Microsoft Linux Lab Manager Responds

Bill Hilf, Microsoft's Linux Lab Manager, got his answers to your questions back to us in time to publish them just before the San Francisco LinuxWorld, where he is speaking. Before you ask: Yes, Microsoft PR had a look at his answers before he sent them. So if you have any follow-up questions for Mr. Hilf, please post them below and I'll try to ask at least a few of them in person at LinuxWorld. 1) Start with the obvious
by Raul654

Dear Mr. Hilf - Surely by now you have to have been accused of helping Microsoft try to exterminate Linux. How do you respond to such accusations?

Bill:

I get that occasionally, you bet. But usually after I explain what I'm actually doing, it helps clear up the conspiracy theories (of which, there are quite a few). The truth is my job is to help Microsoft have a clear, unbiased and knowledgeable understanding of Open Source Software (OSS): the technology, the development models, how the community works, the pros and cons, and the mechanics of the overall process. So, no, Microsoft is not out to exterminate Linux or Open Source, Linux and Open Source Software will continue to be part of the software industry. My job is to help Microsoft have an understanding of the Open Source technology world.

In fact, Microsoft has benefited from OSS, has participated in OSS projects, and feels that OSS will continue to have an important role in the ecosystem. Both commercial and open source offer specific advantages. And several development models can and should coexist in healthy competition. After many years of working in both environments, a mantra I've seen pay off numerous times is "choose technology to fit the need" not based on a belief or religion: in other words, if the software doesn't solve the problem in a cost effective way, belief and religion won't stop the IT guys' cell phones and pagers from ringing at 2 AM, and that goes for *any* technology, regardless of the development model.

2) Open Standards
by Oriumpor

How does Microsoft internally deal with Open Standards and Open Document Formats?

I suppose more generally: In your testing is it solely relegated to Linux in the Server role, or do you address End-User issues as well?

Bill:

We are interested in all sorts of distributions, commercial and non-commercial, of Linux and we test many types of Open Source software overall.

We are very active in helping our product teams test out their open standards implementations. For example, we are currently doing this with Windows Server R2 (a release of Windows Server due out later this year) and its support for NFS and NIS. In a broader answer to this question, Microsoft strongly supports the promotion of open standards. Microsoft's participation in standards bodies such as IETF, W3C and OASIS, and our royalty-free contributions of technology to Web Services standards supports this commitment.

That said, Open Source does not equal Open Standards. It surprises me that this is an issue that(some) people still don't really comprehend. Let's break it down:
* The term "open standards" describes the results of a process for establishing uniform technical specifications (when used in the broader sense);
* While the term "open source," by contrast, refers to a software development and licensing model.
* Open standards may be implemented by software developed under any development and licensing model - non-OSS and OSS alike.

The VCR is a good example of a standards-based product that allowed any video tape* to play on any player - providing a marketplace of competitive VCR implementations, competitive tape media suppliers, and commercial opportunities.

*go ahead, someone say "Hey, but what about Betamax?" - but you get my point.

3) Penguin Aid?
by deathcloset

No doubt one of the activities of microsoft's linux lab is testing the security of linux.

My question is this: if you find a security vulnerability in linux, do you inform the linux community about it?

Bill:

We definitely look at security technologies in OSS in general, including Linux, but we do not actively do security code audits on Linux/OSS. We do occasionally stumble on bugs by accident in various products, and we always email the parties concerned, and it's up to them to do the right thing from that point on.

Let me give you some examples. Michael Howard, one of our security gurus here at Microsoft, has come across some issues in some projects, such as Apache.

As a company, we strongly believe in and encourage responsible disclosure of vulnerabilities. The practice of reporting vulnerabilities directly to a vendor is beneficial to everyone. It helps to ensure that customers receive high-quality software updates for security vulnerabilities, without exposure to malicious attackers while the update is being developed.

In my team's day to day work, we have discovered bugs and submitted fixes upstream. For example, the smbtorture test suite included with Samba had a bug that we identified. We provided a backtrace to the developers, and it was fixed and committed.

We also found some problems with the GAIM Instant Messaging client. GAIM's MSN via HTTP feature didn't work. The bug was noticed by our team because we had a real need for MSN via HTTP on our Linux desktops. So we fixed the issue and submitted the patch upstream.

4) Can Microsoft Ever Give Us Free As In Freedom?
by nurhussein

We've heard a lot about MS having a lower TCO etc., and who knows it may even be true in some cases, but does Microsoft realise that the reason some of us are on Linux is for the "Free as in Freedom" part? This may matter not to the PHBs, but some of the Linux users MS is trying to court such as HPC consist of engineers and scientists who operate things like particle accelerators and are unfazed by the "complexity" of Linux and appreciate the freedom to be able to customise it to their needs?

