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.""
The penguin and the....uh.... abstract looking stylized flying window?
The mascot coolness factor alone makes Linux a superior competitor!
"Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." -- Linus Torvalds
Linux is worked on LOADS more than Windows, so how can it be a 'Tortoise to Microsoft's Hare'?
When anger rises, think of the consequences.
Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)
No matter how many security researchers Microsoft get to look at their source there will always be more looking at linux. The reason: It's open source..
Microsoft can't compete against that so I suspect they'll lose their % of the server market quite rapidly in the next two years.
Simon.
... explain this title to me...is the implication that Linux is slow at innovating or something? Or are they focusing on the 'steady' part from the old fable? The analogy doesn't quite seem to fit since Linux is both 'fast' and 'steady'...Besides Microsoft could be better anologized to a 'retarded turtle' that is both slow and disoriented/unfocused whereas linux is much more like a determined 'rabbit' which is both 'fast' and steady/focused.
Some may not agree with me on the 'focused' point but that's ok, they probably are using the 'retarded turtle' anyways.
Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree. -Martin Luther
More security and stability? You're kidding right? Why would anyone want that in a server? Silly Linux forcing Microsoft to do jump through such unecessary hoops.
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."
"Slow and steady wins the race"?
Sheesh. Don't people read Aesop any more?
Dlugar
Computer Go: Writing Software to Play the Ancient Game of Go
and Mac OS X is a panther, it can kill both of those.
What? And part with tradition?
Would this mean the new Microsoft ad taglines would be "Now, more secure and stable than ever!"
I can't see that, since they've already played that card and anyone with a lick of sense has seen the results. More likely they'll just trim their profit margins, try to lock down proprietary technology (to bar Linux from having it) and continue to spin marketspeak.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
[Linux is] "going to force Microsoft to spend more time on security and stability, and less time on adding new features."
Not specifically linux, but the market. ANYONE who had come along providing that focus with good functionality would have had the same effect. Linux has rewritten a few rules with the GPL and the way the beast is created and mantained, but ultimately the reason why the market has accepted those is because they provide greater security and greater stability.
Microsoft would have also focused there if they had tried to meet their user's demands instead of telling them they should meet Microsoft's goals.
---- Take the Space Quiz!
Microsoft: Release First Patch Often
Linux: Release when stablish and patch when needed
Well IMHO anyway
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
This is a good start
Haryana(State in India) signs pact with Sun Microsystems
The Haryana government has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Sun Microsystems to adopt open source office productivity tool, the StarOffice 7, for departments and educational institutions.
Linux may carve out bigger niche in desktop PC market
On Feb. 4, it announced the sale of 10,000 copies of its StarOffice desktop suite to United India Insurance, one of India's largest insurers. StarOffice can run on Windows or Linux desktop PCs. Sun aims next to persuade United India to replace 10,000 Windows PCs with Linux-based Java Desktop PCs.
"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?
For Microsoft, security and stability will be new features.
There are rabbits everywhere. Most tortoises are endangered species.
:::putting on flame-proof suit:::
Microsoft is an enormous innovator and will innovate in some manner to push back the threat of *nix. In fact, they may be one of the greatest innovators in the history of tech companies. They're just not innovating in an altruistic, philanthropic or technical way that most /. readers relate to.
From a business perspective, strategic marketing and business practices can and should be part of the innovation mix. If I'm Microsoft can package technology in such a way that it maximizes uptake, positions it as the de facto standard in the marketplace and raises the cost of entry for competitors, that's massive innovation, as long as you're defining innovation in a way that matters to the company's profitability and the financial success of shareholders -- and that is the only $DIETY Microsoft ultimately has to serve.
Microsoft makes some money when it technologically innovates. It makes one hell of a lot of money when it can innovate through changes in its business practices or (better yet) forcing changes in the business practies of most or all customers and competitors. This is where you'll see Microsoft working hard to combat erosion in its server market.
RMS can rant all he wants. We can wave the banner of free (Speech! Beer!) all we want. We can use the word monopoly all we want.
And Microsoft will still win.
