Microsoft Warms Up to Linux

prostoalex writes "InfoWorld reports that despite warming to the OS, Microsoft won't be releasing its own distribution of Linux any time soon. From the article: "Hilf acknowledged that Microsoft's commitment to Windows does not preclude the company from continuing a strategy he has led in his 19 months at the software vendor: To see how Microsoft's proprietary technologies can better interoperate with Linux and a host of other open-source software. In fact, that is exactly what will be the focus of a discussion the long-time open-source proponent will lead at this year's upcoming Linuxworld Conference & Expo next month in San Francisco. In a session entitled, 'Managing Linux in a Mixed Environment ... at Microsoft?' Hilf, who polished his open-source evangelism skills working on Linux deployments at IBM Corp., will talk about how he and the team at the Linux/Open Source lab run open source technologies in "the most Microsoft-centric IT environment on the planet." "

Comments

Quick!

[ucahg]

Somebody prove this wrong. Microsoft can't like Linux, it must all be talk, right? *head explodes*

Re:Quick!

[AKAImBatman]

It's just the same Embrace and Extend tactics that Microsoft has always used. When Windows 2000 came out, Microsoft promised perfect Unix interoperability. Of course, they subtly changed the Kerberos protocol and several other protocols to favor Microsoft's OS in the domain controller position, allowing them to later push Unix as legacy stuff Microsoft is helping you get rid of.

The fun part is that I asked a Microsoft rep about the Kerberos problem and he lied to my face.

You've heard of "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em?"
For Microsoft it's, "If you can't beat 'em, pretend to join 'em, then stab them in the back when they're not looking."

Re:Quick!

[Anonymous Coward]

The fun part is that I asked a Microsoft rep about the Kerberos problem and he lied to my face.

Are you sure he wasn't just plain ignorant (representatives tend to be)?

Re:Quick!

[AKAImBatman]

Are you sure he wasn't just plain ignorant (representatives tend to be)?

Quite possibly. But he was one of those training-a-roomful-of-people-on-the-advantages-of- Win2K guys. Microsoft played him off as an engineer type who knew the system. When he got to the training on Kerberos, I got up and asked him point-blank about it only working one way. He told me that Windows 2000 would absolutely work with a Unix Kerberos Domain controller. I pressed him on it and he insisted. I let it go, but it proved to me that the reps will either run with misinformation or outright lie if they feel it will help their case.

A very amusing example of this was the incident where a rep argued with David Korn on Microsoft's version of the Korn Shell. I'll bet Mr. Sullivan felt a bit sheepish after that. ;-)

Re:Quick!

[Anonymous Coward]

All they have to do is release MS Office for Linux/x86/X (includes its own toolkit for maximum compatability) and I will be happy.

Re:Quick!

[jurt1235]

One thing is sure in this: If microsoft would make a linux distro it would be less stable (on purpose), lack all kinds of compatibility so your enterprise applications will not run on it, and be completely incompatible with your current MS documents.

For them it will just be a showcase to customers with doubts about their MS environment to show that Linux together with all other helpfull opensource applications is no help to them.

Re:Quick!

[The Spoonman]

they subtly changed the Kerberos protocol

Not so. They took advantage of a feature in the Kerberos V5 draft spec called the data authorization field that exists in the spec, but for some reason no one else uses. They're following the spec as they're supposed to, other implementations are not.

You've heard of "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em?"
For the slashdot/FOSS crowd it's, "If you can't beat 'em, bitch and complain about everything they do while not providing anything better."

Re:Quick!

[AKAImBatman]

So you think just because you flunked basic logic and can't parse "elements are nodes in the document tree" as anything other than "all nodes in a document tree are elements", that you have a case?

Go away, Mr. Troll. You have other issues to concern yourself with.

Re:Quick!

[aklix]

You can already get M$ Office running on Linux quickly and easily.

Re:Quick!

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that because you don't even know what elements and tags are, and yet felt the need to "explain" that "Tags are represented by a sub-set of elements." while calling me a troll, you did exactly what you complain the Microsoft rep did - run with misrepresentation or outright lie.

Come on. All you have to do is admit that you made shit up because you thought I was a know-nothing troll that couldn't call you on it. Be the bigger man. Honesty is the best policy. Just start small. Say "When I said that tags are represented by a sub-set of elements", I was making that up.". Surely that's not too difficult for you?

Re:Quick!

[Stupendoussteve]

Microsoft Linux

Re:Quick!

[jurt1235]

Cool, you deserve points for interesting, informative and fun at the same time (-:

Re:Quick!

[capnchicken]

Keep your freinds close and your enemies closer...

Re:Quick!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is actually, imo, the RIGHT idea: Get them all interoperating with one another.

Why?

Well, imo, Linux? Is FINALLY (after a decade or more now) really respectable in 2.6x kernel builds & KDE is looking excellent (imo, always did, & I actually liked it's 2.0 series best)...

Now, keep in mind: This is me saying this (basically "Mr. Pro-Win32" himself).

Linux? It's not going away...

So the

"Why fight it?"

Attitude by Microsoft? Is a good view by Microsoft and for all concerned imo.

*:)

APK

Re:Quick!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's slightly more complex. Yes, Microsoft has plans to kill Linux by backstabbing.

Linux is also a stepping stone between them and OSX, which is a real threat to Windows' dominance, especially now that it's been ported to x86. If they can find a way to successfully kill Linux off, they'll be able to use those methods on OSX.

It's also an exit strategy. Since Longhorn is being received by the general public very, very cooly, judging from the beta 1 reviews, they have to prepare for the unlikely but frightening scenario that everyone moves to a Unix-based operating system. For businesses, that would most likely be Linux. If that happens, Microsoft can still make profit through selling their productivity and development suites for Linux while they work on their Linux-killer. And once they have their Linux-killer, they can cut Linux support and force everyone back to their OS.

The details are a little more complicated, but that's the general idea anyway.

Re:Quick!

[Anonymous Coward]

Four little letters. C M Y K. That is why I still use photoshop.

Re:Quick!

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about their Kerberos implementation versus anybody else's, but I do know M$ has either left something out, added something extra (sometimes to substitute for what was left out), and/or changed how something works to cripple compatibility with the competition for other products based around open standards. Furthermore, the crippling effect doesn't necessarily happen immediately, but over time.

IE would be a perfect example of this behavior.

"If you can't beat 'em, bitch and complain about everything they do while not providing anything better."

Last I looked, Firefox is much "better" than IE. Thunderbird is "better" than OE. Apache is certainly "better" than IIS (at the least, it's more secure). And OpenOffice is maturing nicely, though it isn't quite on part with Office as a suite. Yeah, M$ was beat on these fronts, and they will be beat on the OS front too, and by Linux with more time put into working on a friendly UI.

In fact, FOSS people largely bitch about non-competitive behaviors that only a large corporation can pull off (like buying up politicians), which should be bitched about. Sounds like a troll to me.

Re:Quick!

[davidla]

You know, it could also be they just announced this so they could look through /. replies to find out what their stategy is going to be.

Re:Quick!

[njh]

You've heard of "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em?"
For Microsoft it's, "If you can't beat 'em, pretend to join 'em, then stab them in the back when they're not looking."

"You have to get behind someone to stab them in the back" :-)

Re:Quick!

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember, arguing on the internet is just like the special olympics-- no matter who wins, you're still retarded.

Re:Quick!

[Math, The Ancient]

He told me that Windows 2000 would absolutely work with a Unix Kerberos Domain controller.

FWIW, documentation states that "member servers" will give in to a UKDC, but also points out that the "first" domain controller, even in a mixed environment, will consider itself to be the root of the forest, thereby the authoritive controller in the first domain of that forest.

What actually gets me is your reply post is considered "Insightful" (because you said "Quite possibly."?) and the post consists of an encounter you had with a MS rep and what he told you (I guess your "insight" is how you jumped to your conclusion he's an outright liar?) and your reference to the MS-Korn incident, where Mr. Sullivan "should" be embarrased for not recognizing Mr. Korn (perhaps your "insight" is how you deduced his embarrassment by his pink cheeked face).

Before you go on the "troll, troll, troll" rant, I would like to point out you were BOTH right. Win2K "will" work with Unix Kerberos DC's as member servers (making him right), but not if it's a domain controller itself (making you right). You also have to keep in mind that reps and teachers alike have NO idea of the real world scenarios we deal with everyday.

Re:Quick!

[Math, The Ancient]

Last I looked, Firefox is much "better" than IE

and IE has been out for what, a decade?!

Granted, IE would be MUCH, MUCH, further in its own development had they embraced the mozilla format back then rather than practicing the monopolistic methods that brought down Netscape and IE4 into the light...just imagine, we could still be stuck at the "Millenium Edition"-like level of browsers with it "integrated into the OS" crap had it not been for the judge that decided MS "will" remove IE4 from the OS (way too mac-style for me, IMHO).

But on the other hand, it took 10 years for OSS to spit out a decent browser...sorry, but even Opera wasn't refined properly until recently (glad to see them still around, btw) and I suspect it's only because of the increased stability in the OS out today.

Warms up?

[Magada]

You know what they say ... if you can't beat them ... embrace and extend.

Re:Warms up?

[ZosX]

The term should be "Extend and Embrace." How do you embrace something without reaching out to it first?

Re:Warms up?

[Enigma_Man]

You embrace it, and then extend what you embraced in your own image. IE: Microsoft: Oh we love C++, now it's Visual C++! (embrace, extend), in order to help maintain vendor lock-in.

-Jesse

Re:Warms up?

[interiot]

Embrace -- pretend you warm up to a standard because you actually like it

Extend -- Make some Microsoft-specific tweaks to the standard, and encourage others to use them. Make sure those tweaks lock-in users into your software. Bundle it with your OS and Office Suite to give your tweaks an edge. If it's too easy for others interoperate with your modified version of the standard, keep modifying it until others lose relevance, and you have 90% of the market share.

Re:Warms up?

[NotFamous]

It's actually three E's:

• Embrace
• Extend
• Extinguish

Re:Warms up?

[Analogy Man]

I wonder how many lines of dead code or megabytes of jpg's of the development team, pets etc. the "MS distro" will include.

I talked with someone that had worked on a military implementation of Win2000 where they stripped out stuff they didn't need for their application. There were vast amounts of pure junk....to the point that one wonders if they used to do that so people felt they were getting a good value ($'s/MB if you will).

Re:Warms up?

[stinerman]

Just under 1C.

Re:Warms up?

[iamacat]

Well, they are welcome to do that, and charge a lot of money for their modified version, as long as they releases all the changes under GPL.

Re:Warms up?

[Anonymous Coward]

0 Degrees Celsius.

(Why is my CAPTCHA "blunts"? It's 12:24PM, not 4:20.)

Re:Warms up?

[Cecil]

You don't understand what the term means. It's a reference to the way Microsoft pretends to accept a standard (embracing), then it quietly modifies it until it's no longer compatible with the original standard anymore (extending). Meanwhile the "microsoft standard" has collected critical mass of people developing towards it, since after all it is "standard" and should work with everything. By the time it turns out that no, it only works with Microsoft software (surprise, surprise) it's too late to get people to move away from it.

Re:Warms up?

[Haeleth]

Microsoft: Oh we love C++, now it's Visual C++! (embrace, extend), in order to help maintain vendor lock-in.

Would this be the wrong moment to point out that Visual C++ is currently one of Microsoft's most standards-compliant products?

Compare Microsoft's extensions with GCC's. Quiz: which of Microsoft and GNU do you think are introducing more portability problems by embracing and extending the C and C++ languages?

Re:Warms up?

[kz45]

You don't understand what the term means. It's a reference to the way Microsoft pretends to accept a standard (embracing), then it quietly modifies it until it's no longer compatible with the original standard anymore (extending). Meanwhile the "microsoft standard" has collected critical mass of people developing towards it, since after all it is "standard" and should work with everything. By the time it turns out that no, it only works with Microsoft software (surprise, surprise) it's too late to get people to move away from it

which is a brilliant move in business. People shouldn't be bitching about it. They should be trying to create something better.

Re:Warms up?

[Anonymous Coward]

The 3rd "e" got extinguished?

Re:Warms up?

[quarkscat]

More like, "Warms up a place next to MSFT in hell".

Let me see if I got this right ... the very same MSFT that has initiated a multi-year multi-prong attack against linux and F/OSS, including but not limited to financing SCO's attack && their "Shared Source" NDA-poisoned project && their not-so-veiled threats regarding their often dubious software patents && their many MSFT-funded "white-paper" disinformation campaigns NOW think that MSFT and linux and F/OSS can co-exist?

Well of course linux and F/OSS can co-exist with MSFT, just so long as MSFT "plays nice". The odds are better at the roulette wheel in Las Vegas that that will happen. MSFT is an unrepentant convicted monopolist that cannot, under any circumstances, be trusted to do anything that is in the interests of the IT industry as a whole, rather than MSFT itself.

MSFT's "Shared Source" -- nothing to see here.
MSFT's "white paper" propaganda -- okay only for the bottom of the bird cage.
MSFT's new "cooperative" initiative -- only known bullshit that is also toxic waste.

Re:Warms up?

[NickFortune]

which is a brilliant move in business. People shouldn't be bitching about it. They should be trying to create something better.

What? So MS can embrace and extend that too?

I'm all for creating something better, but I think we have a right to complain when we do and MS piss all over it.

Re:Warms up?

[gewalker]

Triple point of water is 273.16K, water is unusual in that the liquid form is denser than the solid, so the triple point (gas / liquid / solid in equilibrium) is the highest temperature for the solid form.

See here for a simple explanation with phase diagram

Re:Warms up?

[nihilogos]

Compare Microsoft's extensions with GCC's. Quiz: which of Microsoft and GNU do you think are introducing more portability problems by embracing and extending the C and C++ languages?

Who uses compiler specific language extensions when they're trying to write portable code? Nobody. So long as it compiles standards compliant code, it doesn't really matter how many extensions are available. Nobody's forcing you to use them. Most of the extensions for both compilers you mention are useful and valid when you are trying to optimize code for a particular platform.

