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Jeremy Allison Calls Microsoft Dangerous Elephant
oranghutan writes "At the annual Linux.conf.au event being held in Wellington, NZ, one of the lead developers for the Samba Team (and Google employee) Jeremy Allison described Microsoft as 'an elephant that needs to be turned to stop it trampling the open source community.' Allison has been an outspoken critic of the vendor since he quit Novell over a deal it did with Microsoft that he saw as dangerous to open source intentions. And now he has evolved his argument to incorporate new case studies to explain why Microsoft's use of patents and its general tactics on free software are harmful.
It wouldn't be a problem if the FLOSS community would stop stealing from legitimate patents holders. I know you FLOSS developers are busting your ass, writing code, and what not and not getting paid for it, but.....God! What a bunch of losers!
How about inventing something of your own instead of stealing ideas from others!
If you were any good you'd be getting paid for what you're doing.
Apparently under the latest version Alistair can hurl insults at Morrigan under WINE, so it's all good.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
sorry, there are no European elephants....
I wish I could talk trash like him.
A. A. Milne saw this coming. :-)
Floating face-down in a river of regret...and thoughts of you...
"Microsoft produces software that competes with FOSS" is basically the headline. Well who knew?!
Something they're also learning is that the above statement doesn't necessarily mean they can't work with FOSS in areas that are mutually beneficial. This, believe it or not, is happening too.
throw new NoSignatureException();
Is this some new cleric ability in D&D 4.0? Back in my day clerics could only turn undead.
And I - being no one of significance, am going to call Microsoft a small, fluffy, harmless kitten that needs to be petted.
Take THAT.
And how successful were they at these endeavors? Apparently, not very.
American Third Position
Finally, a real choice!
Want Open to win? Stop being bloody purists. See, Ubuntu Software Commercial Survey for a pragmatic approach. Ubuntu is a bridge, get the Windows people over first and once they know what they're doing they can compile their own Gentoo. Commercial software on Linux is also such a bridge, let it in: as long as the core operating system is Open who gives a crap. If the commercial is amazingly good compared to the Open then it will survive while the Open matures. But don't deny your users the commercial because you're being a dick about it. Follow the Linux philosophy: Openness, including commercial. Then work with it yourself, I have converted two of my family-members desktops over to Ubuntu within the last month, not including my own. If I wasn't using a "stupid" distribution it wouldn't have happened because I have no idea of the required options while building your kernel. Support the bridges, they all lead into Open.
Shh.
Microsoft is a software company, selling proprietary software, with a business model based around lock-in and obscurity on file formats and the like. Open source is the complete opposite of what MS's business model needs. Now obviously MS's business model is (was) a pretty good one considering they got very very rich with it (one of the richest companies in the world, if not the richest). Business wise they're a winner, no contest. Open source is breaking that.
Absolute winners for MS are of course Office with their doc format lock-in (slowly being eroded by OOo), and the Windows/Exchange/Outlook combo for which I don't know of any true competitor. Plus the many windows-only games of course. MS needs to keep their sources closed, their standards theirs and theirs alone, and needs to keep competitors out of their network. The network situation is improving but it is still very much everything except Windows talks easily to everything except Windows, and Windows talks easily to Windows alone.
When I'm at it, I was thinking of their two most high-profile competitors.
Apple: they couldn't care less about open/closed source and will likely go with the wind. Except maybe iTunes but then that contains DRM which requires the closed-source obscurity to not be cracked before it's released. OS-X is largely open-source even. Apple is a hardware company, after all. They make software to sell their hardware.
Google. Google appears to love open source: they are all about interoperability. Everyone on the Internet, everything on the Internet, the browser is the platform. Which browser? Chrome, Firefox, IE, Safari? What would they care. Operating system? Irrelevant. Hardware platform? The cheaper the better, whether it's a laptop, phone, desktop or "slate". As long as the device understands standards. And open source is pretty good at exactly that: standards.
Yahoo is likely in the Google camp, being an Internet company. Though I don't hear much of any software developments coming from there. And they are quite friendly with Microsoft.
Then there is Microsoft's Bing. Gaining market share rapidly, got some positive comments a few stories ago here on /.. Makes me wonder where that stands really, as Bing just needs a standards-compliant browser. I haven't used the site, but I understand from the comments that it is pretty standards-compliant at the moment. And with the current market share of non-IE browsers, they will have to. You can't afford to lose 30% or so of your market, especially as that 30% will tell their friends "Bing sucks, doesn't work properly, use Google, that works good". People don't tend to try again later.
Mr. Allison, What is Googles software patent policy in regards to things like the recent map/reduce patent?
Oh how I long for the slashdot days of lore....
Oh how I long for the slashdot days of yore... Fixed that for ya
Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
Apparently under the latest version Alistair can hurl insults at Morrigan under WINE, so it's all good.
That's F'd up because I gave all my wine to Wynn to get her approval up. Damn...
