Microsoft in 2008

r.jimenezz writes "Over at Wired there's an entertaining article written by Gary Wolf. It purports to be a memo written by a 2008-Microsoft-employed Linus Torvalds to Bill, arguing against Steve Ballmer's desire to go back to the untenable OS monopoly proposition instead of the 'new order': Windows is now some sort of desktop environment on top of an open OS!"

Comments

I read this and found it to be terribly funny

[Zphbeeblbrox]

and yet somehow totally unrealistic. I can't see Linus fitting in that kind of a work environment. Not that I know that much about Microsoft work environments.

Also surely this isn't a first post?

Re:I read this and found it to be terribly funny

[syukton]

Since I have first-hand knowledge of Microsoft work environments as that's where I'm sitting right at this very moment, I'll enlighten you about the good parts, and the bad. (Disclaimer: I am not employed by Microsoft; however I am on a contract at their Redmond location, and for anybody keeping track: I'm on lunch right now. :p )

First, there's the free drinks. Every building has at least one Kitchen. In my building, on my floor alone, there are 2. On floors 2 and 3 there are 2 more kitchens each, for a total of 6 in the building. In each kitchen is the type of floor-standing refrigerator you'd see at the grocery store or a 7-11, the kind they keep soft drinks in. Well, much like the grocery store or 7-11, just about every soft drink you could want is in there. Every "Coke" and "Pepsi" variant, Root Beer, Nestea, Dr. Pepper, different juices (cranberry, grapefruit, grape, apple, orange, V8), skim/2%/whole/chocolate milk, a variety of Talking Rain, and so forth. Not to mention the 12 flavors of Tea and a similarly diverse variety of coffee. Are you powered by mountain dew? Your batteries will never run low at Microsoft.

Second, there's the hours. Want to come in at 10am? ok, come in at 10. Want to work the weekend? no prob, you've got 24 hour building access thanks to your security badge. When you get sick of sitting at your desk, you can walk down the hall to a fooseball or ping-pong table and take a breather. Or, if you're in a building with an atrium (like mine) you can go sit there and read for a while. They don't micro-manage you, they like assigning people tasks and then letting those people handle those tasks independently.

So I'm a perl wizard (I have a beard and a hat too!) and I can do things with perl that is beyond the comprehension of most of the people I work with. Which is absolutely fine, really, because it takes me about an hour to accomplish something that would take 4 hours for them to do by hand. I tell them it'll take two hours and I've still got an extra hour to read slashdot.

I've never once had somebody look over my shoulder, and I work in a cube farm. There's 40 cubes in this room, and they aren't even cubes so much as the partitioned desks you see in a call center. Nobody is walking up behind me to check in on me. I produce my deliverables and they show me their gratitude.

Now, the downsides... Nothing works, and that's OK. Or rather, when something doesn't work the way it SHOULD work, people just shrug it off and accept it. The internal network can at some times be as slow as a 56k modem, and that's OK. (I'm not making this up, I speed-tested it) When the tools crash persistently day after day? That's OK. There's a standard of established mediocrity within the company's internal tools that probably serves to reinforce their release of crappy products. This is pretty much the only downside really, and I could see Linus doing his fair share to alleviate this problem at least in the division in which he would be working.

A minor downside is the "independent work" thing I mentioned above. Sometimes tasks get subdivided to the point where you've got 4 people working on a one-man job and the only way to accomplish anything is to have all 4 of those people in the same room at the same time, which can be a daunting task to accomplish. But this is really quite trivial compared to the acceptance of mediocrity that seems to pervade the campus.

Re:I read this and found it to be terribly funny

[LilMikey]

We're slacks and ties in the IT department here (Friday you can wear short sleaved collars though!) and we're still exceptionally mediocre. I imagine I'd be no less mediocre if I could dress the way I wished.

Re:I read this and found it to be terribly funny

[i41Overlord]

And people wonder where the acceptance of mediocrity comes from. It's a way of life. In work. In dress. In attitude. Sorry, not my scene.

Yeah, your capabilities are directly related to the way that you're dressed at that moment. If they wore business suits they would code so much better. Have you ever seen Superman do anything special when he's dressed like Clark Kent? Me neither. It's that suit that gives him all the power.

So good post.

