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Linus Calls Microsoft Hatred "a Disease"
Hugh Pickens writes "In the aftermath of Microsoft's recent decision to contribute 20,000 lines of device driver code to the Linux community, Christopher Smart of Linux Magazine talked to Linus Torvalds and asked if the code was something he would be happy to include, even though it's from Microsoft. 'Oh, I'm a big believer in "technology over politics." I don't care who it comes from, as long as there are solid reasons for the code, and as long as we don't have to worry about licensing etc. issues,' says Torvalds. 'I may make jokes about Microsoft at times, but at the same time, I think the Microsoft hatred is a disease. I believe in open development, and that very much involves not just making the source open, but also not shutting other people and companies out.' Smart asked Torvalds if Microsoft was contributing the code to benefit the Linux community or Microsoft. 'I agree that it's driven by selfish reasons, but that's how all open source code gets written! We all "scratch our own itches." It's why I started Linux, it's why I started git, and it's why I am still involved. It's the reason for everybody to end up in open source, to some degree,' says Torvalds. 'So complaining about the fact that Microsoft picked a selfish area to work on is just silly. Of course they picked an area that helps them. That's the point of open source — the ability to make the code better for your particular needs, whoever the "your" in question happens to be.'"
That was a succint overview of the difference between open source and free software, though to be fair, even pragmatic free software supporters would find this new contribution by Microsoft as a positive thing.
Michel
Fedora Project Contribut
That's the sexiest thing to come from the Linux community in forever.
that will someday kill all of us...
inb4lynchinglinus
I'm no fan of microsoft either however I think Linus really does have the interests of the kernel and the greater linux community at heart. I agree with him that we need to be very careful to make sure there are no potential licensing issues involved here but as long as the lawyers give it a good look and make sure there are no hidden patent claims, etc. then I think there is no reason not to include the code in the kernel.
-Buck
If hating a company that lies, cheats, and steals its way to the top is a "disease", then I don't want to be well.
This is a sig. Deal with it.
It's really refreshing to hear some level headed comments from high profile open source guys once in a while. I tire of all of the "watch out for X!" and "Y are just out to get you!" stories, no matter how relevant they may or may not be.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
RMS is going to helicopter out of his grave. 'The Ride of the Valkyries' is going to start playing and innocent civilians will be killed. Theo will say he loves the smell of 'Fresh Napalm in the Morning'. Mark my words.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Unless I'm mistaken (and I very well may be) the code released is under the GPL, which seems to me to eliminate any worry about "licensing etc. issues", regardless of Microsoft's history.
I mostly agree with him, but just to be anal (nerdly prerogative)... Stupid, irrational fanboyism isn't really a disease, it's just tribalism. We're apes. We choose some stupid tribe to identify with, be it PS3 or XBox or Windows or Linux or Mac whatever and death to all outsiders. The more underdog the group, the more rabid the members are (Linux, Mac, Amiga). Religion is one of the best, if not the best, strategies for cementing loyalty and killing all competitors, so it shouldn't be a surprise that even something as secular as this takes on strongly religious overtones.
Not so strangely, as Linux continues to spread its influence the fanbase is getting less stupidly polarized (but then the old guard entrenches further, to combat this 'threat'). Generally this eases up as you get older and your penis stops ruling your brain, but not always.
Sounds very reasonable. Linus is correct. The point of open source is to do something you need done. Sharing it with others gives you satisfaction and reward. What's wrong with that!
Disease is just your body's way of letting you know that some part of the body is going rotten. Diagnosing something as a disease does not invalidate the cause nor does it cure what is rotten.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Their code was released GPLv2, licensing was never an issue that was discussed by anyone remotely informed.
Now if we want to start arguing over weither or not patent violations could come into play then fine, we can also delve into the whole Embrace Extend Extinguish theory, but at this point we are right back to arguing politics, not technology.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
I don't think I can say anything, other than the fact this confirms my assumptions that Linus is an extremely level-headed, perceptive person.
Do you honestly believe the whole open source movement depends on people uniting around a hatred for Microsoft, as opposed to sharing a love for innovation and technology?
Sorry if that sounds kind if "hippy", but saying that the entire FOSS world is based around nothing but hatred for a particular corporation really cheapens the accomplishments of the people involved.
Ironic this story is coming from kdawson. He's like the Fox News guy from Slashdot. The story doesn't have to be true if it garners a ton of posts. His stories about MS are often shallow, w/ summary full of some perceived slight often having nothing to do with the story. This often induces a feeding frenzy as MS haters who take the bait goes. My only reason why this continues is that these bring a lot of ad revenue to Slashdot.
in my humble opinion.
He is one smart corporate-duping emperor penguin.
Press releases make Linus look cool and technical.
Other private releases make Him look quite different.
No no no, the is the opportunity for us to say to Microsoft, look it really isn't that bad, is it? You benefit from open source, other people benefit, and it's a model you can profit from as well.
MS is scared of open source because it has been seen as a threat. But what if at the end of all of this, MS realizes that giving people the source code, while selling a product and related support, benefits everyone? It will happen slowly, but they are coming around.
WiX was the first shot, and now they are realizing that helping others helps them. So maybe somewhere down the line, we can get for example explorer.exe source code. Or something else that they give away free - so we can customize and fix bugs instead of whining that it sucks.
If the "average open source developer" is supposed to hate microsoft, and not evaluate anything simply because it's Microsoft, we're going to have some very out of touch projects and non-interoperable software and an overall loss of quality.
I generally respect the man, but he's turning into the extreme right rather than just letting things play out. It really isn't up to him to try to influence things in this regard. He should focus on getting other hardware vendors to cooperate and to get other software vendors to write programs and to get the kernel free of exploits--such as the one recently discovered.
Microsoft has garnered the hatred. Microsoft created the disease. Microsoft is the cancer on software--and I'm sure we all have heard Microsoft claim Linux is a cancer on software.
What Linus doesn't do, I'm certain of it, is follow what happens in the industry nor has he for a long time. Sure he keeps up on some things but not what counts for the rest of us. If he had he would understand the hatred. He would understand it isn't a disease but it is the world's software immune system kicking in to cure the disease that was let to roam free unchecked for far too long. The disease is really Microsoft.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
I think its quite healthy to dislike ( ok, hate ) an entity whose stated goal is to wipe you from the face of the earth. We arent talking about some bully in a school yard, we are talking about a well funded organized corporation that wants you eradicated..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I don't use Microsoft products, and I don't like their corporate agenda, but I don't hate them. It's very counter productive.
Making ironic jokes here and there is fun, but there are better things to do than hating someone/something.
As long as I/anybody is actively forced to use Microsoft products, I'm fine with them being around.
People who don't have a clue about the topic irritate me at times (OSS fanatics and clueless users and OEM's that don't give me choice).
It is an acquired distaste. The fact is, nearly everyone here who hates Microsoft for various reasons once loved and admired Microsoft. The love was eroded and destroyed by Microsoft's own actions and choices. For me, it was the way it intentionally abused "partners" by various means (especially) including some tactics such as forcing partners to fail in their contracts and then claiming whatever work was done by the partners. In particular, a story about a mobile phone maker who partnered with Microsoft where the agreement was that if the company failed to meet specific terms and deadlines, the partnership would dissolve and Microsoft would claim whatever IP that existed. Well, as it turned out, the other company needed something from Microsoft which it did not deliver, causing the deal to go bad and then Microsoft came in to claim whatever they wanted leaving the other company with nothing. That was a particularly dirty and rather deliberate act on their part and this was no isolated incident... there are others; many others.
It's not that Linux or any other alternative is a Microsoft "opponent" for many of us. It's that Microsoft is simply evil in much of what they do. They do things that are difficult for many to believe or understand and they most certainly play dirty and illegally.
until some agreement or contract with microsoft comes back to bite you on the ass later on...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
What next, a "baddiseaseanalogy" tag?
Microsoft Hatred is a symptom, same as when your body is fighting off an infection and you get a fever and a runny nose.
Microsoft is the disease.
It would be silly not to question the ultimate motives. Not because they could be selfish (a company's motive is almost guaranteed to be), but because those motives might be against your own interest. Especially when the company has a track record of actions against you.
Now in this case, it seems to have been just a case of the license working as intended, so yes, it's probably the right move to integrate the code. However, that doesn't mean that the skepticism wasn't right. It just turned out that this time, the motives of Microsoft are not in contradiction to the goals of the Linux community.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
the company that put them out of business using illegal methods.
Linus - (( "I think the Microsoft hatred is a disease" )) Ballmer - (( "Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches," ))
I just have to put a big Thank You out to Linus. This uproar over MS putting out this code is ridiculous. MS sells programs to make money. True in the past they have not been the friendliest of companies, but point me to a major OS vendor that has. The fact that MS even wrote this code so that virtualized Linux machines will work better under its HyperV is fantastic! Not only are they recognizing Linux as a useful OS, but they are participating in the community appropriately. They wrote code for the OS that used GPL'd code, so they released their code. As Linus points out, this is how the GPL is supposed to work! You need something added? Write it and release what you wrote. What else do you expect from MS? "Oh, I see Gnometris is using 10 year old sprites, I'm going to be nice and upgrade it to vector based graphics"?
MS deserves hate for some things, but when they play by the rules is hardly one of them.
While we all love to 'bash' Microsoft and its tactics here, on occasion, please let' s not lose sight as to why they released this code. They did so because it contained both open and closed source components and were issuing them with both a closed and open source license. Those who aren't 'new around here' know that licensing them in this fashion is a violation of the GPLv2 terms. So basically they did this to avoid any 'repercussions' from the community -not that that would stop anyone anyway- and not out of a sense of 'contribution' to the FOSS movement. Ramji and the legal department at Microsoft probably had one of those 'Oh, SNAP!' moments and decided it was best to look like benefactors than the 'evil hive of scum and villainy' that most people perceive them as.
Sig this!
Microsoft "stole" nothing. Every thing they have was given to them voluntarily for something else in exchange. Not a shot was fired. If you have a complaint, take it up with the people who make it difficult to use an alternative... like your bank possibly, or the tax man. Microsoft has done nothing out of the ordinary in this market economy. Don't be playing the victim.
I am sorry, but I beg to disagree - Microsoft has done somethings out of the ordinary, otherwise the DOD and the European Comission would have not punished Microsoft
:P
Plus, I really think that Windows ME was a crime against the whole humankind
It's quite natural to associate "Microsoft" with "disease" when a good 6 out of 10 Windows machines I encounter are infected with malware.
Also, "hating" MS is much different than "strongly disagreeing with," "not preferring" or being "unsatisfied with" MS.
Because I see no reason to do so, yeah, I see them like enemies, I don't trust any of their 'friendly' move, like recent community promise or GPL code, but that doesn't mean I have to hate them.
Seriously, what bug it was? A GPL violation? "Patches" also implies that it's already accepted in the code tree. In fact, to a non-technical user, the headline would read something like "Linux had a flaw, Microsoft fixed it. Linux people still won't stop bitching."
Linus committed code from the Antichrist !? Basement of Church of Linux has just been shaken. My Linus-Jesus picture has broken, I am sheppard-less now. How could you do that to us, Linus!!!
How could ignorance cheapen anything but the original poster? It's fun to rant and rave (or to just watch) but most important individuals in the oss movement have more complicated views then the 20 word summaries in news stories will convey. Linus of course happens to have a pretty remarkable outlook, but any geeks here would know that from reading his biography, right?
Quack, quack.
Plato reportedly said: One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors. [http://www.synonym.org/quotes/plato.html]
I don't hate Microsoft, in fact I've done quite a few implementations of Exchange and SharePoint and AD for companies in the past.
But I do understand that they're a typical scumbag corporate giant acting the way scumbag corporate giants do - trying to make it so that you HAVE to buy their product because you have no other choice.
So now I make sure that I don't become dependent on that product by actively avoiding it wherever possible - which means my home family machine, my personal laptops, and my work machine all run Ubuntu quite happily. And when people ask me how I do it, I happily show them so they know they have that option too. Does it involve sacrifice? Yes, a little bit, and less every day. But it also involves great advantages, namely that I don't have to worry much at all about my wife and kids visiting the wrong Web site (and that's all it takes!) and getting our family machine rooted nine ways to Sunday, leading to my bank accounts being emptied out. That's really the stakes here.
Could I spend all my time positively hating Microsoft and all that they do? Yes, I could, but I'd rather spend my time making sure they don't matter to me. Recently I read an article about Microsoft's change in the upgrade rules, meaning you have to jump through more hoops to do a bare install from an upgrade CD. In the past, I would have been ticked off and hated Microsoft more. Now, I just thought "man, sucks to be you if you're still a Windows user" and moved on to trying out the latest Ubuntu alpha release and looking for bugs. Much more productive use of my time, and more hurtful to MS as well, because it means Ubuntu will be a better OS if the bugs I find are fixed.
Inspired by Torvalds' I-don't-care-who-it-comes-from stance, Adolf Hitler held a press conference in Brazil to announce he would open source the previously-proprietary algorithms behind the IBM Hollerith punch-card machines used by Nazis.
GP is talking about the fact that Dave Cutler, the dude who architected VMS at DEC later went to work for Microsoft and ended up architecting Windows NT. Either GP is ignorant of this fact, or they were being intentionally misleading and trying to imply that someone at Microsoft stole something from VMS. Which isn't true. (unless you count Cutler's freely choosing to change jobs "stealing" somehow.)
Kevin Spacey: "I hate that virus!"
Dustin Hoffman: "Come on! You have to admire its simplicity. It's one-billionth of our size and its beating us!"
Kevin S.: "What do you want to do? Take it out for lunch?"
Dustin H.: "No, I'm gonna kill it."
While I agree with him that hatred is a disease - generally causing more harm to the hater that the hated - I don't necessarily agree that the selfishness of the open source community is the same or similar to Microsoft's.
Once an OSS developer achieves his goal, it is available to the community. The selfishness generally ends there and others are free to use it as they see fit to achieve their goals. Like the kid in the sandbox that's had his turn with the toy hands it over. Microsoft, on the other hand, hoards and lords over their toys.
Plus there's that whole thing about wanting to break my toys. Fuckers.
It's on America's tortured brow, That Mickey Mouse has grown up a cow
Their DoubleSpace disk compression utility in MS-Dos 6.0 was found to infringe data compression patents of Stac Electronics. After they negotiated with Stac about licensing.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stac_Electronics#Microsoft_lawsuit.
Now I'm not a friend of software patents in general, but this still shows how Microsoft is ripping off its business partners. In terms of technology, they have come a long way from the sloppy 90s, but I still think they cannot be trusted.
C - the footgun of programming languages
It's useful to know when an entity/organization has tendencies. If Microsoft has a history (and/or a nature) that leads you to expect more shitty behavior from them, you have to be smart and act accordingly.
Hating them for their misbehavior is kind of unreasonable. Having a bad opinion of them without clear reasons (case histories, e.g.) is also irrational. Folks are sometimes driven by bandwagons and general hating, and those are surely diseases.
Seeing every detractor as a hater is more stupidity.
I'm just sayin'. Watch your reflexes.
Had this been something Dave did on his own, he'd have been fired. Instead Microsoft accepted responsibility for stealing D.E.C's code, paid a large amount of money, did a deal with chip mfg, and everyone went away happy.
I've said it twice now, but apparently you Microsoft shills don't get it. You can't rewrite history. Sooner or later someone will use google and find your shame.
FACT: Microsoft's W/NT used concepts and code from DEC VMS
FACT: Microsoft elected to pay DEC instead of defend in court and maybe lose the right to use the stolen code
FACT: The truth IS out there as anyone who reads the interwebs will see.
E
from TFA: "Microsoft knows free software is not going anywhere ...."
Methinks that line is up for revision. Something like: "Microsoft knows that free software is here to stay..."
> So copyright infringement is theft?
No, but taking the physical media with the source code sure would be!
MS released a server product. They recognized that for it to be as profitable as possible, it needed to support Linux, so they produced the drivers to make that happen.
Result: MS makes more money, Linux is usable on more systems. Everyone's happy.
Obviously MS only cares about the money part, but who cares as long as:
1. The code is of sufficient quality. (The reviewers will determine this.)
2. There's valid reason to include it. (There is.)
and 3. They're not trying to exert control or otherwise screw with the Linux model (they GPLed this code, so they pretty much can't.)
There's a LOT of reasons to fear some of MS' moves, especially when it comes to open source, but in this case, we're simply looking at a business decision that happens to be beneficial to all parties involved, so why not just take the code (assuming it doesn't suck) and move on? There are MS decisions that need to be fought, but I really, really, don't think this one of them.
I have to agree that hating MS is wrong. I do not hate MS. I do not like their business practices, and much of their software is of poor quality. While there is a lot about MS that I feel disgusted about, I do not hate them. Its more like that I pity them. They can't seem to grasp that they are in a self-destructive mode, and that if they don't change their corporate attitude and business model, they will eventually cease to exist.
Linus is not a politician. You don't vote for Linus.
He created Linux, and he can't un-create it.
If you don't want Linus as creator of your OS, then switch to BSD. But I think it would be a bit petty to switch OS just because its creator doesn't say MS should be hated.
The Open Source movement has nothing to do with hating closed source. Users of OSS also use closed source software all the time, though most would greatly prefer for all software to be open source, it's a fact it's not.
Microsoft releasing integration components as Open Source is a step in the right direction. The community can hate the bad things they do while applauding them for the good things they do [in proportion to how good those things are and how much they help the community]
Good integration with Hyper-V does help the Linux community because there will be many Hyper-V users in the future. If enterprises can test Linux in a VM, then many will start trying Linux who otherwise would not have been able to justify the hardware cost to try an alternate OS for some services.
Some people might say Microsoft is a disease to be hated. Kinda like that cold virus you get now & then.
If I didn't have absolutely NOTHING to do, I wouldn't be here.
Lots of heads exploding on this site.
Linus vs Stallman celebrity deathmatch
Hatred of Microsoft is indeed a problem. A healthy mistrust of them and everything they put their stamp on, however, is not only rational but frankly quite prudent. After everything Microsoft has done to this industry, having done so little for it, they have a lot to prove. They have not yet proven it to my satisfaction, or apparently ot a lot of people's..
You don't realize why MS and other companies are toying with Open Source,do you ?
Open source is absolutely marvelous may to get something done without spending tons of money on in-house development.
Not only you can easily steal already written code (and if you believe it's not happening, you're living in different plane of existence), but you don't really have to care about bugs, fixes, updates, etc. There is always an idiot out there willing to fix them in his spare time for free.
that Microsoft is.
My CEO lost a folder at some point in the past in his Outlook. Running Exchange 2003 on Server 2003. So, I go back to the tapes and tar xvf from the tape and recover the Exchange bkf file. I go to the MS backup utility and attempt restore the bkf file. Little did I realize that you can't just recover the data. You have to recover on another instance of Exchange. So, through bad CD management and could not find the 2003 Server CD, I attempted to install Exchange 2003 on Server 2008 trial. Of course, that's not possible as Exchange 2003 is not compatible with Server 2008 (yet). This has taken since Tuesday and still not recovered.
If I were using Open Source anything this would have be recoverable in an hour or two.
It's not necessarily that Microsoft is ultimately bad, it the hoops you much jump through to do anything in the back office of Microsoft.
Well, ok to accept the code, and everything... Yep, it was oppened for selfish reasons, that is not a problem... But let's keep ourselves at the realm of rationality. Wishing for Microsoft to stop destroing markets and ruining every area of IT is simply iluding ourselves.
They made a nice move, it could have being much worse. But there is no evidence at all of them becaming good citizens (the kind that doesn't destroy everyone they partner with).
Rethinking email
I'm listening to him only when he talks about the kernel.
I don't hate Microsoft just for the sake of hating them. I hate them because they are shitfuckers. :)
You know how Windows file copy will choke on one file out of a bunch, shit all over itself, and abort halfway through, and you have to go download a file-copying utility because their operating system apparently can't copy files? It's because they are ass-cock fuckshits.
You know how stuff on XBOX costs more or less, rather than the exact amount of points you can buy, so that every time you get something you end up giving Microsoft an interest-free loan? That's because they are Dickbreath McCockSlurpers.
You know how they bought Bungee, a...well, THE Mac game developer, and then Halo never came out for Mac? Well, Microsoft has an excuse for that one, it's because they are fuckers who can't do anything right except act like assholes.
You know how they have the inverse Midas touch, where anything gold they touch turns into shit? It's because they're a little distracted, what with all the time they spend giving hand-jobs in dirty restrooms for crack.
So, remember, don't hate Microsoft just for the sake of hating them. Hate them for the right reasons, like the fact that they could fuck up a wet dream.
I use Windows... like a two dollar wh.. why don't I just go ahead and not finish that sentence.
to foss world domination :)
keep your enemy's close ;)
it will eventually pay off.
i do to most of the time, just not 100% of the time, this one of the times i don't...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Linus is naive and ignoring Microsoft's history.
Of course the fact that these patches allow Hyper V to run Linux more efficiently than virtualization systems can run Windows under Linux is a mere coincidence. I think it is a trap. That being said, there are valid patches and should be accepted. The community should demand that Microsoft also engineer Windows to run as efficiently under Linux virtualization systems.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
This is Microsoft's long-term strategy(politics) cleverly disguised as a "trojan-horse" AKA "poison gift" waiting for the opportune moment to regain its market share once it has covertly destroyed Linux efficiency in its core kernel and drivers.
Be wary. Keep the git archives back dated to before Microsoft and be ready to branch again.
this applies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitic_disease The defense of the immune system: diarrhea. Treatment: let it go and drink a lot.
And "celebrities" are no different, apparently.
After all that Microsoft did, does, and will probably always do, the hatred for Microsoft is completely rightful and perfectly founded on those actions.
It's like calling it "a disease" to call a murderer and mass scammer what he is, just because some of it was some time ago, and some of it is still happening, but more or less sneaky.
If that someone got what he deserved, then it's acceptable to stop the hatred. But not before that.
I will treat Microsoft for exactly what they are, as long as it takes go give them their rightful punishment.
And it's not only Microsoft. By far. MS looks like a joke in the light of criminal giants like Monsanto & the rest chemical industry, the defense industry, RIAA/MPAA, etc. But still, they are close followers.
Inform yourself, before you mod this comment. *Really* inform yourself. There are many lists out there about what Microsoft did.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Parent insightful?! Give me a break. Troll know nothing Mr dupid more like.
And stop calling me hippie.
That Bill Gates Through Microsoft fucked every single one of his colleagues.
As everybody knows, RMS has a mastery in one-inch punch.
Don't forget Stac Electronics, Microsoft fucked them over real good too on their way to the top. Then there is their history of subtlety (or overtly) fucking around with specifications specifically to cause pain to their own customers who dare to choose to use non-Microsoft products. For example the DHCP "bug" in Vista, the 500mb memory check in Windows 3.1 (which broke IBM's then-fairly-successful OS/2 for Windows product), their incompatible kerberos strategy, their undermining of Java, their web page editors that made pages look fucked up in non-IE browsers.
Microsoft has justifiably earned the hatred they receive, it's not like this aggravation with them happened for no reason.
I think MS sees open source as a threat because it really is one.
I don't think it's possible for MS (or any software house) to make the huge profits MS has done from open source software.
MS may eventually go open, but it will be a much smaller MS by then.
i do to most of the time, just not 100% of the time, this one of the times i don't...
Why?
What specifically did Linus say here that you disagree with?
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
love thine enemy...
it drives them nuts. :-)
Believe it or not, Microsoft has done a lot to make the computing world better.
Anybody remember color monitors before Windows? It seemed like everybody used a different standard. You had to pick your hardware based on what your software supported. And not all software supported all hardware. Same with printers.
Whatever you may say about Windows, at least it set a standard.
And yes...I am often annoyed/angered/disappointed by some of Microsoft's policies. I often humorously threaten to "quit programming, move to Idaho, and raise potatoes" as a result of Microsoft decisions. My latest sore spot is their decision to lock out hobbyists from kernel mode driver development. Sometimes, a kernel mode driver is the only way to solve a problem.
i think there are a number of ways of looking at this. microsoft is obviously using this to cash in legally on the mountains of free code that people have written over the years, i dont see this as a problem. both microsoft and the linux kernel started with humble beginnings. whereas bill gates chose to make a profit out of his situation (probably an understatement), linus could have sold his work for profit without fear of royalties as he didnt clone an existing system. he simply wrote something that was compliant and for future generations to modify. imagine if msdos was released under the gpl and linus had sold his operating system for profit? i dont think the situation would be any different. although reading bill gates' past 'quips' from folklore.org, i dont think he would be so quick to help. this really boils down to the motives that created these systems.
su stup zee hete-a! Borg Borg Borg!
Don't forget that Microsoft quite possibly intended to steal the FOSS code which was linked into their closed source drivers, and only open sourced the drivers when they were found out.
This is not a case of "I'll write some drivers which scratch my itch (the selfish reason) and open source them so the community can benefit and people will fix/improve my code for free". It's more like "I used your code in my program; you found out. Do I fight it in court? I have a lot of money but it will look bad for me. So I have to open source my code. Fortunately no great harm done, as all it does is make Linux run better on Windows."
Just call me terminally sick then! :-)
-><- no
that's some funny shit. sprayed a gin and tonic on my display.
you have made my week end good sir.
"You can kill the revolutionary, but you can't kill the revolution."-- Fred Hampton
Apparently you didn't read much of the link you posted... two key bits:
Microsoft had previously been in discussions with Stac to license its compression technology
You know... like how Microsoft has licensed third party apps for use in windows (ex from NT4-XP, the built in defrag engine was built and owned by Diskeeper).
For all you know after a bit of thought Microsoft said "Meh, building one of these on our own shouldn't be to hard, why spend the money when we can do it ourselves for less?" Granted... this did kind of bite them in the rear.
Remember though... licensing the technology is not the same thing as licensing the patents.
a California jury ruled the infringement by Microsoft was not willful
So accidently infringing on someone's patent is suddenly... theft? You must be listening to the MPAA & RIAA too much.
You'd really think if they deliberately did know about the patents and infringed on them willfully the jury might have come to a different verdict... something Stac would have fought for given willful infringement pays 3x what non-willful does.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
No, it's a lie that not even Torvalds believes.
In 2005 Torvalds chose the politics of siding with Bitkeeper proprietor Larry McVoy over fellow coder Andrew Tridgell when Tridgell dared to write an interoperating program that was compatible with Bitkeeper API. Tridgell had figured out that by telneting to a Bitkeeper repository server and typing "help" he could get a list of relevant commands. Torvalds took McVoy's side saying Tridgell "screwed people over" blaming Tridgell for somehow causing McVoy to no longer allow Torvalds to use the proprietary software source code manager (as opposed to recognizing that as McVoy's choice as it was). Torvalds' arguments against software freedom come off badly for multiple reasons including how often Linux kernel hackers leverage their software freedom to continue improving that kernel. In this case where Microsoft contributes Linux code, it seems prudent to consider if a self-declared enemy of FLOSS would contribute a trojan horse to a prominent program. But this is not a consideration one can take if one views code only in terms of code quality and developmental efficiency. Given how much proprietary software is in Torvalds' fork of the Linux kernel (I'm sure the Linux-libre project can tell you all the details) it seems clear that Torvalds is not as concerned with licenses as the /. quote would indicate. Nor is Torvalds apparently concerned with his users' freedom to know what code is in that fork of Linux.
The phrase "technology over politics" is also a naive position to take: it tries to frame technology and politics as non-overlapping things. In the real world no collaboration is free of politics, that includes technological collaboration. The reason the open source movement exists is because its founders wanted to break away from the older free software movement over a disagreement on politics. The open source movement argues for a technocratic developmental method aimed primarily at benefiting businesses, while the free software movement fights for social solidarity, community, and specific freedoms for all computer users.
Generally, Torvalds gets way more press than he deserves on politics. His views on the proper approach to solving certain problems with the Linux kernel might be well worth one's time to understand and abide by (particularly if one wishes to get their code into his fork of the Linux kernel). But his views in computer-related politics are so often wrong (either in framing the issue or in the side he takes) one wonders why anyone would bother to give him such heed.
Digital Citizen
I too believe in "technology over politics".
I just happen to believe in "philosophy over technology" too. Nothing incompatible about that.
If you quote this signature there'll be 72 copies of Windows ME waiting for you in Heaven.
so, this mean other VM packages besides virtual pc will be able to use it too?
I thought they had to release the code because there was some GPL code in their code base - or something like that - it was reported here on /. a short while ago. So really it's all thanks to RMS.
RMS is the visionary, Linus is the functionary (no, don;t know what that means either, but I just had too many beers...)
A troll is when you say something you don't believe, in order to elicit a desired response. I'm saying something true, and I'm being modded Troll by someone who disagrees with me. I didn't even have to advocate murder this time :P
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
When Debian which (was) a very unique Linux politically includes some questionable framework even while completely clean alternative (some says better) exists just because of some "note" application, it makes me nuts. Just because of that reason, Debian completely lost my trust and their prestige in my eyes. Ubuntu is on same path too.
All those weirdo undisclosed agreements with dying companies, the companies interestingly hiring their trojans right after agreements, claiming their Linux is the only Linux which wouldn't have any issues with MS, the fact that once the benchmark of open, free, portable, clean code slowly getting infected by that trojan framework etc...
We know who these puppets are and they are actually clever, they enjoy a guaranteed future with jobs they were previously rejected. From what I read from their leaders blog, guy never leaves Redmond to begin with. He is also the only open source developer I know who had to moderate&lock down comments.
Why would I hate MS as OS X user? I just ignore them. I would even perhaps buy MS Office in future when there is a job it would fit better than Apple iWork I currently use. E.g. 10-15 guys working on same document etc. I just feel bad for the future of Linux and this massive conspiracy going on for years. They are going into core of the system itself and I noticed some state of art, popular GNU licensed software also getting infected by that framework.
Oh about that Kernel module, GPL licensed etc. How else you will get into Linux kernel? I am sure it is written professionally too but in my eyes, it is not different than MS keyboard&mouse drivers on OS X which are goodly written too. BTW, I keep hearing MS input devices are great. If some revolution happened while I wasn't around, where are the Linux support software of them, with source of course? They do provide OS X driver and obviously, they know how to write *nix software.
bruce perens hasn't commented here. i'm waiting for his blog post and forth-coming discussion :)
...but I bet he's just a Micro$oft shill.
Your brain is not a computer.
The Obama Administrations drive to enthrone the Bush/Chaney Lawlessness into Federal Statutes, with the abolition of the United States of America Constitutiton, calls into question the existance of the Presidency of the United States of America.
With such power welded by one Office, one Man, the Clear and Present Danger is the Presidency of the United States of America.
The Presidency of the United States of America must be abolished!
Methods:
1. Constitutional Congress.
2. Civil War.
The current Congress of the United States of America will not oppose any of President Obama's "wishes for a Beutiful America .. much the same as now exists in Iran." Iran of today is Obama's model for "Beutiful America."
Therefore, Civil War is required.
Those words, "hate", "hatred" and "hater" should be banned from normal conversations for the same reason Nazi comparisons were.
You're losing an argument? No problem! Just call the other guy a hater.
He's said the Spanish got beautiful women? Simple: say he's unamerican -- better yet, say he's got hatred for the American women.
Someone tried to analyze possible problems involving Mono and patents? Dude, it's very easy -- the guy is a Gnome hater!
Does he have the guts to remember all the less-than-ethical-and-very-well-documented M$ moves? Man, when will people stop this hatred?
Don't wanna go to the cinema to a very crowded 2h session of special F/X? Are you a cinema hater or what?
Frankly, everyone knows what M$ does: I know, you the reader know, Linus knows, even M$ knows!
Linus is right about one thing, though: software "non olet". With the recent patent developments, I hold high hopes that ideas can again flow freely like money.
Linux is AIDS, Apple is gay and *BSD is the product of a retarded offspring of fat monkeys having buttsex with a fishsquirrel. Don't get me started on how much i hate intel and amd.
Why can't we dislike Microsoft and take their code?
After all, ReiserFS is still in the kernel.
Granted the addition in this case is self-serving (mainly benefiting MS and not much use to the average Linux user), but the same could be said of most driver code. I agree completely with those who have suggested that the paperwork be checked very carefully.
Yep, been through that but on 5.5 and thankfully as a drill. You need the same service packs, same server name, exact same details entered during install (eg. "Pty Ltd" in the company name instead of "P/L" mucked things up). It took me two days to recover a couple of small mailboxes from tape. After that we kept the box as a cold spare just in case we ever needed to do a real recovery. Personally I think every MS Exchange admin should go through this so that they can recover stuff within a reasonable timeframe but unfortunately that really requires an extra MS Exchange licence (but it removes the smugness of the "Exchange is superior" newbies). Personally if I was cursed with MS Exchange systems again I would also alias all the email to another machine (with real email software instead) as well just to provide easily accessable email archives in mbox format. When things fall over you can still give them that "urgent" email they should have read that morning within a few minutes instead of days (so long as it is still on disk and not on tape). Stick some sort of webmail on it and it can become easier again.
Microsoft hatred is a disease, and Microsoft products are a blight.
et dona ferentes.
A lot of people don't get that objectivism isn't just about money, it's about personal value. You do stuff for stuff. The thing you get back could be money or satisfaction. Hopefully this will somewhat clarify the situation and meaning of 'selfish'.
Wow... accuse someone of not reading his own link, and then you distort it to Microsoft's advantage...
Microsoft had been in _discussions_ to license Stac's technology. They didn't actually DO so!
Microsoft also had examined the source code.
Though somehow they managed to convince the jury it was not "willful" (how many juries, especially in that day understood anything about SW code? Especially with the best lawyers money can buy arguing for the defense?)
Even so, the very article you are pointing at said that Stack WON the suite and was awarded $120 million in damages.
You have a lot of confidence that juries could tell if code had been copied, and seem rather naive about Microsoft's business practices....
I don't claim to know what happened in your previous discussions, but I would venture to guess that people stated that Holland was Socialist not because of their social freedoms, but because of your 6%/19% VAT, your income tax that goes as high as 52%, and your "wealth tax".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_the_Netherlands
I wonder if this means he will change his tune about Sun... there is a very political spin he puts on his anti-Solaris rants. Sun has contributed code to open-source projects, are they off the hook too? SGI gets a pass, even though they were an actual Windows reseller for a time.
The Linux crowd seems unable to get over their rabid hatred of all Microsoft product, *and* any Unix variant that they feel threatened by (including the BSD variants)... nobody is saying you can't use what you want, so I never understood why people act that way.
To me, Linus' statement does not seem to be about free software. It seems to be about social consciousness.
I admire Mr. Torvald's leadership of the Linux kernel, but he is not someone I would go to for social wisdom. I'm not sure what his intention was in saying that Microsoft hatred is a disease. It's not really hatred, it is dislike, and dislike of Microsoft is becoming widespread. Even the New York Times expresses dislike for Microsoft in the title of this February 13, 2009 article: Will Clippy Be a Greeter at Microsoft's New Stores?
The actual effect is the opposite of what Mr. Torvalds is overtly saying. The actual social effect is something like, "The dislike of Microsoft is becoming so widespread and intense that it is like an epidemic." Mr. Torvalds is publicizing Microsoft "hatred", not stopping it.
Dislike of Microsoft is not new. Pam Edstrom's daughter, Jennifer Edstrom, wrote the 1998 book, Barbarians Led by Bill Gates, with a former Microsoft manager. Quote from the first Amazon review in the list of reviews: "The authors are evidently very anti-Microsoft, yet at the same time their stories come across not so much as how stupid Microsoft is, but how mismanaged and lucky Gates & Company have been, which is closer to the truth than many people think." Pam Edstrom is a former Microsoft employee, and one of the founders of Waggener Edstrom, Microsoft's public relations agency.
Who would you believe about the subject of dislike of Microsoft, a former Microsoft manager who wrote a book about the subject, or Linus Torvalds? Perhaps Mr. Torvalds just doesn't have sufficient experience, or sufficient awareness of the experience of other people. There is a cure for that. He could install a few Microsoft Windows computers and maintain them.
It's not about hatred but more about apprehension. Most times MS woos and lulls the world into thinking they're not so bad after all, it's ugly head rears up one way or another.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
see subject
Like beguyld (post above mine), I'm not so convinced that the infringement was accidental. Maybe Microsoft management deliberately avoided checking for patents and managed to convince the jury it was purely accidental.
And even without the patents, Microsoft's behavior smacks of cheating. First they asked to see the code, then they built the compression system themselves without paying Stac. While not illegal, it is a lot like the people who get advice from a specialist store and then buy from a discounter.
C - the footgun of programming languages
If "Microsoft hatred" is a disease, it is clearly one that is very widespread and easily aught. That's hardly surprising, considering the number of vectors it has: PowerPoint, Steve Ballmer, Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows ME, PowerPoint, Windows 98, Windows 95, Steve Ballmer, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Outhouse, Internet Exploder, PowerPoint...
Fortunately we now have some very promising treatment regimes, such as Linux, BSD, and Mac OS. Indeed the steady progress of FOSS holds out the promise that one day Microsoft, like [fill in disease of your choice], may be only a distant memory.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
Microsoft are a PITA because you;
Linus makes a point by stating open source serves selfish reasons, people scratching their own itches. However a lot of people scratch itches which Microsoft couldn't, Open Office and Firefox are one of those results. In some way open source was a movement against the usage of propriety software and their propriety issues. In fact, lots of OSS people consider Microsoft to be a monument of corporations with propriety software issues. When some OSS alternative to Microsofts' software is developed, the appearance has been often a lookalike of Microsoft software equivalent. So in many ways people still measure their success by developing an alternative to existing Microsoft software. Even if some notebook with linux preinstalled is offered to consumers, they compare it to what they are used to (mostly microsoft stuff).
The OSS community doesn't need to look so much to what Microsoft is doing, besides some operatibility issues related to Microsoft technologies. OSS products stand in their own right. My company server and client software runs on open source software if I didn't read so much about "microsoft hatred" I almost forgot about Microsoft completely. Microsoft has a reputation, it is their responsible how it's users feel about their products and company. For some people Microsofts reputation is enough to give people the itches, which they tend to scratch with developing or implementing open source software. It would surprise me if not most developers find them selves in that situation when Linux was still very young
Hardware support for GNU/Linux has been a big issue in the past and some of it still remains. Any attempt to have full hardware support for Linux can only be something to embrace and to be enthousiastic about. Isn't this we always hoped for? Allthough Microsofts' reputation not being the most trustworthy company may be true, it doesn't mean the OSS world has to fear them. They will simply not succeed to do any harm to linux, even when it was all they were after. OSS has become a modern and mature platform which will grow slowly but steadily into mainstream in many markets. It will gain momentum as more and more businesses try to use it for their goals, like Google, Apple. Small starting companies will get a foothold in the software industry since they don't have to develop a complete operating system and are able to modify the OSS operating system how they see fit. TomTom is also a company which has gained considerable marketshare in short time also thanks to Linux. For those it may seem right to compare the linux "business model" to that of microsoft. As OSS users we have not so much to be hatred about, do we?
I may be unduly naive, but it seems to me that Microsoft has done just about everything it can to cripple or kill off Open Source. Under the circumstances, I'd be more than a little nervous about accepting a whack of code off them without looking very, very carefully to see whether they had an ulterior motive.
Probably just paranoia, but their track record doesn't speak well for them in this regard.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
'Oh, I'm a big believer in "technology over politics."
I think this line explains the fundamental reason why Linus is not Gates.
RMS is God. Be like him and you will go farther !!
M$FT is EVIL and has corrupted your brain, child !!
I think we need both. Linus and Stallman are great developers and thinkers. I think Stallman is right about the free software movement. We see more and more restriction on information, DRM that are a very bad thing for consumer but also citizen. But the approach of Linus make Linux a good and viable OS.
We need more people fighting for more liberties and people that make stuffs happen.
"Use cases are fairy tales..." I. S. 2005
That's pretty funny and ridiculous but i think that Linus is too religious :) I can not love my enemies, but I do not hate them either. I just want them to die.
He could still come around. Experience is the key.
"... foaming irrational hatred..."
That makes sense. However, it is only one thought deep. Carry the analysis to the next level: What is Microsoft doing that causes many people to dislike the company, and is so intense that some people become irrational?
Remember, Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia became irrational, also, during a famous anti-trust case against Microsoft. He violated "... the Code of Conduct for US Judges.[13]".
Why did a United States District Court Judge become irrational? Perhaps because of numerous continued abuses by Microsoft. Some examples, drawn from the Wikipedia article:
"In the videotaped demonstration of what Microsoft vice president James Allchin's stated to be a seamless segment filmed on one PC, the plaintiff noticed that some icons mysteriously disappear and reappear on the PC's desktop, suggesting that the effects might have been falsified.[6]"
Another example: "Brad Chase, a Microsoft vice president, verified the government's tape and conceded that Microsoft's own tape was falsified.[8]"
Another example: "When the judge ordered Microsoft to offer a version of Windows which did not include Internet Explorer, Microsoft responded that the company would offer manufacturers a choice: one version of Windows that was obsolete, or another that did not work properly."
There are many, many, many examples of Microsoft being abusive during that trial, and before and after.
This is a fact: When presented with repeated abuses, some people will be pushed beyond their ability to be rational, and will become irrational. Mr. Torvalds apparently did not carry his analysis deeply enough to realize that a common social effect will not be lessened by him speaking in an overly simplified manner, a manner that considers the results, but ignores the stimulus.
What is the effect of Mr. Torvalds apparently giving the subject a shallow analysis? As I said, I think the effect is to publicize dislike of Microsoft, not to stop it.
Very unfortunately, it seems to me that Mr. Torvalds also again established himself as socially shallow, and therefore again made it more difficult for him to lead. I am very sympathetic to his position, in which it is extraordinarily difficult for him to do all that is required of him. But Mr. Torvalds made his life more difficult by his statements, and the world should not want that, because the world needs his leadership.
Will Microsoft, because of continued abuses, once again succeed in overloading and partly neutralizing someone who is interested in counteracting those abuses, and providing the world an alternative?
Although many of you think that MS is gonna cause a licence issue due to this new 20000 code lines for the VM improvement in the Linux kernel, Linus cannot be put in a position where Ms should be banned from Open Source contribution, i subjects that we keep an eye on MS in case something fishy is cooking
That is why he thinks hating Microsoft is a disease.
It is not. It is an unfortunate natural response to what they have done and how they think.
Please read the Halloween Documents first, before siding with either party in either camp.
If you know English enough to understand the Halloween Documents, you will understand the position from which many FOSS individuals speak strangely about Microsoft.
When you collate the stories from various sources - like the 2007 war of words between the Mandriva CEO and Microsoft, you will learn why FOSS hates Microsoft.
Even Joel Spolsky talks lightly about Microsoft nowadays.
Steve Ballmer apparently throws chairs really enough to be mentioned in lawsuits.
Linus is either joking, hypocritical himself (or that's probably the admission-by-denial-and-accusation tricky - Steganography101 ) or God forbid, not the God he used to be.
Well, Linus' word is God's word, and I predict close attention from his pat-riot-ic minions.
Hence AC.
If people hate Microsoft it's because Microsoft is hate able, it has nothing to do with Linux or Linus or our saviour Stallman riding into town on the righteous GPL. Microsoft hatred was around before Free software.
When I worked for IBM we had to consult with Microsoft with other business partners about how we could achieve a certain business objective of which Microsoft was a part of a larger mix of product from Sun, HP, IBM, Oracle and Open source (circa 2002). I was there with a couple of members of my team and I was the lead designer. I asked several questions and as the hours progressed, it turned into Microsoft dictating to us how we would conduct our project and deploy it to *our* customers.
If I had any doubts they evaporated at that moment, whilst I accepted what they said and remained dignified I thought to myself "No wonder so many people hate Microsoft, they try to make it impossible to do business with anyone but them". A colleague (who was ex-Microsoft) warned me that this would be their attitude so I was determined to remain professional. When we had left the Campus and were safely in the cab a woman in my team blurted out "Those arrogant bastards, who the hell do they think they are?" and vented for the next 20 minutes about their condescending attitude.
When I reported the outcome our managers they basically said that this is the attitude they have come to expect from Microsoft over the years. We ended up developing a software solution to do the job of their software, excluding them altogether - it's not as if they weren't offered the opportunity. In fact, now that I recall, it was easier for us to work with our direct competitor than it was to work with Microsoft on this project. Sorry I can't be more specific.
Hatred is inspired. I used to get bullied by this guy at school, I didn't understand why he picked on me, hit me - it was misery. I didn't hate him at first but I couldn't get away, I hated what he was doing and soon after that I hated him. One day he cornered me, the kids gathered round screaming 'fight' and there was no escape for me, I was terrified. But by the time they pulled me off this guy I'd broken his nose and completely closed his eye over. Fortunately for me the teacher that stopped it had caught this kid bullying me. He tried to approach me afterwards but I just ignored him into insignificance and was happy I could just hack the school's computers without being stressed about random attacks from him (I was still the shy geek - but no-one fucked with me!)
I tell this story because I think hating Microsoft is a disease inspired by the way Microsoft acts. After I got over it I realised that it's just a waste of energy best spent elsewhere. I can commend Linus efforts to be diplomatic but i would question how many times he has actually had to work with Microsoft and I suspect he would be more empathetic if he had to. Besides I think if you look carefully you'll probably see that he is also saying it's ok to take charity to from those you despise. There is heaps of interesting stuff happening in the Freed Software community. If Microsoft can't learn they are making themselves irrelevant by the way they act, let them.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Are you saying that it is impossible to think clearly about why some people are irrational?
To answer your question, it has ALWAYS been "Freedom, but only on our terms." That was the very idea of the copyleft. It is also basic idea of freedom in general. The same limitations apply everywhere else. With all political jokes/opinions aside (please, just theory here, guys), in a free country you are allowed to exercise your freedom in a manner which is consistent with all other persons'. This means that your freedom is limited in that it cannot affect or infringe anyone else's. This is the very basis of the justice system. In my opinion, the contribution from Microsoft, while possibly just made to prevent a lawsuit, is still an open-source contribution. The only questions about whether it should be included are "is the code clean and stable, is the code necessary, and is the license free." The most important part of that has always been the last part. The license for the code must not change, or differ from, the license under which the kernel is currently distributed. I am not a legal expert, but my interpretation is that, to be included in the Linux kernel, it needs to match both FOSS tests. IT must be provided at no cost, it must allow modification and re-distribution, and it must make all source code available in a manner consistent with the kernel's license. This totally ignores the question of whether it is needed, but that is irrelevant to your comment. I think that is a discussion for a different thread.
Some people have very short memories.
The reason that a lot of people hate Microsoft is how they achieved their market position - through theft, intimidation, monopolistic practices, misrepresentation, and about every bad business practice ever known.
They tied up innovative companies in court, stole their code, and forced them into bankruptcy or into sales of technology at bargain prices. The raised prices on anyone who dared to offer competing products. They intentionally interwove IE with Windows forcing millions into complete system rebuilds when all they wanted to do was run a competing browser.
They lied, cheated, stole, and always put their profit margins above customer's needs or welfare.
Microsoft is a dirty company. They stifled innovation to minimize competition. The ONLY thing that has forced them into more fair competition was legal action all over the world and massive fines for their actions.
Linus saying that we should embrace them for their contributions is like hiring rapists and child molesters to work in your home with your children because they might be able to do a good paint job.
Microsoft deserves every bit of hate and ill will that comes their way. I know I personally always recommend consumers try Linux and pass out live CDs so people can see what is available for free. And I am proud of every penny I keep out of Microsoft's pockets.
Linus may be in some political position where he has to deal with the devil, but I never will buy a Microsoft product again. Never. And I will encourage others to explore the options to Microsoft.
They are a horrible and morally bankrupt company. Gates and Balmer put the robber barons of the 1800s to shame.
What's with people calling groups of others cancer?
The MS mantra for awhile was "Linux is a cancer..." Personally I have a strong - almost extreme dislike of the disease called microsoft. So what are we going to [label] call the group of cancers who dislike a cancer?
A cure?
I say things which affects my Karma negatively. (and I don't care) For instance; All religion is false.
in fact, I think of it as more like immune response to a disease.
MicroSoft has practiced every dirty trick in the book, eschewing ethics and breaking laws in pursuit of filthy lucre - not once, not twice, but many, many, many times. If the majority of Americans believe MicroSoft and its tactics are not deserving of hatred then it is time to carve Jeffrey Dahmer's likeness into Mt Rushmore.
I contracted this disease in 1992, when I was working on some server equipment that had critical up time issues.
I must tell you all, it is a fairly debilitating disease.
My symptoms included blown budgets, server up times measured in weeks instead of years and a pager that would go off at 2AM to wake me up to take my medication.
I had to literally take a meal of different medications "Reboot" pills where the worst.
I tried everything. Finally a treatment was found by a guy named Richard M Stallman.
Well, ever since I tried the GNU Treatment program I have made a full recovery!
I thought I would tell everyone and you can get more information here:
http://stallman.org/
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
Torvalds must be channeling Adam Smith; his quote reminded me of one of the more famous parts of The Wealth of Nations:
I don't mind any company honestly working in it's own self-interest.
But, with msft it's scam, after scam, after scam. For example: outright lying to US-DoJ, caught red-handed bribing public officials during OOXML scam, caught red-handed astroturfing using letters from dead people to support msft's point of view, fake TCO studies, fake benchmarks, patent trolling, abusing US legal system to beat-up on competitors, and so on.
I believe there are numerous valid reasons for anybody with a sense of decency, and fair play, to hate msft.
JMHO.
First Microsft has done a lot of bad things, but I still think Linus is right, inasmuch ANYTHING can be taken to unreasonable extremes. Microsoft is a profit seeking entity, and they will continue to behave in what they perceive to be in their own self-interest. No one should be surprised about that. The challenge to governments is to erect the right barriers and implement the approporiate carrots and sticks so that narrow self interest does not work against the common good, as it all to often willl in the particular case of a monopolist. In anycase however there is no call for hatred, nor is their a call for hysteria. Linus said something that was just common sense, and shouldn't be at all controversial...
Does it really matter what Linus thinks here? If I said the same thing, nobody would care. Linus wrote an OS Kernel. I'm quite willing to bow to his expertise in Kernel design, but I don't see why his opinion on the politics of open source is really all that important.
OSS: Microsoft is EVIL!
Microsoft: Here have some source code.
OSS: Microsoft is a swell guy.
Love of freedom is a disease? Excuse me, but I disagree. Freedom is about meaningful choice, and Microsoft is dedicated to the removal of any choice that doesn't maximize their profits. The choices that Microsoft 'freely' offers are almost always false or poisonous.
I was just reading about foxes and hedgehogs as metaphors for human personalities. This article makes me think Linus must be a near-sighted hedgehog focused on the idea of technology as a good thing, while the more complex reality (as perceived by the foxes like me (of course)) is that technology is morally neutral.
Riddle me this: If you cut Microsoft into 5 companies and gave each of them a copy of the source code to start with, would it result in more choice and more freedom, or less?
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
He has never said he does, nobody I can remember says he does.
So where do you get this nonsensical idea that he does?
You are, yet again, using ad hominem attacks (shoot the messenger) to undermine somebody with genuine authority in the field (by means of misrepresenting his position in respect to Linux and then refering to controversial opinions in unrelated fields in order to attempt to undermine his credibility in a completely different field).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
What freedom means in the context of software, and according to the GPL licensing, is clearly spelled out.
Freedom always exists in respect to a frame of reference, legal, conventional or social, to pretend that Freedom is an absolute term is frankly ridiculous.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Would you hate any person that was trying to cheat you at every turn of every business deal?
No?
Then you are a saint.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I am sure he and any other Free Software proponents will welcome any contribution that is GPLed, even if as this case demonstrates, it is a selfish one off.
Stallman is that guy that thinks things through before plunging blindly.
Linus is a great figurehead and technician, but he does not always think long term, which has brought some amusing problems to Linux development during the years.
We need them both because their efforts complement each other's neatly.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
... before acknowledging the noxiousness of Microsoft as a company?
There is legal precedence in both the US and EU for starters about MS's behaviour, for bunnies sakes ....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
why Linux advocates wouldn't wnat more people to use Linux? The driver MS has provided allows one to run Linux under MS's Virtualization software. 1) People use MS's Virtualization softaware. Perhaps not even by choice. (Business requirements) 2) They may want to install Linux in a VM. 3) Before they couldn't, now they can. Seems to me that MS, at least in this scenario, is making it EASIER for you to use your OS of choice.
I take Linus's statement as a huge vote of confidence in the way the Free Software movement is working right now: a good system works when everyone shamelessly and ruthlessly pursue their own self-interest.
Linus seems pretty confident that whatever reason MS has for giving back code (probably because they HAD to), MS has now given code, which in the end is the desired result. It's probably not very important in the great scheme of things, I seem to understand it's a fairly marginal piece of code, they didn't donate the Windows code-base. But it can't hurt: at worst the code is useless, or bugged, but can be fixed freely.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
How is it GNU/Linux' fault that you are retarded?
And it doesn't mean anyone should forget all the things Microsoft and other big juggernauts have done, just because competition from Linux pressures them to play nicer.
Promote true freedom - support standards and interoperability.
You know how Windows file copy will choke on one file out of a bunch, shit all over itself, and abort halfway through, and you have to go download a file-copying utility because their operating system apparently can't copy files?
Maybe you should try using a version of Windows released in the last decade.
Finally Microsoft is starting to come around. Now maybe we can build a healthier industry together. An open source OS really is key to this. Now maybe they can finally start building apps for Linux and cut with this nonsense of only supporting Windows. Considering how unusable Windows is these days they would serve their customers well by adopting this open source technology. Maybe one day we will see a Microsoft Linux distribution and they can compete on software configuration of their distribution just like Ubuntu and Fedora does today. The software industry would be well served if this happens. Microsoft does one thing very well and that is make software is intuitive for the novice. I'm not saying Linux is not intuitive. I've certainly seen some really awesome work come out of the Open Source community over the years but Microsoft with their market research in user interface design would really add to this field. Imagine Microsoft software running on a stable platform like Linux. It would change everything.
There is no society, big or small, never has been, never will, in which you can do whatever you want.
This is not a matter of definition, it is a matter of fact, thus purporting the term and concept of freedom as something absolute disregards all of probable and known human experience.
I am not throwing definitions around, I am just saying that the absolutist definition of freedom is misguided, mistaken and unusable on practical terms.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Is it just me or Linus is getting dumber every passing day?
I also had a hard time in believing when I first heard he was a faggot too.