Sig Follows: "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain
I think a threat that intimidates many is Novell's progress supporting .NET with Mono because they can't see MS supported at all. They've done a fairly decent job of it, of late. The interoperability between the visual studios development environment then to instantly port to Linux, is getting better and better. This opens the possibility of making Windows compatible with Linux, and keeps the developer platform of choice soundly on a window's box.
http://www.beanleafpress.com
I teach a computational physics class for freshmen.
When I was going over our syllabus, I said: "Email your homework here. Don't send us Microsoft Word documents. My TA and I don't have Word, we're probably not on a computer that does when we grade your homework, and we can't be arsed to go find a decoder for whatever the newest obscure Microsoft format is."
The students were shocked -- you don't have Word? Really? How is this possible? (Answer: LaTeX.)
(Except for the one guy with the Ubuntu laptop, in the back, who chuckled...)
In TFA, this is what Allison suggests. OSS needs to build the future they want. He says that patents will still be a threat, but that OSS has a firm foothold in the current software landscape and will be hard to dislodge by patent trolling.
Use the Firehose to mod down Second Life stories!
Of course it's flamebait. It is mere provocation. I learned nothing from the story.
Any good suggestions for better tech news aggregators?
He just made himself a powerful enemy, and the elephant never forgets!
The enemies of Democracy are
"So you see this especially in the appliance market where Microsoft will go to a company — off the record as this is never ever done in public — and say 'this product you have there, shame if someone brought a patent suit. So you have two options you can re-architect — here is Windows — or the other thing is why don't you give us a cut on all the free software you are using?'.
This is very common business practice in the U.S. not exclusive to Microsoft. Bigger companies want two things from the smaller companies they intimidate, revenue and market penetration information. If they don't get it privately, they certainly get it with patent/trademark litigation.
I'm not calling Microsoft out exclusively on this, but it should give the average /. an idea of how fundamentally frozen the American economy is by patent and trademark law.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
"Just take the high road, fight the good fight, and take care of business .. Don't try and take on MS just write better code and better systems .."
'Linux' isn't trying to take on Microsoft, it's the other way around. A company with a long time enmity towards anything open source and not adverse to using any dirty trick to get its own way.
Comes v. Microsoft
Microsoft EDGI: How It Works
What's .NET?
Ummm ....
http://www.bing.com/news/search ScienceAndTechnology
All generalizations are false, including this one. Mark Twain
How do you moderate a story Flamebait?
You vote it down in the firehose.
Free Martian Whores!
I have no love for Microsoft.
But in the last decade I've seen Linux on the Desktop split between two different competing environments and API's, usability experts not being able to get any meaningful traction early on in FLOSS projects, newbies being flamed on IRC for asking questions, legitimate criticism of user experience issues being written of as FUD, billions of FLOSS company dollars going to enterprise systems buyouts and kernel hacker salaries instead of high quality user testing labs (and then saying FLOSS has no money for such things like evil proprietary companies do), etc.
When I look at Microsoft, I don't see FLOSS's greatest enemy; I see a boogeyman and a scapegoat used to explain FLOSS' lack of success at getting outside of a server room.
...when all they really wanted was a taxicab! DrrrTISH!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
what do you call "Subverting an international commitee" (re: OOXML fiasco)? is that flamebait? If so, what isn't flamebait? When GPL advocates just roll over dead? Or when MS's proprietary specifications become world standards at the behest of MS? color me confused.
Ever since Bill Gates left, and possibly a while longer _causing_ him to leave, Microsoft has been a symbol of whats wrong with the economy. Company gets built around an innovative idea by a bunch of enthusiastic experts, grows big because it actually sells useful products that make peoples lives easier. Then it all goes awry, clueless MBA types (hi Ballmer) take over pushed forward by vulture capitalists, monetizing, marketing, market share hogging and patent litigations take over the core business of making useful stuff and the company turns into yet another corporate zombie.
That's a great description of Microsoft. Slow to get up to speed, difficult to turn once they get rolling. The real problem with elephants on the battle field is once they got a head of steam they would charge through the enemy lines, then turn around and charge back through the lines and trample their own people. Not exactly a smart bomb.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
But then, I'm not on the MS 'turfing payroll
Do you happen to have any idea how I can get on the MS Apologists' payroll?
:(
I'm too broke to keep doing this for free
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
"If I were, however, a little girl who felt betrayed by my corporate overlords making a deal with one of the most reliable companies on the planet, thus giving me and my fellow employees more job security, so I quit and .."
Novell gave away the family silver for a buch of vouchers. They also took to uttering vague IP protection threats against the Open Source community on their web site. They also stoped promoting their own desktop and recommended Windows instead. At least one of their technical people has the personaly integrity to resign. Person abuse from some a******e is not required.
--
reliable at what exactly?
davecb5620@gmail.com
Have you ever listened to what your Great Leader Ballmer has said about the competition?
What is it with these fucking pro-MS concern trolls on Slashdot?
Mart
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
My favorite part though, as per TFA:
"We have a system that is absolutely free that we can do anything with, so why are we so obsessed with picking on Microsoft? ... Shouldn't we leave the elephant alone and stop poking it with sticks? Well, the problem is they aren't going to leave us alone."
Of course Microsoft is going to compete with your solutions. They're a god damned software company that makes every type of application they can produce without getting [successfully] sued by their competitors. I've never actually said this before, but...
Nothing to see here. Move along.
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
What's .NET?
A TLDN, duh.
Here's a cookie... *psst* it's MAGIC
Oh yeah? Well, so's your mom!
MS proprietary specifications are world standards. That's what some people are trying to change.
Or when MS's proprietary specifications become world standards at the behest of MS?
Because OOXML is the one and only time that some company's proprietary product becomes an IOS standard, right? Oh wait...
No, the headline is "Microsoft bullies FOSS with patents and conspiratorial coersion."
When Microsoft patents obvious things, then uses those patents to threaten law suits, that is a threat.
If Microsoft was competing by building great software, we would be having a different conversation. This conversation is about Microsoft competing without building software.
engineers are all basically high-functioning autistics who have no idea how normal people do stuff
Yes, like many academics you like to demonstrate to your students that you are superior and in charge. There's no significant difference between you and the other guy who won't accept anything from his students that isn't in Word format.
If I put a wall around the elephant in the garden, won't it trample all my flowers?
But if nobody sees the elephant trampling the flowers, are they still trampled ?
Wait, is this the surreal philosophy class ?
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
So, if Microsoft is the elephant, does that mean that Open Source is the mouse that scares the elephant, and Google is the sneaky snake that convinces the mouse to scare the elephant before said snake eats the mouse?
I don't know about you, but I'd rather deal with the evil I know rather than deal with the treacherous snake that pretends to be my ally one week (Mozilla / Android) and is my enemy the next (Chrome / NexusOne).
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
That is why I have never understood this "ZOMG! M$ is gonna destroy teh Linux!!!" BS. How do you destroy something that isn't owned by anybody? They can buy corps from now until Xmas, it isn't gonna stop Linux. There are plenty of corps supporting it that I can never see selling out (RH comes to mind) and there really isn't a "target" for them to do the classic embrace-extend trick to, as many in the Linux camp wouldn't take squat from MSFT.
So I'm sorry, but this whole piece smells like FUD to me. Especially when it is coming from a Google employee hot on the heels of Apple talking to MSFT about switching to Bing. FLOSS has never had more companies supporting it, Linux can be found on devices in just about everyone's homes, and frankly even with all the cash MSFT has I don't see them being able to buy out enough Linux corps to even do long term damage, so I have to call FUD on this article.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I'm sorry. Not sure if you found out but you can't unlock any steamy sex scenes with Wynn. Shoulda saved your wine.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Yeah. I mean it's not like companies are still using IE6 on Windows years after both have been shown to be security challenged, and being offered better free alternatives and rejecting them because Microsoft marketing has sold upper management a bunch of FUD or anything. If the Chinese hacked corporate computers by leveraging such a vulnerability and people still kept using their stuff instead of switching to well established secure FOSS alternatives that might be seen as some order of success squashing FOSS, but as things stand now they have been entirely unsuccessful!
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
So the evidence that this happens is that he's in the industry where it happens?
I was in Dennys at the weekend and couldn't help listening to a conversation that was taking place on the table behind me. Some woman was proud of her new netbook that she had to buy because her old laptop had too many windows virusses to run (fast) any more. Clearly she was one of those people that surf everywhere and click yes to everything.
I had the revelation that she actually represents nearly all 'normal' people (us techies definately aren't normal). Most 'normal' people have already been conditioned by companies like Microsoft, Dell and Apple to view laptops as appliances, not something user-maintainable. Many people can't even differentiate between hardware and OS.
Also, most people are already familiar the windows environment, and also don't like change. Even a slightly different desktop menu layout or whatever is enough to make them feel uncomfortable enough to not want to go further. Just a new version of Windows represents a significant learning curve to these people. I mean most people still use IE for christ sake even after all the warnings and free alternatives one mouse-click away. They just want their PC to plug and play. When it runs slow, in their ignorance they prefer to throw it away and blow $1500 on another laptop rather than change their behavior or just learn about their PC.
These are most consumers, and if we want them to adopt Linux we have to take their natural behavior and all their preconceptions into account.
The only way to get desktop Linux to the majority is to beat Microsoft at being able to plug in any hardware or application and have it just work, which means getting hardware manufacturers and app developers to stop blindly developing stuff for Microsoft-based OS only. As long as hardware suppliers don't provide Linux drivers and, for example, games developers still use DirectX and not OpenGL, Linux will never be in a position to reach the public consciousness, even though its technically and intrinsically better. Linux has clearly already won that war but obviously thats not enough as still no mass migration from Windows to Linux desktop that we'd all like to see.
The thing is, most people still have never heard of Linux. We need to stop hoping people will join our community just because its technically better, and start spending money on advertising.
Linux needs to be shoved into the public perception through the TV and media at least as hard and frequently as Microsoft do with their products. Advertising is the only way that desktop Linux will ever get to critical mass, which it needs to do so that its obvious to all HW and SW manufacturers that they will quickly loose out if they continue to only target Windows. Furthermore 'Normal' consumers need to at least know that Linux exists before they can try it.
