Slashdot Mirror
Meet Microsoft's Linux Lab Head Bill Hilf
morcego writes "Yahoo News has a very interesting interview with Bill Hilf, Microsoft's director of Microsoft's platform technology strategy group, who in turn works for Martin Taylor, Microsoft's general manager of platform strategy and Linux point man. From the interview: '"I am a non-Microsoft guy working at Microsoft," Hilf said.'"
What's up with the 'nothing to see' errors? I have been getting plenty of them lately.
It's nice to know that at least somebody there has some understanding of open source/Linux/alternatives. From most the FUD we keep seeing lately it makes me wonder if Microsoft would ever get a clue. Of course, this could just be some master plot by Bill to get us all thinking he is being understanding, before he ships us off to the Galapacos Islands and destroys us all with a ray gun.
I am a non-Microsoft guy working at Microsoft.
Funny, that statement could also apply to Laura DiDio.
I just RTFA, and there is no content at all.
Let me summarize for you:
Bill Hilf works for Microsoft, reporting on the progress and direction of the open source projects and the OSS community in general.
There, now you can go do something more important than read this article.
Bill Hilf is a TRAITOR! Lets tar and feather him! Have him drawn and quartered! Send him off the plank! Put him in an iron maiden!
Grammar Nazi
"Hilf said he still hears the same-old, predictable questions and perceptions regarding Microsoft's open-source strategy and intentions. His top five:
# When will Microsoft open source X (Microsoft commercial product)?
# Why don't you build X (Microsoft commercial product) so it runs on Linux?
# Microsoft is all-about closed source.
# Microsoft is anti-open source.
# Microsoft is always less secure than every open-source product on every front."
what the hell is this shit?
wow, that's a great article. let's have the guy talk about the predictable common questions that he gets. and not seek an answer. at all.
despite the fact that everyone is obviously interested, since those questions/concerns always come up.
i think we can assume that microsoft's answer to all those questions is "FOAD" or some variation. nevertheless, that guy is still an idiot, and the article still sucks.
big time.
From article: "In addition to acting Microsoft's good cop on open source, Hilf also runs the Microsoft Linux lab" Is this Microsoft Linux distro open-source? Where do I get it?
Maybe it's already happened. Bill has spies everywhere. :-)
Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
They have a load of *nix servers and PCs, yet frequently new M$ products fail to work with 3rd party clients/interfaces/servers. It sounds like he Microsoft's gimp for building systems that their engineers can write software to NOT work on.
My office has gnu/linux and windows.....
We use Fedora Core for work, games, everything computer based. We use windows for looking out.
I work at an Apple Store in the Seattle area previously mentioned in a slashdot article. I think its worth noting that a lot of Microsoft people buy non microsoft products. For instance one microsoft employee came in and bought a Mac Mini. Of course there is no PPC Windows Edition so its quite obvious that Microsoft people are acknowledging other products besides their own.
Hilf? As in "hacker I'd like to fuck"?
Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer - alternatively, KNOW YOUR ENEMY. Or, how about "do unto others, but first cover your butt."
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
"We get to find out lots of interesting things -- like how to authenticate against Active Directory, how to run non-Microsoft mail clients with Exchange," and the like, [Bill Hilf] said.
"Once we figure a way to for other products to interoperate with Microsoft, my job is to modify our product so the other products won't work," he added. "It's helps a great deal when I get to look at our competitors code, but they can't see ours."
At this point, he chuckled a bit to himself while twisting his pencil-thin mustache with his fingers.
Software Wars
Check out the video on Channel 9. >a href="http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostI D=65355">http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?Po stID=65355
They talk about some stuff, then go inside the lab, where they are testing clustering on a Linux distro and have racks and racks of different distros (and reveal that the copmany favorite is apparently...Gentoo!)
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
I read this to mean that Microsoft's competitive advantage against other proprietary software vendors like Apple is that Microsoft uses Linux internally.
Interesting! Makes you wonder exactly how this is their Linux use becomes their competitive advantage, though - is it through "borrowing" features (hope not code, though, because of the GPL) - or is it through running their enterprise systems on Linux. That would make more sense, you wouldn't want those running on windows, would you.
(at least not until Longhorn, which will fix all the Windows problems)
Seriously, though, I think it's funny that Microsoft needs to have a position like this. Maybe they'd be better off letting all employees spend 20% of their paid time reading about Linux and the most popular F/OSS programs out there. They might learn a thing or two (probably two) about how to code software that actually works. And then Microsoft wouldn't be throwing their money away.
One of the points that Bill Hilf made in the interview on Channel9 is that Linux was "very different" from Windows. (He then added that either one, other, or both were "very different" from OSX.)
How true is this? I only ask because I have had some experience with MVS (the operating system which has no concept of "files" or "directories") and Tandem (whose weird features I can't remember enough to describe), and I would describe both of those as "very different" from UNIX or Windows.
When it comes down to it, UNIX and Windows look pretty similair to me. They both support WIMP GUIs. They both have concepts of files and directories. They both have users and groups and permissions. They both have preemptive multitasking and multithreading.
The whole reason that Hilf stated that "Linux is very different from Windows" was part of the justification as to why Microsoft would not build applications for Windows (which was transparent and deceitful). If my belief is correct (that Linux is "similar enough" to Windows), then my opinion of Hilf falls through the floor. Am I correct that Linux is "similar enough" to Windows?
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
What would the world look like if MS figured out that they might be able to produce Linux apps, and have their Windows monopoly, too.
MS Desktop Environment. An X window manager, and the ONLY way to run MS Office and MS Visual Studio on Linux.
MS GUI for Samba. Runs in MS Desktop Environment. Opensource backend, closed source front end. Heck, if it runs on a proprietary MSDE, it could even be opensourced!
Same for IE. Maybe even an IIS than runs on Linux.
Weird thoughts. Not sure if they make business sense, or the traditionally sociopathic MS could think such thoughts.
I could see them doing it, and somehow managing to maintain a 'detente' with the open-source world. All-in-all, it might be a good thing for the market, and for consumers. You can get Windows (whatever edition), or you can get Linux, and run an interface on top of it that looks and acts like Windows.
Both will cost you $199. Both will run your MS apps. Pick and choose whatever you like.
Feels like an MS strategy to me, and you know what?
I can live with it. Just make sure it still uses some Opensource stuff as backends (CUPS, SANE, SAMBA), and I'll even buy it;
Especially if MS would use its immense market power to force Adobe and other top vendors to release their apps for the MSDE Linux environment.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
they couldn't beat or break open source
so now they have to work with it
makes sense really -- for years they had no serious competition -- they still don't on the desktop
but the mac's recent resurgence on the desktop and the rise of linux and BSD on servers has to be dealt with -- how could microsoft not have an OSS and OS X lab?
shooting is not too good for my enemies
To what end?
I discussed and dismissed this possibility years ago. The problems with implementation are these:
My summary of this scenario, posted in 1998, read:
I don't see anything that's changed in 7 years (other than the lines in my face getting clearer....)
What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?
actually, he probably intentionally avoided another, better question : when will microsoft _really_ start doing something to increase interoperability instead of trying to make it as hard as possible for everybody else ?
stop using some half-assed closed crap (active-x), add support for opendocument, document native msoffic formats, smb etc - but that would make you compete on real benefits, not lock-in. oh no, we can't afford that.
Rich