Microsoft will win as long as they understand the whole war and we understand just one battle. The battle we're fighting is technological superiority, lower off-the-shelf cost and (in some cases) the principles of Free Software. Battles matter, but they're not the whole war. The war is market share and mindshare dominance, and "innovation" as simply a name for a whole range of tools that meet that primary business end.
In this war, it sometimes seems that we're using a gun and Microsoft is committed to using its whole arsenal. Can you win with just a gun? Yeah, if you're a good shot and take out a key leader. But the odds favor the person with more weapons.
"It was a summer's tale: Just a boy, his Linux, and a head full of dreams..."
This is no real surprise. Linux, even paying for support, is a lot cheaper. And, with blade servers, you can pack a lot more horse power in a lot smaller space.
going to force Microsoft to spend more time on security and stability, and less time on adding new features
You would actually think that with the resources available to them, that they would be able to do both. Perhaps this is the reason for Longhorn's delay.
Microsoft is not a stupid company, by any means, I'm sure they have several linux labs so they can start gleaning ideas from it. They've never had any problem with seeing something as competition and coming up with their own version of it.
slashdot, news for crazed liberal socialist zealots
OOo is fighting an uphil battle here. Should they focus on 100% compoatibility or implementation of the next 'killer app' inside of an office SW suite?
I, personally, believe that adoption by businesses will come through adding of VALUE and USEFUL FEATURES vs. Compatibility. After all, we can always make a migration tool to migrate the documents into a new format, if the value delivered by the new suite equates to a dollar savings (or revenue generation).
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.
So MS is going to spend more time on security and stability, something every user needs, and less time on adding new features, most of which are hardly ever used.
Microsoft could be compared to a race horse. It's moving very fast in the only direction it can see, while those who are open source are moving fast, but in any direction necessary.
Ops, I shuld have usd the prevuwe but in.
The funny thing is, it really annoyed me. Not the being asked part, the being asked three times thing. But then I reminded myself that the alternative is insecurity.
So whereas Linux, et al, has focused on security, Microsoft focused on adding new features. MS is now in the dominant position (always was, really) and now will drag the consumer into security. Linux meanwhile wrestles with TCO, which is a result of Windows dominance, again due to lack of security.
Schnapple
I've always been a Microsoft guy, but last year when I had to standardize on a single OS for our applications, I went with Linux. Not because it was better, but because it was free. It is that kind of decision made over and over again that is hurting Microsoft.
Enough with these stupid stories already!!!!! Seriously : i know this appeals to the slashdot audience (posting linux advocacy stories) but the reality is completely different. The day that the community focuses on real ways to reduce microsoft's monopoly will be the day that linux becomes sucessful.
People were writing these stories 3 years ago. Nothing has changed.
How is this an advantage. Everyone I know that is halfway technically savvy finds this a disadvantage about the Windows line of operating systems. People like having choices when it comes to the products and services they buy. Microsoft is going to shoot themselves in the foot with this line of thinking.
I think a lot of companies that depends on windows would happily buy a lot of boxes of linux and show the bills to Microsoft if that will make windows more safe and stable.
I think everyone confused about the title should go read the following fable: The The Tortoise and the Hare.
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
Do what we do, skip the documentation and intergration.
They ought to be damn worried about the desktop and the consumer market as well. The Linux desktop as a drop in replacement for XP Home/whatever is still a ways away, but with advances in (the products formerly known as) Mozilla/Thunderbird, OpenOffice, and KDE/GNOME it's only a matter of time before it really improves to the point where a Linux desktop is truly accessible and does everything that 95% of the mass market wants to do.
Plus companies like IBM can afford to throw full-time devs at it in the hopes of avoiding millions of dollars of MS tax/Windows licenses a year.
Finally they're starting to get a taste of their own medicine (getting their market cannibalized by a free alternative).
-fren
"Where are we going, and why am I in this handbasket?"
show me how linux won't be able to fall to a virus like W32/Bagle.j@MM1 01071.htm
http://vil.nai.com/vil/content/v_
what security has been breeched when a home user on a stand-alone system has run a program they recieved over email (and even had to enter a password to unzip)
if grandma can follow a 5 steps to infect her windows machine, what is stopping grandma from following 5 steps to infect her linux machine?
even after windows is all secure, we will still have worms.
what i'm waiting to see sometime is a worm that has 2 parts, one for the windows users and one for the linux users. a mass mailing worm on linux shouldn't be too hard. the linux version could be in perl. after all, (nearly) every distro needs it just to install. cpan to fetch the missing modules for the 'virus' and away you go!
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!
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.
I'm listening, now. Had I known how easy it was to install Linux and use it, I would have done it a long time ago and had better hardware. I haven't paid for an operating system in quite a while, now. Windows has it's uses, but they are getting fewer and far between for me these days. If it weren't for my companies dependency on Outlook, I probably wouldn't even use it there.
Ops, I shuld have usd the prevuwe but in.
I thought this paragraph was most telling, the 1st one on the last page:
Taylor also said the company is countering Linux's unbeatable price tag by commissioning studies that show the total cost of ownership over the life of the software is higher with Linux than Windows.
Taylor is Martin Taylor, Microsoft's general manager of platform strategy.
Basically, they are admitting to paying for studies that show the results they want.
I'd love a direct quotation of his answer -- it'd be a great rebuttal when MS publishes another "Windows costs less" study.
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
with both sides working to improve their product, hopefully the big winner will be computer users.
For this to be considered a 'race' you have to establish and end goal. So what's the goal here, smarty-pants? If your end goal is profitablility, the turtle lost a long time ago. Looking at the sheer amount of profits MS has created, it's doubtful Linux will EVER make up that margin. EVER. We're talking billions here. If your end goal is user-base, again MS has slaughtered Linux several times over. Unless they do something radically didfferent than what they're doing now, they'll never have the user share MS enjoys now.
Being a Tutrle implies that by a slow steady pace you'll beat the Hare's constantly distracted state. You may have noticed that MS has the focus of a freakin laser beam, regardless of how much you don't like them or how bumbling you think they are. When they fixate on soemthing, they tend to hammer away until it falls. So your saying MS has the speed (being a hare) while history shows they have focus against a focused, slower opponent (the turtle). So either you just pulled that parable out of your ass to sound smart/cool, or you're actually saying MS is a sure-fire win.
Which is it?
You need a FREE iPod Nano
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.
The Windows logo is seen by hundreds of millions of people each and everyday they boot up.
/. joke here) but the rest of 'everybody else' has no clue about computers, much less Linux.
Are you actually suggesting that the Linux Penguin is a better known mascot/logo? Get serious. 95% of the world doesn't even know Linux exists.
Remember, if you read slashdot, you are in that educated 1% of populace that knows a lot about computers (insert obligatory
...the reality of the situation is thus:
;).
Either IBM/SUN/Other serious development companies step in and totally embrace Linux and commit to an acceptable Open Source policy that makes everyone happy, or Micro$oft can quite literally re-invent themselves to be Linux killers.
For example, and this is horrifying, imagine that M$ purchases SCO's 'rights' (whatever the hell those actually are) and produces a Unix clone and puts 20 THOUSAND engineers on it. Imagine they do it right. Everything written to be secure, everything modularized, the ultimate desktop, et cetera.
This is a REAL possibility. Sadly, I think Apple is the one who showed them the possibilities. OSX was a huge slap in Redmond's face and I bet many of them said "Why don't we have something like that."
Can you imagine a (borg like) future were Microsoft has (like it does now) two product lines, the client line and the server line. The server line is Unix based, the client line is (who knows what) based.
Linux in all this? Gets marginalized.
In essenece what I'm trying to say is "Do not count on Micro$oft letting us slowly chew away at their business. They will come out with guns blazing and the only way to beat them is to do it with their own game, the throwing of literally billions of dollars and tens of thousands of HIGHLY organized engineers at a problem."
Look how quickly they crushed Netscape when they really put an effort into it. It's, quite frankly, terrifying. 40 billion in cash, tens of thousands of (despite what many of you think) quality software engineers, a first class research group. They're some scary mothers.
I sure wish SUN and Oracle would just suddenly go ALL LINUX. That'd scare the piss out of old Bill
Loading...
Do they even sell servors?
No, but they do sell servers!