Reading isn't enough. You have to be able to implement the standard, freely and without fear or threat. That's what being a standard means - it's not owned or controlled by a single entity.
MS got it's format ISO certified. This means that ISO is no longer the badge of trust when it comes to recognising standards, not that OOXML is a good "standard" format.
I'm not going to explain why OOXM is not fully implementable as that's been covered many times already - but it should be obvious that "Do X the same way closed and patented software Y did X" is not really the kind of description that belongs in an open standard.
"...So I hung back and lurked. For 18 months. Can't beat a good old-fashioned lurking."
It would be better to simply get a clue, or go to a different site where there aren't so many that do have a clue, especially when you consider that you can tell a convention of astronomers that the world is flat until you are blue in the face without actually converting any of them to your viewpoint.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
I absolutely agree with this person and I wish I had mod points. While I don't love Micro$oft, but just to be fair, can we start to look at Microsoft as "competition" and move on. They have every right to protect their business; if we can produce better, more appealing software, we don't need to worry about all this bullshit. We need to win hearts with great products, not FUD--I hate to say it, like Micro$oft. I think our priorities are out of order here. Whenevr I see a Micro$oft bashing post on slashdot, I just have to roll my eyes over. Grow up, people, please..o.k., pretty please?
No, he was referring to Data's brother. He just forgot to hit the shift key.
Free Martian Whores!
To continue, while I'm here ;), Some things are: too important to patent if you believe Mr. Jefferson. And as a matter of fact in the founding of the United States of America it was a close call whether patents should be allowed at all. The promoting the progress bit won out narrowly. Today, I believe this should be re-examined. We have reached the critical mass where if someone does not do it, someone else will. Therefore, the promoting the progress bit is not as valid. But stagnation rules the day, the slow slide into irrelevance because of a lack of keeping up with the times. There are many vested interests who manipulate issues to their own ends so I doubt we'll see a honest look at the issue any time soon. Perhaps, in the mean-time, when it comes to patents just emulate ironically those who appear to have that little bit right: China. Hell, distribute your software out of nations that are not stupid and let the USA wallow in itself for this issue.
Shh.
This isn't news to the court systems, or OS/2 present and former users.
Microsoft is an abusive, anti-competitive monopoly. Microsoft's been tried and found guilty in a court of law, but there's been no remedy applied. People still sign up to use the substandard OS, Windows, because of the applications barrier to entry. Until Linux gets major game and greeting card software companies on board, it'll continue to get marginalized by Microsoft.
The vast majority of freshman enter college believing that there a is Microsoft software monoculture. This requirement forces them to open their minds when they learn that alternatives do exist. Once so enlightened, it is short leap from realizing that they don't have to depend on a corporation to meet their needs to realizing that they don't have to depend on a government to meet their needs.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
This demagogue is appealing to a cult of automated Microsoft haters as a Google employee. How do you moderate a story Flamebait?
I was at the talk and I can assure you that he was anything but demagogic in his delivery. He drew a strong distinction between Microsoft employees and the corporation as a whole. He was nuanced in his views and he stated emphatically (not less than twice) at the outset that the talk was not santioned in any way, shape or form by Google.
If any Microsoft-hater was looking for ammunition, they could derive a little comfort from some of the things he said, but one of his key points was that Microsoft is not monolithic, nor was it deliberately evil. He even refused to lay the blame for the TomTom patent suit at Ballmer's feet. That said, some camps within Microsoft still see desktop domination as their only chance of survival, and he predicted that patent suits would be used in a scorched earth campaign to scare people away from FOSS. Given the Tivo suit that was announced here on Slashdot less than an hour after he'd finished speaking, I'd say the facts bear him out.
If his story deserves anything, it's a +1 Insightful/Informative.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
They don't need to own every corporation in the world, just make sure Linux (OSS) screw up big time someday and DROP a shitload of money into shills and PR so creating a big issue for something that is not so relevant or FUD all the way... lets see, what do you think of this headlines in the mass media for over a week/month:
"Microsoft discovers terrorist cell using Linux apps to forgue ID theft of children"
"McAfee says pedophile networs are the #1 *customers* of Linux and open source software"
You can still develop you open software but PHBs and regular sheep just frown to you for using Firefox. You can get fired for proposing open source. Think about it.
In a corporate world you can kill anything just manipulation the media.
In the code once ship to all category wouldn't Linux be the choice here? If Mono supports a subset of Microsoft's .NET wouldn't that lead to developing on Linux to insure the overlap? (Assuming that the developer actually cares about being Linux compatible in the first place and not just getting lucky that it might work someday on Linux)
And what of all the mixed mode crap that won't work on Linux at all? These mixed mode applications make calls to Windows APIs that (outside of Wine) don't exist on Linux. Developing on Linux insures compatibility to a much larger extent than developing on Windows. Wouldn't it be more attractive to develop on Linux if you care about compatibility?
Or it could be that developers are just going to develop for Windows anyway (where the users are) and Mono's existence just gives .NET developers an opportunity to have a Linux afterthought.
At any rate, Mono provides an opportunity to use code that would have otherwise required a Windows box. This is significant because now the user has more than one option in the OS bracket.
