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Google Reportedly Ditching Windows
Reader awyeah notes a Financial Times report that Google is ditching the use of Windows internally. Some blogs have picked up the FT piece but so far there isn't any other independent reporting of the claim, which is based on comments from anonymous Googlers. One indication of possibly hasty reporting is the note that Google "employs more than 10,000 workers internationally," whereas it's easy enough to find official word that the total exceeds 20,000. "The directive to move to other operating systems began in earnest in January, after Google's Chinese operations were hacked, and could effectively end the use of Windows at Google. ... 'We're not doing any more Windows. It is a security effort,' said one Google employee. ... New hires are now given the option of using Apple's Mac computers or PCs running the Linux operating system. 'Linux is open source and we feel good about it,' said one employee. 'Microsoft we don't feel so good about.' ... Employees wanting to stay on Windows required clearance from 'quite senior levels,' one employee said. 'Getting a new Windows machine now requires CIO approval,' said another employee."
.....if Microsoft employees can ditch Google.
That will be the true test of Google's influence.
I recently left IBM, but while I was there, there was considerable effort to eliminate M$ products. Symphony was being pushed out over MS Office, and Apple netbooks were an available option in some areas. Obviously IBM has a love for Linux, and the Linux folk there are doing everything they can to make it perfectly acceptable, and usable, to use Linux internally. For all of my 4 years at IBM I used Debian and then Ubuntu on my work thinkpad (but I kept a XP partition for Visio).
Well, I think they're headed to ChromeOS long-term. While this particular report may be true or not since it's based on anonymous sources, Eric Schmidt himself said that this would be Google's response during the Atmosphere event. He also indicated that they're moving toward eating their own dog food at every level, and that wasin or around a discussion of ChromeOS (I'm going from memory). I took the interview as a whole to be an indication that Google wanted to move to ChromeOS and Apps for as much of the internal stuff as it could.
Here is a report of the interview: http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-20002315-265.html
Put identity in the browser.
I thought the next big thing to hit MS by Google actions was to make HTML5 the new YouTube installer(apart from the beta html5). This would represent the next most significant milestone over the inception of Google Search itself.
But this is up there. For Joe and Jane Public, google is hip, trustworthy, and useful everyday.
Perhaps more than any other effort, this may influence significantly the perception of school aged people and Operating Systems. When that tipping point comes, MS is in serious trouble.
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
Eric Schmidt must have a short memory. Wasn't he still at Sun when they tried the "eat your own dog food" approach with Solaris there?
Whatever the technical virtues of Solaris, it turned out to be a miserable environment for the kind of productivity apps your typical office droid needed to have access to. We'll see how long it takes Google to start frantically doing the back-stroke.
American Third Position
Finally, a real choice!
"Cloud Computing" is just Timeshare 2.0.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
So Google employees don't use the client software they themselves produce, considering that a lot of it is still Windows-only?
I would be particularly curious about Google's own GTalk client...
Actually, RedHat and Apple both tried to get some employees to use Microsoft computers and phones, so that they'd have people on staff that were familiar with the MS products. But most the employees flatly refused. The few that went along with the requests also quietly updated their resumes, and quit after a month or two. This can be really frustrating if you're seriously trying to test your equipment against the other major products on the market. ;-)
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
It has always surprised me how few companies run linux on the desktop. I have personal converted about 30 in the last 10 years, all of which were mom and pop places with less than 100 seats. Google using Chrome would not surprise me. 90% of the office desktop users dont need more than a browser, office platform, and maybe e-mail assuming the company does not have a web based e-mail. I have heard many geeks say it is not ready for the desktop based on a list of reasons but the general office user has such a small software need that it fits nicely..
The last company I migrated over to linux was a rush job. They needed it done in a short window before the inspection of there licences. I set up 1 server with home directory shares in both NFS and Samba, ldap, dns, printers, and DHCP. There were 3 desktop configs, 1) for users that had with firefox, OpenOffice, and google chat. 2) for managers that had that plus planner, and Dia. 3) was for upper management that had everything from the first two plus a few specialized things that one VP seemed to think he needed like bit torrent and an RSS feed reader.
