Slashdot Mirror
Ballmer on Linux
theodp writes "'In the Linux world, nobody stands behind patent claims,' warned Steve Ballmer, saying that Microsoft customers would be protected from the $550 million Eolas patent infringement judgment. 'I'm not trying to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt,' said the CEO of the company who earlier cried wolf about breaking IE in the wake of the Eolas judgment, prompting the W3C to go to bat for the software giant."
I like that last line of the article.
"I just think people should go out and research this for themselves".
Good idea, coming from a company that regularly commissions independant researchers to prove their point of the day.
My assessment (not that you asked)?...
Well, my research showed that patent infringement issues in Linux will more than likely get the same treatment as GIF files. If something does come up that really is an infringement, it'll stink for a few years, and then it will fizzle away as developers agree that there's a better solution than the patented one anyway.
Then again, I've already got my company running on Linux servers, so perhaps it's just wishful thinking on my part. *shrugs*.
Kinetic stupidity has a new brand leader: Allen Zadr.
Patnets do not apply to end users only to maker/vendors..same as for copyrights
Try again Mr Ballmer, I suck at Patent Law...
Don't Tread on OpenSource
"I'm not trying to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt," Ballmer said
Fear - Ballmer argued that companies should be wary of the lack of indemnity from lawsuits, such as the suit filed by The SCO Group Inc. against DaimlerChrysler AG, IBM, Novell Inc. and others over parts of the Linux operating system that SCO claims infringe on elements of the Unix operating system that it owns.
Uncertainty - "In the Linux world, nobody stands behind patent claims," he said, noting that Microsoft could be forced to swallow a $550 million judgement if it loses its ongoing case with Eolas Technologies Inc., but that its customers would be protected.
Doubt - On the touchy issue of security, Ballmer also dismissed the notion that Linux is more secure than Windows, saying that Linux would be attacked just as frequently as Windows if the open source operating system had as large a share of the operating system market as Windows.
search the recent slashdot history for the article "microsoft is bullish on windows bearish on linux"
you'll notice in that article it is the same thing with the exact same quote about patents. Amazing how you can take the same article put a different spin on it and its news again.
He is right. It is not FUD. You cause fud. You spread bullcrap.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Not FUD?! What the hell. Every word in his talk was precisely that.
Despite the focus on the next version of Windows, Microsoft is also working to make its offerings more interoperable with products using other software platforms such as Linux, Unix and XML (Extensible Markup Language), Ballmer said.
Ahh, wait. Now why do they bother supporting Linux or Unix if they feel that it's not good enough? I would imagine that if you are that confident in how a rival product is shitty, you would just go ahead and not offer support. But MS wants to leverage customers who have Linux and Unix systems, but yet diss Linux. Sheer hypocrisy.
"If you have two popular operating systems, both will get attacked -- whatever is popular is going to be attacked," he said.
Yes smartass. But resisting the attack will be the better one, and that will not be based on what's popular. Are they trying to say that Linux is popular, now? Out of the horse's own mouth, eh.
"In the Linux world, nobody stands behind patent claims," he said, noting that Microsoft could be forced to swallow a $550 million judgement if it loses its ongoing case with Eolas Technologies Inc., but that its customers would be protected.
"I'm not trying to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt," Ballmer said. "I just think people should go out and research this for themselves."
Boo! The only reason the software industry is so messed up by patents is beause big businesses want to resort to their lawyers in case something goes wrong, and not technology. How about building great technology and not resort to cheap practices, for a change?
Sheesh. I'm fuckin' mad as hell. Not FUD? That's all there is in that.
Is it just me, or does Balmer sound like a desperate lawyer who collects every single possible argument he's heard for Microsoft, and then regurgitates them all at once?
--
Power to the Peaceful
"If you have two popular operating systems, both will get attacked -- whatever is popular is going to be attacked," he said.
Huh? Apache httpd gets attacked even though it has the market share of on-line web browsers... fortunately the attacks are looking for M$ IIS holes...
