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Windows Monoculture Myopia Revisited
round stic writes "eWeek magazine has an interesting look at the effects of the Windows monoculture on IT budgets, even as everyone agrees on the severity of the inherent security risks. The article contains interviews with Dan Geer and others who warned about the risks of the Windows monopoly three years ago. The article coincides with a piece in the Observer that suggests Vista is the end of the Microsoft monolith because of how complex the operating system has become."
Microsoft's monopoly is fighting against itself: newer versions of Windows are finding themselves to be in the "striving competition" position, trying to steal marketshare from older versions. This phenomenon can only amplify with Microsoft's inability to innovate. This is the end of the monopoly.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
BS, windows doesn't have a monopoly in the IT environment. I've worked at many places who use unix systems and those tend to be some very expensive machines. Plus, these IT companies should have big IT budgets, they shouldn't have all their stuff running on free operating systems, it's called redistribution of wealth. The big businesses with lots of money use the unix or windows sytems that cost lots of money which creates more jobs for developers to make the operating systems better. Those little startups can use linux all they want. There is no monopoly, it's a bunch of bologna.
While reading a article about microsoft's security problems every time I glanced else where on the page what did I see, why adverts for Microsoft security.
From the article:
Why do people keep perpetuating this myth? It should be widely known by now that all the important Linux developers get paid by their respective employers to work on the kernel. That's possibly the most significant sign of widespread acceptance of the open-source development model -- that companies such as IBM would pay their own employees to do work on a public project that is not exclusively to their own benefit.
In the same sentence, the author managed to confuse "richest" with "smartest" as well. I'm not very impressed with this article.
Let's assume that people buy new OEM PC's that have the newest Microsoft OS on them. If Vista provides new, "incompatible with old version" features, then the Windows install base becomes less self-compatible. If Microsoft fights to keep Vista compatible, there will be no real reason to upgrade. It's a catch-22 of being the monopoly OEM-installed OS.
stuff |
I know, RTFA is a strange concept on /., but this time around it's really needed.
Why? Because the article is not about the downfall of MS as the headline seems to suggest, but about the way complex software is build. It suggest that building big, monolithic applications has reached an end as Vista shows that even a huge company like MS can't really write complex software in this way anymore.
Now agree or disagree with this, but please spare us the "OMG MS will never die" comments.
With new virtualization technologies coming through, I think it's about time for Microsoft to scrap backward compatability being built directly into Windows. It just leaves so many holes unplugged. Start Blackcomb with a clean slate, include a Win32 sandbox environment, and be done with it.
Just to play devil's advocate here (so don't bite my head off); while Windows may be complex, its ubiquitous nature does reduce the need for applications to be particularly portable, and for programmers to be particularly knowledgable. That's an arguable benefit, but it maybe the drive for varied OSes has its drawbacks.
It would obviously be preferable to have a well-written universal OS, but that brings us around to the old saying: The best kind of government would be a benevolent dictator, but how many dictators stay benevolent?
Windows and M$ may be evil, are certainly a pain in the arse, but are they also just an inevitable consequence of the technological and economic environment we have created? If it weren't M$, would we just be having the same problem with someone else? If the devil didn't exist, would it have been necessary for us to have created him?
What do others think about this? (Again, I'm only playing devil's advocate - I want to see how others view this situation)
Meta will eat itself
On a side-note: Windows monopoly also ensures you can go to inner Mongolia, switch on a local computer and with 90-odd percent chance make sense of whatever pops up on screen. It means everyone has a common UI that is known by many (most?) members of modern civilization. Easily, Windows is, barring the ill effects of monopoly on commercial businesses and security, the greatest single stab at standardizing computer UI so far in computer history. And quite sucessful at that.
Magna res est vocis et silentii temperamentum
Is it remotely possible that Gates and Allchin know this, and that's why they're fading into the sunset?
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.
I can already hear everyone saying, "But Apple came up with the UI idea" or even "But Xerox came up with the UI idea." Be that as it may, it was Microsoft who proliferated it throughout the world and ingrained the idea of the particular UI into our brains. Like it or not, admit it or not, Microsoft has done a bit of good for IT in general.
With that being said, they have done quite a bit of evil too. But there's so many negative posts about Microsoft, I had to comment on the one positive post that I saw that wasn't just a "microsoft rules you lunix users muhahahaha" troll.
Ok, Mods, do your job. Mod me down for saying something positive about evil evil bad bad Microsoft.
Insert offensive troll-style sig here. Please mod or respond appropriately.
Those silly guys, they're so ethically challenged. http://malfy.org/
Building large, complex software in a monolithic way has always been at an end. This is why monstrosities like MS Windows, MS Office, Mozilla, and Linux are so full of bugs and so difficult to extend.
Interestingly, they have also all found the solution to the extensibility problem: modularization. Indeed, MS Office macros, Mozilla plugins, and Linux kernel modules are all popular ways to add functionality, and they work reasonably well. Of course, you need the whole of MS Office, Mozilla, or Linux (at least the binary and the headers) for this to work, and new versions of the monolithic software often break the modules. And it still doesn't solve the complexity of maintaining the monolithic software; thus they are all still full of vulnerabilities, Windows still crashes, Mozilla still leaks memory, etc.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
I think that for the next release of Windows, they should just stop trying to support old hardware and software. Just write a small, compact kernel that is secure, and have turn everything else into independent modules that can be easily switched out, similar to Linux and Unix. If you don't like your filesystem, change it. If you don't want IE, take it out and put in Firefox.
... they would make their lives a lot easier. Plus, without all of the old legacy code in there it would probably be more secure. And maybe for that version we could have WinFS.
I think the UI is fine and they should keep it fairly consistent. But if they'd just lose having to support things that ran on 95, 98, 2000, ME,
And dump the registry, that was a really stupid idea.
But I think this could work. Most new copies of the OS are sold on computers built by Dell and other pc makers so they can control what goes in them. Hardware could be certified to work on the new version. Fairly new hardware could get new drivers that could be loaded on and it would work too. But older stuff would just get left behind.
Anyway, just a thought. On a random note, painting a two story house by yourself sucks!
