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Microsoft Continues Anti-OSS Strategy
MacDaffy writes "Microsoft's General Manager of Platform Strategy, Michael Taylor, continues Microsoft's press blitz against Open Source in general and Linux in particular in a CNET Interview. He says of Linux: 'You can build it, design it, and it will work great. The trouble begins when you want to add things to it...(due to) the brittle nature of the platform, when you do that, other things break.'"
"The trouble begins when you want to add things to it...(due to) the brittle nature of the platform, when you do that, other things break." The words 'pot', 'kettle' and 'black' come to mind. Is Microsoft unaware that their registry is far more 'brittle'?
How is this news? It would be news if they stopped.
It seems like whenever a Microsoft employee speaks they generalize Linux into a huge ball, never mention a distro, and say it's bad. Surely this distro is not using RPM or Apt, which many distros are based on, and surely it is not Gentoo with portage. I also don't think they quite understand how Linux works in that things aren't breaking when the end user is too stupid to configure the program.
It's as if Microsoft made their own distro, coaxed it with unstable software from 5 years ago, give it no package managemnet, and say "this is all Linux is!". Ugh, it's enough to drive a sane man crazy.
There's really nothing innovative today that Linux does that we can't do.
Actually, I agree with his sentiment. He's bang on. There's nothing Linux does that Windows can't do, certaintly if you're willing to invest the time and effort to produce a solution.
But the opposite is also true. There's nothing Windows does that Linux can't do either.
So the "battle" comes down to other issues, not simply what each OS can or can't do. Those issues are things like cost, trust, support, availability.. And those are when open source really starts to win. Microsoft is a corporate behemoth. Making decisions in a company that size takes real time.. months, if not years. Things have to be discussed, agreed, signed off, checked, signed off again. Compare that to the open source world where someone sees an issue, writes a patch, submits it to the dev tree, and it's in if the maintainer likes it, maybe with a handful of emails bounced around a mailing list, and open source starts to get a real, tangible business advantage over Microsoft.
So yeah, I'd agree with Taylor's analysis that Windows is just as capable as Linux on the CPU.. But if he thinks that's where Linux's fighting ground ends, he's dead wrong.
http://twitter.com/onion2k
"people didn't really understand buffer overruns and port 80 and I/O issues 10 years ago."
That's the part that caught my attention. Is he seriously suggesting that 10 years ago no one had ever heard of a buffer overrun? That no one had heard of network security in 1995? Maybe they should have thought of that BEFORE they forcibly tied a Browser into their Flagship product.
-theGreater.
Maybe Debian is brittle -- I highly doubt it -- but when I want to add something to my SuSE box that isn't pre-packaged, it's perhaps more difficult than popping open YaST and clicking around, but I haven't had the experiences you have. I rather prefer to roll my own copies of a lot of big software -- Apache, MySQL, PHP, Samba, and others come readily to mind. Usually, I find that it goes very well. I honestly can't recall the last time it took me anywhere near an hour to compile and install anything on Linux.
Ironically -- although this might be what Taylor is talking about -- I *do* find that I have difficulty installing proprietary software on Linux. Although it tries to hold your hand more, it frequently fails to Do The Right Thing, IMHO.
Furthermore, even if Andrew's experience is more typical than mine, it doesn't mean that Taylor was right. Taylor's claiming that installing non-prepackaged software breaks *other* stuff; that's patently false. A difficult system (what Andrew is claiming Linux can be) is very very different from a brittle system (what Taylor is claiming it is). Solaris is, IMHO, a very difficult system to install stuff on -- at least, stuff that's not prepackaged from Sun or SunFreware. Some of the other Unixes, like AIX and Tru64, are even more so. That doesn't make them brittle.
A brittle system is one where, say, installing a service pack breaks compatibility with many network services and programs. But, as many other posters have pointed out, that is much more descriptive of certain OS's whose names begin with a "w" and end with an "indows."
Another one bites the dust
From the article:
And what is open source? It is interesting in how you define it. Is it in terms of source visibility? Then, OK, in Microsoft's Shared Source program, people can access up to 65 percent of source codes for our core products. And through the government security program around the world, governments can access even more of our source codes, if they choose to. So we're not an open-source company, and yet people can do that.
Hey Martin, here's the definition of Open Source. Notice in the first paragraph it says Open Source doesn't just mean access to the source code. I doubt if you'd like it if people went around redefining your company's EULAs to suit themselves.
Or does it mean that you have technology licensed under the GPL (GNU Public License)? If that's the only definition, then I see a lot of companies that people call open source but aren't, because they're not licensed under the GPL.
No it isn't the only definition so your answer is irrelevant. The GPL may qualify as Open Source but it is Free Software - big difference. Don't you even know the difference?
Taylor: The GPL is a very complex licensing agreement, and they are working on different aspects of it.
It's an incredibly simple licensing agreement actually. Complex for Microsoft to understand perhaps, but simple for anyone else.
I don't know enough to even hypothesize how I would author it, but I would say that in any approach to licensing technology, the following things are important.
First, companies need to have some level of indemnification and protection from the technology deployed. When you license technology as a consumer or business, you should be comfortable that you're protected from patent (or) copyright...claims from anyone. That should be a core fundamental principle of licensing software.
Well, thanks for leading the way there. I'm so glad I'm indemnified when I use Microsoft software. Oh wait, I'm not?
Second, people should have the ability to monetize that and build on top of it. So if I'm an ISV (independent software vendor), I should be able to take the technology that I've licensed, build something on top of it, and sell it.
I do that with GPLed software now and have done for years. So have many other people.
If I'm a reseller or distributor of this technology, I should have a way that I can build and monetize things around that. I think that's what helps you build a very vibrant ecosystem. It also allows you in some ways to protect the intellectual property in different ways.
The GPL already allows this - and my "intellectual property" (whatever that means) is already protected by copyright law.
So this ability to patent your technology and have some level of protection against it, and in the course be able to build on top of that and innovate on top of that, is exciting.
Wait, so it's about patents now? Perhaps you can show me some genuine innovation in software that has been patented by Microsoft? You can't? Oh.
So what kind of innovation are you doing in your area for Microsoft?
Taylor: There are things we're excited about, and there are things that are just the basics. We spend close to $6.8 billion in research and development; it really comes in a variety of areas.
One area is just some fit-and-finish, and taking basic simple processes and doing it better. We have a feature called Configure Your Server Wizard, which allows you to go in and choose a server role so you can take a file server and (rebuild it as a) media server. That takes four to five clicks of a GUI (graphic user interface)
Reconfiguring a server using the mouse? Goodness me, what will they think of next!
Taylor: You have to understand why we have security problems today. In some ways, it's because a lot more things are connected today than they
--- Hot Shot City is particularly good.
My favourite bit of the article:
Q. "So why do you think the ideals of open source... have appealed to so many people?"
A. "Taylor: Well, first you have to define "people"... And what is open source? It is interesting in how you define it..."
How shifty is that?
People: Human beings.
Open-source: Access to all the source-code for the application, such that you can copy it for no more than a negligible fee, and compile useful applications with it.
So, simple answer, MS "Shared Source" is not open source and people don't like that, but watch the frantic handwaving and redefinitions so he can avoid saying that.
Most telling bit of the article:
Q. "But software patents have been criticized for interfering in software development. Do Microsoft software developers worry about infringing on patents when they develop a piece of software?"
A. "From a software perspective, we don't think the patent system is perfect... But when I look at the software industry today, we've been getting a lot of innovation from Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Adobe, the list goes on..."
Yeah. In other words, patents encourage large corporations, and effectively lock out the little guy or smaller, independant ISVs. But again, watch the careful sidestepping of the obvious conclusion. Just once I'd like to see a real interview, between an informed interviewer and a real person from MS who actually answers questions. Or failing that, flying pigs over my house and a hunk of green moon-cheese for breakfast.
Just more uninformed blathering and semantic tapdancing from Yet Another MS Press Flack - redefining terms to avoid outright lying and regurgitating the same old crap we've all heard before.
Sigh.
Everything in moderation, including moderation itself