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Would You Date Microsoft?
teslatug writes "Channel9 has an interview with Bill Hilf of the Open Source Software Lab at Microsoft. Hilf argues that the majority of companies advocate open source solely so that they can drive customers to their core business, which is not open source. He calls this his 'donut theory.' Hilf also sees RedHat in this model, with support being their core. He compares this to dating, where you have to offer your date value in order to entice them. In his view, Microsoft offers developers a platform where they can make money selling their software. The virtues of 'free as in freedom' and the value of open source to the desktop users are skirted, but he makes an interesting point about big businesses like IBM and Oracle."
Wow. So IBM only supports Linux because it thinks it'll make them money? Next you're going to tell me that Apple only sells iPods for the same reason. Or that the purpose of a business is to make a profit.
Property is theft.
...She has too many viruses :(
Only if i can get half of everything after it.
Curiosity killed the cat, but cats have 9 lives.
How was this not moderated "Score 5, Funny"?
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
Because it's mostly true?
Be wary of any facts that confirm your opinion.
Sorry, this is Slashdot. What is this concept of "date" you refer to?
I'd just never let it drive my car
Microsoft fucks you on the first date, marries you and forces you to an EULA - sorry, pre-nup - and turns into a wife who gets everything if you decide to leave her.
It's a date I'd avoid, thank you so very much.
Ignore this signature. By order.
IMHO, KDE's Konquorer is superior to Windows' Explorer. Both provide standard context and drag-n-drop file management. Konq also provides some nice split windows options. But the real advantage comes from the KIO slaves. Its nice to grab an archive from a SMB fileshare, open it up, drop a few of the internal files over to a SSH server (via SFTP or SCP). Being able to use the KIO slaves within most KDE file dialogs is a nice added bonus.
How do you know you've never installed a new kernel in Windows? Do you think it has been static, and hasn't been updated numerous times through both Windows Update and new versions of Windows? Do you not think that Microsoft has hundreds of internal kernel revisions that never get out to the public? This is simply the way that software development is done -- the fact that it's noticeable in the Linux world is a testament to its open development model.
That having been said, I don't know why you "had" to install a new kernel. Did you require a module which hasn't been back-ported? Did some other piece of software have the new kernel as a pre-req? Or did you just notice one come down the pipe when you did a yum update?
Every OS has kernel updates. Linux is admittedly more susceptible to updates due to the way that device drivers (modules) are tied to it, and the lack of a stable binary interface for drivers (which requires them to be compiled against the kernel you're running). In the end, however, it generally works the same for the end user: updates give you new features, functionality, and drivers. Package management tools like yum make this sort of update process easy.
I have a lot of problems with Linux on the desktop as well (on the client side, I'm a Mac OS X person), but this seems to be such a silly one to complain about. The Windows kernel is updated all the time via Windows Update -- you just don't see the word "kernel" on the display, and thus don't realize it. Linux is just more open about this sort of thing.
Yaz.
I've tried all kinds of protection but none of them work.
I think the question is wrong. Since they compare FOSS to going on a date, then paying for software would be like going to a hooker, right? Would you "date" a hooker? I wouldn't.. :P
$HOME is where the
-- silver_p
I used to write software using Microsoft tools. The tools were expensive, and sometimes buggy. And when I encountered bugs in visual foxpro, I couldn't fix them. They were usually fixed in the next version, which had a new set of bugs. It's not terribly buggy, but sometimes one bug can really cause problems.
I also did some VB stuff. They went through three different, slightly incompatible database access classes during my use of it. All were written by committee.
Note that these were the cheap tools, too, I wasn't using sql server or such.
The world of Free software is completely different. I have control. I cannot stress this enough: I HAVE CONTROL. It's considered a myth that anyone can fix bugs, but I have more than once. I remember well fixing a bug in the pop server that I'm using. It would have taken Microsoft or a company such as that a month or more to fix a bug like that. It took me 30 minutes from never having looked at the code to having the bug fixed, patch sent to maintainer.
Now, for the stuff that I do nowadays, not only is the control factor large, so is the cost factor. They are correct that Microsoft provides a platform where you can make money. But that means you have to give Microsoft some of your money. If free Free software didn't exist, that would make sense. However, in the presence of an equal or better alternative that costs no money, it makes absolutely no sense to give Microsoft money for their often inferior offerings.
I have a particular client that I took from another company. It was an ecommerce site, nothing special, frankly. The other company had already billed the client $40,000 and the product wasn't yet working. The client brought me in to help the other bozos with some html. Yes, you read that correctly. So I asked the client for their data set, and three days later showed them a prototype that was more functional than what the other guys had spent three months and $40,000 to accomplish.
I then made them an offer. They hadn't paid for the Microsoft licenses yet, which were going to run about $15K. I told them that I could deliver the entire thing for less than the up-front cost of the Microsoft licenses. In other words, they could abandon everything that the other guys had charged them so much for and still save money. They decided to play both sides, and a month later I delivered the completed site, under budget. The other guys charged them another $40,000 for time they had spent since the last bill, but still no completed site. I don't know if they paid it.
I have found that most companies like those do not inform their clients ahead of time that there are going to be Microsoft license fees to pay. They rather find out afterward. In this case, when the guys found out what I was doing, they went to the client and told them falsely that they didn't have to pay for those licenses, that they could just use a free test license.
There's a lesson there, though. For most larger projects, those license fees are laid out up front (although they are usually dishonest about the ongoing costs, I've found). But think about it. If a client is going to spend $50K on a project, my choice as the vendor is either $50K in my pocket or $40K in my pocket and $10K in Microsoft's pocket. Again, for what? Better yet, I can "undercut" at $45K, still make more money than the other guy and save my client money.
Note to other vendors: keep pushing Microsoft crap at people. I love it when you do. Seriously.
Do you have ESP?
1999 just called - they want their Linux FUD back.
But google and I have been seeing each other lately -- I think it might be serious too, we've gone out every night this week.
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.