Linux Foundation Comments On Microsoft's Increasing Love of Linux

LibbyMC writes Executive Director Jim Zemlin writes, "We do not agree with everything Microsoft does and certainly many open source projects compete directly with Microsoft products. However, the new Microsoft we are seeing today is certainly a different organization when it comes to open source. The company's participation in these efforts underscores the fact that nothing has changed more in the last couple of decades than how software is fundamentally built."

Comments

Step one.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh look, MS is embracing open source. Isn't that wonderful?

Re:Step one.

[davydagger]

yes actually. What I'd like from MS is an apology and a statement that they will take their company in a new dirrection. After all IBM has supported FOSS for decades, and before MS, they used to be more evil than they were. So far, they've been good corporate citizens. If Big Blue can do it, MS can as well. I am not going forget all of history in one instant, but over time I am willing to see how this shakes out, and if microsoft continues this postive development my opinions of them will change favorably. This is not a whole lot, but a start. Today, my opinion of microsoft has changed a little bit to the favorable. A little bit. Not a whole lot, but a little bit. If microsoft wants my opinion(and everyone elses) to change for the better, they can continue what they've done today in regards to Freedom and Openness.

Re:Step one.

[GreatDrok]

"Oh look, MS is embracing open source. Isn't that wonderful?"

Maybe open source is embracing MS? That would put the cat amongst the pigeons to say the least. Just who gets extinguished in that scenario?

Re:Step one.

[Marginal Coward]

"Don't let yesterday use up too much of today." - Will Rogers

Re:Step one.

[Anonymous Coward]

I am not going forget all of history in one instant,

I'm not worried about history. It's their present actions I want to see corrected.

1. Stop blocking open file/document formats and start actively working towards interoperability. I want to be able to use any tool of my choice on my data.
2. Stop astroturfing EVERY tech forum in existence. I want to be able to discuss Linux and other OSs/software etc without harassment from MS damage control drones.
3. Lose the control-freak attitude towards competitors. Don't try to patent-bomb/bleed/cross-license them out of existence.
4. Don't buy/bribe government customers to keep them locked in. We have a right to use free and open tools on documents written on taxpayer dollars.
5. Stop manipulating hardware manufacturers. Locked/broken bootloaders, closed drivers etc are dirty ways to compete.

There's a lot more, but the point is made. Until I see some fundamental changes to the way MS does business, I'll have to keep assuming this current cosying up to the community is cynically motivated and dangerous.

Re:Step one.

[jedidiah]

The core database team is actually the only worthwhile thing there. It's all of the other stuff at the fringes that Oracle historically and perpetually screws up.

It's everything else they do wrong.

It's hard to say how well Java will fare under Oracle stewardship. They are kind of the anti-Sun. I guess that makes them a black hole. '-)

Re:Step one.

[Tough Love]

What I'd like from MS is an apology...

What I would like from MS is an apology and a big slurpy wet kiss on my asshole with plenty of suction. And then I still won't trust them, but at least my ass will be clean.

Re:Step one.

[Beck_Neard]

Standard bodies live in reality. They have to. If a huge company like Microsoft says they won't adopt the standard if it doesn't do X, the standard body has no choice but to either comply or take its complaint to the court. Even if it goes with the latter option and 'wins', Microsoft still wins because it doesn't have to adopt the standard. They can just pull dirty tricks like renaming stuff to get past it.

Re:Step one.

[Anonymous Coward]

Those "standards bodies" allow that to happen

In other words, you have no idea what you're talking about. They didn't "allow" it to happen. They were taken over by Microsoft - a hostile organisation which exploited their membership rules.

Even if microsoft doesnt do it you dont think somebody else will?

Nobody else did.

Read this:

Summary: "The days of open standards development are fast disappearing. Instead we are getting 'standardization by corporation', something I have been fighting against for the 20 years I have served on ISO committees," wrote Martin Bryan.

Martin Bryan, ISO Governor, JTC 1/SC 34 WG1, Microsoft's strong-arming of the ISO process regarding Open XML, the proprietary format of Microsoft Office, may be destroying its legitimacy.

In a memo sent following his last meeting as head of the working group on WG1, which is handling Microsoft's application to make the Word format an ISO standard as ECMA 376, outgoing Governor Martin Bryan (above), an expert on SGML and XML, accused the company of stacking his group.

At issue is a sudden influx of so-called P members to the body, "whose only interest is the fast-tracking of ECMA 376," Bryan wrote. The P members are not voting on anything else, preventing it from moving on any other work.

Bryan suggested that unless the ISO tightens its membership rules to eliminate the abuse its work should be passed on to OASIS, and he closed with this:

The disparity of rules for PAS, Fast-Track and ISO committee generated standards is fast making ISO a laughing stock in IT circles. The days of open standards development are fast disappearing. Instead we are getting “standardization by corporation”, something I have been fighting against for the 20 years I have served on ISO committees. I am glad to be retiring before the situation becomes impossible.

Is making Microsoft's Open XML format a standard so important that Microsoft is willing to destroy the ISO process to win it?

http://www.groklaw.net/staticp...

Re:Step one.

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you not read what you quoted:

Bryan suggested that unless the ISO tightens its membership rules to eliminate the abuse its work should be passed on to OASIS

Nobody is saying what microsoft did is ok, but the incompetence of the ISO has allowed this to happen and the rabid microsoft hate seems to turn your brain to mush, fix the problem, not the symptom!

Re:Step one.

[Uecker]

No, the standard body should do its job and produce good standards. Whether Microsoft implements it or not is not their problem. A good standard which Microsoft does not use is much better than a mess which nobody can implement correctly.

Re:Step one.

[rtb61]

M$ is just like every other corporation, it reflects the attitudes and morals of it's executives and board of directors and this can really change at any time, for good or ill. Interestingly enough the real fear with M$ and Linux is that M$ would do what it had a history of doing, which was embrace, extend and extinguish http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.... As such there was strong motivation to keep M$ from taking up Linux and causing problems and hence it was led/fell into the trap of being opposed to it, rather than embracing it, attempting to extend it and then of course extinguishing all competitors. I often felt IBM strove hard to keep M$ out of Linux and opposed to it. Many members of early FOSS community also wanted nothing to do with M$ and as such helped to ratchet up the mutual dislike and distrust.

