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Microsoft Buys Teamprise, Will Ship Linux Tools
spongman writes "Microsoft's Senior Vice President, Developer Division, S. Somasegar has announced that Microsoft has acquired Teamprise from Sourcegear, LLC, and will be shipping it as part of the upcoming Visual Studio 2010 release. Teamprise is an Eclipse plugin (and related tools) for connecting to Team Foundation Server, Microsoft's source-control/project-management system. What's most interesting about this is not only that Microsoft has realized that heterogeneous development platforms are important to their developer customers, but the fact that Microsoft themselves will now be developing and shipping products based on those heterogeneous platforms, including 5 versions of Unix."
I rather have the equivalent of VS on Linux than just another Eclipse plug-in. Here comes the Embrace...
It isn't the first time. Microsoft used to provide tools for accessing Visual SourceSafe repositories from UNIX. Needless to say, these tools were utterly terrible yet allowed them to claim that VSS "supported UNIX". I don't expect Microsoft to go out of their way to "support UNIX" this time around any more than they did previously.
"If Microsoft ever does applications for Linux it means I've won." - Linus Torvalds
This is software for accessing repositories stored in Microsoft's "Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server " from Linux and Eclipse. I have never seen a usable Microsoft POSIX or Linux product; even if they don't deliberately sabotage it, they apparently don't have the expertise to produce such a thing. Teamprise may have some capable Linux developers now, but how long do you think those are going to stay?
You're much better off throwing out Microsoft's crappy server software and replacing it with a nice, high quality open source solution. Not only do you get better version control and team software, you're also assured that the Linux and Eclipse clients will keep working.
Microsoft doesn't need to control open source. Microsoft just needs to put it in a pretty box that someone is willing to pay for.
When they have shown by their actions, over seven years, that they have changed, than and only than will I consider purchasing Microsoft products again.
For each violation, I reset my 7 year clock from that day. Just reset it this week.
Basing my purchase decisions on their actions ONLY and not their marketing FUD, is the only way I can be sure not to ever be vendor locked-in ever again. So much time and money has been wasted by me, my friends, my family and other IT professionals over the last 20+ years...wasteful and unnecessary.
I will believe it when I see it. To date it has always been FUD!
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Much like Apple did. This isn't a poor attempt at a troll -- if Microsoft want a hold on open-source software they could do worse than follow the kind of approach Apple took. Leave many of the guts the same, but pay professionals to fully sculpt the UI that the open-source programmer is less likely to be interested in designing. This wouldn't necessarily have to be an operating system (why would Microsoft want an open-source OS to compete with Windows? As a replacement, perhaps, but given the money they make from Windows I'd doubt they'll concede defeat in selling operating systems easily) but any software at all. I'm sure most people here are well aware that presentation and useability are two of open-source software's failings. Too many people say "But I don't care how it looks. If it works, what more do I want?" and forget that this isn't how the vast bulk of people think...
That is announced on ... Friday 13th. Halloween is over, so could it be they needed another telling day?
> but the fact that Microsoft themselves will now be developing and shipping products based on those heterogeneous platforms, including 5 versions of Unix."
Are you sure? You may find Microsoft do the same thing here and just strip the Linux functionality out. When Microsoft took over Connectix and their excellent Virtual PC Software and proceeded to strip Linux functionality (that was already there) out of the product. On the Connectix version there was a Linux utility that handled control back to Windows when the CPU was idle. On the Microsoft version they took that out, so the CPU always ran at 100%. It made Virtual PC useless for Linux.
Microsoft has a policy to not use open source, because they can't guarantee it's pedigree. If a malicious person puts stolen code into an OSS project (or more realistically, if a programmer uses company resources to develop the code, without permission from the company; or somebody pastes GPL code into a BSD project) then people who rely on the code might be vulnerable to lawsuits. http://weblogs.asp.net/jgalloway/archive/2007/05/02/why-microsoft-can-t-ship-open-source-code.aspx
At least, that's their excuse.
If open source was such a dangerous thing to touch, then I think Google, IBM and Apple would have been hit already.
Would you buy a used horse from a convicted horse-rapist?
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Wrong reasoning for IBM and Google.
Some time ago (don't know if it is still this way) IBM was divided basically in two separate blocks, one working on OSS and the other on proprietary closed source software with the veto of the two sharing any piece of code for fear of accidenta infringement.
Google, instead, offers basically no proprietary, closed source software. The software is either on their server (and thus allowed to contain GPL code and still be kept private because it is not distributed) or OOS (Chrome). Possible exception: Picasa, I have to check :)
Surely any code could have code copied in breach of copyright in it?
Lemme guess: Home, Ultimate, Pro, Pro-er, and Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
The algorithm is slightly more sophisticated:
Every company starts with a 6 months grace period, where we will not by their product. Every time they do something unintentionally evil, the grace period starts over. Every time they do something intentionally evil, the grace period is multiplied by 1.4 and starts over.
This worked fine until 1997, when MS' grace period became longer then the remaining lifespan of the universe, sparking suspicion that they planned to use a buffer overflow to reset their grace period. It was thus decided to limit the grace period to 7 years, to avoid possible bugs in the algorithm. Of course, MS' conduct after the revision have dismissed the theory, but the 7 year grace period remains.
The 7 year period have also made it possible to purchase IBM goods again, after their grace period had over 9000 since the early 80's.
...it is irrelevant.
Stallman might not like it, though.
But we are talking about Linus now.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
Microsoft has the manpower and the money to deliver. Their problem is backwards compatibility cruft and hardware support if they would start over.
Given the fact that Linux already poses a thread to Windows, it would not hurt for Microsoft do develop and releasy a Unix(y), free software OS alongside of Windows. Why?
A) To prove that they can actually make a good OS. Press and restecpa right there.
B) They can offer a stable and advanced OS to people/companies that do not care about legacy compatibility.
C) They can always port over a closed source version of Office and make it compatible with exchange and whatnot (and release that code under a free software license that is like the GPL, but isn't so that Linux projects can't take over that very code
D) Keep marketshare. If people don't want to use Windows anyway; they can use their other OS.
Everybody would probably be happy.
Here be signatures
Honestly if you believe that you haven't spent enough time on non-linux *nixes.
I spent a bout a few years back on freebsd/openbsd. Without linux compatibility libraries there are a *TON* of open source applications that will not compile against *bsd without patching due to linuxisms used in their source. I don't have any specific citations to speak of, but it shouldn't take much work to google around and see just how many hassles there are. And that is BEFORE including 'obsolete' linux kernel versions, 2.4, 2.2, 2.0, some of which are the best version for the hardware you're running (90 percent of consumer electronics running linux seem to be stuck on patched 2.4 kernels and uclibc, trying compiling most linux apps against either of those!)
My point being: For all the gripes about Windows incompatibility, the average linux developer is just as oblivious to x-platform compatibility, and often more likely to be compatible with Windows than other *nixes.
Just my 2 cents.
Quick disclaimer: I don't use TFS, and don't care for integrated solutions - not just MS, but any of them.
> ...using TFS was the first time I realized how much an integrated source control, team collaboration
> site, project management integrated solution makes sense.
In some scenarios. I know any number of companies where the MS integrated solution you use would fail utterly to be useful, because the people would not use the tools properly. Not just developers, but project managers, users, etc.
The *nix/open source advocates generally don't favor all-in-one packaged systems. The vast majority of the time, the system has specific, glaring deficiencies, While it often works well for a specific group, it fails to support others adequately.
This condemnation has been levied against Eclipse regularly, and from personal experience, I can tell you that the Visual Studio IDE alone, while it is absolutely adored by many, is in many ways a useless tinkertoy for others. MS (and other all-in-one solution providers) don't provide the perfect experience. They target a specific group, and often their "solutions" actively undercut the work of others. Some specifics:
> * Integrated work items with specialized and extensible work item types for tasks, bugs, issues etc.
Working with a system now at one assignment that is remarkably poor. It works beautifully...for on-call help desk support. It actively -impedes- tracking of bugs and tasks for development. I actually use a full external tool and update the approved system at the end. This is awfully inefficient: only 10 times more productive than trying to use the approved tool.
> * Work items, tasks, issues etc. editable through a web interface, but also right from inside the IDE.
That's handy - if everyone uses it. Where I'm on assignment, no one can be bothered to update information. I track things in my a web-enabled system, as I said. Several times a week, someone asks me to print out information in that system. It's become the system of record for a lot of this information, and anyone can use it; but I'm the only one who does. Everyone else's data is in little silos.
> * Work items, tasks, issues etc. editable through Excel or some other spreadsheet (regrettably project
> managers favorite tool is *still* Excel - but having it integrated so the rest of us don't have to
> mock around inside columns and rows to update status is a big relief).
Again, handy -- if anyone uses it. Not so handy when people actively break it by mucking around with the Excel sheets.
Just kill Excel use.
> * Source control without quirks when e.g. renaming files or removing files and adding files back with the
> same names (I've had bad experience with subversion)
Others have complained about similar issues, but they aren't universal. Chances are you're not managing the files properly in subversion. But subversion isn't the be-all and the end-all of open source revision control. It was never intended to be, just a better CVS.
Git is very nice, and there are -many- others to look at. Check Wikipedia.
> * Shelving - storage of not-completed changes on the server without checking in. We use it to share
> suggestions and if we cannot make the daily deadline on consistent check-ins.
Never used it. Frankly sounds like a hack; why not use a branch?
> * Configurable policy which can be set to reject commits/check-ins if a build has not been completed
> locally and/or if too many tests fails and/or if test coverage is too low and/or if there are too
> many/certain warnings (e.g. security related).
> * Dashboard with project manager-friendly roll-ups and graphs with speed, test coverage, test
> completions, tasks, status etc.
Tons of options and tools. Again, not an "integrated" one I can recommend, as I don't care for integrated.
> * Branching based on metadata - not on actual directory copying and separat