I want this account deleted.
I seriously doubt that there is someone who justifies the the label Stallman puppet (i won't repeat the prophanity). There are however (due to Microsofts huge resources) more than enough Microsoft puppets.
So where were you all the times Ballmer was calling FOSS a cancer, a virus and other we-don't-want-to-compete names?
Ignorant prick.
Most formal standards have some sort of reference implementation somewhere, but Microsoft doesn't even implement the OOXML standard as written.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
Perhaps this article would mean more to you if MS started strangling your favorite open source project with threats of patent infringement. When a company like MS takes out ridiculous/obvious patents and the patent office gives then whatever they desire you can understand the trepidation. Manipulation of the ISO is just a showcase of how MS can operate with standards bodies and should not be taken lightly. If IE were the only browser out there, just how much motivation would MS have to fix their security issues with it? MS subsidizes and gives away things for 'free' when they know that they are getting financial remuneration on the side. This is true for IE (.NET, windows IIS environments running .NET backends, costly development tools) and also true with XBox (pricey games that work on a singular platform). Over time Microsoft will become an entity that cannot innovate themselves but only describe others innovations and race them to the patent office. They seem to be in that state already.
The interoperability between the visual studios development environment then to instantly port to Linux, is getting better and better. This opens the possibility of making Windows compatible with Linux, and keeps the developer platform of choice soundly on a window's box.
At the moment, it's actually the other way around: if you want to write portable code in .NET, then your platform of choice will be Linux/Mono rather than Windows/.NET. Reason being that a lot of .NET stuff is still unportable (a few things in WinForms, the whole P/Invoke to Win32 APIs, WPF, and so on), and there's no clear dividing line there. In contrast, all Mono APIs save for a few that are clearly segregated into their own namespaces (such as Mono.Posix) are portable.
So, anyone who might be enticed by portability promises of Mono would be more likely to switch from Windows to Linux, and not vice versa.
???
As someone who has to "get the job done" there is no way I would touch MS products. I want to know that the APIs will last as long as my product/service, not need to be replaced next time Balmer throws a chair. I am supporting business critical software I wrote in 2004 for my clients. I would not want to do that with Windows software.
Disclaimer: I was a programmer long DOS was invented, and have a ship-load of 10ft barge-poles.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
My first Linux install was RH 5.1; it was a bit of a bumpy ride getting X to work, and there were some other issues, so I didn't do much with it- just stuck to Windows. I tried again a year later, and RH 6.x was much better- the 2.2 kernel series made a big difference, GNOME was new and exciting, most things just worked, etc. I did more dual-booting and thought that surely the pace of improvement would make it so after the next release or two I'd always be booting into Linux. But from my point of view the past decade brought very little improvement in making Linux more palatable to use- in some ways it's worse now than it was in 2000.
As someone else mentioned, the purism issues and the hostility towards those developing proprietary software for Linux have been a major detriment. Plenty of old programs that worked well and shipped with earlier distros but had not-quite-free licenses (many of which used Xt or Motif) have just recently started to get decent RMS-approved replacements. In 1999-2000, with Corel making a serious WordPerfect for Linux push, Loki doing ports of most of the biggest games, etc. it looked like a market for consumer Linux software was developing, and I thought that it wouldn't be long before one could find Linux versions of most software on the shelves of box stores. Piracy, hostility towards those developing proprietary software for Linux, ABI churn, Loki going nova, the end of RH's commercial desktop distro (after a couple of less-than-stellar releases), and other factors scared developers away.
Usability is little better than it was then. Having a cadre of self-proclaimed UI experts arguing about button order doesn't help anything, and many of the actions that have been taken in the name of usability have been major steps backward (GNOME 2.0, anybody?). While there are things to be learned from real, long term usability studies, it's counterproductive to make changes based on an assumption that all users are stupid and thus can't be trusted to do anything outside of the most common tasks or on the basis of what someone unacquainted with the software said in their first 5 minutes of trying to familiarize themselves with it.
It'll be interesting to see what happens with Chrome OS. It's possible that a company the size of Google will be able to overcome the worst offenses of the modern Linux desktop scene and create a viable ecosystem for the development of 3rd-party consumer software, taking the good points of how Apple made a similar move in the OS X transition while keeping things more open than Apple has. I don't know that any other company or group is really in a position to bring Linux to desktop relevance.
A metaphor with many meanings
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Here is a neat idea: Do something new and innovative instead of copying MicroSoft.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
They have every right to protect their business
If they competed ethically you might have a point. They don't.
Grow up, people, please..o.k., pretty please?
Time for you to grow up I think. Ethics trumps profit. Sociopaths like to claim otherwise but they are wrong.
---
DRM is the #1 cause of software failure today.
And I thought Jeremy was the master of trash talk, but I was wrong.
Oh yes, I'm a troll for telling the truth. Sorry. Pansies.
~The roAm
Some people are outraged by injustice. That doesn't make them immature.
