Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft and Apache - What's the Angle?
A week ago, we discussed Microsoft's contribution to the Apache Foundation. Now, Bruce Perens has written an analysis "exploring the new relationship of Microsoft and the Apache project, how it works as an anti-Linux move on Microsoft's part, and what some of the Open Sourcers are going to do about having Microsoft as a rather untrustworthy partner." In particular, he notes:
"...Microsoft can still influence how things go from here on. If they have to live with open source, the Apache project is Microsoft's preferred direction. Apache doesn't use the dreaded GPL and its enforced sharing of source-code. Instead, the Apache license is practically a no-strings gift, with a weak provision against patent lawsuits as its most relevant term. Microsoft can take Apache software and embrace and enhance, providing their own versions of the project's software with engineered incompatibility and no available source, just as they forced incompatibility into the Web by installing IE with every Windows upgrade."
Does that Bruce Perens link really need to be a mailto: link? His Slashdot user page might be more appropriate: http://slashdot.org/~Bruce+Perens/
I'm currently trying to get C# to talk to Java through SOAP. In C#, I'm using WCF (A Microsoft Framework), and in Java I'm using CXF (An Apache Framework.) It's very difficult.
No, I will not work for your startup
1. They want to talk to regulators as "insiders" in the Open Source community, asking for increases in software patenting that will actually block Open Source.
2. Trying to become the dominant server for Apache Foundtion software is an anti-Linux play.
3. There is a potential for embrace and enhance of Apache Foundation software.
4. If they really want to be sincere community members, let's see them play by GPL rules, not by Apache's "anything goes" rules. What they're doing now is trying to seem members of Open Source without any of the obligation.
Bruce Perens.
Usage of IIS has been increasing dramatically since March 2006. Usage of the Apache HTTP Server has declined significantly beginning in that same month
Nice try, troll.
According to the page you linked, Apaches usage has actually increased, as has IIS. Admittedly, Apaches market share has gone down, but that's not what you said. There are still 8.5 million more Apache servers (serving 24 million more sites according to Netcraft) than IIS.
Totals for Active Servers Across All Domains
June 2000 - June 2008
Not to mention that as the largest single OS vendor, Microsofts market share is bound to grow, as their users start discovering the internet. Apache users are largely self selecting in this respect.
What DRM?
The ONE article some guy wrote about how the DRM "makes his computer vaguely slower" that Slashdot has been posting back and forth the the last year?
There is no DRM in Vista, other than the standard checks on downloaded patches. I've never been restricted by Vista from doing ANYTHING Slashdotters continually tell me Vista restricts me from doing. It's bullshit, it's an urban legend, and stop spreading it.
Comment of the year
that's a BSDaemon, thank you very much...
Usage of IIS has been increasing dramatically since March 2006. Usage of the Apache HTTP Server has declined significantly beginning in that same month.
Those numbers were mainly due to changes in parked domains, nothing real.
Actually you are wrong about that. GPL 2 section 3(b) says "any third party". So, yes, there is something in the GPL that says you do have to give code to random people.
You don't have to follow 3(b) if you follow 3(a). But you are not allowed to prevent any of the people you give source code under 3(a) from giving it to anyone they like.
Bruce Perens.
What I hear about - and only hear about because I haven't had to touch a Vista machine - is that people have their video resolution handicapped, and that the latest service pack messes up boot authorization if you have dual boot. Somebody who actually has to touch Vista could tell you much more.
Bruce Perens.
Distributions do not run the two desktop projects, they do collaborate on them.
Bruce Perens.
Err no. MS doesn't usually make their code publicly available. I wonder where you saw it..
MS made some of their Windows code available to MSDN members a while back under a specific license.
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
You seem to be talking about Open Source as one single entity - it isn't, and it never will be. What Apache are doing is nothing more than ensuring they can increase their own market share by having their products run well on all platforms. Whats wrong with that?
Should Apache 'take one for the "team"'? No.
System Libraries (I use the capitals to specifically indicate a reference to the capitalized term in the GPL 3) don't have to implement a Standard Interface. They can instead serve as the interface to allow the use of the work with a Major Component. Which simply means Microsoft would have to make the non-Free extension code part of or highly dependent on code in a Major Component, called via a System Library.
As long as the GPL allows covered software to be run on non-Free platforms, the owners of the non-Free platforms will be able to embrace and extend the GPL software with non-Free code. You can set up some hoops, if you like, but they can always tilt the platform to serve as a ramp through the hoops.
As Mark Twain said 'There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.' These stats are INCREDIBLY slanted as Microsoft paid several domain parkers to move to IIS thus making it look like alot of people use IIS when in fact they do not. Also, they forked their stats: Googles web server is actually a custom build of Apache (not for resale), lighttpd is a custom build of apache as well. Add these stats back in, take into consideration that Microsoft paid off domain parkers and you actually get a stat more like this.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.