And if this was the approach Microsoft took to "embracing and extending" that would be fine. But it's not. Traditionally they have pretended to adopt a standard, added extensions without telling anyone in the standards committee, actively promoted their use without indicating that they are non-standard (like calling it "managed C++") and that in most cases things could actually be accomplished in a standards compliant manner. Since they have a dominant position in the market place, use of these proprietary extensions becomes commonplace and displaces alternative products who can't obtain enough information about microsoft's new "features" to support them.

Completely and utterly different from C/C++ language extensions.

Re:Warms up?

[kz45]

What? So MS can embrace and extend that too?

I'm all for creating something better, but I think we have a right to complain when we do and MS piss all over it.

free software developers are just as bad. They put commerical programmers out of business by creating free, open source application that have the exact same function as the commercial counterpart. It's a form of "embrace and extend".

Embrace = adopt the same functionality as commercial counterpart.
Extend = release it, for free, making it very difficult for a commercial developer to sell it (most people choose free over pay).

Re:Warms up?

[NickFortune]

free software developers are just as bad. They put commerical programmers out of business by creating free, open source application that have the exact same function as the commercial counterpart. It's a form of "embrace and extend".

Pshaw. I'm both a commercial and free software developer and I don't see me being put out of business. I can see it being bad for a few software monopolies that charge way too much for their office software, for example, but there'll still be work for programmers.

Embrace = adopt the same functionality as commercial counterpart.
Extend = release it, for free, making it very difficult for a commercial developer to sell it (most people choose free over pay).

Maybe it's just me, but I have difficulty with "embrace" as meaning "write a program to handle a certain generic class of problem, for which commercial offerings may already exist". Call me picky if you will

More to the point, E&E tends to apply to issues of standards and interoperability. We FOSS types tend to like standards so so they can do what they were designed to do. When MS embraces and extends a standard, it does so to destroy it. You'll never see an open source project try and do that,

Anyway, what's your problem? If you want to compete with open source, all you have to do is write better software. Considering how scathing MS has been in the past about the quality of open source code, that wouldn't seem to present an insurmountable challenge, would it?

Re:Warms up?

[kz45]

Maybe it's just me, but I have difficulty with "embrace" as meaning "write a program to handle a certain generic class of problem, for which commercial offerings may already exist". Call me picky if you will

but the purpose of OSS is the same: to destroy the commercial counterpart.

Anyway, what's your problem? If you want to compete with open source, all you have to do is write better software. Considering how scathing MS has been in the past about the quality of open source code, that wouldn't seem to present an insurmountable challenge, would it?

I have no problems with open source. Not only do I use open source in my business (mysq, php,etc) but I have written some additions and given back to the community.

More to the point, E&E tends to apply to issues of standards and interoperability. We FOSS types tend to like standards so so they can do what they were designed to do. When MS embraces and extends a standard, it does so to destroy it. You'll never see an open source project try and do that

maybe so, but open source can just as easily challenge microsoft by creating a better product with open standards (look at firefox).

Re:Warms up?

[NickFortune]

but the purpose of OSS is the same: to destroy the commercial counterpart.

I don't think it's anywhere near that monolithic. I think lots of different people write open source software for different reasons. I expect there must be one or two that think "I'm going to totally destroy application X", but I reckon the majority are more along the lines of "Why won't this stupid program work the way I want it to?", "Why can't I read this data?", and "I've got an idea that is just so cool!"

maybe so, but open source can just as easily challenge microsoft by creating a better product with open standards (look at firefox).

And as reported i slashdot today, it sees that Firefox has spurred MS into improving their ageing and unappealing product for the first time in years. That's competition at work, which is supposed to be a good thing, right?

Re:Warms up?

[kz45]

I don't think it's anywhere near that monolithic. I think lots of different people write open source software for different reasons. I expect there must be one or two that think "I'm going to totally destroy application X", but I reckon the majority are more along the lines of "Why won't this stupid program work the way I want it to?", "Why can't I read this data?", and "I've got an idea that is just so cool!"

and if it's a nice, polished piece of software, people will be more likely to go with the free version over the paid version (which will eventually put the commerical vendor out of business).

And as reported i slashdot today, it sees that Firefox has spurred MS into improving their ageing and unappealing product for the first time in years. That's competition at work, which is supposed to be a good thing, right?

yeah, it is competition at work. Do I sense some sarcasm in your statement?

Re:Warms up?

[NickFortune]

and if it's a nice, polished piece of software, people will be more likely to go with the free version over the paid version (which will eventually put the commerical vendor out of business).

If it's a better piece of software, then yes, that is possible. The same would apply if a better commercial offering came along. And yet there is no reason why two competing products should not co-exist in the marketplace, although they may force a more realistic pricing model on some of the competitors.

I've taken the liberty of scanning a few of your recent posts. For instance, you commented on the thread concerning Robert Lefkowitz's Calculating the True Price of Software. I take it that you read the article? Lefkowitz makes an excellent case for the fact that the most import part of the software price for corporate buyers are teh support and upgrade options. And that, oddly enough is proprietory software's answer to free software. The customer doesn't pay for the software so much as for support and the assurance that upgrades will be available in due course.

You even commented making a similar point:

no licensing fee to a company also means there isn't anyone thaey can blame when something goes wrong. This is why commerical applications are used.

To me that seems oddly inconsistent with your position that a sufficiently polished free software application will automatically eradicate any commercial alternatives. Am I missing something?

yeah, it is competition at work. Do I sense some sarcasm in your statement?

None intended. I'm just getting some mixed signals. You say you're okay with open source, but you equate free software development with Embrace and Extend which is generally reckoned to be one of Microsoft's dirtier tricks. Your comment about using open source in your own development leads me to imagine a small independant software house, and yet you seem to be an ardent apologist for Microsoftv .

Now I wouldn't go so far, (as I know some have) as to accuse you of astroturfing for MS, but you don't fit any of my mental models of slashdot posters. Thus I'm trying to validate a few of my assumptions as I go. For instance, most of slashdotters would agree that competition in the marketplace is a good thing. But rather than assume, I thought I'd better seek confirmation.

I notice you confirmed the "competition" for instance, but didn't say anything about "good". A deliberate omission? Many people would infer a condemnation of competition from that.

Re:Warms up?

[kz45]

None intended. I'm just getting some mixed signals. You say you're okay with open source, but you equate free software development with Embrace and Extend which is generally reckoned to be one of Microsoft's dirtier tricks. Your comment about using open source in your own development leads me to imagine a small independant software house, and yet you seem to be an ardent apologist for Microsoftv

I am mostly using Open Source because there are no licensing fees and it's solid enough to do the job.

in certain respects, Microsoft is evil (strongarming companies like dell to only use their operating systems). I talk about open source in this way because I just want to point out that its developers can be just as evil as Microsoft.

no licensing fee to a company also means there isn't anyone thaey can blame when something goes wrong. This is why commerical applications are used.

rather than reading the article and using someone else's opinion, I gave my own on the subject. I was talking about why large commercial firms haven't really started to embrace the open source world.

For instance, most of slashdotters would agree that competition in the marketplace is a good thing

competition is a good thing in my opinion, but companies that are successful shouldn't be punished. If a company becomes a monopoly only because they are the best, they shouldn't be forced to break apart.

Re:Warms up?

[NickFortune]

in certain respects, Microsoft is evil (strongarming companies like dell to only use their operating systems). I talk about open source in this way because I just want to point out that its developers can be just as evil as Microsoft.

Well, can be, certainly. An ordained priest can be as evil as a mass murderer, esp. if the priest is a serial killer in his spare time and the murderer makes a lot of donations to charity. But the way you phrased it seems to suggest a moral equivalence between open source development and Microsoft at their dirtiest that I don't think I'm quite ready to embrace.

rather than reading the article and using someone else's opinion, I gave my own on the subject. I was talking about why large commercial firms haven't really started to embrace the open source world.

And far be it from me to stifle your personal right to express yourself. I just thought that the idea that companies won't use open source because of a lack of accountability is difficult to reconcile with evil open source developers forcing honest hardworking software devs into bankrupcy. By your earlier argument, we would expect industry to choose the proprietory offering and the developers to prosper.

competition is a good thing in my opinion, but companies that are successful shouldn't be punished. If a company becomes a monopoly only because they are the best, they shouldn't be forced to break apart.

Well, that's a controversial issue in some quarters, but it's easy to see how monopolies can be abused. With no competition, a monopoly can crank up profit margins as high as it likes. There is no spur to improve the product offered (look at the stagnation of IE since the collapse of Netscape for example) and the monopoly holder can further abuse its power to make and break other companies by withholding goods and services at a whim.

State sanctioned monopolies have been used extensively at various times in Mankind's history, often by monarchs as a reward for loyal supporters. It's rarely, if ever, worked out well. The laws against monopolies were instituted for good reasons. Wikipedia has a good description of the issues involved.

I presume we're talking about Microsoft here. Why do you suppose breakup would be a bad thing? Who do you see being harmed?

Re:Warms up?

[kz45]

And far be it from me to stifle your personal right to express yourself. I just thought that the idea that companies won't use open source because of a lack of accountability is difficult to reconcile with evil open source developers forcing honest hardworking software devs into bankrupcy. By your earlier argument, we would expect industry to choose the proprietory offering and the developers to prosper.

They have. Most companies are still using proprietary software. Also, with my comment about open source developers putting hard working developers out of business: right now, this may not be the case, but eventually, it will harm even in-house developers. Why would a company even bother hiring developers to create something to fulfull their needs when they can get it for free from the community (I see myself doing this. As an example, I was going to purchase a commerical bulletin board, but found a better, free one and used it instead. I am not going to ever need developers to come in and work on the code. It's an all inclusive package, for nothing (and since im not re-releasing it, I don't even have to give anything back into the community).

Most companies will never give anything back into the community. They will just take the program and use it to their advantage.

Well, that's a controversial issue in some quarters, but it's easy to see how monopolies can be abused. With no competition, a monopoly can crank up profit margins as high as it likes. There is no spur to improve the product offered (look at the stagnation of IE since the collapse of Netscape for example) and the monopoly holder can further abuse its power to make and break other companies by withholding goods and services at a whim

Microsoft may have abused its position of power by letting IE go, but there still is competition (firefox and safari come to mind). Developers saw a need for a better browser and they created one. This is all you need to do to defeat Microsoft (rather than bitch about getting a law passed). Create something better that most people will want to use (of course this is easier said than done).

Re:Warms up?

[NickFortune]

I was going to purchase a commerical bulletin board, but found a better, free one and used it instead. I am not going to ever need developers to come in and work on the code

Yeah, that works for small projects. Most business though have specalist requirements. They're going to want some tweakage to their database packages, they'll want something to reflect their internal accounting system. Once companies get used to the idea that they can have the building blocks for free, I think they're going to get creative about how they want their software to work

Most companies will never give anything back into the community. They will just take the program and use it to their advantage.

That's acceptable. We wrote it so everyone could take it and use to their advantage.

Microsoft may have abused its position of power by letting IE go, but there still is competition (firefox and safari come to mind).

mmm... no. Letting IE stagnate was MS privilege. It does however illustrate how monopolies provide poorer products since they lack an incentive to innovate. MS didn't restart work on IE until Firefox started eatiing into their market share - in other words until they stopped having a monopoly on web browsers.

Now if you want abuse, look at how they presure OEMs into only shipping windows as the OS.

This is all you need to do to defeat Microsoft (rather than bitch about getting a law passed).

Never bitched about getting a law passed, myself. Of course, since I'm not a US citizen, I don't get much of a say anyway. It doesn't matter - I think we can do it with better software.

Create something better that most people will want to use (of course this is easier said than done).

Yes, of course. Errm.... didn't we get into this discussion because you said that writing better software was evil? Or is it only evil if I release it for free?

Tinfoil

[savagedome]

Best way for Microsoft to kill Linux is to embrace it.

Re:Tinfoil

[frodo from middle ea]

How exactly ?

For anyone who modded Parent insightful think about it for a second....

They can't kill linux, in the hobbiest circle for obvious reason, unless people start getting jailed for not using a mircosoft branded OS, I can't see geeks all over the world giving up linux, or BSD etc.

And guess what, the IT literacy is probably much higher now, than it was in the early 90s, so not all bosses/decission makeres are PHBs.

And even the PHPs can not argue against cost cutting which is something linux has been promising for a long time now and justifiably too.

Besides last time I checked linux is not some company that can be bought over in a hostile takeover.

Re:Tinfoil

[jarich]

Step one: port some server apps to Linux

Step two: Release MS-Linux. It will have lots of features that work really well with other MS servers.

Step three: Release MS-Linux 2.0 that contains a few improvements for networking and performance. Oh, by the way, these improvements are inpcompatible with the old open source versions.

Done. MS-Linux is now being sold into MS shops as a low cost server solution, but using enough "improved" technology that using a "free, unsupported" Linux like Debian will be difficult or impossible.

The real question will be how many Linux vendors will be demonized when they pay MS big bucks to get the improvements into their version of Linux.

Re:Tinfoil

[EnronHaliburton2004]

That's assuming that most people will buy and use MS-Linux exclusively.

As soon as Step Three happened, people would start migrating to a different version of Linux-- or forking the existing MS Linux project into something else.

When RedHat stopped releasing free versions of RedHat Linux after RH9 (Not talking about Fedora here), several organizations (such as CentOS) immediately started to maintain identical, free versions of RedHat Enterprise Linux.

Re:Tinfoil

[jez9999]

I'm obviously missing something here, so please enlighten me...

Is it not the case that, if Microsoft extend Linux, they must do so in accordance with the GPL? (all of this is moot if you're suggesting they actually create their own version of Linux *from scratch*!).

In accordance with the GPL, if Microsoft 'extend' Linux and distribute that version, they must also make available the full source code to it? In which case, somebody could compile and release a free version too?

Re:Tinfoil

[jarich]

A Linux distro is not a single program. It's thousands of programs, some GPL, some not. MS can write (or rewrite) a few core networking applications. Even if they release the changes required to the included GPL libraries, they can still hold the tool itself back.

Re:Tinfoil

[Spicerun]

The real question will be how many Linux vendors will be demonized when they pay MS big bucks to get the improvements into their version of Linux.