Re:I read this and found it to be terribly funny

[bladesjester]

It really depends on the mentality of the person more than the clothing or the setting. Some people use certain types of clothing to get into a "work" frame of mind. Others can only seem to get work done in their office and not when they work from home.

With me, it's not so much what I wear or where I am but rather that I sort of mentally designate the place as somewhere to do work instead of play games or read slashdot.

Re:I read this and found it to be terribly funny

[ray-auch]

WTF ?

Windows has done drag-n-drop to writeable cds for years.

The $100 add-on might give you a few more options on formats etc., but to just stick some files on a cd, all you need is windows.

Re:far away ...

[stupidfoo]

MS just made $10 billion in a single quarter. They're not going anywhere anytime soon.

Re:OK (Microsoft/Linus pr0n??)

[GeorgeMcBay]

Can it get any more horny than this?


I've heard of some sick fetishes (I do have access to the Internet, after all), but you take the cake, my friend!

to summarize

[Anonymous Coward]

if you dont want to read, i'll summarize:

Bill Gates: "'Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers!' I'm fucking sick and tired of it so i had to fire him and you were the best replacement i could find"

Linus needs to watch who he associates with.

[numbski]

I think he's been hanging out with John Titor a bit too much lately. ;)

This IS entertaining

[Staplerh]

It's entertaining. I don't think I would mod the article 'Insightful' or 'Interesting', but I would mod it 'Funny'. A choice snippet (taken out of context no doubt, but still)

You never made me alter my goal, which was world domination for Linux. I'll never forget your line: "Come on, Linus, infect the mothership." I still believe that was the best recruiting pitch ever uttered. We both took a lot of criticism from our partisans, but look what we've accomplished.

Inflect the mothership? Just writing this makes me chuckle. Seems kind of creepy, and dare I say, 'borgish'. Oh well, I suppose getting co-opted by Mothership Microsoft had somehow warped the psuedo-Torvald's mind.

Re:This IS entertaining

[GeorgeMcBay]

Infect the mothership?


The article lost all credibility with me with the infect the mothership line. Everybody knows you need to use a Mac to infect the mothership.

Re:This IS entertaining

[ArmenTanzarian]

if Bill asked me to infect the mothership, I'd probably sue him for sexual harassment.

Waaay out of context in fact.

[numbski]

"...infect the mothership..."

That's poking fun at the movie "Independence Day". The PowerBook that manages to establish an authenticated PPP session, get an IP address, transfer a virus to the alien host (pun intended), then REMOTELY EXECUTE IT.

Okay, yes, I'm a unix admin, mac user, network engineer, and the mere concept has my dying on the floor laughing as I watch the Classic environment do that.

Anyway, point is....I'm betting the author has watched that movie recently.

Another one from the "Duh!" file

[phillymjs]

"Windows is now some sort of desktop environment on top of an open OS!"

Wow, so in the future they'll keep copying Apple. That's big news.

~Philly

Re:Another one from the "Duh!" file

[TheRaven64]

Except that Apple's kernel was really poor in the Classic days. No pre-emptive multitasking, no protected memory. The Nu-Kernel had potential, but was still under development and the entire project was suffering from Duke Nukem Forever-style feature creep. OPENSTEP was a nice replacement for them, since it already came with a powerful GUI and could (relatively) easily be made Mac-like (after all, it was designed by some of the same people).

In contrast, the Windows NT kernel is of a high standard, although some limitations prevent it from scaling beyond 16 (I think. Maybe 32. I'm too lazy to check.) CPUs - not really a limitation anywhere other than high-throughput server space. Read Tanenbaum's Modern Operating Systems for more info. Almost nothing that's wrong with Windows is the result of the kernel (well, maybe the decision to move more drivers into ring 0 in recent versions) and so moving to a Linux kernel would be silly. The main flaws with Windows come from some design decisions at a higher level (win32 api) made before the Internet was in widespread use, and before the need to maintain backwards compatibility with some these design decisions (and even most 16-bit DOS/Windows code). Microsoft really need to do what Apple did with OS X, and run legacy code in an emulation layer, although in their case with a nice big sandbox around it. Coincidentally, I believe this is exactly what they are planning for Longhorn (which seems to be going the way of Copland at the moment...).

And also,

[Gannoc]

In that same memo, it describes how Microsoft will create a sticker that attaches to the outside of your case that uses nanotechnology to intensa-mobilize the electron particles in your motherchips to make your computer run 10-15% faster after several reboots.