Everyone got the basics like a calculator, archive manager, Notepad, etc.
All in all they run smooth, easy access to pen drives etc. Windows Laptops could be pointed at the server and after logging in would get the users home directory allowing them to easily move data between there laptop and the desktop. The remote home directories and ldap logins meant that users could login at any desktop and do there work. All the desktops were the same for a given group so if one failed it was simply replaced and a new image installed (Totalling about 45 min install time) Top this off with no viruses, spy ware, or bot software and the desktops were locked down with only a couple of open ports. So far every company I have done this for has loved the setup.
And, what exactly is ChromeOS? I haven't fooled with it in a couple months - but the last time I looked, ChromeOS was just a highly customized Cloud Linux.
Google may or may not be working on their own kernel, but to date, there is no indication that they are.
So, the premise that Google is moving to Mac and Linux still stands, no matter how much ChromeOS may figure into the equation.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Really? I find it EXTREMELY useful in the music studio. I guess I missed the memo that this is not supposed to be the case.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
That doesn't really make sense. We are just reaching a point in time when Google realizes that Apple is a bigger threat to their business then Windows ever was (Windows users have the option of installing alternate codecs, browser, toolbars, etc), and Windows has finally got its security act together, and NOW Google is going to switch from Windows to Mac?
This makes me curious from a desktop administration perspective. Windows, for all its problems, has a great ecosystem of enterprise management tools for things like software installation and inventory, hardware inventory, health monitoring and more. All the stuff you need to effectively manage a large fleet of workstations with a few techs is available.
Most developers I know make poor system administrators, so it's hard to believe they take a completely laissez-faire approach to desktop management. Also, Google Docs seems like a really poor substitute for file shares on an enterprise NOS and directory service -- it's the "cloud" equivalent of a peer-to-peer LAN network when it comes to security structures.
Sigh, badmouth Apple on Slashdot and get modded down, no matter how accurate your post may be. Oh well. I expect I'll suffer the same fate, but I'll weigh in nonetheless. I have karma to spare.
You also forgot to mention that if this shift is really for security reasons, MacOS is hardly an improvement over Windows -- in fact it may well be a downgrade. It derives most of its security through obscurity, but as competitions like pwn2own show us -- if people have a motivation they will find an exploit.
It's almost twilight zoneish to say it, but Microsoft has become sort of a leader in security as of late (admittedly they are extremely late to the bandwagon) as they've embraced fuzzing and other sorts of tools that many others in the industry have not yet latched on to.
It would make perfect sense if they were moving to Linux only -- an operating system that is free in both senses of the word, but allowing continued use of MacOS but not Windows seems a bit hypocritical.
The automatic sharing of the C: drive as \\hostname\c$\, for example, has been nearly impossible to turn off for even a competent systems administrator without ripping out parts of the operating system you may want.
have to disagree, most competent admins know how to search knowlegde base articles. Took all of about 8 seconds to find the KB articles that describe the registry settings in detail. eg. heres the windows 2003 one. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/816524
It seems pretty self evident that you have little to no experience in the corporate IT environment, and that your nothing more than a mac fan boy. The Ipad CANNOT replace a PC for every day use, its to slow, its to locked down. I can't run 80% of the software my employees are required to run for every day functions. Can you build a work environment that will work with the model you lay out. Sure, and I can build a surfboard out of a piece of steel, that doesn't make it a good idea, a flexible idea, or a user friendly one. The environment you keep laying out with your mac zealotry is bullshit and will not work as a replacement for existing infrastructure. There are to many factors already in place to go about replacing everything just to give users new toys which they will walk off the job with, loose, break, steal etc. Is XP old, yes...is it really that expensive or difficult to replace it with win 7, frankly no. Most large organizations that are running windows have enterprise agreements with MS, MEANING that migration is going to be very cheap compared to replacing their entire infrastructure with MAC units, migrating all of their software and databases to MAC comparable options and reconfiguring their entire network to use a toy that will only turn into a liability, and won't serve most functions around the office. One of the biggest examples of what the Ipad WON'T do for you, is print to 99% of the network printers in the office. Apple is out of its mind if it expects to drag in enterprise customers with the Ipad, its to difficult to manage, develop for, deploy new software on, and you never know what Apple is going to do to it next, apple is unpredictable with their app store, and good luck getting a utility or tool on the device without Jobs approval.
Do I like MS....no
Do I want linux....maybe
Do I want S. Jobs telling me how to run my network hell no. Do You?
Sure, new toys and new tools are great, but they have to fit into the existing paradigm, they have to be cost effective, and they have to make my life easier, not make me rework the last 15 years worth of investment to use it.
Or the denial of service attacks possible against an Internet-exposed Exchange server because it simply cannot handle a reasonable amount of direct SMTP traffic, especially broadly distributed spambots?
That is so true. Our Exchange server was falling over at least a couple times a week, even though it was on a fresh install on good hardware and run by a competent admin. It just couldn't stand up to all the dictionary attacks and other jackassery thrown at it. I installed a FreeBSD+Postfix server in front of the Exchange server and configured it to learn which usernames were valid on the Exchange, set up Spamassassin, and let it go. We literally haven't had a single unplanned outage on Exchange since that day.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
The iPad is a joke- a toy- a gimmick. My phone can do most things that a 10 year old XP machine can do and you don't see users switching over to it. Get over it. Apple isn't the most amazing thing in the world. They put out crappy products that are overpriced, cheap underneath, become outdated quickly, and suck. You can't do half the stuff you should be able to do on a Mac that you can on an up-to-date PC with GNU/Linux or MS Windows because Apple discontinues its support after just a handful of years, uses obscure proprietary hardware, and other lock-ins. In fact they are worse then Microsoft. Despite what people say about Apple being based on free software the truth is they only rip off the good code to cut costs. It just sucks for users in the end.
Personally I've found Pages/Numbers and OO//Calc to be pretty terrible compared to MS Office. That said, at the last company I was at our Receptionist / Office Manager used a Mac and had no problems. So its doable.
What exactly do you use it for in the music studio?
I can't think of any useful task it could perform.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
You're modded funny, I think, because the treat (as manifest by FUD) is big.
Microsoft is pushing to get people off XP and onto 7 because, frankly, there's little incentive to go to 7 over something else if your internal policy has been "let's stick with XP and Office 2003 and wait for the next big release". Guess what? Moving from XP and O2003 to Linux (whether GNOME or KDE or something else) with OpenOffice is a smaller jump for most people than W7 and o2k7. And that's the problem Microsoft is facing.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
I wonder what Google uses for an accounting package? Very hard to find accounting programs that do not require Windows OS.
Corporate accounting? General ledger, accounts payable, that sort of thing? No company of Google's size would do that with a Windows-based application. They would likely do accounting with SAP or Oracle, probably running in a Unix environment of some kind. Both of these have web UIs nowadays, so all the employees who need access can use any OS they want.
Unpatched 5% (11 of 217 Secunia advisories)
That's the important part. Linux always has more vulnerabilities publicly found and fixed due to it being open source, a process which leads to a more secure system -- wouldn't you rather have a vulnerability found and fixed, or even found and marked "unpatched" on Securina, than found and exploited (hidden) elsewhere?
And even more important is what those unpatched vulnerabilities actually are:
A vulnerability has been reported in the Linux Kernel, which can be exploited by malicious, local users to cause a DoS (Denial of Service).
This is in the CIFS code, which presumably can be disabled. Should be fixed, but how many Linux systems actually need to defend themselves against local DoS attacks?
Tony Griffiths has reported a vulnerability in the Linux Kernel, which can be exploited malicious, local users to cause a DoS (Denial of Service).
Another local DoS. And another, and another... Yawn. Let's skip to the good stuff:
An error in the DRM (Direct Rendering Manager) drivers due to insufficient DMA lock checking can be exploited to crash the X server or modify video output.
Modifying video output could be very bad, but also very hard to exploit in a way to make it worse than rickrolling you. And again, local.