You haven't had a blue screen in 8 years? Damn, you must have switched to Linux, or Mac. BeOS?
Perhaps 2004 will not be the year when Linux makes it big. Maybe not 2005, 2006, or even 2007. But it is becoming clear to every honest observer that Microsoft is running out of time. Their business model sits smack in the middle of that part of the software ecology that has become commoditized. They are selling ice in an age of cheap refrigeration.
It's hardly even worth asking 'when'. Frankly, who cares whether it's next year or in 10 years.
The only interesting questions are, IMHO, (a) how can Microsoft survive (and it ain't gonna happen by producing TCO studies!), and (b) what will happen to the software world if MS does not survive. Open Source software is a threat only to some classes of commercial software producer, and it's a boon to every single software consumer.
Attempts to polarize this debate into "opinion" and "zealotry" miss the point: it's about technology curves and the way they change the economics of doing business.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
I guess it depends on how seriously you take Microsoft's "security" initiative. If you think it's for real, then yes, Microsoft has been focusing on security for two years. If you think it's just marketing nonsense, then Microsoft has been sitting on its ass for two years except when prodded forward by security vulnerabilities. It's a toss-up for many.
Take some of the things MS does to improve "security". Back in 199x, they had a problem with viruses being sent as attachments, because it's too easy to convince people to run foreign executables on Windows. So, do they fix the bug? No, they remove the feature. No attachments for you! Now it's 2004 and they have a bug in their HTTP URL parsing that allows people to phish. Fix the bug like Mozilla did? No, remove the feature--no usernames/passwords in URLs for you! It seems that Microsoft has learned nothing. Got a bug in a feature? Remove the feature, because fixing bugs is hard.
And then there's Oxymoronic statements, like "ActiveX security". You know what? ActiveX is a generic technology with no concept of program INSTALLATION with restricted user permissions. Using it as an Internet-exposed browser plugin technology was a quick and easy but extraordinarily insecure decision. The best Microsoft can do is throw up a lot of locks in front of the control, because once a user clicks "Yes" (and trust me, users do!) the show's over. The ActiveX control has complete control. Not so on Linux--I install plugins without root access, and they only apply to me, and can only damage my home directory. Home Windows users regularly run as administrators, not because they are dumb, but because they need to do things that Windows won't let them do unless they're administrators. Install browser plugins, fonts, change file associations. Linux users can do all of these things as unprivileged users.
Yes, I believe people at Microsoft believe they are working on security. I believe many Microsoft customers believe Microsoft is committed to security. And I also believe that the truth or falsehood of those beliefs is irrelevant. This is a PR blitz, nothing more.
So I take it you "paid your $699 fee you cocksmoking teabagger"? ;) I mean you said you used the TM with permission... What else is there to assume other than you are a "$699 fee paying, cocksmoking, teabagger"? [Daffy Duck Sounds as I Bounce Away]
Un-news
What you're missing is there will be a fix for this within 24-48 hours. If this was in windows the fix would be kept quiet for who knows how long and if the hole goes public then it would take 1+ months for MS to put out a fix.
How long did it take them to put out a fix for the IE URL Spoofing Vulnerability? Read up bud: IE URL Spoofing Vulnerability
Changelog:
2003-12-11: Linked to test. Added information regarding variant, which makes it possible to spoof URL in the status bar as well.
2003-12-14: Microsoft has issued a knowledge base article concerning the issue. This also reports that version 5.x is affected.
2003-12-19: Scams mails exploiting the vulnerability are now circulating the Internet.
2004-02-02: Microsoft issues patches. Added CVE reference.
Almost 2 whole months for people to get exploites in the SPAM e-mail.
This is becoming less true as time moves forward. Linux is slowly creeping into the enterprise I work at, and the two people there with Linuz skillz (myself and one other guy) are also highly Windoze-skilled. The Linux machines are typically configure-and-forget about, they're so stable, so TCO is negligible.
You are not the customer.
Because a Microsoft product will install on my hardware without kernel recompilation.
Mandrake detected everything. No recomplilation, now driver downloads.
Because a Microsoft product will work with a wider range of hardware.