Since I don't oppose commercial free software, I tend to agree. All free software is commercial since any of it may be distributed for a fee (otherwise it would not qualify as free software) and any of it may be used by a business to pursue their ends. I figure that to be anti-commercial software is to be anti-free software. The free software movement is not anti-business. We're pro-software freedom—people should be free to run, inspect, share, and modify all published computer software. So, as Jeremy Allison said in TFA, "Keep our eyes on the prize -- we keep doing this [free software development] and we will end up with a world where, yes, there may be more proprietary gardens but we can ignore them by creating our own content, creating our own software and creating our own hardware. Let's build the world that we want to see.". Indeed, that's what's gotten us this far and that's how we should keep going.
We need to teach people about the software freedom too: share the values of our community of cooperative collaboration, including teaching them that paying for free software is a good thing; it helps make more free software!
Digital Citizen
+ 4 Informative.
If you want your life to be different, live it differently.
Very funny!
The problem with your theory is there are already tons of megacorps using Linux on their servers (especially web facing ones) RIGHT NOW. Sure you could get Nancy Grace to scream "perverts!" and maybe scare the little old ladies away from using Linux (like they would use it now) but it isn't the little old ladies that have Ballmer waking up with the cold sweats. It is the giant megacorps, which have been the bread and butter for MSFT for ages, buying big fat support contracts and software assurance, that has Ballmer scared. It is the idea of something like ARM netbooks, that can be sold for uber cheap and which not only won't support a MSFT tax but can't run Windows at all, that has Ballmer worried.
It is these things, which frankly FUD can't touch, that has MSFT worried. Now personally I think MSFT is suffering more damage from bad management than from Linux, as IMHO removing the lower price from Win7 HP and getting rid of the family packs was a seriously boneheaded move, when they really need to get folks off of XP and onto the new hotness. Just as I think Linux has more to worry about from the SCoN! (Source Code or Nothing!) brigade making sure drivers are more of a PITA than they have to be instead of working with manufacturers, than Linux has to worry about MSFT.
So honestly I think MSFT has a lot bigger fish to fry than to worry about Linux ATM. They have the whole AT&T VS TiVo suit to worry about, they need to get folks off of XP and onto Windows 7 (Which as I said they shot themselves in the foot by raising prices) they have the X360 they need to continue to build marketshare for, they have a new version of Office to get ready, they are trying to build up Bing, they have a lot on their plate. Wasting resources trying to attack a ghost like Linux, where there is no one corp they can go after, would just be a waste they simply can't afford ATM.
Besides they already have 90%+ of the desktop, and the corporate server market they can work better licensing deals with if they start getting really behind, so stirring up the hornet's nest by poking Linux ATM just don't add up. Hell there is enough disagreement and infighting between the various factions as it is, MSFT doesn't need to stir up trouble.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Apple contributes next to nothing to the FOSS community. They are openly hostile to requests for source code and haven't open sourced a single significant in house development. Most of what Apple has made available is the stock standard BSD code that they are required to make available and a "chess" program.
Apple dislikes open source and only used it to get around the fact that Mac OS 9 was so horribly outdated and buggy that it was easier to start again from scratch (or just use someone elses work). Make no mistake, the GUI, parts of the Kernel and several other key components of OS X will remain locked up forever. Apple's contributions and acceptance of the OSS community is steadily decreasing as they need less and less from OSS.
MS has actually contributed quite a bit more to open source then Apple, I'm not letting them off the hook mind you, Allison has a point about MS's actions towards Linux. Microsoft does not hate Open Source, they hate Linux because Linux is a threat to MS making more money. As much as we like to blame MS for their evil, they are not evil by nature. Microsoft's evilness is entirely a side effect of their greed.
MS is better towards FOSS for one reason, they don't take and don't give back, Apple takes and doesn't give back.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
This is what I was thinking. The biggest threat to OSS is not forms of less open and more closed software, the two can coexist
Jeremy Allison mentioned it briefly, but I don't think they really can. Let me specific, I think that you're right that in an ideal world both forms of software licensing "could" exist. But I've also learned from experience that in this world they can't. Why not? Because Microsoft doesn't want to exist in a world of Open Software. I think their record of business dealings demonstrates this behavior, everything from the Halloween Documents, to "Linux is a cancer", "Linux is violating 200+ of Microsoft's patents" (but they never mention which ones), to funding SCO's lawsuit, The whole turning ISO's integrity into shit with their antics on pushing their OOXML format, the Tom Tom lawsuit, etc.
I know based on what I have seen of Stallman and the Free Software Foundation, that they are perfectly willing to let Microsoft live, not that they would encourage the use of closed software, but they wouldn't use dirty handed tricks like Microsoft. I can't say the same about Microsoft.
I do wish that people would think before they type. Or after they type, before they post.
You've not put any constraints on your claim, so I'm assuming a general claim here that being un-owned means that something is indestructable.
To use a popular SlashDot meme, "freedom" is owned by no person (even though many people claim to possess at least some of it), and yet SlashDot is full of stories about the impending destruction of "freedom" in some parts of the world.
