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Microsoft Reaches Out To Blender

Posted by kdawson on from the first-we-embrace dept.

dmbasso writes "Continuing its strategy to support FOSS application on the Windows platform, Microsoft mailed the Blender developers asking how they could help improve the experience of Blender users on Windows. Groklaw puts it in perspective using Steve Ballmer's own words."

52 of 444 comments (clear)

  1. Message to people who gripe about interfaces by suso · · Score: 1, Insightful

    First of all, I realize that this e-mail was not necessarily about the interface, but I'm going to prelude these comments with a comment about them anyways.

    This is a message directed towards all people who are not familiar with 3d applications. Most 3d applications have historically had interfaces that deviate from the standard application interface. Get over it.

    As someone who has been toying with various 3d applications since 1990 and having taken some time to learn Blender recently I can say this. Blender's interface is actually quite intuitive and effcient.

    1. Re:Message to people who gripe about interfaces by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "Blender's interface is actually quite intuitive" ... that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

      here's the thing:

      If you can't figure out what stuff does without a video tutorial, then it is *by definition* not intuitive.

      I've used 3D application since the late 80's (started with Sculpt-Animate 4D, and have used *many* applications since), and Blender's interface is one of the worst I've ever seen. I'd say it's worse than ever Caligari (the first version) in that at least with Caligari I could actually navigate.

      I tried learning Blender recently, and downloaded a video tutorial. The guy presenting it repeatedly used the word "intuitive" - even going so far as to say something like this:

      "The buttons don't work the way you'd expect, but once you get used to it, it's really intuitive."

      If you don't get how hilarious this is, then you don't know the meaning of the word "intuitive".

    2. Re:Message to people who gripe about interfaces by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It is intuitive and efficient IF you take some time to learn it. I know people who work with various 3d applications and blender is just too foreign. Learn Maya and you will know how to work with similiar software. Learn blender and you'll know how to work with blender, and only blender.

      It's the start that's the problem, but when you learn it - it is more as just "quite intuitive and efficient".

    3. Re:Message to people who gripe about interfaces by Trespass · · Score: 4, Insightful

      First of all, I realize that this e-mail was not necessarily about the interface, but I'm going to prelude these comments with a comment about them anyways.

      This is a message directed towards all people who are not familiar with 3d applications. Most 3d applications have historically had interfaces that deviate from the standard application interface. Get over it.

      As someone who has been toying with various 3d applications since 1990 and having taken some time to learn Blender recently I can say this. Blender's interface is actually quite intuitive and effcient. I'm sure it helps that you can access all the functions from the GUI now instead of having to memorize hotkeys.

      Keyboard shortcuts often make for a more efficient workflow, but *having* to use them makes for a much steeper learning curve.
    4. Re:Message to people who gripe about interfaces by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      B.S. With the exception of your mother's nipple, you have never ever used an intuitive interface. There is no such thing. Have you ever seen someone try to "intuit" how to use a mouse without even having seen it being used? "Hello computer?" When you say "intuitive", you merely mean "similar to whatever I'm used to". Frankly, efficiency and discoverability are what you should focus on.

    5. Re:Message to people who gripe about interfaces by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      It is intuitive and efficient IF you take some time to learn it.

      Which is EXACTLY the point the AC up there ^^^ was making. If you have to "take some time to learn it" then it is not intuitive BY DEFINITION. Something simply can't be intuitive AND have a steep learning curve--they're mutually exclusive. That so many people here seem to want to argue this point just shows how very screwed up some within the OSS community can be, and how out of whack interface priorities actually are.

    6. Re:Message to people who gripe about interfaces by Trespass · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I just don't think most of the people here understand the difference between 'easy to use' and 'easy to learn'. Blender looks like a really interesting tool, but a lot of people have unrealistic expectations for making complex tasks simple. Having used 3ds Max in a production environment for four years, what's 'intuitive' now is far different from what it was when I started.

    7. Re:Message to people who gripe about interfaces by compro01 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      that isn't "myth preceded" it's "fact preceded". we've been doing a trial of the thing where i work and after 6 months, we largely chucked it as practically all (about a dozen out of the 2 hundred liked the new interface) the test clients couldn't stand it anymore.