Sony-Disney-MS

[flabbergast]

Finally, if you think that the Sony-Disney-MS deal is important, you better quiet Steve down

Danger Will Robinson, Danger!!! That's a scary idea, what would you call a company that is MS, Sony, and Disney? Disonysoft? Microney? AOL Time Warner?

Re:Sony-Disney-MS

[Thud457]

That's ok, ApPixBay will CRUSH THEM ALL!

Re:Sony-Disney-MS

[JudgeFurious]

You're one merger short of total domination.

That's "ApPixBayGoo" if you want to take on "SonDisSoft".

Re:Sony-Disney-MS

[mpathetiq]

The only possible answer:

Money

The REAL Microsoft in 2008

[jimbolaya]

They finally ship Longhorn.

Re:Go back to coding!

[Spy der Mann]

I wonder what silicon they smoke

It's called "free time". Envious? ;-)

I've been watching too many movies

[ChipMonk]

From TFA:

You told me that if I ever hit a wall with Steve or his people, I should let you know.

Somehow, the image of Linus Torvalds grabbing Steve Ballmer and swinging him like a bat at a brick wall, Neo-vs.-Smith style.... It's a good thing I didn't have any soda in my mouth when I read that.

Re:BULL!!!

[igotmybfg]

I do care what OS is beneath the surface

Yeah, but the point is that most users don't - for them computers are just a tool, and if it works ok then they are happy.

I was assimulated by Microsoft..

[adeyadey]

and all I got was this lousy tee-shirt!

Re:I was assimulated by Microsoft..

[gardyloo]

I was assimulated by Microsoft..

Not completely, it seems. They forgot to install the spellchecker.

True. But the ass-emulator seems to be working fine!

Re:Long horn

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, you're saying Apple is the way out of overpriced corporate-marketed products? Um, what?

Make a point

[Anonymous Coward]

form the article:

[...]But Firefox taught people that you could replace pieces of the Windows desktop with open source software. That was a crack in the seamless facade.

Re:Go back to coding!

[garcia]

Well, you might have been trying to be funny but it was modded insightful which it isn't.

Creative writing is interesting and the thoughts behind the piece were definitly thought provoking.

Dear Bill

[jwegy]

Tell Steve that it is Gnu/Winx, not Winux. Thanks, Linus ;-P

But what about Debian/NT?

[argent]

I mean, the old NT codebase has some interesting capabilities. What about building a Debian/NT on top of it?

Re:But what about Debian/NT?

[LuckyStarr]

Just as you think it could not get any weirder...

Re:But what about Debian/NT?

[argent]

You think I'm kidding? Microsoft's already shipping a BSD port.

Re:But what about Debian/NT?

[Foolhardy]

That's why SFU isn't built on top of Win32, but the kernel's native API, which does fork() just fine. So does SFU; it uses the native API.
The NT kernel was designed from the beginning to support different environments, including POSIX and Win32. Each environment subsystem consists of a server process that maintains common state specific to the environment, and a set of client libraries that translate the environment's API to the native API and calls to the server. Win32 is an environment subsystem and so is SFU.

For some reason, cygwin (which debian-win32 uses) insists on using only Win32, so they have to resort to kludges to make certain things like fork() work.
Now that SFU is free, I don't see why debian-win32 couldn't use that instead of cygwin.

As it stands, Interop Systems has the best collection of packages for SFU. Most of the essential stuff is there, but it's still a far cry from Debian's library.

Microsoft 2000-whatever

[Ars-Fartsica]

Like any corporation that has survived and thrived due to a monopoly, it will never change and will take a very long time to die. See AT&T for a useful analogue.

two choices:

[www.sorehands.com]

One, Bill Gates could have offered Linus enough money to turn him to the dark side; Or two, he could have hired enough people to brain wash Linus.

it's not exactly in line with this article ...

[timothy]

but something I've been thinking and asserting for a few years is that Microsoft, if they wanted to, could easily be the world's largest Open Source company.

Now, with their cash, they could probably also quickly be the world's largest X company for nearly any X ;) However, as an entrenched company with experts in all levels of the software world (from marketing and PR to theoretical next-century noodling that one day will be genuine workable technology), this is a not-crazy idea.

Microsoft has adopted to market changes before, and they will in the future. (And then, of course, one day they won't exist any more ... dust to dust).

timothy

Re:Wha...?

[superpulpsicle]

1.) NWO = New Windows OS

2.) William Gates III in ascii code sums up to 666.

3.) M$ commercials of "where do you want to go today" actually plays some song in the background where certain tones match satanic worshipping.

Seriously if M$ became opensource, it wouldn't be any more crazy than any of the above.

Sounds like a pretty good idea to me...

[erroneus]

All jokes asside, the idea of ripping out the underlying stuff while keeping the Windows UI standards for look and feel would be fine with me.

There are presently efforts to dump X11 in favor of a more hardware direct interface for graphics and such in order to provide more speed and flexibility. I don't know where those projects are now, but without a big backer of the idea, getting rid of X will never happen. As far as I can see, asside from some Microsoft-blessed system services, that's what I imagine WinX would be anyway. And to run proprietary code on top of a Linux kernel? I don't see any violations, legal or moral.

with as much work and progress that has been made over the years with KDE and GNOME projects, it would be far kinder to the users if there were a strong and unified user interface from which to run their applications. It freaks people out to change and learn new things. KDE and GNOME folks have done a lot of work to get their projects into the lime light but frankly, a large player like Microsoft could easily swoop in and make it all irrelevant. This may not be the case in a year or two but it feels like it is the case right now.

For the record, I'm very anti-microsoft. But it would be a mistake to fail to embrace them if they were to attempt something like WinX. (If they did, it'd probably be a BSD kernel though... worked for Apple didn't it?)

Re:Sounds like a pretty good idea to me...

[tu_holmes]

WinX it's not, but Linux is pretty much already there.
http://www.xandros.com/images/screenshots/v3/deskt op_original.png

Re:Sounds like a pretty good idea to me...

[DunbarTheInept]

Any attempt to get rid of X would have to be able to do all the things X can do or people like me would never go for it. Some things the Windows interface sucks at are:
1 - Having an independant window manager, so that the application's frame is NOT under its own control. This wins you several things, including being able to move or iconify an App that is unresponsive.
2 - Remotability that is not an added afterthought. Remotability that is always there, and always usable.
3 - Picking and choosing your interface tools that help (this has a lot to do with #1 above).
4 - mouse focus how you like it.

As long as we're playing fantasy land

[jalefkowit]

From the office of: Jesus Christ
Date: 10.31.2008
To: Allah
From: Big J
Re: Will Mohammed kill Islam++?

Re:Memo to Wired

[argent]

Nah, this isn't anything like Asimov. No attempt to tie it in to the Robots/Foundation/Empire universe.

In 2008

[fieldcomm]

We've built a Windows desktop and application framework around a Linux operating system, and both sides of this equation - open source and proprietary - are needed for our plan to continue to work.

In other news, RMS announces the imminent release of HURD. "I can feel it, any day now, " says RMS.

When asked about the new Winux, RMS suddenly issued blue smoke and sparks, muttering "Freedom, freedom, where is the freedom," before crashing to the floor.

Happy Halloween!

[argent]

Anyone else notice the date on the memo? :)

THE REAL MEMO!!!!

[DocStoner]

Hey Bill,

Well, we did the best we could. Everyone thought we were crazy when we decided to join forces. For awhile there, we thought that we might actually have a chance at coming out on top by teaming up.

We should have known that copying Apple again ( this time by turning to a 'nix based OS) wouldn't work. They had such a huge headstart on us and you can only copy your competitors so many times before consumers catch on to what you are doing.

I've got to hand it to Steve Jobs and the guys at Apple. In the end, quality did beat out price.

Linus

Sounds familiar...

[MrPerfekt]

This sounds an awful lot like Apple and OS X, complete with humor about pronounciation (OS X or OS TEN).

As sad as I am to say it, Cringley already fielded this one sometime in 2002 or 2003 I believe. He had a slightly insane theory that a proprietary Windows interface on top of a Linux kernel would be the best of both worlds.

I doubt it would ever happen but it would be definately interesting. Just think if Windows made the shift, there would no longer be ANY operating systems in active development that weren't based on UNIX in some way.

Is that a far-fetch dream or a reality slowly taking shape?

Re:Sounds familiar...