Mandrake saw everything I had. I had to get additional windows drivers for my scanner, printer and a whole software suite just to run my digital camera.
Because there is documentation, training, certification of support personnel.
man, apropos, various certs are all available. Most importantly, config files are easily user editable unlike the registry.
Because almost all written for Microsoft applications look and feel the same and I have no installation, navigation, etc user issues.
Gnome - no problem with this.
Becasue I can be sure I can exchange a file and not create problems at the other end.
I had a client using Word Perfect. Word butchered the doc completely.
Because it crashes so seldom as to be ignorable.
Yes if you reinstall every 6 months.
Because there is one button to push for support.
For support, I look in the mirror. And I don't pay exhorbitant per incident fees.
Because I don't have to worry about patch sets, Microsoft maintains my platform.
I maintain my platform. I know what's going on it. I don't have to worry about the ever changing EULA.
Because Microsoft just enables me to get my work done.
Linux does that for me. Microsoft eats my files.
When Linux can say all that, I'll buy it and eben pay for support. Until then, it is a wonderful development environment and a wonderful server ... but I have work to do.
Me too.
Open office is never being asked to accept changes when you haven't made any.
Not to mention the XP T-shirts that say "Yes you can." (Thanks for the permission by the way ;)
The new slogan for Longhorn should read:
"Yes, you must."
-kgj
-kgj
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..."
Why people shouldn't use Microsoft
Monopolistic software tactics (probably not important to a home users, but to software developers, this is a big issue)
Documentation is weak. Often I find a circular pattern when trying to resolve a problem (look at document A, points to document B, document B points to document C, document C points to document A, and none of these answered my question).
Microsoft patching is not a simple process. They've got the Update site, but if I have to patch hundreds of systems, this is not acceptable. I certainly don't want to put this burden on the end user and writing login scripts to handle this (like I'd want to have the local user with administrative rights for installations) or using applications like SMS (additional cost).
The Microsoft backup solution is to reinstall the operating system, create disk mirrors and break the mirror to create a point in time snapshot (XP does have the snapshot capabilities - guess they learned something from other companies), the internal backup software (and how can I access that without first reinstalling the OS to get to the utility?), or third party solutions (additional cost).
Applications (I know, this isn't the OS, but I'm including one's written by Microsoft) often require the accounts to have administrative rights.
The tight coupling of the browser and the OS is responsible for security holes.
Single process can bring the system to a stand still. Multi-tasking has improved, but still has room to mature.
Single user for the system (unless you are at a server with Terminal Services - additional cost).
Microsoft has enjoyed market dominance for a while and probably will into the near future. Unless they duplicate the functionality of some of the competitiors, they may find that the tortoise is in front of them.
Linux has a ways to go before it will take over the desktop market, but at the server, it's competing. Just like the Unix flavors started removing some of the "mystery" of system administration by duplicating functionality from it's competitors (GUIs, installers, etc...), Linux must learn from it's competition too.
I don't believe that the press should continue to say whether Linux will win over Microsoft or hurt them. Both are good operating systems (shhh...Linux is better) but it will be the software that is available to the operating systems that may turn the tides. Right now, MSFT wins in the desktop space because you can go into any store, buy software, and it will work in Windows. However, in the server space, MSFT doesn't have that many good products. Besides products like SQL and ISA, the other server apps are really behind the times. CMS, Project Server, SharePoint - yeish. The open-source counterparts blow them away. I think organizations will begin to see that it won't be an OS war but organizations will want to use products like MySQL in which they can clearly save money and have high ROI. Bottem line: I feel it's not MSFT vs. Linux it is MSFT vs. open-source. Which is a battle they will not win.
Yeah--the one that excluded user-run executables, as it should have.
Of course it should, because as long as it does, it supports their view (and yours).
Witness the Slashbot--if I dare criticize Linux, I am somehow a Microsoft fanboy.
This makes me wish there were irony tags in HTML, since I was basically using sarcism to show how the original "fanboy" comment sounded. Glad you agree that kind of comment does sound juvenile. (Funny how some things sound worse from another mouth -- or keyboard!)
His prognostication is late.
IMHO, Linux is the single most important reason that Win2K was as good as it was relative to previous offerings to Redmond.
So good, in fact, that knowledgeable customers aren't convinced there are any valid technical reasons for migrating to XP or successors. The cost benefit ratio just isn't compelling.
In it's effort to stave off the force of commoditisation that Linux and free and open source software is bringing, Microsoft is working furiously to add features that make migration away from Windows less attractive.
The Outlook/Exchange orbit is a prime example of that strategy.
But this kind of feature lock-in is only a good strategy for existing customers that are already heavily invested in Microsoft's products. It's not a good strategy for growth of new customers, particularly cost-conscious customers.
And, even though the recession is over, the cost-cutting activities in businesses are not over, which really puts the spotlight on Microsoft's high-margin products that have "good enough" low-cost alternatives in the free and open source world.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Remember when Microsoft helped commoditize hardware in the 90? IBM can now get their revenge by commoditizing the operating system.
love is just extroverted narcissism
For what it's worth, removing the username:password parsing from URL's, brings Windows in line with published RFC standards. It was never intended to be used as an authentication mechanism for HTTP URL's.
Section 3.3 of RFC 1738, which defines the format of HTTP URL's, explicitly states, "No user name or password is allowed."
Let me repeat that, in capital letters with bold, so that it is crystal-clear:
THE STANDARD STATES THAT NO USER NAME OR PASSWORD IS ALLOWED IN HTTP URL'S.
This what the standard says, and Microsoft is now adhering to it, at the cost of breaking sites that didn't follow the standard. Microsoft *fixed* Windows by removing this ability from HTTP URL's. Note that FTP URL's still support this feature.
Macs don't cost too much once you look at the total cost of ownership. You might try learning about what you're talking about. Someone else already addressed your servers comment.
This guy is way out there
I'm sure that the OSS community could create a more stable and secure OS than Linux if they designed it that way from the ground up.
I believe MS could do the same.
The problem is that nobody would use the new OS because they value backward-compatiblity more than stabilty and security.
"We've also been very clear that the open source and free software model is a threat to all commercial software vendors. ... It's a threat to everybody."
I hear this a lot lately. How open source and free software will kill economics/capitalism/everything! What is being ignored is the fact that commercial software vendors make up only a small part of the economy. For the vast majority of business and people in the world, computers are not an end in themselves; they are tools that they use to get non-computer type stuff manufactured/distributed/grown/whatever.
What I think the popularity of open source software should be telling Microsoft et al is that the cost of doing business with them is simply too high! It is brought out in the article with the mention of customers using Linux to bring Microsoft's pricing down. Even company concerns with security are a reflection of this; recent Microsoft security breaches have probably cost companies more than the original software purchase price.
In very real sense, Microsoft has priced themselves out of the market. And it isn't necessarily all monetary; the costs of insecurity I've already mentioned and there is a very real cost to vendor lock-in in terms of forced upgrade cycles and incompatibility with existing tools. There is a cost associated with Linux even though it's free; it comes in terms of learning/training, more limited hardware support and longer, more complicated configuration.
Whatever the reasons, companies are now deciding that Open Source software may allow them to save money and be more competitive. Companies that do that will offer better products at cheaper prices to consumers. Surely that isn't a "threat to everybody"? No, the only threat I see is to commercial software vendors in general (and Microsoft in particular) and any chance that "business as usual" will continue to make tham scads of money. They will adapt or die.
How inappropriate...however it would be cool if the parent post got modded "+5, Troll" as it is a masterful example of trolling.
.NET eliminate a "whole class of security vulnerabilities" from Windows. Are you referring to buffer overflows and such? Seems to me that lately that's been the LEAST of problems in the windows worm-fest (almost none involve security breaches related to overflows).
.NET except in that it seems to be "Java done right (according to Microsoft)". Pray tell me, what does the "integrated security environment" do to make Windows inherently more secure than anything else?
.NET applications. Do you mean that since it is a uniform system it will be easier to secure and as such more people will secure their systems. "Security by Simplicity" if you will--make it too hard and people will give up or incorrectly secure the system and leave it vulnerable, hence a simpler setup is more secure. Is that your argument?
.NET architecture seems to force all applications to rely on the integrity of the .NET framework and security environment. The apps are all .NET CLR "managed code" but low-level drivers and code in the .NET framework itself at some level are going to rely on C and assembly I would think. What happens if there is a vulnerability there? A security bug in the .NET Application Framework somewhere wouldn't just make IIS or Outlook or IE vulnerable, it could make EVERY DAMN .NET APP vulnerable! "Central" and "Intetgrated" security model seems to me to translate to "single point of failure".
.NET is the MS Saviour of security. About all I've seen is a change in philosophy to "services closed by default" etc but nothing MEANINGFUL. And we still have to wait at least TWO YEARS until Longhorn to see it working to it's fullest advantage (thatever that is). How is something that's realistically that for out on the horizon fix the very serious flaws in the platform that have to be dealt with today?
Sincerely, HOW exactly does
I am not extremely well versed in the underlying architecture of
Seems to me it's primary benefit would be to streamline the process and provide a common security layer for ALL
Seems like a good theory but one that can bite a gigantic chunk out of your ass if you aren't careful. The whole
Maybe I'm just missing something here, but I really don't see how
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 STANDARD STATES THAT NO USER NAME OR PASSWORD IS ALLOWED IN HTTP URL'S.
Ooh look, he's shouting, he MUST be informative. Seriously, I'm trying to hold back the flames here, because I wholeheartedly think you deserve them as a representative sample of "loud, smug, abrasive and uninformed" that seems to dominate every time discussion of standards comes up. Oh, I guess I did flame, my bad.
RFC1738 is obsolete. In fact, it's obsolete by at least a couple revisions. Read RFC2616, then come back.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
I think those in the Open Source community are ignoring this 64bit issue...
In many ways Microsoft outdid IBM by playing the platform change. Why? Well, because backward binary compatibility. It is one thing to do the API's, but thunking kills you.
In open source -- hello - the future of Linux is Gentoo. we are talking (on this Slashdot story) SERVERS HERE, people who are willing to compile... FreeBSD and OpenBSD have demonstrated that.
With open source you can recompile all you binaries and not have any need to mix modes. If you have to run 32bit combined with 64bit, do it over the network... not on the same machine.
Microsoft will have to support binary compatibility... and that will hurt...
A 64-bit native Linux running Wine as a 'compatibility box' sounds a lot like OS/2 2.0 'windows mode' was during the bridge to 32-bit. Too bad IBM didn't know how to market their product...
Linux users, are you listening?
There have been Windows viruses that replicate without user intervention. Obviously those are freaking disasters.
But many of the viruses out there require a user to click on something and run a program. Running as admin or not really doesn't matter if all the virus wants to do is read your address book and mail copies of itself to your (also stupid) friends.
I'm not Linux expert but I assume:
- Linux mailers can present executable attachments to clueless users, and
- Linux mailers have address books
That's all that would be required to emulate the "clueless Windows user" type of virus. Most Linux users are not clueless, however, so there would be little point.
The fact that there are so many clueless MS users does not reflect badly on MS. In fact quite the opposite.
And yes, MS OSes in the past have been flakey as hell. But with Windows XP IMHO the problem is 100% solved. I have never rebooted an XP or Windows 2000 Server box to fix a problem(disclaimer: my server needs are not stressful). They reboot occasionally to apply patches and that's it. I believe I had my 2000 server up for over 8 months last year (got lazy, didn't check for updates for a while).
Be happy. Nothing else matters.
Now you've given MicroSoft the cute animal mascot it's been withering without in the battle against Tux: RetardoTurtle. Fine, just GIVE the battle away to Redmond, you quisling turncoat!
Windows XP SP2 told me to install third-party software that prevents viruses and protects stability... I chose Ubuntu
People like to believe they are empowered. Most people do not use the best product, they use the product that makes them feel the best. So what if Excel is not a database. The last place I worked full time for had so many excel spreadsheet databases that two people sitting beside each other could not agree on what a property's address was.
MS has the market for dumb users at the moment. Unskilled users can be brilliant at other things (like marketing, real estate, contracts, etc.) but they have no clue (or worse, little clue) how to work with data. They use MS products though and can get a small thing going, so they think the next step is just another click and drag away. Linux lacks this fundamental smoke screen.
The reason this race analogy is so beautiful is that Linux is slowly creeping up on MS's GUI ease of use and unskilled user empowerment. The key really is to allow people to do damage to themselves easily, then it is their choice. As Linux develops the ease of use, and ease of getting stuck that Windows currently has, then the rest of the world will start to flock to it. After all, these are most of the same people who download music, games and movies without paying. Then, they will not have to pay for the OS or the Office software.
Microsoft might be able to compete with that, but I doubt they can through legitimate means. After all, GNU applications and Linux development do not have any of the marketing, h/r, accounting or other costs associated with running a company. Pure development without the taint of beancounters or marketers.
InnerWeb
Freud might say that Intelligent Design is religion's ID.
Of course you definitely can't say the same thing about *nix desktops...
Shift happens. Fire it up.
they want their flame war from 1997 back
The point that the vast majority of the flamers on both sides seem to have missed is that a respected business publication thinks linux has a chance.
Most of us that were around when Linus made his quip about world domination never in our wildest dreams expected it would really happen, and here is an article saying it might. And articles like this have actually become common!
We now return you to your regularly scheduled flame fest.
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.
If I said "what product brand is Penguin" to almost anyone in the UK, they would say "a chocolate biscuit" (they used to have a massive ad campaign with the slogan "P-P-Pick up a Penguin"). I think very few people would name the book publisher, if only because Penguin Books don't advertise nearly as much as McVities/United Biscuits do.
You don't look like you are a Microsoft sysadmin, or you would know
* to use MSDN and Technet for documentation, with microsoft.* newsgroups on groups.google.com for the hard stuff,
* to use SUS for patching,
* to use NTBackup for backups,
* that no MS application requires you to have administrative rights to use it,
* to use Task manager to kill hung tasks. Yes, including explorer.exe. It's a bit like kill in Linux/unix. Give it a try.
Evidently since you need to have multiple users using consoles simultaneously (note, not processes running as different users, or users accessing the server under their own credentials) you have very specific needs, and I expect you are probably running a VAX with VT100 terminals.
And no, the tight coupling between the browser and the OS has very little to do with most security holes. They are just holes, with local code execution, and would be just as bad if the browser was not so integrated.
NO ID: BEING FREE MEANS NOT HAVING TO PROVE IT
McAffee runs at high priority. Applications running at high priority are *supposed* to hog the CPU. How else can you ensure that critical applications can always run? McAffee needs to run at High to ensure it scans the files as soon as possible. There is nothing immature about this. I suspect you just don't have an on-access scanner on your Linux boxes, or you would discover that the problem is that on-access scanners are really invasive and CPU intensive, and is not to do with Windows.
If you want your builds in the background, drop the priority of DevStudio. Look for "start" in the help for how to do this when it runs, or use Task Manager to reduce it to BELOW_NORMAL.
"Because most of the applications we deal with have a GUI for configuration, we either need to do the equivilent of setting a DISPLAY variable or a remote desktop "
Since it is a server application, you could just separate out the configuration application from the server application. Like I do. Like MS does (Ever noticed how all the tools have a "Connect to Computer..." option?). Like everybody who knows what they are doing does. Invisible service with separate configuration application is The Microsoft Way. This is very easy to do.
Here are some strategies:
* If it's a DB application, you can just have your application connect to the DB remotely, and edit the configuration there.
* If the config is in files, any user with admin priveleges can access the files through the default shares \\$, which have access to local admin only. If you want other users to be able to administer the application, you can create a share for this purpose. ACLs can be used to secure the files and the share itself.
* If configuration is in the registry, you can use the registry functions to access the remote registry. The user will be accessing the registry with their own credentials, so the Registry ACLs will only give them the same access they would have when logged on locally.
* If you have a combination of the above configuration, use a combination of the strategies.
* And of course you can use RPC or DCOM to provide a remote administration API, and connect to that. Just ensure you secure the object with the appropriate ACL. (No-one has access by default).
NO ID: BEING FREE MEANS NOT HAVING TO PROVE IT