OSDL CEO: Microsoft Has to Accept Linux

PenguinCandidate writes "The OSDL's Stuart Cohen has been in the news lately following a clandestine meeting with Microsoft about a dubiously independent TCO study; a study that has since been rejected by the OSDL. The idea of an independent Windows/Linux TCO comparison may be dead, but did Cohen have an additional card up his sleeve? In this interview, Cohen states that while he "awaits the reply from MS's Martin Taylor on the results of his internal investigation" into how an off-the-record meeting became public, he will continue to promote his belief that MS will eventually have to accept Linux as customer demand increases."

Comments

Already accepted

[fembots]

I thought Microsoft has long accepted Linux's place in the market, otherwise why would it bother to come up with those TCOs and FUDs?

I hope this is not exposing the lack of maturity in "Linux People", who acts like a little brother, and always try to get recognition and comparison with his older brother, and in trying so, will forever live under the shadow of the latter.

Re:Already accepted

[Eberlin]

Recognition vs. Acceptance vs. Surrender

MS has recognized Linux's place in the marketplace. They know of Linux's server market growth and its desktop push. Ms recognizes the choices in Open Source software (OO.o vs. MS Office, for example).

MS has not accepted this. Probably will not either. Thus the TCO fudging and other FUDs. If Microsoft accepts the qualities of Linux (and OSS), they wouldn't FUD it. They'd acknowledge its benefits and make THEIR offerings better.

So once you make the distinction between recognition and acceptance, the statement pretty much pans out ok.

Re:Already accepted

[ewe2]

In an odd way, that's exactly what I believe Microsoft wishes the situation to be: Linux the junior partner to Windows. Microsoft will not accept Linux as the dominant server in the enterprise in any way. It has been suggested that recent acquisitions in the area of enterprise management by Microsoft is to ensure that whatever the Linux/Windows balance is, Windows will be in charge of the data centre. All the better to enforce its IP rights, no doubt.

I hear MCSE's praise Active Directory to the skies and claim that Unix ACL's can never match W2K's group attribute management. I don't really see anything a competent Unix admin couldn't match with OpenLDAP and efficient automation, but that's not the point, its the idea that whatever Linux can do, Windows has already done it and in a superior fashion. This is the direction I expect the pro-Microsoft argument to run once they've "accepted" that their TCO argument has failed.

The true value of open source solutions involving Linux and the *BSD's is that you're not trapped into one management model, and only the larger adoptees seem to have grasped this. If Microsoft insist on being the gatekeeper in the server market, they might have more resistance than they expected.

Re:Already accepted

[eneville]

> The true value of open source solutions involving Linux and the *BSD's is that you're not trapped into one management model,

Thats not true. We're using something OpenBSD/carp/pfsync provides, and I've never seen it offered in Linux or windows. So in a way, I'm trapped by what OpenBSD provides and there's no alternative!

Re:Already accepted

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of the most popular businesses ignore thier competition. You never hear McDonalds telling people that they're better than Burger King. If they did that, that'd make people think about whether they like BK better than Mickey Ds. Instead, the potential customers should be thinking "Oh yea, a Big mac does sound pretty good right about now!". Granted, Operating systems are a lot different than french fries, but business is business; and marketing is part of that game.

Re:Already accepted

[nocomment]

Funny little known fact. Microsoft runs Linux. My predecessor here at my job, left to go work for Microsofts Xbox division managing their Linux developer stations, because a lot of the Xbox developers wanted to develop on Linux (note: this wasn't MS developers wanted to run Linux but third party and so MS had to support it becuase they wanted the developers more than they wanted a pissing match.

Re:Already accepted

[aCapitalist]

I'm guessing that there's lots of people that use/enjoy Linux at Microsoft, but they just don't make it a religion.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if Microsoft started making software for Linux in the not too long-term future. At the end of the day Microsoft wants to make software and money - which is what they're supposed to do.

Hell, I wish Microsoft would put out a desktop for Linux, but that's way too much wishful thinking.

tco and the customer

[ch-chuck]

If I change the oil in my car myself, every ~3000 miles, it costs me about $20. If I have to take it to Quicky Lube it's about $32 (plus they try to sell me a bunch of useless stuff). Obviously TCO of the same car varies depending on the expertise and willingness of the customer to crawl underneath and get dirty.

Similarly, if a customer has to hire someone to edit his inittab then it's probably going to cost more than a Windows jockey clicking on services attributes. Dunno, there's just too many indefinite variable to compare complex systems.

Deep Penguin

[Stanistani]

Did he meet the MS fellow in a parking garage at night after carefully placing a flag in a potted plant on his patio, then receiving the "meet" time in his delivered newspaper?

Y'know what's curious?

[Otter]

I was about to shrug off the utter pointlessness of this story: OSDL to not perform a hypothetical study, Linux to continue nonetheless. As noted journalist CmdrTaco put it about an equally pointless story about Google buying some print ads, it's news "from the nothing-else-happening-in-august dept."

