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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." "
Somebody prove this wrong. Microsoft can't like Linux, it must all be talk, right? *head explodes*
You know what they say ... if you can't beat them ... embrace and extend.
Something bad is coming when people are suddenly anxious to tell the truth.
Best way for Microsoft to kill Linux is to embrace it.
Free XBox, PS2
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.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
the same way that a robber warms up to his victim warms up to when the 'victim' pulls out a .45 caliber.
You can't handle the truth.
"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.
Keep your enemies closer?
Personally, I'd wait for Xenix 3.1.
Check it out!
Content Management System: A pretentious way of saying "text editor."
The big planet-sized MS is starting to feel the Linux moon's effects. Oh wait, that's no moon!
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
It's more likely to be "Embrace, assimilate then dump the lifeless remains"
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
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?
My pics.
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
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Why else do you think they've hired four Gentoo people over the past six months?
This is surprisingly soon after this article in which M$ repeatedly bashed Linux:s html?tid=109&tid=187&tid=106
http://linux.slashdot.org/linux/05/07/21/1218247.
Microsoft: "Oh shit, that last statement hurt our PR right before the Vista Beta release...guess we'd better warm up now!"
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?
You got any karma man? I really neeed it. Just a little hit! Come on!
Only if they paid ATI and NVIDIA to improve their Linux drivers . ,this is perhaps what needs the most improvement in the proprietary drivers. That and getting the actual support for the newer models .
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
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
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
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.
Ryan T. Sammartino
"Ancora imparo"
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.
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!'.
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
It's a trap!
~EEE~
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.
*DrugCheese rants*
Oh God I hope so.
"I worked hard for it. I deserve it. And I have it," Campbell said. "It's all mine."
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!
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
excuse me, but microsoft (at least the last time i checked) HAS a distro of linux and has for many years
mslinux.organd 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?!
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.
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.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
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...
Agile Artisans
Step five: MS-Linux needs to be GPLed anyway.
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.
Somehow I'm not sure that word means what you think it means ... but ICBW
What platforms does Visual C++ support, again?
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.
I am so smart!
I am so smart!
S-M-R-T!
I mean S-M-A-R-T!
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.
"Old man yells at systemd"
It would appear you either are misinformed or trying to mislead us.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts