Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

OSDL Skeptical Of Joint Study with Microsoft

Posted by Zonk on from the may-you-live-in-interesting-times dept.

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.

3 of 162 comments (clear)

  1. Would you believe... by Circlotron · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...the results of a study on the supposed negative effects of cigarette smoking that was funded by a tobacco company? Or the myth of global warming as espoused by an oil company? Or the necessity of being ready for war as delineated by a weapons manufacturer? Or the lack of corruption in politics as found by it's own members? Or the utter impossibility of paedophilia within a church because of the pronouncement of some most holy reverend blah blah... If there is money and power involved there is sure to be lies as well. That's why it is such a good thing that GNU/Linux is *FREE*

  2. Re:GET THE FACTS campain by alexandreracine · · Score: 5, Interesting
    "Customers have asked me for an analysis on Linux," Taylor said in the statement. "While we had done some research in our Linux and open-source lab, there's not yet any substantial, fact-based research out there on Linux to help customers make value based IT decisions."
    Wow, that's strong. Some MS guys saying that the Get the facts campain is bullcrap. Did he just said that?
    --
    No sig for now.
  3. Re:Double-Edged Sword by cow-orker · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You know what comes out of this study. In some constructed situation (desktop system, heavily firewalled, used to write letters to people who refuse to use anything other than MS Word) windows will be "better" in some sense. MSFT will heavily market this "fact from an independent study", omitting all the necessary conditions and not mentioning the cases where Linux is superior.

    The sensible thing for OSDL is to tell them off: "We don't have time for silly games, we're busy providing value to out customers."