PeopleSoft
OMG MS will never die... at least not this time around. :D
The reason: they force you to buy new hardware, hardware vendors are happy to cash, the price of new, faster, larger hardware drops under the pressure of new supply... other software vendors issue new "must have" versions of work tools for massses that work with acceptable speed only on this new hardware... the whole world is once again forced to jump the hoop. Then, FOSS camp seizes the opportunity of new, better hardware supply and starts producing "Free Replacements" for this new proprietary software. Each time it is a closer snap, as big guys are losing breath and running out of fresh ideas. Historically, the period between XP and Vista is probably the golden era of FOSS because MS lost its own pace of setting IT milestones and nearly got caught in own (embrace and extend) trap. We'll see how it is going from now on. Should Vista fail to be revolutionary enaugh, it will spell the near end of MS as we know it (perhaps eventually they deflect to OSS side and hit the ground running, to become a new leader... I am sure they are considering it).
from the linked article:
Its software is buggy, overpriced, and stress inducing.
Man, I could not agree more with this... just now I am trying to save my girlfriend's notebook Windows Home installation. I just received a DVB USB dongle, installed it on mine (winxp) and after that tried to install it on my girlfriends notebook. Unfortunately the installation was unsuccesful due to the ether (i.e. just *because*), and after I restarted the machine showed the BSOD and restarted (woops, driver programs...)
I tried to recover the installation with a Windows Home installation disk i have (you know, proceed as a normal install until it ask you if u want to fix the installed system), and after doing that now the #"$"#$"!#$ FUCKER !#!"%% windows asks me for my serial number... I enter the serial number UNDER the laptop and the fuck says it is not valid WHAT THE FUCK IT IS IN THE FREAKING STICKER UNDER THE NOTEBOOK...
Of course now I downloaded the XP key recover and discover app which I am running in my notebook to get a valid WIN XP HOME serial, then I will enter it and validate the program, and then I will crack the WGA.
Fuck, and what enrages me is that I have a fucking license to instlal windows Home... My installation disk actually constains WIN xp pro and win xp home... and I installed xp Home because tha tis what the notebook had... I am not pirating or nothing I just want it to work....
So next time some fucking moron says that windows just work they are just saying bullshit... unfortunately, I also have Ubuntu in my latop and of course the DVB usb dongle wont work with it (at least not until configure make make install compile kernel gcc''+p'ppo ó+++-p --path ----prefix ) so, Windows is the best option (no I dont have the money to buy a Mac)
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
who warned about the risks of the Windows monopoly three years ago
What took them so long? That was 2003 - it was a "monopoly" (Not really - it never has been and never will be...) long before then.
dnuof eruc rof aixelsid
The end of the Microsoft monolith? I don't think so. OK, so Vista is bloaty, and a monoculture is risky. So what? Are the masses of IT directors going to think, "Gee, monoculture is bad, I think I'll replace all my Dell desktops with iMacs"?
There are approximately one grillion machines running XP and Windows 2000, and doing their jobs more or less successfully (if not securely), and being supported. Many (most?) will not be upgraded to Vista, given the high costs and dubious benefits. So they will stay the same.
How does this work out to the end of the monolith?
Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by mere idiocy.
Forget it! With billions at stake, Microsoft will find a way to extend its monopoly. As opposed to their stockholders, the complexity of their new OS will have little influence in this matter. If necessary, subsequent versions of Vista will only include things like cosmetic changes, new file formats (not compatible with previous versions) and some extra features stolen from the competition. However, you can bet that they will market every new version as the greatest thing since sliced bread.
So we'll be lured in by the next solid, stable, safe NT3.5(1), and then have the rug pulled out from under us when the followon version comes out and all those safteys are scrapped for marketability.
Fool me one, shame on you...
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Really, I don't think it will be the end of a monopoly. Why would it? MS has every bit of steam possible in their engine. As a "Seasoned" (5 years or so) .NET developer, we cater to Windows. Therefore, we use windows. Furthermore, we use Office. Our clients use Windows (I guess we don't help things by not offering MAC IE/Safari or Firefox/Opera support, but thats another thread, honestly).
Another neat note is that MS's XNA framework and GAme Studio Express is just out in beta and quite a few people are liking what they see. Unfortunately, it'll take another beta release to get the Content Pipeline out the door, which means painful conversion of Mesh files, but thats ok for now, as people get to learn the IDE.
I've always been told that making money has nothing to do with having a decent base product. While that might not be the selling point, the fact that you have good accessories, or at least desirable accessories usually can push the fence-sitters onto your side.
*NIX will never die. Windows will never die. I don't think it matters how much each side tries, since the appeal (to the GP) of "Widely Used" vs "Better" have always offset.
By using your custom "XP Home / XP Pro" CD (I have never heard of a MS printed disc that does that), you are using a different disrtobution of XP than the one that came with the laptop. While not as drastic, it would be like trying to fix a Red Hat install with your Ubuntu disc.
Windows does just work if you treat it like a Mac. Only use signed drivers, use the OS disc that came from the factory, etc and it works. Try to take it outside of that protected area and you risk running into problems like this. Some people are very familar with XP and tweak it to do amazing things just as some take a Linux distro and customize it, although the latter has far more room to customize and far more places that you can screw up if you don't know what you are doing.
Grammer Nazis - I mod you "troll" unless you actually add something on-topic. Yes, I know I have mispellings in my sig.
Some bullet points from TFA:
IT dabbles with Linux. But the momoculture is here to saty.
The convenience of one platform means less management expense. The cost of ownership skyrockets with diversity. The ecomonics say to standardize, standardize, standardize.
What management looks for and likes in Vista is diversity within the monoculture of the Windows OS.
ASLR (Address Space Layout Randomization) a security feature that randomly arranges the positions of key data areas to prevent malicious hackers from predicting target addresses. The technique, known as memory-space randomization, will block the majority of buffer overflow tricks used in about two-thirds of all worm attacks.
Will no one rid me of this turbulent monoculture?
Parent poster definitely gets it right:
The Free Software Movement is not really driven by idealistic motives, but rather by a simple economic fact: because its marginal cost (i.e. the asymptotic cost of producing an extra copy) is null, free market forces and competition are bound to make all useful pieces of software freely available.
Note this is different from music or art in general: in art, the novelty/originality of a piece of work has an intrinsic value, which is not the case for software.
