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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.
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.