[bofkentucky]

BeOS (OpenBEOS changed names I think) would like to register a complaint, as would VMS, which while not actively courting new users, still is being worked on daily.

I mod thee (-1 Lame) Wired Magazine

[netsavior]

I just lost 5 minutes of my life that my employer will never get back...

Trust me....

[copponex]

I'm waiting for Longhorn SP1 in 2011.

Re:Interesting thing is...

[MightyMartian]

I don't know about this. My youngest kid had no problems whatsoever with KDE. For the most part, it's pretty similar to Windows; point-and-click stuff.

As an old OS2 user, I find Windows in every incarnation to just be a stunted imitation of the WPS, which was a truly awesome GUI still light years ahead of XP. I don't see anything particularly innovative or easy about the Windows XP interface. I deal with a lot of plain users, and half of them panic a little when you ask them "Now please press the Start button".

Most of the time their more-knowledgeable son/daughter/brother/friend/neighbor puts icons to Internet Exploder and Outlook Distress, along with the photo software and Solitaire on the desktop and people never look one bit further.

The only place where Windows has something of an edge is in software installation, and the problem there is that there's a number of different systems depending on distro. I mainly use Slackware, but when I played with Mandrake, it's package GUI installation system was every bit as easy as Windows XP.

So I can't really understand what people mean when they say "Windows is easier to use". I mean, what parts of Windows does the average user plug into on anything approaching a regular basis that's more involved than double-clicking on the program.

I'll place a bet that if you put a Linux box running KDE with Firefox and Thunderbird on the desktop as Internet Explorer and Outlook Express, many users will probably be just fine. It's the product recognition thing that gets most users.

Reality check - Steve vs. Linus

[Anonymous Cowherd X]

Back then, my revenge was to sneak up on Steve's Longtime friends and whisper in my best accent, "We are the Borg. You will be assimilated. Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Resistance is futile." They hated that.

For some reason I think that conflict between Steve and Linus would go down like this:

Linus: "Steve, I just don't like your idea, honestly I think it -"
Steve: "You... don't like... my idea? *closing in on Linus*"
Linus: "Oh, come on... We are the Borg, we -"
Steve: "OOO OOO OOOAAA *jumps on Linus and squashes him like a pumpkin, then does his little psychotic monkey dance* I am the Borg, I AM the Borg!!! Give it up for meeee, yeah!!!"

Later that day...

Bill: "Steve, another accident?"
Steve: "*shrugs* *can't help smiling*"
Bill: "You think this is funny?!"
Steve: "*his smile turns into a crazy stare*"
Bill: "No, I didn't mean it like that *grin*, it's really no big deal... Uhh, I mean..."
Steve: "*closing in on Bill*"

Due to extremely graphic violence *shrieks of what appears to be a woman being dismembered by a gorilla can be heard in the background* the following scene has been removed from this broadcast, however you can find it on the Steve: Crushing My Crust Soft DVD.

Winux or is it GNU/Winux ?

[BroncoInCalifornia]

This Linus seems to take on some RMS personality traits!

Re:Wha...?

[Em Ellel]

Microsoft...Open Source...? As entertaining as this article is, the chances of such things materializing are thin.

Closed desktop on top of open OS may not be as far fetched as you'd think. Apple has done exactly that with OSX and not like MS never stole ideas from Apple (which is not specific to MS either)....

-Em

Mediocrity

[cperciva]

... There's a standard of established mediocrity within [Microsoft's] internal tools that probably serves to reinforce their release of crappy products. This is pretty much the only downside really, and I could see Linus doing his fair share to alleviate this problem at least in the division in which he would be working.

What makes you think that Linus would solve this problem? In all seriousness, look at the "stable" 2.6 kernel branch, and the attitude demonstrated by comments like "some kernels will be good, others will be bad... we'll find out which kernels are broken soon enough".

I'm not saying that Linus himself believes in such mediocrity; but it's a bit unreasonable to expect that he would improve things at Microsoft when Linux, under his "benevolent dictatoriship" is plagued by exactly the same problems.

Re:Mediocrity

[frdmfghtr]

What makes you think that Linus would solve this problem? In all seriousness, look at the "stable" 2.6 kernel branch, and the attitude demonstrated by comments like "some kernels will be good, others will be bad... we'll find out which kernels are broken soon enough".