Can Microsoft ever be as liberal with their operating system as Linux developers are with Linux?

Bill:

Great question, and as someone who has spent time in the academic world as well as in the HPC world, I very much understand your point.

There's always a trade-off between modularity and integration, or said another way, there is always a balance between the ability to customize anything and everything and the ability to deliver a consistent, tested and supported software solution to a broad base of users.

This is not a Windows vs. Linux thing but more of a software design issue. The key is realizing that there's a continuum of possible trade-offs. With increased integration you have certain advantages and disadvantages, and conversely with increased modularity you have other advantages and disadvantages. As an operating system designer, you can pick where you want to be on this modularity/integration spectrum.

Microsoft has found that pursuing a balance, rather than one extreme, is a successful approach that fits the needs of our users and customers in a broad and effective way.

For the global software ecosystem, the best environment for innovation is the coexistence of OSS and commercial software. There is a good review of this successful interaction between software models here.

We try to provide the transparency and flexibility you describe through our Shared Source program. The Microsoft Shared Source Initiative is a range of programs and licenses to make Microsoft source code more broadly available to customers, partners, developers, governments, academics and other people who are interested. Shared Source now serves more than 1.5 million developers through source code access programs. What surprises most people when I tell them about our Shared Source program is that 99% of the >70 programs have full redistribution and modification rights.

5) Stranger in a strage land
by winkydink

Doesn't working at MS isolate you somewhat from the OSS community? What do you do to keep your OSS perspective and skills current?

Bill:

Believe it or not, I use more different types of OSS here at Microsoft than I've ever used before. Our team uses over 40 different flavors of Linux and BSD, plus several commercial Unix variants. Beyond this, we use an ever-growing number of OSS applications. In my spare time, I'm even learning some stuff about Windows J

I also interact with the OSS community and am in contact with many people in the OSS development community from all sorts of different projects. It's important to keep open lines of communication. We may not always agree, but the dialogue is always open and friendly.

6) Why doesn't Microsoft release Microsoft Linux?
by amper

The subject says it all (mostly).

One of the primary reasons Linux is somewhat inferior to commercial offerings when considered as a general-purpose desktop operating system is that there is a lack of a single guiding human interface standard for the various groups to work toward. Companies such as Apple Computer and Microsoft have invested large amounts of money in human interface studies, and although much of this information has been made readily accessible to the public, it would appear that very little of that information has been put to good use by F/OSS developers.

With Apple using the BSD branch of software as its operating system core, do you see a future for a Microsoft-branded Linux distribution, using a Microsoft-developed HCI design?

Though there is a large amount of enmity in the F/OSS community toward Microsoft, it cannot be denied that Microsoft's development methods are demonstrably capable of producing quality software. Could Microsoft serve as a catalyst for consolidation within the community, while remaining true to the F/OSS philosophy? Could such a strategy be profitable for Microsoft?

Bill:

Without question, our strategic bet is on Windows. Windows Vista and Longhorn mark the threshold of our next wave of innovation. This might sound a bit like an 'I drank the Kool-Aid' type answer but I've seen what we've built and are in the process of building, and I've seen what we're architecting. Our developers are creating products and technologies that are redefining what is possible with software. It's an exciting time to be at Microsoft.

But you raise a good point, which is: can there be a positive reciprocal relationship between Microsoft and the OSS development community? I strongly believe the answer is "Yes" and I spend a lot of time trying to help this relationship mature. There is a great amount we can learn from one another, and we have just begun to explore the potential of this relationship.

7) Samba
by miltimj

Is one of your projects to assist in analyzing Samba source code to help coworkers better understand the SMB protocol?

Bill:

This is not something we do, but as I mentioned above, we do use the smbtorture test suite in our labs and we do test for Samba interoperability.

8) Execs trying Linux?
by unsinged int

Have you ever managed to get any of the big shots (for example, Gates) to sit down and try Linux for a few minutes? If so, what did they say? If not, why not? Did they have an allergic reaction and try to run away from you, or have you not asked?

I think it would be interesting to hear the opinions of people at Microsoft who actually have tried Linux (with KDE, OpenOffice, Firefox, etc.), versus the standard "Linux is evil" public relations line.

Bill:

All of our executives see and occasionally use non-Microsoft technologies. This is certainly going to get me flamed, but the Microsoft executives I have worked with are typically very technical, sometimes extraordinarily so. They grasp new technologies very quickly. Sometimes they say "Hey, that problem was solved five years ago - is that it?" -- other times they say "We've got some work to do". I personally have not had an experience here where someone said 'Linux is evil!' Microsoft is a company with deep roots in technology, so most people here approach technology - our own or others - with a technologist's curiosity and interest. Easily one of my favorite things about Microsoft is its culture of curiosity about technology and its potential.