And just what makes you think that anyone running Linux wants to be interoperable with MS? That's the fallacy in your logic. If Linspire/Lindows has proven anything, it is that most of the Linux community could care less about MS apps, favoring their own OSS applications (most of which operates much better than anything MS designed). Otherwise, the other distributions like RedHat, Mandriva, Gentoo, etc. would have already gone out of business.
 
    And, you also forget that most people want STANDARD Protocols....MS has proven they can't cope with Standards, and that has done a lot to drive a lot of users TO Linux or other distros.

Re:Tinfoil

[kz45]

Besides last time I checked linux is not some company that can be bought over in a hostile takeover

true, but its best developers can be bought off. I think a developer that is making very little per year wouldn't think twice about accepting a high paying job with Microsoft. It's difficult to make open source a full-time job (which is what I think needs to happen for it to surpass microsoft's popularity).

Re:Tinfoil

[4of12]

How exactly ?

Suppose your new PC came with MS Linux pre-installed "for free", with working players for all MS audio/video formats, Office, Excel, etc. but with a whole directory full of binary only kernel modules that replicated the DLL's in C:\Windows\System32? It wouldn't cost anything, all your Linux programs would run, and you'd gain compatibility with all the MS applications to which you and loved ones have developed an addiction.

Oh, yeah, it would also have TCPA built-in so if you mucked around too much with that stuff it would stop working:)

But any current commercial user of Linux for web hosting, etc. would be able to drop in MS Linux for whatever they had now. For an especially low subscription price, fully supported by MS - this monthy only!

Q.E.D.

Microsoft will eventually distribute Linux.

[base3]

They'll have to provide a version of Linux signed with the endorsement key for the Palladium/TCPA/NGCSB platform so they can pretend that it's not about DRM and vendor lock-in.

Re:Microsoft will eventually distribute Linux.

[interiot]

I don't think so. If Microsoft blocks out even a single other vendor, they are very likely to find themselves in court. If they block out a whole swath of other vendors, they will find themselves in court AND on many newspapers.

(as a semi-related note... I bet it wouldn't be illegal for the Intel Macs to block out everything but OSX... but only because Apple isn't in a monopoly position, and doesn't have a chance to change the majortiy of computer suppliers to have Apple lock-in. On the other hand, Microsoft does have the potential to encourage everyone to move to MS-locked hardware, which is why MS would be jumped on in an instant if they tried something like that

Note that both of these situatios are hypothetical... Apple has clearly said they won't lock others out... but it was a choice they recently made, and I don't think it was strictly because of of legal reasons. Also, from the presentations that MS has given on NGSCB, it looks like they honestly are intending to keep hardware as open as it's always been. eg. standards they've written definitely point in that direction. But not every employee in a company is in sync, and MS can always change their minds, so I suppose it's still possible that they try some funny stuff.

)

Re:Microsoft will eventually distribute Linux.

[mrchaotica]

And that will KILL Linux, because the fundamental thing is being able to change, recompile, and run the software. It's completely inherently incompatible with DRM. I just hope the government (who will ultimately be the ones who would have to stop this) will be able to see that. : /

Re:Microsoft will eventually distribute Linux.

[seven of five]

If Microsoft blocks out even a single other vendor, they are very likely to find themselves in court.

Yes, threat of legal action/public outcry will SURELY keep MS honest, as it's done in the past.

Re:Microsoft will eventually distribute Linux.

[Knuckles]

It's completely inherently incompatible with DRM

No. You can do interesting things with DRM, provided that the user of the machine is the one managing the rights.
It's probably incompatible with other people managing your rights though (RIAA etc.)

Re:Microsoft will eventually distribute Linux.

[mrchaotica]

It's probably incompatible with other people managing your rights though (RIAA etc.)

Given that that's the reality, though, I think my point still stands.

Re:Microsoft will eventually distribute Linux.

[Knuckles]

No, because you stated that Linux is "inherently incompatible with DRM". Which it just isn't.

It's probable that you will not be able to access *AA's content (among others), but this doesn't mean that you couldn't use DRM for other things, like preventing software from running if you didn't sign it (or preventing the RIAA from accessing music you created ;)

You'll probably believe Linus more than me, so here it goes.

Re:Microsoft will eventually distribute Linux.

[mrchaotica]

You don't need to convince me that Linux could be compatible with user-controlled DRM, you need to prove to me that user-controlled DRM does, ever will, or indeed can exist, given that only big Treacherous-Computing friendly corporations have chip fabs.

Re:Microsoft will eventually distribute Linux.

[Knuckles]

I see where you're going now.
But I have a hard time beliving that no linux kernel will ever support a DRM chip.

Re:Microsoft will eventually distribute Linux.

[mrchaotica]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the function of the DRM chip to allow or disallow execution of a program according to whether it's signed or not? If that's the case, there are two possibilities:

1. The kernel in question isn't signed. This means that nothing on the system can be "Trusted" because the kernel could be lying to the chip.
2. The kernel in question is signed, which means that you couldn't have compiled it since you don't have access to the private key, and so can't sign it yourself.

Bottom line: Unless you have the private key, there is no way for you to recompile your software and still have it be "Trusted." The foundation of Free Software is the ability to recompile and use the software yourself. Therefore, Free Software is incompatible with DRM because "Trusted" and Free are mutually exclusive.

It is possible for a Linux kernel to support the chip, but it could only be an "official" kernel from some vendor. Moreover, it would effectively be un-Free. Instead of really being Linux, it would be more of an "evil twin."

Granted, if you know the private key then all this is moot. However, to get the private key you'll have to go to great lengths (assuming they implement it right) with a logic analyser, and violate several Federal laws (notably the DMCA, and, hell, by the time this stuff takes off probably the Patriot Act as well). Then you'll be labeled a "hacker" and a "ter'rist," get shipped off to Guantanamo Bay, and the CIA will be "analysing" you.

Re:Microsoft will eventually distribute Linux.

[Knuckles]

IANADRME, but as I understand it, I can sign a binary, or use a binary signed by someone else, and tell the system that it is ok to run binaries signed as such (by providing the public key I guess), which would be validated using info on the chip.

sure

[roman_mir]

the same way that a robber warms up to his victim warms up to when the 'victim' pulls out a .45 caliber.

Re:sure

[Lord Marlborough]

I just hope we don't see those of us supporting Open Source thinking we have won. This feels sort of like a "Peace in Our Time" (http://www.wwnorton.com/college/history/ralph/wor kbook/ralprs36.htm) kind of moment to me.

No Linux from MSFT?

[takeya]

"Microsoft won't be releasing its own distribution of Linux any time soon."

I've got to admit, if they were, Windows running on the Linux kernel with some gnu apps and a bash shell (without cygwin of course), would be pretty snazzy.

Re:No Linux from MSFT?

[ryanov]

And then you'd have what that you don't have with Linux right now? What of Windows would be left?

Re:No Linux from MSFT?

[mnemonic_]

Certainly the amount of low-level hardware control a user has through the Windows GUI far exceeds that in the Linux world. Usually it's impossible to update the video card drivers in Linux without using the command line.

Re:No Linux from MSFT?

[malkavian]

Errr.. Am I missing something here?
Low level hardware control is performed via the kernel, not the user. If you really want a graphical front end to the linux installer, it's a stroke of simplicity to add in a quick GUI wrapper.
Really, it's awfully simple to do without the command line.
I take it you're really referring to configuration management for the driver when you talk about 'low level hardware control'.
Again, a simple script will do the job nicely, and you can add a graphical front end at a pinch.

I know, most people who are 'joe user' can't, or can't be bothered..
If that's known, and becomes an issue.. I'm sure an enterprising person or two will come up with the goodies.

Re:No Linux from MSFT?

[JFitzsimmons]

I did it...

Re:No Linux from MSFT?

[Anonymous Coward]

I reckon. Of course the important thing is what would it be called? :D

As laugable as it is wouldn't old iSteve sh*t if they did....

Re:No Linux from MSFT?

[HateBreeder]

The problem with these kind' a "hacks" is that they're "hacks".

It's an inelegant solution. The script introduces too many dependencies (shell version, paths, etc...) and the whole idea of a gui front end to scripts, is bad design, in my opinion.

An elegant design would be to have X or something, expose an API for video hardware configuration, that way the gui calls the api programmatically, and everything's much more robust.

Linux is too disorganized and has too many developers with different opinions that it's VERY hard to implement standards for anything.

Re:No Linux from MSFT?

[courtarro]

The grandparent post is simply pointing out one of the major hurdles to widespread Linux adoption. Sure, everything could be made accessible from the GUI, but it isn't. Also in Linux, "awfully simple" only exists after you've done something once, but getting it done that first time can be a horrible nightmare.

Re:No Linux from MSFT?

[jedidiah]

This is a classic example of a completely useless feature. There's no good reason that I should ever be required to update a driver. Drivers are the sort of bit banging low level, kernel accessing code that should be gotten right on the first try.

There's simply no excuse for needing to update a vendor supplied driver.

Re:No Linux from MSFT?

[frodo from middle ea]

Usually it's impossible to update the video card drivers in Linux without using the command line.

Usually it's impossible to update just the video card drivers in Windows, period. So many of these vendors now, bundle their drivers in a installation exe, which without giving me a choice install all kinds of auto-update crap , and utility *cough*spyware*cough* crap. Do I really need a s/w which phones home every 1/2 hour to check for a update for a display dirver.

Re:No Linux from MSFT?

[OhHellWithIt]

I tell my kid two things:

1. Don't accept candy from strangers.
2. Don't accept Linux distros from Microsoft.

Seriously, wouldn't that be on par with accepting free software from Gator?

Re:No Linux from MSFT?

[jedidiah]

None of what you describe is of any real consequence to people who actually do his for a living working in far more serious environments where screwups of that sort could cost you millions per hour or per minute. A little programming discipline is all that's required to avoid all the problems described by your vague fear mongering.

There is no functional difference between an API and a script or an application. They're all just abstractions that expose some interface.

Also, in practice none of this has been a problem during the history of Linux X servers. It wasn't even a problem with DOS.

You've just added extra complexity to solve a problem that never existed.

Re:No Linux from MSFT?

[Anonymous Coward]

DirectX

Re:No Linux from MSFT?

[jarich]

And then you'd have what that you don't have with Linux right now?

Quicken

Re:No Linux from MSFT?

[kicken18]

i have never come accross this problem, but then the only drivers i install are nvidia chipset and graphics card and gigabyte motehrboard stuff, so i surpose its who your with really. But as far i know its very asy to install ATI drivers as it is nvidia drivers which is a simple, download, install, re-boot done jobby

Re:No Linux from MSFT?

[HateBreeder]

Obviously, you've never developed software professionally.

Take for instance, app 1, that uses some script to change some configuration file.
and app 2, that uses an api to make config changes.

now, let's suppose that the application using the config file, decides to change config file format, or perhaps do a more subtle change, like, "1" is true instead of "true" being true.

now, app 1, would break since it's script is not compatible with the change.
however, app 2, would continue to function normally, as the API was updated according to the change.

this way, you centrelize the problem, and transperently update the configuration apps saving trouble for a trillion config-app-devs from updating their scripts.

besides,
script front ends have many other issues,
not to mention speed...
for instance, error reporting.. it's horrendous to guess what went wrong with a script.
you usualy get an error message sent to the console which the front end program has no idea how to interpert, so it usualy, just displays it in a message box.
An API design, would give the config app a LOT more information on the error and it's cause, thus, letting it suggest solutions.

another problem with script front ends, is that it's not a 1 package deal. i.e. if the app won't work, it could either be, the gui or the script or some other dependency of both.

in an API design, it's either the GUI or a direct dependency for the gui.
which makes troubleshooting a heck lot easier.

Re:No Linux from MSFT?

[Microlith]

Usually it's impossible to update just the video card drivers in Windows, period.
That's a lie. Unless you bought a shit card from a shit vendor (who writes shit drivers), updating the video card drivers is a cinch.

So many of these vendors now, bundle their drivers in a installation exe, which without giving me a choice install all kinds of auto-update crap , and utility *cough*spyware*cough* crap.
I have not once seen a driver include auto-update software OR spyware. I invite you to provide proof of your claims.

Re:No Linux from MSFT?

[erlenic]

I wish they would include an auto update feature. I hate having to go to fifty different company's websites to see if they've released a new version of their software or driver. That's one thing MS got right. Firefox did it too.

Re:No Linux from MSFT?

[quanticle]

Games.

And no, Wine/Cedega doesn't count. They still don't support FarCry, or a lot of the other PC games I play.

Hardware Support.

I have Windows drivers for my Broadcom WLAN card. Linux drivers don't exist.

Re:No Linux from MSFT?

[ryanov]

You sure the drivers don't exist? There seems to be some info on the web. What brand/model card?

Re:No Linux from MSFT?

[naelurec]

I wish they would include an auto update feature. I hate having to go to fifty different company's websites to see if they've released a new version of their software or driver. That's one thing MS got right. Firefox did it too.

How you figure Microsoft got it right? If they got it right, their auto-update would be an API that all of your software can tap into and provide you a list of updates so you can choose to apply updates (a la FreeBSD Ports, Gentoo Portage, etc..etc..)

The only thing Microsoft has is a half-baked solution that only updates a subset of their own software.

Re:No Linux from MSFT?

[Grishnakh]

Exactly. With SUSE linux, for instance, the auto-update program checks for updates in Suse's repository. So ALL of the software on my system, except that which I installed separately, is kept up-to-date.

And for drivers, since Linux normally includes all the drivers in the kernel distribution, any necessary updates are performed when Suse puts up a new kernel release.

What'd be nice would be a mechanism so that any user-installed software, which isn't included in a full distribution, can also be auto-updated the same way, using the same update program. Unfortunately, we're not there yet, since every Linux distro has its own auto-update system (if any). But this is no different from Windows; Windows Update won't tell you when there's an important new version of your NVIDIA driver or your AutoCAD program.

Re:No Linux from MSFT?

[kbielefe]

You are doing a disservice to yourself and the company you work for if you don't think outside of the box you've put yourself in. Scripts are fast to develop, easy to debug, fast to execute, compact, portable, and reusable. Don't confuse a poorly written script with writing a script being a poor choice. Most of the software written on my floor is in C or Ada, but even people who don't know Perl can tell when a Perl script is a better choice.