I'm not sure I see that as accepting mediocrity. I see it as more a "relaxed" approach.

Microsoft has programmers to pay, shareholders to satisfy, and all sorts of other expenses that come with being a business and, despite being a near monopoly, SHOULD be concerned with the established mediocrity and its effect on the end product. You can't do the job right if you don't have the right tools, and it sounds like Microsoft doesn't have very good tools to start.

Linux, OTOH, isn't under external pressure from a marketing department that keeps promoting superwhamodyne products by such-and-such a date. Linux is ready when it is ready, and not before.

My non-programming two cents...

Re:Mediocrity

[hdparm]

And XP was ready for what exactly at the time of release?

Bob Resurrected

[JohnPerkins]

This is Bob!

He took Enzyte, which gave him the courage to show his face on store shelves again.

...which brought him back into public view.

...which brought him sales beyond the 3-digit range.

...which brought him world-wide respect.

...which, by 2008, placed him on over 90% of desktops in the world.

Coincidence? You decide! Try Enzyte today!

Like OSX is really just Aqua on top of BSD?

[doormat]

It'd be nice to have the security of linux and the user-friendlyness and software library of windows in one package.

But the words "snowballs chance in hell" come to mind.

Believable

[jd]

Microsoft and Intel have fallen out, much as Microsoft and IBM fell out over DOS and (later on) OS/2. I could easily see Microsoft putting in a takeover bid for AMD, thereby controlling both the hardware and the software.

Alternatively, now that Oracle has bought Peoplesoft, Oracle is vulnerable. It hasn't the money left to resist an attack from Microsoft. With Microsoft wanting more of the server market, taking over companies dealing in high-end server software would be not only logical but consistant with Microsoft's tactics in the past.

A third possibility would be for Microsoft to buy part of the Internet backbone, or one of the suppliers of it. Juniper is growing in popularity but isn't so big as to be able to resist a buyout. Cisco's not been doing too great, recently, and may be vulnerable. Lucent would be easy pickings and may even welcome such a move.

Finally, Microsoft may opt for a "strategic partnership" with Boeing. Boeing is in the middle of a massive struggle with Airbus, and it's unlikely both can survive. If Boeing wants to win, it needs more money. Microsoft doubled its profits last quarter, even after allowing for the shareholder payout AND the record EU fine. Aircraft may soon have WIFI. If Microsoft can become the only vendor who can work with such WIFI points, they'd have absolute control of the business market.

Finally, Microsoft could buy a hard drive vendor. If the OS came pre-installed on the hard drive to OEMs, then fewer OEMs would be willing to install rival Operating Systems....

Linus never would have written this memo.

[Rimbo]

First, it is way too long.

Second, it isn't nearly as witty as Linus is; it doesn't have any of the insults-that-make-you-feel-like-thanking-Linus-for -insulting-you that characterize his flames.

Third and most vital, Linus doesn't give a damn about any of the crap the author's writing about. He doesn't care about taking over the world or marketing. He is only interested in technology.

Re:Wha...?

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is Microsoft have a very good core operating system already, where as Apple repeatedly failed in their attempts to develop one from the ground up, and eventually concluded they'd have to buy one.

The problem with Windows isn't the OS (i.e. the kernel-mode modules), it's the Win32 API, which was designed in a rush in the early 1990s, when Microsoft fell out with IBM and dumped the OS/2 API (which was pretty bad too). In addition to having been designed in a rush, Win32 was made similar to Win16, so that 16-bit Windows developers could easily port their software to NT. That meant its designers had to loosely follow an API designed in the 1980s, which was never a particularly good design, but had become very popular (for various reasons).

The strength of Win32 was in moving existing Windows developers from DOS/Win3.x/Win9x to NT, and in that respect it was a very good move by Microsoft. However, it's become something of a liability over time, since it limits Microsoft's flexibility to take advantange of all the advances since the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Microsoft could replace Win32 with a new subsystem/API, which would sort of be following Apple's lead in replacing the classic Mac OS API with Cocoa (and Carbon for directly porting old applications). However, Microsoft would be crazy to replace the NT kernel with something else, since NT was designed from the beginning to support multiple OS personalities, is amongst the best production kernels around and has unparalleled device support.

