Microsoft Offers Linux Certification. Yes, Really. (dice.com)

Nerval's Lobster writes: Former CEO Steve Ballmer once publicly referred to Linux as a 'cancer.' Not content to just let Ballmer blow up about it, company also spent a good deal of money and legal effort on claiming that open-source software violated its patents. A decade ago, the idea of Microsoft creating a Linux certification would have seemed like lunacy. But now that very thing has come to pass, (Dice link) with the Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate (MCSA) Linux on Azure certification, designed in conjunction with the Linux Foundation. Earning the Linux on Azure certification requires tech pros to pass Microsoft Exam 70-533 (Implementing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions) as well as the Linux Foundation Certified System Administrator (LFCS) exam, which collectively require knowledge of Linux and Azure implementation. Microsoft evidently recognizes that open-source technology increasingly powers the cloud and mobile, and that it needs to play nice with the open-source community if it wants to survive and evolve.

Comments

Not your father's Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

They're seemingly doing everything right, expect for Windows 10 spying. Heck, even their HW is good now (Remember Zune, Ballmer's brainchild?)

Re:Not your father's Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

To be fair, their peripherals were always top notch and the zune got way more flak than it deserved.

Re:Not your father's Microsoft

[DeathElk]

What the fuck am I reading? This is almost as surreal as that fuckhead gop campaigner Trump. Slashdot, Dice has taken you and fucked you up the ass. Now you're lying fetal in the corner, whimpering. Microsoft praise has no place on Slashdot. Has anybody heard that Midnight Oil song "Short Memory"? Microsoft is the company that tried to homogenise and pasteurise computing by embracing, extending and extinguishing alternate or competing technology. Slashdot was the place we would come to bitch and moan about it. No longer, it seems. Hmm, what's that taste in my mouth? Could it be... no, wait... NOOOOOO http://soylentnews.org/

Re:Not your father's Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a fan of Soylent News too but you're just as much a goose stepper as you claim others are.

Re:Not your father's Microsoft

[UnknowingFool]

The Zune wasn't bad. For the most part it was a decent MP3 player. To compete against Apple's iPod it would have to be great. Yes some of the choices like crippled "squirting" capabilities didn't help. But the main problem was it late and was entering a market when Apple was leaving it for the smartphone market. The death knell for the Zune was the iPod Touch which had nearly all the features of the Zune and an ever growing library of 3rd party apps. Zune would never be able to close that gap and was going to fall further and further behind.

Re:Not your father's Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah... it's hard to believe that Democrats are the party of Rich White Corrupt Career Politicians... 'Liary couldn't tell you her opinion until the polls told her which direction the wind was blowing - and she wouldn't know the plight of middle-class america if it slept with her husband.

... and that the Republican Leaders (Trump and Carson) are REAL people: NOT career, fuck the American Working Class Over, politicians - and that Trump is going down this path without being shackled with millions in IOUs to "donators".

Re:Not your father's Microsoft

[Zero__Kelvin]

"They're seemingly doing everything right, expect for Windows 10 spying."

That's like saying "my son is doing a great job living a life of good morals, ... except for those rapes".

Re:Not your father's Microsoft

[Zero__Kelvin]

If you hear fuck the American Working Class Over and Trump doesn't come to mind, you might be completely clueless.

Re:Not your father's Microsoft

[Adriax]

Yeah, and that may be the forgotten lesson the new CEO is embracing. Even if you have really good, if not the best, of something in a sea of competition, if you try to force a monoculture you are going to drive people away.

Windows didn't require a microsoft brand mouse in order to function and they still made a hefty profit on both hardware and software.
But the times they did require a monocultire, like C#/.NET for most of its life, they found a lot of people just walked away and stuck to arguably inferior products.

Just look at hololens, their big ball of holyshitthisisawesome. They have competition in the hardware department already, but they're helping asus instead of trying to block them. Now there's going to be two AR headsets running windows 10 instead of an all microsoft one and a competitor that would probably run a custom linux.

Re:Not your father's Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

Saying they're doing everything right except Win10 is kinda like saying "she's just a little bit pregnant". Whenever they stray from the PC model, they always produce an inferior version of whatever it is they're trying to imitate. The Zune was their failure to imitate Apple, but it was rather harmless to them, and their users since it didn't impact the core business model and user base.

Their desire to turn Windows into an OS targeted only at locked hardware (inferior version of Apple) and forays into OSS (inferior version of Redhat or IBM) is affecting their core users and business model.

If there's no more of "my father's microsoft", if there's nothing left but locked hardware and service providers, then I'm going to hold my nose and choose the best of the worst, and there's a good chance I won't choose the "new MS"--precisely because they have less experience in these areas.

In other words, bring back the old Windows, appliances that don't crap out after a year, and while you're at it, GET OFF MY LAWN.

Re: Not your father's Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

Citation? I'm genuinely serious; I don't know a whole lot of his positions on things that don't involve excluding people of a certain complexion in some manner.

Re:Not your father's Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

Zune was very solid hardware. The interface was nicer to use than iPod's. The only letdown was the godawful software and smaller store relative to iTunes' (a major point back when all the online music stores were DRM encumbered).

Re:Not your father's Microsoft

[dbIII]

Or are thinking of one of the many other examples. Trump's just an especially loud one that is considered a hero despite being "captured" four times (bankrupt for those who don't get the comparison).
If reality was a novel the only way the Trump for President plot would get past an editor is if the Democrats had paid him to do it :)

Re: Not your father's Microsoft

[Zero__Kelvin]

You could read this book, which should be titled Proof Trump is a Douche and a Human Being of Negative Worth

Re:Not your father's Microsoft

[nickweller]

It's understandable why you would post that msg anonymously :)

Re:Not your father's Microsoft

[ArmoredDragon]

Yeah, and that may be the forgotten lesson the new CEO is embracing. Even if you have really good, if not the best, of something in a sea of competition, if you try to force a monoculture you are going to drive people away.

Not even that, just trying to push your product into a saturated market period, and hoping that throwing enough money at it somehow improves your chances of gaining consumer mindshare.

The only reason xbox worked was because Nintendo was giving the middle finger to third party developers, while Sega failed to gain interest of third party developers, leaving just Sony, giving Microsoft room to be a second platform in the rule of three. Nintendo and Sega both ate shit that generation because when it comes to programming platforms, there's really a rule of two, because you're not just dealing with consumer adoption, you're dealing with third party developer adoption, and developers (especially smaller ones and upstarts) have little tolerance second platforms, and even less tolerance for distant third platforms.

Likewise, Windows Phone won't ever make it, no matter how much money Microsoft throws at it (besides, it really does suck anyways.)

Re:Not your father's Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, You mean except for suing Android makers over patents, making Android phones the most profitable phone for Microsoft? Using bribery to get lucrative governmental contracts, like in Romania, Russia and others? Vendor Lock-In?

Re:Not your father's Microsoft

[ruir]

Maybe you live in alternate universe, because despite this misguided adverts "hey we are cool, we use linx too", they seem more lost than ever.

Re:Not your father's Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that's the intended message of GP's post, and taking it a step further: if Microsoft stopped spying on its users, it would be a vendor worth considering.

I tend to agree. Windows 10 spying was the final straw for me - I no longer run Windows on any of my computers at home.

Re:Not your father's Microsoft

[Hognoxious]

Their mice & trackballs are/were first rate.

Re:Not your father's Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

Hololens? I would call that huge ball of fail. Everyone who has tried one has had the same sentiment.

Re:Not your father's Microsoft

[flacco]

I have seen many attempts in public forums suggesting that Microsoft "has changed" and to otherwise rehabilitate its image.

"Seemingly doing everything right [except] for Windows 10 spying." Oh, is that all? Forcibly installing surveillance software on its users' hardware, and unsetting explicitly set privacy settings in the process? Is that all?

Yes, Microsoft has great respect for its user base, and is seemingly doing everything right.

Re:Not your father's Microsoft

[Shirley Marquez]

There was nothing wrong with the Zune other than some questionable color choices. (Brown, really? I've been waiting all my life for a brown tech gadget, said nobody ever aside from somebody on the Zune team.) If it had debuted into an iPod-less market it probably would have been a hit. But as it was there was no compelling reason to buy one instead of buying an iPod, so hardly anybody did.

Re:Not your father's Microsoft

[Shirley Marquez]

I prefer Logitech's mice. But if Logitech were wiped off the face of the earth, Microsoft's would be a more than acceptable substitute.

Re:Not your father's Microsoft

[Shirley Marquez]

Perhaps another factor is that Nintendo insists on keeping all the games for its systems family-friendly; that means that there are gamers who will never be content with a Nintendo product. (They will not approve ESRB AO games and are very selective about M games, E games are the heart of their lineup.) But it hasn't worked out all that badly for them; they've had a successful niche with their handhelds and the Wii, avoiding going head-on against the XBox and the PlayStation.

Untapped Market For MS

[avandesande]

They could make a killing selling support for a Linux distribution . Lots of IT people are locked into Microsoft as a vendor and this would give them a good option.

Re:Untapped Market For MS

[Anonymous Coward]

There was an article a month or so ago that talked about a Linux distribution that MS has been using internally.

This article, however, just irritates me. It's not an open source certification, it's an Azure certification.

Re:Untapped Market For MS

[Anonymous Coward]

I dunno why it irritates you. If you actually RTFA, you'd know the second component of the Linux on Azure cert is a Linux Foundation sysadmin certification, so it isn't just an Azure cert.

Re:Untapped Market For MS

[Anonymous Coward]

AC because mod (and I modded you up) Keyboard-replacement funny!! Thank you :-D

Re:Untapped Market For MS

[Will.Woodhull]

I'd mod you up if I had points at the moment. Insteadm\, I'll just say "Well played, sir!"

Re:Untapped Market For MS

[PCM2]

But if all you wanted was the Linux cert, you could just call the Linux Foundation and get that. So yes, it is really just an Azure cert bundled with (I assume) a discounted Linux Foundation cert.

Makes sense. As I understand it, the vast majority of workloads on Azure are running Linux.

Re:Untapped Market For MS

[FlyHelicopters]

They could make a killing selling support for a Linux distribution . Lots of IT people are locked into Microsoft as a vendor and this would give them a good option.

That is an interesting point of view...

Would I pay $100 for a "Microsoft-supported" copy of Linux that they provided certified updates for and driver support for?

Yes, I probably would.

Re:Untapped Market For MS

[Anonymous Coward]

Go Aussie!

Re:Untapped Market For MS

[Anonymous Coward]

OMG someone please mod this up...funny and insightful commentary on MS!

Re:Untapped Market For MS

[Anonymous Coward]

What's your point? The cert from Microsoft is called Linux on Azure. It was TFA and the title of this Slashdot post that mischaracterized it as Microsoft is offering a Linux only cert.

Re:Untapped Market For MS

[Anonymous Coward]

Why, so it could install Windows 10 behind your back?

Re:Untapped Market For MS

[unixisc]

They could make a killing selling support for a Linux distribution . Lots of IT people are locked into Microsoft as a vendor and this would give them a good option.

Particularly if they write drivers for any hardware that has missing support

Re:Untapped Market For MS

[Anonymous Coward]

According to a recent podcast, one in four Azure instances are Linux (up from one in five a year ago). Significant, but certainly not the vast majority.

Re:Untapped Market For MS

[donaldm]

They could make a killing selling support for a Linux distribution . Lots of IT people are locked into Microsoft as a vendor and this would give them a good option.

Microsoft selling Linux certification? Well if it wasn't for two three letter acronyms with those being Fear Uncertainty Doubt and Embrace Extend Extinguish I would think that Microsoft is now being the good guy.

I can understand Microsoft providing and selling certification for an OS that is to work with their OS and products which is a common business practice. In fact Redhat requires Microsoft certification for their products to work with Redhat Linux as well. See the following here . Take a look at the blog links for Microsoft and Redhat in the provided URL.

Re:Untapped Market For MS

[mattventura]

What would be nice about an MS-supported Linux distro is that it could finally get Windows off of ATMs and other places where it really doesn't belong.

Re:Untapped Market For MS

[PCM2]

Really? Whose podcast was that? Because I've heard it's maybe as much as 90 percent Linux.

Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

The only people I know who still use Windows only use it for gaming. Otherwise, they either have a Mac or use Linux. On the server side, it's been Linux for more than a decade now.

Re:Too little, too late

[mariusp]

The only people I know who still use Windows only use it for gaming. Otherwise, they either have a Mac or use Linux. On the server side, it's been Linux for more than a decade now.

I think that in your typical corporation Windows server installs still outweighs Linux server installs. Im sure there are exceptions in some corporations but in the "cloud" Linux seems to have the largest market share I've not seen many desktops/laptops with Linux but this could be just my neck of the woods (east Europe)

Re:Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Then 1) you don't know many people and 2) you don't know enterprise IT.

Re:Too little, too late

[eumoria]

This is incorrect many MANY servers use Windows. Linux is a big part but it hasn't "been Linux for more than a decade now" if you were anywhere near enterprise IT you would know this.

Re:Too little, too late

[FictionPimp]

I used to be 100% linux. I was the lead engineer for an environment that had 300 linux vms, oversaw the move from Debian to RHEL, and generally just couldn't imagine using windows.

Now I manage a windows environment. It's all 2012R2 and with server manager, core/minimal, DSC, and powershell. I honestly really enjoy it and find it to be a perfectly fine solution. I'm as happy now as I was and I run a surface 3 pro with a dock and dual displays and manage about 200 windows vms.

Re:Too little, too late

[Eloking]

The only people I know who still use Windows only use it for gaming. Otherwise, they either have a Mac or use Linux. On the server side, it's been Linux for more than a decade now.

Hmm interesting. Let's look at the system of our SME.

PCs : Windows 7 and 10
File Server : Windows Server
Database management system : Microsoft SQL Server
Internal Web server : Microsoft SharePoint
The drive OS of our Industrial Robot : Windows Embedded
Their HMI : Look like Windows XP but I'm not sure
The HMI of our industrial equipment : Look like an old Windows Embedded
SMT : Windows XP and 7 (Not sure if embedded or not).

I really tried to help you and find a single linux OS somewhere but all I was able to find was Android cellphone or Rasbian on some Raspberry Pi of our R&D department. I asked our IT guy (a firm Linux user) and there's nothing running on linux here. Oh yeah and our president is using a iPad.

Re:Too little, too late

[__aaclcg7560]

Let me check the network at work... 80,000+ Windows workstations. Now that's a lot of Minesweeper.

Re:Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps it's time to get out more.

Re:Too little, too late

[goarilla]

In any Enterprise that isn't in IT itself (web hosting, software dev, ...) it's usually a heterogeneous Windows Server AD environment.
Most departments of our university are also considering switching because it's cheap to find or even build a local Windows IaaS provider.

Re:Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

AC because Mod. W10 just passed a milestone; the same build on phones as on PCs. Everybody else talked about convergence, MS just achieved it. Raspberry up to Supercomputer with everything in-between? As an earlier poster put it: this is not your father's MS

Re:Too little, too late

[PCM2]

The only people I know who still use Windows only use it for gaming.

That's a nice anecdote. I use Windows for pretty much everything, except for some servers that are hosted elsewhere.

Re:Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems to me that most of the Windows centric installations in business are due to two factors:
1) The end users (and usually Managment) being scared to try new software. They don't want to learn an OS. They don't understand what this "open office" thing is, or why they can't just use Excel.

2) Vendor lock in. Warranty support from hardware companies (Dell, HP, etc) sucks when you're running Linux, and oftentimes (although it is getting better) results in your warranty being useless. "Oh, we don't support Linux. Fix it yourself. We know it's a hard drive crash, but we think Linux did it. Good luck."

People need to quit being pussies and move out of the fucking nest.

Re:Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh. I guess your one edge case disproves what the rest of the world has already counted/discovered. Congrats!

Re:Too little, too late

[PCM2]

Now I manage a windows environment. It's all 2012R2 and with server manager, core/minimal, DSC, and powershell. I honestly really enjoy it and find it to be a perfectly fine solution.

Seriously. If half the whiners would just learn Powershell and try managing some actual, modern Windows servers, I'm sure they'd go, "Huh! Whaddaya know." In some sense, modern Windows Server is kind of like C#, in that Microsoft learned from the competition, took its ideas, polished them up, and put its own spin on them. Nothing really wrong with that, if your chief concern is getting work done and not just arguing on the interwebs.

Re:Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Not this bullshit again, technically NetBSD achieved this way before https://www.netbsd.org/ports/.

Re:Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

If half the whiners would just learn Powershell and try managing some actual, modern Windows servers, I'm sure they'd go, "Huh! Whaddaya know."

You're talking about a site with crusty old fucks from the 90s who are still whining about BSODs.

It's a miracle we've got them to stop typing a dollar sign instead of an s when spelling Microsoft. Take that and be happy.

Re:Too little, too late

[Eloking]

To the guy that down-voted me, I wonder why you did it.

The guy said that windows was only for gaming and I took the time to scan the OS of every machine in our SME and found out they were all running Microsoft product. How is this irrelevant?

Re:Too little, too late

[PPH]

Windows server installs still outweighs Linux server installs.

If you are counting processors or rack space occupied, undoubtedly. But if you have some metric that tells you how much work is done on either platform, Linux comes out ahead.

Re:Too little, too late

[cyber-vandal]

What edge case? Home users might have migrated to iPads but Windows still rules the roost in the business world, or did Microsoft go bust while I wasn't looking.

Re:Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this irrelevant?

Because it's data. On Slashdot, data doesn't matter. Only being in agreement with the prevailing wisdom will earn you mod points.

Now fuck off, you obvious M$ $hill.

Re:Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

And whaddaya know, it still sucks. Windows have learned a lot of tricks from the competition, like for instance that you don't have to be an administrator to even get to see the calendar anymore (yes, Windows XP, I'm looking at you, you "modern multi-user system"). However, the more you work with it, the more you realize that fundamentally it's still just DOS with an integrated GUI which used to be pretty OK, but that was in the past.

Yeah, it has mostly a saner memory management etc, but most of the more modern stuff bolted on on top of it but most of it are afterthoughts, ill-implemented, underutilized or looks good on paper but is just plain broken when you actually try to use it. Treat Windows like the relic it is beneath, and you'll mostly be fine -- try using the "tricks" it learned along the way, don't be surprised when things go south. And to make things even worse, these days expect it to not only have learned "tricks" but to actually play them on you, e.g a 6.5GB download you didn't order.

Re:Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Good post but there is a factual error that should be corrected. You weren't an "engineer", you were an "IT professional", "developer" or some other job title related to the computer management or software professions.

Engineer refers specifically to the disciplines of electrical, mechanical, civil and so forth. This involves attaining a formal degree from an accredited university and possibly extending to the licenses offered after that ("Engineer in Training" then "Professional Engineer").

In summary, there is no such thing as an IT person or programmer being an "engineer".

Re:Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Now I manage a windows environment. It's all 2012R2 and with server manager, core/minimal, DSC, and powershell. I honestly really enjoy it and find it to be a perfectly fine solution.

Seriously. If half the whiners would just learn Powershell and try managing some actual, modern Windows servers, I'm sure they'd go, "Huh! Whaddaya know." In some sense, modern Windows Server is kind of like C#, in that Microsoft learned from the competition, took its ideas, polished them up, and put its own spin on them. Nothing really wrong with that, if your chief concern is getting work done and not that they might abandon support for your environment without you having a choice, not being able to upgrade without buying from Microsoft (i.e. single vendor lockin), being spied upon, their security track record, and, since you mentioned C#, limited programming libraries (in number and portability).

Did I miss something?

Re:Too little, too late

[Zero__Kelvin]

Cool Anecdote bro!

(Not really. All you really just did is make us all wonder why you are wasting our time here on Slashdot rather than going somewhere where you might belong.)

Re:Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Edgleord wanker. Go eat a bag of dick$.

Re:Too little, too late

[Eloking]

Cool Anecdote bro!

  (Not really. All you really just did is make us all wonder why you are wasting our time here on Slashdot rather than going somewhere where you might belong.)

I don't get it. I just got hired in a little SME and I've found that all system work on MS product. Oh well, fuck me I guess.

Re:Too little, too late

[Eloking]

How is this irrelevant?

Because it's data. On Slashdot, data doesn't matter. Only being in agreement with the prevailing wisdom will earn you mod points.

Now fuck off, you obvious M$ $hill.

I'm a new guy in that company so I have nothing to do with the choice of OS installed on our systems. And it wasn't really different on other company I've worked for. My point was simply that MS is still heavily used in business but oh well, fuck me I'll go grab my M$ check now.

Re:Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, it has mostly a saner memory management etc, but most of the more modern stuff bolted on on top of it but most of it are afterthoughts, ill-implemented, underutilized or looks good on paper but is just plain broken when you actually try to use it.

Sounds like my take on GNOME on top of Linux.

What does Windows do better than Linux in certain scenarios? Unified user experience and management in the top slot. What makes Linux better in some roles? Flexibility and minimal resource footprint.

Re:Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

f$ck off whiner!

Re:Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

What Windows does better than Linux? Everyone is trained from basically childhood to use Windows. That's basically it.

Unified user experience? You mean like Windows XP looks just like Windows 2000 and Vista or 7, or 10? Vista and newer with the new innovative UI where you literally can click "forward" until you get back were you started?

Management.. Oh boy. Don't get me started on AD where you have multiple pages in the GUI which basically looks identical, but concerns entirely different aspects of your server, or the convoluted ways you have to click around to get to them.

The fact is that if nobody were trained on Windows from when they learned to press the "Power" button, it would be considered a nightmare.

Re:Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

My only complaint is PowerShell's inconsistency when assigning the results of a function to variable, if the return type is an array or collection. If there is only item in the array/collection, it assigns that one item in the variable, else it assigns the array/collection to the variable. This can be very frustrating. Otherwise, yeah, PowerShell and how it allows for automating admin tasks is great.

Re:Too little, too late

[donaldm]

Now I manage a windows environment. It's all 2012R2 and with server manager, core/minimal, DSC, and powershell. I honestly really enjoy it and find it to be a perfectly fine solution.

Seriously. If half the whiners would just learn Powershell and try managing some actual, modern Windows servers, I'm sure they'd go, "Huh! Whaddaya know." In some sense, modern Windows Server is kind of like C#, in that Microsoft learned from the competition, took its ideas, polished them up, and put its own spin on them. Nothing really wrong with that, if your chief concern is getting work done and not just arguing on the interwebs.

Why would I want to learn Powershell if I am managing thousands of Linux and Unix machines? If you are managing MS Windows machines you would have to be very lazy not to learn Powershell. I think the most appropriate words here are "Horses for Courses".

Re:Too little, too late

[Zero__Kelvin]

"Seriously. If half the whiners would just learn Powershell and try managing some actual, modern Windows servers, I'm sure they'd go, "Huh! Whaddaya know."

Yep. No doubt. And then halfway across the river we'd say Huh! Whaddaya know.! :-(

Re:Too little, too late

[Zero__Kelvin]

"Engineer refers specifically to the disciplines of electrical, mechanical, civil and so forth."

That is completely incorrect. There have been Software Engineers for quite some time, and your ignorance of their existence does not chaneg the fact that they exist.

Re:Too little, too late

[Zero__Kelvin]

What you don't get is that it is obvious that there are plenty of Windows shops, but the OP was clearly talking about Home Users and you started smugly listing some businesses systems like anyone cares.

Re:Too little, too late

[Zero__Kelvin]

No you don't. You use Windows and Linux pretty much everywhere. I mean, you don't think Slashdot is powered by Windows do you? That's right ... you're using Linux right now, motha fucka!

Re: Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

But really, they can't not use Excel. You would be surprised how much of the world functions on this app. It's untouchable. That's why new versions of Office take forever to get adopted. Why would IT update to the latest and greatest when that might break the macros that Bill in Accounting wrote back when he worked there in 2004?

Now, I have no explanation as to why Excel has absolutely zero competition. And let's not pretend OpenOffice/LibreOffice are competitors, because they are a load of steamy crap in comparison to The Real Deal.

Re: Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

If UI is your biggest complaint about AD, then that product is still eons ahead of its Linux variants.

Re: Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the most mind-boggling stupid comment someone could possibly make on this thread. You need to read a little about Linguistics.

Re:Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

> all system work on MS product

Is that why all noun singular? Are you a fucking chinky or what?

Re: Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Biggest? No, just the most blindingly obvious starting point. Everything I pointed to are things that are touted as the strong points of Windows. My point being, if even those really doesn't hold up to scrutiny, where does that leave us with the rest?

However, I can see by the way you focus on a single pixel of the picture, you're not really interested in anything but making Windows look good, so I'll just leave it there.

Great!

[Billly Gates]

Now need to memorize which mouse clicks in gnome3 for non related work items and obscure powershell cmd let's for Linux no one uses in the real world for a high quality and respected cert

Re:Great!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now need to memorize which mouse clicks in gnome3 for non related work items and obscure powershell cmd let's for Linux no one uses in the real world for a high quality and respected cert

Wat?

Re:Great!

[PCM2]

Great, now IBM's Watson has a /. account.

Also investing 200M

[Anonymous Coward]

Also indirectly investing 200M in the development and adoption of canc... systemd.

Year of the Linux desktop!

[Spy Handler]

I can imagine the day when Windows is built on top of Linux, similar to how MacOS is built on top of BSD. That will be the year of the Linux desktop!

Maybe in 2020, Windows version 12.

Re:Year of the Linux desktop!

[fisted]

MacOS is built on top of BSD

What?

Re:Year of the Linux desktop!

[halivar]

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

Re:Year of the Linux desktop!

[Anonymous Coward]

The MacOS kernel is called Darwin and is based partially on BSD.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_(operating_system)

Re:Year of the Linux desktop!

[Anonymous Coward]

Then we'd have some sort of monoculture of Unix-based systems and the Unix way would be the only way of doing certain stuff. Unix ain't free of design flaws, you know...

Re:Year of the Linux desktop!

[Anonymous Coward]

I can imagine the day when Windows is built on top of Linux, similar to how MacOS is built on top of BSD. That will be the year of the Linux desktop!

Maybe in 2020, Windows version 12.

The underlying OS internals are far to different for that to ever work. If such a thing were practically possible, MS would already have done the reverse: created a Linux subsystem (akin to the OS/2, POSIX, Interix and other subsystems that serve as a "personality" module to provide app compatibility) to run Linux software unmodified on Windows Server.

It is interesting to note that the Windows APIs that we all know and love are themselves a subsystem, the Windows Subsystem) and are not part of the kernel itself. See http://blogs.msdn.com/b/hanybarakat/archive/2007/02/25/deeper-into-windows-architecture.aspx for a high level overview.

Re:Year of the Linux desktop!

[nawcom]

The Mac OS X / NeXTSTEP kernel is called XNU - did you even read the Wikipedia article you gave the link to? Darwin is the open source OS that functions as the backend for OS X and iOS that provides the core components.

Re:Year of the Linux desktop!

[Anonymous Coward]

Putting Windows on top of linux would essentially ruin their spyware setup they're currently using for Windows 10. (As if it's LINUX, someone will be able to fork the windows distribution and yank it all out.) If they were to put it on top of any open source OS, it'll likely be BSD like apple did.

Re:Year of the Linux desktop!

[wbo]

Actually, Microsoft used to maintain a POSIX subsystem running on the NT kernel. Look up Windows Services for UNIX

It was discontinued with the release of Windows 8.1 and one of the reasons cited at the time was lack of users and lack of interest from developers. It didn't do things quite the same way as many Linux distributions but quite a bit of code could be ported fairly easily.

Re:Year of the Linux desktop!

[halivar]

The GP is correct, and you're correct. So WTF are you arguing about? It's based on NeXTSTEP and BSD, as is plainly stated in the article. Besides, the entire web of core components that Mac OSX is built on: NeXSTEP, Mach, OpenBSD; all of them are tied somehow to BSD. It's in all of it.

Re:Year of the Linux desktop!

[thegarbz]

Not going to happen. Microsoft won't do an Apple and break backwards compatibility with previous versions of Windows all for the sake of switching what is currently a well maintained and stable kernel for something else.

Their only flirt with the idea (Windows RT) was a colossal flop. I don't see them repeating that, and I definitely don't see them doing so without providing an alternative in the process.

Re:Year of the Linux desktop!

[YukariHirai]

Of course, nothing is free of design flaws. But Unix does have a generally pretty solid design, and personally I think it's generally better than that of Windows.

Re:Year of the Linux desktop!

[i.r.id10t]

With their inner knowledge of Windows and the various system calls and such it uses how hard would be be for Microsoft to perfect WINE?

Didn't early versions of OS X allow running OS 9.x applications?

Re:Year of the Linux desktop!

[YukariHirai]

Not going to happen. Microsoft won't do an Apple and break backwards compatibility with previous versions of Windows all for the sake of switching what is currently a well maintained and stable kernel for something else.

In Apple's case, they provided a compatibility layer to allow programs compiled for classic Mac OS to run on Mac OS X unmodified. They did phase the compatibility layer out, but after ample opportunity was given for developers to produce actual OS X versions of their software. In Windows' case, there is the massive amount of unmaintained legacy software that many businesses rely on to take into account, but the answer there is to keep maintaining the compatibility layer. As it is, Microsoft put some effort into maintaining compatibility with old software anyway.

Their only flirt with the idea (Windows RT) was a colossal flop. I don't see them repeating that, and I definitely don't see them doing so without providing an alternative in the process.

That's more because Windows RT is essentially Windows for ARM CPUs, and basically no Windows software is compiled for ARM CPUs. There are ways of dealing with that, such as what Apple did when they changed CPU architecture from PowerPC to Intel - a compatibility layer that's essentially PowerPC emulation. That's not such a realistic option for running x86 software on ARM - not if you want reasonable speeds, anyway.

Re:Year of the Linux desktop!

[Anonymous Coward]

you do realize that NeXTSTEP was partially based on BSD, right? Troll much?

Re:Year of the Linux desktop!

[nawcom]

I was replying to the fact that the GP above me called Darwin a kernel. That's all. It's absolutely not. It's the operating system name. XNU has always been the kernel for NeXTSTEP/OpenSTEP, Darwin, OS X and iOS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_(operating_system)#Kernel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XNU

Actually read it.

The GP is correct, and you're correct. So WTF are you arguing about? It's based on NeXTSTEP and BSD, as is plainly stated in the article. Besides, the entire web of core components that Mac OSX is built on: NeXSTEP, Mach, OpenBSD; all of them are tied somehow to BSD. It's in all of it.

This has nothing to do with what I was arguing with. I was correcting the person's terminology. It's like saying Debian GNU/kFreeBSD runs off the Debian GNU/kFreeBSD kernel.

Re:Year of the Linux desktop!

[fisted]

So it is hardly "built on top of BSD", which is what my (rhetorical) question was supposed to convey.

Re:Year of the Linux desktop!

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, Microsoft used to maintain a POSIX subsystem running on the NT kernel. Look up Windows Services for UNIX

It was discontinued with the release of Windows 8.1 and one of the reasons cited at the time was lack of users and lack of interest from developers. It didn't do things quite the same way as many Linux distributions but quite a bit of code could be ported fairly easily.

Dude, I mentioned the POSIX subsystem right in the middle of the post.

Re:Year of the Linux desktop!

[Penguinisto]

Didn't early versions of OS X allow running OS 9.x applications?

Yes. It was called "Classic" mode; the only caveat was that you had to have MacOS9 install media. Otherwise, it ran practically any MacOS 9.x compatible application without a hitch.

Re:Year of the Linux desktop!

[LinuxIsGarbage]

That's more because Windows RT is essentially Windows for ARM CPUs, and basically no Windows software is compiled for ARM CPUs. There are ways of dealing with that, such as what Apple did when they changed CPU architecture from PowerPC to Intel - a compatibility layer that's essentially PowerPC emulation. That's not such a realistic option for running x86 software on ARM - not if you want reasonable speeds, anyway.

Windows NT had versions running on DEC's Alpha processors. DEC released an emulation layer called FX!32 to allow x86 programs to run on Alpha NT machines*.

While such an emulation layer wouldn't provide great performance on a WindowsRT machine, a lot of programs are not that processor intensive. Any amount of backwards compatibility could increase interest in the WindowsRT platform. With more interest, it might persuade more developers to cross-compile to ARM versions of Windows.

Unfortunately Microsoft was trying to shove their Metro App store down everyone's throats, and discouraged even native ARM desktop applications. Few enough people developed for Metro on x86, let alone ARM. Microsoft also made the mistake of not requiring all apps in the app store to be cross compiled for WindowsRT and Windows8/8.1. Plus they made the mistake of not requiring it to be cross-compiled with their phones. One thing Android and iOS has is that the same apps can work on a phone and a tablet.

*Ironically, now there's software to emulate DEC's Alpha platform on Windows (or Linux) based PCs to allow businesses to run their critical Alpha software.

Re:Year of the Linux desktop!

[UnknowingFool]

Er, it is built on NEXTSTEP and parts of BSD. NEXTSTEP itself is built on BSD. So I would say it was based on BSD. What it is now is slightly different than BSD but it is still certifiably Unix.

Re:Year of the Linux desktop!

[phantomfive]

And parts of the Mach kernel......OSX is a real frankenstein.

Re:Year of the Linux desktop!

[Zero__Kelvin]

Actually, it absolutely is built on top of BSD. It isn't a version of BSD. It is built on top of other software in addition to BSD code, but it is built largely from BSD's code base. This is what is meant by "built on top of" rather than "is".

Re:Year of the Linux desktop!

[Zero__Kelvin]

Yes, but you talked about it as something they have never done. Stop trying to sound more in the know then you are. You didn't know Microsoft had a POSIX layer, period. Just admit it and move on with your life.

Re:Year of the Linux desktop!

[LessThanObvious]

I would say that is the only future that makes any real sense. Then we get BSD or Linux with a fully developed GUI for regular people who don't do CLI and we get MS Office on Linux without having to use some fucked web based version that requires a subscription.

Re:Year of the Linux desktop!

[fisted]

No, building something on top of something else usually means that the something else is, as a whole, the foundation of the something.
E.g. pfSense is built on top of FreeBSD. Ubuntu is built on top of Debian. Mac OS is built using some parts of various ancient BSD userlands, presumably because of the convenient licensing.

Car analogy: If I build a car that uses your transmission and your steering wheel, I haven't built my car on top of yours.

Re:Year of the Linux desktop!

[cbhacking]

There actually is an x86 emulation (well, dynamic recompilation, which is faster) layer for Windows RT. It's unofficial and only runs on jailbroken devices, but it's there. App compat isn't that great yet, because it has to shim all Win32 calls from the x86 version to the ARM version (this is much faster and has a smaller install footprint than emulating a full x86 Windows, and makes it possible to optimize the translation a bit, but means each Win32 API needs to be shimmed and there are a huge number of them).

It's largely the work of one developer, aside from the form from existing open-source code. Microsoft could easily have produced something much more complete than this, especially since they have access to the original implementations of the functions in question (the dev of the compat layer had to work off public headers, MSDN docs, and stuff from Wine and ReactOS). Done right, this software could have hugely improved interest in RT.

Instead, Microsoft doubled down on the lockdown in RT8.1, blocking the 8.0 jailbreak in multiple different ways and setting back progress on the OS until people basically lost interest. Work has resumed now that there's a new public jailbreak, but the original dev has moved on (though the compat layer is open source) and most people just don't care anymore. I have never seen a company so deliberately destroy one of their own products before...

Re:Year of the Linux desktop!

[Zero__Kelvin]

Stop trying to do car analogies. You suck at them. For the future, in order for your analogy to be sound your premise has to be sound; yours is broken, and once again, Mac OS X absolutely has been built on top of BSD. Now off you go ...

Re:Year of the Linux desktop!

[fisted]

I hope you don't mind me disregarding your "It is so because I say so" comment.
And about that premise thing.. That's conclusions or implications, not analogies. The requirement for an analogy is that it is analogous (duh), and frankly, it is. You know what? Because I say so. I recommend doing a little research.

Re:Year of the Linux desktop!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but you talked about it as something they have never done. Stop trying to sound more in the know then you are. You didn't know Microsoft had a POSIX layer, period. Just admit it and move on with your life.

LOL. Again, I mentioned the POSIX subsystem right in the middle of my post (with a Wikipedia link, no less!) so quite obviously I'm well aware of its existence.

Just admit you failed to read my post properly (the evidence is preserved for all posterity on /. after all) and move on with *your* life.

Re: Year of the Linux desktop!

[Anonymous Coward]

Just in case you still didn't believe the OP, have a look at the word POSIX in the post. It is a link. Hover over the link and you should see the address (or just click on it). It goes to this address:

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

I'll spell it out for you: Microsoft POSIX subsystem.

I think that it's reasonable to believe him when he says that he knew Microsoft made a POSIX subsystem.

Re:Year of the Linux desktop!

[Zero__Kelvin]

No grasshopper. It is because it is.

Re:Year of the Linux desktop!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's already happening. It's called systemd.

Re:Year of the Linux desktop!

[Anonymous Coward]

The NT kernel has come a long way and has also become a generally pretty solid design. Pretty stupid to just throw that away.

Re:Year of the Linux desktop!

[Anonymous Coward]

Zero Kelvin: The troll that doesn't know when to quit even after he has lost.

Re:Year of the Linux desktop!

[thegarbz]

With their inner knowledge of Windows and the various system calls and such it uses how hard would be be for Microsoft to perfect WINE?

Didn't early versions of OS X allow running OS 9.x applications?

With their knowledge of all that what is the business case for even attempting to do something like that?

Re:Year of the Linux desktop!

[i.r.id10t]

Just like apple did, break away from old crufty OS for a fresh start, but not piss off your existing customer base - let them keep older versions of their apps for a OS cycle or two

Re:Year of the Linux desktop!

[UnknowingFool]

As is Linux. And Solaris. And pretty much most of Unix based systems.

Re:Year of the Linux desktop!

[thegarbz]

Just like apple did, break away from old crufty OS for a fresh start, but not piss off your existing customer base

That's Apple, a company that has zero problem with breaking compatibility, switching architectures, screwing around coders. Microsoft on the other hand knows that backwards compatibility is one of its biggest strengths and the amount of effort they put into keeping old shit running on their platforms is simply astounding. You're comparing a company which tells people how it is, to a company which makes sure the old stuff will keep running with every new version.

Also if you don't think that Apple pissed off their existing customer base you have a lot of history to revisit. Even now the platform once lauded as the content creators most critical tool is effectively on life-support with a lot of commercial customers either completely abandoning the platform or dragged their feet (seriously Photoshop skipped a whole version on the mac, got 64bit support about 4 versions after Windows, and we're still taking about a platform which was once key to their market. It used to be that you really wanted a mac if you were building a Photoshop machine, now it's an after thought.

This is all beside the point really because there's nothing crufty about the NT kernel. The NT kernel is quite stable, lean, and performs very well. There's a lot to be said about the windows DLL model or the registry model or the services model, but none of that at all has anything to do with the kernel which is running, which these days can be said to be the only good part of Windows left.

Re:Year of the Linux desktop!

[Smurf]

Car analogy: If I build a car that uses your transmission and your steering wheel, I haven't built my car on top of yours.

It's more like you built a car that uses our chassis, our motor, our transmission, our fuel injection system, and our braking system. You added your own internal space, complete with spiffy modern seats, dashboard, and a very cool navigation system. You also changed any internal and external cosmetic element of he car. The steering wheel is actually yours also.

So your car is clearly not our car. But you have indeed built your car on top of ours.

Re:Year of the Linux desktop!

[fisted]

So you're saying that Mac OS is just a user interface on top of a vanilla BSD? I think I've got a bridge to sell to you.
Your analogy describes what pfSense is to FreeBSD, if anything.

Re:Year of the Linux desktop!

[Zero__Kelvin]

Look friend. I'm sure you mean well, but you have shown that you don't understand either basic terminology ot the architecture of OS X, so how about if you just accept that you don't understand. What everyone is trying to explain to you is that the core of OS X has numerous parts, upon which the rest of the OS is built, and that BSD is a significant one of those parts. But you don't really have to understand any of this. Just go back to whatever website one imagines you might frequent based on your Slashdot Name /// SHUDDERS ///

Maybe they will spin off the Windows division

[MobyDisk]

Maybe Microsoft will one day spin-off the Windows division, so it becomes just another operating system that their cloud service supports. If they start writing their services to use .NET, then they could use Roslyn and .NET Core to make all their services portable. One could run IIS or Exchange on Linux. If it meant more sales for Azure, they could profit from it.

Re:Maybe they will spin off the Windows division

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe Microsoft will one day spin-off the Windows division, so it becomes just another operating system that their cloud service supports. If they start writing their services to use .NET, then they could use Roslyn and .NET Core to make all their services portable. One could run IIS or Exchange on Linux. If it meant more sales for Azure, they could profit from it.

But would you want to run IIS on Linux?

Re:Maybe they will spin off the Windows division

[cablepokerface]

For running the Exchange webservice dummy!

Wrong (?)

[Psicopatico]

My memory tells me Ballmer referred to the GPL as a cancer, not Linux.
But hey, I'm too lazy to even check on Google as it's monkeyboy we're talking about, so who cares...

Re:Wrong (?)

[Zero__Kelvin]

He said "Linux is not in the public domain. Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches. That's the way that the license works." [1].

In other news...

[ClickOnThis]

...hell's temperature just dropped to that of liquid nitrogen.

Re:In other news...

[nullchar]

That would be when MS Office runs on a linux desktop. (Which many workplaces would love.)

Re:In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think Microsoft will ever port Office to Linux.

They know that if they did, they would loose the desktop market share as fast as companies could change to Linux.

Re:In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Crossover? (It's the commercial version of WINE)

https://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility/crossover/microsoft-office-2007

Re:In other news...

[aitikin]

Yeah, I heard the devil calling the local HVAC place looking to install a furnace.

Re:In other news...

[ClickOnThis]

That would be when MS Office runs on a linux desktop. (Which many workplaces would love.)

No, when that happens, hell's temperature will drop to that of liquid helium.

Re:In other news...

[nullchar]

For business use, it must support the latest version, which it does not: https://www.codeweavers.com/co...

Re:In other news...

[Zero__Kelvin]

"For business use, it must support the latest version, which it does not"

That's ridiculous. Very few businesses require the most recent version. Most could do with one from two releases back. Very few people are pushing Office to limits, such that they can only get what they need using the latest version. How do you think they got along before the latest version was released?

Re:In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well with their move of Office on the cloud, it is already running on a Linux desktop...

Re:In other news...

[nullchar]

Except MS Office requires different licenses for different versions. If the 2013 version included 2007 (supported by Crossover) that would be great, but if $giant-corp buys 2013 licenses, they definitely won't re-buy a 2007 license + crossover license just for the handful of Linux users.

My original point was hell freezing over when Microsoft releases Office for Linux - then the corporate purchase works on any OS: Windows, OSX, Linux.

Make it stop ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but this shit has to stop.

Make this fucking clown an editor, and put him in the fucking Exclusions page so we can choose not to see his submissions.

I'm tired of these fucking paid shill articles by Nerval's Fucking Lobster.

Yes, you work for dice, we get it. Now give us a way to stop seeing this fucking crap.

Fuck you, dice.

Re:Make it stop ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, the BEST way to avoid seeing crap at /. is to stop coming to /. Frankly I'd like to see a lot less bitching and whining...when I get sick of the shill stories I go away for awhile; you should do the same.

Would *you* trust a MS Linux certification?

[QuietLagoon]

What if Microsoft taught everything wrong?

Re:Would *you* trust a MS Linux certification?

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh the only thing I would trust less than that is an IBM database certification course.

Re:Would *you* trust a MS Linux certification?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Linux on Azure certification consists really of two certifications: the first is being certified on Azure and the second is completing a Linux Foundation sysadmins certification.

Re:Would *you* trust a MS Linux certification?

[ClickOnThis]

Welcome to your first Microsoft Linux Certification class. Today we're going to learn about the command line.

The first command we will try is

sudo rm -rf /

Please try it now.

Good job. The course is over. You are now all Certified.

Re:Would *you* trust a MS Linux certification?

[Billly Gates]

Well the new MCSE/MCSA certification track it is not hte training I do not trust.

It is the silliness of the questions. MS are very very hard. Not in a technical sense. But more of memorizing which mouse click and knowing 3 ways to do everything with every obscure option in 1. gui 2. Netsh and 3. Powershell. It is never something you ever used in the real world and MS adds another gui tool for each task in each new version of server. So there can be 8 ways to setup a static IP, DNS, name, and adding the dc to a forest. MS will give you 10 options and 7 are correct. But MS asks for the right one?? Which one is that?

Re:Would *you* trust a MS Linux certification?

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever taken a Microsoft test?

Ill admit the last one I took was in the late 1990's. To pass the test all you had to do was select the answer that used a Microsoft product.
I remember this question just because, at the time, I had just finished the Cisco CCNA tests.

You class B network is having an issue with collisions. Which of the following do you implement to reduce the number of collisions?

A) Subnet your Class B network into Class C networks and implement routing.
B) Replace your hubs with managed Switches.
C) Install Microsoft DHCP server and configure all of your systems to obtain their network information via DHCP
D) None of the above.

The correct answer according to Microsoft was .... C

Re:Would *you* trust a MS Linux certification?

[PCM2]

1. gui 2. Netsh and 3. Powershell. It is never something you ever used in the real world

I think you'll find that if you manage real-world Windows servers you will use at least one of the three.

Re: Would *you* trust a MS Linux certification?

[Billly Gates]

I do use it but the question is asking for silly things like which column do you use for managing y in tool z when an admin uses z for something else. Or which out of 50 arguments would you select in powershell when no one uses that command anyway for that kind of task . admins typically do it with another command 95% of the time and would use get help anyway or PS ESE etc.

Tests are a joke.

Re:Would *you* trust a MS Linux certification?

[bobbied]

Not much to their certification... It only covers how to replace the Linux boot loader...

"bootrec /fixmbr"

That's it, you are now Microsoft certified in Linux...

.

.

For you shills out there, I'm making a joke..

Re:Would *you* trust a MS Linux certification?

[KGIII]

Trick lesson/question! Where's the bootloader?

Microsoft Xenix, nuff said

[Anonymous Coward]

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

is this under "entertainment" or Open source?

[Anonymous Coward]

Shouldn't the topic of this be "Entertainment" as opposed to Open source?

Well...

[mwvdlee]

Hell's temperature has become a lot more tolerable lately, but now we've got to crouch all the time to avoid the pigs.

barrier to entry for the disadvantaged

[Anonymous Coward]

Paying for a certification is an artificial barrier to entry for the disadvantaged to get into the computer field. MS is just being evil in a different way now. Anyone can learn Linux. Not everyone can afford a certification.

Re:barrier to entry for the disadvantaged

[__aaclcg7560]

Paying for a certification is an artificial barrier to entry for the disadvantaged to get into the computer field.