Re:Step one.

[Beck_Neard]

Well that's been pretty much the story of Microsoft and standards so far: good standards that it doesn't use and bad standards (heavily influenced by Microsoft) that it does. The only exception are really old standards, but they manage to fuck up even those.

Re:Step one.

[aaaaaaargh!]

The ironic thing is that if there was a Microsoft Word for Linux and it could actually read its own file format correctly, then I would probably buy it just so I could exchange files with publishers without having to worry about missing special characters and malformed tables.

Re:Step one.

[trewornan]

i doubt it is bribing and you are probably just using the wrong word

The correct euphemism today is "making political donations".

bribing is illegal

Not if it's done in the form of a political donation.

Re:Step one.

[nukenerd]

Nobody is saying what microsoft did is ok, but the incompetence of the ISO has allowed this to happen

Perhaps incompetence; it was the fact that no-one had ever forseen that anyone would play the dirty trick that Microsoft did. I hope they have fixed it.

I am interested in yacht racing under rating rules. The yachts can be of different design, but there are rules to make the yachts competative with each other. Like you can have a certain sail area but of any aspect ratio. But every now and then someone turns up with a yacht of a design that exploits a loophole in the rule, and everyone (often even the owner) agrees it is cheating and the rules are soon amended to block the loophole. It is similar in F1 car racing.

That is what Microsoft did - found a loophole - but the result has been far more catastrophic than a wrong yacht winning a race.

Re:Step one.

[nukenerd]

the real issue is the corrupt standards bodies, sure it would be great if MS stopped but it would be better if those corrupt people were ousted so that you dont just get somebody else coming in to manipulate them.

You are showing incredible ignorance. It is Microsoft who corrupt them. It is not as simple as corruption by handing out bribes. With Microsoft occupying the posiition it does, the corruption is more based on fear - of potential loss of business.

In the OOXML affair, it was noticed by Microsoft that companies in the relevant field could join the national standards committees fairly easily. They therefore got their partners around the world ( a "Microsoft Partner" has a formal association with Microsoft) to join these committees in sufficient numbers to outvote the existing regular members.

The regular members were not corrupted, they were outvoted. In some countries, the dozen or so regular members arrived on the day of the vote at the usual small meeting room to find it already packed out with newly joined "Microsoft Partner" members. Some of the regular members could not even get in the door. These new members were never seen again after that vote.

Being a Microsoft Partner is essential for the business of many of them (they get pre-views of software and technical support. They would not dare to ignore a Microsoft request such as joining their national standards committee, so no money was being handed out. Perhaps extortion is a better word after all.

5 isnt an issue. even with secure boot they mandate that it must be able to be disabled, locked/broken bootloaders and closed drivers are at the behest of hardware manufacturers, not microsoft. you just seem a bit confused on who develops what.

No confusion here. The point with secure boot is that while it can be disabled if you have the technical nous (don't worry, I shall) it deters a casual user from trying out Linux and parhaps liking it. That is what Microsoft are after and they have a part in the affair.

Re:Step one.

[nukenerd]

What I'd like from MS is an apology and a statement that they will take their company in a new dirrection.

Not enough by miles. How about they let a team of independent financial assessors evaluate how much they were able to over-charge customers by virtue of their monopoly position, and cost other companies. Then pay refunds to all those people and entities.

Re:Step one.

[jellomizer]

Because every successful tech company keeps the same business model for over 30 years!
Lets face it.
The Desktop Business isn't where the money is anymore. The Desktop is a dying idea. It is shifting towards Servers,Workstations, and Mobile.

New applications take more advantage of the Web Standards, and less of OS dependent technologies. (With the key exceptions of heavy processing systems (Such as CAD, Games, Simulations, Programming)
The nice thing about following web standards for Web Applications your program is in essence write once run everywhere.

Re:Step one.

[Anonymous Coward]

Right; it's not my fault I poisoned my wife, it's her fault she's not immune to poisoning.

Re:Step one.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

I don't think Microsoft can help interoperability even if it wanted it, even its existence depended on it.

Microsoft is not able to ensure interoperability with its own product. Despite all that claims about backward compatibility, OpenOffice opens older microsoft files better than microsoft itself can. Microsoft had better backward compatibility when it still had the old 16 bit subsystem, and it was able to feed the incoming file stream into the old binaries through some hacked up emulator. Microsoft office files are not simple files. They are entire filesystems, its driver undocumented, unplanned, written by newbies hacking their way through. So they would just treat the old binary as a black box. Another huge wrinkle they have is munging the printer driver into their renderer. What you see is what you get, in the printer. The old file rendering will change if you change the printer. All those cruft is all encased deep inside the inscrutable binaries. But when they lost the 16 bit subsystem, they lost the ability to use old binaries as black boxes. They must have had a project to support the 16 bit subsystem itself in a hacked up emulator just for Ms-Office. Wonder what happened to it.

File formats being obscure was considered a feature and a protection against reverse engineering. So they never discouraged it and never realized it had gone so bad even they can't understand their own file formats.

So even its very existence depended on it, and they really really sincerely wanted to, still they won't be able to deliver interoperability.

Re:Step one.

[spacepimp]

Does this mean Bill Gates is putting his money into solving/curing cancer?

Re:Step one.

[TemporalBeing]

"Oh look, MS is embracing open source. Isn't that wonderful?"

Maybe open source is embracing MS? That would put the cat amongst the pigeons to say the least. Just who gets extinguished in that scenario?

Given enough birds the cat would be pecked to death

Re:Step one.

[lsatenstein]

I am not going forget all of history in one instant,

I'm not worried about history. It's their present actions I want to see corrected.

1. Stop blocking open file/document formats and start actively working towards interoperability. I want to be able to use any tool of my choice on my data.

2. Stop astroturfing EVERY tech forum in existence. I want to be able to discuss Linux and other OSs/software etc without harassment from MS damage control drones.

