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Microsoft Cracking Open the Door To OSS
AlexGr sends us to a long piece in Redmond Magazine on Microsoft's changing relationship to open source. The article centers around a profile of Bill Hilf, Microsoft's internal and external evangelist for OSS. It's an even-handed piece that fully reflects the continuing deep skepticism in the community of Microsoft's motives and actions.
I've certainly never seen anything in this time/space reality that has been even-handed about the relationship of Microsoft & OSS.
Run awaaaaaaay! Seriously, it's a trap.
They're a business. If they see a dollar sign, they'll chase it.
God Fucking Damnit
Maybe Microsoft should show that they are "cracking open the door to OSS". I don't care what they say, I won't believe it until I see it.
--Thomas J. Owens
What has Mr. Bill Hilf actually accomplished? This isn't the first time I've seen his name championed as Microsoft's OSS evangelist, which in and of it self is all well and good. However, I haven't actually heard/read of him doing anything that actually benefits OSS (not necessarily Linux). I'm hoping someone can enlighten me.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
How does one become the Open Source Software evangelist at a practically 100% proprietary company?...That's like being a Christian Evangelist at a Mosque.
In a world of acronyms, the words are the real victims.
They have one motive - to make money for their shareholders. Perhaps you mean `strategy`? They might ponce about with OSS if they can make money from it (not directly, but by selling apps/services which support OSS), but they make their money in the main from the desktop (which they show no signs of losing control over, despite/because of the number of Linux distros out there) and supplying Office (and exchange server, if you want to consider them as separate) to businesses. There's still no serious rival to them there.
...they couldn't kill OSS with their FUD, now they try to kill it thru cooperation... as they did with many other products.
MS prime goal is to eliminate all competition... so when one strategy fails they try something else...
"I ask those folks, 'How often has Microsoft sued over IP?' The answer is two [times]," he says. "We are not a patent troll company. We protect our IP and our licenses, but we do not want to litigate." - I assume this does not include the fiaSCO from Utah, I guess it is not direct enough to count it into these two times.
In any case, one thing I know I don't want to deal with in this life is MS stuff.
You can't handle the truth.
It's an even-handed piece that fully reflects the continuing deep skepticism in the community of Microsoft's motives and actions.
/. article?
Does it reflect our continuing deep skepticism more than the tag of "itsatrap" which is soon to adorn this
Ya the support open source software so much I heard they are going to help with WINE.
Libertarian Leaning Political Discussion Forum.
There was a lot of progress made in the world when we had Soviet Russia to rally against during the cold war. Get rid of Microsoft and much of software and the open-source movement will stagnate. Not necessarily because of any direct improvements, contributions or achievements by Microsoft, but because they are the central evil empire around which all opposing viewpoints, practices and communities can clearly see as the colossal against which they're flinging the rocks of their own progress and movements.
Given the countelss times MS and dressed up evil in cool clothing, why should we believe them this time?
Engineering is the art of compromise.
If this gets people to stop saying how good Open Office is, then I welcome Microsoft with open arms.
Well....as long as they are willing, and actually manage to follow through on an open source, freely distributed item.
I am open source, and Linux baby!
I'm not averse to being offered the carrot and stick. True, it's a hard sell, but at least there's a carrot. Microsoft is a big business that succeeded by playing hardball, and any acquiescence on their part that didn't involve playing more hardball would just seem weird. Sun Microsystems moved Java from a Community Source License to the GPL after a long period of time. Perhaps we'll see Microsoft do the same with their Community Licensing, preferably for the
"Please describe the scientific nature of the 'whammy'" - Agent Scully
I see that every day around here and elsewhere. The different degrees of "M$ WINDOZE IS TEH SUX AND I HATE U LINUX ROXX LOL!!!1!" are getting to be completely ridiculous and will eventually hurt more than they help. People (you know, out there, not "here") by and large don't have a negative view of Microsoft, and ultimately that's what matters.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
Interoperability -- Why don't they support Open formats then. Why don't they come up with proper documents so open source vendors can interop. They will be friendly as long as it do not hit there cash cow products i.e Windows OS and MS Office.
MS's Mantra is you can open source any product as long as it runs on windows and we are not yet developing that product.
Hilf! Hilf! Wir verstehen nicht Linux! Hilf!
