Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
Like say you added a database server to your server installation of windows, and then later on you add an official OS update to the same server, with the interesting side effect of breaking the database.
Which is why many places have test machines to test windows updates.
You can't say that Ubuntu is 'brittle', nor GoboLinux, nor MEPIS. If you want to add something to any of these distributions of a Linux-based operating system, you can, with ease.
.. you either roll your own, pitch a tent in a distro field, or take a pre-packaged solution from a vendor who has done the hard work for you...
...
Microsoft, however, in their positioning, are exploiting the human incapacity for understanding a generality when confronted with logo/brand positions. "Linux" is a huge field. You can't just say "Linux" and mean "All services that depend on a Linux-based solution". Its pathetic.
Microsoft know this; they frame the fight so that when they say "Linux" they mean all Linux-based distributions. But to a user of Linux who actually wants to use Linux, and knows how to use Linux, "there ain't no such thing as a Single Linux target"
I say this having used Linux now for 10 years, quite productively. I haven't used Microsoft-based products in that time. I hardly consider that a "GM for Platform Strategy" at Microsoft will have had that experience
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
"Note to Microsoft: you have tried FUD in the past, it did not work." Not true! It has worked in the past. IBM just retired OS/2; an example of Microsoft's FUD working to great effect.
Nice analogy. Makes Linux sound like it's made out of glass. Oh, don't touch it!
It's using the myriad of custom distributions against it. There are Linux distros for forensics, for security, for graphics, for portability, for a myriad of specialties. These distros are usually booted from CDROM, etc. They have nothing to do with an average workstation distrubution installation of Linux, which has perfectly capable package management using apt-get or rpm. Dependency checking is part and parcel of every decent installation shell. Across a boggling array of packages for every conceiveable app.
Microsoft is just working the edges, trying to make the somewhat busy rate of new distros into a negative. It's true, I just got the LAST Fedora Core in when the next one comes out. But it's hardly orphaned, is it? apt-get works just fine for something I may want to add.
Microsoft's war strategy is to drive major Linux distrubutions to being more static, to stop re-releasing new distro updates at such a frenetic rate. They can't compete in this area, it's too costly for them to do major Service Packs all the time.
In Windows you don't NEED source. Either your InstallShield package, or your zipped program, will work fine in almost any version of Windows - that is, 1 package for 90% of the computer using population, versus what, 20 packages for 3%?. This isn't the fault of any particular developer, but a problem with the general state of GNU/Linux.
I agree with Martin Taylor that transitioning software on a Linux platform can be difficult. I also believe transitioning software on ANY platform is difficult. If it wasn't, none of us would have jobs.
I also agree with Martin Taylor that going to a Linux platform may prove more costly than first expected. I also know from experience that Microsoft roll-outs have additional cost.
For Example: MS Exchange server compared to SuSE OpenExchange (now Netline OpenExchange). Similar Products. Exchange is cheaper out of the box until you add Spam Control, Virus Control, etc... Also, Exchange counts licenses by CAL connection, OpenExchange is Licensed by concurrent connections - much cheaper. If you want you can even download the Netline Open-Xchange for free with no license restrictions.
Martin Taylor is correct on many points. Unfortunately his logic breaks down because those points are universal and not specific to OSS.
One ring to bind them - should probably have more fiber and less rings in their diet.
When you look at the issue of buffer overruns, eight to 10 years ago in software development, you did not know how much space you might need for something so you just create a big buffer zone to allow things to happen. Who knew that people could go exploit that and use that buffer space to do malicious things?
I'm speechless. I have no words. Except... W... T... F! is he blathering on about?!?
Accountability on the heads of the powerful.
Power in the hands of the accountable.
The trouble begins when you want to add things to it..."
Like every Windows server I've worked with? Not to mention the expectation with Windows clients that one must wipe and reload the OS annually because of how it falls apart and becomes increasingly unreliable?
(due to) the brittle nature of the platform, when you do that, other things break.'
I've never thought of Hardened Linux (PaX & Grsecurity, or SELinux) or OpenBSD that way. I'd have to believe most other hardened systems administrators do as well. The solution for "hardening" a Windows server is to front it with as much protection as possible, given the understanding you cannot lock it down enough for public IP exposure.
Just looking at Network World will show one there's an entire industry in making appliances to help keep the bad guys out of a fragile Windows server. Realistically, many Apache advocates would probably acknowledge that the strength of hardened Linux and BSd is why Apache is so popular - you can inexpensively deploy your webserver without all the defenses.
Try this taste test:
1. Take a small DMZ segment and insert an up-to-date sniffer in passive mode (with the sniffer having its active IP on a completely separate segment isolated from this segment, and also isolated from any internal LAN as this test will have risk). Get it configured to alert you 24x7 when bad things happen; e.g. email to text messaging script.
2. Take a current production Windows server load, apply all the available service patches and packs to be fair, add Microsoft DNS and run it on a public IP on the DMZ segment, with no third party host, firewall, ACL-enabled filtering router.
3. Take a second server and load OpenBSD or hardened Linux (hardened Gentoo, with PaX/GrSecurity is easy to do and well documented and supported.)
4. Run until you get compromised.
If you're on a well travelled public subnet, you'll start seeing scans almost immediately. It took me six days to have someone return to the windows box and start attacking it. I killed the project at that point by dropping the subnet altogether. The hardened Linux host was repeatedly scanned by numerous hosts and ignored. Granted, it's not a scientific approach in that the bad guys just were not interested in the hardened host, but the real world value is the knowledge of which system they feel is easy enough to break. The black hats know which OS is the brittle one...
So instead of smearing Linux like they used to, there recommending that IT managers actually use metrics and eveluate the platforms. WTF?
Let me help you: The main reasons are:
- Avoiding vendor lock-in. This is a long-term cost reducing strategy, because it increases competition.
- Increasing agility. Many companies are now actually modifying the platfom to meet their needs. There are different levels of this - many don't involve changing software.
- Reducing licensing costs. This is really a small issue for most businesses.
The problem is that Microsoft cannot compete on the first two points.Show us the money! This is an easy claim to make...
Bait and switch? "Don't use Linux it's brittle." ... but ... "It's about issues of cost and vendor now."
Has he ever read one of Microsoft's EULAs???! What a dick. That's the choice of the author. Microsoft will choose differently than RedHat. His implying that in europe, software has been hampered because software patents exists, but are unenforceable. It's a shame it doesn't show in the products.Don't give any evidence that Linux actually IS brittle. And it's nonsense. Linux is more agile than any Windows OS.
A little while ago I was called in to teach a Solaris course. I asked the lab admins to install the Solaris Community CD. They were like "Oh, no. We've got a system that works. We don't want to change anything". The fear in their voice was palpable.
I was dumfounded for a second. All I was asking them to do was add a CD's worth of random software. Nothing was even being enabled... then it dawned on me. "Oh. You're used to Windows aren't you? This is Unix. It's actually stable when you add software to it.
Ultimately I had my students add in the software. It was easier. I just mounted the CD image and made it available by NFS. They installed the software and all was well.
The fact that people are so scared of making changes to Windows disgusts me, but I don't think it's going to change. It's part of their FUD campaign. "If WIndows is so bad, what's it going to be like to go to a new system?"
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
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..."
A few weeks ago we had an interview from Steve Ballmer saying that Oracle didn't innovate. Seems that MS needs to coordinate their FUD better.
The filesystem is the package manager