Unfortunately, Microsoft's current efforts seem to be based on building new layers (e.g. .NET) above Win32, which means the new layers also suffer to some extent from the deficiencies of Win32. With the death of Windows 9x, that could change, since Win32 was the common denominator between Windows 9x/Me and Windows NT/2000/XP/2003, but there's no sign of it yet.

I have another theory for the hiring

[ESqVIP]

Hey, it's 2005 (I mean, when Linus joined Microsoft in the story). Microsoft's worried about Google being a bigger monopoly than them.

- Hey, Bill, Google's trying to own a new area!
- What now?
- The Open-Source Developer Hiring. They just got Ben Goodger, from Mozilla!
- Those bastards. Well, I have an idea. We'll invite Linus, that'll show 'em. And if they hire another communist geek, take me into line with RMS immediatelly!

ps.

[SharpFang]

Post Scriptum

Bill, please, remember to feed Richard and let him out at least once a week! Last time I visited him in your dungeon, he had hardly enough strength to curse me for my betrayal. I know having him dead and all would make things much easier, you not getting bitten, me not being spit at, but for God's sake, RMS is the real father of the OS. I understand it's better like this, but it's sad to see him there. He IS a human being and deserves at least some respect, even if he doesn't behave like one. Keep your side of the contract and I'll keep bullshitting the EFF thugs that he keeps mailing me from central Australia on regular basis.

Re:ps.

[argent]

What were the alternatives to the (bare bones of) GNU OS at time when Linus integrated his kernel with it?

Linux aggregated around the kernel, it wasn't integrated into an existing system. The FSF tools were not the only options, nor in some cases were they even the best... though in the process of building Linux led to big improvements in many.

But... people had been writing the userland components for over a decade at that time, starting in the late '70s with the Software Tools Virtual OS. There were two or three alternate C compilers, a huge variety of other components, and long before Linux was solid the BSD userland became available.

Linus has stated that if BSD had been ready a year earlier, he would just have used that... Linux wouldn't have existed at all. And the only major component in the open-source BSDs that came from the FSF is the C compiler... and that's not the compiler it started with.

So, if Linus hadn't existed, we'd be debating BSD and Hurd now, not Linux and Hurd. If RMS hadn't existed we'd be using some descendant of lcc or tcc... on Linux.

Microsoft Linux

[canuck57]

Microsoft Linux 2008

Compatible with open source, stolen and borrowed code. We own it, and invented the Internet and Linux. Buy a copy now and Open MS-Office (closed source with virus hooks and back doors built in) available now for a full featued desktop.

Even the EULA has improved, it is now twice as long, more complex and has been made into a 2 hour video.

Can now be backed up with the included MS-cpio. For corparate customers, secure file copy and encrypted interactive terminal sessions do not cost extra and are included with the MS-SSH package. You can also distribute these files around the clock using the reliable MS-RSync package.

For you personal protection there is MS-IPF firewall that protect not only what tries to get in, but also watches what goes out.

Corporations can easily prevent users from loading spyware, P2P, virus and other malware.

Comes with IE-Firefox, a new nify browser with less chance of being bothered by rude sites popups and viruses. We have customized it with new and improved annoyances.

Comes with a new reliable job scheduler called MS-cron. Never have to worry about setting the time as it uses MS-ntp for reliable and ultra accurate time settings.

For developers, MS-perl, MS-java, MS-C/C++, tcl, wish, php, MS-apache, MSksh, SHsh, MSawk, MSmysql MSprogress and MSsccs/rcs all await your pleasure and are included with the OS at no extra charge. Will save your company thousands

You can run your own servers with the optional included package of MS-imap, MS-sendmail, MS-DNS, MS-apache, MS-php and others, all Writen to Micosoft standards. Our developers have made sure buffer overflows and back doors exist for the NSA for legal compliance. Source is not provided so it is maintenace free.

The system can natively run open source. Although it is advised not to do so as it voids your warenty. See EULA line item 104786.

Comes with a real VM so when the boss comes by you can swap desktops quickly and reliably.

Get you MS-Linux for an introductory price of $999 *Which is less than Windows 2003 or 2005!

You are no longer bound to expensive Intel P5 chips. Runs on the Dragon 2008, systems usually start at $180 for a 3GHz quad processor.

Includes MS-OpenVPN to connect to work or your companys MS-Linux gateway. No extra charge. But will not work with Cisco.