"I know together we'll make the possible totally impossible" - Homme
I do not think it means what you think it means:
Candor: the quality of being honest and straightforward in attitude and speech.
Honest? Maybe. But I'm not taking this reporter's word for it -- there are truths, and there are truthinesses.
Straightforward? That, I highly doubt. That last sentence -- perhaps it has something to do with Windows market saturation? It's a misleading fact, and thus is hardly straightforward. Never mind the fact that 'customers' is a term he doesn't define.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
"Smells like Linux"
Ohh yea.....
"You made one mistake, you trusted us."
This is just Microsoft's fud piggy bank. They put some pennies in now and they will take some more latter.
Money is the root of all evil?
Anyone remember when IBM was the Microsoft of it's day? Ultimately Microsoft will learn the lesson that it needs to transition from a company that create standards to one that contributes to them.
on posting an article that talks about Microsoft (&& Open Source) on slashdot? I see pretty much the same replies from previous articles..
Microsoft smashing in the door to OSS, in the middle of the night, mask on, weapons in hands.
Swedish plasma phys. PhD student; MSc EE; knows maths, programming, electronics; finance interest; seeks opportunities
in the community of Microsoft's motives and actions?
They have a community?
---GEC
I'm but the humble pupil, seeking to snatch the scratchbuilt pebble from the master's fully articulated hand
Yes, it's in recognition of Microsoft's increasing acceptance of Open Source that we moved the Halloween Documents off our website onto Eric Raymond's website. We only have a link from http://opensource.org/halloween/ to Eric's site. Perhaps if Microsoft makes some more concrete step towards being a member of the Open Source community (e.g. by sumitting their licenses for OSI approval, hint, hint), we might remove even the link.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
It is an invite to the lawyers that they wish to sic on Linux's IP
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
MS has "borrowed" heavily from the OSS world. Mostly from BSD, but they are not above patenting a number of ideas that have prior art in GPL and BSD.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
MS will spew so much mostly-useless but slightly-proprietary info around, that nobody can implement a 'clean room' version of anything, thus, MS will use its IP Hammer on any threatening projects. Are you listening Novell?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Is this a sign of a coming linux apocalypse? Interesting question. If linux ever becomes the primary desktop system, we'll see products hitting the market like "Microsoft Office for Linux" or "Visual Studio Linux Edition" or "Linux.NET" or "DirectX for Linux"... I'm pretty sure the future is more gray than people might expect. There's no way in hell there'll be the magical open source free software unicorn land that GNU and FSF might anticipate- but a hybrid market? Quite possible.
I'm not a fan of Linux or its many cacophonous ideas of a desktop system, but I won't care by that point because I'll be driving a flying car.
I'd really be curious to see Microsoft dive in the OSS and try to come up with a business plan.
My take on it is that MS realizes that OSS is here to stay and that its gaining due in part but not totally to their crappy vista.
So they said "if people are gonna move to OSS, we'll follow them" - as they say "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em"
but that's highly hypothetical and way too optimistic, with MS, there's always a snake somewhere trying to bite you in the arse.
That said, lets assume they do jump in the boat, i'd be curious what they would do to keep making money with OSS.
If you look like your passport photo, you're too ill to travel. - Will Kommen
Redmond, sensibly, will do what is best for Redmond, however they conceive of that. Whether they take a strategic view and work with OSS in the context of what is good for both Redmond and OSS is good for Redmond, or not, is up for discussion later on. In either case, right now, right here OSS is a tactical approach for Redmond. Tomorrow might be a different tactic - who knows. But one should always remember that for better or worse, whether they are actually good at it or not, Redmond should and will do what is best for their own interests and agendas.
What plausible benefit is there to working with OSS? Well what benefit was there to working with Novell or IBM or anyone else? It's to co-opt them and share technology to the point where it can help a little and hurt a little less. Working with OSS can keep the OSS communities from straying too far and there may be some actual technical upside to code sharing. But beyond that if you're looking for some goodwill, community action or just plain old being nice, i'm afraid you are badly mistaken.
Come on, just for a change.
Or at least RTFA before deciding whether to tag: itsatrap...
