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Microsoft Proposes Cooperative Research With OSDL
turnitover writes "According to eWEEK.com, Microsoft has proposed to work with OSDL for a 'facts-based analysis of Linux and Windows.' Could this just be a case of the fox contracting security for the hen house?" Martin Taylor, Microsoft's general manager of platform strategy, declined to comment on the specifics of what was discussed when he met with OSDL's CEO Stuart Cohen, only to say that they met.
Would microsoft support OSDL the same way they supported java?
Microsoft might be genuinely interested in learning from GNU/Linux since they obviously need all the help they can get. I was reading that Longhorn will finally have GNU/Unix-like user permissions. Besides, it makes sense from a strategic point. What's the Sun Tzu saying? "Keep your friends close, your enemies closer." Perhaps Microsoft will lure away all of the OSDL developers (aka Mono & the head of Gentoo) with money for starving developers to take the wind out of Linux. Just tractor beam in all of the major talent and learn from the "enemy."
If it's Linux, were perfectly safe. Little thing called the GPL.
But you can bet your last cent that Microsoft wants to `cooperate' under a BSD license.
The unofficial
Is MS necessarily the fox? It seems to me that open source projects target MS products, not the other way around. Consider Firefox. Take a look at Firefox's lineage and you'll find Netscape Navigator, once upon a time a commercial product. To keep up with IE, NN became free and open source in 1998. The descendants of NN have been playing market share catch-up ever since, even taking out large ads in major newspapers.
I think in this case it's the hen opening a dialog with the fox.
"approaching the OSDL (Open Source Development Labs) to work with it on a joint, independent research project "
How can this be 'joint' and 'independent' at the same time? Specially when MS is one of the parties?
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
In the meantime, you can look back at the last 25 years of computer history and view the landscape full of the broken, rotting carcasses of everyone, from PDA manufacturers to OS/2, who ever "collaborated" with Microsoft and thought it would result in something other than betrayal followed by their complete and utter destruction.
Hey, Microsoft wants to "collaborate" with open source? Maybe they could never mind the PR movements and "research", and just fucking document their formats and protocols so that open source software isn't left a second-class, reverse-engineered citizen in the world full of computers Microsoft owns.
1) They seek to make their own "Get the Facts" campaign appear more legitimate by having OSDL create a similar one. Right now, a lot of people assume that Microsoft isn't telling the whole truth in their advertising, but if Red Hat or some other Linux company started doing the same, then some people might start believing it. By not fighting back, they actually make Microsoft seem almost desperate.
2) They want OSDL to do market research for them from their "customer base" so Microsoft can take that research to improve Windows in these areas. If Microsoft can absorb the features that people value most about Linux into Windows, the theory goes that they can then crush Linux.
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
This has nothing to do with religion.
This has everything to do with empirical evidence of MS actions in regards to "cooperating" with other organizations and efforts.
Funny how any techie could rattle off at least a few well known and high profile cases of MS shafting it's "development partners". And yet you sit here and rattle off some crap about religious zealots and "not being so sure".
Well... that about sums it up don't it.
Obviously you're too much an idiot to bother trying to explain anything to , or too much an asshole to bother with.
but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt either way.
- lest I be too quick to judge.
So here's a bone:
Name 1 competing software manufacturer that MS has dealt with on a cooperative basis that MS hasn't stolen from, lied to, killed out right or simply aquired.
OSS/FS stands to gain nothing.
MS stands to gain everything.
OSS/FS stands to lose everything.
MS stands to lose nothing.
Questions -
Who has it?
Who doesn't?
Who wants it?
What will happen if they get it?
Which brings us to: Why agree to this in the first place?
And if that's the case, there's no advantage to Linux to accommodate them.
Always make sure your opponent knows as little about you as possible.
Probably what Microsoft is aiming for is a server "face-off" where they get to tweak Windows 2003 Server against one or more of the Linux servers (Red Hat or SUSE) - and then swing the conditions so they win or can at least spin that they won.
They've steadily lost these comparisons before (by up to a factor of 2 - 2.5.) This way they could "truthfully" say that it was a non-Microsoft-sponsored comparison that was agreed to by the OSDL.
There's no incentive for Linux to contribute to Microsoft's competitive advantage against Linux by being manipulated like this.
Nothing Taylor says can be taken for anything but a lie, anyway. He's a Microsoft employee and they are paid to lie at all times. So whatever his stated motivations, they're false.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
"It's a trick. Get an axe"
-Ash _Army of Darkness_
Bill Gates - Creationist?!?
DO NOT LET MS do anything that could screw up Linux.
1) Microsoft has absolutely no control over the Linux kernel code. No legal trick or hollow threat from M$ will affect the avid Linux user.
2) Besides, anything they "screw up" would have to be re-released under the GPL. They're so freakin' scared of the GPL they'll just stay away from the code and
3) fuel their anti-Linux marketing. The best/only thing they can do is keep Windows users running Windows and make money as population increases.
No only is Microsoft for this, but it's own architect of the "Get the Facts" campaign, Martin Taylor.
There must be strings attached.
Whatever the trap, a) we should avoid the bait or b)figure out what they are up to (I'm not smart enough to see it) because whatever the case - Microsoft isn't about to fund a study that shows it bad in security.
And what's the need to analyze Microsoft security?
First: The computers in research studies can be unrealisticly hardened on both sides - Windows more so because the default installation isn't tested most of the time - just a dream system hardened by EXPERTS. How many Windows users turn off the default services they don't need along with turning off ActiveX.
Second: How is this a learning experience? Microsoft already knows what it does wrong. But it can't take the cure because they think it's too painful - rip out ActiveX, make Internet Explorer and Explorer more removable and more modular so it's not soldered to the system, same with Outlook, etcetera.
I only wish it were true, but I think you are sadly mistaken.
Most people are completely unaware that Microsoft is a convicted monopolist.
Most people have no idea what Linux is. By the way, who owns Linux again? Who exactly is going to sue Microsoft?
Microsoft has been screwing around with Linux in every possible legal way it can. (Follow the SCO money trail or their many funded TCO studies and other FUD campaigns).
Microsoft's track record speaks volumes about their lack of respect for every company they have ever entered into an agreement with.
They buy (or steal technology) and proclaim innovation. They pay lip service to security and standards. They embrace and extend.
If they truly want to learn, as you naively assert, let them make the first gesture: Make a standards compliant browser, support open document formats, open the source code for products they no longer want to support.
Personally, I would have to see a BIG gesture before I believed they've changed their ways and actually were willing to work together.
"Kittens give Morbo gas!"
Maybe they are going to just ask "Why do you hate our software so much?" and try to get people back into their camp....
I see nothing wrong with that, however I don't think it will work.
Get your Unix fortune now!
Unfortunately if OSDL turn them down, Microsoft will make out that they're scared to compare Linux with Windows properly.
That didn't really make sense. But I'm going to post it anyway.
I'm more inclined to believe that Microsoft wants to use this as publicity. If OSDL decline Microsoft will says "see, they know their software is inferior". If they accept then Microsoft can spend a lot of money and get OSDL to pay their half (which would probably bankrupt them).
Not strictly, no. It's marketing. Same thing, different name.
Remember: Microsoft is first and foremost a marketing firm.
You should never believe what a marketing firm says. Their purpose in life is to lie in whatever way necessary to get you to buy whatever they're trying to sell. They'll say anything and do anything, no matter how false or shallow. I need only point at the huge pile of advertisements that surround you to illustrate that. Not one of them gives you the straight scoop. Not a single one.
Just like every politician out there.
Marketing, like politics, is the antithesis of truth.
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
Once upon a time, Microsoft partnered with IBM to try and 'fix' DOS, and the two companies created OS/2, with the much larger IBM shouldering most of the development costs.
Microsoft decided that OS/2 wasn't for them, and left IBM holding the bag. They retained the right to use the OS/2 source, but quietly went away.
IBM went on, developing and marketing an independant version of OS/2 for a while, and suddenly, out of the blue, Microsoft comes out with an All New, All Different, Next Generation OS called Windows NT and proceeded to sanctimoniously kick the crap out of IBM on the market.
Where are they now? OS/2 is officially done according to IBM, and hackers are clamouring for an open source release, and Windows NT is up to version 5.1 (as Windows XP Professional) and dominating the desktop OS market.
DO NOT TRUST MICROSOFT! THEY ARE UP TO SOMETHING!
Knee-jerk Microsoft bashing aside for a moment, consider: the halloween documents suggest pretty stongly that Microsoft is scared shitless by Linux specifically, and by Open Source in general, wondering aloud how one attacks a process instead of a company.
Doesn't anyone else see this as some kind of a "fishing expidition" on Microsoft's part?
Maybe some kind of credibility bait, as others here have suggested ("See? Even OSDL says that Windows Server 2003 beats Linux in the areas of etc.") or maybe something much much more Dastardly.
Learn the OS/2 lesson that IBM illustrated for us. No matter how amicable the partnership, no matter how shared the initial goals, Microsoft can not be trusted!
-- "Have you ever seen your own brain?"