And implementing a gui interface for a script is not a hack; it is a textbook example of the model-view separation principle. While you're at it, look up coupling and cohesion in a software engineering text, if you want to know why having the same program use and write a configuration file is not necessarily a good idea.

I configure everything on my gentoo boxes via command line due to personal preference. However, I installed, configured, and continue to administer my suse laptop using only their gui tools. Just because a Linux box can be configured via the command line, and most Linux gurus choose to do it that way, doesn't mean it is the only option available.

All other arguments aside, I had to laugh at your choice of a video driver to make your point. If your X server is broken, how is it going to export an API and display a gui so you can fix it? I wish I lived in your universe. I could just drive my car to the repair shop when it breaks down instead of paying for a tow truck.

Re:No Linux from MSFT?

[quanticle]

Its a Broadcom WLAN card. Broadcom drivers (for Linux) do exist, but they seem to be exclusively for their wired Ethernet products.

It should be noted, that I can use the drivers with NDISWrapper, but then some of the power management features present in the Windows driver are disabled.

Re:No Linux from MSFT?

[ryanov]

That's what I was looking at -- NDISWrapper. Splitting hairs if you ask me... as long as you can get it working.

Re:No Linux from MSFT?

[HateBreeder]

You seem to have completely missed my point.

I never suggested that scripts are a bad thing.

I never said my X server was broken or that I was going to fix it with some GUI "configurator".

The entire point of my discussion was to say that "things" should be "standardized".

The example referred to an X config file.
Never said the server was broken, or that something didn't work.

I used it as an example, of HOW one can interpret the IDEA of exposing an API to do changes in a standard way.
X is not necessarily the correct place to implement such an approach; however, it was merely used for the sake of an example.

The Idea: Make changes in a standard way via an API or an XML schema or WHATEVER.

But don't have each dev write a new script to parse and make specific changes, as it locks down the ability to update the software being configured without breaking the "configurators"!!!

Whereas an API would bypass this... problem.

Btw, you don't need X working to expose an API.
It could/should be a library like... libxconfig.so
And apps could link to it.
It would have functions like, "SetDefaultScreen(ScreenObject scr)" or whatever.

THIS IS JUST AN EXAMPLE! NOT NESSICERALY A GOOD ONE!

This, btw, does NOT prevent scripts from being used.
You can use this exact API from within scripts!

However, It would be preferred that All changes to a program would be made via a common interface, so that Updating the program would transparently update everyone!

Regarding:
"And implementing a GUI interface for a script is not a hack; it is a textbook example of the model-view separation principle"

I disagree. It perhaps fits into this description; however it is the poor way of doing it. It's not robust at all!

A good example would be the edonkey2K core and GUI, where they communicate via UNIX sockets or something.
Any RPC driven front-end is better than a front-end interpreting text output from a script!

Perhaps you should take the time to thoroughly consider this before bashing the idea and proving that you misunderstood the entire concept.

Re:No Linux from MSFT?

[Anonymous Coward]

I use synaptic. It upgrades my drivers for me (at least alsa and nvida)

Re:No Linux from MSFT?

[FictionPimp]

and what happens when they change the api?

will program 2 just update itself to use the new api?

api changes do happen, of course MS trys hard to keep it from happening, and in the process creates many bugs.

Re:No Linux from MSFT?

[HateBreeder]

Ofcourse, API changes are almost inevitable.

But a good design can create a generic API that could keep up with software progress for many years.

Furthermore, solutions like WebServices, and other self describing interfaces, can help create intellegent GUIs capable of displaying only VALID options and dynamically adapt to changes.

That aside, a form of RPC is much more of a robust solution than a script front-end would ever be.

Re:No Linux from MSFT?

[erlenic]

Good point. I guess what I meant to say was, "At least Microsoft did it better than other Windows developers." Goes to show that when it's as automatic as it is in Linux and BSD, you don't even think about it.

Old saying

[suso]

Keep your enemies closer?

Re:Old saying

[sgant]

Today in Seattle Washington, Linus Torvalds, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs announced they are all getting an apartment together, each sharing 1/3 of the rent. They say they're just really good friends when asked why they were doing this, while all 3 smiled uncomfortably.

When asked if Oracle CEO Larry Ellison would also be moving in, the 3 software giants just looked at each other and busted out laughing.

Re:Old saying

[Anonymous Coward]

And what, hope they don't notice the aura of pure evil surrounding you?

Re:Old saying

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Just a warning to my fellow geeks: that old saying should NOT be taken as a valid justification for marriage.

Re:Old saying

[Nuttles1]

I think that Microsoft is finally realizing that they have their niche that they will excel in and other places where they simply can't. There niche is out of the box solutions that need little to no customization. Linux excels at customization. The problem for Microsoft is that Linux can eventually get to the point where they excel at out of the box solutions because they do not have the corporate overhead that Microsoft has.

Re:Old saying

[namekuseijin]

Stallman is the landlord...

Re:Old saying

[Trelane]

I smell a sitcom!!!!

MS will wait to get their Linux right

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, I'd wait for Xenix 3.1.

Re:MS will wait to get their Linux right

[Foofoobar]

You know, if you didn't make this joke I was going to.

Unfortunately, all rights for making a UNIX like OS were owned by the original SCO and have since transferred to new SCO. So if this were to happen, guess who would be making the OS for Microsoft?

I wonder if Darl would be a nicer task master than Bill and Steve.

Re:MS will wait to get their Linux right

[Anonymous Coward]

This is wrong.

Re:MS will wait to get their Linux right

[Anonymous Coward]

If you remember the past two years or so, Microsoft gave SCO a bunch of money for "licencing" their IP in Microsoft projects. This, I thought was their up front money for the attack on IBM and Linux, claiming SCO IP was being infringed.

I know I am A.C... I'll be modded 0 or less.

Re:MS will wait to get their Linux right

[Foofoobar]

Wow... how can you argue with a well thought out retort like that?

Ob: MSlinux

[OglinTatas]

we've all seen this now, right?

Re:Ob: MSlinux

[LoraxLorax]

Given that the estimated ship date was September 2003, and it hadn't yet shipped, I almost believed it to be true.

Re:Ob: MSlinux

[Chaotic Spyder]

HAHA Microsoft Monkey Colony on Mars Microsoft has announced that a team of monkeys will be shot into space in 2005 to establish the first Martian Colony. At a recent press conference, Bill Gates confirmed, "We are already training the monkeys to do simple tasks like reboot the space ship when it blue screens. The space vehicle will be running our newest product, SpacePod 2004. This product will instruct the monkeys how to colonize Mars and establish trade with the Martians. We intend to monopolize this market before Human travel to Mars is possible." Pure GOLD...pure GOLD

Microsoft released their Linux distro in 2003

[MirrororriM]

Check it out!

For better understanding

[Morgalyn]

I have to wonder if they aren't studying *nix products to get back in touch with their tech side :) What better way to understand why in the world people would want to switch away from their Wonderful Product than to try out the competing product?

Warm up before swallow

[manifestcommunisto]

I'm afraid Microsoft will need to do more than just warm up before it tries to consume Linux. Mircrosoft should be warned that it can easily choke while trying to swallow the penguin.

It's like gravity

[A beautiful mind]

The big planet-sized MS is starting to feel the Linux moon's effects. Oh wait, that's no moon!

Knowing MS..

[BlackCobra43]

It's more likely to be "Embrace, assimilate then dump the lifeless remains"

Re:Knowing MS..

[Redwin]

Thats what they said: "Embrace and extend" oh wait, they might not dump it..

Maybe we could get a usable desktop?

[DartonW]

..if MS actually did do a linux distro, maybe XF86 and XORG would actually work with a video card? Huh? Huh?

Re:Maybe we could get a usable desktop?

[tomstdenis]

You mean like with nvidia cards [low-end ones which sell for less than a hundred dollars] ???

Is that what you meant? Is it? I really want to know what level of stupidity people like you seek to.

So am I close? Is that what you mean?

Tom

Re:Maybe we could get a usable desktop?

[DartonW]

Alright, you Linux fanatic. I've used it for years - AS A SERVER OS. You simply can't get around the fact that every desktop crashes on every video card if you even try to do anything that works it hard. And the stupidity comment was a little out of line.

Re:Maybe we could get a usable desktop?

[tomstdenis]

um I've overclocked my 5200FX and played UT2k4 for an hour on it without so much as a video glitch.

What lockups are you talking about?

Tom

Re:Maybe we could get a usable desktop?

[FidelCatsro]

Only if they paid ATI and NVIDIA to improve their Linux drivers .
If MS does a Linux distro (shudder) then basically what you have is a linux distro , even if they port the entire API the drivers would still need rewritten for the kernel .
Anyway I have rarely had that much trouble with graphics cards over the last couple of years on linux , NVIDIA are certainly far ahead of ATI in this respect , but my laptop which has a radeon 9000 mobility in works fine including openGL hardware support.
Installing it is still a very daunting task for a novice user i would imagine ,this is perhaps what needs the most improvement in the proprietary drivers. That and getting the actual support for the newer models .
It would be nice to have them GPL their drivers , but i don't see that happening either

So all in all , if MS does release a linux distro it will still be the linux kernel with a windows GUI perhaps and perhaps a port of the API , of course this could raise a whole host of other issues . but that's another story

Re:Maybe we could get a usable desktop?

[ryants]

$ uname -s -r -v -m -p -o
Linux 2.6.11-6mdksmp #1 SMP Tue Mar 22 15:40:42 CET 2005 i686 Pentium III (Coppermine) GNU/Linux

$ cat /proc/driver/nvidia/cards/0
Model: GeForce 6200
IRQ: 5
Video BIOS: 05.44.a2.03.51
Card Type: AGP

$ uptime
08:10:44 up 27 days, 10:28, 1 user, load average: 0.05, 0.17, 0.24

27 days ago there was a power outage.

Yes, I occasionally "work the video card hard" doing some of my own OpenGL work, plus a little Enemy Territory now and then.

Since you claimed "every desktop" and "every video card", your argument is thus refuted.

Re:Maybe we could get a usable desktop?

[DartonW]

I knew that would get some reactions... What I meant was, every video card I've ever used with it - a lot of which did happen to be ATI cards - and yes, I know of the community's view of ATI on linux, crashed or locked up the entire system at one point or another. MS has always maintained that the biggest stability issues in Windows have stemmed from poorly written or out-of-date drivers. I think that's really the biggest hurdle to using Linux as an everyday desktop, for most people - including me, and I'm a professional developer. So, that said, comments?

Re:Maybe we could get a usable desktop?

[FidelCatsro]

I have two questions for you , Are you sure the card is set up properly ?
And are you sure the card is in perfect working order.

I am assuming you are using a stable driver

The only times i have experienced problems whilst stressing a card were a result of 1:) Testing a beta driver , 2) accidentally messing not setting it up properly , 3) the card had a fault in the processor or memory

To be honest it could be a whole host of things , I have ran linux with many different configurations and a multitude of hardware and i can honestly attest to your statement being a little bit unfounded.
Slashdot is not a help forum , but their are many out their and many great user groups .

Every distro has one , try asking in forums for your specific distro and I'm sure someone would be glad to help you get the problem fixed .

Re:Maybe we could get a usable desktop?

[Lodragandraoidh]

"OMG - that command line is soooo harrrrd...I can't live without my GUI mouse pointing clicky dialog box drop down encrusted radio check box filled configuration management thingy. Stop it! You're making my head hurt!" - overheard from a Microsoftie when the subject of using the command line was broached.

Those who can, do. Those who can't - buy Microsoft.

Re:Maybe we could get a usable desktop?

[jedidiah]

I've been using Linux since when ISA video cards were not uncommon. I have used a variety of cards of various kinds from multiple vendors and have never managed to have the problems you describe.

I even successfully use an ATI chipset now that Ubuntu can't quite fully identifiy.

The typical Windows user is not going to have any more trouble in this respect with Linux than they would with Windows.

Re:Maybe we could get a usable desktop?

[kicken18]

I would agree with this statement, alot of windows problems to stem from out of date drivers and anit-virus/spywhere updates, thats not to say thats its only fundermental problem however

Re:Maybe we could get a usable desktop?

[Renegrade]

The only times i have experienced problems whilst stressing a card were a result of 1:) Testing a beta driver , 2) accidentally messing not setting it up properly , 3) the card had a fault in the processor or memory

Or 4) you're using Debian as a desktop (prior to Sarge).

I've found that with X Windows software, you really have to keep up to date, and Debian is a little slow at assimilating new versions. Thus, for my desktop type systems, I run Debian's testing or unstable branches for up-to-date X11, and stable/oldstable for server boxen which are happier with well-tested software.

A funny little side effect I've been noticing lately with the slow uptake is that my Woody systems don't get updates to their packages despite some flaw being found .. because the flaw exists only in version 3.x+ and Woody only has 2.x which doesn't have the flaw at all..lol

Re:Maybe we could get a usable desktop?

[Anonymous Coward]

If video card adoption and graphics processing is so bad in Linux, then why are the motion picture industry and the special effects industries adopting Linux in record numbers? Just because you can't get yours to work, doesn't mean that no one else can.

Personally, I am running a Matrox Millennium P750 (Triple Head) card and KDE 3.4.1 on Gentoo.

Re:Maybe we could get a usable desktop?

[tomstdenis]

My stats are better

tom@tombox ~ $ uname -a
Linux tombox 2.6.12.2 #5 SMP Mon Jul 18 06:38:23 EDT 2005 x86_64 AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4200+ AuthenticAMD GNU/Linux

tom@tombox ~ $ cat /proc/driver/nvidia/cards/0
Model:           GeForce 6600
IRQ:             10
Video BIOS:      ??.??.??.??.??
Card Type:       PCI-E

:-)

Oddly enough nvidia-settings can read the BIOS version ok...

At anyrate the card works fine with ut2004-linux-amd64-bin [orwhatever it's called] which is fine with me ;-)

Tom

Re:Maybe we could get a usable desktop?

[jonabbey]

UT2004 on Linux, represent!