Some more elaboration of the idea: Software is meant to be free
In many ways it is in the producer of the operating systems best interest to have the underlying OS as complex as possible. That way they can be sure that they can sell people certifications which companies will feel comfortable in having and then they can ask for more money by becoming a specialist. The flipside of that is the more complex it becomes the easier it is to hide backdoors/trojans etc somewhere inside.
In the second linked article: "Security vulnerabilities come free with all versions." Sign me up!
Having a smoking section in a public restaurant is like having a peeing section in a public swimming pool.
So are you saying that their cathedral is bizzare?
The CISOs' concerns about the cost of non-standardization to an organization miss an important possibility: organizations can choose to standardize on a product or vendor without making the same choices as the majority of people in the world. For example, you can choose to standardize on SUSE Linux, and with much of the world's black hat population focused on Windows, you'd avoid many of the Windows attacks.
This is much smarter security-wise and economically than trying to support many different operating systems in production systems. For one thing your support costs go way down, especially if you choose the right vendor, because you are buying and deploying in quantity. While you as (for example) a SUSE shop will still get slammed hard when Linux is targetted, the shop that tries to suport Linux and Windows at the same time will get hit with Linux AND Windows vulnerabilities. Furthermore, it's likely that no matter what operating system is vulnerable, some mission critical system some place will be compromised.
So, a possible strategy is to standardize, but on something that is not a dominant "de facto" industry standard. For larger outfits, you may choose to standardize differently for different divisions and subsidiaries. You still get the scale effects of standardization, and while it does mean you respond to more security problems, you're probably scaled and organized in a way that makes this possible to handle.
One problem of course is that presumes you have a choice of applications which can meet your needs. One of the arguments some economists (who have magically rediscovered some of the disadvantages of competition) is that software is subject to the "network effect", which amounts to that if there is only one platform to target, then the market for software for that platform is bigger. This means you benefit from the competition in the application space. The downside of course is that you suffer from lack of competition in the OS space, from the OS vendor's attempts to tilt the playing field in the application space, and of course the monoculture effect.
These days various flavors of Linux are at least as good as Windows by any reasonable standard, when considered as an operating environment for your computer. Linux and BSD fall short availability of suitable applications for these customers, and support for those applications. In some application areas, Unix flavors are a bit ahead of Windows IMHO, but overall the Windows market has the full spectrum of applications better covered than Unix. This barrier is a catch-22; developers will come to a platform when there are adopters, and adopters will come to the platform when there are developers.
So, a legitimate strategy to avoid the monoculture problem is to use a Unix derivative such as Linux, BSD or MacOS. However the practicality hinges on the differential in application availability being less than your concern for security.
MacOS is probably the most important player to watch. It may well break the network effect log jam, to the benefit of Linux and BSD as well.
The one place where movement towards this rosy future can be thwarted is in standards compliance. Consider the number of web servers that run on Unix variants, but whose clients are overwhelmingly Windows desktops. The standardization of HTTP, HTML and these days javascript makes this possible (although failure to support standards inflates costs). Standards for data interchange and communication are a critical enabler of a heterogenous software ecology. Without them you cannot work with suppliers and customers who make different vendor choices than you.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
But MSFT revenues are 11 billion $ a year, which is chump change compared to money spent by the top 1000 corporations counting everything from travel, rent and raw materials. Down to earth reality is that the compatibility and interoperability (or just the perception of them) between MSFT products is still delivering better value to the companies than switching to Open Standards defined by third parties. MSFT will always price its products just a shade under the switching cost. As years go by and the switching costs keep increasing, it will be able to raise the price. If corporations bite the bullet, pay for the switching costs today, they stand to gain a lot in the future. But since corporations are driven by quarterly numbers, there is not much incentive in taking that kind of risk for long term benefit.
All this means the MSFT monopoly and monoculture will persist for a long time.
[*1] The list price of 400$ for MSOffice and 130$ for WinXP is largely fiction. No one pays that much for it in the real world.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Indeed they do, but I doubt modular design is the holy grail of software development. Right now, as you observe yourself, most of the extension is small-scale and built on large-scale foundations. In that context, it seems to work reasonably well. However, as we move to using more modular designs for even larger applications, I predict that this approach will exhibit problems of its own.
Consider repositories like Perl's CPAN, TeX's CTAN, or the Mozilla extensions system, where in each case anyone can submit useful modules. CPAN offers many handy tools, but there is a huge amount of duplication in some areas. CTAN offers modules to do almost anything you want in LaTeX, but in reality, module authors take careful note of any other, potentially interacting modules, and make major allowances in their code to keep things compatible (most of the time). There are so many "web developer" extensions for Firefox that I imagine we'll have an extension to view them all before long, though only a handful provide solid, meaty functionality that isn't trivially available to most developers anyway.
This is the, perhaps inevitable, result of distributed development in a modular framework. Without any central leadership and oversight, duplication of effort is commonplace and compatibility concerns grow exponentially. Loopholes start to appear, and with them bugs, security flaws, usability issues....
Obviously there are pros and cons to both a centralised, monolithic project and a distributed, modular approach. The trick, as always, is in trying to maximise the benefits of a hybrid approach while minimising the weaknesses. There may be incremental improvements, as we see with some of the better OSS projects, but for the most part they're evolutionary, not revolutionary.
Now, if you want revolutionary change, I think we need qualitatively better tools to support the development process, and we're not very good at building those yet. And even when we are, other aspects of the development process will need work to catch up. As the man said, there are no silver bullets.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
That convenience of one platform means less management expense. So far, companies are going with lower costs over susceptibility.
Alternatives to Windows are free. As in beer. As in licensing costs: $0. License management costs: $0. Time spent calling to re-license the operating system because you installed a sound card: $0. License audit exposure: $0. As in infinity% cheaper than Windows. As in incremental cost per unit = 0. The cost of alternative supporting application and utility software is $0. Alternative database application software is $0. Alternative firewall softare is $0. Alternative antivirus software (if and as applicable) is $0. Word processing software - $0. Systems/network management tools - wait for it - $0. Documentation,comprehensive howto resources, and technical support - all $0.
