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Linux Foundation Calls for 'Respect for Microsoft'
kripkenstein writes "Jim Zemlin (executive director for the Linux Foundation) gave a talk at LinuxWorld saying that the open source community should stop poking fun at Microsoft. From the VNU article: 'Open source vendors have to recognize that Windows is here to stay and that together with Microsoft it will form a duopoly in the market for operating systems. This also requires that the Linux community respects Microsoft rather than ridicule it. "There are some things that Windows does pretty well," Zemlin said. Microsoft for instance has excelled in marketing the operating system, and has a good track record in fending off competition.'"
Duopoly? Microsoft and Linux? I thought OSX has more market share than Linux does. Well, okay, at least in the desktop market.
So he's essentially saying I should respect Microsoft for thinking up all the dirty tricks it used to get it's monopoly in the first place. ... I am not convinced.
Eviscerati.Org: All Hail the Eviscerati
like i have respect for SCO
What is this, Hug a Grizzly Bear Week? Be Nice to the Sharks Month? This man Zemlin is obviously either a shill or a sad deluded man who needs to be shipped off to the re-education camps as soon as possible!
Go somewhere random
So what he's saying is that Linux excels at being good software, while Microsoft only excel at marketing practices? Sounds like a double-edged compliment to Microsoft to me!
I'm supposed to respect them because they're bigger than everyone else and thus can put more money into marketing and abuse their monopoly to crush competitors with underhanded tactics? How about they stop making shitty software and play nice with everyone else? Maybe I'd respect them then, but I'll certainly not respect them for what they do now.
Yeah, acknowledging MS's strengths is a lot like going to your grandparents 50th wedding anniversary; you're thankful for the legacy that they've left behind but at 70 years old and playing Friday night bingo, they're not quite relevant in the same way they use to be.
MS has lost it's way ( as documented in Joel's "How Microsoft Lost the API War" ) and with applications moving more towards the web as a platform, things don't look to improve.
Jim
RunFatBoy ( http://www.runfatboy.net/ ) - Exercise for the rest of us.
Poking fun at them is only a sign of overconfidence as Luke once said to Darth Vadar & Emperor Palpatine Your overconfidence is your weakness.
My work here is dung.
This also requires that the Linux community respects Microsoft rather than ridicule it. "There are some things that Windows does pretty well," Zemlin said. Microsoft for instance has excelled in marketing the operating system, and has a good track record in fending off competition.'"
Saying all Microsoft has ever done well is marketing and fending off competition is setting an example for not ridiculing them? I believe he's just being sarcastic.
Microsoft for instance has excelled in marketing the operating system, and has a good track record in fending off competition
Dear Mr Zemlin,
You don't have to market a product that sits at 95%+ market share.
All you have to do is continue the dirty tricks (legal and otherwise) that got it there, and keep it there. I don't respect criminals, thugs and liars, and I think you should resign for suggesting that the open source community should do so.
Yours sincerely
you had me at #!
Nah the summary states that Microsoft and Windows will form a duopoly. Sounds about right. :(
Microsoft operates in the real world - in the real world I only give respect to those who have earned my respect, or who have it by default and have done nothing to lost it; Microsoft fits neither of these to me.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
Microsoft for instance has excelled in marketing the operating system, and has a good track record in fending off competition.
Too bad that's the only thing!
Grammar Nazi
Microsoft's marketing strategy is actually quite simple. It follows the triple E system. Embrace, Extend, Exterminate. It also has another strategy is the triple B system. Buy Out, Bloat Up, and Bilk.
You should also respect them for publicly claiming that Linux "violates" X patents owned by Microsoft.
And that anyone using Linux (unless specially licensed) owes Microsoft some money.
And for Microsoft's continuing attempts to kill / marginalize the ODF standard.
Yes, Microsoft deserves your respect and not your disgust. So says an executive from a company that has purchased a "partnership" with Microsoft.
I have given up ridiculing people who run Windows on their workstations, basically along the lines of what this guy says. However, it is completely ridiculous to ever run Windows on a server.
Yeah. I read it on the Internet so it must be true!
- Henrik
- when the Shadows descend -
"Microsoft for instance has excelled in marketing the operating system, and has a good track record in fending off competition."
Thos are not things Windows does well. Those are things Microsoft's marketing and legal arms do well. So, if I want to sell something, or crush people who are selling something that competes with what I'm selling, great, Microsoft is the place to be. On the other hand, if I want to, you know, run my computer, I want a good operating system, not a good salesman.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
In effect Microsoft has only been on the radar for the average computer user for 10-15 years. The decline of Microsoft is starting, it's not a decline in profits or user base. But the realisation by many people that they are sick of the Microsoft lock-in.
Microsoft is desperate to branch out into other markets and in doing so their core products suffer.
People arent prepared to pay hundreds of dollars for Office anymore.
Their planning and project management for Vista was seriously flawed and the product has not sold well.
That's akin to telling the viewers of Fox News that it's important to "stop making fun of liberals, because they've here to stay, and they've made important contributions to the progress of the world at large".
No matter how important a role some group plays towards making something else important work, the nature of humans and comedy are going to have everyone and everything important to everyone mocked constantly. And no matter how bad that paints a picture of the large groups who mock other groups as part of that process - people are going to be mocking eachother as long as mental associations can be made.
The message behind this suggestion seems to be more a message to "act more professional people, you're making us look like bozos". Yes... it's nice to imagine sometimes that a loose community of groups and individuals didn't have to act exactly like the kind of human grouping it is. But we are humans, and Windows IS fun to make fun of, and most of us say that as Windows users.
Yes, Windows has contributed much for everyday users of computers - it has made many things possible that may not have been possible otherwise, and it will continue to be the best path towards many kinds of progress for the everyday use of computers going forward for the immediately foreseeable future... but it's still contains an endless variety of deep flaws that both mock the underlying nature (DRM motivations, artificially segmenting functionality for legal/marketing needs) of the software, and the human nature that lies behind these things, and our reaction to them.
Ryan Fenton
Well much of their legacy tech is crap (see WinAPI). But .Net, DirectX, Visual Studio are excellent projects. So, I have no problem with MS tech. I do have a problem with their attitude towards others (that is, crush them and grab every single dollar in the market). MS got unpopular because of their actions, not their tech.
This sig does not contain any SCO code.
Seriously, marketing the current operating system good???? If you want to market your product you need to make the whole organization from the field reps to the CEO, feel an internal respect for the product you are selling. Before I left I most certainly didn't feel that. Heck, the consistent cracks about Vista and other Microsoft related products was rather endless. Not to mention a tidelike flow of people leaving for jobs at other companies like Apple, Google, Netflix, ect. It's like the people in charge are really smart but have no idea of how to market a product. They need to go back to the basics again, rebuild thier marketing program. Don't use it to push defective products like Vista for the corporate suites ambitions show and glitz. Use it to push products within the Microsoft unbrella that currently work well. Also, use it to push for charities that would connect it to the very consumers that wouldn't otherwise buy the product.
It's a sad day in age when you can't even where a shirt that says Windows Vista in public without getting a "Vista sucks" comment. Hell, the people in IT at my new company nearly shot me for wearing that shirt one day. Microsoft's next release better be, AMAZING!!! Because, they have a lot of ground to makeup in IT departments, and companies everywhere.
I agree with the sentiment of getting along with Microsoft, I use XP at work, mostly because it came on the computer, but most importantly because we use Autodesk Inventor which only supports windows, our Servers were Unix for years till the supplying company dropped it for Windows Server, again not our choice. I don't think Windows is going away, mostly because of Business interests and supported software. I don't have much trouble with XP, I don't download viruses or crapware, I keep up to date on patches, so I don't have the trouble that most people complain about, my computer doesn't crash all the time, Inventor crashes, but it's picky about hardware. all that being said I use Ubuntu on my personal computer at home, I love it, but for a guy without internet access, it can be irritating sometimes.
... are technical. There ARE things MS does well, even technically, but sometimes it's just astonishing how bad the Windows design is. Vista now made that gap to UN*X systems (including Mac OS X) smaller (e.g. symlinks) or even surpassed it (I consider the MS PowerShell to be technically superior to what we have on UN*X systems). But it still amuses me that with all the money, all the people MS has, their OS is still not far ahead of the competition. And if you know the history of MS, the reason for their dominance is ALSO (not purely) a lot of luck: they were in the right place at the right time, but I think it could all have turned out totally different. Nobody would know MicroSoft today if IBM would have used CP/M on the IBM PC, or if the MS guys wouldn't have known QDOS/86-DOS.
Open source vendors have to recognize that Windows is here to stay and that together with Microsoft it will form a duopoly in the market for operating systems. This also requires that the Linux community respects Microsoft rather than ridicule it.
How can I put this eloquently...
Fuck off, Uncle Tom.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Linux community does not respect anything than better code...
[My english is better than most other people's Turkish, so please point out mistakes politely. Thank you.]
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Reading the title on this I had to check my calendar since I got the impression this might be the first day of the first full month of spring. But no, it is still the hot dog days of summer.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
And i cant think of ONE single puny nice little thing that Microsoft has done for Linux. I can oth think of pretty many things Microsoft has done to kill or stifle Linux. If Microsoft has earnt anything its respect in the sense you dont turn your back against a raving pitbull.
HTTP/1.1 400
when they start respecting Open Source and Open Standards.
After all the pain they made us go through since windows 95, i cant stop poking fun at them. Thats the only way to withstand.
If i had stopped poking fun, the alternative would be to strangle whatever microsoft representatives i could find. Id rather poke fun.
Read radical news here
... like keeping me from controlling the computer I own, bought, and paid for (and built with my very own hands and tools from a few boards and parts).
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I too would respect the 400 lb. gorilla, though mostly by keeping my distance.
He's absolutely right on other points as well. If Linux rises to desktop prominence, against a competitor that has a 95% market share on the desktop (a practical monopoly), then the next logical step must be a duopoly, and it is doubtful that Microsoft will ever "go away." They will likely change the way they do business, like IBM did. Perhaps they will produce their own "open source" products, and then the Linux/FOSS community had better be ready for it, because they certainly won't be free software.
Expect it.
They've already proven the first axiom of business. Courts are the slowest moving thing on the planet. Business decisions will always outpace court decisions. That's how they got away with their illegal actions to slaughter STAC and Netscape. It didn't matter by the time the courts had decided. That's how Microsoft managed to pen a patent agreement with Novell, who won the MS-funded patent case against SCO, before the SCO case was even over. Did anyone notice that?
They're moving faster than anyone can litigate. Being right is not good enough here. You have to be right, clever, and decisive. If you can be ethical too, good for you, but ethical doesn't tend to work against an unethical opponent. Try winning a fair fight against a guy who is willing to kick you in the crotch and throw sand in your face some time.
Developers had better keep a careful eye on this gorilla, or you're going to end up working for him. Respect the gorilla.
--
Toro
Microsoft will never go away, so bend over, pass the Vaseline, and enjoy! Linux can coexist, but more so as foreplay.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
So on the subject of "what MSWindows does well," the best examples he can come up with are:
- Marketing, and
- fending off competition
How's that different from the critics saying that:He wants them to change their tune, so since the message is the same I guess he just wants us to have the same admiration for software-as-ad-medium and market foreclosure that he does.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Other things Microsoft got right about Windows; they now have a patented sudo work-a-like. Will their innovation never cease?
And - yess, it's all success.....
There are two kinds of respect at play here: respect for their abilities, and respect for the intentions.