9) Windows Services for Unix
by dtfinch

Microsoft has long offered Services for Unix free for download to provide a unix-like environment on Windows. I've seen rumors and speculation that SFU will be included by default in Windows Vista, with some GPL'd portions replaced or rewritten to maintain compliance. If it's true, what level of functionality and compatibility can we expect?

Bill:

You should attend my LinuxWorld session this week J

I can't confirm what functionality will be in what version of Windows Vista. However, I can confirm that the next-generation of several components of Services for UNIX are being integrated into Windows Server 2003 R2. The NFS client, NFS Server, User/Name Mapping, Telnet Server & Client, Password Sync and NIS Server components of Services for UNIX are all present in the Windows Server 2003 R2 builds. In addition, a revamped POSIX subsystem, the "Subsystem for UNIX-based Applications" or "SUA" is also available as an optional install in R2.

Integrating this functionality in Windows Server 2003 R2 provides native support of cross-platform management tools, Windows/UNIX interoperability and UNIX to Windows application portability. This is a big help for many of the customers I talk to and something I will demonstrate at my LinuxWorld session this week.

10) Beat em or Join em?
by jdehnert

Having been in IT a looong time, I'm pretty familiar with all of the major players.

All of them have their +'s and -'s, but one of my biggest gripes about Microsoft is that instead of trying to leverage OSS, they continually try to crush or marginalize it. Over time I find myself less and less likely to consider a Microsoft solution because I know that over time Microsoft will try and make that solution less interoperable with all of my other solutions.

Microsoft would sell more software to me if I could be sure that they are NOT going to try and lock out all of my other platforms going forward.

Given your current position, does it look as if Microsoft will continue to try and marginalize OSS, or will they do an about face and work to try and ensure ongoing interoperability?

Bill:

If there's one thing that I'd like people to take away from this interview, it's that we can, and should, cooperate and learn from one another.

We love to write great software. One thing Microsoft knows well is the art of 'co-opetition' - competing and also cooperating. Both Microsoft and OSS technologies will continue to be around. We can compete - and competition is healthy - but just as important, we also need to cooperate and make sure that we pursue interoperability as a common goal. We need to be comfortable doing both, simultaneously. We need to have an open, mature relationship.

The key to making this happen is to have open lines of communication. If someone in the OSS community runs into a technical interoperability problem with Microsoft products, I want to know about it. In many cases, we'll be able to do something to resolve the issue. There may be a solution that already exists. Or the problem could be related to an issue that might need to be addressed by one of our product teams. But at the very least, I'll try my best to help and give you a straight answer.

One of my first demos to a high-level executive involved showing some standards-based Linux/Windows interoperability scenarios. I expected to receive an "If it's not built here, then I don't care" kind of response.

To my surprise, his reaction was the opposite: "This is good--we should do more of this type of thing." And I've seen this commitment from many others here at Microsoft, in a variety of roles. At the end of the day, we want software to "just work" too. That's what great software is all about.
If you'd like to contact me directly, I can be reached at billhilf at microsoft dot com.

------

Comments

Lone Wolf?

[sessamoid]

Hilf's answers sound quite reasonable, something that most of us don't associate with Microsoft. I understand that his answered were cleared by MSFT public relations department, but that's not quite the same as saying that the company as a whole feels the same way he does. How much of this is just him and/or his department, and how much of this is truly the attitude of the company as a whole? A lot of what some of the other talking heads at Microsoft have been saying over the years is not only different, it's often completely counter to Hilf's views.

Re:Lone Wolf?

[krappie]

Hilf's answers sound quite reasonable, something that most of us don't associate with Microsoft.

You're right. Someone needs to put quotes of this guy right next some famous MS executive quotes.

Hilf:
"I personally have not had an experience here where someone said 'Linux is evil!'"

Ballmer:
"Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches"

Re:Lone Wolf?

[zr-rifle]

Actually unreasonable is what you would expect from the Microsoft PR department, not viceversa. Techie guys obviously have no interest whatsoever in corporate FUD and guerilla marketing tactics. They're interested in the value of technology and, since Microsoft employs some of the best and brightest in the field, this is a typical no-nonsense response you'd normally get from one of them.

A very interesting read and no doubt very flammable material to link to on the linux zealot forums.

Re:Lone Wolf?

[frodo from middle ea]

Umm, what about the stuff where they discovered a bug in GAIM talking to MSN over HTTP ?

I know it's too much too ask to RTFA, but atleast RTF Text of the submission.

Be it Microsoft or any other company, what ever that goes to the press/public has better be cleared thru PR dept. especially if it involves a sesetive issue for the company.

you can ask IBM about linux and get non PR quoted stuff, but ask them about SCO, and be sure to get a PR approved response. That's what responsible business do.

Re:Lone Wolf?

[morgan_greywolf]

I don't know. Towing the party line about Microsoft supporting open standards?

If there's one thing Microsoft clearly does NOT do, it's support open standards, especially when it's not in their own best interests. Microsoft plays the game of 'embrace, extend, extinguish' with open standards much of the time.

If Microsoft is so willing to support open standards and interoperability, then I challenge them to produce a version of Microsoft Office that offers full and complete support for reading and writing the OASIS Open Document format -- without breaking the standard.

Otherwise, I call shenanigans!

Re:Lone Wolf?

[man_of_mr_e]

I'm curious. What makes you think the OASIS standard is even worth supporting? Other than as an interoperability device to OOo that is.

I'm not suggesting that open standards shouldn't be the goal, but just because a standard exist doesn't make it a good one.

I've looked at the OASIS standard, and it seems pretty much just modeled after OOo, which means that any product that doesn't map to it 1:1 is going to break the standard.

The OASIS standard just adopted OOo's format, there was no working group that developed it from scratch to be a an open and extensible standard. That's what needs to be done, IMO.

Re:Lone Wolf?

[MightyMartian]

Ballmer says what investors want to here. Here's the ultimate Microsoft robo-marketer.

Re:Lone Wolf?

[bheer]

The interesting thing is that Gates does represent the engineer/technical side of Microsoft: he's even given up his managerial role (barring Chairman of the board which is a nonexecutive role) and become Chief Software Architect. And oh yes, he's definitely in charge, though of late Microsoft has been trying to copy the IBM playbook and integrate marketing better into its engineering process and has brought in non-engineer types (outsiders, even) into leading roles to fix Microsoft's marketing and sales.

The bigger point here is that engineers grow into finance and management -- it's quite common in several industries. You might even have to do this yourself some day. If you do, you'll be surprised how quickly computing's holy wars cease to be of interest.

Re:Lone Wolf?

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

Ballmer says what investors want to here. Here's the ultimate Microsoft robo-marketer.

I would imagine so, it is his job, after all. It would be kind of silly to look to Ballmer to say anything intelligent about technology, that's not his cup of tea.

Re:Lone Wolf?

[MightyMartian]

Then perhaps Ballmer should stop talking. He (and Gates to a lesser extent) have made asses of themselves, and now what? They hope that some on-staff OSS guy is going to make all the crap they've said go away.

Here's a tip to Ballmer and all those miserable little weasels in Microsoft's overly large marketing department. If you really want a decent, healthy and productive relationship with OSS developers and advocates, then start by telling the arrogant pr*cks that run your company that when they compare Linux to a cancer or OSS to Communism, the message their sending isn't exactly friendly or inviting, and that though they may send in the troops under a flag of peace (as with this interview above), there's no reason in the world to believe them.

You know, I'd be happy if Microsoft would just make a commitment not to try to sh*t on open standards like they did with Kerberos. But we all know that this is part of their marketing strategy. I'll tell you who the cancer on the computer industry is, it's Microsoft, and there's fifteen years worth of abusive practices to back up what I say.

Re:Lone Wolf?

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft would like nothing better but for Linux and Apache to die.

I find this to be a really strange and disingeneous comment. First, given that most /bots would like nothing more than to see Microsoft "die", it's not like anyone has any sort of moral high ground. Second, they're a company! Of course they'd like their competitors on the losing end of things. Don't you think that IBM, Red Hat or Apple would like it if all their competitors suddenly went away?

Re:Lone Wolf?

[gronofer]

Microsoft seem happy to accept that open source has its place, but that place doesn't involve competing with any Microsoft product.

Yes there is a place for open source developers, writing libraries that can be pulled into Windows, or writing add-ons for Microsoft Word.

They will never accept Linux if it means losing a sale.

Re:Lone Wolf?

[Rutulian]

Well, I agree. I'm sure most of the people that work at Microsoft are reasonable and technologically oriented people. I think the animosity between the open source community and Microsoft doesn't come from a dislike for the people. It comes from a dislike for company practices and policies, some of which are just due to it being a commercial company, but others are unnecessarily predatory and anticompetitive.

Like you said, .NET is technically very good. Why doesn't the open source community like it? Because they can't safely implement a set of libraries for interoperability without worrying about patent issues. Sun's implementation of Java isn't open either, but the Java standard is, and the open source community can attempt (so far, not so well) to implement a gpl'd version. Mono is attempting to do the same thing with .NET, but a lot of people are concerned about intellectual property issues, and I doubt any major distribution will ever ship it out of the box.

Re:Lone Wolf?

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft is a criminal enterprise, pure and simple. A US Federal Court has found MS guilty of violations of US anti-trust laws, and EU courts have brought and won several cases against MS for similar crimes.

No company that behaves the way MS has behaved deserves business from anyone - not the public, not the US or EU governments and not the good people of the Slashdot community.

Technical questions are just that - technical. What we have in MS is not a company that accumulated vast wealth through innovation and furtherance of the common good, but rather a voracious, unscrupulous predator that has set back and held back real progress in computing in order to line the pockets of robber barons like Bill Gates and his lackeys.

No person with an ounce of decency or the least scintilla of respect for fair play in open markets should care an iota whether a group of criminals like MS can, after a couple of decades, produce an operating system that doesn't totally suck, or have decided to pretend they aren't out to crush the open software market.

Re:Lone Wolf?

[huckleup]

Umm, what about the stuff where they discovered a bug in GAIM talking to MSN over HTTP ?

You apparently don't know much about the game of "hard ball".

It's like organized crime, where they donate a few bucks to the local churches and kids programs to show a soft public side, meanwhile they are selling drugs and strong arming the local businesses in the back rooms. The public show allows people to believe they're really 'good at heart' and the rest is just 'part of the business'.

It's also very possible that the GAIM people knew that M$ was inspecting thier code and if M$ didn't report the errors the GAIM people could make a public statement that M$ was aware of this and didn't say anything, and turn it into a public negative. I bet there are plenty of flaws in other vendor's code that they never reported. But they keep a few instances around to name-drop so that they can say "look at how we're being good guys".

This is exactly what the first E in the EEE is all about - "Embrace". Make it look like you are working along side everybody else. But don't forget about the "Extend" and "Extinguish" parts. It's tactic versus strategy. Ultimately it is M$'s goal to extinguish their competition (as is the case with most businesses...).

Don't be fooled by the smiles and hand-shaking of the day. Look at the long term results and implications.

Re:Lone Wolf?

[sriram_2001]

Perhaps someone should tell the Slashdot crowd, Asa, Eric and other prominent folks in the OSS world that when they refer to Microsoft as 'evil', 'M$' or Windoze, they aren't doing anybody any favours either. And don't talk about Microsoft spreading FUD without looking at the number of Linux-related folks saying "Firefox/Apache is more secure" without understanding (a) What security actually is (b) What the track record for Firefox and IE or Apache 2 and IIS 6 is in recent times.

Re:Lone Wolf?

[man_of_mr_e]

I didn't say that a working group HAD to be better, but single entity "standards" typically are not designed with anything other than the entity in mind.

Yes, i have far too many examples than i can list here, but here are a few:

No way to extend already defined elements. If, for example I want to extend an element to include a new type of border element or style, you can't... at least not without breaking the standard.

Foreign elements are not required to be preserved. This means that if I DO extend the standard, no other application is required to preserve any elements not in the standard. This makes it effectively useless to extend it at all, since loading it into any other word processor will likely cause your data or formatting to disappear.

Re:Lone Wolf?

[j-pimp]

The OASIS standard just adopted OOo's format, there was no working group that developed it from scratch to be a an open and extensible standard. That's what needs to be done, IMO.

The problem is the OASIS seem to be support bottom up and you seem to be in favor of top down standards. Allowing some product to become the referenmce implementation for a standard becasue the product proved itself is not a bad idea.

Microsoft Word has become a defacto standard for document interchange. This has happened because everone uses Word and so everyone has word. As a side effect, everything that isn't word tends to import/export to word to different degrees.

There are people that feel that the Open Office format solves the same problems as the word format does besides the universal interoperability. You may argue the LaTeX or some other technology is better. Regardless, a group of these people created an infrastructure for other products to implement the OpenOffice standard so in an attempt to evolve the open office standard from a propietary OO only thing to a bottom up defacto standard.

The top down approch you speak of has only the intangiable benifit of making a standard that "better for everyone". It has the very tangable drawback of Open Office would have to implement this standard.

Re:Lone Wolf?

[Knuckles]

Read Brian Jones' (manager of MS Word development group) blog and the comments (esp. June/July archive IIRC). The OASIS standard looks like OOo because MS declined to take part in its development. Then they turned around and claimed that since OASIS doesn't do what they need, they to have to develop a competing XML file format in Office 12.

What makes you think the OASIS standard is even worth supporting?

EU encouragement?

Re:Lone Wolf?

[MightyMartian]

When I talk about Microsoft's behavior, I don't just refer to its anti-Linux and anti-OSS nonsense, which really ended up being badly done propaganda campaigns. Let's look at how it went after Netscape and how it tried to destroy Java by violating its licensing agreement with Sun. Let's talk about how it forced manufacturers in the early and mid-90s to install Windows. Microsoft has earned its bad reputation, and these silly little fluff interviews look to me to be nothing more than some attempt to brush the bad behavior under the carpet. Microsoft's record is clear. It does not like OSS and as far as open standards go, it will happily advertise that it supports them, but will promptly find some way to break them to create vendor lock in.