But your stats are incomplete. The stat at issue here is uptime, not flavor of card and kernel. Since 2.6.12.2 hasn't been out all that long, I don't imagine your uptime can be _that_ impressive.

Re:Maybe we could get a usable desktop?

[SirSlud]

The problem with folks like you is that you have your own experience, and then extrapolate it to others'.

If every desktop crashed on every video card if you tried to do anything that works it hard makes me wonder if my days of playing Quake3 under KDE on FreeBSD AND Linux were just some magical hallucination. (GeForce2 at the time.)

Ya got modded as a troll, but I think you're more likely simply a little misguided and/or hurt that you experienced difficulties?

I mean, I've had games that couldn't run under Windows with a good graphics card, but that doens't cause me to make the laughable claim that Windows just crashes under intensive graphical goodness.

They're computers running software; they're failable, and sometimes you just get stuck with a lemon. Not that things are easy to setup in Linux, but to claim you cant create a stable desktop and gaming environment is flat out wrong.

Re:Maybe we could get a usable desktop?

[JudicatorX]

setting up that server must have been interesting...

Wait a minute, were you trying to save money by not buying a monitor for it too?

Re:Maybe we could get a usable desktop?

[tomstdenis]

I had to reboot to setup my PS2 [after all this noise about GTA I had a craving to fetch it from the basement].

So my uptime is only like 5 days...

Tom

Re:Maybe we could get a usable desktop?

[Shotgun]

I swapped video cards two nights ago. An MGA400 for an ATI7000. I didn't do anything but switch the cards and boot back up. Kudzu asked if I wanted to remove the old configuration, then if I wanted to install the new. I then had to run one of the configuration programs as root to set the screen above 800x600.

Done.

Fedora Core 3.

Re:Maybe we could get a usable desktop?

[Anonymous Coward]

uname -s -r -v -m -p -o

Instead of explicitly listing all the flags, just switch them on with -a. Read your manual stupid.

Re:Maybe we could get a usable desktop?

[ryants]

I didn't want -n, my node name, listed.

Oh, now I see why you posted anonymously.

Re:Maybe we could get a usable desktop?

[FictionPimp]

Wow, I wonder what OS i'm using. I have NEVER had X crash. I use my pc every day, I play UT2004, open tons of apps, play a lot of open source games, doom 3, all sorts of stuff. In fact I'd call my system stable. It has been up and working perfect sense I built it 6 months ago (with reboots only for a kernel upgrade to add some power managment support for powernowd and a kernel upgrade)

AMD64 3500
1 gig ram ddr400
nvidia 6800 GT 256meg

Re:Maybe we could get a usable desktop?

[DartonW]

Whatever. You guys are obviously not open to any discussion on the problems that do exist with linux (and I am a linux supporter), you just want to defend to the death your view of what it is and its "superiority" to anything else, especially Windows. I'm done talking about it and won't be posting or visiting here anymore. Satisfied?

Re:Maybe we could get a usable desktop?

[FictionPimp]

No, I'm open to discussion. But I was reply to a comment that EVERY video card on EVERY machine is unstable in X. Which is a lie. X works, it works great if its setup right.

Funny

[Gunny101]

You guys are funny. The reason why Microsoft has a big linux lab is to get ideas on what to steal. They want to know what their competition is, break it apart in a lab, and attempt to emulate it. This is why Windows XP has better graphics that are basically a poor implementation of the KDE shnazz. Microsoft rarely innovates, they copy poorly and sell it like it's the best 'microsoft idea'.

Re:Funny

[snortCrush69]

The key to that whole statement is the phrase "sell it" Microsoft's marketing department is obviously superior to anything an open source company and conjure. It doesn't matter that MS is emulating KDE. The fact is that Microsoft is first to market and until open source MARKETING catches up, there's no way that Linux can gain market share in the personal computing environment.

Re:Funny

[donleyp]

Now, come on. There are tons of features in the Linux desktop managers (KDE, GNOME, etc.) that were first seen in Windows. There are even look-a-like themes!

I'm not saying that Microsoft is a greate innovator, but let's give credit where credit is due.

You are correct that they will be looking for things to immitate, but isn't that the sincerest form of flattery?

Re:Funny

[FLAGGR]

You could say the same thing about windows 9x vs Mac OS.

Iinteroperation with Linux ?

[tpgp]

a strategy...to see how Microsoft's proprietary technologies can better interoperate with Linux and a host of other open-source software.

If Microsoft wants better interoperation with linux, they do not need to create a Linux/Open Source lab to ïnvestigate interoperability.

All they need to do is release specifications or source-available implementations of their network protocols and file formats.

Is this really so hard to understand?

Re:Iinteroperation with Linux ?

[thisissilly]

You do not understand the MicroSoft definition of "interoperate":

"Making sure you cannot talk to us without giving us per-client money."

Re:Iinteroperation with Linux ?

[Red Flayer]

And lose control of the market? Why, oh why, would anyone in Microsoft's position do that?

MS doesn't want two-way interoperability (though they'll spin it to seem they do).

Microsoft wants Office to be able to read docs from other apps, not the other way around.

This way, when people realize how good Vista really is, they won't be scared to switch over to Windows because of file accessibility issues.

Re:Iinteroperation with Linux ?

[Geekboy(Wizard)]

you seem to believe that linux does what the documentation says. its so cute to see the naive.

Re:Iinteroperation with Linux ?

[catman]

ITYM you seem to believe that windows does what the salesman says. its so cute to see the naive.

Re:Iinteroperation with Linux ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, Office 12 is switching to XML-based file formats:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/06/03/_office_xm l

I'm sure this is somehow motivated by pure evil as well, but I'm not sure how your post merits a 5:Insightful given that...

Re:Iinteroperation with Linux ?

[Anonymous Coward]

ïnvestigate

Am Ï seeing double??

Re:Iinteroperation with Linux ?

[jonwil]

If microsoft wanted one-way integration, they would make an import (but not export) filter for MS office that could read OO.o files.

Re:Iinteroperation with Linux ?

[Red Flayer]

Sure, they could do that, but I believe that would cause a HUGE backlash.

As Open Source and other alternatives gain more marketshare, Microsoft is more dependent upon the goodwill of their users and the people who advise their users.

I believe their M.O. has not changed significantly, they are just getting better at spinning the press to make it seem like they are embracing the Open Source community.

Holy About Turn Batman! Quick Save Face!

[tod_miller]

In fact, that is exactly what will be the focus of a discussion the long-time open-source proponent will lead at this year's upcoming Linuxworld Conference & Expo next month in San Francisco

I am sure you all agree that this is not too strong a statement:

What the fuck?? ....
Bill Gates: We have always been about open source, heck, we invented Linux, just before the Internet, and I have always said that people like Linus Torvalds who says the GPL license is a disease, a cancerous growth are really bad people!

Interviewer: What the fuck you crackhead, you said all those things, you two bit company has dug itself into a hole, and you not be allowed back out this easily.

Bill Gates: Didn't we pay you lots of money to make us look good?

Interviewer: Oh yes, so tell me Bill, what was is like inventing the Internet?

Bill Gates: I am glad you asked...

To confirm you're not a script,
please type the word in this image: coronary

A likely story...

[keesh]

Why else do you think they've hired four Gentoo people over the past six months?

Re:A likely story...

[Anonymous Coward]

So gentoo development will slow down?

Re:A likely story...

[Anonymous Coward]

My God - I can't even begin to fathom the amount of time it would take to compile Windows from scratch on the average desktop!

Re:A likely story...

[tangledbank]

To stop Gentoo using them? To get some of the best Linux coders to improve their OS?

Re:A likely story...

[DrXym]

Why else do you think they've hired four Gentoo people over the past six months?

To work shifts to watch over the build they started at the same time?

Re:A likely story...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why else do you think they've hired four Gentoo people over the past six months?

I'm sure they'll answer this in a press release as soon as they're done compiling.

Re:A likely story...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Hey, Gentoo Guy, welcome to Microsoft, we're glad to have you on board. Please step into this closet."

*SLAM*

"Thank God. Another Linux coder off the street where he can't do us any harm."

Re:A likely story...

[keesh]

funnily enough it's not the best they've been hiring. with the exception of daniel robbins none of them have been high profile or particularly skilled. and from what i've heard, robbins's main skill was organisation rather than vision or technical excellance.

Re:A likely story...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, you're pretty much right. Daniel's main ability was to actually drive some momentum behind Gentoo. Other than that, he was a dictator that wanted things his way, or the highway. He also is very self-serving and was more interested in what Gentoo could do for him, financially, than what he could do for Gentoo. While he might have founded it, most of the real work was done by the other volunteer developers. The same ones that were left out of his failed Gentoo Games company and the same ones that never saw a dime from the Gentoo Store. One of the primary reasons for Daniel closing the Gentoo Store was Gentoo's switch from quarterly to biannual releases, since it meant he made less money from his repeat customers.

Flip Flop

[Anonymous Coward]

This is surprisingly soon after this article in which M$ repeatedly bashed Linux:
http://linux.slashdot.org/linux/05/07/21/1218247.s html?tid=109&tid=187&tid=106

Microsoft: "Oh shit, that last statement hurt our PR right before the Vista Beta release...guess we'd better warm up now!"

Re:Flip Flop

[SirSlud]

MS is so big, you can't expect the 46th hand to know what the 129th hand is doing.

Warms up?

[Foofoobar]

How warm is even the warmest ice cube?

Run Semgal, Run

[Emperor Shaddam IV]

Mean, nasty, peoples... Act like Smegal's friend..

Must run Smegal, must run... They are after the precious... Bill Gatesy is tricksy.... Yes, my precious... Yes...

Re:Run Semgal, Run

[Marc Desrochers]

You've only ever watched the movies, haven't you?

Re:Run Semgal, Run

[Emperor Shaddam IV]

Sorry,
I don't acknowledge anyone on Slashdot that uses their real name...

Re:Run Semgal, Run

[Marc Desrochers]

You just did, bunghole.

BTW, it's "Sméagol"

Re:Run Semgal, Run

[Emperor Shaddam IV]

Nope,
I just responded to a posting. I didn't acknowledge YOU. Please see definition b.

acknowledge ( P ) Pronunciation Key (k-nlj)
tr.v. acknowledged, acknowledging, acknowledges

a. To admit the existence, reality, or truth of.
b. To recognize as being valid or having force or power.
c. To express recognition of: acknowledge a friend's smile.
d. To express thanks or gratitude for.
e. To report the receipt of: acknowledge a letter.
f. Law. To accept or certify as legally binding: acknowledge a deed.

All I want is

[suezz]

for microsoft to go away

I am sick of their proprietary crap and their empty talk.

How about making office support openoffice formats - now there is action and no talk.

I know they can do it - the formats are all out in the open and heck didn't they and sun just kiss and make up -

I think they are all talk and still and always will want to be the only desktop os on the planet.

There is a place

[netcrusher88]

So maybe Windows does have a place, after all.(don't shoot me yet, I'm not done.)

IF MS really is "embracing" cooperation with Linux and other OSS stuff, maybe Windows will be a good OS for desktops for a while. Of course, I'll really believe that when they provide a POSIX API and bash shell, but hey, maybe we'll see some of our favorite (read: most used, not loved) MS apps (i.e. Office, etc.) avaliable for Linux. Anyway, they might at least make it a bit easier for the Samba folks, and maybe even Wine.

Dark times

[unit01]

Microsoft are coming to the conclusion that GNU/linux isn't going to disappear easily. now If linux continues to grow they feel they can freely jump on the linux bandwagon. I don't wanna share anymore.

By Any Other Name

[blueZhift]

Heh, heh, and China is still a Communist country. I don't know what MS Linux will be called or exactly how the interoperability efforts will come out. But my guess is that 5 to 10 years down the line, it will be pretty hard to distinguish Windows from Linux. In the meantime, I would guess as the interoperability specs become known, we'll start seeing groups roll out Linux distros that are amazingly friendly with Windows, wink wink.

Big problems ahead

[argoff]

Ok, the deal is that Microsoft has deicded that they can't beat Linux in the market place if they attack it head on, so instead they have decided to co-opt it. The problem is that sooner or later Linux and FOSS alternatives are going to be eating into every one of Microsotfs main revenue streams and the pressure for Microsoft to "do something" about it will be insane. I doubt they will sit there and happily get along as billions in revenue streams are slowly chocked off.

Penguin Stew

[trud]

Fill large pot with water.
Place live penguin inside.
Cover with heavy lid.
Warm very slowly to boil.
Season to taste.

News from the Mordor campus

[Foofoobar]

I'm sorry but you are a little late... the new Microsoft motto is...

one OS to rule them all,
one OS to find them (printers),
one OS to bring them all (viruses),
and in the lack of a competitive environment, crash them...

Yikes!!

[soma_0806]

I feel like I'm watching one of those videos they play in highschool bio classes where one of the big ameobas get close to one of the smaller ameobas so it can consume it for the cellular energy it has inside...

Except the Leonard Nemoy-sounding commentator is calling it "getting friendly" instead of "attempting to consume for it's own increase in power and strength."

Pardon me while I shiver in creeped-out-ed-ness

Babelfish translation

[tod_miller]

To see how Microsoft's proprietary technologies can better interoperate with Linux and a host of other open-source software.

Find ways of maximising the effect of all this money spent on brute forcing patents into the EU. Find ways that Linux is interoperable and quash them.

Hilf (wasn't this the nick name for Adolf?) is an open source evangelist, from IBM, working at Microsoft... erm... whats that Master Yoda? You sense great fear and anger in this one yes hmmmm? *cough*dark side*cough*

In fact, he boasted in rather geeky fashion that he has attended every single Linuxworld in the U.S. since the show was first held in 1999. "I should get some kind of medal for that," Hilf joked.

Yeah, one that says 'in medical emergencies call this number ### #######'. Mentalist.

"Microsoft has now gotten to a point that they're accepting the fact that there's enough Linux in their customer environments that they need to interoperate with Linux in the same way they interoperated with Unix in the past," Goulde said.

Erm - don't drop us yet, we are compatible with Linux!

Microsoft Windows ShortNose 2017: A Linux compatible operating system with FREE smileys!