OK, how about something that indisputably exists, into which you could drive a nail (or in my case, an oil well) : the environmental services that put oxygen into the atmosphere. mostly oceanic phytoplankton, a major role to the trees of the rainforests, and a significant role to the rest of the planet's photosynthesising flora. All hail Rubisco! Something that is definitely owned by no person, or country, or even species (it exists as much for tube worms at a mid-ocean ridge as it does for bipedal apes reading SlashDot). And yet something that we could, if we chose, destroy, and which we may well be (slowly) destroying as we type.
I don't know - this site is meant to be "News for Nerds", one of whose characteristics is an ability to actually understand logic and language and set theory etc. Some days it doesn't look like that.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
You laugh. What exactly is .NET? To some it's a programming platform. To others it's a marketing term. I remember the time when Microsoft wanted to tie everything to the .NET name, including their server 2003 platform, hotmail accounts, visual studio. And it was made all the more confusing since .net was already a TLD.
Whereas the development team followed through, the marketing team... gave in. Now we have LIVE, as in Xbox LIVE, your LIVE account, Windows LIVE... Marketers. Seriously, kill yourselves.
Starbucks, Harbuckle of Breath.
Nay,
He yearns for the mythical land of slash as written in the runes, passed down through a thousand UID's. A place where men were real men, women were real men and trolls were also real men.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
And how successful were they at these endeavors? Apparently, not very.
Where were you from 1995 to 2003? I couldn't go anywhere on the web without seeing the "best in MS IE" or even "IE Only" badges at the bottom of pages, whether for legitimate reasons like a bank site using ActiveX or out of sheer ignorance like cousin Larry's awesome family site loaded with IE-only tags ('cause he learned them on htmlgoodies.com!) "So just don't use those sites" was the solution, but not everyone had the luxury. Now we see the same thing with niche or industry-specific apps. The .NET indoctrination has lead to many [medical | architectural | graphical design | <YourCompany>'s homegrown] applications that won't become portable anytime soon despite mono's best efforts.
Wasting resources trying to attack a ghost like Linux, where there is no one corp they can go after...
But they keep attacking, don't they? TomTom, Novell, Lindows, other attacks from 1998 to 2007.
And, since 2003 MS has considered Linux their number two threat.
Microsoft disagrees with you.
Ummm...well lets tackle these one at a time, shall we? TomTom...MSFT holding patents on Fat32 weren't exactly a big secret there Chuck. Just because they aren't actively trying to kill Linux does NOT mean they are just gonna give you their patents for free! TomTom could have paid up, it was THEY who decided to go for it and not license. That was their stupidity, not MSFT's since as I said everyone and their dog knew about the Fat32 (and now EXFat) patents. So no smoke there, just simple patent licensing issues.
Novell? Signed a deal, as did Xandros. Novell got cash, Xandros licensed their server tech to interact with xandros server. Again that is just business 101. MSFT wanted licenses so they could offer a "mixed stack" if the client wanted it, and both Novell and Xandros said "sure". After trying Xandros Business and server, I have to say it was a REALLY smart move. Xandros is the only Linux distro that plays nice with a mixed Linux/Windows corporate environment out of the box with no gotchas. In fact AD worked quicker in Xandros than it did in XP.
Lindows? You are really grabbing at straws with that one. If I started selling an OS called "Abble" that was a cheap OSX ripoff you don't think the Apple would bust my ass? I saw Lindows machines in walmart, and frankly the way they were set up you would have been hard pressed to tell by glancing that they weren't Windows, which was of course the whole point of naming it Lindows. Hell anybody with a brain would have busted their ass, as their whole marketing strategy was built on confusion. Last I heard the CEO took the money and ran, so I wouldn't hold them up as a shining example of the "poor FLOSS company" there.
And finally, did you happen to notice the date on that CFO report? 2003, which in case you forgot was at a time when there was still serious rumblings about MSFT being "too big" and the possibility that they should be broken up. So yeah, they are gonna have to point to somebody and say "See? We really aren't that big! They are really hot and heavy on our heels buddy!" Just as I'm sure that while part of the Intel settlement was to keep AMD from digging out skeletons, another part was like the MSFT Apple bailout, in that they need competition to keep from being labeled a monopoly and having all kinds of antitrust raining on their heads.
But the simple fact is that was then, and this is now. MSFT is MUCH more worried about Google, which is why they are trying to woo Apple into their camp. They know that a good chunk of the future is the web, and they are behind when it comes to the web. The majority of their customers are using a 10 year old OS and 7 year old Office, the still need to grow Bing and not just simply take numbers from Yahoo, the X360 is finally starting to bear fruit and get past the RRoD fiasco, and the simple fact is Linux is just too much of a ghost to hit with the old MSFT strategies.
What Linux needs to worry about is not MSFT but radical FLOSSies who are hurting them more than anything. The SCoN! (source code or nothing!) brigade make it hard to incorporate non free drivers into distros, making them more of a PITA than they need to be. They keep hanging onto the "give us all your code and we'll take care of the rest" mantra, which while it might work in corporate, where these hardware manufacturers have serious $$$ invested in servers and HPC, but won't work in retail where by the time a driver "trickles down" to the distros a device isn't being sold at retail anymore.