I would argue that they are deserving of some of the first kind of respect. Not necessarily respect for their technical abilities in most areas (although they've done a few worthwhile technical things), but their overall ability to sell stuff and make a product successful. Whether their methods are good or not, there have been lots of other companies with big monopolies who sat on their ass and lost it. Microsoft is tenacious and doesn't seem to be doing that. And they strategize fairly well (except when they don't).
Then the second kind of respect, I think most of us agree, is not something Microsoft deserves. They aren't trying to be good citizens, and they aren't even trying to make a particularly product from a technical (or even ergonomic) point of view. When it comes to designing things that work, Microsoft is very much about doing the minimum. This is especially annoying given their position as one of a few industry leaders (in the sense that people follow them, not that they lead well).
So anyway, the disagreement about whether Microsoft deserves respect might be a problem with terminology. I think most people agree that Microsoft deserves one kind of respect but not so much with the other kind.
After all, they are here to stay and the sooner the rebel leaders accepts this
the sooner the rebels can learn to live with the empire and not to fight against it.
A bad analogy is like a leaky screwdriver.
I hate to resort to definitions, but from Merriam-Webster:
>respect
> Etymology:
> Middle English, from Latin respectus, literally, act of looking back, from respicere to look back, regard, from
> re- + specere to look -- more at spy
>Date:
> 14th century
>
>1: a relation or reference to a particular thing or situation 2: an act of giving particular attention : consideration
>3 a: high or special regard : esteem
> b: the quality or state of being esteemed cplural : expressions of respect or deference
>4: particular, detail
Certainly Linux should respect Microsoft by definition 2, as with any strong contender. Zemlin does not appear to use definition 3, which is often what people mean by "respect" in popular usage. I think we could all agree with that.
Slashdotter, ID #101. UIDs are in binary, right?
This sounds funny, but really the only way computers are going to get better is if we praise and are critical of the best and worst of ALL offerings. Not just sticking to whatever platform we happen to check our mail on at the time.
I use every one (except for Sun, but my current job doesn't require it), and I have to be honest, they all have strengths and weaknesses that are notable. I even secretly think some of Vista's features are neat.
-- The unsig...
I wonder what happened in between this article http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/may 2007/tc20070525_325967.htm and today's comment.
t /may2007/tc20070525_325967.htm
Can you say "Big chunk of Microsoft change in Zemlins pocket"? I can.http://www.businessweek.com/technology/conten
I loathe people who keep dogs. They are cowards who haven't got the guts to bite people themselves. - August Strindberg
"Jim Zemlin (executive director for the Linux Foundation) gave a talk at LinuxWorld saying that the open source community should stop poking fun at Microsoft."
really??? how about MS stop lying about Linux and stop putting small companies out of business.
Nicely used reference.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Paying respect to MS for using shady tactics, FUD and intimidation to gain their market position is like paying respect to a malware distributor for controling a million botnets. Yes, it ain't easy. But nothing that would be remotely praiseworthy.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
That is about it too, aside from excelling in steaing what they eventually market well.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
"requires that the Linux community respects Microsoft rather than ridicule it" Respect microsoft? after it litigates through a proxy (SCO), threatens via patent litigation, disavows the gpl v3 license, astroturfs, tries to subvert the OOXML standardisation process and DRMs everything (not to mention locking up its own software) so that the CIA has a hard time getting its hands on its "trade secrets"? Is this the company you want me to respect? I have two words to deliver to this so-called "linux community" the first word starts with "get" and end with "-ed!". This time Microsoft gets to dance to our tune. And believe me, Microsoft is going to give a whole new definition to the word "flexible".
There are reasons to respect Microsoft, but it's not because of their marketing or the quality of their software.
One should respect MS as a relationship with MS could be compared to a relationship with any other vendor.
A typical non-OSS user won't exactly be enchanted if they see the OSS community treating another company like degenerates. They don't know the difference between MS and any other company, all they see is OSS devs/users treating a company like crap. If you take a one-sided view, that makes OSS devs/users look bad. That's probably the only view they'll be taking since they haven't worshipped at the church of FLOSS.
If you look at the civil rights movement, Martin Luther King encouraged all to be non-violent, not carry weapons, and not give any excuse for others to even mistake them for wanting to possibly even slightly exhibit any negative behaviour or thoughts. That's to take any power away from the enemy, as they can't say anything if there's nothing for them to point out.
Another reason is that truth can come from anywhere, and a good argument will stand no matter who makes it. If we simply expect everything out of MS to be garbage, then we will also miss any jewels, and that's just hurting ourselves.
Anyway look. Bottom line is to be better than MS, we can't let ourselves go by saying "Oh, well, MS fucks up, we can too, just not as bad." That's pretty asinine. Nope. To be better than MS, we have to actually be better than them, not stoop just as low as them.
Twinstiq, game news
billions of dollars and man hours contributed to the office 2007 bar?
woah thats a lot of innovation.
Linux geeks should just treat Microsoft the way the Chinese government treats the US Government... a necessary enemy. Only there as a stepping stone to sovereignty or self sufficiency. Let them tout themselves, let them think they're winning, and then, when the chips are down, yank the last card from their house of cards... and watch them fall.
Sun Tzu was right though, you can either wean yourself off the enemy and create your own destiny, or you can destroy Darth Vader and take his place at the Emperor's side. Either you choose a side, or you don't play their game. Most Linux geeks have chosen a side, and will eventually find themselves in Darth Vader's shoes. It is inevitable when one takes the path of confrontation. One monster must be created to oppose the existing one, unless the wise man fends off the monster and lets it die of its own irrelevance.
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
Yes they are. Here's why:
#1. The registry. It's too fucking brittle AND it is constantly open by Windows AND it is not automatically replicated X times over Y days so you can recover when it does break. And it will, eventually, break.
#2. Which is why Microsoft shops advocate the "Wipe & Reload" method of "support". It broke, don't spend time trying to fix it. Fixing it is not an option. Wipe it and reload the "base image" that your shop uses. Sure it will take 30 - 60 minutes, but even if you have to do that for a dozen machines a week, it's still faster than finding the real problems.
#3. Viruses, trojans & worms. At least with Linux I can boot from a "Live CD" and chroot the local hard drive and check it / edit it to remove problems. WITHOUT losing all the data that the user has saved to it (see #2 above).
#4. No packaging system (see Debian & Ubuntu). And don't start going on about how you can make a "package" in Windows. That just shows you don't know what you're talking about. In Windows ANY app can replace ANY file when you install it. Under a real package management system, each file is owned by one AND ONLY ONE package. That file is NOT replaced unless you upgrade/remove the package that owns it. (or choose "force" and know that you're probably fucking up your system)
Some of the end-users prefer Windows. That's fine. It's personal choice. But it's still a "shitty" operating system based upon "shitty" decisions.
Couldn't agree more.
And by the way that should have been "that windows do pretty well", verbs, hey!
I actually like their products, they are still much more put together than any Linux distro has ever managed to be. Of course, what gives me pause about Microsoft and Windows is that for the massive, almost unimaginable amount of money that they make, especially compared to any Linux distro, their product just isn't -that- much better.
I realize that making an OS is one of the hardest things to do in the programming world, and Microsoft maybe sets it's goals in the wrong places, but with billions to spend on development, why isn't it the best goddamn thing ever? That's where I lose my respect for them.
OS X is only part of a package. You cannot use it by itself, so it is not really an operating system available for general use, it is part of a niche product.
so this would be a freebee to MS? out of the goodness of our hearts?
... when the quality of Microsoft's products stops being a joke.
http://outcampaign.org/
Microsoft is first and foremost a marketing company.
Second to that, they are a legal firm, to determine what move to make next that the price of getting caught is less than what they will gain.
Third, they are machine that intentionally destroys and/or absorbs competition by the means of which their legal firm has determined is profitable and their marketing can promote.
If there is any innovation at all it falls nothing better than forth place of importance to Microsoft.
Bill Gates got his start by porting BASIC, yelling piracy and later selling an OS they did not own.
They gained market share through the hype of having applications, good, fair or of poor quality is better than no applications.
Microsoft has made it very clear that that its two faced, a back stabber and has a criminal record in more than a couple countries.
Everybody that knows enough about Linux and/or some other OS's and applications know this without question, the bad character of Microsoft. They know not to trust Microsoft.
Now that this is all pointed out, who the hell is Jim Zemlin, and how is it that he holds a position with the so called Linux foundation (incorrect as its not the foundation of linux at all, Linus is and a great deal of the software that runs on Linux has its foundation with the Free Software Foundation.)
What the Linux Foundation is, is an effort to establish standards across linux distributions. Its not a foundation at all.
So in conclusion this is not a matter of forgiving MS for what we know that have done, but rather a mater of questioning who the hell is Jim Zemlin.
Maybe its time to slap him down for expecting us to ignore what we know.
Someone sent him a copy of the Halloween documents, so to enlighten him about the spooks who have fooled him.
The words 'respect' and 'Microsoft' give birth to blasphemy when used in the same sentence.
Boyfriend asks girlfriend to suck his cock. Girlfriend says she won't because then he won't respect her. Boyfriend promises to respect her and take her out for a big dinner at expensive restaraunt if she does. She sucks his cock, and later they go out for dinner. The waiter arrives and the boyfriend orders for both. He orders lobster for himself, and for her: "...and bring us a steak for the cocksucker here. She loves to eat meat."
Zemlin is a cocksucker. Microsoft is his meal ticket.
3 things about computers: they're alive, they're self-aware, and they hate your guts.
I demand 100% source for the computer system that I depend on so I can fix bugs and also as a system that a dying company or product line can never take away from me. I learned my lesson from the AT&T Unix PC (which could have been a DOS killer, but as plenty of people have told me - AT&T couldn't market eternal life) and strip(1) on that system. Never more
I personally do not care what the market share is. If you all are happy paying for the same bugs over and over and over again
(I've got karma to burn, so why not
...duopoly in the market for operating systems It's an oligopoly as it is and always will be. Don't forget the recent growth of Mac.The game.
Not only is there also Mac OS, there is also OpenSolaris, the BSDs, plus a number of niche operating system projects. There is more diversity in personal computing right now than even back in the heyday of 8-bit computing.
We're definitely not in a duopoly OS world.
It is A registry. But I can boot a Linux box WITHOUT it. And one I can boot it, I can fix it.
BULLSHIT. I'm typing this on a machine that's been upgraded, online, to Gutsy Gibbon all the way from Hoary Hedgehog. (Hoary - Breezy - Dapper - Edgy - Feisty - Gutsy)
And I've upgraded during the ALPHA portions of those releases. And I still don't have problems.
It's called "Computer SCIENCE" for a reason. It's not magic. If something breaks, it can be backed out.
And I would use that, how, to fix virus/rootkit on a Windows machine? Be specific.
Strange, because that kind of contradicts your other claims. It's the packaging system that allows me to validate the operating system and apps. Which allows me to smoothly upgrade from one release to the next. Which allows me to remove old packages or upgrade them.
And I haven't even touched on Windows security.
Mostly for worse. MS has made contributions to lots of things, including WebDAV and (IIRC) inventing the basis of AJAX for Outlook Web Access.
However, most of what Microsoft has "contributed" comes from two poisoned buckets:
The Give: APIs, DRM systems, file formats and other ideas floated in order to prevent / erect barriers to competition.
The Take: FAT, NTFS, SMB, and other protocols and conventions that the world has standardized upon (or hopes to), all of which involve patent risk.
All companies exist to make money. However, other companies make great products, and increasingly, share their contributions to the community, simply because its in their best interests to participate in a market competing in implementations, not competing in formats.
If you compare shared contributions of other companies, MS doesn't look so sharing at all:
Apple - supports BSD and KHTML, opened its core OS and various projects.
