How Microsoft-Yahoo Will Affect Open Source

jammag writes "If the marriage of Microsoft and Yahoo were to be consummated, GNU/Linux would be hindered, argues Roy Schestowitz. Yahoo's funding of open source initiatives would dry up. Yahoo, which acquired Zimbra, would lose its love for the open source competitor of Microsoft Outlook. The list goes on..."

Comments

Roy Schestowitz, take with prescribed NaCl

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure I understand why this person's opinions are even relevant (obviously the submitter runs the site where this piece was published and needs the ad revenue, not that any normal person would bother submitting something like this to Slashdot). "...argues Roy Schestowitz"? As in "pursuant to the previous insightful and established opinion we've all come to expect from Roy Schestowitz"? Please.

Roy Schestowitz is a non-entity who spends 18 hours a day crapflooding USENET (just page back and see who posts there), Digg, Propeller and any number of social bookmarking and discussion websites. This, aside from running who knows how many attack blogs that target Novell, Xandros, Linspire and many others beg the question of whether this is just a lonely poor student with no life whatsoever or a very organized group of people with some serious corporate backing.

Anyone deranged enough to post things like these should be, in my opinion, permanently ignored. The Microsoft-Yahoo merger needs to be analyzed from many angles by people who know what they're talking about, not by paid drones who regurgitate what they read in other blogs and are trying to make a name for themselves by disrupting communities to push their agendas.

Zimbra Admins

[Russianspi]

Yeah, administrators of Zimbra based E-mail servers (like me) are starting to panic I think a Google bailout/business alliance could be, as one Zimbra developer described it, "manna from heaven".

Re:Zimbra Admins

[Dancindan84]

Quote from a Zimbra employee in that thread:

The OSS version of Zimbra is just that, Open Source. Whatever happens there should be no change in that status. The joy of OSS is that if Microsoft/Yahoo discontinue support of Zimbra, someone else can pick it up. If there's a paid "corporate" version, I'm sure a company picking up would include support to migrate. I know that isn't ideal, but it isn't a reason for mass panic either.

Who will I ping ?

[sodul]

ping yahoo.com

I don't know why but I always ping yahoo to troubleshoot my network connection. I guess I'll have to switch to ping 'google.com'

(Off Topic) New Microsoft story icon submission

[Robber Baron]

With the impending departure of Bill Gates, I think a new Microsoft story icon is in order.
For that I don't think we need to go much further than the picture at the top of this story...

http://www.smh.com.au/news/biztech/yahoo-bid-bad-news-for-the-net-says-google/2008/02/04/1201973796947.html

Many things would be affected

[kbahey]

There are many implications for the proposed Microsoft/Yahoo merger for open source.

Microsoft will not continue to run on an open source platform, like they did with Hotmail.

- PHP: heavily used in Yahoo. Yahoo employs PHP founder and project lead Rasmus Lerdorf.
- Apache: Yahoo uses Apache heavily, and has many patches and modules for it. IIS will replace it.
- MySQL: likewise, they use it heavily. Expect MS-SQL in there.
- FreeBSD and Linux: they use them a lot. Expect those to be turfed for Windows.
- Yahoo YUI javascript library.

Yahoo also hosts open source events (e.g. OSCMS: Open Source Content Management Systems back in March 2007).

All the sponsorship money, paying salaries for open source leads, ...etc. will end.

This is not good news at all.

What a bad article

[Asmodai]

This guy quotes how Yahoo takes pride in running FreeBSD...

Running? Yahoo! is one of the largest infrastructure sponsors of the FreeBSD project and last time I checked even had people employed that are committers on the project. So yes, any take over of Yahoo! by Microsoft will no doubt put a huge dent into the FreeBSD Project's infrastructure that cannot easily be replaced in my opinion. So it's not just about running...

Re:Holy shit!

[QuickFox]

He's been doing _at least_ 30 USENET posts a day, every day, for over two years. ...says Anonymous Coward, who makes more than 30 posts an hour.

Re:Ok by me

[dpninerSLASH]

Please forgive me if this reply is a bit off-topic.

Firstly, I don't believe GNU/Linux development will be seriously hindered. It's long since reached a tipping point past which any major disruptions are unlikely.

This might be a good time, however, for people to begin looking at some of the BSDs. Yes, I realize Yahoo! is a major BSD customer, and should this deal go through I can't see Microsoft permitting the existence of anything else on their servers. Still, the BSDs are also widely deployed, reliable, and many would argue that the BSD license is less encumbering. Also, it has a formal foundation and governance which effectively ensures it's survival.

I've been an open source user/administrator now for over 12 years (12 w/ Linux, 11 w/ BSD) and am surprised at the relatively low uptake for this family of operating systems. In short, Linux ain't the only game in town.

Re:Cathedral and the Bazaar

[Per Abrahamsen]

How ironic that the bazaar has grown to becoming a sprawling, flopping, traffic jammed, flea market, You have never been to bazaar, have you?

Re:Ok by me

[jaxtherat]

rather than the the 30-year-old burnt-out techies on /. or the 19-year-old college students on Digg or the who-knows perverts on 4chan. You say it like it's a bad thing...

Re:Microsoft 2.0

[Anonymous Coward]

There are very few open source products that are winning and/or dominant over their proprietary rivals. Open Standards: TCP/IP, HTTP, SMTP, IMAP, iCal
Open Source: Apache, Tomcat, Linux (been in a server room lately?), MySQL, Perl, Python, Ruby, Rails, GNU Compiler Collection, Vim, Emacs, Netbeans, Solaris, Java, Glassfish, Sendmail, Postfix, Exim, OpenLDAP, ISC Bind.

Look at all those loser applications. Give me a couple more minutes I might think of some more.

Maybe you're stuck in an anachronistic office suite kind of existence, but few folks I know could care less about creating gratuitously formatted meeting minutes.

I'm all for freedom, including your freedom to keep feeding your money to companies who do little more than capriciously alter their file formats and protocols on a semi-annual basis to compel otherwise useless upgrades. Of course, some folks just like to spend money to have shiny objects too. Fine with me, I do the same thing sometimes. Just remember, in a free market, victory goes to the most efficient and productive; and wasting money on services and software that have been commoditized is a loser.