A race condition within the handling of "/proc/.../cmdline" may disclose the content of environment variables of spawning processes.
In other words, there's a race condition (hard to exploit) which may disclose sensitive information in your environment variables to other procesess you run. I honestly can't think of a single case where this would reveal anything exploitable. Clearly, it should be fixed, but right now, you're welcome to my environment variables.
A race condition within the memory management can be exploited to disclose the content of random physical memory pages.
That could be very, very bad, but also very difficult to exploit. Again, local.
The vulnerability is caused due to an unspecified error within the ide-cd SG_IO functionality. This allows a user with read-only access to bypass these permissions and perform write and erase operations on media in a drive.
So, in other words, anyone who uses an IDE CD-RW drive is vulnerable. Otherwise, you need a lightning-quick exploit to grab someone's blank media and burn something evil to it. I'm quaking in my boots.
The problem is caused due to signedness errors which can lead to integer overflows in the XDR decode functions in kNFSd. This can be exploited by sending packets with a write request larger than 2^31, causing the system to crash.
In other words, doesn't affect people who don't run NFS, or specifically kernel NFS (there's a userland NFS now). Oh, and you need to be on the local network.
Various functions in the IEEE 1394 driver contain integer overflows within the memory allocation scheme. This can potentially be exploited via specially crafted requests, which may cause a large amount of data to be copied into an insufficiently sized buffer.
That's probably the most serious one I've seen -- possible privilege escalation -- but what privileges do I have to have to access the raw FireWire device anyway? I bet most users can't.
So that brings it down to, what, one actually unpatched vulnerability that I'd be worried about. And it's still only local, and still a bitch to exploit.
Now let's try the Windows ones. One is a remote exploit, which can be triggered merely by convincing an Aero user to view a given image. Another is a remote exploit which may allow people to manipulate SSL-encrypted streams.
Security is not and never has been about numbers -- I only need one serious exploit.
Also worth
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I was waiting for people to make apps using it as a DAW. The first time I saw it announced, I thought it would make an excellent control surface for a musician. It can either be used via BlueTooth or the connector as a graphical "dumb terminal" telling the music program running on a computer what dials and sliders the user has changed, or it has enough CPU to mix and do effects on some amount of music (I'd probably say at least 4 tracks at CD quality, possibly a lot more.)
No, it wouldn't replace a 48 track mixing deck with motorized faders, but it can offer a musician a lot of control for a decent price that they wouldn't have otherwise.
No, the C API on Chrome OS and Android is closed. It's Google only.
No it isn't.
HTML5 and Flash and Java applets only on Android.
You can run Debian on Android. It works fine. You can run GCC and compile whatever you want.
When I talked to a Google recruiter a couple of years ago, they said that although you had a choice between Linux, OSX, and Windows, you would have a hard time as an engineer if you used Windows, as about the only people who used it were managers that were running Microsoft Project.
Why can't I mod "-1 Idiot"?
it turned out to be a miserable environment for the kind of productivity apps your typical office droid needed to have access to
That's weird... the developers in our office during the 90's had Solaris boxes and... nothing else. They had Netscape for email and web, and I think WordPerfect for word processing. I can't remember what, if anything, they used for spreadsheets. A few of them couldn't stand it and also got a PC with Windows or OS2 or ran Mac in emulation, but mostly they were fairly happy (for developers).
The real whining started when our company got rid of the old unix email servers and forced everyone into Outlook on Windows.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Visual Studio 2003 was the last time you needed to do dev as an admin, and only for certain things where it was just far simplier to be a dev, like working with ASP.NET which used IIS and required admin to edit the metadata database.
Since they use Cassini or whatever the ASP.NET personal web server is now for dev rather than IIS by default there isn't a need anymore.
You need debugging rights, which is effectively as good as admin rights on older versions of Windows, not so much on NT 6.x kernels (I haven't yet been able to sneak around anything with the debugger yet, but I've not really made an effort either, just tried the old tricks which no longer worked)
You still need admin for driver work, but you're probably doing that in a virtual machine or on dedicated hardware with remote debugging, which is a special occasion where you can't really get around it on any OS.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager