Slashdot Mirror
Linux the Tortoise to Microsoft's Hare?
LukePieStalker writes "TheStreet.com is running a story by Ronna Abramson that makes a case for Linux cutting into Microsoft's server business and forcing Redmond to trim margins. A particular vulnerability is seen in overseas markets, but the heat should be turned up everywhere once Unix replacements are pretty far along by then end of next year. A quote from one CTO: [Linux is] "going to force Microsoft to spend more time on security and stability, and less time on adding new features.""
We've known since 1998 that Linux has server headway. Microsoft knows this too. They know they have to work on security (hence what's coming in SP2 and later on, Longhorn).
Summary of article--Linux is a good server, Microsoft has to make Windows more secure to compete (this despite the fact Linux was shown to be the most vulnerable OS on the net according to an article Slashdot posted a few months ago).
"Sufferin' succotash."
"They're not at all important in the next quarter," Lundstrom said. But "20 years from now, the global center of the software industry will be Asia."
I bet MSFT pays damned close attention to that line right there. Problem is, Asia is already more in love with Linux than nearly anywhere else on the planet, and that may be Linux' ultimate success... and MSFT's ultimate source of destruction.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
What does "worked on LOADS more" mean? Do you mean that more people work on the development of Linux or do you mean that more people use Linux? Either way, they are making the point that Linux is going the underdog but by going the slow but steady route while Microsoft is rushing out tons of useless bells and whistles while ignoring security and stability.
When I started to use linux, people who worked with windows pretty much accepted that you'd have to reboot several times a day. This wasn't just because of the need to preserve backward compatitibility with DOS. Even NT 4 was pretty buggy before sp4 or so.
I remember telling people that sun servers often stayed up for years without reboots -- no one believed it. Computers crashed, that's what computers do. Microsoft, and to a lesser extent apple, convinced most casual users that's the way computers worked.
But obviously, this wasn't something that was caused by an immature level of technological development, because other companies, like sun, were shipping machines that didn't crash all the time.
I believe that linux is responsible for a huge percentage of the core improvements that MS made to windows. They never felt it was a problem to ship OSs that crashed until they saw an alternative that didn't crash, on the edge of their radar screen. An alternative that people could install on their existing PCs, an alternative that people running ISPs could use to do server work.
Linux's quality, for the most part, doesn't come out of competition. There are efforts to make linux better at doing certain specific things, efforts that are driven by benchmarks. Most of the time, these little competitions seem to be waged with FreeBSD. But it's a historical fact that people wanted to make linux more reliable way before windows had any stability at all.
Microsoft *needs* linux to push it. If linux wasn't out there, does anyone think they'd be trying to tighten up security? Does anyone think that they would have delivered stable versions of windows without the pressure of competition.
My point is that even if you don't use linux, you benefit from it in a big way. In fact, I would say that most of the real benefit that linux brings to the world comes in the form of competitive pressure on microsoft, and those benefits are seen by windows users, not by linux users. Who knows how much they'd be charging, what the net would look like, how often windows would crash, etc., if it weren't for linux.
It's hard to get this across, but every discussion of open source vs. commercial development ignores the effect that open source exerts on commercial developers. The discussions are simplistic for that reason.
If you were going to compare open source development vs. monopolistic commercial development in a realistic way, you'd have to talk about what a horrible job commercial developers did before open source developers started to hold their feet to the fire.
So I'm a pervert. Welcome to the Internet.
I disagree, I think Microsoft is just going to push their proprietary stuf harder, in the false name of security. Sure, they'll have to drop the prices, but Linux will have a tough time 'fitting in' when it can't authenticate against the existing Active Directory servers out there.
I'm already having trouble getting Macs and Linux boxes to play nice with Active Directory, who KNOWS what sort of proprietary encryption techniques they'll use to keep Linux and Apple boxes out of the core network.
I can easily see MS dropping support for pre-NTLMv2 logons, which would force Mac users to use MS-controlled authentication modules, that would be rough if they didn't maintain them properly.
Is there a way now to run an Apache/Linux box and have it authenticate web users against an Active Directory?
Is there an open-standard directory service that can replace AD, but windows machines can still connect to? Has anyone written an 'OpenDirectory -> pseudo-AD / NT Domains' gateway?
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
It is worth noting that somehow an operating system created just for the fun of it and never intended to take on Microsoft's product line is doing just that.
When was the last time one of your educational endevours resulted in taking on a major corporation?
I don't need no stinkin' sig!
"going to force Microsoft to spend more time on security and stability, and less time on adding new features."
That's exactly what Microsoft has been doing for some time now. We're 2.5 years out from the release of Windows XP; in this time there's been a fairly significant update to Windows Media Player, Movie Maker, and Messenger, and umm... that's it for features, folks! Pretty much everything else MS has released as updates to XP in that timeframe directly addresses security and stability. XP SP2 will be more of the same: all the binaries have been recompiled with stack corruption checking mechanisms in place, the firewall will be turned on by default, automatic updates will be pushed harder than ever, IE will get additional ActiveX security controls, there will be better integration with third-party AV solutions, RPC has been thoroughly worked over to improve security, etc. etc. Even Athlon 64 owners will get additional security in the form of the NX protection.
There's very little in the way of new features that aren't security-related. The closest one I can think of is the pop-up blocker, and that could even be considered a "job security" feature.
It's o this CTO's discredit that he has had his head in the sand for so long that he hasn't actually noticed this going on!
Best quote in the article:
Am I the only one who finds MS's newer crayonware interfaces a colossal PITA? You've got everything pretty much set with an unprivileged account. You need to change something, so you log out and log in as administrator, and you've got asinine little bubbles popping up telling you obvious stuff "New Applications Installed" or something, right over the logout button. You have to wait for the OS to get done wasting your time, so you can get back to slashd^H^H^H^H^Hwork.
The good news is that, for a small further waste of your time, you can usually dig around and restore the OS to the classic mode you already understand.
One can see, through the salesman's eye, the importance of pseudofeaturitis, as a means of convincing the customer that there's some 'there' there when we advertise the new version.
The technical eye still wants to know why a commentable, versionable, plain text configuration file isn't a better solution.
Maybe someone in Redmond will read this.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
One thing that's always driven me batty is the manic-depressive nature of Microsoft's feature development. On day, they announce some new technology with a commitment that seems more impressive than wedding vows, six months later they quietly kill it off in favor of another announcement of some other, newer, technology.
I'm not against new innovations, but this cycle should be more like 3-5 years, not 6-18 months, they shouldn't be unsupported and obsolete until 5-7 years, minimum. Between a new technology announcement and a real deployment can be 9-18 months depending on a business' needs and budgeting and planning cycles. Replacing it right when you want to deploy it is pretty insane (although I know they want you on the upgrade treadmill).
And their "new" innovations should in some way be improvements (with perhaps some backwards compatibility) so that they seem to have a coherent, long-term *strategy* and not just a short term marketing idea.
We'll see if they're capable of being that kind of company.
Why do idiots^m^m I mean "industry analysts" like the writer of this article always quote insiders at Microsoft but never talk to ANYONE within the open source movement... not even someone like Linus Torvalds or the CEO or red hat? Why do they get ALL their information from the corprate world and NEVER even THINK about getting information from inside the open source world?
I am not going to take any of these types of reports seriously unless they can get outside of their little corporate biosphere at least once in a while and understand that there is a world outside. I am tired of seeing reports on TV and on bignamed media sites act like anything that is outside of corporate-think is odd, alien, and totally not worthy of mention.
Why don't you embrace your slashbotness instead of living in a dreamworld?
A study that had no real statistical methodology and DISCOUNTED all viruses on the Windows platfom. Yeah that's a great study. Let's throw out all the MS breaches. Wow Linux is breached more than MS. Get a clue!
Thalasar
Oh, you're referring to the article that basically excluded data that referred to Windows breaches?
There was a great comment posted in reference to that story, that it basically said, "After discarding all evidence to the contrary,....."
Or did you actually read the article instead of popping up with blind fanboyism about your favorite overpriced OS?
Setting the security to not run "signed" ActiveX controls resulted in every spammer and spyware product getting "signed" with a timestamp signature, and allowed to run as if signed by a real certificate.
For now, I've just turned off ActiveX controls entirely. As a nice side effect, Flash ads no longer work. On the downside, neither does Windows Update via the browser.
On the contrary, I think the pengiun is an easily recognizable and very memorable symbol for Linux. It's much easier to remember a cute character like that than some abstract symbol. Judging by the few trade shows I've attended the corporate types just love picking up the stuffed or rubber pengiun toys exhibitors give out. Personally I think they beat out Microsoft's stupid "spider balls" that I got. Not to mention the XP T-shirts that say "Yes you can." (Thanks for the permission by the way ;)
No, I was stating that it is more recognizable. Anyone that has seen and realized what Tux is forever links it with Linux. It is a unique logo that can spread the brand name around all over the place.
Hardly. Unfortunately, the idea "let's promote our brand by adopting a cute penguin as our logo" was too obvious NOT to be already taken. In Great Britain, penguin is associated rather with a popular paperback publisher. In Poland, it is associated with a popular pre-paid cell phone operator. People can see Tux on screen and think it's just some cross-promotion of a computer manufacturer, paperpack publisher and phone operator.
Funny, small but cute characters don't seem to be a problem in Japan.
Quit taking such a US-centric view of the market. Given the realities of the declining economy, and the increasing trend towards humanization of technology interfaces, perhaps a penguin is the right move after all.
"But always she's the spectre of uncertainty I first endured, then faded, then embraced..."
There's a reason corporations don't choose logos like Tux: they want to convey an impression of professionalism.
/.'s "Linux Business" Tux, I know it sounds funny, but I half agree with you, and half disagree as well. I think Tux is an excellent mascot due to it's recognizability, I don't think it's terribly UNprofessional, if by professional you mean IBM's big blue lined letters, SUN's neat logo. We've also got a few large companies with strange or less 'professional looking' logos, one with a stupid little window logo, people certainly won't be doodling that one on a napkin when they get bored, and one with a plain ol' apple, well, it's chrome now, so I guess it's more professional? In any case, I think if they were to use the Linux Business Tux maybe they could squeeze forward in the business world, while using the regular Tux to denote their 'home' versions. I think that may actually be an outstanding marketing approach.
But what about
Linux Home Edition (tux)
Linux Enterprise Edition (business tux)
Linux Firewall Edition (tux in a firefighter outfit? or camo?)
Linud Router Edition (tux in a traffic cop outfit)
Several possibilities...
-matt
2GB RAM limits and /3GB hacks in Windows have reached their limit for a lot of server uses. When doing VM style systems or large databases...
How does Windows complete? To get 'official support' from Microsoft for more than 2GB of RAM you have to purchase the very expensive Server Enterprise Edition. We aren't talking $500 (Windows 2000 Server) vs. free, we are talking $1,500 vs free.
64-bit Windows is still 'beta'... I think Microsoft has already let the door open... They were ahead on Itanium but now behind on the AMD.
Giving up the 64-bit Alpha might proove to be the mistake that Microsoft made that lead to this...
Just some thoughts.
You forgot that they also didn't give any statistical percentages. They only used raw numbers and if you looked a little deeper you would find that it was only webservers, which are dominated more by linux than windows. So you have hard numbers showing more linux servers breached, while there are more linux servers to be breached out there. On top of that the explanation of the collection of evidence was pretty weak. So I would say you are the fanboy here.
Time makes more converts than reason
I think that the IT sector is overflowing with boring logos and stylised names. And if I see another logo with a meaningless eliptical sweep around the company name, I swear I'm gonna scream!
Drill baby drill - on Mars
The lack of structured branding is part of Linux's character and charm and in my eyes, paradoxically, almost an anti-branding form of branding. Going back to "MS" or "i" always makes me feel like I'm sitting in front of 'product', something Linux never does, save for the more corporately focused distros like RedHat's BlueCurve effort.
The problem with the "Tux" is it's universal to Linux. You need to start somewhere. Sort of like saying BSD.
There is only one Microsoft, but there are many players in the Linux game. Which do you follow?
I think Linux (I have moved to FreeBSD) needs a group to really take the lead, something like the consortium Suse and others tried to form, but Redhat wasn't in it. Obviously this won't happen any time soon. Infact I see the problem getting worse (which is why I switched to FreeBSD).
At the end of the day, it's all about available applications and how easy they are to use for the employees of the people who make the big decisions. I have seen rediculous amounts spent on IT with a good chunk going to Microsoft, and I don't see thinks changing overnight in companies that have been using MS products for the last 10 years. Certainly a Linux server or two might pop up, but it's been my experience the employees whine to the middle managers who whine to the big guns and it's back to MS on the desktop (even Apple was disliked). Sure I have no problems with any windows manager, and neither do most people who haunt slashdot, but the average joe/jane likes to the same desktop at work and at home.
The worst/weirdest (some would find funny, but you had to be there) incident I ever had was a woman who went ballistic, I mean freaked out big time when I minimized Word to look at something. She literally started screaming "what did you do", and "bring it back, bring it back" with a waiting room full of people (I'm self conscious). Well MSWord was in her Start-up folder in Win3.1 and she just turned the computer of at the power when she was done which was causing the problems. I couldn't imagine a person like her changing to Open Office, besides she's probably still using Win3.1 if the hardware hasn't died.
My official title is 'SQL Server Guru' and I am responsible for 5 servers at a retail mega-corp. If I am not relearning how to create a better wheel in .Net (from having previously known VS6), I am preparing for countless migrations. SQL7 to SQL2K, WinNT to Win2K, IIS whatever to whatever, not to mention countless security patches that all seem to break more than they fix. Not to mention dll hell and what happens when MDAC gets replaced with an older version. All this crap masquerades under the banner of 'Windows Interoperability'.
Take in contrast the AIX box I have that runs Apache (IBM's flavor) and uses perl and php to connect to Amazon.com. Our admins load whatever they want, if it breaks they back out their changes. I have a cd with all my code that I can deploy to any system I want, tweak 2 files and I'm back in production. We even had to rewrite parts of Curl to handle nonstandard headers. This machine has to be available 98% of the time. It has been up since November. My mission critical Windows machine has been up since middle of February.
It is more important to me that with a text editor and an internet connection I can fix ANYTHING. Than to be sold on software components that have a 3 year lifecycle.
Wow, that rant was better than therapy. Back to my damn migration plan.
PS: It is easier to run an enterprise with no Microsoft components than it is to run one with nothing but Microsoft components.
For corporations, Linux has IBM. For everything else, it has the penguin and the simple but memorable Linux name.
Besides, Linux is no longer a brand name, it's its own category. For now, some people still want Linux to be like Windows, but eventually everyone will want Windows to be like Linux.
Notice, I didn't say "MS Windows", only the marketing people, the retarded, and the overly constipated say "MS Windows".