Codeplex 100 Day Deadline Passes Unremarked

Andy Updegrove writes "As you may recall, Microsoft announced back on September 10 that it had launched a new, open source organization called the CodePlex Foundation. Since then, it has announced Project Acceptance and Operation Guidelines, its first 'Gallery' (a project area), supporting Microsoft's ASP.NET, and two projects in that gallery. But it had also launched in a 'less than open' state with an interim Board of Directors, and a promise to elect a permanent one in 100 days. Problem is, December 19 — the 100 day mark — passed quietly, with no announcement of a new Board or a status update on the other goals it had set for the launch period. So what's up with the CodePlex Foundation, and its pledge to promptly transition into a more independent organization?"

Comments

Lessig on what plex is really important

[H4x0r Jim Duggan]

Larry Lessig has put out a video explaining that FSF is the organisation which is really helping computer users: fsf-2009-larrylessig.ogv.

Code Plex was always just a PR move, let's not get caught up in the hype.

Re:Lessig on what plex is really important

[cybrthng]

No matter how much people hate Microsoft, comments like this may me despise the free software movement. Somehow, i have this idea that MS providing 50,000 jobs, Microsoft funneling BILLIONS into research and believe it or not, Microsoft making some great products is a *GOOD* thing. The FSF has its merits and should do more to be a leader of what MS could do rather than dividing the community into believers or non believers for all the wrong reasons.

As for codeplex itself, there is some amazing projects in there and i doubt MS is gonna piss away the effort. THey're just like google in many ways with their online presence where they test the waters and see if it sticks, but that *IS* business my friends.

Re:Lessig on what plex is really important

[Nadaka]

There is a ring of truth to what you say. Microsoft does hire a lot of people, and pays them pretty well. They have proven they can do at least second-third best compared to similar products in most fields, even if it takes them a while to get there. Yes, MS is in it for the money, and they do play dirty pool, but they are not exactly a raging demon out to consume your soul just for spite.

However, on the front of Open Source? FSF is a leader, Microsoft is not.

Re:Lessig on what plex is really important

[H4x0r Jim Duggan]

Microsoft has filled homes, offices and universities with software that the billions of users can't change. How many jobs would be created if all the offices, homes and universities had the option to pay someone to add a feature or make whatever changes? Or to organise themselves as a company to make the changes themselves and offer support or further development?

How much progress would be made if software development wasn't bottle necked by having only one company in the world able to do development of that operating system?

Re:Lessig on what plex is really important

[Antique Geekmeister]

Given Microsoft's history of embrace and extend, and the resulting interference with open standards such as Java and Kerberos, and their gaming of open standards for OpenOffice, saying that they "provide jobs" is like saying that the Mafia support the local police. Microsoft has a history of software development, but it's not founded on innovation. It's founded on theft. Take a good look at the current Microsoft Word and XML lawsuits with lfj: they stole wholesale from developers who shard information with them as business partners. And this sort of thing is _typical_ of them.

The FSF is very cautious in order to keep its hands clean. Involvement in obviously "tainted" projects such as Codeplex could put free software projects at risk of Microsoft's litigious behavior, and at risk of losing the "free as in speech" part of FSF software by having the code "extended", without source code or with patent encumberment, by Microsoft, and forcing free software developers to play catchup. That's been happening with Samba for years, it happened with Kerberos in Active Directory (described here at Slashdot at http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/03/02/0958226&mode=thread), it happened with Java (which was finally settled out of court in Sept. 2009), and it keeps happening.

Trusting Microsoft and cooperating in Codeplex to "help create jobs" is like buying heroin to "stimulate the economy in Afghanistan".

Re:Lessig on what plex is really important

[Anonymous Coward]

This attitude is possibly part of the reason CodePlex has not been turned over. Who wants the thankless job? Who wants to be labeled a sell out?

To be sure, CodePlex is as much about helping Microsoft as it is about helping the developers.

But here is a clue. If something did happen to MS and they were gone, people would NOT flock to the Linux or any other free OS. Instead someone would rise up to the MS position.

I am not a huge fan of the way M$ does business. But they have advanced the way we interact with computers.

Re:Lessig on what plex is really important

[DXLster]

Now tha'ts just silly. there are tens of thousands of Microsoft development partners around the world, and developing modifications to Microsoft products is a multi-billion dollar industry. Every product the sell has a robust API.

I've competed against Microsoft products relentlessly for the last 17 years, but the very first thing they are guaranteed to do on any project is create an extension API and provide thorough documentation on it.

Re:Lessig on what plex is really important

[csdahlberg]

I have always seen the diversity of OSS as both its biggest strength and the most significant reason it isn't more widely adopted. As you point out, it would be possible for anyone to modify existing software to add or modify features, which ought to be a good thing. However, it also means it would be possible to use "linux" at ten different jobs and have ten completely different experiences. A big advantage of Microsoft products is that they CAN'T be changed by everyone and a user's experience with, for example, Windows 7 will be damn near the same anywhere they go.

Re:Lessig on what plex is really important

[noidentity]

No matter how much people hate Microsoft, comments like this may me despise the free software movement. Somehow, i have this idea that MS providing 50,000 jobs

Agreed! OSS is pathetic in this regard, providing almost no jobs in malware authoring, virus removal program writing, independent PC technicians removing said malware, and books helping users understand the problem. The OSS people prefer to let some kernel code wipe out all those opportunities. They don't understand how valuable these jobs are in an economic situation like this.

Re:Lessig on what plex is really important

[DAldredge]

I refuse to accept that Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation have done more for freedom then those who liberated Europe, who fought to end slavery or who fought for civil rights. How could any educated person make the following statement? The Free Software Foundation's work represents the most important work for freedom that this culture has seen in many many generations. Lawrence "Larry" Lessig

Re:Lessig on what plex is really important

[Anonymous Coward]

"Every product the(y) sell has a robust API." They may provide a robust API, but you can be sure that they will not document enough to allow you to compete with them if your product takes off. If MS sees a big enough market for your product they will swallow you up and make a "better" product with the help of a few undocumented hooks that you don't have access to. Or they may just change/add features often enough that make it difficult for you to keep up with the MS product that you are trying to compete with.

Re:Lessig on what plex is really important

[Ansoni-San]

Bullshit. Those people that Microsoft employ already had degrees / education in the field they work in.

You think that if Microsoft wasn't around they'd suddenly lose all interest in their industries? You think that computers aren't a commodity? Someone or something would _have_ to fill the space. And that something and those companies would provide jobs.

The only way that argument holds is if the size of the industry was completely dependant on Microsoft, and that if they were not here people would simply do without computers. A ridiculous idea.

Microsoft don't make any wild innovations, whether they have great products or not. They don't provide anything irreplacable to the industry at all. If they disappeared tomorrow I fail to see any huge change in the nature of the industry, apart from the practical issues of an abandoned platform. Actually I can see a lot of good, healthy change coming from it, as long as it happened slow enough.

Re:Lessig on what plex is really important

[wigaloo]

No matter how much people hate Microsoft, comments like this may me despise the free software movement.

And comments like this make me despise Microsoft shills. Let's pick apart the argument and see what holds muster.

Somehow, i have this idea that MS providing 50,000 jobs, Microsoft funneling BILLIONS into research and believe it or not, Microsoft making some great products is a *GOOD* thing.

Your presumption here is that these 50,000 jobs, research funding and products would not exist without Microsoft. That's not correct. Microsoft was convicted of abusing their monopoly power which was used to put competitors out of business -- competitors that right now would be employing people, doing research, and producing products. It is generally accepted around here that Mircosoft held back the advancement of IT for some years. Only when Firefox came on the scene did Microsoft start developing IE again. And we should be thankful for this? Sheesh.

The FSF has its merits and should do more to be a leader of what MS could do rather than dividing the community into believers or non believers for all the wrong reasons.

I have never understood the hate-on some people have for Stallman and the FSF. Stallman's accomplishments are really amazing. He's no doubt a mad genius -- but still a genius despite his eccentricity. What he has to say is almost always +5 interesting, whether or not I agree with it or not. It's too bad he doesn't contribute to slashdot.

As far as dividing the community into believers and non-believers, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said that "Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches". So, there is plenty of blame to be placed on both sides of the problem. Or is this to be excused as good business in Microsoft's case?

As for codeplex itself, there is some amazing projects in there and i doubt MS is gonna piss away the effort. THey're just like google in many ways with their online presence where they test the waters and see if it sticks, but that *IS* business my friends.

The GP cautions us not to get caught up in the hype. That seems quite sensible given what you just said.

Re:Lessig on what plex is really important

[betterunixthanunix]

"However, it also means it would be possible to use "linux" at ten different jobs and have ten completely different experiences."

Which is exactly why the FSF's philosophy on calling it "GNU/Linux" has some merit -- "Linux" as a catch-all term for operating systems that use a Linux kernel causes massive confusion. I happen to use Fedora, but I still frequently get questions about Ubuntu, many of them completely unanswerable for someone who is not an Ubuntu user (e.g. things related to configuration, packages, etc.). This is why I prefer to use the name of the distro, which is less ambiguous.

"A big advantage of Microsoft products is that they CAN'T be changed by everyone and a user's experience with, for example, Windows 7 will be damn near the same anywhere they go."

In reality, though, most Linux users spend little time hacking their system, or if they do they are only hacking one particular package, so the situation is exactly what you described: Fedora 12 will be nearly identical everywhere you go (except a possibly different window manager/desktop environment).

Re:Lessig on what plex is really important

[cybrthng]

What are you talking about? Windows isn't a closed eco-system, beyond the 50,000 employed directly by Microsoft there are hundreds of thousands if not MILLIONS of jobs created to implement, maintain, enhance, extend and embrace Microsoft products. MS doesn't lock you in to anything and in the case of schools and businesses those businesses are choosing to lock-in to a specific vendor for business reasons - not ideological ones.

Believe it or not, the world wants accountability and you don't get that with open source since the accountability falls squarely on your own resources in most cases. People want a large resource pool, people want a stable business, support they can rely on and an infrastructure than can grow with their business.

There is plenty of open source software regardless of the platform to support academia, small businesses and those that simply hate Microsoft. There is also plenty of Commercial software as well.

Re:Lessig on what plex is really important

[omb]

Extension APIs are exactly the last thing you want, the standard Windoze API is 150 (15000%) times too large, and we dont need any more, especially designed as M$ does it, ie to create a lock in.

This is exemplified by the London Sock Exchange trading system built by a consortium of M$ and Accenture which (a) was non performant and (b) wouldnt stay up: Just for once the Right Thing (TM) happend and both the CIO and the system got shit canned.

What this tells us is (a) the extension API game is a con, (b) where there is enough riding on it corruption of CIOs and vendor bullshit get swept aside.

Amusingly I saw a Journalist piece blaming problems with SAN system on the POSIX api while ignoring the fact that the vendor's SAN protocol would not support the extensions he was complaining were missing. The fact is the IT press is 98% full of stuff written by people who dont know what they are talking about.

Re:Lessig on what plex is really important

[Anonymous Coward]

No matter how much people hate Microsoft, comments like this may me despise the free software movement.

Wow, random comments from some people on the internet are enough to make you "despise the free software movement"? You need to get out more.

Somehow, i have this idea that MS providing 50,000 jobs, Microsoft funneling BILLIONS into research and believe it or not, Microsoft making some great products is a *GOOD* thing.

Strawman 101. Nobody said those things aren't good. It's some of those other things, like, oh, I don't know, calling the GPL a cancer, infusing SCO with the cash they need to pursue their legal assaults, buying off ISO, that bother those of us who actually like Free software. Nice troll though.

The FSF has its merits and should do more to be a leader of what MS could do rather than dividing the community into believers or non believers for all the wrong reasons.

Yep, they should lay down and just "Be coooooool, maaaaan." Welcome to the real world where sometimes you have to actually defend your ideals with actual vigor. When a multi-billion dollar corporation is waging all-out war against you (see my previous paragraph for just a couple of the fronts), you don't just act like it's okay. You personally don't have to agree. Fine, well I do.

As for codeplex itself, there is some amazing projects in there i doubt MS is gonna piss away the effort.

There are amazing projects in a lot of places. Codeplex isn't anything special in that regard. However its governance is stacked with MS cronies and, this article seems particularly pertinent, that doesn't appear to be about to change.

i doubt MS is gonna piss away the effort.

Another strawman. Trust me, this "effort" isn't going to be pissed away.

THey're just like google in many ways with their online presence where they test the waters and see if it sticks, but that *IS* business my friends.

Yeah, they're a whole lot like Google. Too much. If they'd stop the me-too crap and actually innovate in ways that create new markets instead of trying to to siphon off of others like they've been doing for 30 years maybe their stock wouldn't have flat-lined for the better part of 10 years while at the same time Google and Apple have soared. If I were a share holder of the 2 trick pony that MS is (Windows and Office), I'd be royally pissed. Nothing else they do makes money. Video games, online services, media players, you name it, it loses money. Should they branch out? Of course, how many more copies of Windows do you ship when you own 90 percent of the market? But, at the risk of repeating myself, how about creating new markets and actually enriching the lives of your customers?

Re:Lessig on what plex is really important

[Richard_at_work]

This is exemplified by the London Sock Exchange trading system built by a consortium of M$ and Accenture which (a) was non performant and (b) wouldnt stay up: Just for once the Right Thing (TM) happend and both the CIO and the system got shit canned.

Its amusing, but sadly not exactly surprising that the LSE's systems failure and resulting switch to Linux in October 2009 was heavily covered here on Slashdot, with much mirth directed at Microsoft, but the serious systems failure and several hour outage in November (26/11/2009 - after the switch to the Linux based system) was never mentioned here...

The replacement for the MS system is not without its own issues.

Re:Lessig on what plex is really important

[msuarezalvarez]

In what way does Windows provide accountability?

Re:Lessig on what plex is really important

[sorak]

Couldn't the same argument be made for a king or dictator?

"This guy has 90% of the money in his country, and controls a government that employs tens of thousands of people. Without him, they would have no government, no roads. They would all be poor and unemployed. Long live the King!"

Power!=Philanthropy

Re:Lessig on what plex is really important

[ThePhilips]

The replacement for the MS system is not without its own issues.

By saying that you miss the major point: what are the risks?

Issues might and do happen in every piece of software different from the helloworld.c.

If you go with closed source solution, you are at the mercy of a 3rd party. If you go with open source system you have an option to replace the 3rd party if it is not delivering. Or even hire full-rime people to run the operations.

N.B. Note that "closed source" != "proprietary". Some commercial systems used to run infrastructures of the scale often come with the source code. Users are not allowed to distribute it, but patching/optimizing/etc is perfectly fine. As user concerned, they are open source.

In particular case of LSE, operational costs of the system itself are much higher than the cost of software used to run it. And on top of that, you have number of third parties you have to deal with and coordinate constantly. It was only natural for LSE to -eventually- come to the point where they have full control over system.

That way, LSE might be actually paying more for running open source system, yet risks are much more manageable. (*) Something with closed source software you can achieve only with exceptionally good 3rd party partners. And such partners are very very very rare.

(*) Manageable: no, not necessarily lower risks, but manageable. Downtimes per se are not the problem - the unplanned downtimes are.

Re:Lessig on what plex is really important

[mspohr]

They decided to move to Linux in Oct 2009. The latest outage was in November 2009 on the old system. They haven't moved to the new Linux system yet (hint: it takes more than a month). So we can run this up the Slashdot flagpole and all have another round of bashing Microsoft of their lousy LSE software if you want.

Re:Lessig on what plex is really important

[Anonymous Coward]

Typical DAldredge emotional appeal bs. How much do you get paid to post this filibuster-esque crap?

Re:Lessig on what plex is really important

[gestalt_n_pepper]

Uh, I add new features to Windows every day. They're called "applications" written in vb.net or C# using nothing more than Window's free Express IDEs.

Darn that evil Microsoft! Giving away free development tools and application samples. Communists! Communists, I say!

Re:Lessig on what plex is really important

[ThePhilips]

People want a large resource pool, people want a stable business, support they can rely on and an infrastructure than can grow with their business.

You apparently never ran an IT department but read too much MSFT's PR.

Microsoft's support is well known to be one of the clumsiest (unless you are an extremely important customer to them).

Their licensing model also often limits the growth of the business.

Believe it or not, the world wants accountability and you don't get that with open source since the accountability falls squarely on your own resources in most cases.

That's silly. Accountability doesn't depend on software type. It does depend who's you have hired as a your integrator. There are plenty of integrators who would install and help you operate whatever software you wish to have - either closed source or open source.

Otherwise, good luck trying to keep MSFT accountable....

Re:Lessig on what plex is really important

[GaryOlson]

How many jobs would be created if [people] had the option to pay someone to add a feature or make whatever changes? Or to organize themselves as a company to make the changes themselves ...

Not many. The largest percentage of people are followers/consumers; not creators or leaders. Microsoft, and other similar companies, provide a product which most people want: a tool which requires no thinking or effort on the part of the user.

To use a car analogy -- when was the last time your created and attached a custom part to your automobile engine?

Re:Lessig on what plex is really important

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey fucko! Parent was talking about modifying Windows, not piling .Net poo on top of it.

Re:Lessig on what plex is really important

[aix tom]

Some commercial systems used to run infrastructures of the scale often come with the source code. Users are not allowed to distribute it, but patching/optimizing/etc is perfectly fine.

We run two of such systems. We don't have all the necessary tools and manpower to actually change anything big, but the one first really BIG great thing about them is that whenever you have an unexplainable problem that even the support is not able to track down is that you can just LOOK at the code (and maybe add some small additional debugging output) and try to figure out what causes the problem yourself.

Also, the most problematic things are not usually "outages", since they can be resolved reasonably quick. The thing that takes forever, or is a lot of times never solved with completely closed source, is the sporadic errors. We have a closes source system that just creates wrong invoices 2-3 times a months for years now. The vendor is unable to track down the problem, and also doesn't want to give out any source code. (I managed to sneak a peek at a few procedures, though, and I know why. It's a horrible mess of spaghetti - code and workarounds.)

Re:Lessig on what plex is really important

[celle]

"...out to consume your soul just for spite."

No, just for profit which is worse.

Re:Lessig on what plex is really important

[Anonymous Coward]

To turn your question around:
How much technological progress would be made if development followed the free software movement's strategy of shunting research and simply refining existing tools and ideas?

FSF and MS have different aims and can coexist. MS has contributed more to the technology behind software, while FSF has done more to advance policy discussions and access of software (and as such I would argue it has done more to improve software usability). People who criticize these institutions by saying MS should be more socially conscious or FSF should focus more on research are missing the purpose of these institutions.

Re:Lessig on what plex is really important

[machine321]

Which is exactly why the FSF's philosophy on calling it "GNU/Linux" has some merit

Thanks, and here I thought it was just RMS's way of attaching the FSF to someone who could actually finish a kernel.

Re:Lessig on what plex is really important

[mustafap]

>Microsoft making some great products is a *GOOD* thing

Could you expand on this? What great products do they make?

Re:Lessig on what plex is really important

[Anonymous Coward]

> they do play dirty pool, but they are not exactly a raging demon out to consume your soul just for spite.

Of course not. There's no profit in spite. They simply strong-arm everyone in the market until they control it. You become one if their "partners" at your peril. If you're lucky, you sell out to them. If you're not, they take your technology and steamroll you like i4i.

Re:Lessig on what plex is really important

[cybrthng]

I work for a defense contractor and you bet your beans MS provides top notch support. We also use open source software however it is "at your own risk" and no project manager or implementation team jumps on the open source bandwagon because of the risk of having to to it yourself or find your own resources to handle it above and beyond what can be accomplished via a support contract or phone call.

Re:Lessig on what plex is really important

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, MS is in it for the money, and they do play dirty pool, but they are not exactly a raging demon out to consume your soul just for spite.

They play dirty pool. As an honorable pool player I'm not gonna play with them any more. I don't care if they play a clean game of football. I play pool, not football. See the difference?

Apples and oranges. Just because your nice to people who eat apples doesn't mean that people who eat oranges should be happy. Especially if you routinely say that oranges infringe on apples and are a cancer on all fruit.

Re:Lessig on what plex is really important

[Anonymous Coward]

What does Windoze and M$ mean you freetard faggot?

Re:Lessig on what plex is really important

[VGPowerlord]

I work for a state government, and we also get (as far as I know) top notch support from Microsoft. I suppose it helps that we're also one of their biggest clients (presumably) for Bing Maps.

Re:Lessig on what plex is really important

[VGPowerlord]

I have never understood the hate-on some people have for Stallman and the FSF. Stallman's accomplishments are really amazing. He's no doubt a mad genius -- but still a genius despite his eccentricity. What he has to say is almost always +5 interesting, whether or not I agree with it or not. It's too bad he doesn't contribute to slashdot.

Because these days, Stallman comes off as an anti-progressive luddite.

No, seriously, by his own admission, Stallman prints off web sites to read them! I can understand this if it were 10-15 years ago, but he said this in 2009!

Re:Lessig on what plex is really important

[Anonymous Coward]

bleh yet another moron modded insightful in slashdot. Happy 2010!

Re:Lessig on what plex is really important

[RockDoctor]

The vendor is unable to track down the problem, and also doesn't want to give out any source code. (I managed to sneak a peek at a few procedures, though, and I know why. It's a horrible mess of spaghetti - code and workarounds.)

Now there's a good reason for hiding your code - embarrassment.

(And yes, I do feel embarrassed about some of the things that I hack together to do my job. But since I'm paid as a user, not a developer, I don't feel too embarrassed.)

Re:Lessig on what plex is really important

[MrResistor]

Yes, MS is finally providing free dev tools, now that they've been in direct competition for several years with a platform that has always had free dev tools. Never mind that their free dev tools are limited (the competition's are not) and you don't have access to any of the important source code (the competition makes all source available, free of charge)...

Re:Lessig on what plex is really important

[MrResistor]

virus removal program writing, independent PC technicians removing said malware, and books helping users understand the problem.

You know, it suddenly occurs to me that this is the real world equivalent of "telephone sanitizers".

Re:Lessig on what plex is really important

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, if by "finally" you mean, since 2005, that's correct. As for the source, I've never really needed it. I have rewritten a few things (split had a bad timeout), but it's not been a problem.

Typical Microsoft

[peragrin]

it is a standard MSFT tactic, announce something awesome and deliver something that is barely good enough. Not even slashdot is big enough to list every product MSFT has announced but failed to actually implement. It has been in use for so long it is the reason most people are tired of MSFT. It is also why the Opposite of MSFT Apple gets so much free press for product that they haven't even announced yet. Apple lets the rumor mill drive forward occasionally shutting down one source only to fuel the frenzy even more. However apple only announces real products with the feature sets fixed. (there are exceptions)

Next week MSFT engineers will announce an FTL drive coming in the next 10-20 years just to stay ahead of the stuff they have already promised.

Re:Typical Microsoft

[cybrthng]

How is this funny or even on topic? Codeplex already exists.. the foundation appears to be seeking a new director and thats about it. As far as answering the question regarding the 100 days why not email the existing board and ask them directly? The info is on the foundation website.

Duh..

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a site for programmers, sure it isn't 0x100 days?

Maybe they're waiting...

[davecrusoe]

... to hire their new Open Source Community Engagement Expert, to run it? Can't find the link, but it was /.'d a few days ago...

Re:Maybe they're waiting...

[cybrthng]

Its on the front page of: http://codeplex.org/index.aspx

Re:Maybe they're waiting...

[symbolset]

He's not looking for that one. He's looking for this one. [Google cache]

Re:Typical Microsoft (but not typical)

[Anonymous Coward]

"apple only announces real products with the feature sets fixed. (there are exceptions)"

Right. The old, say something, then immediately contradict yourself, invalidating your own argument, ploy.

Whats the big deal

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux was suppose to take over the desktop, what, say 10 years ago? Nothing much on that front either.
Give me a break, this is news? Only to those desperate to bash Microsoft.
I code in C#, I use Windows. I do not feel welcomed at SourceForge. I will use CodePlex because regardless of it's backers, it is a friendlier community to me.

Re:Whats the big deal

[cheesybagel]

That is funny. I programmed a C# project (for Windows) and submitted it to SourceForge, with no problems at all.

If you check the list of the top SourceForge projects, most are for Windows only, or have a Windows version available. If there are few C# projects, it is because it is perceived as a language to write in-house business app crapola by developers and users.

CodePlex does not support GPLv3. Why? Is it really that different from Eclipse Public License or Microsoft Public License? Or is this some kind of holy war? They support GPLv2.

Re:Whats the big deal

[hairyfeet]

For the same reason that Google and pretty much any other Major corporation that don't directly make their living off Linux avoids GPL V3 like the plague? It is because of RMS and his "Anti-TiVo" clause which made sure businesses would avoid GPL V3. After all nobody wants the mission critical app they are using to be the next target for an RMS rant.

And let us be honest here, okay? If TiVo would have done as RMS demanded and made the TiVo hackable, how many here think they would still be in business? Anyone? Of course not, because in less than a week there would be "Free TiVo by Reloaded" hacks and "How to get all the content off a TiVo and burn it to anything you want!!" tutorials and either TiVo would go broke from lack of subscriptions or more likely big content would have those things banned faster than you can say DMCA.

I think that the anti-TiVo clause in GPL V3 pretty much shows that RMS frankly don't give a flying shit about compromise or working to get along with anyone, only in his freedom and making sure he gets what he wants, fuck everybody else. TiVo was already sharing the source, and he could have sat down and tried to work out a way to share without putting them out of business, but he don't care about that. Frankly I don't blames businesses for avoiding GPL V3 like the clap, and am glad that Linus is gonna keep the kernel GPL V2 or I'm willing to bet that Linux...excuse me GNULinux would lose all the gains they've gotten in places like cell phones and embedded devices and dry up and blow away like a fart in the wind.