Sun - opened its Solaris, Java, and SPARC.
IBM - supported Linux development.
Novell - supports SuSE development.
What has Microsoft ever shared? At a time when it owned the PC desktop 1987-1997, not only did it deliver products of very poor quality, but it really didn't share anything. It got paid for putting out software that was mostly developed by others. Little excellent work, huge profits, garbage for consumers.
Microsoft doesn't deserve respect, it needs to work on earning it.
-
Microsoft's Yellow Road to Cairo
....us Microsoft people actually have a lot of respect for FOSS products. I personally run a couple of machines on Linux because I think for their intended purpose, Linux is better. Most rational people think this way.
I rarely meet someone of the opposite polarity (software speaking).
Linux does not satisfy every need. Microsoft does do some things better. Much better. And the same for Linux too.
It's like yin and fucking yang - each side should compliment and respect the other, even if diametrically opposed.
throw new NoSignatureException();
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Ok, here is the situation (whether you like it or not.) Microsoft is a dominate operating system company and their influence is everywhere. Regardless of the fact of how or why or when this happened this is how it is.
With the situation being as it is there are two things you can do. Fight it tooth and nail, or just accept it and deal with it. You say fight it tooth and nail. Yet the Linux vendors (who happened to be earning real money) are saying, lets deal with it, and accept as part of the landscape.
Me I say let's deal with it because I have no intention on being a martyr, or wasting my breath. Life is literally too short. Heck with Microsoft trying to play nice with Linux there is a market opportunity. Think about why Microsoft and Linux is getting along so well... Think hard... Its Apple! So since I am no fan of Apple, one could use the opportunity to grow Linux while Microsoft sees this as an advantage.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
by that standard, HPU/X, Solaris and SunOS,Irix and all the DEC Unixes weren't operating systems either.
The provision of "general use" is unecessary. A platform is a platform.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
You might be happy with Microsoft today. But if your firm is based on Microsoft products, and your competition is based on Free, Open Source Software, which firm will have the advantage five years from now? The Microsoft customer with all their eggs in one basket? Or the FOSS customer with eggs in baskets provided by IBM, Sun, Oracle, Novell, Red Hat, Canonical
Microsoft
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
As long as they claim to have the most secure operating system ever: No.
As long as they count one defect against Linux multiple times in comparisons: No.
As long as they treat paying customers like criminals: No.
As long as their software comes without a warranty and they use a lack of a Linux warranty as a reason to not use OSS: No.
As long as they do not count "maintenance windows" as part of downtime in their uptime/availability comparisons: No.
As long as their marketing literature is based on lies/FUD rather than facts: No.
As long as their 2007 "3D desktop"'s features barely matches that of what OS X could do in 2003: No. Want a proper 3D desktop? Check out XGL and Beryl on Linux, 3D Desktop on OS X.
I think we'll be making fun of Microsoft for years to come, as long as they keep up their FUD and they keep promoting minor cosmetic changes, DRM, and annoying features like [CANCEL] [CONTINUE] as innovations.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Neither was the IBM 360 or 370 OS, VAX VMS, Dec PDP, etc., etc. In fact, by that standard, no computer that I have ever used on a regular basis had an operating system, except for Linux. Hmm...
He may of course have been misquoted, but this is simply not coherent :
"There are some things that Windows does pretty well," Zemlin said. Microsoft for instance has excelled in marketing the operating system, and has a good track record in fending off competition.'"
Uh, Microsoft's marketing abilities and competitive instinct are attributes of the company, not the OS.
STFU.
:)
There.
"Open source vendors have to recognize that Windows is here to stay and that together with Microsoft it will form a duopoly in the market for operating systems."
Wrong. Windows might not be here to stay. If Linux would ever reach a reasonable market share, Windows would be as good as buried within a few years.
Respect has to earned. Microsoft has done nothing to earn that respect, I'd hardly call "good marketing" worthy of respect. This is an understandably political comment but even so, it's the kind of thing you'd expect to hear from Microsoft, not the Linux Foundation...
"Oh, and by 'marketing', I mean lying, cheating, and illegally 'knifing the baby', to use MS' own words, as they did to Gary Kildall to even start the company. That will be all."
While engineers at Microsoft don't hold anything against FOSS (mostly), there are plenty of non-engineering people who won't pass up an opportunity to screw FOSS over as bad as they can. Legal, marketing, mid-to-upper management - all pretty powerful people. And engineers will mostly just do what they're told to do since 90% of them are there for a paycheck.
This is not to say that MSFT doesn't deserve respect for _some_ of its products (W2K, XP, Office 2007, Visual Studio, dev tools, SQL 2005), just don't be careless. There are people there whose day job is to screw FOSS over.
He's right that we should respect Microsoft. It doesn't mean that we shouldn't ridicule them, but we should act professional and respect them because whether or not you agree with them, its the professional thing to do. Linux is always going to be the fanboy's OS as long as the people supporting it act like juveniles. Now thats not to say poking fun behind closed doors isn't allowed, but to the public we need to act professional. Do you really expect people to trust an OS, the backbone of one of their most important assets, that is backed by unprofessional juveniles?
LostHobo.com
Soup Kitchen of the Internet
Microsoft can respect deez nutz
Doesn't mean I have to like it.
So you claim. So it should be easy for you to tell me how to do that on a machine on which I have over-written the Registry. Go ahead, explain how.
Did you see the word "ALPHA"? Do you KNOW what "alpha" means? It means I'm running the ALPHA release of Gutsy Gibbon on this machine, right now. No, it's not much of a "trick". It's easy. Lots of people are doing it.
alt-f2
sudo update-manager -c
It's that easy.
"not worth the bother". It's more of a "bother" to backup the package that broke than it is to re-image the entire box? What are you talking about?
Because it doesn't take "two days". Whatever you just installed, you back out.
dpkg --remove package-name
It's that easy.
Ahhhhhh, so this is another one of those.
Excuse me for misunderstanding your claims that you knew what you were talking about.
Boot the Live CD.
Chroot the local hard drive.
Use the package manager to validate the files in the directories. Any that you cannot validate, you move to a safe location. If necessary, re-install the package that owns those files.
It's that easy.
You don't know what it means
Yeah, you go with that.
Yawn... Is there anything, perhaps, technological that they do well?
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Microsoft's continual lying and dirty tricks indicates a gross lack of integrity at the very top. You cannot respect someone you cannot trust, and still respect yourself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respect
Microsoft has gone out of its way continually to avoid fair competition, accountability for its own illegal actions, etc. They are unredeemable and should be treated as pariahs, not lionized (unless you're a dickhead* nicknamed "Pretenderle", the MoGTroll, or "Lyin' Lyons").*WARNING - link is "NSA" - "Not Safe Anywhere"
"There are some things that Windows does pretty well," Zemlin said.
I always thought that Windows is one of those things that does everything okay, but nothing really well.
What is it that Windows does well, except for "dumbing down" a computer for the common unexperienced user?
Just disrupt the deflector shield with a tachyon burst.
"There are some things that Windows does pretty well," Zemlin said. Microsoft for instance has excelled in marketing the operating system, and has a good track record in fending off competition" -- Yes, good marketing is what one looks for in a good OS.
While Active Directory gets the job done, its by far not an excellent product. They could really use to shed all the NT crap and just use Kerberos and LDAP, and update their tools so setting and creating group policy isn't such a frickin nightmare. I guess AD is pretty good because it pretty much works, no matter how boneheaded the config is, but elegant and intuitive... eh... Just be glad your PC can still talk NetBIOS or it might not even be finding your domain. Oh well, its not like anyone can even think of getting off AD anytime soon, seeing as thats what exchange needs. So its kind of a moot point. FWIW Sun and Novell have very good directory products as well.
You're kidding me.
I'd much rather Microsoft and it's "ecosystem" make louder fun of GNU. They could do with a sense of humor.
Respect and ridicule are not mutually exclusive by any means. In some instances, "we kid because we love". Criticism is critical to progress, and wit is critical to criticism. Why do you think kings tolerated court jesters?
You don't see FOSS communities clamoring for "respect", or whinig "stop making fun of me! Respect mah authori-tie!" Grow a damn spine, and quit pouting.
so, microsoft is not competing, it's just buying off major open-source figures. and it's not funny. a "duopoly" basically means to become partners and play by the same rules.
Who elected Jim Zemlin as the leader of the Open Source movement? Why must we all suddenly ignore Microsoft's past and co-operate with an anti-competitive company? Furthermore, forming a duopoly with Microsoft is a huge insult to the ideals of Free Software / Open Source which arose to challenge software monopolies and increase software diversity. By forming a duopoly one might get Linux into the mainstream OS market, but what about all the other OSes, present and future, must they have to co-operate with Microsoft in order to gain market-share? Instead of compromising ideals for short-term gains, I personally, would rather see Linux and other OSes thrive independently. Microsoft may still be a huge force within the OS world, but they are showing signs of weakness and indecision.
--postmodern
Respect is earned. Not demanded or begged for. If Linux foundation wants respect for Microsoft, they could do well by getting Microsoft to make Microsoft Office ODF compliant (and I do not mean half-baked one way conversion plugins), and ditching OOXML.
"This also requires that the Linux community respects Microsoft rather than ridicule it."
He's another computer professional with zero social experience. People don't like Microsoft because Microsoft is abusive. For example:
Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" or
"The whole world is our beta tester" or
"We can release sloppy, sloppy code because we have a virtual monopoly" or
"Security vulnerabilities make us money because many people with infected computers buy new computers, and therefore buy another copy of Windows".
Bill Gates is the Chief of Grief in the computer world. When you partner with Microsoft, you are partnering with someone who will be partly an enemy if that makes more money.
Microsoft sucks, period.
I still haven't decided if Linux is better than MacOS from the desktop user point of view.
There goes your assertion.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
Nice troll account you have there! I like the nick, especially.
Want to hear the voice of GOD? cat
Yes, Windows has contributed much for everyday users of computers - it has made many things possible that may not have been possible otherwise
But there were many, many other ways to do it and many, many
other people who would have done it, and were working on it,
until they were squashed.
We may have to get on with life, but we should never forget
what Microsoft did to get where they are.
I'm booting from a Live CD. Did you miss that part? Or is it that you don't know what "chroot" is?
You cannot tell me how you would boot into a Windows command prompt after the Registry is destroyed
A quick check on my
Of which, 257 were validated by dpkg.
Leaving
And if it were in "~/.login and ~/.bashrc" then it would only have the rights that that user has.
To put it in very simple terms for you, the SYSTEM would not have been compromised, just that USER's account. And since the SYSTEM was not compromised, then validating the files in that USER's account would not even require me booting from a Live CD.
Now, I've been able to address each of your claims, with specificity, while you've been unable to address any of mine except with claims that you saw someone else do it sometime in the past.
I've demonstrated my knowledge. You've demonstrated your's. Feel free to continue this conversation without me.
It's surely a joke, right?
I mean, there are some things Microsoft have done right. You can't say anything about their gaming tools, for one thing. So this Jim Zemlin guy must be some kind of very sarcastic hatemonger :)
Quite the contrary it would seem. Microsoft is still unabashedly evil. Look no further than the shenanigans in Massachusetts.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
Consistent copy and paste functionality beyond text between applications and sane software installation programs. Until Linux has the same it will remain a joke on the desktop.
Microsoft is not about sharing. Microsoft is not about community. Microsoft's interests are completely and strictly, monetary. What MS cannot invent it buys. What it cannot innovate, it steals. What it cannot steal it smothers in judicial and legal methods. The Microsoft mentality runs 180 degrees opposite to everything Open Source is about, and history is, unfortunately, a very good indicator of future behaviour.