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
Microsoft has offered the source code for some of their products under a Microsoft licence for a while including some games.
e fault.mspx
Licence details: http://www.microsoft.com/resources/sharedsource/d
A trapdoor is the only door Microsoft will ever open to any (I say *any*) competitor, ever.
Is that you Nick Naylor? =D
Its clear from the article that Microsoft's approach to opensource is a double-standard of 'encouraging' other companies with windows-based products to put their source code on Microsoft's website.
Its also clear Microsoft aren't ever going to put their own products source code there.
The more they try to become different, the more they stay the same.
Me personally?
"rm -f *" comes to mind
That's marketing talk.
... if Bill Hilf worked for IBM, then he must have HUGE contributions to OSS, right ?
... point to at least one major contribution to OSS that he has done.
Yeah
Oh please
You OSS zealots (particularly twitter) are doing more harm than good.
Ironically, anti-OSS zealots are a lot more widespread and a lot more poisonous.
Talk about bloated, poorly written software.
If that's the best OSS answer to an office software suite (arguably the most fundamental personal/business software in the world), open source on the desktop is fucked for a while. 90% of the world seems to agree on this, why can't the community up their game?
You probably need another 15 years of free time.
They're not supportive of OSS in the realm of device drivers for Windows, that's for sure. Vista 64-bit version does not permit unsigned device drivers to be loaded. Period. That is going to shut out a lot of OSS projects aimed at controlling all the nifty hardware you can hook up to your machine. Microsoft's official reason for this is they want to make it harder for malware to infect a machine. The real reason probably has something to do with DRM.
What have YOU done for OSS? You OSS zealots (particularly twitter) are doing more harm than good.
Advocating freedom never hurts anyone in a free society, but thanks for thinking of me. I love you guys, and all this new M$ tone that spews forth here.
What you say about Mr. Hilf may be true, but I'd like to know what he's done since joining M$. The article is a collection of confusing propaganda, more inflammatory than informative, and I hope it does not really reflect Mr. Hilf's beliefs:
Nice flame but not much content. Mr. Hilf's "dirty little secret" comment about most people being forced to run M$ first, without mention of the Federally proved monopoly, is more of the same. Oh wow, this is rich:
The company responsible for the fiaSCO that's threatening everyone that they own patents on everything is not a troll? OK, that's enough fantasy reading for me today. Mr. Hilf is not the first nice thing that M$ has bought and ruined.
If these things don't reflect Mr. Hilf's opinion, let it be a lesson for those who consider working for "the enemy". they will use you and hang whatever opinion around your neck they please before they dismiss you.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I'm not sure if your comment was meant as a jab at Bill Hilf, or if your just literally meant that it seems incongruous to find Bill Hilf and Bill Gates in the same roof. I'll assume the latter - I agree it seems odd.
The cynical side of me thinks that this is purely a political gesture, and that Microsoft is giving him a "window seat" with little influence inside of microsoft.
However, Microsoft attempted the same thing with Robert Scoble. Most people wrote him off as a shill, but he (IMHO) brought about real, substantive change in how Microsoft communicated with the outside world, and that they are now a more "transparent" company, especially with the development community.
Maybe he's a "double agent". I'm hoping that, even if Microsoft is being disingenuous, that Bill Hilf is able to undermine this attitude from within the inside?
What do you want to bet that their idea of good OSS will be BSD and they'll want to get rid of the GPL for being "too political" and "anti-business" and "a divisive force in the OSS community"?
Anyhow, what do they think an evangelist will even be able to do in the community? Contribute code? Say "Please don't hate Microsoft! We only used dirty tricks on our competitors!" Encourage us to "respect" copyrights the way Microsoft does? Especially things like Seattle Computer Products v. Microsoft and Sendo v. Microsoft...
One wonders just what they're thinking here, or if it's meant to be a fluffy bit of PR that evaporates into nothing.
How does one become the Open Source Software evangelist at a practically 100% proprietary company?
Sell out.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
"What have YOU done for OSS? You OSS zealots (particularly twitter) are doing more harm than good." I'll have you know that I have PERSONALLY downloaded over five, ahem, FIVE different Linux distributions and tested them on my old laptop at home. SO THERE. Ha.
come on, the MS Linux/OSS lab is nothing more than a place for Microsoft to keep an eye on what the OSS projects are doing and how they'll work within a Microsoft based environment. All this is to help them target their marketing and tweak their products so that they win and OSS loses. And I doubt if there is a single instance where befriending Microsoft will help OSS. We are talking about the "One Microsoft Way", "Linux is communism", etc Microsoft, are we not?
THERE'S 20 YEARS OF HISTORY HERE FOLKS. They are doing this to protect the MS Windows monopoly and their profits from this, noting more. So there is NOTHING in it to help you, the customer or you the developer. The game is about market protection and has been since the late 80's. IMO
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
If you wish to produce an OSS Exchange Server equivalent to offer the public an alternative, it faces several major obstacles:
* Its gotta be feature complete, offering everything Exchange does
* Its gotta be Exchange Compatible because like it or not, most businesses that rely on Exchange are thoroughly tied into it, and it will have to work as well as Exchange with other Exchange servers etc.
* You have to convince the CEOs that its worth switching. Within my (admittedly limited) experience of Exchange in a business environment, its the CEOs who want to schedule meetings who push for Exchange deployment, not the average person, who just wants their email.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
For them to move office to a select few distros of linux? Then, many vendors of linux would move towards something compatable with office creating standardization within the linux community allowing more growth since most everything that worked on the previous version would work on the new version. Also, expanding linux at home and giving more incentive for Windows to compete by releasing good compatable products.
One has to wonder if that's a super-giant mutant carrot that you're going to be beaten over the head with.
--Rob
Towards the Singularity.
Has it occurred to you just for a second that people actually naming you around here might be a sign that you're doing something wrong? Or are you still chalking that up to Microsoft's expensive and concerted effort to stalk you personally on Slashdot?
I'm sorry twitter, but what exactly do you find "inflammatory" here? I'll tell you: You don't. There's nothing there to be taken as a personal insult (which is how you seem to take it), but it works wonders with the mods, doesn't it? Every single one of your posts is an exercise in weird cuasi-intellectual prose with lots of weasel words thrown in that for some reason always reward you with your beloved mod points. More often than not you never actually say anything, but your posts look good and have some "M$ WIndoze" goodness, so everything is honky dory.
Between this and your sockpuppet account you've posted more than seven thousand times. Have you ever considered doing something actually useful for free software instead? All that time, trying to influence (I guess?) the group of people most likely to agree with you in the first place. If that's not a perfect example of your beloved "intentional waste" punchline, I don't know what is.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_antitrust _case/>
This includes some references to Europe:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Micros oft#Government_anti-trust_suits/>
That help?
weirdest thing I ever saw: scientology advertising on slashdot.
That's actually pretty good, because depending on how strongly he preaches OSS he may face a certain amount of ridicule or even open hostility. On the other hand, he might just be able to turn a few heads and - while unlikely to inspire a complete conversion - he might pass along some ideas and concept that MS can learn from the OSS world, and possibly vise-versa.
Should we start pirating Linux????
Oh, wait... It's free... Damn FOSS stuff...
"There is always an easy solution to every human problem -- neat, plausible, and wrong."
H. L. Mencken
FUD didn't work
Co-operation doesn't seem to be doing much (see: Novell/Suse+Microsoft)
MS isn't dumb. While they might not have much of a clue as to what to do with OSS, they've got money to sink into hiring talent that can help them along in finding answers.
For all OOO's faults, have you tried Office 2007? I just visited my mother, who's (as a secretary) been using MS Office products for a long time and got a new computer that came with 2007.
Least to say she was swearing a lot about how difficult and different the interface was. Not to mention what she doesn't know about the possible compatibility issues in the future...
She'd be better of with OOO but the sounds of it.
"People (you know, out there, not "here") by and large don't have a negative view of Microsoft..."
They would if they actually knew Microsoft and its anticompetitive ways.
And BTW there are just as many Microsoft zealots as Linux and your inference that Linux zealots are stupid and can't spell is... Well... really dumb.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
So, he's done *what* exactly? Technical strategy? What does that mean, exactly? Something like (*rolls Dilbert dice*) "Our strategy is to leverage our core paradigms to cross-train our parallel value ecosystems, resulting in a worldwide increase of fertilizing material!"
And the fact that they hired a guy away from IBM who was planning IBM's strategy makes me feel more like they want to sabotage things than evangelize (although those may well be the same thing in Microsoft's book, for all I know... embrace, extend...).
As for what I've done, I've been quietly releasing my code under GPL or BSD licenses as appropriate (e.g. BSD for trivial code, GPL for anything worth protecting). But that's because I want to help other people with my ideas, not control them with insane license restrictions.
And I really, really wish they'd give up stupid crap like the prohibition in MS Agent's EULA against using it to create materials "disparaging to Microsoft" or the EULAs on some antivirus software (Symantec AV, IIRC, possibly others) that forbid benchmarks of their software without their prior consent, or any of the other weird clauses you'll find when reading a typical EULA.
Is it so wrong to not want any software vendor to believe that it has the right to control me?
Do you know why Microsoft comes late to the buffet? Because they like their meal well fed.
20th century Marxism is not progress...
"More often than not the FLOSS claim that Microsoft "hinders" them is centered around disappointment over unrealistic expectations of fame and fortune..."
Show me an example.
Did Netscape (The leader in browser software at the time) have unrealistic expectations when Microsoft crushed them by illegally leveraging its OS monopoly?
There are numerous other examples where companies were in dominant positions until Microsoft crushed them. Not by offering a better product but by illegally using their monopoly position in the OS area to gain an unfair advantage.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
And you trust IBM now ? ;)
... but as a paying customer I do want honesty about long term trends and interoperability with products made by other companies.
The only reason IBM supports open-source is because they consider the enemy of their enemy their friend.
But IBM is not a company which can be trusted, and many of us don't forget that
A company's culture rarely changes, and while I don't give a damn if a company support open-source or not
And for these two simple requests I will never trust Microsoft or IBM, no matter how many times they are restructured.
I'm sure this calls for a goatse pic somehow.
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
I am the most anti-Microsoft person around, going back to getting burned when they abandoned OS/2.
However, I think this is great news. I wouldn't object to Microsoft becoming the #1 software producer for Linux - by making Office etc. work in Mono and licensing their C# Win32 libraries for a reasonable price. I would probably start using Outlook right away because our corporate overlords insist on Exchange.
Commodity software like operating systems are a losing proposition in the long term. If Microsoft can focus on a way to bring in licensing revenue from multi-platform software, I think everyone would be happy. I'm sure their C# stuff will always run better on Windows, but it potentially could be "good enough" on Linux and the Mac. As long as the device drivers and such are all GPL, that is good enough for the "open source" crowd. Stallman will still rightfully complain, of course.
I'm afraid that this Bill dude is just plain lying to everyone. The point about how many times they've actually sued is only part of the story. The bigger question is how may times have they THREATENED to sue people. Here's one link, which turned out to be a precursor to the SCO-vs-IBM lawsuit
I'm sure there have been lots of other threats. By leaving this information out, Mr. Bill is trying to deceive everyone.
Though some might try to gloss up this Bill dude as a friend of Open Source, you can't get around the fact that he's just plain lying to try to achieve Microsoft's goals. Same old stuff, different person.
Sure, prior to joining Microsoft Bill did some things for OSS.
But what since then? That's the real question. History is littered with great minds that went to Mcirosoft and then - poof! There was no output after. Half of why Microsoft acquires these kinds of people is simply to keep them away from other companies - you noted yourself that he was the leader of IBM's global software effort. Pretty good deal to take out that kind of leader from a large competitor for just the cost of one persons salary, and you get the marketing warm and fuzzy press releases about how much Microsoft is doing with OSS because they hired this guy.
History is littered with continuous reminders of what happens to partners of Microsoft. Why should potential OSS partners be any less wary?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The harassment dished out to me personally is part of that.
No, that's because you make yourself an easy target. Posting long-winded rants using slang like "M$" and "Windoze" is a good way to do it. Grow up already.
I love that you have lots of free time because your computers "work", and I'm trapped with "M$ Windoze workarounds" yet I have all this free time to "harrass" you. You don't even read what you write, do you?
As to the rest of your post, it's just the usual paranoid schizo "join us or die" zealot bullshit that doesn't even merit a response. It's always amusing to see you whining about "FUD" when it's about the only thing you have left as your desperation over your failure to do anything meaningful becomes more and more evident.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
What a sad, pointless life you must have.