Turning away from solutions such as Linux because of cost is like being on fire and turning away from a bucket of water because the water might be too hot. Arguing against alternatives to Windows on the basis of cost is the very height of idiocy and is ultimately disingenuous. The real issue when considering alternatives is the fear of change and organizational inertia. How much of either can your company afford?
By using your custom "XP Home / XP Pro" CD (I have never heard of a MS printed disc that does that)
Just FYI, the disk is a a disk that came on a MSDN subscription. When you subscribe to MSDN you get a lot of nice software.
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
Fact of the matter is, nobody (who makes the purchasing recommendation) gets fired for choosing Microsoft if their products fail as a result of a design flaw that causes an application/OS crash or security hole that results in someobody taking control of systems you don't want. You can just say "it's windows...everybody runs it. Not my fault!".
If you go out on a limb and choose something different then your "risk" of getting the crap beat out of you if you fail is HIGH and the return is LOW.
Accountability for the people who choose MS products for their organizations will help. If your boss said "if a SINGLE desktop gets infected with a virus or spyware you are fired" would you choose Windows as your desktop/server OS?
OMG MS will never die!!!!!
Oh wait...
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Ah, must be on the DVD set. Stopped getting MSDN before they went to DVD. In that case you would have to use your MSDN key.
Grammer Nazis - I mod you "troll" unless you actually add something on-topic. Yes, I know I have mispellings in my sig.
if you treat it like a Mac.
s/Mac/server/
Only use signed drivers,
Which immediately rules out a lot of cheaper hardware where the install instructions say "Click through the warning that you're installing unsigned drivers".
use the OS disc that came from the factory,
Lots of companies don't provide a CD any more - just a separate partition. If you have a hard disk failure - that's your problem. (Or sometimes they will sell you the media - for a fee).
Try to take it outside of that protected area and you risk running into problems like this.
If you're going to be so anal about keeping it within such a tightly protected area, where's the benefit in using Windows?
Who would you rather have as a competitor - other companies or yourself?
"John Doerr, the world's greatest venture capitalist (Sun Microsystems, Compaq, Lotus, Intuit, Genentech, Millennium, Netscape, Amazon and Google, inter alia), got there before you. In this business, you have to get up early if you want to get into bed."
Open or closed the rich always get richer and the poor always get fucked.
That depends. If your software isn't that popular the store might decide to stack all your SKUs into one or two piles while a very popular piece of software might take the entire shelf for itself with only one SKU.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
If more libraries like them come, porting between OSes wouldn't be much problematic. In fact, right now it isn't, at least in the case of SDL apps.
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
MS outperformed, they got set up as the default and made their software good enough.
If we look only at PC hardware
People bought MS DOS, not PC DOS, not Dr DOS
There were a few windowing environments and task swapping/multitasking
Deskview (sp?) GEM, OS/2, GEOS
People still bought MSDOS (Dosshell swapping later and MS windows multitasking)
They also leveraged their default status, when they went QBasic and the default editor, did anyone notice it was very similar to the QuickBasic and QuickC environments? (I loved QuickC 2.5 at the time)
123-> Excel
Wordperfect -> Word
They simply make a good enough product, and work on the weak points till it's no longer clearly inferior to the competition.
It's a very effective way to compete.
"Windows monopoly also ensures you can go to inner Mongolia, switch on a local computer and with 90-odd percent chance make sense of whatever pops up on screen"
You don't need Windows© to run a Windows Desktop Environment.
Start-> Run check!
Multiple Windows check!
Control Panel check!
Status Bar check!
Desktop Icons check!
Clock in the Status Bar check!
was Re:Windows monopoly
davecb5620@gmail.com
Many people just accept that many cheeper devices dont' work on Linux or Mac, they need to accept that for Windows too.
Lots of companies don't provide a CD any more - just a separate partition
I addressed that too. The company will replace the HD under warranty with the OS image if yours fails. If you don't want to pay for the CD, that is your choice.
If you're going to be so anal about keeping it within such a tightly protected area, where's the benefit in using Windows?
Larger software choice, more available support, not having to learn a new OS (same at home and work). There are benefits to using Windows, and there are benefits to using Mac and Linux. They all have things you just should not do unless you know what you are doing.
Do not think that you can idiot-proof any OS. A highly evolved idiot can break any OS unless you don't give them root. However, now the keeper of root needs to babysit the computer and approve every change and install.
Grammer Nazis - I mod you "troll" unless you actually add something on-topic. Yes, I know I have mispellings in my sig.
"monoculture is attractive because it is cheaper." - Bruce Schneier
"It's not easy to click your fingers and say, 'Windows is a liability; let's just switch.' You soon realize you have to spend even more to get specialized staff for each computing environment," - Andre Gold
You can have diversity without complexity. All your servers connected through a VPN running on embedded hardware would eliminate most of the risks of a monoculture without having to switch to multiple platforms. Running pure Java applications on top of this and the OS becomes irrevent. It would provide a secure end to end solution. The Internet is protected from bots and trojans and your network is protected from the Internet.
davecb5620@gmail.com
> (From the Observer:) Microsofties retort that Vista is much more complex than Linux.
Well, that's the whole problem right there, isn't it?
Linux has everything that Vista has, at least for my needs, and I would consider myself a pretty heavy "power user".
And yet, Vista is "much more complex" than Linux, by the Microsofties' own admission.
I wonder how many people in Microsoft truly understand the long-term implications of this observation....
If you have a 'real' MSDN Subscription to go with that disk, generate yourself a key and have at it.
Of course you're violating the MSDN license terms if you're using one of those installs on a production machine, they're intended for development and testing only.
If they had chosen an OPEN standard, defined by independant third parties that allow free competition things would have been better.
You mean like UNIX?
You know, back then, in the days of the Unix wars, everyone expected Unix to rule the desktop in the future. But since your nice independent parties were too much involved in their constant bickering, no coherent standardized Unix desktop ever appeared. Instead, you had many platforms, and had to support all of them. An incoherent mess, as user- & desktop-unfriendly as it can possibly be. Microsoft was just lucky - their competitors were busy whacking each others' head off. They practically gave the Microsoft/IBM union carte blanche to rule the desktop. Yes, there were Apple, Amiga, etc. but they all lacked the power IBM had, and Microsoft used for its own growth.