      --
      upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
    8. Re:Message to people who gripe about interfaces by Trespass · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I have also been learning to use blender recently, and would agree with you on the efficiency front, but not on the intuitive one - it took me ages to find a decent tutorial (I eventually used the noob to pro wikibook), and without one I was stumped.

      The problems with the interface for beginners is that not much is apparent - for example, I could create a cube/cylinder/monkey, and with a bit of fiddling managed to make it red and clear, I could sometimes move random nodes. But this was essentially it.

      The problem comes due to the heavy reliance upon keyboard shortcuts and unnamed icons, which once learned are certainly efficient and easy to use, but they don't facilitate easy learning. This is a very large and often neglected aspect of learning something as complex and just plain *weird* as 3D modeling and animation: Documentation! Say what you will about the 3ds Max interface (I like it for poly modeling) but the documentation and tutorials are some of the best I've seen for a good introduction to 3D. I found Blender daunting when I last tried it because there really was a shortage of available tutorials and other documentation.

      Good documentation will carry a mediocre interface better than poor documentation will carry a great interface.
    9. Re:Message to people who gripe about interfaces by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Actually, the point is: if you learn a small subset of Blender's commands, all the rest is pretty intuitive to deduce, because all share the same concepts.

      This is called "consistent" not "intuitive".

    10. Re:Message to people who gripe about interfaces by Rary · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "The buttons don't work the way you'd expect, but once you get used to it, it's really intuitive."

      If you don't get how hilarious this is, then you don't know the meaning of the word "intuitive".

      I've never used Blender and can't comment on whether or not its UI is intuitive. I intend only to reply to your comments about the meaning of "intuitive".

      To an extent, I agree with you. However, being "intuitive" doesn't necessarily only mean that it's immediately obvious how to use it. Sometimes your initial perception of the basic UI concept doesn't match that of the developers, but once you shift your perception accordingly, then it become intuitive.

      Basically, you may encounter a UI that makes no sense to you. Then you learn how it works, but each time you go to do an action, you have to stop and think about how to do it, and rely on memorized steps. This is not an intuitive interface.

      On the other hand, you may encounter a UI that makes no sense to you, but once you grasp the UI's concept, you find that you don't have to rely on memorized steps, they just make sense based on your new understanding of the UI concept. That's a UI that has become intuitive.

      In other words, it's intuitive to a person who understands the concept. All you have to do is learn the concept.

      --

      "You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." -- Albert Einstein

    11. Re:Message to people who gripe about interfaces by Abcd1234 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      So very true. And I'm sure Blender is incredibly efficient. What it's *definitely* not is discoverable (at least in my limited experience).

    12. Re:Message to people who gripe about interfaces by CastrTroy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Anybody who thinks that Blender is too complicated should probably read up on expert interfaces. Doing 3D modelling is not something you can pick up in a couple hours, or learn in a week even. Expert interfaces are fine on tools like Blender where you would expect the user to be able to devote a large amount of time to learning how the tool works, as long as the time spent learning the tool allows them to do the actual tasks more quickly. Blender is like the CLI. It's not entirely obvious from just messing around how to use it effectively, but to the experienced user, it can be quite powerful.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    13. Re:Message to people who gripe about interfaces by joeedh · · Score: 2, Insightful

      >> First of all, I realize that this e-mail was not necessarily about the
      >> interface, but I'm going to prelude these comments with a comment about them
      >> anyways.

      Eh, how does the interface relate to this story? I mean, that was guarenteed to start Yet Another Slashdot Blender UI Flame Fest.

      And for you blender UI haters (for the thousandth time) blender's UI is designed to be fast and easy to use, not easy to learn (and it is consistent with itself, yes, just not with other apps). Back when the UI was initially designed, a hotkey-based app was one of the fastest ways to work (pie/radial/marking menus hadn't become popular yet, for that matter they arn't popular now). However it's not particularly easy to learn such an app, especially back before we had header menus so users could at least find the function in the menu and see it's associated hotkey. There's also been significant technical difficulties with the UI code (though there's a project ongoing now to fix that, and hopefully allow much UI improvement).

      Maya, (as an example of an app people find easy to learn and fast to use once they learn how to configure it) uses marking menus (basically pie menus) to replace the need to memorize tons of hotkeys. Hotkeys have the advantage of settling into your muscle memory; normals menus do not, nor do icons, but pie menus work fairly well for this. So instead of having tons of hotkeys, you put things into pie menus, which makes the user interface much more discoverable (if done right) and intuitive, especially if users can build their own menus and assign them to custom hotkeys.

      Other then the marking menus, I personally think maya's UI is not well designed (it's customizable in the ways as I'd like, for example). However from what I can tell, the marking menus combined with what customizability is there works really well for people. Pie menus have been investigated for use in blender in the past, and will probably be considered again as part of the 2.5 event/ui refactor project.

      Joe

    14. Re:Message to people who gripe about interfaces by nschubach · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Being a programmer, I find many instances of this type of thing. Your post made me remember the many times I've tried to learn 3D programming (OpenGL or DirectX.) There is a "language" to go with the technology that you have to wrap your head around first. Words like occlusion, voxel, vector (different than a C vector), Stencil Buffer, Tessellation... I could go on. Either way, it would be like telling someone to drive a taxi in Bangladesh if they only spoke English. It might be intuitive to the people living there, but the person you asked to do it wouldn't have a clue where anything was or how to get there.

      --
      Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
    15. Re:Message to people who gripe about interfaces by OptimusPaul · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I'm of the opinion that 3D software in general is non-intuitive. Blender took me a long time to figure out. But then I learned Maya, which also took a long time, and now I have forgotten how to use blender. I would hope that 3D apps would at least be similar in how you interact with them. I used to say that Blender is difficult because so many functions are accesed using special key combos or mouse clicks, but I have come to realize that this is just the nature of 3D. Adapting our 2D tools to it just doesn't really make for an intuitive experience.

    16. Re:Message to people who gripe about interfaces by Thoughts+from+Englan · · Score: 2, Insightful

      So you've never heard of Drew Barrymore ?

      --
      That was supposed to be "Thoughts from England" ... Oh well.
    17. Re:Message to people who gripe about interfaces by JackieBrown · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Lightwave?

      For $895 - $995 it should be able to make what I want based on what I'm thinking.

      http://shop.newtek.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWCATS&Category=7

  2. How to improve the user experience on Windows? by neokushan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That's easy, release the source.

    --
    +1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
    1. Re:How to improve the user experience on Windows? by Amouth · · Score: 2, Insightful

      what's wrong with Pidgin's interface? only problem i have had is that they need someoen to go through and relayout the options/prefrence area's. other than that it is quite nice - very clean and straight forward.

      --
      '...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
    2. Re:How to improve the user experience on Windows? by HappySmileMan · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I like how you make a joke, it's modded insightful instead of funny, and once you explain the joke you're modded troll

    3. Re:How to improve the user experience on Windows? by NotBorg · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Microsoft doesn't get it. Most people don't get how open source projects work.

      Open source projects improve (or are influenced most) by getting patches accepted to the project.

      Microsoft is full of developers, developers, developers. Why not just submit some patches that improve blender's performance on Windows?

      Google did that with Wine. They wanted Picasa to work in Wine. Guess what they did. They threw money and patches at it.

      Take a look at the kernel and how it has changed because companies wanted it to do something and submitted patches. That's how it works.

      Microsoft is a software company that somehow can't figure out how to submit a patch. Sad. Patch up or shut up.

      --
      I want this account deleted.
    4. Re:How to improve the user experience on Windows? by rhizome · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Microsoft is full of developers, developers, developers. Why not just submit some patches that improve blender's performance on Windows?

      Because maybe MS' approaching Blender is more about anti-trust than Windows itself? Is Blender used in education at all? Methinks if the recent antitrust brouhaha in Europe over interoperability gains any steam, Microsoft is going to work in advance to keep those charges from propagating to the U.S. Perhaps Blender is the first step since it can also provide a supply of XBox developers and thus cover both of Microsoft's platforms.

      --
      When I was a kid, we only had one Darth.
  3. Makes me think of cowboys... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Every year they heat up their branding irons and "reach out" to the cows.

  4. Irony, much? by Tenebrousedge · · Score: 5, Insightful
    FTA:

    Specifically, Microsoft is slowly shifting toward a more open standards based approach to its file formats. The ISO standard Office Open XML is an example of the direction we are moving towards. That pretty much says it all, here.
    --
    Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
    1. Re:Irony, much? by griffjon · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What was parent marked as troll? I think the quote pulled is spot-on; MS wants to redefine "open," and will not stop at pretty obvious bribery and underhanded tactics to do it, such as the OOXML debacle. "The ISO standard Office Open XML is an example of the direction we[Microsoft] are moving towards."

      Thanks for your battle plan, MS! It's too bad the Blender folks didn't pull a reverse-409 style scam and draw out a new round of Halloween-style Documents.

      --
      Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
    2. Re:Irony, much? by codemachine · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There is some truth to that. ODF 1.0 had some rough edges where things aren't specified as fully as they need to be. The later drafts help to fix these problems. Even with the poorly defined parts of ODF 1.0, people were able to look at the OpenOffice.org code and just take the motto "do it like OpenOffice does". This is obviously not ideal for an ISO standard, and does need to get fixed. But open source did provide a nice workaround here, since there was at least one reference implementation available to look at on top of the spec itself.

      OOXML is very bad for doing its own thing where it could instead be using existing XML standards. I think this makes ODF a better starting point for creating an open XML format for documents than OOXML. From a technical standpoint, ODF has many advantages over OOXML due to a cleaner design. And where it has weaknesses, they are much more likely to be fixed.

      OOXML also has no actual implementations yet. The company that pushed the standard may never actually implement it themselves, let alone anyone else. Interop is likely going to be a nightmare. The standard is so large that there are bound to be many rough edges where interpretations differ. And in this case, there is no reference implementation to use. You could try looking at Office 2007 documents, but they aren't actually standard OOXML either. Worse yet, most office suits will want to handle Office 2007 files with the same filter, so the code will need to deal with multiple variants of this "standard".

      So I agree that ODF does need to be cleaned up. We need to make sure compatibility is actually being delivered. I think the promises and hype from the ODF camp are greater than the reality right now. But it is pretty premature to say that OOXML doesn't have compatibility issues, given there are no implementations yet. Though neither is perfect, I have much more hope for ODF than I do OOXML.

    3. Re:Irony, much? by mrchaotica · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Office moving from binary blob to clearly defined standard...

      Holy shit, they are?! So they decided not to go with OOXML, after all?

      --

      "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

  5. "support FOSS application"????? by sm62704 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "Continuing its strategy to fight against FOSS application on the Windows platform, Microsoft mailed the Blender developers asking how they could help improve the user experience on Windows so they could laugh at it. Groklaw puts it in perspective using Steve Ballmer's own words."

    There, fixed it for you. Microsoft doesn't want "open sores" (as microsoft shills used to call it), which Ballmer once likened to cancer, on their operating system.

    If they could make Windows so it only ran Microsoft programs without losing any Windows sales, they would.

    -mcgrew

    --
    mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
    1. Re:"support FOSS application"????? by sgt+scrub · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think most of your post is tongue and cheek but...

      Back in the day when 3d applications were on Digital, Mac, and Irix machines microsoft focused on getting them ported to NT. This did a good job of killing Digital, Irix, and Apple. Getting Blender, IMHO the 3d tool with the most rapidly growing community, to run "best" on Windows would help thwart adoption of Linux. Not just adoption by users but adoption by hardware makers. If you can keep hardware makers focused on building for your platform, users will not leave.

      --
      Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
    2. Re:"support FOSS application"????? by harrkev · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Balmer's play may backfire. Read the Groklaw post. It is about trying to outsmart Linux by making sure that "open sores" runs wonderfully on Windows, so nobody needs Linux.

      The problem is that, once people start using OO, Firefox, etc., they will eventually realize that they can run that exact same software on a free OS.

      The shock of changing the OS and the office suite is a lot. However, if you can transition one little piece at a time, Windows is in trouble.

      --
      "-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
    3. Re:"support FOSS application"????? by nuzak · · Score: 2, Insightful

      > Read the Groklaw post.

      I'd really rather not. It's an even worse echo chamber than slashdot. Ballmer's letter is just raw meat to the crowd of screaming sychophants.

      I mean, I got a bitter chuckle out of the OOXML reference too, but I don't let that tear away all objective thought with regard to the letter -- my first impression of which is "Blender just got some serious recognition". I'm sure Groklaw is full of oh-so-clever analysis about how MS is out to get Blender, because we all know how serious they are about making 3D modeling apps...

      --
      Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
  6. Don't Read The Article by JamesRose · · Score: 1, Insightful

    It's crap, s/he found letter from ballmer, and then published it with snide remarks every few lines. Quite frankly it adds nothing to the arguement against windows. This really does give a really poor show of the people in the open source community, it's poorly thought out and no different from the knee jerk reaction against anything microsoft.
    Blender got an e-mail from MS, how about we hear something from blender or MS, not some anonymous blogger.

    1. Re:Don't Read The Article by synthesizerpatel · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This is a perfect example of:

      News is information someone doesn't want you to know.

      Everything else is advertising.

  7. FOSS on Windows by wizardforce · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This has been said before but it's in Microsoft's best interest to support FOSS primarily on the Windows platform rather than watch FOSS grow anyway on other OSes.

    --
    Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
  8. And so it begins by Nursie · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Microsoft is slowly shifting toward a more open standards based approach to its file formats. The ISO standard Office Open XML is an example of the direction we are moving towards."

    So you're moving towards bribery and pollution of international standards bodies and open mockery of the idea of open and standard formats?

    Sorry, but after that I would have told him where he could shove it.

    1. Re:And so it begins by nurb432 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Copy others, for one.

      Following suit is not innovation. MIght be incremental improvements which is nice, but not innovation which we sorely need in the IT field..

      --
      ---- Booth was a patriot ----
  9. It is not going to happen. by dysmey · · Score: 5, Insightful

    From what I have read of the original posts on the Blender site, it looks like the Blender project will tell Microsoft to go away.

    After the OOXML fiasco — Microsoft must truly be deluded to think this is a good example of their openness policy — it is only right that the Blender project, knowing what would happen to them in the end, should reject Microsoft.

    1. Re:It is not going to happen. by hesiod · · Score: 4, Insightful

      > "Give us money on the promise that Code remains GPL, always)"

      Never believe promises when dealing with a company like MS. Require signed legal documents, reviewed by a very good lawyer.

  10. Have about opening the MS formats by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The thing that gets to me is how can a *proprietary* company ask an *open source* community to help make the *open source* work better on the *proprietary platform*. I mean doesn't that strike people as... stupid? Why not the proprietary company just... *read* the source code for themselves? Don't they have enough money to *hire* developers to work on blender? Why do they think that people who provide their own free time should work to support their *proprietary* platform, which by their own business model is built on charging people for the privilege of using their OS?

    What, it's ok for MS to charge people to use their software, but it's not ok to expect MS to shell out some money for other people's software? MS wants the software for free?!?!

  11. Re:Dumb corporation directive by Alwin+Henseler · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "contact all large opensource projects and find out what file formats they use and persuade them to use our new *open* file format." Well it may just be the other way around: provide better support for (3rd party!) closed formats on a Windows version of Blender (and if possible, only there). How? Let me guess - cut a deal with such a 3rd party and have them provide detailed format specs (privately to Microsoft), and code up a closed-source binary blob only useable by a Windows version of Blender?

    Result: people might have better experience working with those formats when they use Blender on Windows. -> That would make it more attractive to use Windows as underlying platform (if support for those file formats matter to you).

    In other words: give a competitive advantage to using Windows, make it less attractive to move to a FOSS operating system.
  12. mod parent up by Dekortage · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Exactly so. If Microsoft really wants to improve the software... then commit your own programmers to the project and put your improvements back into the community.

    --
    $nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
  13. How about... by Marsala · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Not making it a fscking mission to get your Blender work (sorry, "assets") into XNA's Content Pipeline?

    That seems like a good place to start. :)

  14. Fool me once... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    [...] no different from the knee jerk reaction against anything microsoft. I've read similar comments trying to make it look like it's not valid to be suspiscious of MS and the people who are, are just a bunch of haters. Well, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.

    If some weird guy on the street always punches you in the face when you walk past him, do you not assume he will do it this time too? Does that make you a weird-guy-walking-around-on-the-street-punching-people-hater?

    There's a reason people dislike Microsoft.
  15. You're crazy! by alexhmit01 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    MS normally reaches out to developers through the paid developer channels. As a result, OSS developers were ignored by Microsoft. Microsoft creates a new position to reach out to them, and contacts them saying, "How can we help? Is there a file format problem? We're working on making our file formats more open, is there something that we can speed up that would help," and you all make snide remarks.