Good thing I've got my example right here! > http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/11/ 1443211 [slashdot.org]
What you fail to acknowledge is the truthiness of their claims. Simply because they don't pursue headling-grabbing patent litigation (yet) doesn't mean there isn't a document spewing litigation machine who's main purpose is to protect microsoft and generate revenue.
The outcome is the same, less innovation and more expensive equipment.
Thanks for playing!
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=946- 01-10.2353t icle_id=657314r _linux_is_communism/
n ux+communist&btnG=Google+Search
http://www.fourm.info/Politics/Politics_Item.2005
http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=en&ar
and, of course,
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/07/31/ms_ballme
For more links, try:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Microsoft+Li
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Moodle is a large GPL PHP project that has benefited from Microsoft funding. Last year Microsoft paid Moodle core developers to add MS SQL Server support in Moodle to let it work better in institutions used to Microsoft platforms.
;-)
http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=57989
The developers actually used the chance to revamp their whole database abstraction layer, effectively adding support for a number of other commercial databases as well (Oracle, Interbase etc).
Microsoft also developed Sharepoint web parts for Moodle, and an extension for Word that allows teachers to publish straight into Moodle.
http://www.codeplex.com/Moodle2003WP
Yes, it's true there was a business case for Microsoft, because some very high profile institutions can now switch to using MS SQL, but I think overall it was a win-win for all concerned.
The order is inverted: Is not the apps, but firstly Windows must open its code to apps can work.
The piece from the article says it all..
Its also the only time in the article the directly mention the GPL at all.
licet differant, aequabitur
One thing you'll never hear any of his worshippers mention is that what Stallman has established is (at its' core) just as much a monoculture as anything Microsoft have. To prove the point, try looking for a compiler to build a Linux system + apps other than GCC. The GCC monoculture is so deeply entrenched that even people who don't use Linux (*BSD, SkyOS, etc) have no other choice.
The entire point behind the "viral" nature of the GPL is the establishment of a monoculture. Stallman doesn't want people using anything other than his software and his licenses. Most of the zombies who follow him adamantly attempt to enforce this desire as well...without stopping to think that the long term implications of *any* monoculture (whether commercial or otherwise) are never ultimately positive.
Linux users might not recognise the FSF monoculture for what it is, but you can bet that Microsoft does. They know that all using the GPL really does is move material out of their monoculture, and into Stallman's.
Hilf is the "dirty little secret" man?
All you have to do is examine that video critically. False premises. Characterization. Posturing. Strawmen. False dichotomies. Flattery. It goes on and on and on.
It's a "dirty little secret", according to him, that a lot of F/OSS runs on more Window machines than Linux machines.
It's a "dirty little secret", according to him, that a lot of F/OSS projects are abandoned playthings.
It's a "dirty little secret", according to him, that the testing effort that goes into those abandoned playthings doesn't match what goes into Microsoft Windows.
On, and on, and on.
Think about those assertions. Strip the characterization. Consider the assertions. Now look at the characterization again.
Anyone who objects to the /. estimation of Microsoft's character should examine that video critically. Before watching it, maybe spend some time with "On Sophistical Refutations". I can't make myself watch it again. I can feel my revulsion, physically.
As always, all IMO. Insert "I think" everywhere grammatically possible.
Hilf may be sincere about bridging the gap between Microsoft and open source. But at the end of the day, what Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates say will count the most. If they aren't convinced that Microsoft should co-exist and even build lasting alliances with open source, then nothing else that any other Microsoft evangelist says matters.
Only people hoplessly in love with M$ think I'm an asshole, generally because they don't believe in being nice to anyone.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I wonder if this is in any way related to choosing The Borg to represent Microsoft in the illustration above... What is this called? EEdE, Embrace and Extend, deny and Exterminate?
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
Speaking as a user and lover of F/OSS, please refrain from using these immature schoolchild-level names. You're making yourself look ridiculous, and in doing so you're making a lot of other, reasonable, people in the OSS community look silly too, since you're just reinforcing a largely-undeserved stereotype of unwashed early-teenagers who are mad a society, rather than a community of people committed to freedom and high-quality software.
One, I'm a moderate, I've read this thread, I don't think it's twitter whos's taking things too seriously.
Two, I used to think Microsoft deserved a fair shake, just like anyone else. Then I tried using their tools to do useful work. What they build is the software equivalent of a Big Mac, full of chemicals that are engineered to get you to buy again without actually giving you anything that costs the man too much. Let the workers push the pretty buttons and fatten their minds.
"Can't ya hear the cows? Can't you hear the cows." (Turtles, sometime in the '60s.)
Microsoft goes well beyond the necessary.
We'd have plenty to compete with without them, and we'll have more resources to do it with.
you know, some of us have worked really hard to undermine the OSS threat from the inside, mainly by driving the countless forks and egging on the infighting, etc., but you... well who needs enemies like us when OSS has friends like you? awesome job.
Where strange part of the world do you live in?
I work with teachers. They use strictly Microsoft's junk. They are intelligent. They know something is not right with the OS or the apps. Not knowing Unix, they can't see what things could be, but they know things shouldn't be the way Microsoft makes them.
And they are also aware that Microsoft is behaving like a monopoly out of control.
has never been as bad as Microsoft. IBM was the big elephant in the small pond, back when computers were things people didn't deal with every day. Microsoft made itself the pathologically overstuffed elephant in the general pond, bragging about the 80/20 solutions for people's problem, but it's always actually more like 20/80 solutions of problems Microsoft defines. That's what has polluted the market and sucked the economy dry.
Last time I checked niche magazines never step on their niche, and even non-niche magazines don't cross their advertisers.
Try to find a review of eComStation 2.0 beta 4 in any current PC (Windows or non-Windows) print magazine.
Yes, linux has a long way to go. No, it won't be on every desktop this year. But this is a turning point - microsoft has realised there is no way to kill off open-source, so now they want to "co-operate" all of a sudden.
Thank you, microsoft for validating my decision not to purchase Windows Vista, and migrate my remaining Windows apps to Linux ASAP :)
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
The other thing that's interesting about Netscape vs Microsoft is that Netscape tried to play Microsoft's game: they ignored pre-existing web standards and implemented their own proprietary crap. (Specific examples: they failed to implement standard HTML tables and invented their own attributes; they ignored CSS completely and invented something they called JavaScript style sheets, and then when JSSS failed to take off they kludged together a translation layer in NS4 that converted CSS to JSSS under the hood, and completely failed to work if you had JavaScript turned off.)
Netscape also tried to tie their browser to their server products via browser sniffing. That's one of the big reasons why IE reported "Mozilla" in its browser string--at the time, there were Netscape server products that would break if they didn't see that.
Microsoft, in contrast, started to support open standards. IE on the Mac was not only a much better browser than Netscape, it also supported web standards better. When the Mac IE team were found to have added the marquee tag and were criticized, they actually apologized and didn't add any new stuff. And IE on Windows supported CSS better than Netscape 4. Microsoft also got involved with web standards like P3P.
Of course, all this came to a screeching halt once IE became dominant in the marketplace and Microsoft no longer needed to compete.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
And nice way of avoiding the point. This does nothing to disprove that Microsoft isn't a patent troll, and will throw their weight around whenever and whereever they think they can get away with it.
Your attempt to portray them in a good light is utterly pathetic. Microsoft is also the biggest weight behind pushing software patents. Their efforts in bribery and intimidation during the last round in Europe was utterly disgusting. They absolutely deserve what they get when it comes back to bite them.
Show me one OSS company which goes out and threatens other companies with lawsuits just to put them out of business. You can't.
You'll have to do a better job at shilling if you're going to try to equate Microsoft with an OSS company. And it will be laughable to see you try.
Are you, by any chance, available as a CGI script? Or perhaps a Firefox plugin? I could think of a lot of websites that need to be similarly de-bullshitted.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
I hate people like you. Why should we all just do only what is best for ourselves? What a selfish dick you are.
We all need to survive, and (constrained) capitalism is what makes the world go round. But if you think that's all there is to life then, damn, I hope you die unhappy.
I tend to agree with parent.
Looking at the date of this arcticle and this article would
seem to indicate that Bill H. is either fighting this
kind of thing, or providing the fuel for such a marketing
farce. I'm currios to know if he had a hand it it but it's
probably something we'll never know.
Money is the root of all evil?
Go back to the commune and operate a money free society then.