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."
It's interesting to note the arguments on groklaw that an OS strategy might actually have *less* to fear than a closed-source one, compared to Mr Balmer's "It's not really FUD, honest" intellectual property FUD.
... eg:
:-)
Also, reading the article, either the writer is unsympathetic to MS, or Balmer is really putting out some mixed messages
"Ballmer scoffed at arguments that his company's operating system creates a computing monoculture" vs his statement "Microsoft's platforms offer better interoperability with the company's other technology".
Sounds like he's been spinning so much, he's dizzy
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
just the fact that microsoft so quickly denounces Linux should tell you something
Ballmer singled out XML and Web services as the "big breakthrough" of the next decade that will spur innovation.
Puh-lease. I was at the introduction of XML and CDF back in 1996/7 by Microsoft. They also handed out 4.0 beta disks of IE 4.0 at the event. I think it was called World Wide Live.
MSFT's gone nowhere fast with XML, while the rest of the developer world embbraced and extended it. They (MSFT) finally decided on a strategy for it what, three years ago? And now it's going to be the next big thing of the coming decade?
No wonder Linux runs circles around the Redmond Behemoth...
Responsibility is the punishment for compentenc
i've only got one 1 to add
developers
developers
developers
developers!
and that's that!
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.
Which, when you think about it, has been the intiative behind lots of great development, if you don't like the toll road, dig your own and many fine things have come of this. Further browsers like Mozilla and Opera progress while IE stagnates.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I really dont belive that microsoft would step up to the plate to defend a user against a lawsuit due to an IP problem.
They would fight to keep the offending product on the shelves, but NOT to 'protect' its users..
And if they loose, you are on your own.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Anybody else notice that the quote cited by parent under "uncertainty" presupposes that OS customers would be lawsuit targets of patents? Under what legal theory do you sue the customer of an infringing product? If the customer has customized the product is what I guess is the legal theory behind this statement - in other words, if you have the source code of an application you're using and you modify it and re-release your changes into the world, you'd be liable for patent claims against that code. Gives both the SCO lawsuits and Microsoft's own recent patent hunger a whole new sinister meaning - if you're not a Microsoft customer, you'll be a Microsoft/SCO/other "patent"-holder target. Upping the ante from BSA, I guess.
The way Linux is designed and the way Windows (especially with integrated IE) is designed are fundamentally different, and one (guess which) is by design more insecure
I agree, for now. What's going to happen in five years when KDE or Gnome developers decide to continue with their fledgling registries? They're not official called a "registry" but it doesn't take a nuclear physicist to figure out where a general system database is going.
+++ATHZ 99:5:80
So what has the EFF been doing? Nobody in the open source world creates patents, but at least we have the EFF to stand to help us out against these claims. Wasn't the EFF actually helping fight the Eolas patent claim.
Sure Microsoft has more money to throw at the problems, but then again they also spend their time flooding the system with more unnecessary patents, for whatever reason.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
I hope they have something really good cooked up, because 1994-2004 is going to be tough to beat. Let's see, we have:
1. The Web*.
2. E-Mail*.
3. Home computers go mainstream.
4. Win95/98/NT/2000/XP (poke fun all you want, but you can't argue that these weren't a major improvement over what they replaced).
5. OSS, Linux, GNU, BSD*.
6. 3D games with realistic jibbing.
7. (about a dozen more which I'm forgetting)
* Yes, these were around before 1994, but between 94-04 is when they became tools of the common folk.
What has *science* done?!? -- Dr. Weird (ATHF)
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.
He fails to mention if attacks would be as successful on attacking Linux as they are Windows. Great way to answer a question without answering it
Apache has about 66% of the web server market and yet you don't see many (if any) worms attacking it.
Anyone remember SQL Slammer? How many systems were there (relative to Apache sites), and how much network chaos ensued (fewer hosts, but more issues).
Population size is a valid point, but there's no way to know until it's actually there. Pure conjecture is a useless argument.
I think at least the top heads at Microsoft are running macs with os X over there. They really have no clue about how windows or linux works for the end user. I'm sure when you're at that level of any company you end up becomming so disconnected from the details of the product you sell. I doubt the Ford executives test drive every new model of a car, but if these cars' tired suddenly blew out on the highway, they'd call in their engineers and ask them what the hell's going on. I don't have any inside sight on how Microsoft works, just a view from the outside like many. For anyone who works there, do these managers at least look at how their products are working and the amount of headaches they cause people all over the world? Or is it all just to get it out the door and market the hell out of it?
The bat that Steve talks about swinging to protect its MS Window monopoly is the same bat used to pound customers into paying outrageous licensing fees for insecure product. Remember how that kinder gentler Microsoft was/is threatening US School districts with the help of their BSA buddies? Microsoft with ANY bat is not a good thing. Why isn't THIS brought up when Open Source and Microsoft are mentioned in the same session? The BSA would be DOA with FOSS. Or atleast the Microsoft problems which are most of BSA's mandate. IMHO.