    If file formats are not a problem, than a simple, "We're fine for now, but when the issue comes up, I will pass your contact information on to developer with trouble, here's my vCard, let's keep in touch," would be fine.

    Microsoft isn't passing any judgment here. Windows competes with Linux in the marketplace, Blender is an application that runs on Windows and Linux, the company that makes Windows reaches out offering to help because they want Blender to run really well on Windows.

    It's not about Microsoft WANTING the software for free, the Blender guys GIVE the software away for free, to Microsoft and everyone else. This is simply Microsoft realizing that their competition with Linux and other Open Source PROJECTS doesn't mean that other applications should be supported as well as other third party developers. I'm sure that Microsoft gives Adobe support because they want Adobe products to run as well or better on Windows as Mac OS X, now they are offering support to Blender.

    The Blender guys may not need/want that support, but this is Microsoft "getting it," and Slashdot users NOT "getting it." The software marketplace is not proprietary vs. open source, it's not non-Free vs. free, it's product area by product area. I find it unlikely that Microsoft would offer support to the Open Office guys, because OO running better on Windows hurts their market leading Microsoft Office product, but other areas that Microsoft doesn't compete in, they can offer them support.

    I would expect MS to be willing to support The Gimp writers as that program gets better, because Microsoft is indifferent between users running Windows/Photoshop and Windows/Gimp, and would like EITHER scenario better than OSX/Photoshop, OSX/Gimp, or Linux/Gimp.

  16. Re:!GPL != EVIL by chromatic · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Now if you guys keep taking a hard line on this nothing will change... if you go I WANT IT ALL NOW approch. Then you will get nothing.

    Are you suggesting that nothing has improved since the formation of the FSF in 1985?

    --
    how to invest, a novice's guide
  17. This isn't about helping the "community" by alexhmit01 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Microsoft offered ZERO help to the "open source community." They offered help to the Blender Project to get Blender to run better on Windows. They created a position to reach out to them, because their NORMAL developer channels don't include the free software guys. Microsoft doesn't care about the Open Source community, they care about Microsoft. Microsoft makes money selling Windows and Office. If helping Blender helps them sell Windows and/or Office, they will help Blender. If it does not, they will not help Blender.

    Microsoft vs. Sun was obvious, Sun was stupid. Microsoft wanted to sell Windows, that meant making sure that Java apps ran best on Windows. Microsoft wants to sell Windows, so that means making Java apps that run on windows run best (or only) on Windows. Sun wanted to make Windows irrelevant with Java apps. In what universe were Microsoft and Sun's business interests aligned?

    There is no "open source community." There are software projects released under Open Source Licenses, and their are "open source projects" that have community developers. There are also corporate projects and University projects that are released under "open source licenses." The only "community" angle is that code under the BSD/MIT licenses are available to everyone, and code under the GPL is available to everyone.

    Microsoft doesn't care if you are a corporation or a "community," they care if your software helps them sell software (in which case they help you), or hurts them selling software (in which case they try to crush you). With open source projects, their existing channels don't work for either help/crush, so they have a new position for helping... I'm sure they have another department for crushing competitive open source projects, but that departments send out nastygrams from Legal or FUD from PR, not emails of help from the liaison office.

  18. Not Supporting, they are Subverting by HermMunster · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Sheesh, who wrote the lead into this story? They sound the baboon taken by Microsoft's orgy of gorillas.

    Microsoft has never ever supported open standards and no amount of OOXML will ever support that fact.

    Microsoft's attempt is to subvert the true meaning of open source and to beguile and lie to those not smart enough to understand the real reason behind open source.

    Microsoft's offerings have been nothing but opened source and that is a universe away from Open Source concepts.

    Microsoft is run by a bunch of nuts if they think that we can't see that this is nothing more than their:

    embrace, extend, extinguish

    tactic.

    Their demise won't come soon enough.

    In the end open source will meet or exceed any closed source offering. This means that all features, concepts, capabilities will be equal to or better than in the closed source world. What this will relegate Windows to, and there's nothing wrong with it, is a gaming console type application. You'll only use it when and if you want to play games.

    The transition to open source is inevitable. The world is far too large and there are too many people that know about how Microsoft does business. Big named companies are now involved. They know how to diffuse the obfuscated veil that Microsoft is draping over the eyes of the average fanboy worshiping at the feet of the criminal monopolist.

    --
    You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
  19. Does Ballmer really want the answer by spitzak · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The answer is a list of rather simple things, but it is not what they want to hear or expect to hear (I think they expect to hear demands for open source):

    #1: Fix filenames and filesystem so they match Unix. This means you use the forward slash. Refuse to "microsoft certify" any software that will not accept a pasted or typed filename with a forward slash in it, and change all the OS api that returns filenames to return forward slashes (probably with a registry setting) and again refuse to "microsoft certify" software that fails when this setting is on. And get rid of the damn drive letters (just make "/A:/" be the same as "A:/") and support UTF-8 encoding of the filenames at all times (probably by changing the "a" version of the win32 api to be hard-coded to UTF-8).

    #2: Support OpenGL, meaning that by default you get at least what Mesa provides. Supporting OpenGL 1.4 only is not acceptable.

    #3: Support C99 standard functions and don't make your compiler spew a lot of bogus "warnings" that you put in there to try to encourage people to change to your windows-specific functions. Remove the underscores you stuck on lots of the functions so that portable useful code cannot be written.

  20. Re:!GPL != EVIL by IgnoramusMaximus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If Linus used the BSD licesnse then the BSD License would get all the press.

    You got it completely backwards.

    It is the GPL license which induced a lot of people to contribute to the Linux kernel instead of a BSD-licensed ... BSD system, which predates Linux by decades.

    The fact that because the BSD license did not guarantee that one's contribution will not end up being sold back to the contributor by some greedy fuck, is what turned a majority of contributors away from BSD and other similar licenses. It is why a vast majority of FOSS is licensed under the GPL.

    Linux sucess was the fact that it was a free(as in beer)/stable Unix Clone with a good development support structure.

    See above. If it were not for GPL, a "most recent" Linux kernel would be still a version 0.6 curiosum found in cob-web covered corners of Usenet and the most widely known Linux-alike system would be BSD with a fraction of a following of today's Linux. It is the GPL which made all the difference. And we have an empirical proof for that: BSD and its forks.

    FSF just went and took credit and telling people to put GNU in front of Linux's name, just so they can get some creds off the Linus and other developers work.

    Skipping for the moment the fact that the Linux kernel is developed using the GNU toolchain and that no Linux system can even boot without a whole core set of GNU libraries and tools, it is the GPL which allowed for the growth of Linux. If linux were to be re-licensed to MIT or BSD today, probably (judging by their words on LKML) 80% kernel developers would drop out of the project instantaneously.

    Granted the GPL License did allow developers feel comfortable about writting code for Linux to expand it but for the most part giving money to the FSF is just paying people to Whine more vs. getting real jobs.

    Yes! How dare these bastards stop you from taking their shit and selling it for your profit! I mean the chutzpa they have! Lazy unemployed beggars all!

  21. Tolkien clearly wrote Microsoft's history by kiehlster · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I can't help but compare Microsoft with Morgoth. They craft their words so finely that people inept or otherwise follow their invalid "open" point of view and push off the guidance of the other Valar. But deep down all they care about is their coveting of those beautiful Silmarils and nurturing the putrid race of Orcs.

  22. Re:In the direction of... by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Examples of required, non-deprecated bits of OOXML that are poorly defined? (Hint: "render X like Office 97" aren't required and are deprecated, and their hinting can be ignored without display difficulties.)

    If it results in file incompatibility or rendering differences in between documents from MSWord and those opened by other programs, then it doesn't matter if it is listed as "deprecated" or "optional" or "monkey poo." It still is preventing the interoperability truly open standards are designed to remove.

    There are more holes in ODF than OOXML. I'm not terribly fond of OOXML, but frankly they got it more right than ODF has.

    ODF has a working, open source reference implementation. While the standard as written has a few snags, it's not like developers can't and don't just look to see how OO.org and Workplace did it if there is any question about making sure things are interoperable. OOXML doesn't even have a complete closed source implementation that can be blackbox tested for interoperability. Sorry, OOXML is late to the game and severely lacking in real world ability to seamlessly exchange interoperable documents.