Linux foundation or not, the idea simply cannot work. There is very little trust of Microsoft in their own customer base let alone any in the Open Source projects (besides Novell and that's likely questionable). The Lying, paid for FUD'ing (Yankee Group), and monetarily sponsored legal campaigns (SCO, RBC) and lobbying has done little to improve that.
There have been way too many bridges burned by Microsoft over the last 20 some years (starting with Apple) for anyone to seriously consider any kind of reckoning, partnership or trust based relationship. Even if MS was to attempt to mend those bridges, it would take a very long time for anyone to trust them enough to be led down them.
This article is simply fanciful, farcicle and whimsical at best.
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
I went to 4 LinuxWorld Expos in San Francisco, where I live. I enjoyed the first two, primarily because of the conferences, and the camaraderie. Once I get through two years of the conferences, the following years' repeats of the same conference topics was uninteresting. After the large corporations started getting tons of floor space, it became even less interesting (seeing the Novell Sales Guys hype up SUSE to with absurd marketing-speak was disheartening). Now, with this statement, it becomes very clear that LinuxWorld isn't for people who like Linux for it's own sake, and I'm not sad I haven't gone for the last couple years. It's now just for people who like and admire money and large corporations, and see F/OSS and Linux as the way to get more cash. Not that that is so bad, but it isn't why I'm interested in Linux. Why not rename this conference "LinuxMoneyWorld"?
Let me put it this way, MSFT provide just a platform for different specialized applications. If business able to run their beloved applications on more stable platform they will. So what I did when somebody calling in with offer of new software, I ask,
-What platform does it run on?
-Windows
-We are not allow game platform at the workplace
That's all what marketing department have to hear - Microsoft - should be presented as a game platform, no security, strict DRM, locked in - exactly platform for gamers.
That would shrink their dominance really well.
:. Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface.
And think about how it got to be that way. Remember when Steve Jobs came back to Apple in 1997? The most memorable moment of his keynote was hime saying microsoft doesnt have to fail for Apple to win and he called for huge respect for Microsoft. Today, Apple has grown into a huge company again.
Yeah, I am supposed to RESPECT them, after all they have done to ME, MY TRIBE, AND COUNTLESS OTHERS.
."
I F'N HATE THAT BS suit game: "we rob you and cheat you, BUT we didn't POKE FUN AT YOU, so you have NO RIGHT to poke fun at US . .
F*** THAT
F*** THAT
SARAVA!
It's nice to know at least one person here on /. respects me.
Sorry, I couldn't help myself!
This isn't the sig you're looking for...
I recognize the strength of Microsoft as a worthy adversary. I recognize that they are willing to destroy anyone that they decide stands in their way, often after that business has already been successful. There is no way I will ever hold that style of business management in anything other than absolute contempt.
I work with Linux and remain involved in the FOSS ecosystem based on the premise that members of this community compete on the basis of their adaptability to the particular environments in which they work. We have studied Microsoft's tactics of destruction, often watching those moves blast away substantial business equity in the process. On the other hand, the FOSS community (in general) operates under the optimistic assumption that we can find viable niches, fill them, and in so doing produce both reasonable economic income and contribute to the overall progress of the industry.
between "respect" and "like." I respect Microsoft like I respect a psychopathic killer with a lot of money who's made his way into public office (no, not Dick Cheney). In this case, the "respect" means "understand that they're here to stay, and that they're not completely hopeless. If for no other reason than that there's no patch for human idiocy, Microsoft's marketing and cash will ensure that it stays in the market for a long time."
~Eien no Inori wo Sasagete~ Searching for my Hatsumi...
Since when did a corporation's behaviors earn them a monolithic opinion? MS does some things well. It does some things that deserve ridicule. Some of those happen to coincide, but that's not germane to the argument. The fact remains that they do many things, and those things each earn them what they deserve for those specific activities.
Precisely what should we expect from MS if we continue to ridicule it? Precisely the same that we've gotten so far. They haven't done anything significant because of ridicule. There have been some employees that responded to it, but that's not what drives corporate policy. They have actively campaigned against Linux, but only because it captures market share, not because of ridicule.
Try an analogy on for size: Microsoft is to George W. Bush what Linux is to Jon Stewart. What has Bush done differently as a result of Stewart's ridicule? Nothing significant. He may have alluded to (a polite way to say stole from) some of Stewart's material for self-deprecating humor at the annual press dinner. That indicates he noticed it. It does not indicate it caused him to change his behavior towards Stewart or anything else. On the other hand, Stewart has made quite a name for himself for ridiculing Bush (and his entire administration). What does Linux as a community have to gain from ridiculing Microsoft? For one, rightly calling them on improper behavior. For another, increasing their own visibility. Again, some of these overlap, and again, that doesn't matter. What does Linux et al have to lose by ridiculing Microsoft? The respect of people whom they wouldn't want as part of the Linux community anyway. And when those people make their opinion known publicly Linux again stands to gain from the publicity that will attract more of the kind of people they do want to be part of the community.
Linux will never unseat Microsoft. It is an alternative. To make it clear that's it's an alternative it should differentiate itself. Ridicule is a viable means. But when used it should be true, and there are ample instances of this. It's not the only means, and others should be used when they're more effective.
The worst case scenario is that MS does pay attention to the ridicule, alters its corporate policy, gets its shit together and produces products that make Linux no longer a viable alternative. Linux would get owned. They have the resources. But figure the odds.
I will give Microsoft their due. They will determine whether their due is good or bad. And I will give it according to its individual actions and products. I will not offer them a monolithic opinion because they do not act in a monolithic manner. More than anything else, I will never hold an opinion because I'm told to. That's no longer an opinion, it's dogma, and that's the last thing I'd ever hope to see from the Linux community.
Finally, because I can't be so pedantic for so long without breaking, Microsoft is poopy heads.
Has your Linux stopped booting? Mine either.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
"Microsoft for instance has excelled in marketing the operating system, and has a good track record in fending off competition." Is that the best that can be said? What's most pathetic/hilarious is that neither of those have anything to do with the actual quality of their product.
Aren't you guys getting a little pedantic? He didn't say OS-X "wasn't an OS" -- he said it "wasn't an OS available for general use"
And he has a point as well -- OS-X has never been seriously positioned as a server OS like AIX, HP-UX, etc. It's not realistic to expect Apple to become a major server OS player with the machines they sell right now.
Even on the desktop - Apples market share might be increasing but it's very hard to see them go past 10 or 20% of the market. You can argue both ways about whether that needs to be counted or not (in said duopoly).
The reason I say Apple's share is unlikely to increase past that point: It's because they don't license OS-X for use on PCs (or create a Mac spec and license it out). That's a huge problem for the h/w industry. If Apple were to get, say, 80% of the market and for this year they only offer nVidia cards and Intel processors in their machines, well, AMD will go bankrupt. If they stick with Intel wifi chips, Atheros might go bankrupt. Basically the whole industry will have to come up with a way of ramping up and scaling down production as and when their products get selected/deselected for use in Apple's lines -- if not, the entire computer hardware industry will become a one-horse-race for any component that goes into a computer.
"There are some things that Windows does pretty well," Zemlin said. Microsoft for instance has excelled in marketing...."
Never.
There ARE some things about Microsoft that they do well. Besides marketing, I think we'd all have to agree that Microsoft supports the majority of PC software out there better than Linux. Whether or not that is from anti-competititve processes or what, who knows.
Is Apple better than Microsoft in this way? Seems to me that Apple has been very closed to ... competition. Especially with something like hardware and whatever. Is the actual OS better? I don't think that's really the argument at hand. Is Apple actually more friendly to OSS though?
Lastly, Microsoft certainly has software that, at the very least, seems to have functional use. Many people use Office 2003 quite happily, Windows Server 2003.
Is it BETTER than other software? Maybe, maybe not. It does appear to be easier to use.
And, for the record, I've used openoffice, apache, tinkered with various servers and whatever, and Windows Server 2003 and Office 2003 are easier for the user to use.
And both of these things are a sign of quality code, or what?
The article almost had me going - right to this point, where I started laughing.
I do, however, agree with this style of ridiculing them - what we don't say may speak louder than what we do say.
Ignore this signature. By order.
That is the fundamental difference between FOSS and commerical software. A company wants the whole market to themself, as they are looking to pay their bills. FOSS says in effect, here is our program we really like it and hope you do too. But if not, use the code and modify it to do want you want. Open source isn't market greedy, everyone is making a bunch of little changes, and creating new 'products', that might suite some people better than the orginal branch of the code tree.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
"Microsoft for instance has excelled in marketing the operating system, and has a good track record in fending off competition"
Those are the two of the things Microsoft is most often ridiculed for. This isn't anything more than "stop making fun of microsoft because it hurts their feelings". It's the same solution that I would expect to see in elementary school. ("Alright kids, don't hurt anyone's feelings").
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
According to this mailing list post, he's a marketing guy. Since when do we listen to marketing guys on slashdot now? Did I miss the memo or what?
Only two? I'm insulted. Where's the "respect" for Mac?
The Linux Foundation calling for respect for Microsoft will have less than no effect.
The only way this could happen would be if hell froze over and Stallman himself called for it. He's the only person that most of the people who are seriously into hating Microsoft will listen to. In many cases, the only reason why said people started hating Microsoft is purely because Stallman told them to, rather than because of any more logical reason.
Get the Prophet (gag) to decree it, and his followers will listen. If anyone else tries, however, the cult will remain entirely impervious. As Jesus himself said, sheep only follow one shepherd. If another tries to lead them, they either simply do not follow, or run away, because they do not recognise a stranger's voice.
"Linux needs to recognise Microsoft's leadership in some areas to better itself, Jim Zemlin, executive director for the Linux Foundation told delegates at the Linuxworld tradeshow in San Fransisco."
Being a leader in areas that are self serving at the expense of the world is not honorable and believe me when I say that we DO recognize this. I would be hard pressed to find ANYTHING that Microsoft has done without a anti-competition agenda driving it. It's not a nice thing to say but it is the truth.
"As Linux has become a mainstream operating system, it is exiting the first stage of its life. The second stage requires a different strategy form the first one, said the Linux promotor."
Really? Why? Nothing has changed with regards to Microsoft. It's still a thug corporation convicted of abusing its monopoly in more than one country. Most importantly Microsoft is COMPLETELY unrepentant.
"Open source vendors have to recognise that Windows is here to stay and that together with Microsoft it will form a duopoly in the market for operating systems. This also requires that the Linux community respects Microsoft rather than ridicule it."
Windows? I thought we were talking about Microsoft. The two are not synonyms. One is a monopoly operating system and the other a corporation that abuses the power that the monopoly gives it.
Why should we stop ridiculing Microsoft? Microsoft hasn't stopped the behavior that we find offensive. When it does that's when atitudes will begin to change. Until then Microsoft can't even begin to earn our respect.
"There are some things that Windows does pretty well," Zemlin said. Microsoft for instance has excelled in marketing the operating system, and has a good track record in fending off competition."
My God! Let me say it again. WINDOWS IS NOT MICROSOFT. So what does Windows do so well?? Yes, Microsoft spends a lot of money marketing the operating system but how dare you tout Microsoft's track record of "fending off competition!" There tactics have been anti-competitive and many times blaitently illegal! That's not something of which one should be proud!
I'm not going to say that everything Microsoft does is crap. It is not their software that offends me. It's their constant and unrelenting need to utterly destroy competition by any means legal or not that I will never accept. The open source movement is a new way of doing things. It fosters a spirit of cooperation instead of the back stabbing environment that rocketed Microsoft to the top.