Who would want to risk their new cell phone line getting banned because of hackers, or wasting millions of dollars on R&D and manufacturing thanks to hackers being able to easily screw you over? If FLOSS has to have a spokesman let be it Linus and not the uber-radical RMS. At least Linus knows that life requires compromise and that Linux and business can coexist. I mean RMS is so radical that he uses a rare Loongson ARM based netbook because that was the only PC that matched his definition of "free". Hell he even thought the bloody OLPC wasn't "free" enough because he couldn't get the code for the wireless firmware, for the love of Pete!

Considering the one place Linux really needs to gain traction is with "Joe Normal" consumers having a guy that doesn't even want to allow non "free" firmware and would rather the consumer jump through flaming hoops or do without half their hardware just to remain "free" is really not the greatest guy to be listening to now, don't ya think?

Re:Whats the big deal

[vadim_t]

The GPL3 is what Stallman wanted to make in the first place, he just didn't go far enough.

His original issue was the printer driver. Obviously if he had a driver with full source but the machine prevented the fixed driver from working, it wouldn't have been any better.

Personally I like the GPL3 and will preferentially support companies that don't have a problem with it. I want hardware I can mess with. I will pay for that. I won't pay for closed Apple-like systems.

And let us be honest here, okay? If TiVo would have done as RMS demanded and made the TiVo hackable, how many here think they would still be in business? Anyone? Of course not, because in less than a week there would be "Free TiVo by Reloaded" hacks and "How to get all the content off a TiVo and burn it to anything you want!!" tutorials

Wonderful, that's precisely the sort of thing I would gladly pay for, even a larger amount than average.

A box that limits what I can do with it though, isn't worth much to me.

Re:Whats the big deal

[hairyfeet]

Then DIY and build your own, isn't that the "FLOSS mantra"? The rest of us would like to just have something that works and sadly the reason we don't have that now with Linux is that I truly believe RMS and his SCoN! brigade (Source Code or Nothing!) brigade and their radical no compromise politics with Linux...excuse me GNULinux, makes sure that things do NOT "just work" unless you play their game.

let me give an example: I sell computers, both new builds and refurbs, yet I will NOT sell Linux machines. Why? Because the devices in Best Buy, staples, and Walmart have around 35% that are "functional" if you include devices that you have to put in 3 pages of CLI gibberish on, and may/may not work if a new rev has come out, as functional. Can you tell by looking at the boxes which ones don't work? Nope, you can't. You can't, I can't, and the poor kid working behind the counter sure as hell can't.

If my customers buy Apple? "Look for the Apple logo and it all just works". MSFT Windows? "Look for the Winflag and it will have drivers for XP/Vista and Windows 7". Linux? "You'll have to go trawl these forums, wade through pages of crap, try to find someone who has bought hardware that you want and tells if/whether it works, go to the store, buy it, and hope when you get it home they haven't changed revs or you don't have to put in pages of gibberish that you often have to "tweak" to get it to work with your hardware. Good Luck!"

Why is it like this? Why are the other two "inferior" OSes so far ahead when it comes to ease of use and ease of purchase? Because the Linux driver model of "Give us all your specs and code (SCoN!) and we'll put it in the kernel" is a giant can o' fail with a side order of pointless, because most companies don't want to play your little reindeer games and even if they did by the time the drivers "trickle down" (which works even less than Reaganomics) from the tree to the distros your device isn't being sold in stores anymore, therefor it is worthless to consumers. Why is there no stable ABI so manufacturers can put drivers on CDs and penguins on the box? Read the kernel mailing list and they basically say "Its about freedom, man!(SCoN!)"

This is completely fine if everyone would stop that "year of the Linux desktop!" garbage and accept they have no chance in hell against MSFT and Apple in the desktop space, but the SCoN! want their cake and to eat it to. They think "users are frightened" and "if they would just try CLI they would embrace the power" like they are monkeys staring at the fricking monolith or something...bullshit, complete and utter bullshit. The consumer wants, easy, they want to shop at Walmart, they do NOT want to input a bunch of CLI gibberish, or to see a bash prompt EVAR!

Yet thanks to the SCoN! things will never get any better than they are now, nor will it get any easier to shop, because ultimately they don't give a shit about the consumer, or anyone but themselves for that matter. To them Linux is less an OS than an ideology, a religion. And like any hardcore zealot there is only saint RMS's way (SCoN!) and never any other way. And as we have seen time and time again hardcore politics and zealotry never ever help the common man in the end. So accept the fact that because you won't compromise you have seceded the desktop/laptop space to Apple and MSFT. They may not be free but at least my customers don't need to play paperweight roulette or jump through flaming CLI hoops just to get them to "just work" and that means my after market support costs drop to near zero. This is why it'll be a cold day in hell before you see Walmart trying to sell Linux in stores again. SCoN! makes shopping for your "superior" OS a total crapshoot and that is unacceptable.

Re:Whats the big deal

[vadim_t]

let me give an example: I sell computers, both new builds and refurbs, yet I will NOT sell Linux machines. Why? Because the devices in Best Buy, staples, and Walmart have around 35% that are "functional" if you include devices that you have to put in 3 pages of CLI gibberish on, and may/may not work if a new rev has come out, as functional. Can you tell by looking at the boxes which ones don't work? Nope, you can't. You can't, I can't, and the poor kid working behind the counter sure as hell can't.

Haha, what a troll. But oh well, I'm bored.

No, actually most current hardware works great on Linux. In fact, device support on Linux is actually better than on Windows these days.

This is because many devices stopped to be supported on Windows at different points, like the 64 bit switch. I've got a Creative Webcam 5 lying around for instance. It won't work on XP64, since Creative has long stopped caring about something they made maybe 10 years ago. Yet plug it into a Linux box and it works perfectly fine.

This isn't reserved to old devices though. I've accumulated a nice collection of hardware worth about $1000 thanks to my brother being unable to use it on his new box, this includes a perfectly modern scanner, and a color laser printer.

Why is it like this? Why are the other two "inferior" OSes so far ahead when it comes to ease of use and ease of purchase? Because the Linux driver model of "Give us all your specs and code (SCoN!) and we'll put it in the kernel" is a giant can o' fail with a side order of pointless, because most companies don't want to play your little reindeer games and even if they did by the time the drivers "trickle down" (which works even less than Reaganomics) from the tree to the distros your device isn't being sold in stores anymore, therefor it is worthless to consumers.

It's not so in my experience.

All your ranting aside, Linux's emphasis on open source and specs means that I get to have a free printer that'll keep working until it physically breaks, unlike my brother, who can buy a new one every time the manufactuer decides that it won't make new drivers. And why should it, when it could just make people throw perfectly good hardware away, and get them to buy a new, imperceptibly better (often worse) version?

Why is there no stable ABI so manufacturers can put drivers on CDs and penguins on the box? Read the kernel mailing list and they basically say "Its about freedom, man!(SCoN!)"

There's no stable ABI because it would slow down progress. It'd mean backwards compatibility with every bug and misdesign made in the past, until at some point it'll have to get broken anyway. But why bother with maintaining a mess like that, when with the source available you can just fix bugs and design as needed, and then correct whatever breaks? You get a much cleaner codebase without piling up hacks on top of hacks.

I don't really care about the manufacturer's drivers btw. They're invariably crap. They install some 200MB .NET monstrousity that wants to sit in the taskbar, and pops up a message every time you print a page because there's only 50% ink left. Screw that. In Linux every printer is supported in the same manner, in a boring but very functional and onbtrusive way that doesn't get into my face.

This is completely fine if everyone would stop that "year of the Linux desktop!" garbage and accept they have no chance in hell against MSFT and Apple in the desktop space, but the SCoN! want their cake and to eat it to. They think "users are frightened" and "if they would just try CLI they would embrace the power" like they are monkeys staring at the fricking monolith or something...bullshit, complete and utter bullshit. The consumer wants, easy, they want to shop at Walmart, they do NOT want to input a bunch of CLI gibberish, or to see a bash prompt EVAR!

Meh. I never cared about

Re:Whats the big deal

[hairyfeet]

A troll? Wow, thanks, I so rarely get to use this in a sentence...WHOOSH! You go STRAIGHT to the name calling without even bothering to read what I said! Lets analyze your replay, shall we? I say you can't shop at Walmart? Your response? "I've got a Creative Webcam 5 lying around" WTF? That is like me saying "I like sailboats" and you saying "Submarines are dangerous!" One thing has nothing what so ever to do with the other. We are talking devices being SOLD NOW, not a decade ago. I'll be the first to admit if you dumpster dive for your hardware the latest Linux will support it, but News Flash: the average life of hardware for a consumer is THREE years. Nobody wants old shit, okay? I got a closet bursting with old shit because nobody will even give a dollar for old shit. Nobody cares if you support some shitty webcam they stopped selling a decade ago, okay? Lets move on...

As for no stable ABI you are basically saying "We can't be bothered with actually having anything work past this latest version" which I have to agree is pretty much the state of Linux now and why it is a support nightmare from hell. Why do you think companies like Oracle will ONLY support"certain versions" and not Linux as a whole? Because shit is being broken constantly by developers that would rather do something new than fix bugs, that's why. Just look up "upgrade/update broke my sound" on any Linux forum for examples. I haven't had that kind of lame Mickey Mouse shit happen with Windows in nearly a decade. The few breaks from updates are few and far between. My Apple friends? Likewise. So call us when it can actually work for a year without borking itself on an update, mmmkay?

And I just looove how you say you "don't care about manufacturers drivers". I gues you would rather have some hacked shit written by some guy in his basement than by the engineer that actually built the thing, hmmm? And while I admit I have run into some buggy ass manufacturer's drivers (cap cards are the worst offenders) you know what? I've never gotten a paperweight from them. If it says it works in XP/Vista/7 you know what? It does! Now compare that to Linux: pop quiz hotshot: 35% of the devices in walmart work in Linux, can you tell me without trawling some crappy forum or Googling your ass off which ones they are? Times up, you can't.

It is actually very simple: No drivers on CDs, no penguins on boxes. No penguins on boxes means paperweight roulette, paperweight roulette raises support costs so retailers won't carry it and also scares away consumers. No retailers and no way for consumers to buy your OS equals little teeny tiny niche, okay? you need retail if you ever want to become more than another little niche OS like Plan9, AROS, OS2, etc. There is a reason why no retail store in the USA carries Linux boxes, just as there is a reason why your OS has such a small percentage of the desktop market as to be below the margin of error. Just look at the Netbook-the SECOND XP was offered on Netbooks stores stopped carrying the Linux ones and sales of Linux Netbooks dropped off the planet. Why? Because it is easy to shop for XP, that's why!

It is simple: listen to the market or rot. The market has spoken and they want A, Linux geeks (which have a VERY high percentage of CS grads and are as different from Joe consumer as can possibly be) want to give the market B, which they don't want. So I don't care if your OS is "free as in freedom", "free as in beer" or "Free as a playful kitteh" thanks to SCoN! and the "fun" of having to study to shop, the lack of ANY retail presence, the lack of penguins on boxes, and the lack of any backwards compatibility whatsoever, as far as Joe and Sally normal are concerned your OS is "free as in worthless". It isn't a conspiracy, or the evil Ballmer monkey sneaking into the Linux lab late at night and breaking all your shit, it is just economics 101. Give the people what they want or enjoy your tiny slice o' nothing.

Oh and servers and embedded devices a

Re:Whats the big deal

[vadim_t]

A troll? Wow, thanks, I so rarely get to use this in a sentence...WHOOSH! You go STRAIGHT to the name calling without even bothering to read what I said

Well, it's pretty hard to extract meaning from your ranting. You've even managed to somehow include Reagan in a discussion about software.

Though given your reaction maybe you're the trolled one, though that'd be mostly of your own making.

We are talking devices being SOLD NOW, not a decade ago. I'll be the first to admit if you dumpster dive for your hardware the latest Linux will support it,

Which is why I mentioned the printer and scanner. Both are perfectly modern devices, maybe a couple years old, perfectly capable of doing their job, and for which it would be hard to find a significantly better replacement.

Unlike CPUs, things like printers and scanner don't get better at the same rate, and a $400 printer in two years isn't going to make a $400 printer from today look completely obsolete.

And I just looove how you say you "don't care about manufacturers drivers". I gues you would rather have some hacked shit written by some guy in his basement than by the engineer that actually built the thing, hmmm?

Actually, yes.

The guy in his basement usually also an user who wants the device to work well, while the manufacturer wants to get the device out of the door as quickly as possible and to spend as little time as possible on maintenance afterwards.

Additionally, the guy in the basement releases the source, which means that if there's something wrong with it, it can be fixed, even after the manufacturer came up with a new model and stopped caring, which in my experience doesn't take long at all.

The manufacturer's driver won't be built by "the engineer who actually built the thing", anyway. Making hardware and making software are different areas of expertise, so the same person isn't going to do both jobs at the company, unless it's a very small one making a niche product.

Now compare that to Linux: pop quiz hotshot: 35% of the devices in walmart work in Linux, can you tell me without trawling some crappy forum or Googling your ass off which ones they are? Times up, you can't.

I'd like to know the source of that statistic, especially considering that the Linux kernel has a "free drivers" project that offers to make drivers for any device manufactuerer that asks for them. All they have to do is to give some specs (they'll accept a NDA even), and they'll get a free Linux driver.

And folks wonder why Linux just don't sell in retail.

I don't really wonder, no. The market isn't very big, and most Linux users I know buy their hardware in pieces. Some because they like unusual components (I buy server boards that support ECC for my desktops), some because they already have hardware lying around and it's cheaper that way.

Still, I don't get what the point of your rant is. You seem to be really angry at somebody or something, but I'm at a loss at why would you care.

Re:Whats the big deal

[Thing 1]

[...] "How to get all the content off a TiVo and burn it to anything you want!!" tutorials and either TiVo would go broke from lack of subscriptions or more likely big content would have those things banned faster than you can say DMCA.

This is somewhat OT: I own a TiVo. I followed one of these tutorials (Galleon, and Direct Show Dump). I am able to get all the content off my TiVo and burn it to anything I want (which is really just the hard drive; my Xbox can watch it from there via XBMC).

TiVo is not going broke as I am continuing to pay my subscription (getting my shows from the TiVo to my computer is orthogonal to not paying the subscription), and likewise big content has not banned this device.

They have, however, banned the device that I am switching to: my ReplayTV, from eBay with lifetime subscription, which also includes the commercial skipping feature (said feature being the reason big content sued it to death). I am already using it as the primary TV entertainment device, and am about ready to call TiVo and stop the subscription.

Re:Whats the big deal

[hairyfeet]

Sorry, not been trolled in the least. I'm just getting tired of Linux strawmen and logic hoops. I swear the Linux guys around here are getting as bad as the Apple fanboys that will tie themselves into logic knots trying to "prove" that a $4k Mac pro is a "good value" which of course even the Linux guys can agree it ain't so.

As for your "perfectly good" scanner and webcam? So are many of the things I'd find if I dumpster dove by the local college, but that really isn't a sound business plan, is it? Are those devices sold right now at walmart? Can I point those out to a custom er at Best Buy? No? Then it is worth jack and shit to a retailer son. Customers don't come to retailers to dumpster dive, they come for new devices and I would argue the lack of penguins on the boxes and no way to tell what works from what is a paperweight makes your OS worth less than the $0.00 you pay for it.

Just look at what you would have to do to shop for a device without paperweight roulette at retail, and even YOU will agree it is bullshit: STEP ONE-go to store, right down the models of any/all devices you are interested in. STEP TWO- trawl forums until you are kinda sorta sure the device works. STEP THREE Go BACK to store, purchase device, and pray to the hairy ass of RMS that the shit hasn't undergone a change in hardware or firmware that makes the previous steps a waste of time. Whew!

Now let us compare to Apple and Windows: STEP ONE- Go to store and look at the box. If it has the Winflag or Apple logo that is certified for your OS, put in cart. There is no step two.

Wow, isn't that incredible? Notice how much less work that was for the consumer? Remember the consumer don't give a wet fart about "free as in freedom" all they care about is "does it work and is it easy" and I think I have just shown you that Linux does not fit that criteria. I'm sure for you, with most likely years of IT experience and a CS degree, well linux is just about the easiest thing in the world. Just as CLI isn't a problem for me either, but we are not, I repeat not the consumer base.

As for the numbers? That is what I came up with walking the local walmart with a pen and paper. Feel free to go to their websites, write down what is offered, and do the math yourself. That is actually higher than the actual number BTW, as I counted "support" to include those that said "if you put in this three pages of CLI gibberish it should work!" which of course the average consumer is entirely unqualified to perform and will most likely bork the thing thanks to the dumb terminal, a relic of the 70s, not having things like autocomplete or spellcheck which have been in other programs for decades.

And how fucking hilarious that the answer my post pointing out the complete and total failure of SCoN! with an answer of....drum roll....SCoN! Yes! Because if something doesn't work doing it MORE will be better! Its double plus good! Look pal, here is why SCoN! and "let the kernel developers take care of it" don't work which BTW is about as fucked up and ass backwards as you can get. Kernel developers should concern themselves with...oh I don't know...maybe the kernel? But here is why it is a can o' fail. Go to your local Walmart, I'm sure you have either it, Best Buy, or Staples locally. Write down what devices are sold. Now come back in six months and see how many of those devices are no longer sold. Notice how many are gone?