3. Lose the control-freak attitude towards competitors. Don't try to patent-bomb/bleed/cross-license them out of existence.

4. Don't buy/bribe government customers to keep them locked in. We have a right to use free and open tools on documents written on taxpayer dollars.

5. Stop manipulating hardware manufacturers. Locked/broken bootloaders, closed drivers etc are dirty ways to compete.

There's a lot more, but the point is made. Until I see some fundamental changes to the way MS does business, I'll have to keep assuming this current cosying up to the community is cynically motivated and dangerous.

I concur. I have watched Big Bad B from Microsoft Rant and Rage about competition. Wow,
I suspect that Windows 10.x is the last windows version we will ever see from Microsoft. The reason are obvious. If you can't beat them, join them.

Re:Step one.

[david_thornley]

Right. Microsoft, as a company, can claim a seat at any ISO standards committee, and they can't do much harm just by being there. For the OOXML debacle, Microsoft mustered all sorts of companies that depend on Microsoft and had them stuff the standards committees for two meetings, so they could vote the Microsoft way on the second. Then, of course, having voted in OOXML, they vanished from the standards committees, leaving them unable to act for one or two meetings as they were way below the previously established quorum.

Aside from threatening Ballmer with physical harm, I'm interested in knowing what the standards bodies could have done about the issue.

Re:Step one.

[davydagger]

I am pretty sure Microsoft is dependant on non-interoperbility. If people could use competing products especially Free ones that were compatible with Office, no one would really bother with Office. 90% of what people do with word documents is type and spell check.

Re:Step one.

[Uecker]

I don't think Microsoft as a company can claim a seat at any ISO standards committee. As far as I know - but I may be wrong - the members of the ISO, i.e. the national standard bodies, send people to the technical comittees. The rules the national standard organizations have probably vary a lot from country to country, but they mostly seem to be self-governed institutions. So it is hard to imaging that they there were no means to prevent this blatant misuse, either by enforcing existing rules or changing the rules.

Microsoft's 1990's business plan.

[Reeses]

Step 1: Embrace.
Step 2: Extend.
Step 3: Extinguish.

They see this as step 1.

Re:Microsoft's 1990's business plan.

[swillden]

Step 1: Embrace.
Step 2: Extend.
Step 3: Extinguish.

They see this as step 1.

You know, I really don't think so. I think Microsoft has gotten knocked down hard and learned a little humility. They now have to compete on merit, rather than just leverage their IBM-gifted monopoly to squash any competition. It's even possible that the lesson will sink deeply enough into the corporate culture to effect a permanent change (plus, it's unlikely they'll achieve another world-dominating position to leverage).

But even if you're right, I don't think it matters because their monopoly is eroding fast and without that leverage they can't execute step 3.

(Just to head off some inevitable replies to that last comment, when I say their monopoly is eroding it's not so much that Windows is being replaced on the desktop -- though it is, some, and I think the trend will accelerate -- but that the desktop is becoming much less important.)

Re:Microsoft's 1990's business plan.

[rcht148]

I would like to believe you. I really really want to but what's the guarantee?
The adoption of Win 8.x is still quite low. After Steam announced SteamOS, we have seen few companies port their gaming engine to Linux and some hardware manufacturers have started giving some standing to Linux (not saying equal to Windows). Microsoft is at a low right now and 'embracing' seems like a business need more than just a change of heart. How do you know that it won't 'extinguish' cross platform support when it defeats the competitive options.
This is like we had a bad tyrant and we suffered tremendously under this tyrant and it took a DoJ anti-trust lawsuit and a very long amount of time to see meaningful competition in this space again. Now the tyrant is back saying pretty please.
My reply is simple: Fool me once...

Re:Microsoft's 1990's business plan.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, the company, the world, the people, the market... everything is just the same as it was in the 90s. Get out of the basement for once. Cynicism is a disease around here that causes people like that to become completely irrelevant. Any change or anything different is completely dismissed by the unadaptable graybeard basement-dwellers. We see it in dismissal of every new concept and any element of change the ipod, touchscreens, tablet computing, interfaces like gnome 3... with anything different, any change there is a concerted effort around this place to try and sweep it under the rug based on some previous historical event or some preconceived and contrived scenario.

Instead of always desperately searching for the negative how about considering the positives and innovative potential of new ideas or change? Though I don't think there's much chance of that happening for people like you. This is why free software is so irrelevant, unless some proprietary company goes ahead and extends it to make it modern and useful it just sits there because the whole fucking community is so scared of any change to anything.

You see it whenever Apple introduces a new product or when Microsoft does anything. EEE was a failed attempt to eliminate Java 20 years ago and those fearful hermits are still clinging to that to try and spread FUD, get over it for fuck sake. Microsoft doesn't rule the world, and EEE didn't work even when they completely dominated personal computing.

Re:Microsoft's 1990's business plan.

[exomondo]

So obviously you've heard of this Embrace, Extend, Extinguish from the 1990's memo about the proprietary Sun technology but how exactly are you thinking that applies here? Are you saying they are going to somehow embrace, extend and then extinguish open source? If so how exactly do you suppose they could do such a thing?

Re:Microsoft's 1990's business plan.

[Shados]

Except they're not embracing anything. They're opening some of their most popular stuff. Do you think they're going to try and kill Github by...putting stuff on github?

Re:Microsoft's 1990's business plan.

[swillden]

I would like to believe you. I really really want to but what's the guarantee?

There are no guarantees.

How do you know that it won't 'extinguish' cross platform support when it defeats the competitive options.

Because Microsoft has failed in the mobile space, and mobile computing is becoming the dominant form of individual computing. Desktops and laptops aren't going away, but they're being relegated to smaller niches, and even in those niches people increasingly expect to be able to work cross-device. I don't expect my tablet or phone to be as convenient for, say, editing a spreadsheet or writing code, as my laptop or desktop, but I increasingly demand that I be able to work on the same stuff on all sorts of devices and to be able to move seamlessly between them.

This inherently means that big chunks of any solution must be cross-platform, because there is no single platform that runs on all devices. Microsoft would like to change this by unifying desktop and mobile Windows, but to be successful at that they'd have to get a dominant position in mobile computing, and they've failed at that. The webification of everything is also making it increasingly impossible to bind users to one operating system.

So, Microsoft is simply not going to have the ability to extinguish cross-platformness, because to do that they'd have to own all the platforms, and they don't, and won't.

This is like we had a bad tyrant and we suffered tremendously under this tyrant and it took a DoJ anti-trust lawsuit and a very long amount of time to see meaningful competition in this space again.

The DoJ suit had nothing to do with it. Microsoft was never meaningfully limited by that suit.

Re:Microsoft's 1990's business plan.

[NotInHere]

The key point of open source software is the right to fork. If microsoft does anything of step 3, some people will step up and create a fork. You can see that with openoffice. If step 2 is executed, there should be enough power in the community.

Re:Microsoft's 1990's business plan.

[spire3661]

WE didnt think they would fund SCO either.... but they did and thats why we are VERY cautious on this matter.

Re:Microsoft's 1990's business plan.

[jedidiah]

None of the things you are ranting about are relevant. The issue is whether or not Microsoft is the same company. Is it the same corporate culture?

Chances are that it is.

The fact that the rest of the world has changed really isn't relevant. It's not the rest of the world we're talking about. The world may have changed and it seems at first glance that it's the same old Microsoft being a leech off of Android with it's patent trolling.

Forget about childish insults directed at Unix users. Microsoft has continually botched it's attempts to adapt to the new reality. That's why it makes more money in the mobile space off of patent trolling than it does it's own product.

Even this "gift" is a manifestation of how they couldn't cope with Java.

Re:Microsoft's 1990's business plan.

[BigThor00]

If there was anything I learned from the Connect conference today, at the very least, Microsoft wants to be a player on all platforms. They are removing restrictions that used to limit their reach to just the Windows platform. In order to be relevant, they had to open up their systems. This allows .NET to compete in the OSX, iOS, and Android markets. Those markets are huge, and they want to play. These tools make it very easy to build once and deploy anywhere. Isn't that the ultimate goal? Don't we all want to build one solution and have it be an application, a website, a mobile application, on all platforms all at once? They are just striving for that.

Re:Microsoft's 1990's business plan.

[ShieldW0lf]

I don't know why you would say this. There is a single platform that runs on almost all devices. It's called Android. Everything else is a bit player that you can safely ignore.

Re:Microsoft's 1990's business plan.

[Shados]

Crap. They may fund github!

Re:Microsoft's 1990's business plan.

[EvilIdler]

It's the embrace phase, but not the classic one. This is Microsoft asking for a hug.

Re:Microsoft's 1990's business plan.

[guruevi]

I see plenty of forks of open source software even small fish. Look at Linux, X, KDE, Gnome, Ubuntu. Heck, look at a random Github project and someone has forked it.

Re:Microsoft's 1990's business plan.

[ShieldW0lf]

It's all open source code. Google couldn't pull a MS with Android. So, your point is moot.

Re:Microsoft's 1990's business plan.

[drinkypoo]

The issue is whether or not Microsoft is the same company.

Which it isnt.

Says someone without enough courage (of their convictions, perhaps?) to associate this statement with an identity. How long have you worked for Microsoft?

They didnt do open source

Microsoft has long used open source code, they do open source just fine.

they didnt do hardware

Right. How quickly we forget that Microsoft has been doing input devices since the old, old days of PCs. Microsoft has done hardware since forever. Virtually none of the hardware they made then or now is actually made by Microsoft. They contract out virtually all of it. What they do make themselves is typically shit.

they barely did mobile

Microsoft has been trying as hard as they could to do mobile since forever. It has always sucked rocks.

they werent interested in the internet or cloud

What? Who told you that?

it is a totally different company with different people

It is totally the same company, with mostly the same people.

going in a different direction

Meh.

Specifically why are you so feaful of their participation in OpenDaylight and AllSeenAlliance and CII? You dont even know what you are afraid of, you are just afraid of anything and everything different.

We are used to Microsoft fucking things up, and we are afraid of things being the same.

Re:Microsoft's 1990's business plan.

[Mantrid42]

If a significant portion of games have linux releases, and I can run various Adobe apps on linux, there's no reason to stick with Windows.

Re:Microsoft's 1990's business plan.

[jones_supa]

You still need patrons for the big projects to develop them properly. It can be tricky to arrange. Those small GitHub projects are small enough maintainable by one man.

Re:Microsoft's 1990's business plan.

[B2382F29]

All, except the nice bits...

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets...

Re:Microsoft's 1990's business plan.

[terjeber]

Wrongo, Microsoft still makes 100% of its vast windfall profits from leveraging its monopoly

This is probably one of the dumbest things written on the entire set of connected tubes that is the Internet of 2014. Your ignorance is only topped by your arrogance, but then again, arrogance and ignorance typically go hand in hand.

Example: The Apple iCloud foundation is built to a high degree on Azure. Do you think MS makes zero $$$ on Azure? How is Azure in any way tied to the Microsoft monopoly on the desktop? According to the latest earnings call, the Cloud (Microsoft doesn't break out Azure alone) contributed about $4.4B to Microsoft revenue. Please explain how that relates to a desktop monopoly. Azure revenue grew by close to 150% from 2013 to 2014, and at its current speed, Microsoft revenue on Azure will surpass Amazon some time late this year or early next.

Remember, it is always better to sit quietly in the corner having everybody think you're an idiot than posting some retarded nonsense online and removing any residual doubt.

Re:Microsoft's 1990's business plan.

[terjeber]

Chances are that it is

Well, the reality shows it is not. Microsoft wants to compete, but it doesn't, and at its current path - can't, use the old ideas of the Microsoft of the '90s.

Anyone who thinks that MS of 2010 and on is the same as the MS of th 1990s, have been sitting in their mothers basement masturbating to Penguin images for the past decade or so.

Microsoft just released a preview of the very best tools for developing native (as in C++) or Cordova based apps for Android. Seriously. None of the bloatware from Google comes close. The emulator alone is fantastic, and amazingly, you can replace the monstrosity that Google has created with the fast and excellent Microsoft version while still (for masochists) using the Google tools. What is their embrace, extend, extinguish path? Are they going to destroy Android in some way?