Real Open Source (Not the sham "shared source" that is Microsoft's) isn't going away and Microsoft better learn to adapt or die a long slow lingering death.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
Why do I have a mental picture of "The Godfather" or "Goodfellas" when I hear a request to respect Microsoft?
"Nice operating system you have here, Mr. Torvalds. Be a shame if anything were to happen to it."
Most folks poke fun at MS not for their marketing. I'd dare say they are amazing marketeers. What they don't do well is produce stable products which are a joy to work with. Apple OS X does a great job on the desktop and Linux does an amazing job server side. Microsoft's products tend to come in at number 2 at best (in stability and sexiness).
Europe, 1940s: Allied forces have to recognize that the Nazis are here to stay and that together with Hitler it will form a duopoly in the world for colonising smaller and less developed countries. This also requires that the Democratic community respects Hitler rather than ridicule him.
What if Tetris was invented by Nazis?
"There are some things that Windows does pretty well" Windows certainly does prove that a company CAN compete with 'free' someone should go tell the RIAA to look at how Microsoft runs things. You can make money, even when a superior, and free alternative exists.
-I only code in BASIC.-
If you can be ethical too, good for you, but ethical doesn't tend to work against an unethical opponent. Try winning a fair fight against a guy who is willing to kick you in the crotch and throw sand in your face some time.
There I have to disagree. When you throw ethics out, it becomes a race to the bottom, and creates extreme suffering. Ethics is about considering the consequences of your actions, which is sanity. If you find yourself squared off against a psychotic self-centred lunitic who's going to kick you in the crotch, and throw sand in your face... well, best to question how you came across that situation in the first place. If the situation was not your own doing, then best to let your confused friend sort himself out, instead of trying to "save the world" by "destroying him". Voilence begets voilenace, as they say, however, this can be extended in many ways. For example: ethics begets ethics. How do you think we arrived in the society we have today without ethics? It's not all bad... that would be some place like North Korea, which I'm sure is far better then some of the deptotisms of our history.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
the Linux Foundation needs a new executive director.
Tech Public Policy stuff
A: Ken Lay bungled.
People admire Microsoft for one reason only -- Microsoft made money. I wish I could make money, so I blindly admire Microsoft.
Microsoft's goal -- more money for Microsoft! Free Software Foundation's goal -- better software for everybody!
Sure, it sounds all macho to fight an enemy who doesn't fight fair. But why have enemies at all? If you truly knew your enemy as yourself, there would be no enemies, and nobody to fight. Shouldn't we all simply be making better software?
That said, disrespect is a weapon of the underdog. Nothing gets a company's goat as much as bad PR. I ask more more disrespect for Microsoft. I urge Microsoft employees to start questioning their leader's ethics. It should no longer be enough to keep blinders on, go to work at Microsoft, get paid, and feel justified. One needs to start thinking -- is my leader a person of integrity? Are they willing to tell the truth? Or is my leader an amoralist tough, who will lie, loudly, for the sake of money?
-- Subvert the dominant paradigm. Repeat as desired. http://ownlifeful.com/
I believe it is actually possible to survive with very little nitrogen or none at all -- just oxygen -- but I could be entirely wrong about that.
Microsoft, however, is much easier.
Not easy, I know. I'm applying for a job with a place which relies on a few apps that are Windows-only, and not likely to be ported. It's a pretty much entirely-Microsoft shop -- they use Visual Studio (and also some variant of Eclipse, for other things), and the only Linux in the office is in the HD-DVD simulator box.
But at the same time, I run Linux at home, on my own servers, and in some other mostly-Microsoft places I've had contract work -- in little dedicated servers, but such that I don't have to deal with Windows much. And I have worked with a community project which uses entirely open software -- Ubuntu on the desktop, FreeBSD on the server -- and refuses to use any proprietary software, to the extent that they can help it. To my knowledge, the only evidence that they're even aware of Windows is they provide instructions on how to connect to their radio with WinAMP -- but they also provide instructions for xmms on Linux, among other things.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
... which equates to slander (at least by honest people, but not by the letter of the law).
They win continually by talking trash.
On top of that they are paying students at universities to advocate their stuff (I forget the name of the program, but I refused to be a part of it), and they pay untold crazy amounts of cash for positive marketing.
All Linux has to fight that with is to counter Microsoft's FUD (AKA talking trash, often misconstrued as disrespect) and advocate open source at the grass roots level.
Next time you see an open source zealot denouncing Microsoft or promoting open source, don't look at them as off base. They're not distorting fact any more than Microsoft's marketing team, they're just doing it for free because they believe in a cause. I don't see how a paid-for study or banner on a web site gives Microsoft any more credibility, but apparently many people think it does.
I actually posted an email to one of the linux foundation's mailing lists and got this reply from Jim Zemlin. Seems he also hates microsoft and respects them like he would a gweat big gwisowy bear, he clarified to me that he was not, in fact fawning over microsoft.
.............@hotmail.com
From : Jim Zemlin
Sent : Sunday, 12 August 2007 4:14:23 AM
To :
Subject : re: s the left hand watching the right?
Simon,
Thanks for the e-mail. While I disagree that I have alienated thousands of supporters, I do want to respond to your concern and be very clear on my message:
If we want to beat Microsoft we should respect them as a competitor.
To be even more clear:
I don't like their software. I don't like their business practices in many cases. I don't like the FUD they spread about Linux. I don't like their software license. I don't like their development methods.
Here are a few quotes that mirror my thoughts:
"You can't defeat a powerful enemy unless you understand him completely, and you can't understand him unless you know the desires of his heart, and you can't know the desires of his heart until you truly love him. Hiding from your enemy is the same as letting him win."
- Seventh Son
"To know your Enemy, you must become your Enemy. Know your enemy and know yourself, find naught in fear for 100 battles. Know yourself but not your enemy, find level of loss and victory. Know thy enemy but not yourself, wallow in defeat every time."
Sun Tzu
I think it's clear that you must respect your enemy to effectively compete against them. If you don't respect that Microsoft has a great marketing, legal & business development department, you aren't going to get far. Know your enemy, understand them, respect them--only then can you become greater than them.
Jim
>An article linked through slashdot has made alot of linux users angry about comments made by Jim Zemlin in a San Francisco confrence. I for one >agree, I hope you guys are ready for some fallout, because whoever you put on the poduium didn't sound like a representative of the linux >community, they simply sounded (or were quoted to be precise) like they were another paid microsoft puppet or an astroturfed organisation. In my >opinion, these comments completely undermined and sabotaged any trust or confidence you may have been trying to garner in your organisation. Well >done, you have effectively alienated thousands of (potential)supporters in one fell swoop.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Ian Carmack made an observation about DirectX 10 and Microsoft in general -- they rush things to market, do their corporate bullying to ensure that their product dominates, but it sucks for a long time.
Then, eventually, either on their own or directly as a result of outside pressure, they make it better.
They do, in fact, have the developers and resources to make the best tech available anywhere, to really innovate, to, in short, do all the things they claim to do.
But unless you force them to, they're going to give you the worst product they can possibly sell.
Windows sucked until Windows 2000, and probably still sucked for a few years after that. XP sucked until service pack 2. Visual Studio sucked for years and years. DirectX used to suck, then it was sort of a big fat "meh" between DirectX and OpenGL/SDL, with the only concrete difference being that GL is cross-platform and DirectX is Windows-only -- and now, finally, DirectX is starting to be good enough that if you're developing a Windows-only game, it actually makes sense to do DirectX instead of OpenGL.
And so on and so forth.
This, folks, is why I don't mind Apple's proprietary stuff so much. Apple much more often adds features and functionality, or even fixes broken stuff, just to make a better product, and not because they "have to" -- although this may be due to market pressure from Microsoft so that Apple's products have to be perfect or better. But whatever the reason, I can usually live with a Mac, and I usually cannot live with a Windows box.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Microsoft for instance has excelled in marketing the operating system, and has a good track record in fending off competition.'"
--
Any mob boss has the same quality, fend off competition and marketing your own.
Say it isn't so Jim! You don't lay in bed with your rival, you always keep notes on your rival, you never turn your back on your rival. BTW... They teach this in business school.
While you say some smart things here, your also showing a huge bias. Mac OS-X, (like all the Unixes), is closer to being a "real" OS than Linux or Windows and the statement "available for general use" is purposely inflammatory so what did you expect would happen to a comment like that?
OS-X server hardware is not the very best, but it's obviously much more than serviceable. I work at a major University where entire faculties encompassing thousands of users (including my own) run exclusively on Mac hardware, (and it's not just the arts in case that's what you're thinking). I notice you completely avoid the mention of Apple X-Serves and RAIDs etc.
Also, your argument about licensing out the Mac OS has been shot down so many times I won't even bother to get into it. Suffice to say you should just Google the topic and read a few of the many pages that explode that theory in detail.
So while you make a few good points, you seem woefully uninformed for the most part and biased in general. OS-X is certainly not the best server operating system out there yet, but it's arguably the best desktop operating system, and one with a very strong, if not dominant server presence as well. Dissing it as "not a real OS" or "not available for general use" is an exaggeration at best, or really just a troll.
If I wasn't already commenting on this thread I would moderate the parent as such.
I'd say that there are three important issues that are overlooked from this perspective.
Microsoft doesn't have to do anything at all to be seen as the preferable OS due to these factors to the majority of buyers, but they spend a good deal on marketing their software anyway. They have the cash to spend and typically Linux doesn't so the misconceptions are unlikely to fade away. I'm actually happy about the Novell deal, though guardedly so, because for a lot of people it will legitimize the Linux PC as an alternative for smart people rather than something for misfits and eggheads.
As for me, I use Linux, BSD, Windows and Unix. I accept the strengths and weaknesses of each. I call myself a Linux user because it is what I use on my PC when I have a choice and I prefer to administer Linux servers. It isn't because Linux is innately better for everything, but because on my PC it is easier to customize to my taste. I use it on servers that are providing web services because they are easy to keep secure while still being easy to configure and work on. I use BSD where I have no need to regularly make changes or very limited resources, Unix on those systems that need enterprise level stability, security, and support, and Windows where I need software that won't work on anything else.
Do I respect MS software? Sure, I appreciate that their software does what I expect it to as well as I expect it to most of the time. The bar isn't that high. It's not worth the price tag to me most of the time, so I don't advocate it. Do I respect MS support? Yes, their support is p
Back in my day when we chiseled our bits into stone and sent them by mule train from village to village...
I respect their software somewhat. I use Outlook, Word and Excel at work. They work about as well as I expect them to, but then the bar isn't really that high. I'll respect Windows when being Administrator is only necessary when I really need to administer the OS, when they replace the registry with something coherent and reliable, when they adopt a decent filesystem (ext3, xfs, jfs or zfs spring to mind, but maybe WinFS will work,) and when I can set up a server and leave it the heck alone for 60 days without worrying that I've got a dozen serious unpatched vulnerabilities. And don't give me that auto-update crap either unless you found some way to use it without going in some morning to find out that your critical systems mysteriously stopped working.
Back in my day when we chiseled our bits into stone and sent them by mule train from village to village...
Why should the Linux Foundation be counseling respect for an organization that has for years smeared Linux at every opportunity and has stated that it considers F/OSS generally un-American? Microsoft has done and has stated it intends to keep doing all in its power to bring FOSS down wherever it can. Frankly I think the Foundation should be called to task for such a treasonous pronoucement.
'Mac OS-X, (like all the Unixes), is closer to being a "real" OS than Linux or Windows'
In what world? Perhaps you have some sort of strange unspoken defintion of "real" the rest of us aren't using? OSX isn't an operating system at all. The operating system is Darwin (its kernel to be technical) and the distribution that is based on that operating system is OSX. Linux is a real and complete operating system and there are many distributions based on it. Windows is both an operating system and a distribution.