I'd love it if proprietary vendors allowed us the capability to evaluate the risks ourselves. I'll believe the story about proprietary being safer only after Microsoft lets customers audit their source to let me verify that their closed-source stuff doesn't infringe on patents I may be worried about. Note that they let important customers audit their source for security reasons. Losing mission critical infrastructor because a vendor didn't have the rights to it could be even more harmful to my business than a security hole (which I presume would be easily patched).
If my company depends on a closed-source application, and that application infringes on someone elses patent, I wouldn't want that software yanked out from under me. At least in an open source environment I can understand that the offending parts could be coded around. With closed source, it's more likely the vendor will have to stop providing the software. Also, in the open source case, there's a better likelyhood that people have scoured the source code looking for infringing patents.
So far most of the big vendors, MSFT included, have a pretty weak concept of indemnification - they'll cover purchases prices, and the like. Heck even Gentoo.org'll probably indemnify you the cost of the purchase price. Unless they start offering far better indemnification (cover the costs of migrating off their infringing software to an alternative), I'm better off with open source.
Noting the prevalent use of pen and paper by audience members, Ballmer wondered aloud why the content of his speech was not being captured and translated automatically, while also being synchronized with real-time video and a copy of his Microsoft PowerPoint presentation
Perhaps it was because no reporter was willing to bet their career on a laptop running Windows XP?
Ironically, 20 years from now, these reporters will still be able to read their handwritten notes, but Microsoft will have long abandoned the audio and video codecs used to record the speech today...
And that's assuming that the recording media is still playable. How many people can read 5 1/4" floppies any more?
In the Linux world, nobody stands behind patent claims," he said, noting that Microsoft could be forced to swallow a $550 million judgement if it loses its ongoing case with Eolas Technologies Inc., but that its customers would be protected.
This is an abject legal falsehood; a patent ownder can sue the users of the patent if they so desire. They might choose instead to sue Microsoft, but there is no legal indemnification from a patent lawsuit - Microsoft's EULA explicitly denies liability in this regard. And considering that Microsoft's customers have already been sued over patents (Timeline, anyone?), I don't see how he can even believe this truthfully. And to make matters worse, Microsoft has sued its own customers.
If anything, using Microsoft instead of open source software imposes an even greater risk of patent liability on the users.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Microsoft could be forced to swallow a $550 million judgement if it loses its ongoing case with Eolas Technologies Inc., but that its customers would be protected.
Is he implying that I would have to pay the judgement if Microsoft did not? This is just wrong! End users of Microsoft software are not liable for Microsoft's theft of intellectual property.
Not surprisingly, a similar misunderstanding of copyright law was the linchpin of SCO's extortion of Linux users. It's not surprising because Microsoft's funding of SCO bought the suit in the first place.
So, let's see: they don't understand copyright law and they don't understand patent law. Maybe this is why Microsoft is continually being sued for IP infringement!
PR is the same in corporate politics as it is in government politics. Say whatever you want that supports your position.
Sites that like you will spin it in a good way. People reading those sites will continue to like you.
Sites that don't like you will spin it in a bad way. People reading those sites will continue to dislike you.
The only real way to convert people from one camp to another is individuals reaching out to individuals...I'd sooner trust someone I know personally about a subject than I would a website I found.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
But don't worry about on a weekly basis your computer and all your precious data is at risk thanks to our security holes.
But you could lose everything you own, thanks to a Microsoft software bug and the EULA plainly states 'As Is' and they will not be held liable for your losses.
Exploits are already being found in SP2 Windows will be secure in about 10 years, maybe.
Don't spend those billions of dollars all in one place, Steve.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Eventually, hopefully, America will reexamine its patent and copyright laws and realize just how idiotic they are.
I'm all for protecting an individual's rights as the creator of something (be it software, music, film). But patenting concepts is stupidity in itself.
