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OSDL Skeptical Of Joint Study with Microsoft
Jac writes "An interview with ZDNet reveals the low opinion Stuart Cohen, chief of Open Source Development Labs(OSDL), has of a recent Microsoft proposal to conduct a joint study on on deploying Microsoft Vs Linux. From the article: 'As far as working with Microsoft on a study, Microsoft could probably find one negative line on Linux in a 100-page research report that it would spend $10 million marketing while ignoring the other 99 pages...' An interesting follow-up to a recent Slashdot article.
Wont microsoft take this skeptism, and then spend 10 million in marketing to say that OSDL backed out of an open test because they know linux is inferior? FP btw
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While I am biased to believe that Microsoft cannot be trusted to take an truly independent report at face value, the OSDL will be hard pressed to pass on this opportunity. If you doubt this, imagine the spin Microsoft marketing could put on the alternate headline: "OSDL declines Microsoft offer for independent analysis". Looking at this angle, I actually have to tip my hat to Microsoft; the OSDL will have to handle this situation perfectly to avoid exposing an exploitable weakness. Above all, I think this move shows that Microsoft has escalated their offensive, bringing the battle for business customers onto free and open source software's home turf.
Microsoft could probably find one negative line on Linux in a 100-page research report that it would spend $10 million marketing while ignoring the other 99 pages
Correct. You know, if it talks like a duck and it walks like a duck then go on. Why would any new campaign they do be any different than they did up to now ? Nuff said.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
No, that's completely wrong. This is about which one is "best" in a two-line "executive summary" for the PHBs. It's about implanting the FUD that maybe Windows is better after all. Few PHBs have the spine to actually find out for themselves, or to stick to their guns if challenged.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Microsoft would like you to believe that it wants to share it's market with Linux in a fair and friendly way, and that they want what is best for the customer in every situation. The commercial interests of Microsoft are only an unintended coincidence and for that matter come a distant second. Excuse me while I go and barf...
In Linux's position, having MS wanting to go head to head might be a win win situation. I know if the product were mine I'd want to mix it up with the big boys.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
OSDL is absolutely right in that their business is not running some heads up knock down, who's better activity. That's better left to the Microsoft rags that gobble up anything they say an put it in print.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
I think it is pretty easy to pass by this study. OSDL has to pay the other half of a study they are not really interested in. So this study can turn out bad or good for any party involved, but it also eats into the budget.
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In BIG letters : Microsoft is better, bigger, stronger, more secure 100% of the time.
In small letters : This survey was paid by Microsoft, Gates and Ballmer edited the results so it could fit in this report and your screen.
Also in the news, Santa Claus is retiring.
No sig for now.
is totally ignore MS and leave them out in the cold.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
// the momentum is decidedly shifting [...] it seems the market is moving towards a combination of the two
./ of GNU/Linux, and start hearing "uh, wait... I knew, I knew it... it's a kind of a toaster, is it?"
Er... actually it has been *Unix* on servers for two decades, and now instead of switching to GNU/Linux when need arises (where they should feel at home) a lot of them are switching to Windows[*]. We should ask us why. PR & Marketing is a truly important thing for "Fortune 500 & Co." pinheads.
So, in a different sense you're right: on the server market, we're moving towards a combination of the two AND IT SHOULDN'T HAPPEN.
Whereas, GNU/Linux gained some _little_ momentum in desktop, and so started being more talked about by people that don't even *know* what a server is (e.g. journalists that writes for big newspapers?). That's why you can talk outside
But let's face it: I use GNU/Linux only (and|because) I'm a FSF member, but how many of your non-geek friends do use it at home and have throwed completely away Windows? [**]
[*] Note: it's not that people don't switch to GNU/Linux (or *BSD) at all. It's the fact that not everybody do this choice.
[**] Please don't start throwing in messages like "why people can't use both? why they can't live on the same hd?". It's MY ethics, I ain't forcing you to see it the same way I do.
42.
One of the major selling points of GNU/Linux and the rest of Open Source Software is that it's FREE as in speech, not beer.
Harping on about TCO, in _money_ terms is not addressing some of the concerns that some big business' have about using Microsoft's (and other closed source) software. It's about vendor freedom, freedom to choose and change the software. Freedom to customize software on an organization's own terms.
As the City of Munich's decision demonstrated when they chose a more expensive Linux package over Microsoft's, it aint necessarily about cash!
OSDL analysis or not, favouring Linux or not, we might just find that TCO isn't all that relevant anyway.
Studies involving commercial products always follow the money. There is more money behind MS windows, so any study which starts out with no assumptions will quickly steer in a direction which favours the side with more money.
I used to be involved in bicycle advocacy, and debates over bicycle facilities would always go the same way. Car advocates would be well paid consultants with plenty of time to waste. Bike advocates would be unpaid people with no spare time. The final decision would be taken by the people who were able to turn up.
Outfits like OSDL do have resources, but in situations where they can turn up three or four paid advocates/engineers/lawyers, MS will supply thirty or forty.
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I was really thinking of all the little guys that write code in their basements with no expectation of financial reward, only recognition by their peers. They don't need to tell fibs to get a larger audience for their work so that more money comes in. That is not their aim. Pardon my lack of eloquence.
Ummm- no. Go into most big corporations or small businesses (at least in North America) and find that most people 'know' Windows is the biggest, strongest, and best thing they need. They 'know' it works, 'know' it does what they want, 'know' it's compatible with their software, hardware, customers, and supply chain.
Most people don't see Microsoft's marketing as FUD anymore than they see Coke and Pepsi's marketing as FUD.
We are the Slashdot crew who whine about big corp squishing the little guy who just so happens to use Linux. Don't think for a second your views represent management and a large majority of IT people out there. I run into at least three a day who go on about how Windows and dot-NET are the only things they would ever dream of using.
-M
when you see the word 'Linux', drink!
OSDL is a development laboratory, has no products to sell, and thus no interest in participating in such marketing stunts. Microsoft should ask Red Hat instead.
On the other hand, all of the time microsoft spent discrediting linux as a stupid choice, and a non-option is suddely reversed; they ARE admitting that it's not ridiculous to think linux is a better option. That could play very well with big exec's who still think of linux as a fad or a 2nd rate hippy alternative for people without any money.
I'm a concientious