Re:Lone Wolf?

[d34thm0nk3y]

The OASIS standard just adopted OOo's format, there was no working group that developed it from scratch to be a an open and extensible standard. That's what needs to be done, IMO.

From the OASIS FAQ:

OpenDocument has been developed as an application-independent format by a vendor-neutral OASIS Technical Committee (TC) with the participation of multiple office application vendors. The basis for the OASIS OpenDocument TC's work indeed was the OpenOffice.org XML file format, but even the OpenOffice.org XML file format was developed as an application-independent file format that is not usable by the OpenOffice.org application only.

The OASIS OpenDocument TC will extend OpenDocument v1.0 to encompass additional areas of applications or users, and also will adapt the specification to incorporate recent developments in office applications. OASIS members who are interested in participating in the further development of OpenDocument are encouraged to join in this work.

Sounds pretty open and extensile to me...

Re:Lone Wolf?

[killjoe]

You do see the difference between some anonymous schmuck at /. saying something and Bill Gates saying something right? I'll give you a hint. When one says something it's covered by Time and Newsweek when the other says something maybe a thousand people read it.

When Bill Gates called you a communist the entire world heard that. To them you are a communist and a cancer on society and should be treated as such. Will there be consequences for you in the future? Probably.

Isn't Longhort == Vista?

[A beautiful mind]

Windows Vista and Longhorn mark the threshold of our next wave of innovation.

Isn't Longhorn == Vista?

Flame awa, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

like the man said, I, too, put my money on MS in the long run. I've been in the IT industry too long and seen too much to believe that MS will back down anytime soon. Linux has actually helped MS improve itself. Unfortunatley, too many people put freedom above all else. People talk about open source in here like it's the 2nd coming, but if the truth be known, almost nobody save developers and the zealots care about seeing the source.
As a guy whos purposely moving away from being a techie into management, I can tell you that all I care about is getting the job done. I could care less whether that solution is MS or linux. Whatever works. Open standards, though are imperative for us all to play nicely.

Re:Flame awa, but...

[kg4gyt]

Its not all about the code. I rarely look at open source sourcecode, however the OSS community is much more inviting and helpful than commercial groups. The reason: Commercial groups just want your money, while OSS groups are already giving the software away.

OSS also lacks the restrictions that Microsoft places on the consumer such as product activation, automatic-updates that don't always work, etc. etc.

OSS isn't all about the soucecode, its about the community behind it.

Re:Flame awa, but...

[KingBahamut]

Entirely your choice Duff, didnt say everyone should ditch the idea of being a manager, only said I couldnt do it. I often liken this opinion to something LE said a number of years back.

"When I started Oracle, what I wanted to do was to create an environment where I would enjoy working. That was my primary goal. Sure, I wanted to make a living. I certainly never expected to become rich, certainly not this rich. I mean, rich does not even describe this. This is surreal."

Go take your management position, go make more money. Or do something you love and make a mark for yourself.

Change the chairs

[Iriel]

Personally, if I were in control of Microsoft, I'd want Hilf to be talking to the public instead of Ballmer. Ballmer gives talks about how much more secure Windows Server 2003 is compared to Red Hat 6 as a definative blow to all things Linux. On the other hand, I actually like this guy's position. While it's possible that it could just be PR to make us watch the left hand while the right is up to no, good, it is also quite possible that Hilf is genuine in his approach to technology. In either case, he comes off as a personality that is far more trustworthy than Steve. And trust seems to be a key ingredient in building customer/provider relations.

Just my two cents

What the other than is doing

[alvinrod]

I don't doubt that there are a lot of people at Microsoft who really do make wonderful and innovative products and don't care one wiff if someone wants to use an OSS solution.

However, it's plainly clear that one hand isn't aware of what the other is doing. Here we have someone suggesting that Microsoft is about cooperating and being friendly towards the OSS community, which is probably true. Yet the upper management in Microsoft seems more content on crushing or marginalizing OSS rather than fostering the cooperation that a lot of the people in the company might feel.

I can understand this as the people lower on the totem pole probably get a flat salary and some stock options on occasion if they want them. The top brass makes money whenever the company sells an MS product and potentially loses out when someone tries OSS software. The guys making the same $40 (or whatever) an hour will make that same $40 whether or not John Doe runs Linux, Windows, or OS X. Granted that they would be laid off if no one bought Windows and the company went under, but that seems a little unreasonable at this point in time.

It's pretty clear though that there are some mixed and widely different viewpoints in the company. A lot of hardcore Linux people could easily write this off as more junk from the evil MS, but I actually feel that these are truthful answers that are believable. However, since Mr. Hilf isn't calling all the shots, it really doesn't matter how he feels. Microsoft upper management will generally tend to pursue tactics to get rid of Linux.