What occurred to me is that there's something rather bizarre about how little interest has been generated by the complete destruction of a major US city a few days ago. I've barely blinked (sent money, couldn't do anything else, shrugged and went back to work) and in general there seems to have been a lot less fuss than I certainly would have imagined something like this would prompt.

What a load of horse hockey

[suitepotato]

This is like saying that Chrysler must accept Toyota. No they damn well don't and if they want to run a competition to put them out of business, then that's their decision. If MS wants to fight Linux, more power to them. MS doesn't have to "accept" anything. They are free to fight it as they should. I don't recall anyone saying that MS should "accept" OS/2 instead of offering incentives to IBM shops to ditch it for NT Wkstn.

5 stages

[pizza_milkshake]

• Denial
• Anger
• Bargaining
• Depression
• Ultimate Acceptance

Microsoft is somewhere around 3

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_stages_of_grief

Not exactly

[ezweave]

MS accepts that it must compete against Linux, but I think that Mr Cohen is trying to point out some of the dumber MS practices, in regards to interoperability.

In my experience alot of this is related to how MS wants to integrate it's enterprise level products into the OS. The two biggest examples I can think of are:

• SQLServer
• .NET

Basically they both run as services (IIS, I think) on Windows OSs, making them inherently incompatible with Linux or any other OS. It's all part and parcel to this Microsoft mentality that to make the most money, we need to be an end-to-end solution; for everything.

So what is my point? Well, if MS was really about making the best product you could run it on a multitude of OSs. Because if SQLServer and the .NET (web apps) were really that good they could be more OS agnostic. The alternatives, Oracle, J2EE, PHP, etc run almost anywhere. It would also be nice to see Active Directory provide full LDAP support.

And it isn't even the end-to-end solution that bothers me. It is also the lock out of everyone else (but, I guess Microsoft can always say, "Look how well we play with ourselves" ;-) ). This also seems to be half of what causes all of the OS security problems and release delays. Instead of having each app provide its own services (to some extent), the OS comes with bits and pieces for other MS apps. Some of these bits don't seem to get used much, but everyone gets them. This all adds to the complexity of the OS. While Bill and Balmer spout that it makes "everything easier to do", I disagree. I would rather set up a cluster of app servers for J2EE than attempt that nonsense for .NET using the built in configuration options (from the control panel).

I think it is possible that Vista/Longhorn will not be that sucessful. Then MS will have to make SQLServer and .NET web apps run on something else... like everything else in the world. That is just conjecture (or wishful thinking, perhaps), but that will be the only way MS can hold its ground in the long run (at least in the business IT world). Ceterus Peribus.

Get a clue

[Bullfish]

MS does not have to accept linux. I hear the phrase "so and so has to..." and I shudder almost each time.

Unless it is legally mandated, they don't have to accept anything. Hell, the can say gravity doesn't exist. You can think of them as stupid, but they don't have to accept it. They can go and live with my ex who is queen of the region. You know de Nile.

Givashit

[pandrijeczko]

Who gives a damn whether or not Microsoft "accepts" Linux? Why does the ignorant media base Linux's success on whether or not Microsoft acknowledges its existence or not?

Linux exists *despite* Microsoft, not *because* of it - the "UNIX way" started 30+ years ago, long before Microsoft even had MS-DOS, let alone Windows.

Linux is my chosen way because it's stable, fulfilling to use, and makes me feel good being part of a global movement where people create because they want to rather than because of financial gain.

However, at the same time, my wife uses Windows because she does a lot of work with Excel, wants ease of use with her digital camera and just wants to stick with what she knows. She's aware Linux exists, she occasionally uses one of my machines to surf the Internet and now prefers Firefox to IE. But she has no interest in shell programming or command line skills.

The point I am trying to make is that neither Windows or Linux provides the answer to everyone's computing requirements and those of us who advocate Linux should only do it in so much as to make Windows users aware that there are alternatives to the Microsoft way.

However, there is *no* intent to destroy Microsoft or to aim for "more Linux desktops than Windows ones by 2010" type targets - if such is ever the case, it will be because people have chosen it to be so, not because of Linux winning some kind of "war".

So move along now, nothing to see here...

Less Useful Than USENET?

[geomon]

Long-time users are asking the question: Is Slashdot becoming irrelevant? More posts express that sentiment as the number interesting stories are being buried by accidental and deliberate duplicate entries, and the flood of Linux vs. Microsoft war stories, grows by the day. A collective yawn has developed among nearly all three-digit UID members and it is now moving into the four- and five-digit UIDs at an alarming rate. Can Slashdot stop the slide into sheer obscurity?

Re:MS will never have to accept Linux

[RealAlaskan]

>>Bottom line, the world needs something that accually works, and is open-source.

>Wow. If that's true Apple's in deep shit.

Not really. OSX actually works (so they say), and significant portions of it are open source. Not the eyecandy, of course, but the foundations. If the world really needs what he said, Apple may do just fine. Is that really what the world wants? I haven't seen much evidence of demand for either ``actually works'' or ``open source''. I hope I'm wrong about that, but history suggests that the inferior product has a huge advantage.

The market is big enough for lots of players.