The average shelf life of a consumer device is 6-12 months, with 9 being the average. The reason I pointed out Reaganomics is that both theories rely on the "trickle down" theory, which just like it didn't work for Reagan don't work here either. You see, even if I share my code, which considering what a teeny tiny slice you have really isn't worth my time to jump through your hoops, but even if I jumped, by the time it "trickles down" from the kernel through the betas and RCs until it finally hits the mainline distros my device isn't

Re:Whats the big deal

[vadim_t]

Sorry, not been trolled in the least. I'm just getting tired of Linux strawmen and logic hoops. I swear the Linux guys around here are getting as bad as the Apple fanboys that will tie themselves into logic knots trying to "prove" that a $4k Mac pro is a "good value" which of course even the Linux guys can agree it ain't so.

Meh. It fits my requirements, I'm not speaking of anybody else's. If it doesn't work for you, then it doesn't, don't see what's there to argue there.

As for your "perfectly good" scanner and webcam? So are many of the things I'd find if I dumpster dove by the local college, but that really isn't a sound business plan, is it? Are those devices sold right now at walmart?

The new ones do as well. The old ones I got obviously aren't sold due to the lack of Windows drivers for XP64 or newer.

But, you made two claims: One is that Linux supports less hardware. This is easily countered by that Windows drops support for a huge amount of hardware at some points (like the 64 bit transition), while Linux keeps supporting it.

The other one was that the requirement of source and specs is of no benefit to a consumer. I explained how it did benefit me as a consumer by saving the need to replace perfectly well working hardware for a stupid reason. Therefore I have personally benefited from the availability of source and specs, and have a good reason to ensure things go the same way in the future.

Now let us compare to Apple and Windows: STEP ONE- Go to store and look at the box. If it has the Winflag or Apple logo that is certified for your OS, put in cart. There is no step two.

Mhm. This attitude is precisely why my brother ends up with a bunch of hardware that is crap and often can't use anymore and I don't.

Research is necessary always, for any OS. We're not yet at the point where you can just get the first product off the shelf that fits the requirements and be 100% sure that it will actually work well.

But well, it's your money and your problem if you shop in such a shortsighted way.

I'm just really sick of the bullshit. I WANT Linux to be good. I WANT to sell it on shelves next to Win7 and OSX, but I can't because of SCoN! and paperweight roulette and guys that think "CLIRoxorz!"

But that's precisely why I like it! For me Linux is good precisely because of what you call "SCoN" (never heard anybody else use that term) and the commandline.

If Linux somehow morphs into a Windows-like sort of thing, I'll simply drop it and start pushing HURD or whatever takes Linux's place (not BSD because I much prefer the GPL's philosophy)

They just couldn't find any suckers.

[SharpFang]

Somehow I don't think being a buffer between corporate interests of Microsoft and anarchistic open source community is a dream job of anyone.

Re:They just couldn't find any suckers.

[cybrthng]

Weird, if you ask me the open source movement always comes off communistic not anarchistic.. too much organization and ideology mixed into the movement to come off as anarchistic. Unless you're speaking of BSD open source licensing :)

Re:They just couldn't find any suckers.

[SharpFang]

Not really. Many small groups of various organization - communistic, authoritarian (kernel: Linus=GOD), oligarchic (Mozilla: the core group deciding the important stuff plus many random contributors with a reduced power) capitalistic(RedHat), and the groups have a various degree of cooperation - some cooperate, some don't, some rebel and create a branch from ones who don't cooperate.
Like real anarchy which has no chance to stand on its own as always small localized communities of various types of government form, Open Source community is anarchy on the large scale, various smaller organizations on the small scale.

Is it news or isn't it?

[erroneus]

I think for everyone on all sides of the matter of the public opinion of Microsoft, it is quite safe to say that Microsoft is not of one view or of one voice. Microsoft is a highly conflicted company that, perhaps, wants to serve its customers but continues to serve its own interests first.

Each and every time there is a story like this, on how Microsoft fails to live up to its hype and/or promises, it leaves me saddened that my opinion of the company continues to be unchanged.

Microsoft is a company that cannot "let go" of anything. Take .NET for example -- it is a miserable failure that they won't let die. They claimed they would use it exclusively going forward and have they? Nope. The only applications written in it are by 3rd parties and I can't say that they are all great programs to use. Even when threatened with tremendous sanctions and punishment, they can't let go of the ways that get them into trouble. (And now that the US government is under a less sympathetic party's control they should be especially careful! Their oversight period has expired and they have not changed. I expect 2010 to start off with announcement of yet another action by the DoJ against the unrepentant MSFT.)

Still. Is it news? Microsoft's promises are not to be believed under any circumstances. You just have to wait for their actual actions, inactions and reactions. Anything they say should be disregarded.

Re:Is it news or isn't it?

[ffreeloader]

The only conflict at MS is their usual one: the conflict between what they say and what they do. This conflict is always found where there is a total lack of ethics. You'll find it in every liar you meet.

Re:Is it news or isn't it?

[b4dc0d3r]

Which makes this job a trap. "Linux and Open Office Compete Lead, US Subsidiary (CSI Lead)" is supposed to change perceptions of Microsoft in the open source ecosystem. But it's an impossible task because every slight misstep will put them back at zero. While part of the company wants to do the right thing, the other part is tethered to its old ways, and can't be moved.

Do a good thing like CodePlex, then essentially forget about it (or intentionally let it drop) and you have a net NEGATIVE on the perception gain. You have to commit to compete or to embrace (without the other two E's). No middle ground.

https://careers.microsoft.com/JobDetails.aspx?ss=&pg=0&so=&rw=1&jid=9914&jlang=EN

Re:Is it news or isn't it?

[rushmobius]

Most companies fail to live up to their own hype. Microsoft is no different in this aspect. As for you claiming .NET is a miserable failure, I'm unsure what method you used to arrive at this conclusion. While I currently develop for a Java/C++ shop, I have worked for a number of companies that use the full MS stack. I tend to prefer C# over Java, but develop in whatever language/platform a company needs. I'm sure I could spend 10 minutes digging and find a non-3rd party app written for .NET. I know this is /. but making broad statements about a company and their technologies doesn't aid anyone in making an informed opinion.

Re:Is it news or isn't it?

[Richard_at_work]

Take .NET for example -- it is a miserable failure that they won't let die.

Uhm, I'd seriously love to see your metric by which .Net is a miserable failure - comments like that just make you look like a fanboi lunatic.

hey claimed they would use it exclusively going forward and have they? Nope. The only applications written in it are by 3rd parties and I can't say that they are all great programs to use.

MS are using it - large portions of Exchange 2007 onward, SharePoint 2007 onward, Windows 2008 onward, and other of their business apps are built in .Net, and have rich .Net interfaces - they never said they would solely use .Net on an ongoing basis, but they are using it to a great extent, you are just choosing not to see it.

Re:Is it news or isn't it?

[cybrthng]

.Net miserable failure? stopped reading right there..

Re:Is it news or isn't it?

[Eirenarch]

Take .NET for example -- it is a miserable failure that they won't let die."

WTF? So creating a platform in the top 5 of the most popular development platforms (Java, C/C++ and PHP being the only that compete with .NET's popularity) is somehow a failure?

Re:Is it news or isn't it?

[gestalt_n_pepper]

If you think .net is a failure, I suggest you look at the replacement statistics compared to Java and talk to a few developers. .Net has made my life much easier. That's all I need to know.

Re:Is it news or isn't it?

[recoiledsnake]

Microsoft is a company that cannot "let go" of anything. Take .NET for example -- it is a miserable failure that they won't let die.

A few web sites that use .NET technology:

Costco - http://www.costco.com/
Crate & Barrel - http://www.crateandbarrel.com/
Home Shopping Network - http://www.hsn.com/
Buy.com - http://www.buy.com/
Dell - http://www.dell.com/
Nasdaq - http://www.nasdaq.com/
Virgin - http://www.virgin.com/
7-Eleven - http://www.7-eleven.com/
Carnival Cruise Lines - http://www.carnival.com/
L'Oreal - http://www.loreal.com/
Remax - http://www.remax.com/
Monster Jobs - http://www.monster.com/
USA Today - http://www.usatoday.com/
ComputerJobs.com - http://computerjobs.com/
Match.com - http://www.match.com/
National Health Services (UK) - http://www.nhs.uk/
CarrerBuilder.com - http://www.careerbuilder.com/
Newegg http://newegg.com/
Geico http://geico.com/
Capital One http://capitalone.com/
Zecco http://zecco.com/

And that is just the tip of the iceberg.

Maybe you should tell all those sites that .NET is a miserable failure? Or if you were just (successfully) karmawhoring, I am sorry to interrupt the circle jerk on here.

Re:Is it news or isn't it?

[shutdown -p now]

Microsoft is a company that cannot "let go" of anything. Take .NET for example -- it is a miserable failure that they won't let die.