'Dissing it as "not a real OS" or "not available for general use" is an exaggeration at best, or really just a troll.'
I wouldn't really go around saying it isn't a real OS (technical distinctions aside) but 'not available for general use' certainly applies. Most of us define general use for an operating system as 'general use on commodity hardware'.
'Also, your argument about licensing out the Mac OS has been shot down so many times I won't even bother to get into it.'
It's been discussed anyway. I'm pretty sure the only ones who walk away feeling it was shut down were those who felt that way from the get go.
'you seem woefully... biased in general. OS-X is... arguably the best desktop operating system'
Perhaps you should consider yourself before saying others are biased. OSX being the best desktop operating system is something that MOST informed individuals would dispute (I don't give my own opinion because its beside the point).
Like it or not, not everyone who makes a negative comment about MacOS, Mac's, or Apple is a troll and this is an open forum where people are entitled to think OSX, Linux, or Windows sucks. If you are modding people down simply because they think your pet system sucks you are abusing moderation privs. In fact, if you (or anyone) are modding people down for any reason you are probably using the moderation system incorrectly. Moderation is primarily intended for modding up worthwhile comments, not censoring comments you feel unworthy.
I thought XNU was the kernel (aka Linux) and Darwin was the OS (aka GNU)
Join the Free Software Foundation
John Siracusa recently wrote an interesting bit about why this is so. His basic thesis is Apple has not made headway in the Enterprise because it focuses all its efforts on the end user, and focuses its marketing on the enduser. To make real headway in the Enterprise, one needs to focus on the IT department, whose needs, constraints, and goals are often very different from the end user. You can rattle off a list of things that Apple does not do that makes its products and services a poor fit for corporate IT, and this list has not changed for years. [my emphasis]
Siracusa also notes that in the case where the IT department is the end user, Apple develops products and markets them to the IT department as if the IT department were the end user. Check out the Apple web page for IT professionals.
One thing worth mentioning about the suitability of Apple technology for running servers. Apple technology is used to run both Apple's website and iTunes, neither of which are what anyone could call light weight. Granted, Apple has to eat its own dog food, but didn't Dell run it's website for a while on WebObjects? And they had to make a painful transition over the MS technology at the behest of Redmond?
Anyway, I said at the outset that you held a common misperception, but I hopefully made clear the qualifications on that statement. You are partially right about Apple vis-a-vis the Enterprise and partly wrong. Also, in the case of an IT department that is very focused on the end user as customer (usually the focus is on management being the customer; the endusers aren't signing the checks), Apple might be a good fit. Read the article. It's not very long.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Torvalds: I personally think it's mainly another shot in the FUD [fear, uncertainty and doubt] war. MS has a really hard time competing on technical merit, and they traditionally have instead tried to compete on price, but that obviously doesn't work either, not against open source. So they'll continue to bundle packages and live off the inertia of the marketplace, but they want to feed that inertia with FUD.
CW: Do you think you and the open-source software community are prepared for this battle?
Torvalds: I don't actually see it as a battle. I do my thing because I think it's interesting and worth doing, and I'm not in it because of any anti-MS issues. I've used a few MS products over the years, but I've never had a strong antipathy against them. Microsoft simply isn't interesting to me.
And the whole open source thing is not an anti-MS movement either.
Bottom line is that ones energies are much better focused on creating a great product, and not fighting a battle. Personally, I think the firebrands and the rabid dogs on either side of the MS/FSF debate just get off on the emotional charge of being outraged or are manipulating others with it. You see this sort of stuff a lot in politics. (Oh, and, what's the last program RMS wrote and how long ago? That should provide a nice outrage high for one of our friendly rabid freetards.)
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
I'm glad there are multiple GNU/Linux and *BSD-derived systems out there.
The real duopoly is in the philosphy: closed-source and open-source.
You have so many implementations that you have real choice where it counts, in the implementation.
Real duopolies aren't that much better than monopolies, though.
I do not respect a company that gets it's paid shills in the media to refer to Open Source people as zealots and 'lintards'.
..
..
.. I strongly believe that if September 11 showed us anything, it was that zealots'
"This is a matter of leadership - for us to recognise that the world some times does see open source or open source licences as risky"
Only when the world is being fed lies by the self same SCO/Baystar/MS
"He also pointed out that many firms shy away from participating on open source mailing lists because discussions there tend to explode into flame wars "
Given that most online forums are infested with paid for or otherwise astroturfers and shills it's not surprising that things decend into flame wars. Anyone who puts forward an opinion that MS product is less then steller is duely targeted with abuse. The response being then used to paint the 'Lintards' in a bad light.
For an example take Rob 'SCO' Enderle
'many Linux supporters are a bunch of potty-mouthed malcontents. Enterprises are better off staying away from Linux and open source'
'I have a hard time seeing the Zealots as any different from terrorist
davecb5620@gmail.com
people who are hungry for money.
Hungry people who don't know that money only buys (the equivalent of) a Big Mac also tend to be attracted by money.
There is something to be said for hunger, I suppose. Hunger motivates people to get _something_ out the door.
As for all the "leading edge" stuff that Microsoft is doing, I'll be awfully surprised if Microsoft ever turns out anything but mock-ups of yesterday's leading-edge dreams of famous professors, filtered through the minds of their students who were best adept at regurgitating those dreams on the tests.
The first time I hated Microsoft was back in 1987 or so when I tried to use a C function pointer according to the description in the manual, without reading all the caveats, and without understanding that the "This doesn't work yet." warnings not only meant that the features weren't yet implemented, but also meant that they probably would never be.
I've been seriously bitten by Microsoft three times, and I have never gained anything I consider valuable from using their products. (I have, on the other hand, gained a fair amount of value in using Linux and other "FOSS" stuff. Also gained a fair amount of value buying and using Mac stuff.)
I think I should respect them the way I should respect, what was it someone said? a rabid cougar?
Flourine.
Just because there is a temporary excess of Flourine in the atmosphere right now doesn't mean that one should just breathe it.
Actually, I was aware of Apple's Xserve/SAN offerings when I wrote my post. I didn't mean to imply that Apple is absent in the Server segment, though I guess it's easy to infer that - so my bad.
The context there started with Windows and Linux forming a duopoly and then someone pointed out that OS-X wasn't an OS with 'general availability', and got pounced on. I attempted to defend him saying that unlike Linux and Windows you can't buy a sundry 1u blade and run OS X Server on it (afaik - pls correct me if I'm wrong). i.e. Apple limit the 'general availability' of their OS in the server scenario as well, similar to the way they do in the desktop scenario. I guess AIX was a bad example...
With due respect to John Siracusa's article, I don't think it was very informative. He went on repeatedly about the iPhone in the enterprise, which is far from relevant to Apple's presence there. He also claims that Apple is being high-minded and deliberately ignoring markets where it has to sell to someone other than the end user. Well, that would be any bulk contract. I don't think Apple sells the macs in schools and colleges to the kids there directly - they sell them to the universities and boards controlling the money. I don't understand this attempt to put an altruistic/high-minded/whatever spin to Apple's intentions - they're a company like any other.
Then he repeats classic Jobs sound bytes such as:
Want more? Here's Jobs's response to a question about Apple's neglect of the low-end of the market (e.g., $500 PCs, $100 phones, etc.):This can all sound pretty smug. For a more grounded interpretation, you can try to look at it from a business perspective--profit margins, avoiding commoditization, the potential for growth and so on--but there's no getting around the results. And no matter how you slice it, the decision to ignore markets where you must sell to someone other than the end user is pretty high-minded (for a corporation). It's also perhaps the only way to ever create great products, products that customers actually love.Think about this the next time you're peeling stickers off your new laptop at work.
This is where Apple and Jobs let themselves down. It comes off as smug and disrespectful towards companies and individuals who buy budget PCs. At my previous company we had about 1000+ corporate employees who's PC use consisted of productivity apps, and enterprise app front-ends, so a fairly common enterprise scenario. Bbudget PCs and laptops are exactly what they need. And they need to be easy to maintain, upgrade etc. If style/brand positioning is getting in the way of these criteria, taking pot-shots isn't the solution. They need to find the right compromises -- and they will do this if and when they are able to focus on this segment. Until then, the high-minded thing to do would be to refrain from snide remarks of this nature.
I have no doubt that OS X is a credible server OS. That's not the point. There are many reasons it's not present more in the enterprise. One of them is that Apple doesn't focus on the different Enterprise verticals and sell complete solutions. It's more like, here's Xserver and OS X Server, and Web Objects, and oh btw: there's all this cool OSS stuff that you can run on it as well. Over generalization, I know, but the point remains.
They seem to know it, and they don't want to get spread too thin, so they're picking battles they can win. Right now the consumer desktop is one such battle, so I think they're doing the right thing by nibbling away at the desktop market first, while keeping the enterprise thread alive until they're ready to make moves there as well. This is a much more credible explanation than Siracusa's -- contrast Apple's manpower to MS and IBM's, and add the "we delayed Leopard because we moved a lot of devs to the iPhone" and it gets even more weight.
I have no idea why that paragraph got boldfaced :P.. I guess I typed <b> instead of <p>??
Sorry.. didn't mean to yell :P
This is a joke, right? Right????
Normally I ascribe all life to intelligent design, but in your case I'll make an exception.
Vista ist still crap!
Look I have nothing against AD. And in fact, if I were deploying a large network of PCs I'd probably use it too. I just with they would cut some of the legacy cruft out of it and make the admin tools better. I *know* its LDAP and Kerberos, however, they also maintain all the legacy NT domain stuff. Like why do they even bother with the SYSVOL stuff anymore, just store it all in LDAP and make it simpler. I guess my complaint about AD is the same complaint I have about windows in general. They keep legacy crap around too long that just ends up making things more complicated. Like do people really still need to have the ability to join Win98 computers to AD?
Just because their marketing has been out to lunch for 10 years doesn't mean they can't still have decent products. MS clearly knows how to muscle their way into organizations but that doesn't mean their products are better. Good marketing doesn't necessarily mean good products. Or the other way around.
I believe you are confusing me with the great grandparent the other poster was responding to.
The operating system is the lowest level software abstraction to the hardware. The lines have become blurred nowdays but generally speaking, that is the kernel. Contrary to what some (*cough* GNU) would have you believe the operating system is NOT the user environment and does not include a shell or utilities to interact with users.
GNU provides tools that are very useful and help make any operating system they are run on a productive interface. There probably wouldn't be a Linux OS without them. That doesn't somehow make them part of the OS however.
No prob about the yelling. I just figured you were a loud mouth. =)
You make some really good points, both as to why Apple hasn't been successful in the enterprise and why that's probably part of their strategy. There is something to be said about knowing ones limitations. Manpower is probably part of it, but I wouldn't read too much into the delay of OS X 10.5 Leopard. It's not like Apple is the first company to let a deadline slip because they got overextended. coughcoughlonghorn. cough.
Sircusa's article (to me, anyway) was more about Apple's corporate DNA, if there is such a thing. Jobs' comments might sound smug but I don't know if that's the case. No doubt he's being self serving, and absolutely no doubt he's insanely arrogant (I've met him, so I know first hand). But his comments aren't so much smug as they are talking past the fanboys and the antifanboys to the investors. He's proclaiming an Apple strength where some will try to argue its a weakness. And he's got to do it vociferously, because there are a lot of people outside of the tech world that are spreading all sorts of bad information with the intention of manipulating the market. This hasn't been that big an issue until recently, since Apple shares have been on such a tear. Don't believe me? Check out thestreet.com and Jim Cramer. The dude is a stock trader, and he makes bundles if he can push the price up or down on a given day. (He doesn't just do this with Apple, but Apple's been a big target for him the last six months.)
Anyway, I've got to run. I don't think I explained myself as well as I could have. Bottom line is that you make some good points and I mostly agree with you.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
I bet he is being payed to say that. There is no need for the Linux community to change their rivalry. Microsoft IS good at things. But they are FAR from perfect. There is plenty to go at them about. It would to stupid for anyone else (that does not offer an OS to attack someone that does). So there is no one in the world that is better suited for it. We all love a good challenge. ;)
EOM
Agreed about the point of showing strength to investors. The move to stay out has to look deliberate and planned as opposed to "we can't go there yet 'cos we don't have the resources". So we agree to mostly agree.. I like it when that happens :)
In whose opinion?
... ." I open the package and start reading the manual: Feature A only works if conditions P && Q && R, and a full moon on a Monday are met. I can't believe they would seriously mean that so I try to use feature A anyway. Turns out feature B conflicts with feature A. Can I turn off feature B? Only when !P || !Q || !R or it's not a full moon on a Monday. WtFrustrations?
If I'm going to just be watching, I prefer to go watch the rugby team of the school I teach at over watching professional sports. I, a middle-aged old man, prefer to participate, myself, help out the coaching staff, hold the tackling dummy while the kids practice hitting it low, let them "teach" me how to hit the tackle low so they can figure out what they are supposed to be doing, etc.
I suppose there is some useful medical research being done in professional sports. And I suppose there is even the occasional exploring of a "new" technique (generally harvested from the amateur arena) and the rules that the new technique requires to keep the games "fair". It's not a total waste, but it sure seems like the pros have gone way over the top.
(I suppose there may be some jealousy here -- I could start a good software company or two with just a tenth of what the biggest names bring down in a year.)
But, in general, I prefer seeing (and sometimes joining with) a bunch of amateurs exploring and being creative, over watching a bunch of pros polishing their schtick while they face the inevitability of middle age.
Yeah, I don't know what Microsoft is doing. I read the packages, it says "Feature A, B,
I don't need feature B anyway, I need feature A. But if I contact Microsoft, they tell me that everybody is using feature B. If I'm not, I'm not on the bandwagon. Feature A is not where it's at. I'm not going to make money there this year.
You want to lecture me about groupthink?
Just reading a few of the comments on this thread would scare away any intelligent computer user. The comments here make a Linux supporter appear to have a vocabulary of 4 letter words or less. It sure makes Linux look bad.
In terms of a typical Unix, you have a kernel, a shell, libraries and tools. GNU has all those, and some people choose to replace one of them with Linux.
* Shell - bash
* Libraries - glibc
* Tools - GNU coreutils
* Kernel - Hurd
Bash, isn't productive? Install GNOME - it's part of GNU.
http://www.gnome.org/about/
"GNOME is Free Software and part of the GNU project."
Join the Free Software Foundation
First, the 90% was pulled out of someone's ass. I hope it wasn't mine, I don't remember.
Second, if Linux has 5% marketshare, fine, it also has close to NO viruses. The last time I bothered to look, there had been a grand total of two worms for ANY Unix, EVER, Linux included. Maybe now it's up to five!
Arguing viruses as a good thing? Maybe so, but that does not make Windows a more secure platform, even if it makes it better job security for you.
You do have a couple of almost-decent points:
That is true, so you have to look at how they are skewed.
For instance, how is market share determined? How about total number of viruses? Vulnerabilities, etc?
Every time a statistical study is posted to Slashdot, we get a ton of comments about how it might be flawed, or how we know it's flawed. I invite you to find a statistical study that backs your claim, and I'll punch holes in it. Or I'll pick one that backs my claim, and you can punch holes in that.
But "arguing with numbers" strikes me as quite a lot better than downloading one test suite, because it at least eliminates a few major ways in which that suite could be skewed:
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Apache, at least, enjoys quite a bit of market share, and Linux is probably still at at least 20-30%, if not 50% of web servers.
It may still be a smaller target than desktop Windows, but the fact that it has had close to ZERO compromises in the wild, even with a decent amount of marketshare on the server, says something about its security.
Sorry, not by much. I imagine you've gotten about as many people to lock down their systems as I've gotten people to switch to Linux.
No, what's really causing problems is that Microsoft is finally starting to develop secure software. Starting to -- I don't think they're quite there yet, but we'll see.
This is a truly moronic statement. If there were no "Hacker/Crackers" in the world, wouldn't there also be no need for security?
That's like saying the terrorists did us a favor on 9/11 by forcing us to tighten airport security. Sorry, but no -- I truly hope that we, as a species, have evolved to the point where we can tighten airport security (at least as much as we need to) without somebody having to die first.
But consider: Suppose I were to discover a flaw in an open source project. I can fix it myself, maybe even get a bounty for it, but in the absolute worst case, I've made my own system more secure.
Now, suppose I were to discover a flaw in Windows. I can't reasonably fix it myself, all I can do is tell Microsoft about it -- and Microsoft has been known to sit on this kind of report for months without doing anything about it. I could get the flaw fixed faster -- and make a little money on the side -- by creating a botnet with it.
I don't actually do either of these things, though I am sure you're going to imply that I implied that I have or will. I'm just pointing out, perhaps one reason security is better on Linux isn't even because of the actual tech, but because of the way in which we deal with security holes.
I think that's half bullshit.
OS-level attacks may not happen anymore, if by "os-level" you mean things like ping-of-death. I also doubt there will be many attacks in which something escapes the browser and attacks the rest of the user's own system.
However, I think we'll see just as many stupid application-level attacks, because there will be stupid applications out there -- we just won't see as many against Microsoft's own products, because they have to keep getting better, so they can keep saying we're "more secure [than we were two years ago]" and keep people from migrating to other systems. I believe we'll also see far more attacks of the cross-site variety -- as in, one script running in the browser attacking another script running in the browser.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
The strategy of the free software community is to create a world where free software is the norm. Destroying Microsoft is simply a battle, not the outcome of the war. Actually this battle is close to be concluded in GNU/Linux's favour. Unless Microsoft radically changes its culture or acquires a significant company, I do not expect them to be able to hold even a tenth of the PC market by 2020 or 2025. I believe the most important threat to GNU/Linux and free software nowadays is the government (specifically laws that discriminate or prohibit the use of free software in various applications), not a single corporation.
I will start respecting Microsoft when they discontinue their abusive monopolistic business practices and not before.
Everyone is looking to spend as little as possible. It's called "business".
Found one! It's called SQL Slammer.
Oh, you meant 2005? That's not a fair comparison -- you're asking about a specific version of a product. A new version, of course.
Note: It's only 2007 -- SQL Server 2005 has only been out two years. SQL Server 2000 was the version targeted by SQL Slammer, as far as I can tell, and that was out three years before it was found.
Now, I did not say Gentoo Linux 2007.0, or Ubuntu Feisty. I said, ANY Linux.
As I said, Microsoft has gotten better at security -- however, I'm not sure they're quite there yet. Linux, however, has a solid track record of more than a decade. Total number of virus/worm outbreaks, I can count on one hand.
That they do, again, in the sense that terrorism drives physical security improvements.
Your wording was that they are "doing the world a favor". Would you also say that terrorism does the world a favor?
Maybe our security is better, and maybe reality is harsh, but I would not say that this is a good thing. After all, I'm not sure we could ever have world peace, or a complete end to crime -- but I would never say that crime is a good thing, or that a serial rapist is doing the world a favor. Would you?
I'm not sure we actually disagree here, I'm just trying to get you to be a little more careful what you say. It wouldn't kill you to proofread a little before you run your mouth.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Mac OS-X, (like all the Unixes), is closer to being a "real" OS than Linux or Windows
First I would love to see an explanation for that statement. Second OSX technically isn't a Unix although it is Unix-like. In fact Linux is much more similar to a "real" Unix than the Mach/BSD hybrid that is OSX.
Time makes more converts than reason
'* Shell - bash
* Libraries - glibc
* Tools - GNU coreutils
* Kernel - Hurd
All very useful indeed but Hurd is the only one in the list that is an operating system. The rest are tools that could be combined with a number of operating systems to make a productive system.
Enough of this nonsense. The 'GNU/Linux' people lost this debate years ago and for good reason. Any University OS Design course will teach you how to write an OPERATING SYSTEM KERNEL and no amount of support for the good work of the GNU project can change that definition.
I see people get modded down for making anti-ms and pro-linux comments more than anything. People always make comments like yours and I do believe that the actual readership is mostly pro-linux and pro-open but there are paid Slashdroids these days.
I'm not sitting around listening to drm music on a Zune and playing XBox games while using the latest version of Office on Vista. Geez.
y 2007/tc20070525_325967.htm
Let me sum it up:
"To know your Enemy, you must become your Enemy. Know your enemy and know yourself, find naught in fear for 100 battles. Know yourself but not your enemy, find level of loss and victory. Know thy enemy but not yourself, wallow in defeat every time."
- Sun Tzu
I think it's clear that you must understand your enemy to effectively compete against them. My position on Microsoft has been clear for years. Here is one recent example:
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/ma
I know that we could spend the next 100 posts here talking about how much Microsoft sucks, but I suggest alternatively that we spend time talking about how we can leverage our strengths to beat them.
Jim
Operating System Kernel is part of an Operating System :)
Like a Car Engine is part of a car.
GNU/Linux is an important name as it draws attention to the goal of creating an operating system where users can do every job in free software.
Join the Free Software Foundation
How am I wrong here? Was I hallucinating when you tried to compare a specific version of a specific product to the entire ecosystem of Linux distributions all the way back to kernel 0.0.1?
That is a troll, plain and simple.
I actually cannot find more than five virus outbreaks for Linux. You're welcome to try, if you think there have been more.
However, I personally know more than five Linux users, and even in an entirely self-selected counter, there are over a hundred thousand users.
I realize that's a small number, but please remember two things -- that is a self-selected counter, and you just said (more lies and spin) that there are less than five Linux users.
I am talking about real measurable security. You're the one bringing it back to this one test.
It looks like you're evading this subject desperately here, because the numbers simply don't support your theory that Windows is even close to as secure as Linux. You've lost this one, be gracious and admit defeat.
(This is different than me "evading" the test -- you haven't given me one reason to doubt the numbers I've cited here, while I've given you many reasons to doubt your test. You may reject that I think it may be malware, but at least I am willing to talk about it. You, obviously, are not.)
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
'Operating System Kernel is part of an Operating System'
An operating system kernel IS an operating system. The GNU side lost the GNU/Linux debate long ago, lets not bring it back.
It's not an operating system. Think about what you're saying.
If you have a hard disk, format it to ext3 and then put a kernel onto it, what can you do?
You can't boot, there's no shell, you have no libraries, no software, no commands.
Now if you had all those - a GNU shell, GNU libraries, GNU chess, GNU coreutils and the GNU kernel - what would you have? You'd have GNU. You'd be able to login, and play GNU chess.
Now say I replace one part of the GNU system, with something written by a third party. Say, the kernel... What do I have now?
GNU shell, GNU libraries, GNU chess, GNU coreutils and a third-party kernel, Linux. It wouldn't be fair to refer to this new system as GNU, so by referring to it as GNU/Linux, we do several things.
* Give credit to the Linux team for producing a working kernel much faster than GNU.
* State that the system is a mixture of GNU and Linux, which leaves the door open for alternative versions, including GNU/OpenSolaris, GNU/kFreeBSD and GNU/NetBSD as well as GNU itself.
