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.'"

Comments

Good to know

[hoka]

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.

Re:Good to know

[dougmc]

It's nice to know that at least somebody there has some understanding of open source/Linux/alternatives.

Microsoft is a large company. I'll bet there's hundreds of employees there that have a good understanding of open source alternatives. There's probably even some employees who regularly contribute to some open source projects, unless Microsoft policy actively prohibits it.

The marketing stuff that you see from them is written by a small subset of the company, and it's generally written with one goal in mind -- to benefit Microsoft. They aren't worried about giving the alternatives a fair treatment, unless they think that that will benefit them somehow.

Overall, Microsoft may be the `enemy', but the individual employees certainly aren't. They're just average working people like those working at any other software company.

Re:Good to know

[dioscaido]

I'm a dev on Longhorn, and believe it or not, at least for our project, we have a lab running linux and OSX machines, as well as tons of other networked appliances, to make sure our new stuff communicates with succesfully with their stuff. Plenty of us run linux servers at home.

Re:Good to know

[dougmc]

Bullshit! - Microsoft on more than 1 occasion had to hire people through other companies because they couldnt find true Linux experts that would work for them.

Ok, fine -- perhaps Microsoft couldn't get Linus or Alan Cox to work for them, at any price. Maybe, maybe not.

But most of the `true Linux experts' out there still have mouths to feed and like their sports cars and such, and if Microsoft were to offer them enough money, at least some of them would work for Microsoft. I would if they offered enough money, though I'm somewhere between L++ and L+++ in my geek code block so I probably don't count.

And I can easily see how a `Linux expert' might even justify working for Microsoft -- he might see it as a way to infiltrate Microsoft from within, perhaps influence their corporate culture, help make them a better company. (Yes, I think this is unlikely, but he might justify it like that anyways.) And while I'm certainly a OSS advocate, I still think that any improvements in Microsoft software will benefit the computing community as a whole, and if a Linux expert can help improve their software, I think this would be a good thing for him to do.

The individuals who work at Microsoft are either ignorant, desperate or believe there should be a fascist monopoly in the operating system market.

There may be a few people there like that, but I certainly do believe that most people there are just normal, every day people who do their job so they will get paid. And if they can do something to improve the world, that's a nice bonus, but mostly they're just there to get paid, just like the rest of the world.

And I don't think that Microsoft is so much more evil than any other software company, it's just that they are in a position where their actions have a lot more effect on things, so people watch them more closely.

The good average guys are thrown out for mentioning Microsoft uses Apple Mac.

Are you referring to this incident? If so, that's a long stretch from what you said. Yes, Microsoft's reaction was extreme, but it's not quite what you suggested. He certainly did more than mention that Microsoft uses Macs.

Re:Good to know

[StormKrow]

...at least now we know who to blame.

Useless article!

[dbretton]

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.

Re:Useless article!

[rharris]

Agreed. Had he been a non-microsoft guy working at microsoft with a chainsaw, then we'd have had something. :)

Re:Useless article!

[badriram]

Well if you have time, go on to Channel 9 and take at look his interview, including the linux lab itself..

Traitor!

[Jarn_Firebrand]

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!

Re:Traitor!

[moranar]

Lets tar and feather him!

Proper custom asks for him to be tarred and bzip2ed.

So why no interoperability

[MountainMan101]

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.

Re:So why no interoperability

[petrus4]

Because Microsoft's profit model depends on the unique selling point philosophy, i.e. the idea that a customer will only buy from you rather than another company for as long as you've got something which no other company has. The unique selling point philosophy is the main thing in opposition to interoperability...it's the entire reason why companies do not in fact want standards, despite paying lip service to the contrary. It's because they like the idea that if a customer wants feature X in software, and only one company has software with feature X, then said customer will *have* to go to that company, and that company only in order to buy it. Exclusivity/uniqueness of offerings gives companies a lot of control, which they want.

Hopefully not too off topic

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

[Gzip Christ]

Hilf? As in "hacker I'd like to fuck"?

Re:So let me get the right...

[drinkypoo]

Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer - alternatively, KNOW YOUR ENEMY. Or, how about "do unto others, but first cover your butt."

he added....

[mshiltonj]

"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.

For those who are interested in the MS Linux Lab

[amliebsch]

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!)

I'm wondering, maybe MS will get it

[WhiteWolf666]

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.

MS-only Linux environment

[KMSelf]

To what end?

I discussed and dismissed this possibility years ago. The problems with implementation are these:

• Microsoft can't own the kernel, within legal compliance of GPL. So any modifications they're doing are going to be restricted to a layer running above the kernel, and the possibility of restricting this in a way as to only allow the "Microsoft World" to run is low.
• If it's anything running on X, then other X apps will run. Very little win.
• If it's a customized X environment, incompatible with standard X servers, then at the worst users are restricted to running two displays on their system, and toggling between them.
• As you might notice, most of these options imply a significant loss in functionality, which raises the question of why anyone would choose such a product (this does assume, of course, choice...).
• If there's one thing Linux excels at, it's running worlds within worlds. Xnest, VNC, VMWare, Xen, UML, and remote access all provide ways of accessing multiple environments simultaneously, whether hosted locally or remotely. The ability to lock-in the user on a given environment (among Microsoft's key success factors) is exceptionally difficult to attain.

My summary of this scenario, posted in 1998, read:

• Microsoft can supply a Win32 API to Linux.
• They can probably not integrate it with the OS due to the GPL.
• They can probably not deny simultaneous access to alternate APIs on the same machine.
• Without the OS/API/machine stranglehold, MS loses its leverage over the PC and the computer industry.
• MS can participate in the Linux market. They cannot do so on the terms they have become accustomed to in the past decade.

I don't see anything that's changed in 7 years (other than the lines in my face getting clearer....)