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Microsoft Acknowledges Linux Threat To Windows
angry tapir sends along coverage from Good Gear Guide of a recent Microsoft !0-K SEC filing: "Microsoft for the first time has named Linux distributors Red Hat and Canonical as competitors to its Windows client business in its annual filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The move is an acknowledgment of the first viable competition from Linux to Microsoft's Windows client business, due mainly to the use of Linux on netbooks, which are rising in prominence as alternatives to full-sized notebooks. ... 'Client faces strong competition from well-established companies with differing approaches to the PC market,' Microsoft said in the filing. 'Competing commercial software products, including variants of Unix, are supplied by competitors such as Apple, Canonical, and Red Hat.'"
A throwaway line in a 10-K report which nobody reads or takes seriously is given a front page news story on slashdot??
Are you guys really this desperate to drum up the anti-Microsoft pagehits?
This isn't an acknowledgement of Linux, its something to use as ammo to prove that they don't have a monopoly. Don't get the warm fuzzies over Microsoft acknowledging Linux because its just marketing and politics.
I always wondered where this setting was...
If only there was a Linux that was actually UNIX certified by The Open Group...
http://www.unix.org/what_is_unix/single_unix_specification.html
This is the second major occurance of such an acknowledgment.
I think that within two years we may see a tipping point where Microsoft will certainly NOT be the "the only company that does..." from the standpoint of management who refuse anything that doesn't have a Microsoft sticker. Consumers are well on their way to this, though there might be a situation where if it isn't Microsoft and it isn't Apple then its still "not worth knowing about".
It's more of an indication that they want to discharge their obligations in reporting threats to their business from competitors. The stock exchange and rules for publicly traded securities require this sort of disclosure to holders of a company's stock. I think it's purely a matter of adhering to their obligations for honest reporting to the people who own them. NTSHMA.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Watch this sort of announcement very, very carefully. Microsoft loves to describe Linux as a 'UNIX variant'. In both its basic kernel and its accumulated software bundles, it's as valid as calling Windows XP "DOS". (For those new to Microsoft history, XP is actually a Windows NT descendant, which is in many ways descended from VMS and many of its fundamentals stolen by David Cutler from DEC, where David wrote much of VMS and was hired to work on NT.)
In 2003 Microsoft wanted everyone to have a 'trusted computer' to make sure the owner couldnt fuck with the proprietary software. of course many software companies and Google realised that wasn't going to happen so they decided to push SaaS and have everything run remotely through a horrible, JavaScript laden web interface.
but i tell ya its better than the alternative MS was pushing. still because the good old enemy that is MS is being cut down to size does not mean it's a good idea to give up on free desktop-based client software. Web apps and other remote apps are not the best way and certainly not the most efficient method but it is the new way of making money from software.
As the owner of a webb app you have total control over when it is accessed, you can see everything clients are doing, you can put as many ads on it as you like and nobody will slate you for distributing 'adware' or 'spyware'. As long as you do everything server-side you have almost 0 chance of your stuff being pirated. This is better than DRM, its better than trusted computing and all without the invasive 'get out of my PC' sentiment associated with Microsoft's client-side type of security
And doubling each year, it would only be 9 years before a quarter of the market was on Linux. Not saying that is likely, but no one really expected Firefox to become the standard it has. One should never judge their competition solely on market share, because it cannot be relied upon for the future.
Great Intellect...
It's not just posturing for the SEC this time. Talked to one of our vendors back east this afternoon and his mom liked his netbook so much he bought her one, then his dad wanted one, then another one for his step-mom. That's bad news for Microsoft for two reasons: One, Linux really is competitive on low-end hardware. The combination of Linux, Gmail, GoogleDocs and online services gives netbooks functionality that makes the OS less significant.
And, two, Microsoft can't demand their normal margin on a netbook OS. The cost of the unit is so low MS is forced to price their product lower. That's hurting revenues and that trend will only continue to accelerate. Windows 7 will run on netbooks, but not particularly well. Windows Mobile isn't going to gain them any market share and they can't sell XP on netbooks indefinitely.
The netbook trend caught MS flat-footed and they threw XP at it to fill the gap while they scramble around to try and find a solution. But there isn't one this time. Microsoft built their market at the top end of the scale, not in the appliance market. Their software isn't made to run on low-end hardware, they have no appliance market strategy.
This time, I think they're entirely justified of being afraid of Linux.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
"Microsoft loves to describe Linux as a 'UNIX variant'."
Microsoft is right. Linux is Unix. It's why I started using it. Can it legally be called Unix? No. But if it walks like a duck, etc, it's a duck. Linux is after all a clone of Unix. It's Unix in all but name. A clone of a dog isn't a cat after all... it's a copy of a dog. Comparing Unix and Linux to DOS and XP isn't a good comparison. The former is an OS and a copy of that OS. The later is an earlier OS and it's evolutionary descendant, and XP is more of a nephew to DOS than a son, considering that NT was conceived as a different OS than DOS... it was just built to be largely compatible with DOS.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
I hate to say it, because I'm a linux fanboy, but Linux on netbooks has more or less failed. Manufacturers like Asus dropped the ball by shipping too many Linux machines with screwed up configurations (and also with the crappiest Linux distros available). MS also recognized the threat and entered the ring fighting. The result is that most retailers are pushing netbooks with Windows, and most people buying netbooks are buying them with Windows. Maybe this will change if ARM-based netbooks really take off, but I suspect it will be the same story all over again.
Find free books.
Microsoft Lindows.
Isn't Linux a Unix variant?
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
Nothing to get too excited about, but Microsoft's actions speak much louder than the naysayers who yak on about how Linux on netbooks was a total flop. Indeed it didn't take long for XP to dominate, but how many people actually think Microsoft liked using it to get the job done when they were already trying to axe it in favor of Vista? Fact is they had no choice. They aren't stupid enough to just ignore what could grow into actual competition for them, no matter how insignificant it might seem. The question is which will be the bigger threat to their continued dominance, Linux or XP?
From the article:
Yeah, there are lots of pointless legal disclaimers in 10-K filings to cover respective companies' own asses.
It's not the first time that Microsoft has acknowledged Linux as a threat to their business model. It might be the first time they have put it in their 10-K report, but I don't consider legal disclaimers in an annual SEC filing to be newsworthy.
Has anyone read the Red Hat, Inc. 10-K report. Anyone take the time to count the number of competitors, listed by name, in there? Now ask yourself, is that newsworthy?
/^([Ss]ame [Bb]at (time, |channel.)){2}$/
It's not multimedia, it's still hardware and software. Recently we needed to get one of our Linux test boxes on wireless lan. So I went out to Staples and googled the only PCI wifi card they had left. According the the results, it was an atheros chipset, therefore it should work. There were even a bunch of positive reviews of the card on linux.
Got it home and as it turns out it was a different hardware revision from the ones I read about using another chipset. A chipset without Linux drivers. (At least none OpenSuSE could find). I ended up having to use a NDIS wrapper, which worked fine. But I have about a decade plus experience administrating FreeBSD and Linux boxes. 99% of the people I deal with aren't able to do this. They wouldn't know where to begin.
Same goes with software. They can't install and run any boxed software from the big box marts. Hell, even Best buy/staples/et. al. have a section of Mac software again (although be it one shelf or a very small section).
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
According to Torvalds, it means we've won.
Funny may not give karma, but +5 Informative never made anyone snort coffee out their nose.
Bailout money!!!
Canonical and other Linux players need to take steps needed to make certain that the Linux that the netbooks ship with is not some bizzarely broken configuration. A netbook that ships with Ubuntu should ship with the same Ubuntu you find on the Ubuntu installation CD. No more of this "Custom distro crap".
No, but "Windows NT is a better UNIX than UNIX." Linux is a minix-like monolithic kernel operating system.
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=19990307&mode=classic
I feel like such a nerd for posting such a web comic from 10 years ago....
.... I'm supposed to load Ubuntu, fire up chromium, load microsoft.com and flip off the screen before jumping on the bed for a quick victory fist pumping.... ........ now my point... what does 'acknowledgment' do to reality? Nothing. It's about as effective as some guy on the side of the road giving you a 'nod' because he looked your way... Doesn't really change anything you're doing, where you're going, or whats actually happening... does it....
Its nice to see linux prevailing, but lets not all get so worked up about 'acknowledgements' quite yet, lol.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Torvalds and Tanenbaum get in a famous fight over the fact that being a "monolithic kernel operating system" is precisely unlike Minix's microkernel solution?
I don't believe in time. It's a grand conspiracy designed to sell watches.
No. Linux is a kernel that implements some common Unix features (like a single root filesystem), but not all of them. When you run GNU on top of Linux, you get a Unix clone, but there are plenty of people who are not running GNU on top of Linux, or who are only using small pieces of GNU like the linker. Even though the OLPC is running Linux, and has a fairly significant portion of GNU, I would hardly say that an OLPC is running a Unix variant or clone -- it is running what is best described as Sugar/Linux + 1/2GNU.
If anything is to be called a Unix variant, it is GNU, since GNU implements (mostly) everything that is "Unix."
Palm trees and 8
Definitely not disagreeing about multimedia issues on Linux, but I would be interested to hear more specifics on what problems you have. My biggest beef was finding a decent, user-friendly video converter. No such luck until the newest version of HandBrake. Up until that I still primarily used windows for video conversion. Thanks to it, though, Ubuntu is one step closer to converting me as far as multimedia goes. What I do like in Ubuntu is the ability to play any kind of video format in MPlayer and just have it work, whereas in windows there is always the off codec or container that in order to play I have to download some mickey mouse media player made specifically for that one purpose that reminds me to "go pro" and buy the registered version every 10 seconds. So what I'm saying is that Linux has to potential to be a multimedia powerhouse if they can get their act together. Unfortunately Linus doesn't seem to care much about that in particular.
I am not surprised to see this kind of release. After all, they need to hold on to that monopoly position on the desktop to keep their server business afloat.
What was interesting was the complete lack of any mention of Novell's SLED product. Remember, that MS and Novell are in cahoots to put servers out there running both Windows Workstation 2008 and SLES. In fact, I distinctly remember Ballmer last year mentioning "suzie" in one of his speeches at the Visual Studio 2008 launch event.
Oddly enough, also, there's no mention of a distribution running KDE. Both Ubuntu (which I use now on my laptop) and Red Hat are GNOME-based distros by default. SLED (and openSUSE) are also becoming more GNOME-centric. (I know you can put KDE on any of these, and I run KTorrent as well as KRDC in my desktop.)
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
And Minix is Unix clone, which would basically make Linux (assuming GNU is included) a Unix clone as well.
Palm trees and 8
It seems Dell, ASUS HP and others have invested in shipping linux based machines partly as something to threaten MS with. Simply put, Linux doesn't sell PCs (yet), Windows does. Watch TV, you'll see Microsoft and Apple ads but you won't see a damn thing about linux. TV, Print and Radio validates the product to consumers.
Add in the the evergreen problem: Windows PC tax is more or less the same regardless if it is a $200 netbook or a $3000 overkill gaming rig. You think PC/Laptop manurfaturers like having only one choice of OS? It's a liability.
Frankly all the OEMs are probably pissed at having their bottom lines hurt by Vista too.
Linux offered something they could bludgeon MS with and demand a discount. Result, MS really did come up with cheaper OEM licences and are even producing Windows 7 starter, but only after Linux gained some traction in the netbook arena.
Google sees the oppurtunity to pimp it's cloud services by doing Chrome OS, which is going to fill the need of PC makers to have yet better tools to apply leverage against microsoft.
I'm not convinced that Linux will ever squash Windows, the test of this being possible will be seen in the smartphone arena. Can Android conquer the iPhone? If it does then I'd believe Linux becoming the no 1. OS within a decade.
Frankly, Linux is inside routers, set top boxes, embedded devices, PMPs, mobile phones (WebOS and Android are linux), and runs more than half the internet servers and the majority of the worlds top supercomputers and datacentres. Yet none of these companies are wearing the Linux badge, you don't hear Palm, Google, IBM, Linksys, Cisco evangelising Linux all over the TV and radio.
It's rather worriesome. I don't really have an answer why.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
which is in many ways descended from VMS and many of its fundamentals stolen by David Cutler from DEC
If David Cutler stole Window NT from DEC, then Linus Torvalds stole Linux from Tannenbaum... or for that matter, SCO...
I just love how the FOSS community routinely rips someone else that borrows, but then has no problem supporting their own borrowing.....
This is my sig.
Who knows, anything is possible. Maybe if Microsoft can't beat Linux they will join them? Imagine if Microsoft started to write commercial software for Linux like MS-Office, MS-Money, Visual Studio, etc? What would that mean?
Victory. In all honesty, it would end up being a victory for Linux, you could then choose the OS you really wanted. Either take a free OS with a few proprietary components, a pay-OS that is familiar, and a pay-OS that is tied to a brand of computers. All running the same software.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
The last thing anyone needs is a netbook that is running an OS that was intended for a full-power PC. The latest Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSuse, etc. all ship with features and software that expect lots of memory and CPU time -- not something you are likely to have on a netbook. What should really happen is for the distro maintainers to create their own netbook spins, which cut out a lot of the features that are unneeded on a netbook and slim down the OS.
Palm trees and 8
Most buyers were never offered a choice between 'Linux on netbook' and 'XP on netbook'. The reason for this is twofold: 1) MS bribed and bullied manufacturers and retailers into selling XP, in many cases only XP; and 2) Retailers do what makes them the most revenue, with XP they can sell-up on games, 'security' and other add-ons. With Linux this was all that was needed.
What buyers were offered was a choice between 'XP on netbook*' and 'Vista on laptop'. In many cases the laptop was cheaper. They did not want Vista so they bought XP, it was irrelevant that they were called netbooks because they no longer were.
When crippled Windows 7 is forced onto netbooks, and no XP, we will see that 'indows netbooks' will just be another small laptop and real netbooks with Linux will be offered again.
* Netbooks used to be light, cheap, no moving parts, long battery life. XP broke that because they required bigger disks (HD) more processor and more screen real estate so that they became small laptops.
Microsoft's secret way of letting programmers that things are not okay!!!
Quick! To the Bat Chair!
Wrong !!
Linux is _NOT_ Unix.
Do you believe in anything that can form a recursive acronym?
Did you try a different distro? openSUSE is kinda outdated (last stable release was 7 months ago), and as such might not have as recent of drivers.
And eventually people will stop running boxed software. Outside of game consoles I can't remember the last boxed software I bought, I honestly think it was a sealed copy of Windows 3.1 I got at a garage sale for about fifty cents. And that was like 2 years ago. Most everyone I know has the same experience as they either download freeware, pirate it, or download it as trial-ware and re-download it when it expires.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Someone wanting to run software a different way than you do doesn't make them your enemy.
Watch this sort of announcement very, very carefully. Microsoft loves to describe Linux as a 'UNIX variant'.
They do? News to me.
Comment of the year
The "market share" of Linux is hard to define, in any case. Sure, sales of RedHat or other commercial distros can be counted, or you could make a case (maybe) for using the LinuxCounter stats, but the simple fact is that there are many who simply download a distro and distribute it ad lib, which is sort of the whole point of free software. We will never really know how many users are running Linux.
Linux is not Unix. It's a close approximation. For one, the base APIs are not fully POSIX compliant. Right there is a big hurdle to being Unix. If someone were to pony up the cash for certification (RedHat, Novell, Cannonical), there are issues yet to be fixed before it can be called UNIX, so it's not just a question of certifying it.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
Stole everything but the stability? NT was a lot better than 95/98/ME but hasn't come close to the reliability of VMS.
Brett
Yes, they did. Here's Linus' announcement of his "minix-like" kernel: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.minix/msg/2194d253268b0a1b
And here is the famous Tannenbaum/Torvalds "Linux-is-Obsolete" debate: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.minix/browse_frm/thread/c25870d7a41696d2
" Most older operating systems are monolithic, that is, the whole operating
system is a single a.out file that runs in 'kernel mode.' This binary
contains the process management, memory management, file system and the
rest. Examples of such systems are UNIX, MS-DOS, VMS, MVS, OS/360,
MULTICS, and many more.
The alternative is a microkernel-based system, in which most of the OS
runs as separate processes, mostly outside the kernel. They communicate
by message passing. The kernel's job is to handle the message passing,
interrupt handling, low-level process management, and possibly the I/O.
Examples of this design are the RC4000, Amoeba, Chorus, Mach, and the
not-yet-released Windows/NT."
Though I've heard here and in a few other places that NT/Windows is a microkernel, I've also heard teh opposite. No opinion there, as I'm not a kernel hacker, just a PHB.
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
...that's what the SCO lawyers want you to think. :P
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
Acceptance is the first step in overcoming a problem...
Specialist Mac support for creative pros, Melbourne
They can just try the DMCA card and have a max of 10 years for installing linux just like the story about a max of 10 years for moding a xbox.
Perhaps in the 90s you would be right, but now UNIX is a Linux wanna be.
Q: "What is Unix?"
A: "It's an old Linux like Operating System."
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
Yes microsoft has some good managers. Too many in fact.
lately. Since February.
I wish to buy (not have to install) a linux one. But I can't. Just the old models had linux.
(Which is why Asus lost a sale from me.)
Hmm...
Cheapest Apple Laptop: $999
Similar Vista Laptop:
$600
+200 Full Office Suite
+ 99 Adobe Elements
+ 99 Anti-Virus
----
$998
Looks like they're competitively priced to me.
I'm more compelled to ask for details than mod this 'troll'. What, specifically, would you be looking for in order for an OS to be a "UNIX variant"? Also, which part of the OS are you referring to? The entire stack? Do OpenBSD/FreeBSD constitute Unix variants? I'm going to assume you don't mean the kernel itself, nor are you referring to the windowing system/s. Care you elaborate?
Entomologically speaking, the spider is not a bug, it's a feature.
Linux ~ UNIX is a trademark issue, POSIX "Portable Operating System Interface for Unix" compliance is an IEEE standard implementation issue. These are two distinct problems.
This is NOT news. You'll find this in every such filing going back for years people...
The other attack was the campaign against vendors selling naked PC's.
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/0,1000000091,39286228,00.htm/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/11/23/ms_how_pcs_shipped_without/
http://www.linfo.org/naked_pc.html/
The truth shall set you free!
Cloud computing is the fourth generation dumb terminal:
Gen I: VT100 (I could technically list real TTYs which printed line by line on paper). Command line and text screen based.
Gen II: X terminals. Basic graphics, perhaps some XDMCP.
Gen III: JavaStations/thin clients. A client that has a basic OS, but then connects to a server for all other functionality.
Gen IV: Cloud computing. Client has a functioning OS, local cache, but the app level is moved to remote.
Same problems apply. How do you trust your server with your data? You never know if your company confidential stuff is being slurped off to your competitor. You don't know if the apps will remain. A cloud computing company can shut its doors and go out of business stranding everyone. Contracts? Better talk with the bankruptcy trustee. The private data can be sold from a backup cloud provider to another company who doesn't have a privacy policy and who will happily index and sell to the highest bidder all info stored.
Cloud computing can be a tool if used right, but people are retarded if they think they can just move their business operations to offsite app providers. All it would take is a backhoe cutting the Internet links or a glitch on the cloud computing provider and that company will have no access to their stuff needed for basic daily production.
Want to know what cloud computing is actually useful for and not just hype? After you got your backup fabric in place, your tapes and your offsite rotation with Iron Mountain in production, you use the cloud as a third line of defense of data, making sure your stuff is encrypted before it leaves your machines. This way, should Amazon decide to just shut down S3 one day, you can still get backup data from your tape safe.
I know everyone's really excited that their imaginary enemy has finally validated their existence as a threat but let's be more realistic here. If there's anything remotely interesting about this filing, it's that android and the upcoming Chrome OS is not mentioned at all.
To me it seems more like a message of disrespect to google, a more realistic competitor, than anything...
I read the script, and I think it would help my character's motivation if he was on fire. -Bender
It might be the first time they have put it in their 10-K report...
It isn't. Here is one from 2003:
Client
Although we are the leader in operating system software products, we face strong competition from well established companies and entities with differing approaches to the market. Competing commercial software products, including variants of Unix, are supplied by competitors, such as IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Apple Computer, Sun Microsystems and others, who are vertically integrated in both software development and hardware manufacturing and have developed operating systems that they preinstall on their own computers. Personal computer OEMs who preinstall third party operating systems may also license these firms' operating systems or Open Source software, especially offerings based on Linux. Variants of Unix run on a wide variety of computer platforms and have gained increasing acceptance as desktop operating systems, in part due to the increasing performance of standard hardware components at decreasing prices.
TFA asserts that this is the first time that Microsoft has named names of Linux vendors, but that's not strictly true either. The same 10-K filing from 2003 says the following in the "Server and Tools" section: "A number of companies supply versions of Linux, including Red Hat and VA Linux."
Overall, this is yet another total non-story based on sloppy reporting. More importantly, the Slashdot editors should be ashamed of themselves for displaying such ignorance about the competitive history between Microsoft and Linux.
Breakfast served all day!
Our Windows licenses are cheaper than our Redhat licenses
You probably get volume licenses for Windows. If I wanted to pay Redhat, even though I'm not legally required to do so to use Redhat Linux, a 1 year Basic desktop subscription is $80. The cheapest stand alone version, ie not an upgrade, of Windows Vista Amazon lists is Home Basic, which isn't good for much more than browsing the Internet, using e-mail, or viewing photos and costs $110 whereas for a more capable OS you'll pay more.
The longer support you'll get from MS makes it worthwhile but all the activation, spyware, and other things MS requires is what made me switch from a Windows to a Linux and Mac user. And with my Mac I actually get more support from Apple, if needed, than I did from MS. However I've used less support for my Mac in 2 years than I needed in one year for each and every one of the Windows PCs I owned. And I didn't pay any more for it than I would have for a similarly specified Windows PC.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Linux is a hell of a lot closer to Unix then XP is to DOS, for one DOS doesn't even have multi-tasking.
They are so like children.
No more than Mac, Windows, or other zealots.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Monopolies themselves are legal. What's illegal is an abusive use of a monopoly. MS having a monopoly in OSes and Office suites is legal, what's illegal is MS barring computer OEMs from installing other OSes and suites on computers, ie being anti-competitive.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
People aren't afraid of change, people are lazy. People often perceive change as disruptive to their laziness.
no competitors.
yes it does. wtf?
No it doesn't. Microsoft was found to be a monopoly, which is not illegal, yet it has competitors.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
What is the standard companies are measured against to determine if they are monopoly or not? 90% market share? What ever 'feels' about right? How can one avoid crossing anti-trust laws if one cannot know when they will apply or not?
It is not illegal to be a monopoly, what is illegal is to abuse monopoly position.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
The dutch railroads (NS) never had a monopoly in holland. Not even when they completly controlled ALL rail travel because well, there was always the steam train in De Efteling (attraction park) and even some tourist trains.
I think most sensible people would have exclude these and say that a company that has 90%+ of a market has a very effect control, even a monopoly. It would depend partly on the market, but MS software is sadly one market where a monopoly quickly arrises. MS software a market? Indeed.
Lets say that Shell controls 100% of all petrol stations, would they then have monopoly on car fuel? No, cars can run on different things after all, but I would still say that Shell would effectivly have a monopoly.
MS software only interoperates with itself. It is famous for it, so the question is not so much wether other operating systems exists but wether anyone else can compete with MS on offering software that works with MS software. Just as I can put Shell and Exxon petrol in my car and not have it explode, can I run Active Directory and something else seemlessly together? How about the latest open office files?
Petrol is standard, and that allows for far easier competition, especially since Shell has no problem selling its fuel to "white" stations.
Windows and Office are NOT standards, they therefor have become their own market and it is a market MS controls (it can and does change its formats and protocols at the drop of a hat, to stop competitors from offering competing products).
Monopolies in the real world are not just about market share, and the market is not just a product category but oftne a product itself. For instance, lets say that printer catridges became regulated, that they all had to be the same shape with the same interface. Speculate what this would do to the printer industry? More expensive printers (no longer subsidised by outragous catridge prices) and cheaper catridges and never going to a store to find your model is no longer sold.
That monopolies are bad is proven by none other then MS itself. Internet Explorer was dying because with no competition, MS had no reason to improve it. Even today IE8 is still the runt of the litter because MS has had enormous problem gettings it people to produce something of reasonable quality again. That MS ignored IE for so long is proof enough they were a monopoly as well.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
That is as true as saying that MSDOS is a full featured version of CP/M - in other words utter bullshit that would be nice if it was really true. NT was a project with far less ambitious goals and far fewer resources devoted to it. David Cutler did indeed use the same numbers and alphabet and the same style of keyboard when he wrote major parts of NT as he did with VMS, and he possibly even wore the same trousers at some point - however these similarities are jsut as irrelevant as the few similarities between NT and VMS. The tiny Microsoft of the time would have been buried by DEC if they dared to reuse any parts of VMS. The minor similarities were enough to land them in court as it was.
Dictionary.com says I"m right.
"moâ...nopâ...oâ...ly
ââ/mÉ(TM)ËnÉ'pÉ(TM)li/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [muh-nop-uh-lee] Show IPA
Use monopoly in a Sentence
â"noun, plural -lies.
1. exclusive control of a commodity or service in a particular market, or a control that makes possible the manipulation of prices. Compare duopoly, oligopoly.
2. an exclusive privilege to carry on a business, traffic, or service, granted by a government.
3. the exclusive possession or control of something.
4. something that is the subject of such control, as a commodity or service.
5. a company or group that has such control.
6. the market condition that exists when there is only one seller.
7. (initial capital letter) a board game in which a player attempts to gain a monopoly of real estate by advancing around the board and purchasing property, acquiring capital by collecting rent from other players whose pieces land on that property."
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/monopoly
Apparently what you're referencing is a misuse of the word in application for which the word does not define the circumstance properly.
Just because a court said something does not necessitate that something to make sense or have perfect wording. Those courts are headed by people, who make errors, and understand things less than 100% correctly.
Jooce
So, when are you going to tell the European Commission they're wrong? When will you tell the US Justice Department and judges they are wrong? Fact is is at least one US and one European court has ruled MS is a monopoly. You may disagree with them but they enjoy the force of law whereas you don't.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Imagine if Microsoft started to write commercial software for Linux like MS-Office, MS-Money, Visual Studio, etc? What would that mean?
For years, I wondered why Microsoft didn't release Office for Linux. While they wouldn't have a Windows sell they would have had Office sells. Now however Open Office is, slowly maybe but, growing. And not just on Linux PCs but on Macs and Windows PCs too. Once people use FOSS on Windows it's possible they'll want to try other FOSS software, including Linux. Half a pie is better than no pie.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Um, OSX is the Mach kernel with a BSD userland. I do wish you Apple retards would get your facts straight.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
WTF? Minix is a microkernel. Other than the fact that both run GNU userland and have a similar set of system calls, they're entirely different architectures.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
You seem to be fixed on #6. The problem is that you don't understand #1.
#1 doesn't require that there be no competition, only that you have enough influence to control the market. MS has shown in many ways that they had or have that level of control, though I will admit it is eroding.
At the time that MS had a near 100% lock on the browser market, it was obtained because of their near lock on the OS market. That is monopoly power. At the time that MS bullied the PC makers into purchasing a license for every PC they made, regardless of what it shipped with, that was *absolutely* monopoly power.
And currently, MS still holds monopoly power over the non-apple hardware desktop OS market. You really can't convince anyone that there is a statistically significant number of non-windows desktop OS installs on PC hardware.
There's also some argument that they have monopoly in the office software market now. They hold the lion's share of the market, and those small few that do compete live and die by their ability to read/write MS format files.
As for the server side, MS never really had monopoly there, and probably never will.
about their relevance in my house.
It's the same in my house, but for different reasons. Almost 3 years ago I got a desktop, well tower, PC with Linux preinstalled. Then a year later I got a MacBook Pro for my new laptop, which I'm thinking about installing Ubuntu on it to set it up as a dualboot computer. Microsoft is practically irrelevant to me now.
Multimedia is just broken on Linux.
Multimedia is why I've thinking of installing Ubuntu Studio on my Mac. It has everything needed for multimedia including audio, graphics, and video.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
After all, they need to hold on to that monopoly position on the desktop to keep their server business afloat.
Microsoft doesn't seem to be suffering much with a decline in web servers as compared to others. By a pretty good margin IIS is still number 2.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
and not the standard for monopoly.
It doesn't matter as long as it's not abused. Only when a monopoly is abuse does it matter what a monopoly is. I do agree though that different people in different places at different tymes have different definitions of what a monopoly is.
I guess it's kind of like "I can't describe it but I'll know it when I see it."
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
In the best tradition of WINE, you might be onto something:
"Linux Is Not UniX"
No one has over 80% of profit from their total sales.
Those are not my figures, they were copied and pasted from Yahoo! which got then from Capital IQ, "except where noted."
From your lack of response to the main body of my post, I receive the impression that you didn't understand my main point.
I was not replying to your "main point", I included only the part I was replying to, specifically "The problem with pretending that any Linux distro is a competitor to anything is that none of the Linux distro's have a viable economic model. Living on charity doesn't cut it for real programmers." Redhat is a Linux distributor and makes a profit. Therefore it has a viable economic model. The same with IBM.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
I suppose this is a quibble, I really don't agree that it's fourth gen
I agree with the Gen 1 to 2 jump as switching from point to point cables to true networks and at the same time mostly text based to mostly graphical.
The Gen 2 to 3 jump is the switch from a single protocol at a time to all protocols included in one box. Ie the so called thin client boxes.
But I don't see that putting the client on a general purpose PC is a fourth generation. Terminal emulators have been around since before there were terminals. The first 'terminals' were actually a remote emulation of the local console of the machine, initially just good enough for data entry (a page at a time) but reasonably quickly becoming the console for many machines.
By the time you get to X-servers, the console of the main machine has a very good chance of being a memory mapped display with a local X-server running it. Any X-Server is automatically a remote terminal.
If you still think it's a new idea; go look at the VT103. It's a VT100 terminal with an LSI-11 mini-computer in the box for local processing ... plug in a disk or tape drive and it's complete.
Even with MS windows remote processing has been around for a long time; hosted Exchange is easy. Terminal services/remote desktop or Citrix can be used to remote anything, even with just a browser.
Isn't NT Microsoft's CP/M-ish attempt to have a proprietary XENIX-like OS
No. NT was originally Microsoft's project to implement the OS/2 API atop a portable kernel that also supported implementing other APIs atop it as well; they eventually implemented the Win32 API atop it and treated that as the primary API. It also originally supported a character-mode OS/2 API and a character-mode POSIX API atop it as well.
The problem is that you, nor anyone else, has *any* idea actually how many Linux, etc. machines are out there. Nobody. You can't even *guess*. And even if you could, how do you count dual-boot machines, Linux recovery CD's supplied with machines (I've seen it - a dd image on a Knoppix boot disk as a recovery CD from a large, reputable PC supplier), etc. I'm personally responsible for at least several hundred (if not thousand) Linux installations just personally... not even work-related.
Desktop is a poor metric anyway - how about "household"? ADSL routers, wireless routers, PVR's, who knows how many Linux-based devices are in the average household? It might not average out to 1 per household but I imagine it's much higher than you might at first think - and as a metric that means it has much more impact on the world - if it were to disappear, those products would be gone. Linux is even taking over where things like VxWorks were dominating, and people run VxWorks devices and don't even realise it (a lot of ADSL routers, even DVD players, all sorts). I've worked in large IT teams that didn't even realise that half their network routers, firewalls etc. were running some variant of Linux until they looked closely at them. And behind the scenes, most of their upstream suppliers (web hosting, application hosting, firewall, ISP, etc.) were Linux.
The fact is... nobody really cares about desktop penetration. It's been proved that we can do it - Linux desktops exist and are as good as Windows... hell, we can emulate Windows on them satisfactorily enough for quite a lot of gamers and that's crossing over "acceptable" into "acceptable and we can play fancy mind-games too". I have a Linux desktop sitting here. Every machine I have has a Linux desktop available on it. I get just as much work / everyday stuff done on them as I do on MS. It's not up to anybody to *sell* it to other people as a concept, though. But when they get tired of MS, it's there as an alternative today. But it was a sideline, a distraction, a nice toy project. I work in IT in schools - we can kit out an entire school borough with Linux desktops in hours, but it's not what Linux was really designed for and it's not what people want (apparently people WANT to spend hundreds of pounds on shit OS's... you can't help that and nobody is *really* interested in telling people what to buy, except MS).
It's fait accompli. Whether people choose to use it is up to them and part of the whole free software concept is that we don't tell them what to do with their computer. We let them choose. But suggesting that the 0.05% or 0.1% or any other published metric actually *means* anything about the operating system is madness. How many homes run Cray supercomputers? Oh, they must be crap, then.
YES Extreme Stupidity
Apart from the obvious "Linux is a threat to us and therefore we are not a monopoly" I think Microsoft may very well percieve Linux as a threat to them, but for slightly less obvious reasons.
The major reason that Linux is a threat to Microsoft is that it is (usually) free, and nobody can compete with free in the long run. Given enough time, Linux would eventually conquer the desktop. But it would be decades, if not centuries. If nothing else, Linux's small presence on the market means that Microsoft cannot raise it's prices too much, or people will start seriously looking at the alternatives. And if they discover the alternatives are good enough (or better then Windows) for no money (or very little money) the game will be up for Microsoft.
There is a more threatening aspect of Linux though. It is not one that matters every day, but in the long run Microsoft must deal with the fact that a lot of "Linux" is a community. A community of users and developers spread around the globe cannot be purchased and shut down as if it were a competing company. Suppose Microsoft purchased Cannonical and shut it down. They have not really gained anything, since they can't stop the individual developers from continuing their work, even if it is in their spare time.
Even if Microsoft started buying all companies that released a Linux distro, they cannot win: once it becomes obvious that to become a millionaire you just have to release a Linux distro, new distros will be popping up so fast that rabbits will reproduce slowly, by comparison.
I think the only way for Microsoft to keep "winning the game" against Linux is to constantly produce better and better software for lower and lower prices. Since Linux's market share seems to be growing, Microsoft is already under pressure to not raise their prices too high, and this pressure will increase several times over with increasing market share for Linux.
alcoa would disagree with you.
Try VLC, open source, works on OS X, Solaris and Windows too, does streaming, conversions,... Really rocks.VLC's website.
Why would you need to tell SEC who you think your competition is ?
You are trying to stop contempt that is wholly deserved being heaped upon MS.
Only those who want a reason to ignore criticism against MS will use "you said M$" as a reason to ignore them. Because the complaint is accurate and that is all that is available.
Not having "M$" wouldn't make them believe the critisicm because they do not WANT to believe the criticism.
from redmond if they file each year as SwashbucklingCowboy says they do insisting linux is a viable competitor and a threat to the business model, yet ballmer repeatedly denies this fact?? does he base business decisions on this delusion, or is that cheerleader outfit cutting circulation to his brain?
I believe microsoft has not learned from the browser wars what competition is and why from a business perspective it, or the potential, should never be ignored. Linux and competitors aren't something that can be squashed by new art from the graphics department and a longer startup noise. failure to take competition seriously has serious repercussions.
a parallel to draw is automotive manufacturers in the states. while luxury sedans from lexus and acura included more and more interesting and useful gadgets, better fuel efficiency and higher safety ratings, detroit was content cranking out escalade after escalade making increases only in size. 2009 was the first year the model actually saw a size decrease. for a $70k luxury suv it still doesnt include crash avoidance, lane departure detection, or laser cruise control as its competitors from lexus do.
Good people go to bed earlier.
NT was a microkernel, as originally designed and implemented by Dave Cutler and his team for Windows NT 3.51, however, they started putting more and more into the kernel from its old position in userspace starting from NT4. The most notable was the inclusion of the graphics subsystem into the kernel, which made NT4 less stable, but faster.
I couldn't say how much of Vista/Windows7 is microkernel, but considering they re-architected a lot so we could be protected from the evils of pirate music and video, its probably a fully monolithic kernel now.
gee, only took 'em 15 years to face the facts....
maybe next year they'll admit IE is a POS....
I don't know how you got Insightful. The OpenGroup, in the process of certifying something as Unix compliant and thus be able to use the Unix trademark, issues a testsuite which must compile and run successfully. One part of this test suite is POSIX compliance. Linux wouldn't pass this. As such, it would never be able to use the Trademark. So no, you are wrong, they aren't distinct at all, they are very related.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
Who would -want- to use a copy of Unix? Unix was a terrible operating system that had a few good ideas that were poorly implemented. The unix-releated systems we have today: Linux, *BSD, OSX, Solaris, HP-UX, etc are all huge improvements over original Unix implementations.
Linux is not a copy of Unix. Linux was originally designed to be a free alternative to Minix. Saying "Linux started out as a Minix clone" is more accurate than "Linux is a copy of Unix." Keyword: started. Linux started out as a clone of Minix, but has evolved into its own niche. Compare Minix-3 to Linux-2.6.*.
What was wrong about what he said ? OS X is a Unix variant, certified as UNIX 03 (since 10.5). Yes, it is built on a Mach kernel and uses BSD userland tools. But you know what, your facts and his facts weren't contradictions.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
Linux failed because netbook vendors shipped crappy non-standard distros. But Windows also failed because MS had to provide an 8 year old version of Windows to run on them, since their mainstream Vista barely works on top-of-the-line desktops.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
For many years now, MSFT's annual report has warned about the competative threat that Linux poses, including desktop, server and embedded platforms. There are several direct mentions of this in Microsoft's 2005 report, availble here: http://www.microsoft.com/msft/reports/ar05/staticversion/10k_fr_bus_06.html Old news.
If not "Unix variant" then what would you call Linux then? Linux isn't the only Unix knock off, there are the purer variants, such as FreeBSD and related. If you're going to claim that the Windows NT kernel was VMS "stolen by David Culter" then it would be equally valid to say that Linus Torvalds stole MINIX from Andrew Tanenbaum. PS: Culter was the head of 20 folks from DEC to work on Windows NT, all of whom worked on VMS.
There's a big difference between "threat" and "competition." This is stupid.
And the standards you have to follow to get a license for the unix trademark are a distinct thing again.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
The third way is to have an approach where modules/drivers can be built and loaded seperately from the main kernel but are still loaded into the same address space and run in kernel mode. Afaict this is the way that both windows and linux ended up going.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
You're right, it does. What's your point?
"I use Linux! ACKNOWLEDGE ME!! ACKNOWLEDGE ME!!" And yes, I do use Linux. So I'd appreciate it if somebody could mod this up so I feel acknowledged.
It seems the great linux menace has finally moved out of your imaginations and into the real world. Now, over a decade after its inception, linux has become loosely competitive with Windows in the client market. Pat yourselves on the back. You've done what Microsoft did for a couple hundred thousand dollars in the 80's with a mere $1.2 billion.
Linux is not Unix. It's a close approximation. For one, the base APIs are not fully POSIX compliant. Right there is a big hurdle to being Unix. If someone were to pony up the cash for certification (RedHat, Novell, Cannonical), there are issues yet to be fixed before it can be called UNIX, so it's not just a question of certifying it.
A weird thing has happened though, hasn't it? They've built linux up as its own fairly strong brand.. but I think the community does lack the attention to detail to make this jump, anyway. The linux kernel is pretty *messy* compared to even BSD. I think this small shift in functionality is probably harder to attain than they let on. At its very best, Linux is an almost-Unix.
If anyone really does need a full compliant UNIX, opensolaris is quite free.
Apparently you missed the words 'exclusive control' in #1.
I can use dictionary.com to define exclusive for you if you're not already aware of the definition of that word.
We can do this all day.
Ahh, Dave Cutler. The One who designed NT 4 and Win 2K.
I was just talking about him to some of my managers the other day and how Win2K - his last main project - was the last "good" Windows variant in my opinion.
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
Look again at the source code, the copyrights and authorship. It is most certainly _not_ a clone, neither legally nor functionally nor in quite a number of its core kernel functions. It's why cross-porting core software is sometimes so awkward.
Just because a court said something does not necessitate that something to make sense or have perfect wording. Those courts are headed by people, who make errors, and understand things less than 100% correctly.
So is language and dictionaries... you don't have a point.
I think Microsoft has been feeling the heat from open source for a while now. But, since their failure with Windows Vista, users are finally seeing the light that there are better alternatives out there. Considering Linux is still less than 2% of the desktop share, it can be set up by any moderately technical user and maintained. Which, hardly requires any maintenance. I am a sys admin for over 12 years running Windows and Linux side by side. I choose to use Linux because it doesn't fail, is always FREE and has no licensing woes, and just works better and is simpler to run. http://members.apex-internet.com/sa/windowslinux
Linux is not Unix. It's a close approximation. For one, the base APIs are not fully POSIX compliant. Right there is a big hurdle to being Unix.
You're mixing up design philosophy with standards mediated by random organizations.
By that measure, UNIX (in the lab at Bell Labs) isn't UNIX. That would be internally contradictory, so it's false.
It's both helpful and confusing to say, "Linux is unix, but it's not UNIX."
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Linux is great, but it bites the dust when compared against UNIXes like AIX and Solaris.
Really, it does.
To portray UNIX in that light is simply ignorant.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Geez. The OpenGroup is the owner of the UNIX Trademark. They get to decide what is and what isn't UNIX. The certification cost + testsuite decides that. If you can't pay or can't pass or both, you aren't Unix, exactly the situation which Linux is in and you can't call yourself UNIX. You'd think after numerous posts on this very subject people would know a thing or two about it now.
Everything I just said I already said, either you're trolling for attention or you're really clueless.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
Why is Google and Apple Missing? I think MS is blowing smoke up our collective backsides.
It sounds like the Linux community would say, that after long hopes to please please be loved... or at least hated..., Microsoft now finally pays them the attention that they so desperately need. And while it still is hatred, at least it is *something*.
Who in the community actually is *that* desperate and pathetic, that he needs the acknowledgment of Microsoft that Linux now is allowed to be a "big boy" and be "taken seriously"?? How weak must one's self-confidence be, if that is something even worth mentioning?
I really wonder where this comes from, as I see the Linux community as powerful, and so strongly growing, that the question is not if it will bring Microsoft to its knees, but when(, and how hard they will suck ^^).
And I think we won't even notice it, or remember that MS was relevant, when it's happening.
But maybe I'm from the big part of the Linux community, that's more self-confident, than those who try to imitate MS to no end. (The desktop environments mostly.)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Not much of a challenge then. Unless you were trying to challenge yourself to not be retarded, in which you just failed miserably.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
I heard a noise
My point is that the primary reference for definition of the word 'monopoly' holds that my understanding of the definition is correct.
Keep trying... you're doing it so hard...
I can't because part of the definition talks about exclusivity and complete control of a market... I can't just take a PART of the definition that is convenient and ignore the rest... Thats something a lawyer would do, our a shitty court.... like the people that are being 'referenced' as 'evidence' of such a case where a monopoly is not exclusive... lol.
Why don't you tell them for me now that you've been educated? You seem to be much more closely aware of their faults. I'm not interested in telling every fool out there about their misuse of words --- only you, so far.
Why don't you tell them for me now that you've been educated? You seem to be much more closely aware of their faults. I'm not interested in telling every fool out there about their misuse of words --- only you, so far.
You are the one who cited the Dictionary.com definition not me. If you were not interested you would not have cited the definition.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
and ever since, its been style over substance from MS. Unfortunately, they've got him working on Azure now, hopefully he's just doing that for a laugh.
http://www.google.co.uk/products?q=netbook%20linux&oe=utf-8&rls=com.ubuntu:en-US:unofficial&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wf
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
http://www.google.co.uk/products?q=netbook%20linux&oe=utf-8&rls=com.ubuntu:en-US:unofficial&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wf
There was nothing like this 2 or 3 years ago. Nothing.
Progress is slow, but steady.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
They have a complete monopoly on the sale of "WIndows" and certain awful server software and browser. Fortunately for everyone else, people are learning that alternative operating systems work all right too, especially when Windows is so expensive.