Includes a threaded news reader to coordinate the threads of messages in the shared folders. No more will you need to search for related messages from 3 months ago.

But hurry, these prices will not last!

Re:Interesting thing is...

[mattyrobinson69]

just thought i'd point out something about package management:

I used to use slackware, and was all for compiling software by hand, then i installed gentoo and its package management system is amazing (far, far better than windows) - it even has a gui (porthole) which my gf uses to install/upgrade stuff.

I loved slackware, but i could never use it again on my desktop.

Re:Interesting thing is...

[MightyMartian]

> They mean that they can go to a website of some
> little tool maker (let's say a shareware tool that
> helps them oraganize a shopping list), they can
> click once to download the tool and another click
> to install it and they're done. It isn't like that
> with Linux (no matter what distro) and it never
> will be until it achieves a critical mass on the
> desktop which won't be anytime soon.

Except that this has been part of the problem with Windows. It's just simply too easy to install this sort of stuff, and suddenly find yourself plagued with spyware. I'm all for easy-of-install, but it shouldn't be too easy. It's the same thing with attachments. It's one thing to have relatively easy access to attachments, but allowing executables to be clicked on is just asking for disaster.

I think a reasonable compromise is simply allow the software to install under the user's account, and thus have the vulnerability at least not be inherited by anyone else logging on to the computer. I think the reason we haven't seen this is because the designers of *nix GUIs just don't want to introduce the worst parts of Windows.

> And no, fiddling with a zillion different
> "package managers" is not a viable alternative.

And I've admitted this is a problem, though like I said, some of the distros have pretty damn easy installation procedures, and I think if it's thought out carefully, even installing from the browser might be okay, but if what you're asking for is simply the same brain-dead methodology that has made Windows extremely vulnerable, then absolutely not.

At some point, whether its Microsoft or KDE or who or whatever, users are going to have to face the facts that they are a critical quotient in the security issue, and that means that users are either going to have to be educated or not be given the ability to install just any-ol-thing. Ease of installation isn't necessarily a good thing.

Not Representative of MSFT

[buzzini]

There are apparently many current/former Microsofties fuming at the parent post, but I guess everyone wants to post anonymously or not at all. I'm gone and have nothing to lose, so here goes.

The parent post is a superficial and completely unrepresentative perspective of Microsoft. The author seemed to be pandering to Slashdot preconceptions more than anything. In reality, Microsoft is an amazing company full of ridiculously intelligent CS folks i.e. top students from top CS programs. Whereas at many companies I've been exposed to, there are a couple smart people here and there and everyone else is just sleepwalking, Microsoft is almost entirely composed of smartest-guy-in-the-room types.

Some notes:

* This guy is a contractor. Contractors are generally not very well-respected at Microsoft. The quality people are full-time almost without exception.
* Almost no one at Microsoft works in a cubicle. Full-time employees have real offices with real doors that close so that you can concentrate.
* There is no "acceptance of mediocrity" at Microsoft. In fact, it is entirely the opposite. There is a culture of self-criticism and self-castigation throughout the company, especially in divisions like Office.
* The only times I observed the internal network to be "slow" was when the company was dogfooding an early release. If the network were really as slow as the author describes, people would not be able to get their work done.
* What internal tools are you referring to? RAID (the bug-tracking system) is pretty great overall and all of the business process management stuff was the best I've seen at any company.

I'll leave it at that.

Re:Not Representative of MSFT

[Phragmen-Lindelof]

One of our current graduate students worked at MS for approximately ten years and was heavily involved in the development of one of their well known products. He said there were many extremely smart people at MS. These people generally had huge egos and did not accept criticism well. The end result was products which did not work well because person A and person B did not write compatable code but it all was put into the final product. He liked MS as a place to work but for whatever reason decided to get his PhD in math. (I know, math PhDs are really easy to get; you don't need to be smart to get one.) :-)

Re:Not Representative of MSFT

[buzzini]

I know what you mean...I can remember a particular occasion where two very smart/stubborn developers had each created largely overlapping technologies and were both intent on proselytizing for their version. In those situations, it's really the job of a dev manager to step in and make a call. My sense is that this sort of conflict happens pretty rarely with the more mature products.

In any case, your graduate student sounds like precisely the sort of bright, pragmatic person that is typical at MS...not a part of the supposed "culture of mediocrity" dreamed up by some contractor.