I remember before the IBM PC. Back then, when the market was a lot smaller, there really was room for lots of players. There was Vector Graphics, IMSAI, Altair, Altos, Otrona, Kaypro, Osbourne, General Automation, Franklin, Apple, Commodore, Northstar, Tandy, Heathkit (including a kit PDP-11!) and many others, running Xenix, single or multi-user variants of CPM, Pick, and I don't know what-all. I worked on or with them all. I had a diskette with a program which allowed me to read 43 different, proprietary, soft-sectored floppy disk formats. Obviously, that didn't include the 8-inch floppies and the hard-sectored ones like the Vector graphics. There were many manufacturers, and a huge variety of hardware and software.

Then came IBM. Suddenly the market was huge, and there wasn't room for all those many computer makers and their diverse products. Of that list of hardware and software platforms I mentioned above, how many are around today? How many do you even remember?

I'd say the microcomputer market is either way too small for ``lots of players'', or way too big. Right now, it seems to be about right for Wintel (or WinAMD) and a maybe Apple, and Apple's been dying at least as long as BSD.

Linux just is..

[inkysplat]

Why is there this feeling of Windows has to die, Linux must take over? okay its fair enough to monitor the linux uptake, because it can spark confidence in the community, and also encourage developers to take into account the rapidness of the uptake, however these figures should not be compared to other OSs.

We also have to remember, the majority of users don't switch OSs just because they think Windows is Evil, its almost always down to the "User Needs".

As for all this media coverage over Linux Vs Windows, and TCO Campaigns, when will see news of NEW and INNOVATIVE operating systems, like i recently stumbled on SKYOS(http://www.skyos.org/) which looks promising, and is commercial, none of the usual UNIX FOSS dervatives.

evolution of a uid

[sum.zero]

you only joined recently.

you joined to defend your 'review' of the ie7 beta in which you praise ms for creating 'superior software' and for adding new, innovative features.

now you claim the linux destop offers no significant advantage, is only for techies AND is a cheap knock off of windows.

the time lost and costs associated with the removal of adware, spyware and trojans is a significant disadvantage for ms windows. and that is just one of the advantages for linux that i care to mention atm.

there are a plethora of desktop environments for *nix, some of which are nothing like the windows ui. have you seen a modern linux desktop?

what are these missing features for non-technical people? file storage - check. internet browsing - check. office suite - check. media playback - check.

every post by you is decidely ms-centric, so i am thinking your experience with linux is fairly limited.

"you must be young, son
because your head is all wrong"
- me

sum.zero

ps i wrote this on a windows workstation

this means giving up on 30% profits and control

[Locutus]

This is naive thinking IMO. Microsoft makes over 30% of it's profits from Windows and over 30% from MS-Office. They got that MS-Office monopoly by using the Windows monopoly. Why on earth would Bill and Steve allow a competitor to Windows gain any value by putting MS Office on Linux?

Any such move would mean that they have accepted
Their their control of developers and the market would have to have deteriorated so so much for Bill and Steve to allow ANY MS software product to run on another operating system. MS Office for Mac only exists because they needed Apple in the DOJ vs MSFT case. It only exists now because it's a wash to keep it running and it helps them LOOK like they are good citizens. It also helps that they have a monopoly on Mac for office software too.

The day Microsoft releases a critical business software package for another operating system will the the day Bill Gates and Steve Balmer leave the building. They make billions in profits off Windows and Office. Heck, look at the Palm/handheld market for an example. Palm had over 80% marketshare when all the database companies were releasing Palm versions of db access clients. Microsoft, they announce a version for WindowsCE... Speaking of WindowsCE, they've lost money on THAT product every quarter of every year since they started that project. About $1 billion in losses per year for 8 years. Do you really think they'll bring MS Office to Linux?

Unfortunately, such a statement actually lowers my respect for the guy.

LoB

Re:this means giving up on 30% profits and control

[pandrijeczko]

I also doubt very much that many "hardcore" Linux users would install MS Office on their Linux PCs anyway. Sure, MS Office on Linux might convince a few more people to try Linux but the effect would be relatively minimal and the sales wouldn't justify MS doing it in the first place.

I'm no "communist hippie" type - if people want to pay for "out of the box" software then let them do it. But to me, and a large proportion of the Linux community, using Linux means having complete control over every aspect of how your PC runs and installing a closed source application on Linux would be an entirely "alien" thing to do. For that reason, I wouldn't buy or use MS Office if it was available for Linux.

Does It Really Matter?

[LifesABeach]

Yesterday I had the prideful pleasure of watching my eldest daughter show me how she can play ANY of her CD's on her linux box. She uses FireFox, openOffice, Gaim, Thunderbird, Gimp, and soon Blender3D; All on KDE from a Knoppix distro. Her "Jump Start" games are starting to collect dust next to the Win'98se master cd. When she asked what is "BSOD"? I said, "It's just your father dating himself."

Total Cost to 0wn someone's Windows box is lower

[chmilar]

Given the networks of tens or hundreds of thousands of zombie Windows computers, it is clear that the Total Cost to 0wn (TC0) some AOL user's Windows PC is very, very low.

I doubt you can 0wn a Linux box as cheaply.