The big "gotcha" that Linux faces is the fact that the support for consumer class hardware sucks balls, no offense. Checking my own local Walmart, staples, and Best Buy, I found that maybe 35% of the hardware being sold actually works, and that is if you count "works" as having to put in a mountain of CLI "fixes" and other hacks that will most likely bork when you update. And of there is absolutely NO WAY to tell by looking at the box what
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Dude. I'm clearly not the only one who can't be bothered to argue with your rabidly ignorant and whackily formatted diatribes. Could you just do us all a favour and stop posting until you've grown up, please?
Codeweavers has a good model going, older code merged back into WINE, cutting edge closed and sold for the moment! I *bought* *on Linux* Crossover because of its true value and to the lesser degree that contribution back as a responsible member of the community.
Shh.
Couple of things... (just opinions)
Software Patents - Don't think it's right to patent non-physical devices. Hopefully we can someday we can fix this horrible innovation-stifling law.
Lindows - Don't think anyone ever confused Lindows with Windows.
Old dates on information - I was trying to show a long standing pattern of attacks. You went through many of the items essentially saying that the attacks were justified. Don't wish to put words in your mouth but I think that's the gist of your opinion.
Whether the attacks were justified or not it does show that 1) Linux was/is a threat, as indicated by Microsoft. 2) Linux is not a "ghost" that no one can sue or strong arm.
The last few paragraphs seem to be irrelevant to what I wrote so I'll let others comment on the pros and cons of FOSS.
Please excuse the Opera troll I've had following me around lately, he drools and is rather smelly but harmless.
As for your points? Software patents-agree completely, but until the law is changed expect companies to use patents. All of the big corps, MSFT, AMD, Intel, IBM, etc all play the same game. You license or get sued. My point was TomTom was offered a license, and chose to give MSFT the finger. So no crap they sued.
Lindows?I actually saw a lady in Walmart try to load Windows software on a "Lindows special" so while YOU wouldn't be confused and I wouldn't be confused, other people? Not so much. In fact most of my customers can't tell you if they are on Windows 98 or WinXP. To them there is only ONE OS, and it is Windows. The concept of different versions? Just don't compute. In fact the ONLY customers I have that know what they've got is Vista ones, and it is always followed by "I hate it". So again, MSFT was in the rights. There were and are plenty of names that won't cause confusion, and theirs was pretty much designed to 'fool" the clueless. How much support do you think Canonical would get if they changed their name to "Windoows"? probably not much. I put Lindows in the same camp as those that register mickeymoouse.com" and other crap. If they have a good product they shouldn't need to copy someone else,yes?
As for the old date? I was simply pointing out that at that time MSFT had their nuts in a fire, with talk of "monopoly busting" which I frankly wish they would have done. But again the threat to Linux isn't MSFT, it is zealotry by RMS and the SCoN! camp. Look at how much easier things would be if non free drivers were already built in and ready to go. You don't get that thanks to SCoN! While MSFT can and does compete with Linux, frankly I think until the internal conflicts are worked out Linux has gained about as much as it will. The "hackers" and SCoN! like a CLI heavy, research your ass off Linux, because they think it makes them "smarter" and "better" than the average Joe, which is why you get so much foaming at the mouth "M$" speak here.
So to me the old saying about glass houses applies. It doesn't really matter what MSFT does at this point, it really isn't gonna damage Linux in the long run. But to gain those "Joe and Sally" average users Linux needs to be easier, CLI free, and non open source drivers need to be on CDs so that I can send a customer into Walmart without them playing paperweight roulette. As it is now Linux is a nightmare to shop for, pretty much useless without a CLI interface, and every time I update I end up spending a good couple of hours looking for "fixes" to things that weren't broken before. That shit just has to go! Right now MSFT has their own problems, and if Linux wants to become more than a niche geek OS, it needs to see to its own house. Sorry if it seemed I was putting words in your mouth, I was simply trying to address each point in order. No offense.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Wow. I'm well aware of the "don't feed the troll" rules, but I'll reply this one time.
You sound like you were foaming at the mouth and punching the keyboard while typing these responses. Relax, it's just an internet forum - nothing's worth that amount of anger.
Also, re-read those posts if you like because there's a lesson in there. That guy was wrong, I explained why he was wrong, he didn't pay attention and said something that showed he hadn't understood what I'd said so I gave up. If people aren't interested in what you have to say, then don't worry about it - just leave them to it. I suggest you do the same in future, instead of bursting a blood vessel over it.
Life's too short to let the ramblings of random strangers get to you, so just have a drink or a smoke or whatever you like to do to calm the fuck down before you hurt yourself. Losing your temper just makes you look like a dick and destroys your credibility in any debate.
I won't be replying again, so don't waste your time with a response.
"Company gets built around an innovative idea by a bunch of enthusiastic experts, grows big because it actually sells useful products that make peoples lives easier"
,
Yea, 'the innovative idea' was buying DOS from Seattle Computers and licensing it to IBM and their idea of selling useful products was to make sure running third party software on WinDOS was a jolting experience.
Oracle?
I know tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack.