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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

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.

[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.

[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.

[B2382F29]

All, except the nice bits...

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

Commercialism...

[MindPrison]

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

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

[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.