Re:Microsoft's 1990's business plan.

[terjeber]

We are used to Microsoft fucking things up, and we are afraid of things being the same

As he said, you need to peek out of the basement of your moms once a decade or so to see what is going on. Seriously. Sitting in the dark masturbating to Penguin images destroys your brain.

Please explain the theoretical way Microsoft could EEE in any of what they are doing now. When 2015 is released (you can try it your self right now) and given away for free (not a crippled version, the same that is the Pro version now) it will be, by a rather significant margin, the best tool for developing native (in C++) or Cordova based apps for Android. How can that, even theoretically, destroy Android?

Oh, and if you don't believe me, download VS 2015 preview and try. It is heads, shoulders, torso and thighs above the horrible bloat available today, and it's only a preview.

Re:Microsoft's 1990's business plan.

[gbjbaanb]

and this comment kids is exactly what's happening here.

Microsoft is being pushed out of the consumer market as the desktop is replaced with mobile platforms, Microsoft knows that they cannot take over this platform with WPhone and Surface, so are going to do the next best thing - leverage their development tools to attract the full attention of developers for these platforms - Ballmer understood the importance of 'owning' the people who create the applications. And so I think we will see more developers write code for .NET using Visual Studio and deploy it to alternative platforms.

Of course, this means those developers will ave to run Windows. That means they will understand Windows much better than the platforms they deploy to, and so you will see the creeping embrace of Windows to the preferred deployment platforms - you can see this in the current Microsoft shops, where any tool is ok as long as its Microsoft. I can't see these shops deploying to iPads as if they suddenly got the message, but will deploy to iOS because Marketing told them too, and they'll be happy to do so because they can remain in their Microsoft-walled garden.

Its a good thing all in all, and I hope it means people will see the benefits of the non-Windows alternatives, but I know human nature is lazy and I think this will serve to attract more Linux devs to the Microsoft way than the other way round.

Re:Microsoft's 1990's business plan.

[swillden]

Yes, Microsoft wants to play, and that's great. We should all want them to play. They have a lot of smart people, and huge financial resources, and more competition is better for consumers. My point is that they've lost the ability to own the platforms and therefore control the market. Which is a good thing. We don't want any one player owning all the platforms and controlling the market.

Re:Microsoft's 1990's business plan.

[drinkypoo]

As he said, you need to peek out of the basement of your moms once a decade

When the best you can do is personal attacks, we know you are a liar.

Please explain the theoretical way Microsoft could EEE in any of what they are doing now.

The same as always? They get people hooked on their platform and then extort them. They will hook them with fake-ass open source, then people will become dependent on their tools, again. It won't be impossible to transition away, but it will still cost money, so many won't do it.

Oh, and if you don't believe me, download VS 2015 preview and try.

VS has always been one of MS' better products. However, that has no bearing whatsoever on what we are talking about here. Stay on topic, or stay quiet.

Re:Microsoft's 1990's business plan.

[drinkypoo]

Someone didn't rant angrily about Microsoft! They MUST be a shill!

Anonymous cowards are not permitted to use the word "I" because they don't exist. They're nobody. And I quote: "This is exactly what i am talking about, basement-dwellers in their own little bubble of cynicism." But nobody who is not willing to put their name to a comment should be listened to when they make personal attacks. They really are cowards. If they had the courage of their convictions, they would log in before making attacks. terjeber at least has that courage, even if he is completely wrong and a brainwashed dupe. You, on the other hand, know you're a liar.

Re:Microsoft's 1990's business plan.

[TemporalBeing]

If there was anything I learned from the Connect conference today, at the very least, Microsoft wants to be a player on all platforms. They are removing restrictions that used to limit their reach to just the Windows platform. In order to be relevant, they had to open up their systems. This allows .NET to compete in the OSX, iOS, and Android markets. Those markets are huge, and they want to play. These tools make it very easy to build once and deploy anywhere. Isn't that the ultimate goal? Don't we all want to build one solution and have it be an application, a website, a mobile application, on all platforms all at once? They are just striving for that.

Microsoft has a long history of embracing other platforms in ways that only benefit their DOS/Windows platforms.

For instance, in the 1980's when they released MS-DOS they were not the dominant player. Instead, they embraced the APIs that other DOS vendors used so that those vendors would work well on their version of DOS. Then over time they started introducing new APIs with restrictions - things that checked to verify that it was in fact MS-DOS, instead of Dr. DOS or one of the many others - as well as subtle differences so that people thought the other platforms were broken since it "just worked" on MS-DOS.

They did the same thing with Windows. Windows has a compatibility layer for POSIX that runs in parallel to the Win32 APIs and talks directly to the NT Kernel. They've had it for years; however, they don't allow it to provide any where near the capability that the Win32 APIs had in terms of performance. It got the UNIX developers to run their applications on Windows; then when the performance didn't hold up they had to then rewrite to the Win32 API, forking the source code and in many cases ultimately destroying the UNIX version of the product.

There's no reason to think that this will be any different from those. It's just in the guise of a MIT licensed product that still doesn't provide the full functionality - they're open sourcing many things necessary for a full application development suite; so if you want to do serious .NET work you still can only target Windows where every .NET API will be available to you. And if you make a .NET user application, it'll only run on Windows and can only be developed on Windows.

Re:Microsoft's 1990's business plan.

[TemporalBeing]

Wrongo, Microsoft still makes 100% of its vast windfall profits from leveraging its monopoly

According to the latest earnings call, the Cloud (Microsoft doesn't break out Azure alone) contributed about $4.4B to Microsoft revenue. Please explain how that relates to a desktop monopoly. Azure revenue grew by close to 150% from 2013 to 2014, and at its current speed, Microsoft revenue on Azure will surpass Amazon some time late this year or early next.

So while for 4 quarters Azure contribute $4.4B to revenue, Office alone contributed $1B/month - or $12B over the ame period; Windows revenue is declining but is still around the same figure as Office. Their monthly profit is over $1B (net), most of which comes from Office and Windows.

So how then are the profits not strongly tied to their monopolies in Windows (Desktop) and Office (Desktop Productivity)?

Re:Microsoft's 1990's business plan.

[TangoMargarine]

Just take a look at this whole systemd thing, I said pretty much the same

Why would you want to fork a pile of shit? Use something that doesn't smell and leave brown stains everywhere.

Also, systemd is the new thing. Make your own damn fork to implement it on, then we'll switch over if it actually works well.

It's like force-feeding somebody a shit sandwich. Only you're not holding them down--they're free to leave whenever they want! Except you've got 400-pound Bubba leaning on the other side of the door.

Re:Microsoft's 1990's business plan.

[exomondo]

Yes clearly you have misunderstood, what I'm referring to is the systemd outrage. Debian and RedHat implemented it in their distros, the GNOME project implemented it too and everybody got all angry. So the open source/free software philosophy tells you these projects simply should have been forked at the time just before the systemd integration (in fact you can still pull the source from just before that anyway) and then they would have been fine, no systemd no problem, that's how open source is supposed to work, but it didn't work like that at all.

Re:Microsoft's 1990's business plan.

[exomondo]

Hitting "fork" in github and creating your own copy of the source isn't exactly what I was thinking of. For all the systemd rage where is the fork of those projects?

I took the same position as you, that the open source/free software philosophy tells you if a project owner/maintainer does something fundamental that you don't like you fork and maintain your own version. So why hasn't that happened with all the systemd projects? Does that philosophy not work or was all the systemd rage just a storm in a teacup?

Re:Microsoft's 1990's business plan.

[TangoMargarine]

Ah. In which case, you'd just need people to backport security patches or what-have-you to continue tracking the systemd-influenced updates. I would hazard a guess that most people would find such a task thankless work and not want to do it since another team is "going forward" anyway.

$.02

Re:Microsoft's 1990's business plan.

[exomondo]

Ah. In which case, you'd just need people to backport security patches or what-have-you to continue tracking the systemd-influenced updates.

Yeah you would think it would be easy enough but the anti-systemd crowd (I don't know enough about it to care either way) doesn't seem interested in it despite how much they claim to oppose systemd.

I would hazard a guess that most people would find such a task thankless work and not want to do it since another team is "going forward" anyway.

. Sure but if they're really as opposed to it as they claim to be then the solution is obvious, likely just a storm in a teacup after all.

Re:Microsoft's 1990's business plan.

[terjeber]

The same as always? They get people hooked on their platform and then extort them

That doesn't really answer anything. It's only a "because they can". Could you explain a theoretical way they could do it? Please be specific.

They will hook them with fake-ass open source

If that's all you have then my original description of your intelligence was not a personal attack but an accurate description of reality. Again, please explain to those of us who actually think every now and then, what is fake about the Apache or MIT software licenses. Please be specific. No ranting or moronic statements like the one above. Facts please.

Re:Microsoft's 1990's business plan.

[terjeber]

In the latest report, Microsoft revenue in the non-office, non-windows categories, was about 8% commercial other, 8% consumer other and 14% consumer hardware. None of these are tied to the Microsoft stranglehold on the desktop. They include Azure, XBox, services, enterprise software (for example the Dynamics product line) etc. 30% of revenue is unrelated.

For your statement to be correct, together these sectors together must either break even or operate at a loss. I'd love to see your argument for that. 70% is not 100%.

Re:Microsoft's 1990's business plan.

[TemporalBeing]

In the latest report, Microsoft revenue in the non-office, non-windows categories, was about 8% commercial other, 8% consumer other and 14% consumer hardware. None of these are tied to the Microsoft stranglehold on the desktop. They include Azure, XBox, services, enterprise software (for example the Dynamics product line) etc. 30% of revenue is unrelated.

For your statement to be correct, together these sectors together must either break even or operate at a loss. I'd love to see your argument for that. 70% is not 100%.

No, the statement was that profits are strongly tied to Office and Windows. You only proved it by showing that 70% of profits is from Office and Windows - that, as accountant would say, a "material value", and a strong tie.

In other words, if Office and Windows suddenly stopped producing any income for the company at all it would materially impact the ability of the company to continue going because that is where 70% of its revenue comes from.

Now this can be further shown to have a material relation to profits by looking at what makes the vast majority of their profits - what are the material contributors? You'll find that it is again Office and Windows.

Re:Microsoft's 1990's business plan.

[Gob Gob]

I see plenty of forks of open source software even small fish. Look at Linux, X, KDE, Gnome, Ubuntu. Heck, look at a random Github project and someone has forked it.

I see plenty of forks of open source software even small fish. Look at Linux, X, KDE, Gnome, Ubuntu. Heck, look at a random Github project and someone has forked it haven't they?

I just forked your comment

Re:Microsoft's 1990's business plan.

[drinkypoo]

Again, please explain to those of us who actually think every now and then,

Impossible. You're asking.

what is fake about the Apache or MIT software licenses.

No anti-Tivoization clause

Re:Microsoft's 1990's business plan.

[guruevi]

http://linux.slashdot.org/stor...

Re:Microsoft's 1990's business plan.

[exomondo]

That's an actual fork of systemd, whereas the complaints are centered around keeping a System V init system which would require the upstream distros to be forked (Debian for example), yet none of the people who oppose systemd integraton - who, if the comments are to be believed, are the vast majority - have gone to work forking those projects that have chosen to adopt it.

Re:Microsoft's 1990's business plan.

[terjeber]

No, the statement was that profits are strongly tied to Office and Windows

Here is the quote I responded to (my emphasis):

Microsoft still makes 100% of its vast windfall profits from leveraging its monopoly

When I said that this statement was erroneous, you corrected me, with:

So how then are the profits not strongly tied to their monopolies in Windows (Desktop) and Office (Desktop Productivity)?

Now, if you were not intending to answer in the appropriate context, why did you answer in this context? You are absolutely correct that Microsoft profits are tied to Office and Windows, but again, context matters.

Re:Microsoft's 1990's business plan.

[terjeber]

So, you are just uninformed, uneducated and somewhat retarded. Thanks for clearing that up.

Re:Microsoft's 1990's business plan.

[TemporalBeing]

No, the statement was that profits are strongly tied to Office and Windows

Here is the quote I responded to (my emphasis):

Microsoft still makes 100% of its vast windfall profits from leveraging its monopoly

Key word in there "windfall". Not all profits are "windfall" profits; some references:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W...
http://www.investopedia.com/te...


Now per Microsoft, "windfall" profits can be described as those with which little it done to achieve, which certainly describes the Office and Windows profits, as opposed to those that they have to fight tooth and nail for, such as those from Azure.

When I said that this statement was erroneous, you corrected me, with:

So how then are the profits not strongly tied to their monopolies in Windows (Desktop) and Office (Desktop Productivity)?

Now, if you were not intending to answer in the appropriate context, why did you answer in this context? You are absolutely correct that Microsoft profits are tied to Office and Windows, but again, context matters.

Yes, context does matter - and so does an understanding of the terms used.

Re:Microsoft's 1990's business plan.

[terjeber]

Yeah. Right. That's what was meant. Sure. Office profits are astonishingly unforeseen. Every single year. Comes as a shock to both Microsoft and everybody else.

On the other hand, I am seriously amazed that you have mind-reading capabilities like that. You can know what someone else meant without even meeting them. I'm impressed. Good for you.

Re:Microsoft's 1990's business plan.

[terjeber]

Also, again, read it in context. The reply with the silly 100% was in reply to someone pointing out that in the non-Windows/Office space, Microsoft has to, and is, competing on merits. In other words, context.

Re:Microsoft's 1990's business plan.

[TemporalBeing]

Yeah. Right. That's what was meant. Sure. Office profits are astonishingly unforeseen. Every single year. Comes as a shock to both Microsoft and everybody else.

On the other hand, I am seriously amazed that you have mind-reading capabilities like that. You can know what someone else meant without even meeting them. I'm impressed. Good for you.

If you notice in the Wikipedia link it mentions that there is a not a fully defined defintion for "windfall gains"; thus why I provided a defintion closer to how it applies to Microsoft, which while the poster may not have meant the true investment term, I'm sure in looking at their terminology that they were certainly referring to the great majority (vast) profits on high margin products. All the product you listed are not high-margin products; they're rather low margin especially compared to Windows and Office.

So cut and slice it as you may; you were out of context - or at least misunderstanding the context - of the poster you were responding to; instead responding to a mere reading of "100%... profits", ignoring both "vast" and "windfall".

Re:Microsoft's 1990's business plan.

[michaelpearls]

So far, the cross-platform .NET is server-side (ASP.NET and related technologies). As as .NET developer, I haven't written code to access the registry in at least ten years. I get your point though, there are differences in operating systems, but I think what you'll most likely see is a migration of .NET Web API's and ASP.NET websites from Licensed Windows servers to "Free" Linux servers. I'm anxious to see how they handle Entity Framework and MySql.

Commercialism...

[MindPrison]

...when someone smells money in the idealistic work of others, it's time to beware!

Re:Commercialism...

[exomondo]

What does that mean in this context?

and it's still the same

[turkeydance]

in every other way.

That sort of love ...

[PPH]

... always reminds me of Aqualung.

Progress

[LessThanObvious]

The days when it seemed that Microsoft could have the whole pie all to itself is long gone. I'll call the steps they are taking progress. Office 365 availability on Linux and .Net opening up to Linux as open source sets a pretty good stage for real openness of choice. I hear from regular people all the time how much they like the Surface for work or how they wish they bough a Surface rather than iPad for work. They have stopped trying to hold back change, because that outright failed. They now at least seem to be embracing change. Now the real test is if they can affect change and actually lead at least with the piece of the pie where they can still fit. Windows Mobile may wander the desert without followers for many years, but if Windows 10 is well received they may actually survive the death of the desktop.

Re:Progress

[Tough Love]

...They have stopped trying to hold back change, because that outright failed....

No it didn't, you only have to look at Microsoft's balance sheet to know that. Microsoft will continue to do everything it possibility can to hold back change, for the simple reason that the status quo is that huge piles of profit continue to arrive every month for doing very little work. Microsoft will fight tooth and nail to maintain that status quo.

Re:Progress

[cybrthng]

Citation needed.

Re:Progress

[Shompol]

http://www.microsoft.com/investor/reports/ar13/financial-review/balance-sheets/index.html

Re:Progress

[drevange]

Funny enough - you can think of Microsoft kinda like the Chinese (authoritarian, not really ever communist) government and their dance to embrace capitalism... Taking baby steps into the future as they evolve: embracing where it makes sense and still controlling where it makes sense. Their efforts around the .Net development community and projects, asp.net, mvc and the like have been really positive. The .net open source ecosystem is vibrant and thriving.

Re:Progress

[tlhIngan]

No it didn't, you only have to look at Microsoft's balance sheet to know that. Microsoft will continue to do everything it possibility can to hold back change, for the simple reason that the status quo is that huge piles of profit continue to arrive every month for doing very little work. Microsoft will fight tooth and nail to maintain that status quo.

Except when the game changes.

In 2007, Apple introduced the iPhone It wasn't particularly remarkable, I mean, it was just a phone, a web browser and an iPod.

Yet prior to 2007, Microsoft was a dominant player in the mobile market - Windows Mobile was everyone - on phones, PDAs, and even PDA-phones. So was Palm. And Nokia. HTC was making Windows Mobile devices (as an ODM).

Now, none of those old market makers are there anymore. HTC had to evolve into an Android ODM and makes their own phones now. Blackberry is barely surviving. Samsung, LG, and others grew up making featurephones to smartphones running Android.

Literally overnight the old "status quo" was replaced with a new status quo with NEW entrants - iOS and Android.

One could argue that Apple saw the writing on the wall for computers being the primary computing device and released the iPad. We still need computers, but instead of everyone buying multiple computers at home (remember netbooks? They were popular because now you could equip everyone with their own computer for cheap), we start consolidating computers - instead of everyone needing their own PC, everyone can start reducing their PC count while their "PC tasks" was replaced with tablets.

And Microsoft was investing a lot of money into Windows for tablets.

Trying to keep the status quo just means a competitor can come around an upset the apple cart when you're least prepared. I'm sure Microsoft would love to go to the 2006 days where it was on the top. But then Apple blindsided them and a new ecosystem arose. And Android then took that stake and twisted to until the "old guard" was dead.

Even Apple is aware that markets can shift from under it - in the early 2000's, Apple derived an unhealthy large amount of revenue from iPods. These days it's iPhones and the iPods are barely anything. anymore. And their Mac sales are dwindling, along with every other PC manufacturer.

Re:Progress

[drinkypoo]

Yet prior to 2007, Microsoft was a dominant player in the mobile market - Windows Mobile was everyone - on phones, PDAs, and even PDA-phones. So was Palm. And Nokia. HTC was making Windows Mobile devices (as an ODM).

Microsoft was never a dominant player in the mobile market. They were so pathetic that a little company which got its start repackaging GEOS for a market failure of a PC-based handheld designed by Casio, built by GRiD and marketed by Tandy was able to completely embarrass them and dominate the space with a handheld powered by a motorola CPU whose core was nearly twenty years old. I refer, of course, to Palm Computing. HTC's Windows Mobile phones were horrible pieces of shit. I had one of the later ones, a Raphael. The software was shit, the hardware was shit (HTC was too lame to add a piece of tape to retain the keyboard connector even after the community figured out the fix) and the overall experience was shit. The phones were expensive even on contract so nobody but nerds bought them.

The only mobile market that Microsoft ever dominated was the corporate handheld market, for applications like point of sale and inventory. And that was only for a minuscule slice of time, because let's face it, WINCE is SHIT. It has had no reason to exist approximately since the release of the AMD GEODE made it feasible to run full-blown Windows on a handheld device. (Sure, there were mobile x86 processors before that, but none of them offered adequate performance and acceptable battery life. Some of the 486SLCs came close, but still couldn't really deliver the low power consumption necessary.)

Microsoft has only ever dominated the PC and the low-end server markets, which it still controls. They do have dramatic market share in console gaming now, however, due to Sony's repeated massive failures. But few people want their phones today, they want Android or Apple because that's where the apps are. Microsoft got their shit together far too slowly in mobile, in spite of being one of the longest-term players in the game, and now the only chance they have to even be important again is for Apple or Google to fail hard. I don't think it's possible for either of them to fail that badly.

Re:Progress

[StormReaver]

The days when it seemed that Microsoft could have the whole pie all to itself is long gone.

I'm sure IBM thought something similar when Microsoft was "collaborating" on OS/2.

Now is not the time to let your guard down. We have finally, painfully clawed our way out of the Microsoft den. Now is not the time to squander all that hard work with feel-good naivety. Microsoft is Microsoft, and that will never change. The moment its management smells a weakness, you will become dinner if you're not paying attention.

I'm shaking my head at how quickly people forget the lessons of the past.

Re:Progress

[ebvwfbw]

Yea, office 365. Where I work they moved us to it over a lot of objections. All I can say is the 1990s called, they want their e-mail system back. What a POS. I'd love to give a year worth of office 365 service to my worst competitor. That should take care of 'em.

Re:First they ignore you

[Anonymous Coward]

"Never trust quote attributions on the Internet." - Howard Hughes

Those that dont learn from history...

[mrflash818]

...are doomed to repeat it.

Embrace. Extend. Extinguish.

"Embrace, extend, and extinguish",[1] also known as "Embrace, extend, and exterminate",[2] is a phrase that the U.S. Department of Justice found[3] and was used internally by Microsoft[4] to describe its strategy for entering product categories involving widely used standards, extending those standards with proprietary capabilities, and then using those differences to disadvantage its competitors.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Those that dont learn from history...

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems to be what is happening nowadays to Linux...Embrace. Extend. Extinguish.

It was a fun ride while it lasted.

Re:Keep....

[Marginal Coward]

You fail to overlook the crucial point.

- Samuel Goldwyn

Microsoft is kinda like the Chinese Government...

[drevange]

Funny enough - you can think of Microsoft kinda like the Chinese (authoritarian, not really ever communist) government and their dance to embrace capitalism... Taking baby steps into the future as they evolve: embracing where it makes sense and still controlling where it makes sense. Their efforts around the .Net development community and projects, asp.net, mvc and the like have been really positive. The .net open source ecosystem is vibrant and thriving.

Business model of the 90's != today.

[Severus Snape]

To put it bluntly, Microsoft's past is full of a lot of sleazy shit with their boot attempting to stamp all over the Linux ecosystem many times. To this day I still can't believe they threw over one hundred million dollars (at least, we only have leaked but confirmed information to go on) to SCO (a competitor!) just to hurt Linux. Balmer and Gates built a massive business on the back of their shenanigans, and kudos to them, the game is capitalism at the end of the day.

Is it the same company today? I'm not so sure. I'm sure some of the internal company culture is still there but they have a different vision and direction. Today they announced open sourcing the whole entire .net stack with OS X and Linux support. Any suggestion of that a few years ago and the internet would ridicule you in to crying in a corner.

We should still be wary, that's for sure. They are not the same evil beast they once were though.

Pointless

[ThatsNotPudding]

In light of them strong-arming every manufacturer that dared to use Android with threats of supposed IP infringement (that has not and probably never will see the sterilizing judicial light of day), this 'change of heart'... isn't.

Satty first needs to don the hairshirt and make quite a few public apologies for past AND CURRENT actions against FOSS.

What about GNU?

[Anonymous Coward]

it should be referred to as GNU-Microsoft you pack of ungrateful jerks.

embrace and smother

[Bent Spoke]

a time honoured marketing tradition

Shades of

[maroberts]

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

Bill gates and co just want to slip in some propri

[MiPen]

One look at Samsung and their royalty problems with Microsoft should warn you why trusting and getting in bed with them is a BAD idea. Don't trust them a millimetre.