"The attitude is more, 'Tell me more about this,' versus, 'God, don't touch this, it's going to explode if we look at it.' Polarization is starting to be less and less."

Yes, because open source is explosive... like those bomb terrorists use!! MSNBC.com:

Linux Officially a New Terrorist Threat!

This is all just a curtain of distraction while Microsoft rape the EU to get patents, and then land linux in a nice vat of steaming 'Yes we love linux, and interoperability, which is why they can license these 1838390 patents if they want to continue breathing!'.

Re:Babelfish translation

[snorklewacker]

Hilf (wasn't this the nick name for Adolf?) is an open source evangelist, from IBM, working at Microsoft... erm... whats that Master Yoda? You sense great fear and anger in this one yes hmmmm? *cough*dark side*cough*

Worst.

Comment.

Ever.

Nothing new

[Masa1991]

Well, Microsoft has already released Microsoft Linux.
But just like all of it's other operating systems, it's already about 3 years late.

somebody pinch me

[Anonymous Coward]

Badmouth it all you want, but take linux and add in the ease-of-installation for hardware and updates of windows and you've got my dream OS right there.

OB

[Anonymous Coward]

Queue the Gandi quote in 3.2.1.
what stage are we at now?

Infoworld? I think I said this before:

[tod_miller]

Who are they again: Look at their Firefox / Greasemonkey article:

This time there was no Microsoft (Profile, Products, Articles) to blame. The open source underdogs had done this to themselves.

Yeah, that was such a relevant way of outlining the story.

And while some would argue it wasn't Firefox's fault -- since Greasemonkey is a user-installed extension -- Firefox took its share of the blame, just as Internet Explorer does when its add-ins cause trouble.

Two birds with one back hander, well done Bill!

OK, lets black list this 'infoworld.com' shall we?

Meaningless Crud...

[Anonymous Coward]

Apart from the Microsoft Operations Manager product which can apparently manage Linux based machines in an hetro environment, there was no concrete evidence of what Microsoft has done to address interoperability issues with Linux. Sure they run Linux lab but then what after that?

Wake me up when they fix some SAMBA bugs to improve interoperability or enhance Wine to better run Office etc. That's what I call interoperability - To MS interoperability is limited to their corner of the universe - "Windows 3.11 should work with Win 98, ME, NT and XP".

Wait ...

[Anonymous Coward]

... a widely-accepted and polished, professional GUI like Windows on top of a UNIX-inspired OS like Linux?

Why does this sound so ... familiar ... to this Mac OS X user?

Confuse em

[Anonymous Coward]

An MS Linux would make sense -

1. Release crappy 'free' MS linux distro.
2. Mr Public tries it and doesn't like it.
3. 'bad experience' propagates via word of mouth.
4. Public associates Linux with bad experience.
5. ??? step not needed.
6. MS profit

They just don't get it

[Ostien]

from http://www.mslinux.com/
We are now offering the MS Linux Introductory CD at a special introductory price of only $249.99 (plus shipping and handling), if you order before it ships.
MS Linux is released under the provisions of the Gates Private License, which means you can freely use this Software on a single machine without warranty after having paid the purchase price and annual renewal fees.

What!? So let me get this stright MS is embracing Open Source yet it is not free downloadable and there are anual fees?

Re:They just don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

That page is a joke you idiot

Re:They just don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

you insensitive clod.

Wohoo - news!

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft won't be releasing its own distribution of Linux any time soon.

"News for fools. Stuff that's obvious"

Polish up on Hostage Negotiations

[kinglink]

Doesn't the venue's name ( 'Managing Linux in a Mixed Environment ... at Microsoft?') SCREAM Hostage sitaution? I have a feeling that 5 minutes into the presentation the MS Swat team (yes I'm sure they have one) will storm in and hall off these Linux Gurus to brainwash them into the Microsoft way of thinking.

And then the ineviatable statement from the Office of Bill Gates "Microsoft proprietary software working with open source don't make me laugh."

We need all the help we can get?

[tod_miller]

The open source and Microsoft cultures can complement one another. I hope they will. If we're going to safely enjoy the benefits of AJAX-style computing, we'll need all the help we can get.

Ridiculous!! thank goodness for Microsoft, who can step up and bail out the plucky open source projects like Firefox, and pat them on the head.

Waste of time website. You know, Microsoft may release its own Linux Distribution, bundled with Windows no doubt... put enough resources in that it keeps them at the top.

Mental.

Open source

[quark007]

The very nature of Open source makes it an exploitable resource for companies like MSFT that make Proprietory software.

Its quite easy to steal ideas from Linux and incorporate into our own and not honor the open source license.

Tell me, who enforces open source license?

Open source people won't have the hords of lawyers to protect the intellectual property like the companies such as MSFT or Amazon do.

Re:Open source

[qcomp]

Tell me, who enforces open source license?

for the GPL, e.g., the FSF does, see this article by Eben Moglen. Or other copyright holders do it, such as Harald Welte with the gpl violations project. (Successfully as you can see )

Re:Open source

[Phisbut]

Tell me, who enforces open source license?

They do...

Re:Open source

[TemporalBeing]

Actually, the FSF will if they are informed of the issue, and they do have GNU/Hurds of lawyers. ;-)

Warming up?

[darkbit]

Is there any possible way in hell Microsoft could have secretly sponsored Linus starting way back in the beginning? Divide and conquer?

Obligatory. . .

[TripleE78]

It's a trap!

~EEE~

Favorite Quote

[DrugCheese]

Hilf said that Microsoft now has a far better understanding of how technologically diverse customer environments are than it did several years ago, and is more open-minded than ever about making sure its products interoperate with competitive ones such as Linux

Yea because Microsoft has a great history of being open-minded about other products competing with it's own. From my understanding they have two tools they use with any competing product, they either buy it, or break it.

Re:Favorite Quote

[Phisbut]

From my understanding they have two tools they use with any competing product, they either buy it, or break it.

That strategy can't work on Linux though. Linux can't be bought (because it's not owned by anybody), and it can't really be broken. If they try to break Linux, all they can do is fork and make MS-Linux, and then break *that*... MS-Linux will then become nothing but one of so many distros out there, and the current non-broken distros will continue to exist.

What they could possibly do though is make MS-Linux and break it, and then show the whole world how Linux is broken and how it's inferior to Windows. However, I doubt that even the best marketing department in the world can spin that while hiding every other Linux distros and hiding the fact that it's the "MS" part of the MS-Linux that is broken...

Old Saying

[3CRanch]

Actually this all makes sense...

Like the old saying goes:

"Keep your friends close and your enemies closer"

It's a trap

[Prince Vegeta SSJ4]

Microsoft Warms Up to Linux

It's a trap!!!

But Will the Microsoft Distro Come With Clippy?

[jac1962]

Oh God I hope so.

if you like linux, invent a distro

[bmidgley]

Guys, why would it be good for every company interested in working with Linux to create a distro? Isn't that exactly what we don't need?

"We'd love to use Walmart Linux but we have a large installed base of Burger King Linux at the moment."

HE'S A HILF!

[Anonymous Coward]

"a hero i'd like to fuck!"

Logic assumes in ghetto fashion

[KingBahamut]

Yo buss dis....be that MS would try to interoperate properly in de envoirnment wit all viable candidates othuh than itself.

That bein said, no interoperability dat MS has evuh had wuz all dat great. SFU 3.0 wuz in my opinion a failua on de case uh MS. Samba wuz jus so much easiuh on Windows as an OS, thus negatin netwukin viability, an shit. Same wit Novell (old novell) an' Apple. Perhaps MS be goin to fix deir minds, it seems logical dat dey would. uh course, if dat went down, den Tridge wouldnt has much to do....=) Sheeit, don make me shank ya jess like mammy.

H to M

[Torgo's Pizza]

Is it wrong to want to change "Hilf" to MILF? Suddenly the article then becomes something that I want to read more about.

Let me state a fact

[Anonymous Coward]

If Microsoft decides to port MS Office to Linux, they will own the open source desktop. Geeks may be anti-MS, but biz leaders love compatibility, and will flock to purchase the licenses. Mark my words. I bet money that within 5 years, this will happen.

missed one...

[Anonymous Coward]

"buy it, break it, or steal it"

RIP STAC.

yet they can't

[SQLz]

"There's a ton of stuff we can do to innovate. We don't see that level of innovation [in Linux] that makes us say there's [anything] out there that's better than or more effective than what we can do."

Emote icons are sooooo fucking innovative.

Wait

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a trick... get an axe.

Microsoft Eats Linux

[ahundy]

I dunno why you're all so down on Microsoft. Its a kick arse company with excellent products, visionary leadership and massive amounts of talent. No Microsoft didn't invent the internet but they did capture and popularise the platform that allows millions of people to access the internet everyday. They made a mistake. They accepted they made a mistake. They changed course and once again ate the competition. All this nonsense about being "first" is hooey. Theres no good being first if you cant hold onto whatever advantage it supposedly brings. Linux in comparision is a dog of an operating system as witnessed by its paltry uptake and market share. Perhaps if the Linux community spent as much time promoting the features and benefits of their so called "superior solutions", as they do bashing Microsoft, then they might actually get in touch with Joe Average consumer and break more than wind when it comes to product mindshare. The biggest problem with most Linux geeks is that they are so wrapped up in the technology side of the software industry that they seem to have forgotten about the "business" of selling software. Microsoft does this better than anyone in the software industry. You can all moan and bitch all you like but it's all become little more than a vaguely wimpish sounding cliche'. Too all those in the Linux community who believe otherwise perhaps a reality check is in order: Microsoft dont owe you diddly squat! Not nil. Not nada. If you want to kick Microsofts arse then by all means do it. But enough already with the carry-on as if you've already done it. The way some of you puff your hairy chests about the state of the Linux platform, anyone would think it was your camp that had an 85-90% market share. And to that all i can say is ....lmao! You've got a lot more work to do than that sonny boy!

Re:Microsoft Eats Linux

[ratboy666]

Beautiful!

I wish

- that I had mod points now, and

- that there was a "+1 Hillarious Brilliant Troll" rating

Oh well...
Ratboy

Re:Microsoft Eats Linux

[Virtual Karma]

You said it.

You had the balls to say this on /. You are "the man". Hope this comment of yours make all the Linux "cry-babies" realize that they need a change of diapers.

If I had mod point you would have got "+5 Reality"

it all PR Bull Sh|t, don't waste our time

[Locutus]

All you have to do is remember 4 letters, MSFT, an remember that these are the stock market ticker symbols for Microsoft. When ever you see or hear anything from Microsoft, remember that what is shown or said has nothing to do with advancing tech and/or solving your problems. It is all about keeping Microsoft Windows in a monopoly position and maximizing moving money from your pocket into theirs.

They don't have a lab to help make their products work better with Open Source Software. They most likely use that lab to find out how to de-tune the OSS so they can hire someone to do an "research" paper on how MSFT softwart is better, faster, cheaper than that de-tuned OSS stuff people are talking about.

There is no proof that this is anything but Microsofts famous PR and marketing tactics. NONE, ZIP, NADA.

LoB

Gandalf works for Apple

[Mad Ogre]

When told about OSX for PC... "Keep it secret. Keep it safe." Still waiting to run OSX on an AMD 64.

yaaaaawn

[xtracto]

step four:
When everybody sees that MS-Linux 2.0 is shit just download a FREE copy of any other better linux from the internet...

Re:yaaaaawn

[jarich]

When everybody sees that MS-Linux 2.0 is shit just download a FREE copy of any other better linux from the internet...

The shops with the technical expertise to do this have already done so. The target market for MS-Linux would be shops that aren't Linux saavy. They need a simple, drop in distro. And I know that ~you~ think these distros already exist, but the lack of Linux market penetration says otherwise. Technical issues that you and I would take for granted are large hurdles to someone whose never been off of a MS OS.

Don't get me wrong... I'll be using KUbuntu myself :) but there are lots of straight MS shops out there...

Re:yaaaaawn

[wlan0]

Step five: MS-Linux needs to be GPLed anyway.

Re:yaaaaawn

[FictionPimp]

Sure the kernel needs to be gpl. But modules dont need to be gpl (look at nvidia). Programs do not need to be gpl. So nothing stops them from making a closed source "OS" on top of a GPL kernel, and making sure their "tweaks" dont break the GPL version of their OS from running. A few linux distros have proprietary apps in them even now.

Worming up?

[KarmaBlackballed]

MS is warming up to Linux like a wolf warms up to a lamb.

THEY want to do it

[Anonymous Coward]

MS wants to be the ones to create the software, not outsiders. OSS developers talk about how their software is better, and if MS makes it easier for themselves to be replaced by OSS, then what's in it for MS? They are a business, money is the bottom line, NOT good software.

Windows + Linux kernel by 2015.

[stlhawkeye]

I been saying this for YEARS. Windows will have a Linux core by 2015. It's the Microsoft way. Can't beat 'em? Consume them.

Re:Windows + Linux kernel by 2015.

[Anonymous Coward]

In 2015 Microsoft will be a game company.

Re:Windows + Linux kernel by 2015.

[assassinator42]

"Can't beat 'em? Consume them." Except Windows can and is beating Linux. I don't see how MS switching to a linux kernel is any more than a Linux fanatic's fantasy. If they switched to a Linux kernel, they'd loose the advantage of having a bunch of programs that only run nateively on Windows, and I don't think they'll want to do that.

the battle for management is just warming up

[rapiddescent]

I think the Microsoft understand that the battle of the OS is not where the real money is - the real money spinner is beating HP OpenView in the server/desktop management space and also owning the signing-in credentials (Active Directory) - these two things are FAR more important than old wars against Linux and open source. They know that Linux boxes are always going to be in the enterprise so they've thought up a strategy to make sure that they are within the MS management pool. A caring & sharing attitude will also fix some of the perception of arrogance that MS have with the Office of Government Commerce in the UK and similar procurement organisations outside the USA.

for example: In most places I've been to, the customer has MS Active Directory in place. (I'm an enterprise TA specialising in Linux). That makes MS in a very strong position to be first choice for single sign on content management systems, document management platform and also system monitoring & management. The usual BS I hear is that AD makes it easier for the helpdesk to manage users and groups and so on.