Re:I love this quote:

[interiot]

that is only possible if they are keeping a tight reign on their inner voice for public consumption.

Name me any Fortune-500 companies that DON'T prohibit their employees from talking directly to the press, or otherwise require the PR/legal departments to review all public statements? Having the CEO say "Linux is a cancer" to mainstream press and having a peon say "we benefit from and contribute to OSS!" to Slashdotters definitely gives you a slimy feeling about microsoft, but don't include the tight control over public statements as one of your reasons to mark MS off as slimy.

Keep you friend close...

[IA-Outdoors]

but your enemies closer. You have to remember that MS is in this for the bottom line and Linux and OSS is eating into their bottom line. While the answers given seem to show some sort of appreciation for Linux and OSS, I would say it is really less appreciation than respect for an enemy. To MS's credit, they are finally giving in that there is something to be learned from the various practices in the OSS world.

Re:What a load of crap

[bloggins02]

If you look closely you'll realize that was written by the original question submitter, not Hilf.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

so he said nothing

[Anonymous Coward]

I could not find *any* specification on what he is actually doing, besides he is 'studying'.

more like Wolf in a Penguin Suit

[ch-chuck]

The Borg Motor Corp. tells thier customers that "Quality is Job One", they tell their employess that "Safety is Job One", but they tell their stockholders the truth, that "Profits are Job One". Msft has a long history of doing anything to accomplish Job One, and there's nobody they won't shake hands with then stab-in-the-back to do it. This lab manager makes 1) good pr for a company will tons (billions) of ill-gotten gain to throw around and 2) helps them understand the competition better in order to win contracts that someone else may get.

Re:What a load of crap

[Iriel]

All blame issues aside concerning who asked, there's another piece of the UI puzzle to be considered:

You seem to enjoy using KDE (so do I, actually) and while it has come very far in a relatively short period of time (if my information is correct), it's more than just the look that makes a UI. For example, Joe Sixpack likes no-strings-attached binaries, not tar.bz2 files or .rpms that could have some insane dependancy problems. I think the majority of debates about User Interface that compare Linux/Mac/Windows/Whatever is not just how it looks or it's features, but a matter of out-of-the-box usability. In the current state of Linux, the average Joe Sixpack doesn't think it's all that usable yet. Not that it can't be, but there is still work to be done. Just my opinion.

Re:Very illuminating

[KingBahamut]

hmmmm....its easy to say we dont have the cojones to ask the proper questions....but you dont have the brass balls to speak your name publically. That says alot.

Windows Java.

[crovira]

You know that don't you?

Re:Yeah, right

[AltGrendel]

I should have stopped reading right there, knowing the whole piece is spin.
Sometime it's a good idea to read the whole thing to get an idea of what angle they're trying to spin. Then you can come up with an inteligent counter-argument.

Re:Has Gates *really* tried Firefox?

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

If is this the case, then why does the IE7 beta include so many features from Firefox/Opera like tabbed browsing and support for RSS feeds?

Because, according to Gates, IE7 has all the good parts of Firefox and more.

There seems to be a lot of this "Firefox had it first, IE is just copying Firefox" type coments going around. But why not copy good features from other applications? If the features that Firefox "had first" are so great (and they are), I would expect other browser developers to integrate simular feature. Just because Firefox had them first doesn't mean Firefox has exclusive rights to them.

Followups..

[naelurec]

And several development models can and should coexist in healthy competition. .. but Microsoft does not like competition and kills it at any opportunity by buying out companies, having "creative" budling agreements with OEMs and so forth. Many companies have decided against investing into new ideas because of these anti-competitive practices. How does that create a "healthy competition"?

Microsoft's participation in standards bodies such as IETF, W3C and OASIS

I was unaware of their participation in OASIS .. does this mean we will see the Office suite utilize OASIS in the future or atleast provide the ability to easily import/export OASIS documents?

How about W3C? Seems like MS is very much behind in their "participation" to web standards.

The VCR is a good example of a standards-based product that allowed any video tape* to play on any player - providing a marketplace of competitive VCR implementations, competitive tape media suppliers, and commercial opportunities.

Kinda like how FOSS can *generally* be easily run on any operating system providing a marketplace of competitive OS implementations, hardware architectures and commercial opportunities. Like you said "best tool for the job.."

At the end of the day, we want software to "just work" too. That's what great software is all about.

  What better way to make it "just work" than have Microsoft create it all! hehe..

Overall I don't see much value in this interview at all.. there is no doubt that the Linux guy at Microsoft would get this level of treatment. Microsoft needs guys inside the company that fully understands the competition and can provide information so the execs/marketing can maintain success in the marketplace.