;-)
And another thing about this Ballmer guy:
THIS was nicely worded, as only Microsoft could:
"If you have two popular operating systems, both will get attacked -- whatever is popular is going to be attacked," Ballmer said.
The interesting word is "attacked". Notice he didn't say 'broken into'. There is a night and day difference between being attacked and having attacks suceed. And in MS Winodws case, crashing to its knees from almost every attack.
Microsoft is THE master marketing company and could probably sell an elephant as a duck. Oh wait, they do.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
in overdrive again.
.NET computing architecture.
But Ballmer shed his visionary mantle soon after, taking shots at the open source software development community and warning participants to think twice before adopting open source products like Linux.
Translation: We're ticked people put software out there that we charge exorbitantly for and they have the nerve to code it better than we do.
"I'm as fired up now as I've ever been in 24 years at Microsoft," Ballmer said.
Translation: I've nerver been so damned mad and scared for my own cushy job security in 24 years of being at Microsoft.
"In the next ten years, you're going to see more positive change than in the last ten," Ballmer said.
Translation: This keeps up we're going to miss our quarterly projections again and continue to loose our monopolistic stranglehold on the home computing industry that we've had in the last ten over the next ten.
Ballmer promoted his company's products as a key to that transformation, including the next version of the Windows operating system, dubbed "Longhorn," and the company's
Poster's commentary: Makes me wanna revive the "Where's the Beef" commercials from over 10 years ago with all the hooplah, smoke and mirrors I keep reading about "Longhorn". I can see it now, They'll start calling computer viruses on "Longborn" (intentional mis-spelling) Mad Cow Disease and we see more countries banning the sale and distribution of Microsoft "beef" possibly.
Joking about recent news regarding a curtailed list of features in Longhorn, Ballmer said that cutting back on the promised features at least allowed the company to announce a release date for the product, which was a "major accomplishment."
Poster's commentary: Only at Microsoft would a major overshoot of a release become the joke to them that it is to the rest of us.
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.
Ballmer singled out XML and Web services as the "big breakthrough" of the next decade that will spur innovation.
"The fact that companies like Oracle (Corp.), IBM (Corp.) and (Microsoft) have bet on an architected approach to interoperability is huge," he said.
Translation: Since our corporate peers are lining up to kick our butt with Open Source we better buckle and see what all the fuss is about. This is merely another move by Microsoft to catch the last of the waves as the sun sets and they're "Johnny Come-lately" to the next trend.
While not perfect on security, Microsoft has a defined process for addressing security vulnerabilities, compared with the open source community, which he called "all over the map," when it came to addressing vulnerabilities in Linux, Ballmer said.
Translation: We better suck it up and realize we have to straighten out our backyard since the Open Source is making so many significant innovations and has an ability to patch their software so fast we don't even get to read the patch update notice before it's done, damn it! It's not far that Open Source has the ability to call on developers "all over the map", woe is us, how can we compete with the world? You can't Stevie, so suck it up and bask in your glory while it lasts.
"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.
Translation: For them (Open Source), there too many targets. For us, (Microsoft) the litigants have an easy target. Strength in numbers, Steve! *grin*
"I'm not trying to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt," Ballmer said. "I just think people should go out and res
Scientia et Potentia
Wasn't it something like two years ago when Microsoft got tagged for patent infringement over their SQL server, and they did not indemnify their users? What does the EULA say? Where's this indeminification Mr. Ballmer is talking about?
The answer of course is MS. How many people have seen the name Linux for the first time in an MS ad or press release?
You don't see car company A constantly talking about car company B. Imagine your a store owner on a triple A location selling X. Are you then really going to talk to the customer about you really are much much cheaper then this totally unknown store that is in fact just around the corner? Of course not.
So either MS doesn't know shit about marketing,don't tell the customer he can in fact go somewhere else, or they think they got no other choice.
Keep talking about Linux MS. The only thing you are achieving is that Linux is becoming more widely known. Each time you say linux is more expensive you just alert them to the fact that there is in fact another OS they can buy.
You don't see Archos or Creative or iRiver running ads on how they are cheaper then Apple do you? And everyone knows about the iPod.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Imagine if that was patented. It's been shown to be the fastest sort possible, if I remember right. Or how about all those patents apple has on Font Rendering? There's lots of stuff in Math that there's only one way of doing right. That's why you weren't allowed to patent algorythms in the past.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Mono scares the living daylights out of me.
Given the triviality and obviousness of patents being issued today, there's practically no way Mono can be non-infringing. Yet it's even more dangerous to check for it, because then you get into a triple-indemnity situation. Letting Mono burrow its way into Linux culture, software, infrastructure, and support is ASKING for trouble a few years down the road. It's putting a giant SUE ME sign out.
Besides, "Microsoft done right" isn't aiming that high. We could do better.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
They are being issued lots of patents. they are attempting to build a large patent portfolio around longhorn. the patents very well could be invalid but the legal cost of fighting the sheer volume of them is the detrent MS is looking for.
Patent 1000 things about opening a file, 750 may be invalid, but sue people on all 1000 with your $40 billion fund and make SCO, RIAA, MPAA turn green with envy,