Now, Linux is in danger of repeating this mistake by the constant infighting between GNOME, KDE, different distros, wannabe Linux elitists and Desktoplinux-advocates. In short: the Linux world is an incoherent mess. LSB is a good idea, Freedesktop is a good idae. Lets hope it ends in a better way this time.
This sig does not contain any SCO code.
Entrenched MS only applications are what keeps the MS monopoly safe. I'm not talking about dumb shit like office, I'm talking dumb shit like ERP systems. No small company is going to up and switch ERP systems because it costs just way too fuckin much.
It's the only thing that keeps me on Windows at work.
Why is it that every time MS releases a new OS the moon-bats come out and start claiming it's the end of MS. Each time its "the software is over complicated", "it has backwards compatibility problems", "it's too expensive", "they missed the boat because it took too long", etc. etc. This has been going on since Windows 95.
I wish the "media" and "news" services would stop projecting their HOPES and WISHES as being real news or valid predictions. There is a big distinction between making an educated guess/prediction, and trying to make a case for wishful thinking.
I would have hoped that news services would be a little bit above this type of spotty journalism.
Let me go on the record as saying THIS IS NOT THE END OF WINDOWS AND CERTIANLY NOT THE END OF MS.
PS
A real prediction would be it's the beginning of the end of for Apple's OSX.
By using the "recovery partition" on the drive, you will lose all the data on the current partitions (what you will have when it finish will the the "virgin" image of the operating system, as sold. Everything else will be lost
I assume you are suggesting him to install the operating system on a personal computer using the MSDN key his employer got from Microsoft? Not too good idea, if I may say so
Which open source, enterprise class OS would you have chosen back in 1985 to run your office with?
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I can't really agree with this. The major problems came when Microsoft decided, after about two years in development since the start in ~2002, that they were to change the foundation of "Longhorn" from Windows XP SP2 to Windows Server 2003. This was also by the time Microsoft changed their goals of what their next OS should be. Yes, when it was in the middle of development! Development managers may start feeling dizzy now and consider leaving Microsoft.
I wouldn't even want to do it in a personal software project.
To see the problem, check out this build 5048 review (build 5000 was the kernel switch) with screenshots. It looks almost like "old Windows" again with mostly the same old features after a few years in development? Windows enthusiast Paul Thurrott is screaming blood. What happened to the progress they had made? Well, they had to strip a ton of features to get their stuff working again. Say hello to huge two year delays, feature cuts, and sweating.
So Vista seems to me to be more about a planning/design mistake than a complex beast that will take around 5 years to get out the door. Vista has actually only had around 2-2.5 years of uninterrupted development on the correct kernel and with the final goal of what it should even do!
I'd like to object to the article and actually claim I'm impressed by how quickly Microsoft put together something that looks to even end up as stable during that short time with this many features, given the stupidity that went on in planning. Or rather in-development-planning.
Of course, WinFS and other technologies had to go due to this wild change of focus in mid-development, but that's not surprising or a lack of efficiency due to having think of backwards compatibility, like this article claims.
But it's at the same time very visible how Microsoft is struggling, and I'm doubting we will see a clean release of this one when it "goes gold".
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
You're assuming the big Vista market will be end user upgrades, which isn't the case. All Microsoft has to do is to stop selling XP to Dell, Gateway, CompUSA, BestBuy and Compaq.
Inside of 6 months Vista will be the most widely deployed OS in the world.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
No, but neither is using the MSDN DVD. Getting a CD from the laptop maker is the only cheap, legal way to do it.
Grammer Nazis - I mod you "troll" unless you actually add something on-topic. Yes, I know I have mispellings in my sig.
Microsoft's monopoly is fighting against itself [...] This is the end of the monopoly.
Yes, based on market trends I would have to say Microsoft is at risk to lose their dominant position to their nearest competitor: Microsoft.
Backwards compatibility. Can't live with it, can't live without it.
Emulators (DOSEMU, Bochs). VMs (Xen, VMWare). Compatibility APIs (WINE, Carbon).
You can keep the complexity down of the core OS without compromising backwards compatibility. With all the resources at Microsoft's command, one would imagine they could handle backward compatibility without integrating it into the core OS.
Vista cannot be compared to Linux, but to distros. So, I would rather compare it with SuSE 10, or Ubuntu Dapper/Edgy.
Very true. You couldn't do a direct comparison anyway. You'd have to do some fiddling around with definitions of "Core OS" and whatnot-- do you count Gtk+ *and* KDE *and* Xlib as part of the core OS? Do you count the X Windows System? If not, why not, because we'd probably have to count Microsoft's current graphics and widget API as part of the core. Or maybe not, in which case Vista's complexity goes *way* down.
I don't think you could fairly compare the two at all, other than by certain metrics, like stability while performing certain tasks, standards compliance, stuff like that.
So, the only conclusion I can draw is that Microsoft's Vista is too complex, too crappy, too resource-intensive, too smelly, too expensive, and I wouldn't touch it with my mother-in-law.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
I suppose there isn't a legal reason to not allow you to buy an XP home licence (no service packs), but install an XP Home with all the service packs preinstalled, driver slipped in and so on... But what do I know? I'm no legal, I don't study Windows licensing
i think the article raises an interesting point. virtualization technology.
if you think about it, this could mean that ms ships as a host operating system and one preinstalled 'guest' operating system.
from this point on, anyone can run his sw in windows, older versions of windows (with which it is competing) and most of all: any linux distro or other OS.
this further on means, that non-technical people will run linux on their boxes, like any other application. for them, there is no big difference whether it's an application or a complete operating system. this means also, that ms has found it's niche, where it always was. the end user. i doubt that there will be many non-technicals, that will later change to have another OS as their host operating system.
this also solves the 64bit problem, the old 32 bit apps can still be run.
no, it's not a rant. it's english journalism. the idea of english journalism is to entertain the reader. you have to be able to separate the facts from the polemnic. it is an established tradition in england.
It's interesting the unstated assumption in the arguments against heterogenity: that any given company must support multiple platforms for heterogenity to work. I don't think that's true, though. If any given company uses a single platform, but different companies choose different single platforms, the end result is much the same overall: exploits have a much smaller target they'll work on.