Be more specific. What about it is a failure? Definitely not the adoption rates, at least.

The only applications written in it are by 3rd parties ...

Visual Studio and Expression Blend beg to differ.

For older apps, of course they aren't being rewritten in .NET from scratch. Do you seriously expect to throw away millions of lines of existing, working, debugged and tested C++ code and rewrite it all in .NET just for the sake of it? There's no business case in that... what happens, rather, is that new features are written in .NET, where architecture permits it, and where it actually makes sense.

To give a simple example, Visual Studio is actually a fairly old (over 13 years) codebase which is gradually moving from pure C++ and COM to .NET with every release, as more and more new features are added which are written in .NET. If you open something like VS2008 and poke around using Spy++, you'll see that about 2/3 of all toolwindows are native, 1/4 is WinForms, and the remaining ones are WPF. In VS2010, a lot more are WPF'ized.

A PR Stunt

[nurb432]

That's all it was in the first place, and when it didn't get them as much love as they expected, it was forgot about.

What about /.s less than open mod system?

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, the one that won't let me see if I keep getting modded down as over rated by the same asshat because I think Coke is better than Pepsi?

Monopolies minimize jobs & inovation

[redbeard55]

Ummm . . . have you considered how many jobs, and how many innovative projects (companies) the MS MONOPOLY has killed . . .

I think we have seen how much MS innovates when they don't have competition, all one has to do is to look at how much R&D they put in to internet explorer prior to Firefox presenting a threat to IE. Look at the history, MS has been convicted of innovating by taking/stealing others work, and copying good ideals of other. I don't have a problem with them copying others within the law . . . Apple, Linux ect. all take something from the other as far as general concepts go. MS does have some good products and I use them everyday, but I would not call them innovative.

Monopolies by their nature minimize the number of jobs produced and the number of advances they make. Advancements aren't necessary until something else threatens the monopoly's monopoly.

Monopolies are not good for anyone but the monopoly itself.

Re:Monopolies minimize jobs & inovation

[cybrthng]

The only monopolies i deal with every day are my Electric Utility and Cable company. MS isn't the only choice out there however PPL and Comcast are. yet PPL and Comcast continually rape me on pricing, services and features and somehow microsoft comes off as the evil company? MS has innovated many products from operating systems to keyboards, mice and hardware systems to their cool ass research department that many companies simply don't bother with anymore.

MS got busted yeah, they paid the price, yeah, they're still being sued for stupid things - of course - as with any big multinational company making money hand over fist.

Xbox live & zune is pretty innovative if you ask me - Apple is struggling to pull off what Microsoft has delivered with their new media eco-system - from Xbox live to Zune to Windows Media Center on Windows 7 - its an amazing product. The fact i can run 2 xbox 360s off my media center and integrate with zune and zune pass and allow my family to watch what they want to watch on their tv, zune or computer is pretty nice - and it was all done for a very affordable price and it works out of the box. Not only that but zunepass offers us a limitless library of music - good by cable tv and good by sirius sat. The 2 360s and pc were paid for after the first year and i'm on year 3 of the hardware and months into windows 7 :)

Re:Monopolies minimize jobs & inovation

[Antique Geekmeister]

Then pay more attention. Microsoft was convicted of various illegal monopoly behaviors.

Re:Monopolies minimize jobs & inovation

[Anonymous Coward]

"Windows has everything I can think of."
--
Unimaginative users who've never used anything but windows

Re:Monopolies minimize jobs & inovation

[thetoadwarrior]

They are indeed a monopoly and stiffle business. Sure they create jobs but it takes fewer people to write one zip program for Windows that goes and kills off numerous companies and jobs. Their built-in firewall, virus protection and media player have and or will do the same.

The fact they were initially going to stop with IE6 on XP just goes to show what state they put browser software in. They didn't feel the need to compete any longer.

They do generate a lot of money for the local economy and create jobs but they also crush companies making people jobless and continue to send jobs over seas and threaten to send more over there if they're made to pay tax they've been avoiding.

If they get their way and kill of Java then it will only get worse.

Re:Monopolies minimize jobs & inovation

[VGPowerlord]

If they get their way and kill of Java then it will only get worse.

Java would have died years ago if it wasn't for IBM, Oracle, and (to a lesser extent) Red Hat propping it up for the past 5+ years.

Re:Monopolies minimize jobs & inovation

[MrResistor]

The utility companies are bad, but they only rape their customers. MS rapes their entire industry, so yeah, that's a whole different level of evil.

And by the way, you've so far managed to not mention a single thing that was innovated by MS. They're constantly being sued for "stupid things" like screwing over all of the actual innovators who are stupid enough to partner with MS, taking the tech for themselves, and leaving the actual innovators bleeding in the metaphorical ditch. It may be true that all multinationals that make money hand over fist engage in similar abusive behavior, but that doesn't make it non-evil.

M$ Providing Jobs

[omb]

For shills like you, go away, crawl back into your hole ans STFU.

The billions come from american business and are used, inter alia, to corrupt governments and international organizations eg ISO

An the point & click mentality has held development of really useful application back two decades while all the major components of Office are used to foster undesirable working practices. One of the things that make me despise this way of working is how many daft documents, Excel spreadsheets filled with errors and non sequiturs, PowerPoint presentations that say nothing or lie, and worst of all Outlook/Exchange and Access. All these encourage a naive attitude, both to business and IT and are a the root of many of the most horrible enterprise kludges (which suites M$ since it creates vendor lock in.)

At the same time it encourages a tsunami of mediocre content and a generally uncritical attitude, see some of the risk-analysis of CDOs by the big four + rating agencies, or Access + VB + Excel 'applications' which infests much of the enterprise. The bigger a US enterprise is the more its operation will depend on M$ based Office applications which (a) dont work, (b) dont meet the business requirement and (c) cant be easily replaced, extended or fixed because the business 'Rock Star' who wrote it didn't write any documentation, lost the source, and has left to create havock elsewhere.

This is the dirty truth that underlies big C-words like Enterprise Architecture Framework and aligning IT with business needs, see the un-parsable advertisement for a M$ Linux-Office competition guy.

This is mostly a US problem and elsewhere lots of organizations, both public and private, have wised up to this and many eg the Gendamerie Francaise, have migrated from M$ with major cost-savings, all the TCO market speak aside, and more important have major efficiency gains. This is why, for example the EU Commission is putting such emphasis on Open Document Formats, Interoperability and encouraging market competition. The truth is that US goverment has become too corrupted, in both parties, the people seem unable to rain in the Congress and force free market competion.

Re:M$ Providing Jobs

[cybrthng]

WTF??

Re:M$ Providing Jobs

[GaryOlson]

Someone forgot to take their lithium this morning....

Dynamics CRM

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft Dynamics CRM is written in .NET

It's Microsoft after all ..

[hebertrich]

i mean come on :)) you didnt take them seriously now did you ?

Happy new year :)
Ric

The Bridge to Nowhere...

[lucm]

I'm impressed. Someone actually found a way to provide a link for an announcement that was not made.

This is a classic....

[jimpop]

This is a classic example of what happens when you let Marketing lead Development. FAIL.

It fails because there is SF, Google Code etc.

[Ilgaz]

There are several successful open source windows code at sourceforge and as far as I have seen, the "trendy" types or the people hating SF for some other reason moved to Google code and github.

MS fails again since they try to re-invent a working thing with very shadowy, untrusted and despised people at lead. I know several _windows_ developers who won't touch anything with some people at Codeplex mentioned.

On the other hand, some people at MS are clever so they advertise at SF site, including mailing list signatures which -they could- pick better profiles rather than UNIX only apps :)

PS: IMHO if there was a mirror of launchd and several stuff at macosforge.org at sourceforge, they could have get more popular in other OS'es communities and would have eventually end up in some Linux distro etc. Why do you think companies keep posting youtube videos while they already host them? The site became de-facto standard, that is the reason.

MS is a bad actor

[Ilgaz]

Well, as owner of 5 Macs at home and a person who can't think anything rather than *BSD or XServe for servers, I respect MS and their inventions.

In fact, even the entire Windows OS line (including Win95) has my respect to bring GUI OS to common people, including poor people.

Issue is, MS doesn't evolve like Big Blue of 1990s, they try to act and they are a very bad actor. They also work with some really disgusting people who have no kind of personality and despised universally. If you mix the both, it is the perfect open source PR disaster.

For example, if they shipped .NET as a open source product to multiple, insanely multiple platforms with _equal_ functions and some really court valid guarantee that it will stay that way, they would become _the standard_ in GUI applications today.

What did they do instead? What is the state of that clone today? Who did they pick as the lead/poster child of that clone? Which company who lost all the respect from IT World long time ago appears to be back at that clone? Can you mess things up even further?