I hate Microsoft as much as the next computer literate person, but in this case I hope Microsoft wins.
That's because we all know software patents are bogus.
AC comments get piped to
This is interesting. I mean, I understand "arguments" around here are necessarily colored by general hatred of whatever Microsoft does, but Microsoft has been deeply involved in everything that is XML related, and they've been doing it with the W3C, Netscape, IBM, HP, Sun and everyone else.
When Microsoft came up with XDR (data-reduced schema) everyone bitched about "another non-standard from M$" and yet it allowed those of us who were writing XML-enabled apps on Windows to make do until the W3C got their act together and took XSD out of draft. They've been involved in SOAP, MTOM, XHTML, RELAX-NG, all the Ws-* specs and they've implemented (or are in the process of implementing) them into the .NET platform.
So when you say "they're going nowhere fast with XML" and make a snide remark about something that happened 7 years ago, what exactly do you mean? Who is "going somewhere" with XML, in your opinion?
I call bullstuff (on Ballmer).
It's not protection money. They'll just pass the cost on to their customers like every other business. In fact (with a $50 billion cash bank account they are just now starting to dispense to shareholders, etc.) you could argue they already have passed it on to us through inflated prices.
For all that talk Ballmer goes through about there not being any such thing as a free lunch, you'd think he'd at least have read what his ECON101 text book had to say about it.
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
IBM, HP, and Sun are all hardware companies that happen to have software divisions. They aren't in the Linux world, they're in the hardware world. The Linux world is Redhat, Suse, Mandake, etc.
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
The really funny thing here is that OSS helped MS, but patents like this end up hurting the industry as a whole.
As to the use of Tabs for moving amongst links, I seem to recal doing that in Mosaic and Lynx in the early 90's.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
now where again did i hear that sentence...
He's right, linux would be attacked just as frequently as windows.
One word: APACHE
Which gets attacked more, Apache or IIS. Which has more market share?
Yeah, true. But, you know, in 1994 I was working on, IIRC, 40 MHz 68040s. They were great chips, don't get me wrong, but:
- 2.2 GHz sure kicks 40 MHz, and
- The architectural garbage of the Intel line doesn't rear it's ugly head very often (when writing assembly or stepping through the actual assembly instructions). The rest of the time, the compiler protects you from the filth.
But yes, those were really nice chips.
Have you ever read a statement from Ballmer that didn't contain at least one lie? The man is a pathalogical liar.
evil is as evil does
It was about a year ago after years of dragging out the case that it was proven the MS SQL 7 was stolen from or illegally used from another company MS response was "we will cover legal cost and suits up to the cost of the product" yeah MS really stand behind their work but the limit is as much as you paid to get it. So by those terms FLOSS is on equal grounds with MS support policy.
Ballmer wondered aloud why the content of his speech was not being captured and translated automatically, while also being synchronized with real-time video and a copy of his Microsoft PowerPoint presentation.
Mostly they probably didn't think of doing it, which I assume is your point. But even if they did think of it, I doubt that Microsoft declared your speech to be public domain or handed out written authorizations to reproduce it. In today's IP-obsessed, everything-is-copyrighted legal climate, which Microsoft has done a lot to nurture, the risk of infringement is probably a good deterrent against using these nifty technologies to record and reproduce anyone's output, other than from public employees and political candidates.
...based on the principle that it is easier to apologise if you exceed your authority than to get permission in the first place.
Once upon a time, telling lies for commercial gain was called "fraud" and punished accordingly. These days it's called "marketing" and proponents of it are rewarded with high-paying jobs.
Now tell me, why do we have a problem with being constantly buried in bull?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
you are phenomenally wrong.
Ballmer is very plugged into the company. amazingly so.
What would likely also shock you is that his goal like most 'softies is really to deliver solutions to the world. You may disagree with a lot of design/marketing decisions, and that's your right, but i'm telling you, you're missing the boat with your prejudice.
posted anon for obvious reasons.
Ballmer wondered aloud why the content of his speech was not being captured and translated automatically, while also being synchronized with real-time video and a copy of his Microsoft PowerPoint presentation.
How many times have we been told that you aren't allowed to use recording devices to capture a lecture because of copyright issues? Does anyone else think it's strange that Mr Patent is complaining because technology isn't being used in this way ?
Hint : it's not because the technology is lacking
The fact that no one understands you doesn't mean you're an artist.
thats called completely missing the point.
we are still finding fundemental algorthms and no one should "OWN" them
what if someone prevented others from using quick sort.
how far would have computing be set back due to licensing fees.
[Radix Sort] You can sort large amounts of data in O(nk) time rather than O(nlogn) for Quicksort
However, k is of the same order as logn.
Radix Sort, Merge Sort, Tree Sort. All order of n log n.
Radix sort has the advantage of being totally predictable and doable with exteremely limited local processing ability, like on a card sorter which can only examine on column of one card at a time. Essentially a one byte working memory. A card sorter can sort alpha. Two passes per column, second pass on the zone punches.
You can do a merge sort by hand. Try it with a deck of cards. First few rounds look like you're going nowhere, but it comes together at the end.
Sorry, but what you've said is simply wrong. Radix sort works (like bucket sort too) in linear time (since k is the average key length, which is constant). It normally has no advantage for long keys and not too much items to sort. In case of radix sort it's because k might be larger than log n, and in case of bucket sort it's because you need an array with 2^k entries for a k bit key.
You know, normally I would agree with you - then I did some research.
.NET architecture (for whatever reason) but want to keep your C# code around? Rework the compiler. If you don't think the mono guys don't already know this can be done, think again.
.NET's class library, microsoft pulls no punches with - they are very clear that it is proprietary, but you can't even copyright (much less patent) a library API, so that was easy to defeat - which means that mono for the most part has a very, very similar replica of the MS-supplied .NET architecture. dotGNU and Portable.NET are hard at work filling in the cracks that mono hasn't addressed.
.NET, from a purely technical view, are very sound and I relish at the idea that I can program my libraries in Managed C++ or C# and give that solid code that benefits from my experience to someone in a more junior role with less experience writing the glue in VB or whatever. I hate writing glue.
C# is ECMA standard - really, you don't need a C# book, just download the damned standard - it's not that hard of a read for anyone who's a seasoned programmer.
Don't like the
CLR and friends are microsoft standards, not unlike JCP for Java (and sun by proxy).
Realistically, if microsoft pulled out the lawyer card, they would not only lose, but if mono gained mass acceptance due to being a superior cross-platform product, the mono guys merely have to change the CLR spec and Microsoft would be the ones left with their dicks in their hands.
C#, CLR and
FTA:
"On the touchy issue of security, Ballmer also dismissed the notion that Linux is more secure than Windows, saying that Linux would be attacked just as frequently as Windows if the open source operating system had as large a share of the operating system market as Windows."
What a load of crap. The logic here is that Windows is more vulnerable due entirely to its popularity over Linux. I'd like to see Steve FUDFace explain this away:
According to Netcraft, Apache has a market share of 67.7%, while Microsoft servers (IIS) have a grand total of 21.21% of the market. Assuming some sort of proportionality relationship between market share and vulnerabilities/attacks, one would then expect Apache to be significantly more vulnerable/more often attacked than IIS. Right?
I don't know where to get the figures on number of exploits. Anyone? If Apache has been subject to more exploits than IIS, I'll eat my socks.
I wonder why tech reporters never bust out this counterexample. I'd love to see Ballmer's face if, in the middle of a press conference and upon making such a ridiculous assertion, a reporter were to stand up and exclaim, "I call bull****! Apache is over 3 times more popular than IIS, but has experienced only (some small percentage) of the number of attacks/exploits IIS has. Now what's your excuse?"
This isn't the sig you're looking for...