MS have been quietly making big investments in enterprise management. remember SCO, how could you forget!, there was one product that SCO sold off to a management buy-out and was rumoured to have been heavily funded by MS - this is Vintela. Vintela sells a single sign on solution for multiple OS (including Linux) that will allow Linux users to sign in as AD citizens into Linux and be managed just like the MS users.

Another example is the new drive for MOM. MOM is essentially where HP Openview was some years ago. HP OpenView has never got the pervasive coverage in organisations because it costs a bloody fortune and HP have been too stupid to commodotise the HPOV server infrastructure into something cheaper. Also, having an enterprise OpenView system takes manpower to setup correctly. The result is a catch 22 - the companies that actually need it; don't have spare manpower - hence the reason they need an enterprise monitoring/management suite! MS MOM is a big step in the direction of Windows simple click (and break!) user interface that is convincing to management who will sign off procurement decisions. The MOM interface is surprisingly better than HPOV - plus MOM will also support Linux and Solaris boxes in the enterprise. I don't think it will be long before MS provides management hooks for JBoss, MySQL, Apache etc into MOM.

By entering the enterprise market like this; MS is targetting products at the areas that control the whole strategy or an organisation: authentication/authorisation and systems management. It is a way of taking control and ensuring that any Linux/otherNix server has MS branding on it because that's how it is looked after...

essentially; Microsoft *have* to include Linux in their plans for their big step into Enterprise domination - Linux is actually helping them in a way because the rapid growth of Linux servers has forced them to consider enterprise platforms that they have not really been competing against in the past.

rd

Re:the battle for management is just warming up

[jonabbey]

Active Directory is handy, to be sure, but if one didn't need it to keep Windows clients happy, there would be acceptable ways of living without it.

We've been doing centralized, 'Active' account and DNS management where I work since before AD came out with our own stuff, and folks like Novell have had enterprise-scalable versions for ten years now as well.

The network effects cascade driven by the Windows client affinity to AD is what gives AD value.

Re:the battle for management is just warming up

[Tarwn]

Umm...

I am currently logged into this FC3 box using my AD username and password.
When I go out to the DFS servers (from this box) I continue to use that authentication.
When another user views the shares on this box they always see their home folder as an available share based on their auth info. (Did I mention it automatically uses their Windows auth info to allow them to view the shares and their home folder?)
If I log into the box with a user that did not previously have a home folder, it is automatically created, along with various other folders, default X settings, etc. provided they have an Active Directory account.
If I VNC into this box I get a login prompt and use my AD auth info to log in.
SSH auth's from AD.
Basically everything on this box authenticates from AD. Not much is locked down to certain grouops, but a couple groups (like Domain Admins) have some special permissions and accessibility areas.
About the only thing I didn't do was define home folders and such in AD, and thats only because the windows side of that (redirecting My Documents, profiles, etc) hasn't been done yet.

As far as monitoring and such goes, we have microsoft and non-MS solutions in place, sometimes interoperating.

Oddly enough this used to be a 100% Microsoft house, and only two systems run Linux at the moment...but they are both completely transparent (ie, look like any other box on the network).

So, no, I don't think there is any assumed lock-in , that you have to use Windows workstations or servers just because your using Active Directory (MS Source Safe, MS DFS, MS Exchange, IIS, etc).
I was completely new to Samba when I set this box up and it only took a few days to get Samba, Pam, Kerberos, etc playing well with the MS systems.

Re:the battle for management is just warming up

[jimmyharris]

Have you got any documentation on this that I could have a look at? I work at the University of Melbourne in the Windows group as Linux and OSX systems administrator. I can get Linux / AD logins working but I'm having trouble restricting logins based on AD group membershoip.

Somebody PLEASE photoshop this!

[haakondahl]

I have no PS skills; I have no PS (although if I were worth a crap I would do it in InkScape 0.42, right?). But how about a Duck mascot, named "Dux", for the new convergence Windows-which-looks-an-awful-lot-like-linux: Windux(tm).

Weird Al

[UnderDark]

"This is Windows 95..........
Its sucking up my drive..........."

Now replace 95 with CE, ME, NT, XP, 2000, 98, Vista, and ML (Mircosoft Linux)

hey hey hey!

[dwntwnboi]

excuse me, but microsoft (at least the last time i checked) HAS a distro of linux and has for many years

mslinux.org

and quite frankly, with the amount of technoweenies here spouting all their opinions, i'm very disappointed that this escaped everyone's attention!

like, how could you not know?!

yet more bad news for the diskbearer!

[CdBee]

This AOL free trial disk can only be destroyed in the place where it was created - the fires of mount doom !

MS "warms up" to something that's open source ?!

[silviuc]

I'm afraid there's something very wrong here. And I'm sure many of the /. crowd have this gut feeling too.

In one of the Halloween Documents http://www.opensource.org/halloween/ ESR talks about Microsoft being asleep at the switch. They are waking up it seems.

Just embrace and extend? That too.

They're cooking something alright. This time it won't be just FUD campaigns.

Re:hey hey hey! -- updated info

[dwntwnboi]

after navigating the site for a coupel fo minutes, i've discovered that it's prolly not being maintained, and most links are down. however, i disticlty remember once downloading this MSLinux. as i recall, i couldn't get it to install.

Funny, not insightful

[gosand]

How exactly ?

I was going to mod it funny. I think that the only way for Microsoft to kill or drag something down into the dregs is to get involved with it. Maybe MS just knows that inherently, whatever they touch turns to anti-innovative technology goo.

Intel Macs

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think Apple would care at all if people pay their top-dollar price for a Mac and then use it to run Linux (or Windows, for that matter). What they don't want is MacOS running on non-Mac hardware.

This could be a brilliant move

[Reeee]

Microsoft could release a Linux server product that is truly easy to use by adding MSI support, simplifying the file system, and giving users the famailar Windows GUI on Linux. Next they strip it and make it trivial (so that Windows Server 2003 appears superior), as they did with 2003 Web Edition. Then they add a solid LDAP(AD) client and tools, removing the need for people to look to Novell and eDirectory for a LDAP solution for Linux, and further hurting ZEN Works. Basically, they can slowly trivialize Linux.

Of course, this could just as easily back fire on them, as any penetration by Linux into their market is a threat.

resistance is futile

[dwntwnboi]

oh, i disagree. you give microsoft far too much credit and not enough to linux. if there's one thing microsoft can never consume (short of an unimaginable shift in the os markets), it's linux.

i would say that this is primarily due to the fact that no one really "owns" linux. there a countless different distros, covered by GPL. not to mention the fact that the people who do own the rights would rather jump off a cliff than sell their distro to MS.

anyway, isn't that the whole point of OSS? that anyone (including MS, Apple, my cat) can build their own distro? apple did. it's called OSX.

if anything, i see this as a major defeat for MS. for years they've been touting New Technology (17 years new, btw)-based systems could match if not beat any linux/unix anything, and that that NT framework would be a renewable source of innvoation and advancement for a long time. 17 years IS a long time in this industry. a VERY long time. microsoft is just FINALLY admitting this (as quietly as possible), and realizing that they haven't put the same redevelopment that goes into new linux kernels into their NT kernel/code base.

the signs have been here for years, and microsoft is just finally heeding them. ha!

Microsoft Warms Up to Linux

[intnsred]

The title of this article immediately makes me think of that old saying -- what was it? Oh yeah:

Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

Re:Microsoft Warms Up to Linux

[Flunitrazepam]

i never understood this phrase, does it mean just keep a closer eye on your enemies? or be nicer to your enemies with the intention of gaining and abusing their trust?

well, happy friday

ps if anyone knows how to get japanese input working on rhel 4 please let me

Re:Microsoft Warms Up to Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

does it mean just keep a closer eye on your enemies?

Yes, that's all it means.

Our Next Category: The Bleeding Obvious...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Microsoft won't be releasing its own distribution of Linux any time soon."

Wow...

And in other news, both Pope Benedict XVI and Osama Bin Laden confirmed to reporters that they "won't be converting to Judaism any time soon."

Hope the developers are planning

[Anonymous Coward]

This could get interesting - I hope the folk who actually develop F/OSS are willing to borrow a little of the "linux fundamentalist" anti-MS fervor.

Just enough to plan for and pre-empt any embrace and extend efforts. I'm not in any position to predict or strategize toward that, except to think designing things in such a way that systems failing to conform to standards properly should be made to look bad compared to those that do properly conform in enironments where F/OSS systems has anything to say about it.

Calm down

[NullProg]

This is not unexpected. Quote from the article here: Linux sales help Oracle

Oracle has been heavily marketing Linux as a way for its customers to reduce costs, and the strategy appeared to pay off: Much of Oracle's 15 percent growth came from sales of its database on Linux, Gartner said. The Linux database segment remains relatively small overall, accounting for just $654.8 million of new license sales, but it more than doubled from 2003.


Oracle on Linux doubled, Microsoft sees that. If the trend continues look for Microsoft to run thier products on cheap linux clusters.

Bill and Ballmer won't put up with Larry owning a market segment of anything. Even if it means porting to Linux.

Enjoy,

A message to our new buddies at Microsoft

[IGnatius T Foobar]

Since you folks are our friends now, would you mind documenting and publishing -- unencumbered, of course -- the parts of MAPI that will allow Outlook to connect to third-party groupware servers? The rest of the world is getting a little tired of trying to reverse-engineer it.

Sincerely,
random members of the open source community

its sensless and useless

[H9000]

if microsoft would provide a linux distro, they will messing it up like windows, this is senseless and useless. And on the other hand we do not need MS to grow the OSS. my 0.02 cent

What MS is really saying

[Anonymous Coward]

"We can sabotage Linux easier from the inside than from the outside."

Portability

[catman]

Somehow I'm not sure that word means what you think it means ... but ICBW

What platforms does Visual C++ support, again?

Because this is an OSTG propaganda site!

[Anonymous Coward]

Because this is an OSTG propaganda site!

http://slashdot.org/about.shtml

OSTG p0wns anyone who thinks they can honestly believe the reality that Slashdot pushes. OSTG is a business, just like Sun or anyone else, and they are pushing their technologies, but under the guise of a news site.

Don't get fooled.

Memo from the future

[soxos]

Back in February, Wired ran this this

Microsoft works with Linux - for a price!

[OwlWhacker]

So, Microsoft is working hard on ensuring that Linux/Open Source software operates well with Microsoft software?

"I will take [attendees] through what we use in our lab--what operating systems, what servers, how we virtualize them, how we make them all work together, how we use Microsoft management products to make it all work together."

Ah. You have to buy Microsoft management products to make it all work together.

I guess that there is going to be some product from Microsoft that allows Linux to integrate smoothly with Windows network shares? I wonder how much that's likely to cost?

what is Hilf?

[yagu]

I recently learned what MILF was... but this "Hilf" is a new one for me. Can anyone provide assistance? (I'm guessing it's Microsoft related.)

Microsoft Warms Up to Linux: The Process

[mranchovy]

1. Microsoft employees head to beach at Golden Gardens park in Seattle and reserve fire pit.

2. Employees dump 20-30 copies of Red Hat Linux in fire pit.

3. Employees pour lighter fluid on pile of Linux copies.

4. Microsoft employees set copies of Linux on fire.

5. Voila! Microsoft is now warming up to Linux.

Good idea

[ickyellf]

Microsoft would be better of pullinng an OS X and ditching the DOS/Windows kernel in favor of a Linux or FreeBSD kernel, if only for security purposes. Most Windows users don't use software that's more than a few years old anyway. They could probab;y come up with a "classic mode" for legacy apps for people who need them.

Linux should warm up

[Anonymous Coward]

I think Linux should warm up...Its been 10+ yrs and still Linux is not mainstream. I guess we all should accept failure and work on reducing too many linux distribution so as to make a few of them robust and famous...

you have obviously never used linux

[dwntwnboi]

first of all, microsoft make few products that are anywhere close to "excellent" (mostly network services, active directories, etc.). this is evidenced by spending 5 minutes using it.

second, you're correct in that microsoft has visionary leadedrship and massive amounts of talent. the problem with that is Microsoft uses this to monopolize market share. that is their only goal. like you said, they're incredibly skilled in the business of selling software. they also realize that it's cheaper and easier to spend their time and money A) convincing everyone that they are the best choice regardless of proof to the contrary and B) spending their time trying to monopolize market share instead of improving their product, basically leaving most computer users with no other choice. mocrosoft never ate the competition; ms strong-armed everyone else to the sidelines using highly questionable and very much so unethical and illegal business practices. (did i hear someone say anti-trust?)

third, linux/unix's "paltry market share" is due to very simple reasons:

1) no unity - every distro is different. so painfully different. very few OS's have ever existed that were incompatible on the application level that other versions of the same os.

2) that damned command line - ok. you're a geek. you a super-geek. you're the geekiest geek that ever there was, and you will use that damned command line till the day you die. cuz you are king of all geeks. however, 99.99999% of computer users are NOT geeks. these people need their computer to "just work" without having to screw around in a command line using decades-old syntax that appears, at best, cryptic and difficult to understand and learn. now that's all fine and good, but therin lies linux's biggest weakness: you have no choice but to use the command line for certain things. suck!

apple realized that if they were going to have lin/unix core, they would have to make sure that the gui could handle everything natively. sure, you can do it all from a command line just line li/unix, but why? oh, right, you're king geek.

3) package management - no matter what build of what distro, package management is a nightmare. if you are fortunate to have a package manager in your distro, you know that it leaves much to be desired. OSX has it almost right: if they can fix targeting so that when i move an app to a different folder, Software Update (osx's package manager) can find it and check it for updates. windows, i hate to say, has had this right since windows 98.

4) nearly non-existant marketing - linux trusts word-of-mouth and fear-of-microsoft to drive its sales. they belive that sim ply seeing it's better is enough to switch, but no distro has the money to put forth, say, incentive programs or any other motive to switch beyond "it's better"

5) most people already have windows - no matter how much better the competition might be, no one ever really wants to go through an OS switching nightmare, especially on an enterprise level. windows is easy-enough to use, but unfortunately, the better enterprise solution (at the moment), OSX, isn't available for pc's. this is microsft's biggest strength. that's why they've done everything possible to keep you from doing so, and to keep you entirely dependant on them.

fourth, i really would like to know where your comment "Microsoft dont owe you diddly squat! Not nil. Not nada," comes from. personally, i've never heard anyone claim that microsoft owes anything linux users. i can't see what they could owe. so, i suppose i agree with you here, although i don't know why you mentioned it.

anyhow, you really shouldn't rant on an opposing arguement just because you like windows and think you know what your talking about. the only thing that you've said that is even remotely true or believable is already painfully obvious: superior business strategy and better marketing. microsoft's "warming up to linux" is a survival tactic. microsoft, in the past, has never once embraced

Microsoft Will Win the Linux Pay-Off

[mpapet]

As one very wise post said, it's about extending their management tools into Linux.

As another wise post said, Microsoft knows how to sell their IP better than anyone in the industry.

Sadly, I predict Microsoft will be the ones capturing most of the revenue from the adoption of Linux in the enterprise.

Microsoft picks a couple of projects to connect their products to and lets the distros fight for the crumbs falling off the table.

Sad, really...

X configuration API?

[botik32]

The problem with your idea is that we would need to implement a whole security API into X so that some schmuck does not garbage X configuration over the net or logged in locally as an unprivileged user, or from a rogue application (virus anyone?). The solution in itself will possibly contain bugs and such.

From a security perspective, it makes much more sense to rely on the file permissions to handle the issue.

Moreover, the 'everything is a file' philosophy in Linux is pretty strong and text files are the way to configure things in Linux. Even Microsoft has admitted that linux is easier to administer than windows. So considering the API you speak of was created, then X would need to update the config file after a config via API. It will need root privileges, and that is another security issue.

Well I am not a X developer and perhaps I am spouting nonsense. But the X configuration file suit me just fine.

Re:X configuration API?

[Anonymous Coward]

No one suggested replacing the configuration text file.

The only suggestion made was regarding the way software should make changes to (for instance) config files (for instance, xorg.conf).

i.e. instead of every configuration application developer, develop his own script that parses the config file and changes whatever he wants, have the entire config file changed via a standard API exposed by some library related to the application in question (for instance, X).

In fact, the entire discussion was regarding using GUI front ends for scripts, and how doing so is an inelegent solution. (i.e. an elegent solution: have the program expose an API and eliminate the need for a script)

Linux subsystems

[katorga]

MS probably won't release a version of Linux, but they will probably add a linux subsystem to Windows. I think the recent work with SFU3.5 is simply gearing up to allow windows to run linux binaries natively.

But, releasing MSLinux for developing markets or low income businesses, would be a smart way to deliver product with almost ZERO development cost to MS.

IMO, OSS is commercial software. IBM, Novell, Redhat and a score of others are selling commercial software and they are profiting from the unpaid work of others. Its a no-brainer for a business....let geek1 slave away on the code for no salary. Grab it, release it, and sell service contracts on it. Geek1 gets zip.

Hilf has been brainwashed.

[Anonymous Coward]

I saw Hilf at a symposium in Toledo, OH. He has been totally brainwashed. He actually made a statement that the reason why OpenOffice interoperates with .doc files so well is because of Microsoft's open standards for the .doc file format. We all had a good laugh at that one. I have a feeling that his presentation is going to be similiar bullshit...

You are wrong.

[mcc]

I am not personally familiar with Kerberos. However, I know how to read documentation. So let's look at the Kerberos spec, shall we? Any emphasis below is mine.

The client prepares the KRB_TGS_REQ message, providing an authentication header as an element of the
padata field, and including the same fields as used in the KRB_AS_REQ message along with several optional fields: the enc-authorization-
data field for application server use and additional tickets required by some options.

And then later on, multiple things to the effect of:

authorization-data[10] AuthorizationData OPTIONAL

The "data authorizaton" you refer to is-- by the spec-- clearly referred to as "optional" every time it comes up. This means that spec implementors are under no obligation to observe its contents. Now, if you go and look up the original problems with the MS Kerberos extension:

From discussions with Microsoft, which were not under an NDA, the situation appeared to be as follows circa October, 1997. This information comes from the USENIX publication ;Login.

NT 5.0 will indeed use Kerberos. However, the protocol has been "extended" by Microsoft, by adding a digitally signed Privilege Attribute Certificate (PAC) to the Kerberos ticket. The PAC will contain information about the user's 128-bit NT unique id, as well as a list of groups to which the user belongs.

The NT PAC is unfortunately not compatible with the PAC's used by the Open Software Foundation's Distributed Computing Environment (DCE). It is also somewhat debatable whether the NT PAC is legal with respect to RFC-1510, the IETF Kerberos V5 protocol specification. The original intent of RFC-1510 prohibited what Microsoft was trying to do, but Microsoft found what they claimed to be a loophole in RFC-1510 specification.

Many folks, including Paul Hill and Ted T'so at MIT, as well as Cliff Neumann at ISI, have tried to work with Microsoft to find a more compatible way of doing what they wanted to do. To that end, we made changes in the upcoming revision of RFC-1510 to add a clean and compatible way of adding extensions such as Microsoft's PAC to the Kerberos ticket.

To Microsoft's credit, they agreed to change NT 5.0 to use a cleaner and more compatible way of adding extensions to the Kerberos V5 ticket ... [snip]

RFC 1510 specifies that the encrypted part of a ticket may include an optional AuthorizationData field. If the authorization-data are present, they are decrypted using the sub-session key from the authenticator. ... [specified encoding of authorization-data field follows]

Microsoft has not fully disclosed their use of the authorization data field. However some information is public knowledge at this time.... [partial, reverse-engineered microsoft encoding of authorization-data field follows]

So what we are left with is this. The Microsoft kerberos extensions took a field clearly marked in the spec as "optional" and made it non-optional, while other implementations took the optional field and ignored it. Ignoring an optional field would be a correct implementation of the specification; requiring it would not. Meanwhile by the information above, the data Microsoft carried in the field is not only seemingly not the proper encoding of the AuthorizationData field given by the spec, but contains information which was not only outside the scope of the spec, but arbitrarily defined by microsoft and then NOT PUBLICLY DOCUMENTED. Microsoft claims a "loophole" not specified justifies this, but if you use a "loophole" to add information to a protocol which breaks compatibility with existing implementations you cannot possibly blame anyone but yourself for this.

It would appear you either are misinformed or trying to mislead us.

Re:You are wrong.

[Cerebus]

Interestingly, doing what MS did in the way they did introduces a weakness in Kerberos.

The MSKDC populates the authorization-data in the ticket-granting ticket (TGT). This is copied into the TGS-REQ when a service ticket is requested, and then is copied from the request into the service ticket. Services make authorization decisions based on the group data in the service ticket.

According to Microsoft, this is an optimization issue. Enumerating group membership is relatively expensive, especially with nested groups, so MS chose to do it only once per login session, i.e. when the TGT is requested.

But what this means is if a user's group membership is changed while during the lifetime of a TGT (10 hours by default), the changes don't take effect until the user gets a new TGT.

Now, in an MS-only environment, you can mitigate this by using forced logoff. Basically, the administrator tells the workstation to discard the user's TGT, and the user is forced to get a new one, with new his new group enumeration.

But you can't do this to any other Kerberos implementation--like MIT Kerberos on Linux or Mac OS X. So if a mole logs in to his Linux box and gets a TGT from your domain at 0800 and starts using his privileges to wreak havoc, there's nothing you can do (other than physically disconnect him) until his TGT lifetime runs out 10 hours later.

Sucks to be you that day, doesn't it?

Admittedly this isn't a very likely scenario, but it does illustrate the point that mucking with security protocols at random like this can have non-intuitive effects.

Stealing ideas

[ingo23]

There are several reasons why stealing open source ideas will not bring you far. Besides obvoius legal consequences, there is a PR image. But most of all if all you have is stolen ideas, you will always be catching up with others.

here is the plan

[zmollusc]

1. Build shabby code to allow windows machines to interoperate with those cheap linux boxes that some firms are thinking about using.
2. Make a MicrosoftLinux to run on those cheap linux boxes 'to ensure it all works great together'.
3. Create incompatible MsLinux counterparts to any new Linux apps.
4. (Even more) Profit!

Mod parent up!

[catman]

n/t

It's true... We are on the path to WinX

[Glasswire]

Wow. The making nice is the first step that leads us to Linus being hired by Microsoft to put Windows on Linux

Gary Wolf is a prophet.

Actually the only thing sad is..

[Halvy]

Your comments giving ms sooo much credit.

..Sadly, I predict Microsoft will be the ones capturing most of the revenue from the adoption of Linux in the enterprise.. ..Sad, really...

Like allll of a sudden, ms is going to change directions, and become allll the things that Linux is!!

Here is a little hint buddy, (people are moving AWAY from ms,-- BECAUSE OF MS!!)

Shhhhh!! Don't tell anyone else-- it's our little secret!! :)

Ms can't sabbotoge Linux very easily

[Halvy]

Not with so many other people whatching over it, including more big name star companies.

What your saying is not the same as gates walking down the lanes at one of his plants barking out orders to screw up things on purpose for xpee.

As lin grows, so will her gate-keepers to keep the evil one from entering.

Microsoft warmed up to Apple and got $

[chia_monkey]

I'm not the biggest M$ fan around, but as a business-minded geek, I think M$ would be incredibly dumb NOT to warm up to Linux. If they were to sell Office for Linux distros, think of how much money they could make. It would make the Open Source movement more viable, making more people take it seriously, leading to yet more Office sales...So why not? Look at all the extra cash M$ got from selling to Apple's "measly" user base.

Re:Microsoft warmed up to Apple and got $

[thr33isamagicnumber]

You're right with all of those millions and millions of Linux desktops out there, and all those Linux users who would *pay* for Office - why not? Take the red pill and wake up.

Re:Microsoft warmed up to Apple and got $

[ShoobieRat]

Considering that there are a vast majority of folks promoting piracy (opps, sorry, I mean the folks protesting business by taking merchandise for free) are also pro-Linux...why would this indicate sales of MS-Office?

The only way of Microsoft's surival

[DF5JT]

"better deal with Linux".

You can fight a legal grassroot, but you can't win.

If you lose, you're dead, so only coexistence can make you survive at all.

Microsoft can only coexist by massive support of interoperability with other vendors' products and offer a palette of proprietary products of high quality and a set of unique features.

In that sense it's godd to see that MS has finally understood that its fight against Linux will not make them earn one single cent. Nobody is going to spend more money on MS's products just because MS says that Linux is evil, quite on the contrary.

They seem to have understood that it might make more sense in the long run to improve its product's qualities instead of pumping bad money into shady PR firms and legal attacks and dishonest lobbying.

Good for us.

Linux lighing a fire under MSFT's ass

[Anonymous Coward]

is how I read that. MSFT is totally warming up to Linux. Or Linux is lighting a fire under MSFT's ass.

Either or. Subjectivity.

C'mon, you can work it harder

[lewiscr]

% uname -a
Linux ... 2.6.12-1.1387_FC4smp #1 SMP Fri Jul 1 12:55:24 EDT 2005 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

% uptime
  17:27:23 up 27 days, 1:27, 75 users, load average: 3.08, 2.80, 1.95

I'm using some sort of on-board Intel video chipset.

Consumer opinion

[vga_init]

Microsoft may want to distribute linux someday in order to have a greater influence over consumer opionin.

For example, linux is getting so much press and fanfare that it can no longer be ignored. People are seeing it as a great anti-MS system, and many companies like Novell, IBM, and Red Hat are showcasing it as a premium product.

Along comes Microsoft. Let's say they package their own linux distro and then ship it as a low-cost, cheapo OS. When they market it as being lesser quality as Windows, a lot of people will be sucked in by the economic famework, "Windows costs a lot more, so it must be better, right?" Also, Microsoft can make sure the consumers know that, "...if you want this fancy function, you'll have to upgrade to Windows."

Sure, it will increase the market share of linux, and it might be a risky move for MS, but it might enable them to keep the system down in its niche like Mac OS and others.

Americans and most capitalists believe that you get what you pay for. This kind of fallacy works against linux. It's true that you can't compete with free, but "low cost solution" rubs consumers the wrong way because they've had too many runins in the past with poor production quality (as we know, software is not like hardware). Microsoft is just the corporation to pander to that fallacy and hang a light on some imagined inferiority.

Let's explain this again

[chia_monkey]

Ok...let's try to explain this again. See if you can stick with me here. Remember back in the day, before Apple was widely accepted as an enterprise machine (not that it's what you immediately think of now as a work machine but at least you're not laughed at when you mention using a Mac at the office)? Remember that? "Boss, let's use Macs here". "No Timmy, we need everyone to be able to use Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc". Macs had Word, but it still wasn't fully compatible with PCs until M$ decided to work hard to get Office to be fairly platform independent. And what-ho, you started seeing more Macs in the business environment. Most Mac users don't like MS (thus owning a Mac) but with Office being more robust, they bought it, the Mac became a viable option to use in the office, and Microsoft made money from all the sales of Office to Mac users.

Here's where we make the jump. Still with me? Linux is out there. We have sys admins pushing hard to get Linux more widely used. Coders everywhere are working on apps left and right for Linux. "Boss, let's switch our machines over to Linux". "No Timmy, we need our users to be able to use Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc". Sound familiar? Yeah, we have OpenOffice, but it's still not the same. Many CEOs, CTOs, small business owners, etc just don't feel comfortable going complete Open Source just yet. But if they know the Word document produced in Payables is readable to their clients, that eases their mind.

iTMS/mp3s (vague comparison)

[chia_monkey]

Considering that there are a vast majority of folks promoting piracy (opps, sorry, I mean the folks protesting business by taking merchandise for free) are also pro-Linux...why would this indicate sales of MS-Office?

Remember when snagging mp3s illegally was the in thing to do? Everyone said "nobody will pay for online music". Look how successful iTMS has become. It's not a direct comparison, but just because the current trend leans toward piracy (errr..."evaluation copies") doesn't mean there can't be a market with a suitable business model or case. If Linux was able to be generally more accepted in the enterprise environment one way or another (a better desktop, better support, more compatible software, etc), then what I spoke of above may just happen.