* Make users of the system aware of the goals of the GNU project, which are to create an operating system that is completely free software and includes tools to do every job that somebody might want, in free software. As opposed to the goal of Linux, which is to create a portable kernel.
* As a by product of the GNU Project - more people will learn about, and write free software.
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First off, the link is broknen.
Second, when I fix it, it takes me to a page that says absolutely nothing about SQL server. I don't feel like reading that entire comment again (considering I've already replied to it), and I don't remember seeing anything in there proving me wrong about my comparisons.
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Isn't it just a bit arrogant to say that 30 people are wrong and you're right? That every single time, it was really them "avoiding the test" and not you asking something unreasonable?
Nope. You don't understand the concept of trust in security, as I've pointed out before.
Furthermore, your sans and computerworld articles are not endorsements. If you'd like, I can email sans and computerworld, and I am sure I would get some sort of response of "Well, it looks pretty useful, but no, we can't endorse this. Use at your own risk."
For the same reason you ran from my test.
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On multiple occasions, you've done cross-posting.
That is, you literally copy and paste one post from one thread into another, where it's completely irrelevant. Or, you rehash an old argument, or bring up something completely inane.
At least I gave segues. You can't deal with the reality of statistics, which don't back up your premise that "Windows is or can be made to be more secure than Linux." So, rather than talk about that? You say "You changed the subject! Waah!" and abruptly copy and paste the same argument you've brought up here a thousand times, which is, if I don't take your test, I must have taken it already and gotten a bad score.
Think about it -- you're doing a self-selected survey of security-conscious people -- the very people who are likely to understand the concept of "trust", and more importantly, why you shouldn't just run some random executable from the Internet, no matter how tightly you can lock said executable down.
Oh, and it is spyware, at the very least -- it collects statistics and sends them back to a central server. I believe SANS is the one that said this.
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Yet you didn't even want to look at statistics until you found some ancedotes you thought might count as statistics. So much for your statistics classes.
Let me put it this way: When you want to optimize a program for speed, do you immediately jump to things like unrolling loops, or hell, maybe -Os, whatever you feel is the best way to squeeze more speed out of it? Do you do these things, and just assume your computer is faster?
Or do you actually go benchmark it? No, not with some tool that estimates how fast it should theoretically run -- what your CIS tool appears to do -- but an actual profiler, which measures and gives you a statistical analysis of where your program is spending the most time?
I just suggested it was malware, and now you're saying it's not because it won't affect you.
Yeah, SQL Slammer won't hit my Postgres server, but that sure as hell doesn't mean Slammer is a nice, friendly, trustworthy piece of software I should attempt to run!
I might not mind either. I mind that they didn't ask.
It says something about their character and professionalism that means I'm much less likely to trust any result from their program, or to want to do anything else with their program other than throw it away.
Ask yourself this: How likely would you be to hire the author of BonziBuddy or Gator to help you write some antivirus or antispyware?
Yes, I intend to. Or at least a softer version of that -- I'll run it in a VPN with net access disabled, maybe even a serial console only.
In that case, if you're being honest, you should put a similar disclaimer in your own quotes.
And by the way, the tone of it was, again, one of "fair and unbiased reporting", which means that even if they thought it was the worst software imaginable, they could have given a pretty much identical report.
Then please counter me where I say they did, with a quote, instead of bringing it up without context here, with no better defense than "lol".
Is "lol" your only defense? Pathetic.
Oh? You mean you've done them?
In that case, you don't need me, you can just run it on the Linux box you've built and secured!
And none for Linux.
There are ways I can watch it, things like strace. However, that still doesn't tell me what I want to know -- whether a particular write was a good write, and well intended, or a bad write. The best I can do is run them under SELinux, or virtual machines (what I intend to do), such that there's no way I can think of that anything else can affect the test, or that the test can affect anything else.
I realize it looks like I'm changing my position. I'm not. My position is not necessarily that I'm worried about the software damaging my systems -- from the beginning, anyone kno
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Yet again, I reject that comparing the very most recent version is sufficient statistical evidence. As I understand it, SQL Server 2005 is two years old, and SQL Server 2000 was three years old when it was hit with the SQL Slammer worm.
So, come back in five or ten years, and we can compare SQL Server 2005 -- maybe it'll be hit with a massive worm next year. Otherwise, either compare broader sets of versions, or older ones.
In any case, I would like to point out that I think statistics are tricky to do right, and neither of us has provided a completely undisputable statistical comparison. Except maybe mine, pointing out that for most of its history, Linux has not been attacked, while Windows has, badly.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Sorry, no. The full quote was: "sure as hell doesn't mean Slammer is a nice, friendly, trustworthy piece of software I should attempt to run!"
The point is: Even if I set up my system so that it cannot possibly hurt me, running malware is still kind of pointless, which is probably why you've refused to take my test. It's also still not a good idea, which is why we don't all set up virtual machines on which to run WeatherBug, just so it can get us the weather or whatever it does.
You spent a good deal of time talking about mechanisms I could use to run this tool without putting my system at risk. You even attempted to claim that because I didn't bring them up in the first place, I must not have known about them.
Sorry, not happening until you convince me that not only is it not malware, but that it's something I'd gain some benefit from. You've presented pretty much your entire argument for that, and it's not enough, which means I'll only run it if I have too much time on my hands and really want to setup a VM for it. I was actually planning to do that this weekend, but my brother's got a LAN party happening, and you've attacked me yet again with baseless insults, including this misquote.
If this doesn't improve, I'm not even going to keep replying. For awhile, we had an interesting, almost civil conversation about filesystem design, and you even posted a comment (though unsigned) in which you stated your arguments in a simple, well-worded way, without stooping to personal attacks. But now you're back to your old tricks.
I only have the word of people I don't "trust" for that.
You keep trying to suggest that even if it's really all that bad, I can lock it down and run it in a sandbox. I'm just pointing out that simply because I can secure a system against malware does not mean I should go out of my way to run some.
Which is my point exactly. You don't actually know which one is slower, except by actually taking measurements. Statistics.
Then reply to me there. You're the one lacking.
I lack certain specific knowledge about Windows, but I am not the one who thinks it's a good idea to put a pagefile in RAM!
That's as logical as trying to create a perpetual motion machine! Which is to say, it isn't.
Now, stop changing the subject. You were specifically avoiding a question by simply saying "lol, you're wrong" or something to that effect. And rather than address it, you'd now like to bring in another discussion.
No, they are not.
If they were, don't you think you'd see FAR more vulnerabilities in Windows, given how many more apps exist for it?
You mention more than a few ancedotes as "statistics", including the recent compromise of the Ubuntu servers.
And yet, you were willing to carry on a conversation for this long, trying to convince me to run the test for mysel
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I thought I'd get rid of this stuff first, so I can get on to the filesystem stuff. And please don't just reply to random posts of mine, completely offtopic like that -- I wasn't ignoring you, I simply didn't have a functioning machine for awhile (hardware).
Burden's on you to prove that it isn't.
If it is malware, and I download it, then my system is compromised, and/or I have to spend a lot of time setting up a sandbox for it.
If it's not malware, and I refuse to download it out of paranoia, there's no huge loss to me. Certainly nothing on the order of what I might have lost, were it malware.
Right, but they never made that clear, which means they never particularly cared whether I'd know about it or not.
Also, I'm pointing to this as a way of questioning their credibility, same as the security hole in their own software. I'm not going to trust security testing software (or its results) from an organization that can't secure their own software and intends to collect data without my knowledge or consent.
I know about this from the other articles you linked to. CIS said nothing about it themselves.
It's not needed on my end, except for running untrusted software like you've suggested. So, I'd rather not learn it unless I have a good reason to.
Well, I did use chown/chmod, as well as su/sudo. So, saying I used a "SINGLE" layer of security is deceptive at best.
You're very good at sensationalist writing, and that has a place and a time -- advertising, maybe. But it has no place in a technical discussion.
What's more, you're innaccurate here. You can put all the buffer overflow vulnerabilities you want in an app which runs as non-root, and it still won't be able to gain root or escape the chroot jail.
What that app needs is a buffer overflow vulnerability in the kernel itself, or in an app which runs as setuserid root. About that, you're right, but the way you've phrased it, I wonder if you really understand what you're saying.
You're also missing the "not worth my time" argument, especially true this weekend... which was when I was planning to do this, but deadlines and more deadlines, not having a computer kind of delayed that project...
Try it yourself.
No, really. If you're half as paranoid about security as you should be, you won't trust any photo anyone posts here. The only way you'll get a score you can trust is to run the tool yourself. For all I care, get an install CD in the mail and run it within the live environment...
But here's the point I seem to be having difficulty communicating with you: Neither this test, nor any test like it, can really test cross-platform. Suppose for a moment that Linux didn't support ACLs -- in that event, any reasonable cross-platform security test would omit a check of ACLs being enabled on Linux.
So, d
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Putting the filesystem stuff here:
Right. This is actually intelligent, as you say, because it doesn't have to write anything to "page out".
In fact, this would more accurately not be called "paging" so much as having stuff expire from a cache.
In any case, I do think that having a pagefile (or swap space) makes sense, if the kernel is at least sometimes more likely to swap something out than to expire something (executable or not) from the cache. But I don't see the value of putting it in RAM -- the whole point of a pagefile is to provide more storage for when you're low on RAM, or to let the OS use the RAM for something else.
Linux apps tend to use text configuration files for configuration. Storage is in whatever format they want, usually binary (more like .dat), but configuration doesn't need to be fast.
For example: My Postfix server has a configuration split across several files, some of which I've edited, some of which I deliberately have not. It reads them when it starts up, which is basically once per Postfix update or kernel update, and it reads them when I make a change. It then stores its configuration in RAM.
(Postfix, by the way, is an example of how to design a Unix app securely. It's split into many small cooperating processes, many of which are run in a chroot which cannot be broken out of, because the app is not running as root, and there are no executable files in there -- meaning your method doesn't work.)
Well, first of all, on a machine with 8-16 gigs of RAM, I doubt the Photoshop guys are going to have any trouble. I'm actually fairly sure the Windows pagefile has a size limit anyway, by default.
But that's the point -- You were advocating putting the pagefile on a ramdisk, which makes absolutely NO difference for the Photoshop guys. In fact, it may even slow them down, versus not having a pagefile.
Well, like I said, if they have that much knowledge and control over virtual memory, I see that as a design flaw. Processor affinity and thread priority is one thing, but the only place I see a point to an app knowing about swap is for it to explicitly mark a particular page as RAM-only, due to it containing sensitive information that shouldn't touch disk unencrypted.
I may be missing something, but I just can't think of another place where it's a good idea for an app to know about the OS pagefile (or swapspace). Can you?
I know. Every OS has some form of sync. I'm just saying that if transactions are implemented as I suggest, I don't want to lose that feature.
Good. So...
What I would recommend is making the ramdisk as small as possible (but no smaller), and turning off the pagefile if you can, otherwise sticking it on the ramdisk and turning the size limit way down on it.
Even so, I would still e
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I can, and have, shown it to be spyware, by one of those links. You know this -- that it sends out statistical information, and that it does so without your knowledge or consent.
What more do I need, a big sign on it that says "WARNING! VIRUS.EXE!!!"
I see "vulnerabilities fixed". Nothing about how many were actually exploited.
Saying "this many vulnerabilities were fixed" is an even less relevant metric than "this many machines were exploited", because fixing a vulnerability is a good thing. How many vulnerabilities are still out there for Windows, unpatched, maybe undiscovered? Doesn't it make sense that Linux, with its source available, would be easier to find vulnerabilities in (and fix them)?
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!