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Windows Azure Offers Developers Iron-Clad Lock-in
snydeq writes "Microsoft's move to the cloud is certain to create a whole new kind of developer partner, Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister writes. But as much as Microsoft ISVs will likely go along with the shift to Windows Azure to keep revenue streams going, the kind of lock-in they will experience will be worlds away from what they face today. Rather than being able to ignore the new version of a key framework, developers will have no other option than to update their code to suit Microsoft's latest platform. That kind of lock-in will leave customers in the lurch, subject to their vendors' bottom lines, as ISVs that can't afford to rework code to keep up with Microsoft's latest platform will begin dropping services, and customers will have little choice but to accept the new terms of service their vendors send along."
I still think that name looks way to close to Vuze/Azureus. Maybe its going to change post launch?
...to bad he retired already.
So is that any different from iPhone OS? Is this the trend of the future (outside of Linux, that is)?
Constantly locked in to a upgrade path? No, way. No way will anyone go for this for anything real.
My blog
In other news, scientists discover that pure water does not contain strawberries.
In a world with new wars, pandemics, food crises, and economic meltdowns, it is good to know that the morals of one company have stayed the same. Microsoft is our rock in these crazy times.
in a cloud of dreams by Richard Stallman!
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
I'm sure he's already started on an open-source Mono-based Azure clone.
Those dark clouds i saw on the way home.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Just another version of embrace and extinguish...
"as ISVs that can't afford to rework code to keep up with Microsoft's latest platform will begin dropping services, and customers will have little choice but to accept the new terms of service their vendors send along."
I think what'll happen is the vendors that don't keep up will, as stated, fall by the wayside. BUT, i think mshaft is looking to be MORE like Apple in control of the not only the software, but the hardware as well. This might be mshaft's underhanded way of trying to "disincentivize" hardware makers from making hardware that is friendly or explorable to Linux.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
So why is there any reason to believe MS won't provide backward compatibility on their cloud stuff? That's what they do on the desktop....
No i didn't RTFA, its a tradition i didn't want to break with.
This is what Microsoft do. Its what they've done for decades, and it has made them hundreds of billions of dollars. The message they get from this is that customers don't mind their lock in, provided they get stuff that works. Therefore they don't see what they do as being wrong. If indeed it is wrong. I'm not so sure anymore.
Microsoft software works, and usually works pretty well (Not including that heap of poo that is Vista, oh gods I hate that). Bottom line? Most companies buy Microsoft solutions, and you would be amazed how many still don't even know what Open Source is.
They will continue to do so until Open Source software gets marketing as aggressive as that employed by Microsoft. It ain't about code/product quality boys and girls, its about your sales force. IBM learned this lesson early on. Microsoft learned it too, but Open Source is still laboring under the false impression that just having better code is enough.
It isn't, trust me on this.
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
... as opposed to, say, Google App Engine.
This sounds like a whole lot of fear, uncertainty and doubt. developers are already subject to upgrading software as patches emerge. Business clients are likely to push out security and operability patches as they are released. They will demand the same level of service they receive now with Azure if the patches break their apps. Remember, new != scarry; new==different.
This one's tricky. You have to use imaginary numbers, like eleventeen... --Hobbes
One could look at this in one of two ways. The first way is the line taken by the summary writer, that it's doom, gloom and disaster. In practice, this is actually the most likely scenario, as the alternative I'm going to suggest has never been seriously adopted by software vendors yet.
And now for that alternative! Writing code correctly. (Ooooh, scary! Just right for Halloween.) Correct code does not mean "correct according to Microsoft's preferred style", it means "abstracted out, so you don't give a damn about the underlying architecture" with "vendor-specific and platform-specific details encapsulated and hidden by portability libraries and high-level languages". If you write code that will run just equally well on a Cray 2, PC compatible, Apple, SGI Indigo or a microprocessor-controlled toaster, you can afford to simply not care what Microsoft does. The portability library(s), which might be any combination of cross-platform Open Source or Commercial libraries for common stuff, provides almost total immunity from Microsoft API changes, gives you (next to) zero upgrade costs (the "actual" costs are distributed across all of the vendors tied to the library at the time AND in future) and minimizes the risks (the minimum amount of 3rd party code is changed per API change and the maximum number of arcs are tested because everyone linking into the code becomes a QA).
Since the only practical method of maintaining such a model at the pace at which Microsoft breaks^H^H^H^H^H^Hchanges things is Open Source, it will force an increase in the adoption of Open Source methods and Open Source tools. At which point, Microsoft becomes a rather expensive bit-player in the operation, in comparison to alternative clouds. Since portability libraries eliminate lock-in, as well as upgrade headaches, companies would start going with the cheaper option.
This isn't going to happen, of course. Although the tie-in with Microsoft is harming vendors, creating excess overhead and reducing reliability, PHBs won't see it that way. All they will see is that lock-in means you can Blame Somebody Else. You can't sue them, you almost certainly can't even get them to honour their service agreements or any other contracts, but so what? Having Someone Else To Blame is the cornerstone of office politics. Good decisions are not. It doesn't matter if the company sinks as a result, since the notion of "company loyalty" is seen as something "old-fashioned" and inconsequential in today's environment. You go in, you get your paycheck, you eventually move on. It's expected. So why should a manager, who has no interest beyond looking good to other managers, care about good decisions? It won't earn them any more money, it won't get them any more respect, it won't give them a promotion, and it leaves them vulnerable to back-stabbing from other managers.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Pish and bosh! When did MS drop compatibility? This is FUD through "the wrong end of the telescope".
I can run the clock, MSDOS Executive and Notepad from Windows 1.0 on Vista, forgodssake! .Net 1.0 code runs fine on the .Net 3 VM, just as most Java 1 code runs on the new Java6 JVM. Deprecated libraries can be accessed one way or another.
Azure is mostly a .Net machine with some REST for storage - with a very good deployment tool integrated with VisStudio TS. You want to pull out of the cloud and self-host? Pretty easy. Just watch your cost to deliver service go up.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Because you spend so much time serving the Microsoft machine. Not just licensing, product activation and the time and resources that takes, but the constant upgrade cycles, new languages, new versions of the frameworks, security patches that break things...it's all freaking insane.
We scrapped all that. Servers, desktops, dev tools, everything and migrated our development environment and desktops to open source. We can scale for the cost of hardware, our dev tools are simple, don't take all day to install and don't hog all your system resources. We use a lot of command line and prefer it. While you're still installing VisualStudio and getting through registration, we're already working.
Our ROI is off the scale, we have more cash, spend more time actually working and we're turning out systems in time frames that would be the envy of any development shop. We use open source in business and our business works. I came out of a big Windows shop and we blow away anything they're doing with a fraction of the personnel.
So now MS wants to take elements from several product lines, put it in a blender, then lock developers into their way of doing things. Gosh, let me think about that...no.
If Microsoft offered real value, simple licensing terms, and provided products that actually contributed to our enterprise environment without being a dickish pain in the ass, we'd probably have a place for their products in our mix. But right now, no freaking way. Anything MS touches turns to crap. Their products are slow, complicated and bloated and we get by just fine without them.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
This guy has just blown out a load of basless speculation and your all buying into it (any giving him page hits).
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Too bad MOST of the world sucks off ms' tit, when like Tang, Hi-C, KoolAid, Gatorade and others there are more drinks to be had. There seriously ought to be a bust-up of ms' power. But, if they go in the direction of facilitating nations' governments' spying on their respective (and opponents' and friends'citizens/agents/operatives), then that hegemonic beast will NEVER be put down, slain or at least crippled as it ought to be...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Likely you'll leave your Microsoft applications running on the platform version they're developed for while Microsoft may host many platform versions side-by-side. It's not unlike Google maps where developers can choose the API version their application runs with 1.x, 2.x, etc. Microsoft might be evil but they're not stupid, and they've been creating develop tools and frameworks for a very long time. They won't alienate their developers so there's no sense to assume a fearful stance because of a Slashdot submission like this.
That most enterprises can so reliably count on some essential in-house applications breaking on the second tuesday of every month that they have to opt out of automatic patching and remain vulnerable until they can rewrite their apps around the stuff that breaks. Every month. The exploits now so swiftly follow the patches that customers are vulnerable to a broadly circulating exploit for a significant period of time each month. Every year that period gets longer. Eventually it may be unacceptably long to be considered a viable platform for serious work.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
MS has always put compatibility with legacy APIs first. Even when it means a bolted-together architecture. With old, obsolete, and undocumented API calls being preserved just because some legacy app might call them.
In fact, if Azure actually did the opposite of what this article with no details claims, I'm sure we'd see another Slashdot article slamming MS for not breaking an old API to give us a nice architecture.
...which has been reimplemented as open source.
It only took maybe a week after it was launched, too.
The only reason you'd be "locked in" to Google's service there is if you depend on them hosting your app for free. I call that a fair trade.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Again, so-called "cloud" services are only cost-effective under certain conditions. A good sysadmin with cheap bandwidth can run circles around any hosted setup, and you get much more reliable throughput that way (if your sysadmin's any good).
Cloud computing being cheaper is a MYTH. It is billed in more granular fashion, which is great for attention-deficit developers who write the app-of-the-week, get their Digg and /. rush then fade away. Those people are not the driving force of the internet.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
I haven't delved deep into the workings of either... but is the Azure/Microsoft lockin any different than lockin would be in writing apps for Google's App Engine?
...rip Visual Basic 6 from your cold, dead fingers.
Table-ized A.I.
I'm usually the first to bash Microsoft. I'm usually the last to defend them. I do think they deserve every bit of flame they get.
But this is just getting stupid...
Apple did exactly the same thing with OS X. I'm talking about the initial launch -- OS X was a completely backwards-incompatible change from OS 9. In fact, there were major architectural changes -- like the introduction of such modern features as protected memory -- which would have made it pretty much impossible to maintain pure backwards compatibility and do everything they wanted to do.
So they said "fuck it", switched to a completely different architecture, and wrote an emulation/virtualization system called Classic.
One thing which I know I've heard described for Windows 7 was the ability to run an older version (like Vista) in a virtual machine. You know, kind of like Classic. The only difference would be if Microsoft wanted to charge you for the license -- and I hope they aren't that stupid.
I (and others) have frequently disparaged Microsoft for their bloated, crufty, undocumented (or under-documented, or mis-documented), and downright weird APIs. I know that before I heard about this change (which isn't news, by the way, it's been on Slashdot before), I figured I would do exactly the same thing if I was in Microsoft's shoes. Don't even try to support the old APIs -- just start entirely from scratch, build a compatibility layer, and tell people to upgrade.
One more thing, and then I'm done: What the fuck does this have to do with lock-in? What, did you think Win32 was open? It's only portable thanks to Wine, and Wine never has, never will, never can catch up and support every single app.
If you're going to be locked in anyway, why not be locked into something newer and (presumably) cleaner?
If it's not clean, that's another argument. But this strategy is not about lock-in.
End rant.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Kudos to microsoft for forcing people onto an upgrade path. Nearly all of my headaches in support are from clients running 10-year-old software who refuse to upgrade, and then complain that they still have bugs. I would love to tell my boss that these delinquent clients will be cut off, not only because we say so, but because our software overlords dictate that it must be done.
6th Street Radio @ddombrowsky
I can't believe the disbelief people are showing towards this direction.
The framework is just another implementation of .NET, with usage tracking, and auditing for billing purposes.
In the future, Microsoft will host your applications,and you will pay a "small monthly fee" for basic usage and storage. You will also pay "micro payments" for CPU utilization, and pay-per-use applications.
Don't believe it will work? It works for cellphones. Cellphones are a "necessity" and people will pay whatever the prevailing rate is without question.
Say good bye to the "personal" computer, and hello to your "computing appliance" that you will rent for a "small monthly fee".
I'd stop worrying about "open source" too, since only "approved" clients will be allowed on the "community network", all available for a "small monthly fee".
It's those pesky developers, network owners, content owners, etc who all want some compensation.
Get ready to enjoy the computing again, for a "small monthly fee".
The first lockout was when Microsoft abandoned the Visual BASIC 6.0 and under platform (Classic Visual BASIC) in exchange for Visual BASIC.Net 2002 and above. But many developers rebelled and stuck with VB 6.0 (I get many contractors and headhunters asking me to train programmers for VB 6.0 programming on Windows XP and under.)
Now this new platform will lock out the Visual Studio.Net 200X developers in exchange for the Cloud Framework.
I told former employers that it is better to just rewrite programs from scratch rather than try to convert code from VB 6.0 to VB.Net, but they didn't believe me. Then after they fired me for being sick on the job they found out I was right as they ran into a lot of issues and bugs with Visual BASIC.Net as I told them on my reports of it.
Might as well screw Microsoft as Microsoft has screwed developers at least three times now. Then screw Microsoft by adopting Python, Java, Ruby, Perl, Free Pascal, Delphi, or some other competing platform to Visual Studio and Cloud Windows Azure.
I would really like to see Linux or BSD Unix develop their own cloud computing that runs from the web to counter what Microsoft is doing.
I got a theory that using Novell Mono would be a gateway language for Windows developers to switch to, before switching to something else and develop VB.Net code in Mono for Linux, BSD Unix, Solaris, Mac OSX, etc, and leave Microsoft altogether and screw them for screwing developers too many times.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
I can see why Microsoft like this, but the thing I don't get is of what benefit this whole approach is to the USER. None that I can think of, plus a whole lot of negatives besides.
I'm guessing that IT dept. managers will perceive this as a way to get an easy life by having to do less complex setups or support. At nearly everywhere I've worked most IT/IS dept. managers are so owned by Microsoft they will mindlessly believe in and adopt whatever Microsoft promotes.
Consequently its my guess that the adopters of this will nearly all be doing it for those reasons rather than there being any actual benefit to end-users, or even if there are disadvanteages to end-users.
It's not made up, it's a kind of frog:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendrobates_azureus
The frog happens to be azure in color and is the azureus/vuze logo.
What Apple did with OSX, Microsoft did with Vista and Azure. But as I recall OSX Classic mode couldn't run all legacy Mac programs just as Vista's Win32 Legacy mode cannot run all Legacy Windows and DOS programs.
I recall Mac OSX had the Basilisk 2 emulator to run Classic Mac 68K programs that OSX Classic mode couldn't run.
Windows Vista uses VMWare or Virtual PC to run XP and under in Vista for Legacy Windows and DOS programs.
But it is ironic that Amiga, Inc. when it wrote AmigaOS 3.1 found a way to run the old 68K and PowerPC AmigaDOS/Workbench 1.X and 2.X programs under it without too many problems, and even gave legacy rights to a group to create an open source version of AmigaOS 3.1 called AROS Amiga Research OS that can run on i386 and PowerPC systems and have built in emulation for 68K Amiga code based on UAE with their own version of Kickstart in AROS with backwards compatibility.
Amiga got it right, Microsoft and Apple didn't, for solving Legacy Software problems.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=10
Sorry to disappoint you.
Linux seems to be doing great though. In about five years it should totally surpass Windows 2000.
Move my computing to some insecure, long-latency remote location that I lose access to when my ISP decides to have down time? I'm already well-connected (IM, IRC, news through the Internet, system software updates, inter-operating with other human beings far away via the Internet, etc); why in the hell would I suddenly want to find out I can't edit a report or write program code because my ISP's end-point router has decided to route my packets to itself for the moment and I can't reach the cloud?
Ubuntu please.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
The first five of cloud experiences will be all about lock-in from all the vendors - you'd have to be an naive in the extreme to in any way single out Microsoft in that regard. Jesus, some of you folks need to get your head out of your asses for a different perspective - that same old view is starting to develop a stale odor...
Windows is an operating system (suite)
Lindows was... an operating system (suite)
Azureus -was- a bittorrent client (nowadays 'Vuze', so who cares anyway?)
Azure would be... online.. web 2.0.. cloud.. computing.. something. Nothing remotely like a bittorrent client, at least.
The lock-in mentioned by the poster is not nearly what he makes it seem. Microsoft is making efforts to support non-MS software platforms (they specifically mentioned PHP).
Also, you c
Slashdot has a sister site where people various open source products are presented, rated, provided and supported.
This search for "reporting" should get you started. Apparently the JasperReports reporting engine is stable and well though of, and iReports is a popular interface to it. But I haven't tried them.
Good luck.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Apparently pentaho is even more slick.
Hey, that's an interesting package. I wasn't interested in reporting before, but this looks nice. Thanks for sparking my interest in the field.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Unlike how MS competes in the desktop space, where the intel/windows hegemony pretty much precludes all direct competition, this cloud hosting thing is a different beast altogether. In the world of this kind of app development, it's really just a matter of APIs. The platform doesn't matter so much because the high-level APIs are the platform. And Windows Azure is sufficiently different from standard win32 apps and programming that current win32 developers really have no inherent advantage. The jump to Azure is no different than the jump to, say, django on Amazon's cloud service. Or IBM's or whatever. So when it comes to cloud computing, MS has to compete like any new service. This is a good thing. Of course they are trying to apply their standard business techniques to it (lock-in, etc), but that's likely to fail as the other alternatives are just as capable without the lock-in. It will be fascinating to see how MS does when it is forced to actually compete with strong competitors and capable and entrenched existing systems. Unless they can find a way to strongly tie into their win32 platform (say some kind of MS Office/Sharepoint integration that is the cat's pajamas, or some kind of integration with IE for the client side), I don't think they can honestly remember how to compete here. Should be interesting, especially as PHBs have wisened up a bit over the years.
And all highly skilled, talented people are high strung and annoying. Especially annoying is their ability to see right through the lies.
A race horse will kill you too, if you don't watch out, but kiddie ponies don't win races.
I can't stand my salesmen, frickin' arrogant, boastful, testosterone charged egomaniacs, but I know what they need, and they know what I want, and they make me a pile of money. Now get the fuck out there and sell something!
But do I want some docile, house-broken sheep? No way!
Talent is talent. Learn to deal with egos. There are stars and there are dogs. We are not all equal. The best can do 10 times what the average can do, for nearly the same pay! You send Captain Kirk to go where no man has gone before, not some pussy whipped momma's boy.
Poodles are cute, but do you really want them guarding your meth lab? No! You want Bikers, German Shepherds and a belt feed fifty. Business is War! You should be a little scared when the Special Forces are in the house.
If you want a friend, buy a dog. If you want to be worshiped, start a cult. If you want to get laid, in 50 different ways, in 50 different days, get a guitar and learn how to play. If you want some satisfaction, you need to take some action. The race goes to the swift and the strong. Take no prisoners. Full speed ahead! Dam the torpedoes!
Talent never has been, and never will be easy to deal with. Tell them what you want, give them what they need, and stop micro-managing them. Cover their ass, and they will cover yours.
Develop a thick skin. And get the fuck out of their way. When they talk to you, listen. Be thankful they talk to you. When they stop talking, they are busy looking for another job. Talent can always find another job.
If they are lacking some political skills and say something harsh, or are just a little too blunt, just let it roll over. They will quickly realize their mistake. Give them a legitimate answer. And once you handle a few of their harsh barbs, and don't run away crying, they will begin to trust you. Climb the informal power structure.
I call B.S. Please enlighten us on exactly how it has been reimplemented as open source? All of your storage is still done using Google's Big Table and the GQL query language. If you can find me the source for Big Table, please show it to me.
last time i tried jasper is was far too inferior to reporting services to be useful to me. if it's improved i'll definately reconsider it.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
you can rest assured that human stupidity is limited.
Oh, really? I presume you do not include yourself in that statement.
Microsoft Vista adoption numbers are submarined. They are going to be driven by enterprise adoption, most of whom are still in the process of validating it.
Oh wait, let me translate that into something someone can read to you that you'll understand.
Many lots of mans use Vista next year or next year plus 1.
If you would just shut up, maybe the rest of us could move the adoption of Linux on the desktop in Enterprise forward (as I'm being paid to work on) a bit faster.
happily ever after.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
This platform is not tied to Microsoft 'run' servers, but sure you can host or use Microsoft hosting servers. So the only way this article is true is if the developer is hosting the content on a Microsoft owned Server.
However, independant vendors, and even personal businesses can HOST the platform on their own in house, or 3rd party servers and be locked to whatever freaking versions they want.
PERIOD.
This stuff is just freaking insane that A) people don't get it and B) can go around the bend and off the cliff trying to understand it.
(A lot of this 'platform' is NOT EVEN tied to MS Windows Server technologies - geesh.)
However, independant vendors, and even personal businesses can HOST the platform on their own in house, or 3rd party servers and be locked to whatever freaking versions they want.
I see, so Microsoft's calling this Azure because it's a cloudless cloud.
That's kind of Zen.
A lot of this 'platform' is NOT EVEN tied to MS Windows Server technologies - geesh.
So I can run it on Red Hat?
Unlimited broadband seems to be going away, bandwidth caps are coming in, traffic shaping is already here and Microsoft want to move the processing to remote data centres? I look forward to scanning a photograph, editing it with CloudPaint and printing it out on my local printer using the generous 9kbytes/second upstream 200kbytes downstream i get from Virgin Media. I don't think i will even bother looking at CloudVideoEditor.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
Personally, I think cloud computing is going to turn out to be the next big thing that didn't go anywhere.
You're right, the cloud APIs presented so far are a total lock-in. There's no open systems cloud. You'd have to be crazy to depend on cloud services for your business. Microsoft getting into it just makes that so much more obvious.
When the cloud is updated, you can't run on ANYTHING the old cloud. So how do you run the old application?
If this is FUD, it's validly Fear (about having to upgrade when the cloud does, whether you can afford to or not), Uncertainty (will there be backward compatability forever), and Doubt (that your supplier will be able to afford reengineering to keep up).
If you don't want it, let them be someone else's client.
As an ASP.NET developer, to me Azure just looks like another web hosting option for ASP.NET web apps. You can get hosting at lots of other places for ASP.NET apps so I don't see any lock in. The pricing will determine how much of a threat it is to traditional web hosts. It seems Azure may have some advantages in terms of sudden scale up ability.
It's not fun to play, but I love it:
1. BillGates descends from the mountain with stone tablets outlining his latest tech scheme.
2. FOSS folk (Group A) beg clients to steer clear.
3. MBA folk (Group B) make fun of group A
4. Tech scheme changes, screws clients
5. Clients ask for some bit of functionality that tech scheme isn't interested in providing. *Must work with tech scheme, which they can't get away from now.
6. FOSS folk say that's hard, maybe impossible.
7. Group B says that FOSS doesn't work very well.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Just like Windows, it will be fine for them to do whatever they want until they get some big player in there with a lucrative revenue stream or some killer app that defines the platform. Then when MS wants to make a change they will be negotiating with those people who may or may not want to do such changes, if not MS will not want to loose customers and concede, thus having to make compromises and jury rigs to keep compatibility with the big market while trying to gain something else though a now half-asses upgrade.
Just like Windows, Office, etc. down the road, they won't really innovate anymore as they are dependent on their market due to by some other company's products.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
Please enlighten us on exactly how it has been reimplemented as open source?
Right here.
All of your storage is still done using Google's Big Table and the GQL query language. If you can find me the source for Big Table, please show it to me.
I didn't say "released", I said "reimplemented".
And Hadoop has done exactly that.
I have no idea how compatible they are -- I see lots of talk of reimplementing GQL, and no actual mention of an implementation -- but the speed with which Appdrop was released certainly gives the lie to AppEngine's "lock-in". If you really need something Google is provided, there's a very good chance you can reimplement it quickly using what's already out there.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Excuse what could possibly be a dumb question here but is it like if you install Azure on your hardware, then you have to keep up to date with their latest and greatest or is it more like if you run apps on their cloud, then you have to keep up with their latest and greatest?
If the former, then that will significantly raise your TCO for using Azure. It's very hard for little guys to keep up with Microsoft's technology churn. If the later, then that is a given with any cloud offering including Google's and Amazon's.
Find shops with any cost predictability and disciplined operation. Hen's teeth.
I wish I could name names of the places I have consulted! You'd be surpised at those who couldn't be trusted to wipe their own arse, let alone manage large-scale systems. And they all go to ITIL classes, and they all have Master ratings, and they can't run a service.
Needles to say, many of them no longer get my commerce. I have no trust in the integrity of their systems. Oh, and I weep for their shareholders.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
And if those numbers were reversed, you'd be shouting them from the rafters, methodology be damned. We know you too well, twitter.
"Azureus" (which is a made up word).
Nope. It's a blue poison dart frog, hence the logo.
Wikileaks, no DNS
Right here. [appdrop.com]
AppDrop is that particular Ruby on Rails application you're looking at on the site, not Google App Engine itself. That whole thing is probably barely even half a meg of source code. It's just a way to upload files to App Engine and has nothing to do with the App Engine platform code itself. Hell, just looking at the source code, I could have written that myself in probably 20 minutes.
I didn't say "released", I said "reimplemented".
What does that mean? How can something by reimplemented as open source without being released as open source? If you don't have access to the source code, then by definition it is not open source. By your logic, every Microsoft product is implemented as open source because the team creating it has the source code, but they don't release it to anyone else.
And Hadoop has done exactly that. [apache.org]
Hadoop doesn't claim any compatibility with Big Table, it is just their best-guess copy of Hadoop based on the white paper published by Google. If that is what passes for "open source" then DOS should be considered open source since FreeDOS was based off it. Hell, even Windows should be since Wine is modeled after it. Microsoft publishes hundreds of papers on functionality in Windows internals, but just because someone can build a "best-guess copy" of it doesn't make the Microsoft product open source.
The current set of storage APIs is REST-based and similar to S3, while hosting APIs are minimalistic. (Looking at the documentation it seems to be logging and local storage access.) Abstracting it all away into a multi-platform compatible library wouldn't require much work.
AppDrop is that particular Ruby on Rails application you're looking at on the site, not Google App Engine itself.
According to that site:
Download the modified Portable App Engine SDK or get the AppDrop.com source code (the Rails app you're looking at).
Either way, the size of the download proves nothing. Have you actually tried using it? It does, in fact, run AppEngine apps on Amazon EC2.
What does that mean? How can something by reimplemented as open source without being released as open source?
You need a dictionary. Badly.
Wine is a reimplementation of Windows. Windows itself has not been released as open source. It has, however, been reimplemented in Wine, and in ReactOS. And Wine absolutely is open source, as is ReactOS.
If that is what passes for "open source" then DOS should be considered open source since FreeDOS was based off it.
Missing the point.
Show me where I ever, even once, claimed App Engine was open source. I didn't.
All I said was that App Engine is not lock-in. In the same sense, if you wrote a DOS app today, you certainly wouldn't be locked in to DOS -- your app would likely run on Windows XP, in DOSbox on Linux, and in FreeDOS.
In other words, you have a choice of vendor. Which is the exact fucking opposite of vendor lock-in.
And which also has nothing whatsoever to do with open source. It's certainly easier to avoid vendor lock-in by choosing open source, but there are completely closed-source systems which do not promote vendor lock-in, and completely open ones which do.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
You need a dictionary. Badly. Wine is a reimplementation of Windows. Windows itself has not been released as open source. It has, however, been reimplemented in Wine, and in ReactOS. And Wine absolutely is open source, as is ReactOS.
Yes, and Hadoop is a reimplementation of Big Table. That's the whole point: just because a reimplementation exists, doesn't make the original project open source. That's exactly what I'm saying. The reason it is lock-in is because the original implementation by Google is considered the gold standard and they can change that standard at any time without you knowing what happened behind the scenes. This is in contrast to PHP, Ruby, Perl, etc where you can easily fork their implementation. And yes, DOS is also vendor lock-in for the same reason just as Windows is and just as .NET is. Wine and Mono are not real alternatives to the original, closed source, un-forkable gold standard.
You need a dictionary. Badly.
Wow, very childish. This may be Slashdot, but we can have a discussion without resorting to personal insults.
By the way, I should point out that your argument is essentially saying that DOS was not vendor lock-in and neither is Windows; since both of them have open source reimplementations.
If this is what you really believe, then I would just say that your belief is likely not shared by the majority of people and I won't bother to argue any further.
Hitslink methodology is flawed.
Feel free to explain why.
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
Good luck with your abstract, platform independent applications.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
At work, I am the resident "crazy open source guy" who is always raising the red flag on vendor lock-in. However, I have absolutely zero emotional attachment to technologies. To me, a computer is like a No. 2 pencil: it's just a tool with a particular set of capabilities and costs. Whatever provides the most value, use it.
It just so happens that to most of my firm's customers, the Microsoft product line provides the best value. However, nothing is forever, and I can certainly imagine a future where other vendors might begin to compete. Therefore, avoiding vendor lock-in -- with any vendor, not just Microsoft -- is a vital principle.
I was at the PDC, and my impression is that Microsoft has finally "joined the conversation" with regards to using open source protocols. They have adopted a completely RESTian approach to services, with AtomPub as the foundation for CRUD operations. For anyone who has been playing in the Web 2.0 world, using Azure is going to be very simple to work with.
Microsoft is also writing a whole new layer of .Net wrappers to help existing MS developers reuse their existing skills in the web services world. The wrappers let .Net developers write in "comfortable" .Net Oo concepts, then transform into underlying, lowest-common-denominator service calls based on open protocols such as HTTP.
My take is that as long as MS keeps supporting the open standards faithfully, it will be easy to interoperate with them. However, I don't think it makes much sense to rely on helper code, like a crutch. Developers should just bite the bullet and learn how to talk to standards-based services in the first place. It really isn't that hard.
I was actually quite excited by what I saw at PDC. It's a bold, sweeping move by MS. The web really is quite a tangle, and if MS makes it easier for all those legions of corporate developers to really start playing in web services, that would be a huge benefit.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
If, in fact, this were to occur, it would kill Azure as no one would purchase new services hosted on Azure, and ISVs would abandon the platform since they wouldn't be able to sell anything on it. That's why Microsoft's always been fairly devoted to backward compatibility: there main selling points in many key areas is compatibility with software, documents, etc., designed for earlier versions of their dominant products. Azure will, no doubt, work the same way.
Microsoft is hardly going to abandon the strategy that has enabled them to maintain and expand their dominance.
Not, its not a way to upload files to App Engine. It is a service that allows you to run App Engine apps using a modified version of Google's own App Engine SDK (which, itself, is an open source implementation of App Engine from Google with a different storage engine replacing BigTable but using the same storage API used on the regular App Engine server, so that you can develop "off line" before uploading to Google) running on Amazon EC2.
I dunno, GGP was pretty odd there. But there is an implementation of App Engine released as open source by Google, the App Engine SDK, which is released under the Apache License 2.0. Appdrop.com is using a modified version of this running on EC2.
OTOH, the fact that the App Engine SDK, which is an implementation of the App Engine system designed principally to be used by developers to build and test their apps before deploying them to Google's servers, has been released by Google under the Apache License 2.0, which is an open source license, does mean that it is open source.
And the fact that third parties are providing of hosting of App Engine apps outside of Google's servers using (derivatives of) the open source code provided by Google is a pretty big strike against the idea that App Engine features "vendor lock-in".
OTOH, until someone has a similarly scalable implementation of the storage API running a non-Google cloud system, there will be valid practical concerns about lock-in, even if in theory apps can be hosted elsewhere. But I'd be very surprised if someone didn't provide one in the next couple of years based on some other existing distributed db technology (SimpleDB, Hadoop, Mnesia, etc.)
That's the whole point: just because a reimplementation exists, doesn't make the original project open source. That's exactly what I'm saying.
-
And you're right. Thank you for stating that.
What's your point?
The reason it is lock-in is because the original implementation by Google is considered the gold standard and they can change that standard at any time without you knowing what happened behind the scenes.
And if they just change that standard at a whim, they're going to alienate developers. That doesn't help lock-in, that helps drive people to your saner competitors.
This is in contrast to PHP, Ruby, Perl, etc where you can easily fork their implementation.
And when you fork that implementation, how is that any better?
Take Ruby, in particular. MRI is the standard. If there's a dispute between MRI and JRuby, MRI wins by default. You can fork and reimplement all you want, but there's still one gold standard which can change under your feet without notice -- and if your fork is different enough to actually have a point, you're probably not going to be able to simply port that source -- you're going to have to reimplement that change.
So by your logic, everything is vendor lock-in.
And yes, DOS is also vendor lock-in
Sorry, no. DOS is old enough, and well-enough understood, that you can reasonably expect any DOS program to also work on FreeDOS. Sure, you're locked into the DOS platform, but that's platform lock-in, which is entirely different than vendor lock-in.
I'll admit that Mono and Wine are far enough behind that they aren't quite the same. But considering how fast AppDrop appeared, I would guess AppEngine is going to be portable enough.
Wow, very childish.
No, it's free advice. You didn't seem to understand what a word meant. My intent wasn't to insult you, but to help you communicate.
The fact that it also insulted you was just a nice side effect.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
You didn't answer the second post I made. According to you, nothing is vendor-lockin since even reimplementations of DOS and Windows exist.
For the record, appengine has pretty good version support. You can access your app running under an older version of appengine simply by using a different url, which gives developers a lot more breathing space to update their apps.
It is also reasonably easy to migrate from appengine to your own server. Your data is available any way you want to code access to it, and modifying the python to run on mod_python or mod_wsgi is simple - I know, I've done it in reverse. Yes, bigtable is proprietary, but it is far easier to move from bigtable's rather idiosyncratic storage to an SQL database. Not so easy the the other way round...
All up I'm very comfortable developing on appengine. I can be out of there like a flash if Google start doing evil, meanwhile I'm enjoying far better redundancy and scaling than I could ever provide with my own servers.
Do as you would be done to.
I work for quite a large company and I have been assured (sadly) that internal IT is driving towards a migration towards Microsoft Vista.
I also have no reason to believe that my company is the only one doing so.
Microsoft Vista adoption is submarined and lunatics like you only make my job (driving Linux desktop adoption) that much harder.
Begone.
When a sufficiently complete reimplementation exists, and is actually viable, I don't think you can call it vendor lock-in.
FreeDOS is such an implementation. Wine isn't, and neither is ReactOS, so Windows still locks people in.
The point you seem to be missing is, I'm not talking about the intent -- most vendors would rather you use them than anyone else. I'm talking about the reality -- develop an app for DOS, and it's portable. Develop an app for Windows or .NET, and it's probably not.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Well the only point I'm making is that a Windows-only app is as much lock in as a Google App Engine app. Which to me is too much lock-in. As for you assertion that I think "everything" is vendor lock-in, that's not true. I think anything with an open source "gold standard" is not vendor lock-in. The reason is simply because you have the ability to use a starting point that is really viable if you want to fork. You don't get that when the gold standard itself is closed source.
Your job is difficult because your internal IT people are idiots.
Some are, some are not. It's the same in every company. The ones that I have dealt with have been very sharp.
I have cataloged Vista's problems for them
That's very nice, but nobody is really listening to you.
I don't care. Microsoft Windows will never be my platform of choice. My bosses do not care and would not listen to anyone who abbreviates Microsoft as M$ anyway. They want their calendar crap to work, which doesn't really work well at all. Microsoft Exchange is utter crap.
If they want Vista at this point it is because they want Windows at any price.
Non sequitor. They've already paid for it. They have an enterprise site license.
Microsoft Windows XP (Enterprise edition) is crap. I recently distributed an internal email that said that Microsoft Windows XP is the best OS Microsoft has ever released, it only crashes a couple times a week (which is flamebait because it crashed more like once every two weeks in the testing I did), but among the responses I got back were "I wish it only crashed that seldom".
Promoting free software at a big dumb M$ partner company for any reason is fatal.
You are jumping to conclusions and writing off potential friends. We have products that are driven by Linux.
ESR, Bruce Perens, Allen Cox, Richard Stallman or anyone else who stood up for your rights
Of those four, I've only met Bruce Perens. Nice guy, drank beer with him in Tokyo at the same table as Commander Taco. I've only talked to Richard Stallman on the phone where he announced that he would have to maintain war against me (meaning the XEmacs community) unless I had everyone sign over copyright to him.
No matter how much I like Bruce, I do not need any one of you to "defend my rights".
Without people like me writing the code, there would be nothing for self-righteous people like yourself and Richard Stallman to "defend".
I've contributed software anywhere and everywhere, from the Linux kernel to libc, to many mail programs, etc.
You are running code that I have written if you are running either Linux or any BSD, so I _demand_ that you rename your system Linux/GNU/Steve or OpenBSD/Steve, or whatever. Is that reasonable? I do not think so, but Richard Stallman does.
I'm sorry that you are in such a place, especially if you are who you say you are.
I'm not and I am. I love working at Cisco. Love it. I find it odd that you think I hate emacsen when I always use XEmacs for editing and have been using emacs-based/derived editors for a couple of decades now and you're too stupid to see that I used to be a frequent poster to alt.religion.emacs (oh god!, I miss that newsgroup).
-sb (Maintainer of XEmacs 1996-2000)
So, your point is about the ease of developing a fork. The "gold standard" stuff is only important to you because it makes a fork easier.
Am I right so far?
Well, there are no new versions of DOS coming out. FreeDOS is, in many circles, considered the "gold standard" of DOS. Something starting out proprietary doesn't prevent it from becoming an open standard.
In the case of AppEngine, most of the original library code from Google is open under an Apache license -- so, while parts of it are closed, those are the lower-level things like BigTable, which have multiple viable replacements (Hadoop, Mnesia, CouchDB).
So, with parts of it open, and with at least one open implementation, it is effectively easy to fork -- just look at how fast AppDrop came out after AppEngines (within a month).
So, your real concern is addressed, if I understand what you're saying.
I am not saying that everything is easy to fork, or that everything with an attempted open implementation lacks vendor lock-in. You know better by now.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
We'll we've beat this horse to death, but here's the thing about DOS ... the gold standard changed after the product became all but useless.
If vendor lock-in is the primary concern, then I'm not comfortable going with App Engine when low level parts are closed source; especially I have so many other options available for deploying my web site (yes, maybe those other options will require more work to scale than App Engine, but that's a price I'd pay).
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-02/uom-htn022206.php
http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/be+as+scarce+as+hen's+teeth
Maybe, say, "Humans' Beaks"... that might buy you some time, hehehe...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
The more important question is whether they require more work to develop the missing features than it would take you to re-implement the low-level pieces of App Engine and migrate away.
If that's the case, I say there's no lock-in.
Well before that case, a lot of people would figure it's worth considering. After all, Mono is always forkable if either Novell or Microsoft does something you disagree with.
Me, I'm not really eligible for App Engine in several ways, and I like the challenge of scaling, so I won't be using it anyway.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Out of curiosity, why are you not eligible?
I don't particularly like Python (I prefer Ruby).
I can afford to run my own servers, even just for a hobby. I want to reserve the right to do whatever I want with it, including throw ads on it, maybe make some money.
So the hosting part of App Engine doesn't buy me much -- I might as well use AppDrop. And I might move it to AppDrop eventually.
And if I'm doing that, I may as well use something Ruby- or Erlang-based.
My comment was probably badly worded -- I don't mean that I tried and Google rejected me. I mean that I don't have any ideas for a project that AppEngine would help.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!