And further, I don't think the arguments about the cost of supporting multiple platforms hold up. There's more than enough research supporting the contention that it takes fewer people to support Unix-based desktops than Windows-based ones, and that makes sense given the remote-admin capabilities built into desktop Unix that come from it's server roots. So suppose a company switches to a 50/50 mix of Windows and Linux desktops, and a Linux tech can support twice as many desktops as a Windows tech could. Yes, supporting two platforms costs more than supporting one. But at the same time you've just halved the number of Windows support people you need because you've got half the number of Windows desktops (assuming you've got more than 1 or 2 people could support). You need to replace them with Linux support people, but you only need 1 Linux guy added for every 2 Windows guys you're dropping. If you started with 4 Windows techs, you'd drop 2 Windows techs and add 1 Linux tech for a total of 3 techs now. That's a 25% drop in personnel costs. When figuring costs, you have to add in the reduction in personnel costs as well. Plus there's the reduction in licensing costs that offset any increase from having multiple platforms.
And finally, there's the BSA. We've all read the reports about their audits and the havoc they create. If your company's already supporting non-proprietary platforms, you're in a much better position to do an Ernie Ball if the BSA gives you grief.
Microsoft could have the lousiest, crudiest, most horrible products in the world (maybe?) and people will still continue to use them simply because it's what they've always used, and, in some perverted way, feel comfortable with. If IT weenies suggested a major shift in OS's at their companies, chances are much more likely they'd get canned than that they'd be listened to. All this talk about the imminent collapse of Microsoft is just so much BS. Microsoft will continue to be the 900-ton gorilla for the lifetime of anyone reading this.
It seems to me that most of the major desktop environments all have similar sets of features. KDE, Gnome, OS X, and M$ Windows all have features that seem very common to one another. Moving from M$ Windows to KDE for example is not a huge leap, in fact, I have put both my girlfriend and my apartment-mate on SuSE with the KDE environment and within a half an hour, both of them felt very comfortable with it. The same was true when I got my mom an iBook a few months ago, she had never used anything but M$ Windows -ever- and within about an hour she really enjoyed it. So, M$ Windows does not need to be everywhere for people to just hop on a computer and start using it, just a half-way decent windows manager.
I still think that the funniest thing about the FSM idea is that almost no one sees the HUGE logical flaw in using it as a parallel to belief in God.
Then again, there could be multiple insuperable logical flaws in the basic idea of using the FSM as a Deity stand-in, and maybe I'm stupid for not seeing them.
Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
Microsoft has several different ways of licensing software and each one can use a different key even though they may look the same.
The key sticker on the laptop is obviously an OEM key and would likely require the appropriate OEM install files (OEM pressed XP disc/OEM pressed repair disc/recovery partition) to match. Contact the vendor to get these files.
Anyone that has a Microsoft pressed disc which contains both XP Home and Pro should understand this as these are distributed with an MSDN subscription. Truthfully, I can't say for certain that MS doesn't ship discs like this to OEMs or to corporate "open" license customers but the point remains the same; anyone who would come into possesion of these discs should be aware of this fact.
There are ways around this install incompatibility but I will not help you with that. My advice would be to read your MSDN license agreement and check out the marginally helpful FAQ or to destroy the disc if you do not have the right to use it.
Definitely a rant, or at least not researched journalism in the least: "on the streets of Shanghai, Bangkok and Singapore for a dollar a pop". You'd have just as much luck buying a pirated copy of Windows in Soho than in Singapore. I have no idea whether you can get pirated software in Soho, but it sounds cool and exotic to me on this balmy Singapore night. You'd be talking about at least five dollars a pop in Bangkok. Ah but everybody there's too busy working in the rice fields to bother with computers, my bad.
Why do people keep perpetuating this myth? It should be widely known by now that all the important Linux developers get paid by their respective employers to work on the kernel.
People like you still don't want to understand free software. The "myth" is perpetuated because it's true for free software, which should not be confused with the Linux kernel alone. You might be able to come up with a definition of "important" that would make it look like the kernel is corporate sponsored, but that ignores the fact that it grew up without such sponsorship and depends on lots of other free software. The kernel is an important but small part of free software. Other important projects are the GNU utilities, GNOME, KDE, and Mozilla. There are thousands if not tens of thousands of other projects which make the overall free computing experience excellent. Companies are embracing free software because it costs less and does more so there will be more corporate "support" for all free software. That's great, but the vast majority of free software is still developed by unpaid volunteers.
Because people don't understand free software, they fail to understand why non free is failing them. The article comes very close to understanding:
It could be that purely networked enterprises like the Linux project are actually a better way of producing very complex products, ...
but they still don't really get the importance of standards, modularity and how non free companies will always break those things at everyone else's expense. They get caught up in this "complexity" thing and buy the same old M$ song and dance about making everything better:
The difficulties in developing Vista stemmed from its monolithic structure and the need for 'backwards compatibility', ie ensuring that software used by customers on older versions of Windows will work under Vista. This vast accumulation of legacy applications acts like an anchor on innovation. The Vista trauma has convinced some Microsoft engineers that they will have to adopt a radically different approach.
The failure of M$ to produce quality code in reasonable time is entirely cultural and predicted. Microsoft said the same "Never again, next time radically better" things when it launched XP. Nothing much has changed there and nothing much has changed in the free software world. How can it be that free software does not suffer from compatibility problems while M$ struggles to keep in touch with itself? Is it because M$ has inadequate communications tools? As much as I hate Outlook, that's not the reason. The reason is that M$'s abusive practices have made them a disfunctional island of incompetence. M$, was only worth something when others helped them. Their anti-social and greedy practices have driven the developers to free tools and with their exit the failure trend has only accelerated. M$ was more dependent on community input than free software was but hid the fact and treated their neighbors with contempt. In the non free world, you not only had to give mind share, you also had to give up money to participate and ultimately would be asked to sign non disclosure agreements and promise not to cooperate with your friends. It was a lie and it has failed. The free software community has none of those shackles.
Vista will be a bigger market flop than XP was and the free software exodus will continue. The hardware requirements, performance hit and the cost of replacing all of the "backward incompatible" software are just not worth it. People offering GNU/Linux computers will see an exponential growth in sales.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
That each of those machines will have a Vista license on it, which will be downgraded by another purchased license of WinXP/2K/Whatever. However, though it isn't *running* Windows Vista, it will count as a Vista license. And, if they could figure a way, as an XP license too...
MS made their bed they can sleep in it. Windows is too complex because MS MAKES it too complex. When you strip everything down to the (very stable) NT kernel, the design is pretty good. Then come on the layers for the GUI and things get muddled quickly. But even that isn't a big deal. Now lets consider the other crap that really has nothing to do with an "operating system", but is simply bundled in. You have junk like Media Player, Internet Explorer, notepad.. The list of apps that is just bolted on top goes on and on, but these things should be completely modular. MS is unwilling to decouple these things and is now mired in overcomplexity which is compounded by attempting to manage a team size needed to complete these tasks.
I'm starting to get the idea that MS doesn't even LIKE their OS anymore. It's just too much to maintain, while other programs like Office provide lots of money with less than half of the development costs.
There are plenty of cases where Java doesn't work, and for the ones where it does, a flaw in the JVM affects all OSes.
Also, what does a VPN have to do with anything? I think the word you're looking for is DMZ...
But Schneier's point goes deeper. Monoculture is not only cheaper in terms of training your support staff in IT. It's cheaper to develop for (even Java apps have portability issues), it's a cheaper cost to society (imagine how much farther KDE would get if the Gnome team switched completely, or vice versa), it's cheaper in just about every way imaginable until we see that catastrophic failure.
But then, the alternative is just another kind of security through obscurity: I'm secure because I'm an obscure OS like Linux or BSD, and not a mainstream one like Windows. In this case, just as in the normal "security through obscurity", it may make more sense to simply try to be secure in the first place, and not rely on people not finding you, or not figuring it out.
After all, if there were 3-5 wildly popular OSes instead of one, that just means you'd wait till you have 3-5 zero-day attacks and roll them all up into one super-worm.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
From http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/docs/HOWTO/Advoca cy
LOL, so because you're using an MSDN VLK CD to install Windows (for non-development purposes, thus illegally according to the MSDN EULA) and trying to use an OEM license, that makes Windows buggy?
You should switch to Linux, it's people like you that spread worms. If you don't know how to install an OS, you must not know how to keep it patched either.
With a variety of DOS providers all implementing a de facto industry standard, the following evolution of desktop OS'es would have been vastly different. My best guess is that it would have followed a path similar to the one trod by Unix a decade earlier (and the web a decade later): gradually growing features in a modular fashion and deprecating superannuated cruft all according to a vague sort of consensual best-practices doctrine. What actually happened was a bunch of comapanies (like Phar-Lap for example) made DOS extenders to use more than 640k, provide GUI toolkits, and so on, the start of a unix-like evolution. But all of these extenders depended on MS-DOS. When Win 3.0 (whose DOS box tolerated extenders rather poorly) came bundled with PC's, the multipolar competitive evironment crashed and MS monoculture set in. We have been stuck with it ever since. People in the OS-enhancement aftermarket fled for the hills: Nobody in their right mind would spend money to develop a Win 3.0 extender.
Let us NOT confuse Open Software with Free Software with Open Standards. What the industry needed then and what it needs now are Open Standards. If the industry kept its eye on the ball, on switching costs, and said "I will buy Word/WordPerfect/WordStar/ today. But I want my docs saved in such way that I can switch to another product next year." there would not be a mono culture today. But that is difficult for the industry to do. MSFT would offer deep discounts. Managers having to meet quarterly number quarter after quarter will take the discount on a difficult quarter and be locked in for ever. They would not even admit that they knowingly signed the agreement-to-be-enslaved knowingly. They will invent reasons and justify the decision.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Conclusion, FTFA; CISO's are faced with the reality of maintaining an existing network solution, knowing that it is only a matter of time before they have to earn their meager salaries. Microsoft Network Security is like a, a "Whoopie Cushion". They're both inflated. They both cost money. And everyone smiles when you sit on one.
"Slowly, one by one, the penguins steal my sanity" - Unknown
"Many people just accept that many cheeper devices dont' work on Linux or Mac, they need to accept that for Windows too."
No, I don't accept that there are lots of cheaper devices that don't work on my Mac. I've never bought anything since 2000 when OS X came out that didn't work with it. Takes a tech support call or two sometimes, but they DO work. I have heard that about Linux, tho., altho not from personal experience.
"Lots of companies don't provide a CD any more - just a separate partition"
Apple provides recovery CDs. Without requiring keys. 'nuff said.
"Larger software choice, more available support,"
Virtually ALL major software makers provide Mac versions of their software, and more and more are getting on board. With third party solutions such as CrossOver that'll allow the use of Windows software in OS X WITHOUT Windows, that argument is dead. Support for Apple is getting better all the time, and Apple is repeatedly rated as top of the field in customer satisfaction with tech support.
The Mac OS is not so different or complex as to require extensive training. I can take your average joe or jane, and have them productive in half an hour, if they're knowedgeable about the basic job to begin with. People are much more capable in general, certainly in the business world, and not all users are clueless dorks.
I agree with the statement about idiot-proofing an OS, tho. Make a better OS, they'll make a better idiot, every time. But with a *nix based OS, like Linux or OS X, even admins don't run root, and most tasks don't really require it. It's about time Windows got on board with that one!
"Money is truthful. If a man speaks of his honor, make him pay cash." Notebooks of Lazarus Long, Robert A. Heinlein
Yes. One can't argue with that. Microsoft is very successful, just like De Beers, or Big Oil. Yes, they won, and not entirely by abusing monopoly powers. But they didn't win nicely, and neither the consumer nor the field of software development has benefitted from their win to the extent they might have in a world where Microsoft actually had to compete with innovators (instead of swallowing them whole).
Gee, I read the eWeek article and I guess that balances the Observer because by the middle of page 2, I'm seeing that Vista provides better security and gets a big thumbs up from the boys in the know. Vista will require new computers, so everyone gets paid off to say that Vista is good, because everyone makes money.
The eWeek article is very pro Microsoft (and very insane) in the sense that it identifies the monoculture problem then encourages people to spend money on Vista and new hardware as a solution to the monoculture problem.
People offering GNU/Linux computers will see an exponential growth in sales.