The bottom line is this guys reality is not anywhere close to what is happening. Microsoft fostering friendly competition? Microsoft adhering to and promoting open standards (w3c, oasis as examples??)? 'co-opetition'?? Blech.

Needless to say, I wouldn't mind having this guys job .. mess around with FOSS all day, get paid well to do so and every once in a while fire off some BS to management about the state of FOSS (copy and paste from slashdot?? :)

We seek peaceful coexistence...

[DoofusOfDeath]

The truth is my job is to help Microsoft have a clear, unbiased and knowledgeable understanding of Open Source Software (OSS): the technology, the development models, how the community works, the pros and cons, and the mechanics of the overall process. So, no, Microsoft is not out to exterminate Linux or Open Source, Linux and Open Source Software will continue to be part of the software industry.

His job isn't to exterminate Linux, just get accurate info about it to M$.

In other news, the AEGIS radar system on a DD(G) guided missle cruiser doesn't kill enemies. It just gives fire control information to the ship, which then uses surface-to-air missles to kill the enemies.

Really

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

I still feel like this entire linux lab thing is just a random PR gesture by Microsoft. It won't ever come to anything, they're just trying to make themselves look less menacing by going "See? We can use Linux too".

You are missing the point. It has nothing to do with "See? We can use Linux too". It has to do with Microsoft understanding their competition, and picking apart OSS to glean the parts that are valuable to them and can be integrated into their commercial products. It's part of the research and development process, and any smart company should do the same thing with competitors products.

Re:Open Standards?

[argent]

Well, he's basically right on the distinction between open source and open standards. You can have open source software that is not an open standard... for example, the only practical way to interoperate with rsync is with another copy of rsync... the protocol itself is only documented in the source code. You can have closed-source software that implements open standards: UNIX itself fell into that category, and Microsoft has actually created a number of widely used open standards.

But I have a similar reaction to you. If Microsoft strongly supported the promotion of open standards the Samba folks wouldn't have had to reverse-engineer SMB, you would never have needed to sign anything to get the skinny on any of their published protocols and interfaces, and so on.

A few thoughts

[bogie]

"But for a commercial for-profit company that depends on people buying their product, doesn't it make sense that Microsoft can be only so friendly to OSS?"

Why not? In case you hadn't realized it there are like maybe ONE or TWO companies that make a living selling OSS products and services.

Of course they could embrace OSS and make money off of it. They could even port IE and Office to Linux and sell them while keeping the source closed. They just choose not to.

btw the whole "we don't hate OSS" line this guy is giving off is a laugh. It may be his job to present unbiased information to MS, but right above his head are people whose lives are dedicated to wiping out a common good, ie linux and oss.

MS or anyone else for that matter being openly against Linux and OSS is like being against a cure for cancer. Your a horrible person if you feel that way. Quality Free software for the common good is a noble goal.

Nope

[QMO]

An open source developer can quit anytime, he gets to decide what he contributes. He even gets to decide how much (or if) he gets paid.

The means of production of free/open software are privately held.
This is NOT communism.

In communism the means of production are publicly held.
In true communism you couldn't own your computer.
According to some scholars, Marx's main contribution to communism was the advocacy of revolution to achieve communism.

Re: Lone Wolf

[spitzak]

The GPL allows me to retain control of my code. It is extremely capitalist. Programmers use it exclusively for reasons of Ayn-Randian greed. Look up "dual licensing" if you still don't have a clue. In today's world writing GPL software is the ONLY way to distribute software that you really own in a way where you may potentially make a profit or get credits or a job, unless you are the head of one of the dozen or so very large software firm. This is the real reason Microsoft attacks the GPL so much, it is really it's only competition.

"Communist" would apply a bit better to BSD code, as supposedly all your work is contributed to everybody to do what they want with it, though none of it really applies that well.

Other comparisons of Microsoft to controlled economies to reverse the argument are fun but irrelevant, as the original poster pointed out. Supposedly "ideal communisim" would not require a controlled economy.

His answers seem "odd".

[hkb]

Disclaimer: I'm a non-Linux-using Windows 2003/OS X drone, not a troll.

One thing Microsoft knows well is the art of 'co-opetition' - competing and also cooperating. Both Microsoft and OSS technologies will continue to be around. We can compete - and competition is healthy - but just as important, we also need to cooperate and make sure that we pursue interoperability as a common goal. We need to be comfortable doing both, simultaneously. We need to have an open, mature relationship.

When I read several of his answers, including the one above, I couldn't help but think his answers were passed through Microsoft's market-droid reality distortion field.

When has Microsoft EVER been about cooperation when it doesn't directly benefit their profit? Office doc formats? HTTP? HTML, DHTML, J++, Java?

"His" answers are filled with laughable irony. With all due respect, don't feed this tripe out, Bill & Microsoft.