (good) Business Management is at least as hard, but that the majority of coding is grunt work, not creative work.
You don't get to build a company the size of Microsoft by being a dunce. If you did, there would be a lot more of them.