Yes, they'll get two sales this year instead of one. Maybe four next year.
But seriously, I hardly see Linux PCs being the new hit, considering they run very little of the available consumer software, support an even smaller percentage of consumer hardware and aren't even a well known concept.
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
The first article is an intersting piece of some merit. The second sounds like the most stereotypical Digg or Slashdot anti-Microsoft-fanboy and should never have made the front page of a site like Slashdot.
/. editors feel they need to post EVERYTHING that shows up on Digg/etc.? A lot of crap shows up on other sites. Don't just blindly post it.)
(WHY do the
UNBELIEVER! KILL HIM! KILL THE UNBELIEVER!
(Hello. This is to counter that fucking annoying lameness filter. Let's see how much lowercase it really needs.)
On the contrary, the first copy of software usually has tremendous intrinsic value, even if the second copy doesn't have any value, or if the first copy only has value to one person. That's why the best programming jobs (in my opinion) are for companies that pay you for the first copy and don't care if they make money on the second.
When companies figure out that, for example, they can pay someone to implement the exact features they want in OpenOffice.org for a comparable price to what they are paying for Microsoft Office licenses, then they'll reap the benefits of being a software investor instead of a software consumer.
This space intentionally left blank.
Virtually ALL major software makers provide Mac versions of their software
How many games are on Steam (Home to more than 1 major software maker)? How many "just work" on a Mac?
Apple provides recovery CDs
No, you buy a CD from Apple. You just don't have the option NOT to buy it with a new computer.
Grammer Nazis - I mod you "troll" unless you actually add something on-topic. Yes, I know I have mispellings in my sig.
You are correct! My bad! Must be zogheimer's kicking in....let's switch it to "apex" or "zenith" or something like that.
They had the only OS that ran on the cheapest hardware at a time when hardware was the most expensive part of the system.
However, they are no longer the only OS that runs on the cheapest hardware, and hardware is often not the most expensive part of the system anymore. The equation has changed, but the interesting question is, has or will Microsoft change sufficiently to adapt to the new equation. From looking at their Vista strategy, I have serious doubts about that.
I won't get into games. I didn't see games being a major issue in the article, nor in the major thrust of this topic.
But as I said, CrossOver will allow most Windows software to work under OS X, WITHOUT WINDOWS. so probably more than you think. And since the new mac Pro's come with newer pumped up graphics cards, I'll bet that's better than you think, too.
A recovery CD is included with all computers you buy from Apple. Don't be disingenuous - of course you PAY for it, just like you're paying for the computer. Don't make stupid arguments.
"Money is truthful. If a man speaks of his honor, make him pay cash." Notebooks of Lazarus Long, Robert A. Heinlein
Stac did not get disc compression perfect the fist time out. Each version impoved. Microsoft Double Space exhibted certain bugs under certain circumstances, that older versions of Stacker had. Thus signalling that they either lifted the code, or recoded it, but followed the logic of the old stacker code.
Micorsoft also did in the Spyglass web browser, I would not call it ethical behaviour to make a deal to give a percentage of my profit from each sale of a product in payment for buying that technology, and then giving the prodcut away for free, and think I don't owe Spyglass some serious coin.
Then we have the typical company "A" has a product 1.0. Mircrosoft enters the market, makes a crappy 1.0 of their own. Then quickly release a 1.1 or whatever before company A releases their 2.0 product, and then sues company A when they put their 2.0 product out for copying MS's product. Since it takes 2 or 3 years to get to trial. So all of company A's profits go into the court case and not into developing their product. Microsoft can afford to do this, that is unfairly leverging their monopoly. It may be somehwat legal, but it is not ethical. I pray that I never build a prodcut that is so good, Microsoft decides to take over my market. Because if I am not making millions a year in profit, I do not have a chance of weathering out the eventual lawsuit from Microsoft.
vi +
This is not Microsoft's fault - this is the classic result of having a badly managed strategy for updates, no backups, and likely a bad setup by the laptop manufacturer.
This sort of complaint is like claiming Mitsubishi make bad cars because when you carelessly add bits to the engine without understanding what you are doing the engine won't start anymore.
I guarantee that if you used the same poor strategies with any other OS you would get the same result.
Those of us who have highly stable XP machines aren't making up stories - we just took the time to know what we are doing.
It's all very well knowing that Vista adds nothing compelling enough to upgrade, and that WinXP still does the job just fine, but the Microsoft EULA does not allow you to move your old OEM copy of Windows XP to new hardware, so when your old PC dies or becomes obsolete, you'll have to buy a new one with whatever flavour of Windows is going.
Sure there will be those noble few who buy a bare-bones system and drop their own OS (Linux?) on there, but by and large, Joe Average, as well as Big Corporation wants Windows.
I'm not so sure on the cars and costs though. I am old enough to have owned studebakers when the company was still around for example, so I know about manual chokes (and miss them actually)(and vent windows) and have had several flathead engined vehicles. Cost wise, 12-18 month loans were the norms for new cars back then IIRC.
Your other points on the electronics are interesting and part of the musing. I think it would be hard to *not* start using computers once you enter any sort of IC age.
" I suppose part of it was they had to clone BIOS because IBM wouldn't sell or license, whereas DOS was (falsely) proffered as an open platform."
Neither MS or IBM claimed that DOS was an open platform because nobody cared about open platforms in those days. If they had, the IBM PC would have been a total flop, because IBM were famed for being the absolute antithesis of openness.
I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.
Better device support outside the box. Linux can max out USB2.0 transfer rates with hard drives for instance. Windows isn't as good.
Better multiprocessor support.
Better networking support.
Better virtualization options.
Better multiplatform support.
Our "Big Corporation" is still at Windows 2000.
:-).
You are right about "Joe Average" but big "Big Corporation" buy "Corporation Edition" windows.
They buy them bulk on so called "Golden CD's" which are quite cool because each installation has the same registration number and do not need to be "activated"
Martin
What world are you living in?????
MS is doing great, people use their stuff very successfully...
All you claim to know and attribute to whatever behaviour/mechanism is all how you would like your world to be...
face it, MS is here to stay and their stuff is used by a large group of happy users....
Please go back to your little playground and do not try to annoy the adults...