MS_dotnet_35sp1.dmg for OS X, that was the first step should be taken to make .NET credible. Not Mono_alpha_beta_junk.dmg (even if it exists).

Ah that list is getting old

[Ilgaz]

Perfume companies and some real big MS puppets who can't even function if Windows stopped working tomorrow. That is the best you got? And is that some template in some PR company we have to read even single fscking time .NET is critised?

They use .NET since if MS goes real mad at them, they can render millions of dell laptops useless tomorrow with a wrong windows update. All they would have to say is "ooops". Dell uses Windows only framework while their 99% of end user products runs Windows only... What a damn big surprise!

Lets make a similar list for open technologies/multi platform technologies like Java and PHP, would slashdot even allow such a gigantic post?

Re:Ah that list is getting old

[Richard_at_work]

You need to take your meds. Or seek professional help.

Have fun at Codeplex until it is closed

[Ilgaz]

Sourceforge top 10 projects are sometimes dominated by windows only software and they have damn good respect from community, enough respect to spend huge time to convert them to "freak" platforms like Symbian. PuTTY is a good example for instance.

Sourceforge also survived darkest days of dotcom disaster, nothing happened to it. What will you do when Codeplex EOL announced? Am I joking? What happened to Windows Market? They _made_ money from it, they didn't spend money. Codeplex, like Silverlight will join failed attempts to look cool. Just like Seinfeld ads.

Date separators, please use them correctly

[Anonymous Coward]

26/11/2009

USA: mm/dd/yyyy

Europe: dd.mm.yyyy

ISO: yyyy-mm-dd

5.4.2010 and 5/4/2010 aren't alternative ways to write the same day, they are different dates (2010-4-5 and 2010-5-4). Those nice little characters between numbers hold a significant information value so you really shouldn't write dd/mm/yyyy or mm.dd.yyyy or yyyy-dd-mm or anything like that.

Re:Date separators, please use them correctly

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_and_time_notation_by_country gives many different formats for European countries, including the one used in the quoted text. Everyone should just use ISO, avoids any ambiguity and allows easy sorting.

Be careful

[XB-70]

Microsoft recently opened networking engineers up to the samba people a while back. There was a good synergy between them and a lot of information flowed back and forth.

Fast forward to today: Windows 7 Home edition has had the ability to join domains REMOVED (this was available back with Win 95 through XP). A new networking capability, HomeGroup is available. HomeGroups can only have Windows 7 members. Windows XP, Macintoshes, even Windows Vista, need not apply. In short, rather than implement a cheap (free?) SMB server capability in every machine, yet another proprietary networking protocol has been developed to force users to upgrade (downgrade?).

A new variation on the NTFS file system has been developped too. This means more issues with interoperability between XP and Windows 7 - let alone Samba/Linux.

What I'm trying to say here is that Windows 7 has been very carefully engineered to NOT interoperate on both a filesystem and networking level with XP and cause problems with Samba shares - unles you buy the Win7 Pro version. My suspicion is that the reason for this stems from the intimate knowledge gleaned from the Samba team (NOTE: I have no way of proving this).

Don't cozy up to Microsoft. Stay away from any so-called open-source initiatives that they are putting forward. They are just a ploy to use the openeness against itself. This is a new MSFT's new method of attack on open source.

How's this a story?

[Riplakish]

Right on the front page is a status update:

December 9, 2009. CodePlex Foundation Launches Search for Executive Director, Technical Director Moving to meet its 100 day goals, the CodePlex Foundation today announced that it has launched a search for a permanent, full-time Executive Director and Technical Director. Individuals chosen for the positions will guide the Foundation in its mission of facilitating the participation of corporate software developers in open source projects while providing a channel of communication from the open source community back to software companies.

This is dated 12/9, a full ten days before the 100 day deadline. Besides, how often does a large scale foundation ever stick to its original schedule?

LSE, Windoze and Linux

[omb]

For LSE a performant, stable system is, and was, a sine quo non, Their entire business model, credibility and revenue stream depend on it.

The CIO was 'persuaded' to go with a greenfield solution bases on M$ technology which she should have known would fail, but that has never dissuaded PHBs. The FOSS solution, done in Sirilanka, is far less complex and already well debugged and was available at the time of the CIO choice. It is already in use at other markets and hedge funds which have essentially the same problem. It is simple, the infrastructure is simple, and well supported in Linux and most important both infrastructure and implementation follow function.

Too many people do not, at the same time, understand application architecture and infrastructure. You cant use Ethernet (Gigabit, Petabit) in a low latency system because of the Phase Lock Loop preamble and jam time, especially, as in the trading case. You need Infiniband or even better, programmable, Hyperchannel communication. Linux supports both and Windoze neither well.

But you are basically right, the cost of hardware, or system support are unimportant compared to the cost of failure.

Exactly:Date separators, please use them correctly

[omb]

Swiss dates dd.mm.yyyy, postcode CH-nnnn (nnnn is geminde number), numbers 1'234.56 ie ' is thousands seperator and . is (decimal|cent)

Yea, I forgot to take them today

[Ilgaz]

Is it all you got? Are we really supposed to be impressed with whatever junk Loreal uses? Should I really stay silent when I notice same idiot under different name posts the exact same post to .NET/Mono stories?

Number 1 MS puppet Dell uses .NET at their servers, wow! I should be impressed or I need my pills right?

As your signature has OS X mentioned, may I ask where the hell is .NET 3.5SP1 for OS X? Where is the XCode plugin? We don't have "rms" or open source fanatics right? So, where are them?

Loreal uses .NET... Geez really.

Re: What great products do they make?

[Errol backfiring]

Regedit. Seriously, it is my favourite microsoft application. No over-bloated interface, stable and it just works.

Maybe they're waiting 4U to respond, "big talker"

[Anonymous Coward]

SymbolNOBODY: You said what's quoted below from you, here -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1476008&cid=30428430

"It's tolerated (perhaps encouraged) in part because these annoying actors are otherwised engaged in improving Linux. Major Debian and BSD contributors, for example, use slashdot as a workspace for their human-machine interaction side experiments, of which APK is probably one. In addition many of these trolls post links which, if you follow them, will completely hose a Windows machine. This is part of the game. - by symbolset (646467) on Monday December 14, @01:15AM (#30428430) Journal

I took offense to the BOLDED part... & ALL you EVER seem to have is "ad hominem" based attacks on people, not the points they make. So, "symbolNOBODY": The day you can make something like this (& that got you PAID for it, & that has done as well for others online):

http://www.tcmagazine.com/forums/index.php?s=b861a743aa23c4568b7d73e07ef7ecec&showtopic=2662

That's also gone over 250.000 views worldwide in 1++ yrs.' time online, & across 15 forums where that guide for Windows Security has been made either an:

1.) "Sticky/Pinned" thread
2.) An "Essential Guide"
3.) Rates 5/5 stars (etc.)

AND, gets "feedback" like this from users that have applied it:

----

http://www.xtremepccentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=28430

PERTINENT QUOTE/EXCERPT:

"...recently, months ago when you finally got this guide done, had authorization to try this on simple work station for kids. My client, who paid me an ungodly amount of money to do this, has been PROBLEM FREE FOR MONTHS! I haven't even had a follow up call which is unusual. Now I don't recommend this for the average joe, but it if can work for a kids PC it can work for anything! Now, i substituted OpenDNS and activated the Adult Content filter with them for this kids computer. I know its not perfect, but will catch over 99.5% of said sites."

and

http://www.xtremepccentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=10f9ba9ad5ff990aaae1e7ec91f593a2&t=28430&page=3

"Its 2009 - still trouble free! I was told last week by a co worker who does active directory administration, and he said I was doing overkill. I told him yes, but I just eliminated the half life in windows that you usually get. He said good point. So from 2008 till 2009. No speed decreases, its been to a lan party, moved around in a move, and it still NEVER has had the OS reinstalled besides the fact I imaged the drive over in 2008. Great stuff! My client STILL Hasn't called me back in regards to that one machine to get it locked down for the kid. I am glad it worked and I am sure her wallet is appreciated too now that it works. Speaking of which, I need to call her to see if I can get some leads. APK - I will say it again, the guide is FANTASTIC! Its made my PC experience much easier. Sandboxing was great. Getting my host file updated, setting services to system service, rather than system local. (except AVG updater, needed system local)"

Thronka - forums member @ xtremepccentral.com

----

THEN, when you have done so, on THAT account? THEN, you can talk (and, ESPECIALLY about that which you said about myself which I quoted from you above shows YOU, libelling ME, clearly. It's clearly immaterial & outright b.s. from you, vs. the kind of feedback my guide on securing Windows gets, quoted above from others? It CLEARLY disproved your outright b.s., period...)

Also?

When you have done all of this as I have over time in this Art & Science of computing:

"My Na

Re: What great products do they make?

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that it assumes registry strings are null-terminated.