I was just poor white boy earning a pittance and working 80 hours a week as a video game tester when I saved up my money to get my A+, Network+ and MCP certifications in one year. I then got a help desk job that paid the same amount of money as a video game tester but only working 40 hours a week. I was able to enjoy life since I was no longer disadvantaged and have a meaningful career.

this all makes complete sense.

[nimbius]

If you think about microsofts strategy, namely copying things from other companies, it starts making sense. Who has microsoft tried to beat for so long? apple. The ipad begat the surface, the iphone the zune, its all so obvious. Microsoft believes Linux is a cancer, and the only way to cure that cancer is to duplicate Steve Jobs homeopathic natural medicine cure. So expect in about 3 weeks microsoft to have finally vanquished linux, or the entire company to be reported as completely bankrupt and gone.

Just got my MS BCCT

[sinij]

I just got my MS BCCT (Balmer-certified chair thrower) certification. Who wants to hire me?

Re:Just got my MS BCCT

[Tablizer]

It's obsolete, Chairs 2.0 is out.

Re:Just got my MS BCCT

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me know if anyone does. If anyone is still smoking the dick of a joke from 1998 I don't want to work for them.
 
Seriously dude, you're a fucking bore. You got modded up but this is lame shit.

If you can't beam 'em...

[Anonymous Coward]

Initiate a hostile takeover.

Increasingly?

[DeathElk]

Increasingly? INCREASINGLY?? Open source isn't "increasingly" powering Internet services, IT'S BEEN THE BENCHMARK SINCE DARPA. FFS, Microsoft was the cancer, trying to force proprietary standards down everyones throat.

Re:Increasingly?

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, You seem to be confused. The "benchmark" were systems like IBM/UNIVAC.

AT&T UNIX itself was proprietary, bug-ridden, complete mess for anything serious. Indeed, as expected, the first computer virus was created for UNIX. It was decades before UNIX became stable. Even then it was a disaster for modern use - blocking syscalls, no plug and play, laughable security, (except the BSDs)

And then, Linux (like much of open source) came up and copied the existing proprietary design and improved upon it, bolted on modern features like SELinux, because the old design sucked so bad. Heck you had to type a command to eject your cd drive on Linux not too long ago; when Windows was running laps around the amateur attempts at Linux GUIs.

Linux is only useful in places which either demand supervisory/admin attention (servers), or in places where its completed locked down to the level of an appliance (android). Basically as long as you keep Linux away from users, its useful. Wow !

Re:Increasingly?

[Zero__Kelvin]

The first computer virus released outside the lab was created for the Apple II. You are most likely thinking of the RTM Internet Worm, which attacked Unix and VMS systems, but was not a virus.

Re:Increasingly?

[sysrammer]

Hah! Reminds me of the late 90's when MS was fighting the internet and tried to co-opt the acronym "DNS" for Dynamic Network Systems or some such.

Re:Increasingly?

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux is not Unix. Unix is proprietary. Linux is a Unix clone.

Re:Increasingly?

[swillden]

Increasingly? INCREASINGLY?? Open source isn't "increasingly" powering Internet services, IT'S BEEN THE BENCHMARK SINCE DARPA.

This is only true if you fail to distinguish between the modern definition of open source (OSI's definition) and proprietary but source-available

The ARPANET started running on the Sigma 7, running BPM. Various other operating systems ran other early nodes, but all of them were proprietary. Many did provide source code to the operating system when you bought the machine, but they were still proprietary. Later, Unix rose in popularity, but Unix was also proprietary. BSD eventually became truly open source, but that wasn't until the mid 90s, by which time Linux was already fairly well established.

Of course, there's a lot more involved in powering Internet services than just an operating system. TCP/IP stacks and associated utilities, plus applications like SMTP servers, web servers, etc. The most widely used early versions of all of these things were from BSD Unix, source-available but proprietary. There were also purely commercial, closed source implementations of all of them (who remembers Trumpet?). Windows NT did become a significant (though minority) force in Internet services, and of course it was all proprietary and closed source (though much Windows' TCP stack was based on BSD).

However, in recent years truly open source solutions have been gradually increasing their dominant position. The rise of cloud computing infrastructure has done a lot to erase Windows' presence and proprietary Unix is getting pretty rare.

Do I really need to say it?

[Anonymous Coward]

[Obligatory Admiral Ackbar quote here.]

Step 1.) Embrace

[waspleg]

seriously. They're just slow on their usual tricks...

It all fits.

[Anonymous Coward]

Clickbait headline, shit reporting, controversial statement. Yep, another shit dice link driven home by the worthless chunks of shit that call themselves "editors" at slashdot.

The editors here need to be fired.

tired of MS!

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck Microsoft and Cisco their $$$ certification tests! FUCK YOU AGAIN!

I really hope MS just goes the fuck away and developers start focusing on BSD and Linux. There should be no issue for companies to be running proprietary closed source on linux unless they incorporate gpl code into their code. I had to wait 3 hours for Windows 2008 to finish the "Checking for Updates" and this isn't something new. I don't understand why they can't have a small Database to keep track of everything about the OS including the OS's main core dll's versions and such to make updates faster. Right now It's probably going file by file in the system32 folder or where ever in that fucked up directory structure that they have. As a windows user I actually find the linux/bsd directory structure a lot easier to understand and navigate through.

Windows 7 gone by 2020 which is good but then those of us who rely on Windows(adobe, autocad, gaming) we will all have to switch to that eye straining, crayon color, windows 10 UI. Seriously, can't use it, it strains my eyes and makes me sleepy same with windows 8/8.1.

underpinnings of OS X

[unixisc]

NEXTSTEP was BSD and Mach 2.5 underneath. XNU is FreeBSD userland over Mach 3,0 underneath. Yes, it's BSD in terms of userland, no it ain't BSD if one is talking about the kernel.

Windows emulation

[unixisc]

FX!32 couldn't stop the performance of such programs from sucking on Alphas, and taking away the one advantage the Alpha had. Microsoft did the right thing by not going that route. iOS is a single processor OS - on Apple's A series, while Android is essentially an ARM OS, even though it might have some modicum of support for x64 and MIPS

Doing everything right? What are you smoking?

[Anonymous Coward]

Get back to me when they:

Start using ODF as a default instead of the proprietary, unneeded MOOXML, and

Stop extorting payments from Android makers.

And that's just for starters. I'm sure others could add items to the list.

It's a trap!

[Anonymous Coward]

For those who don't know their history.

Shillapalooza

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a company with being a sold out cunt as it's mission statement.

Global Mother Fucking Spyware. Deal with it.

What about "Secure Boot" that was intended to be an OS lockout? They didn't want it to be easy to install Linux and other OS's because they are SUPERIOR to Windows. They wanted to be gatekeeper with their 1993 filesystem having asses. You want encryption? Buy "Pro" like a sucker would.

They wanted to charge Linux to even install on PC's they sold already infected with Windows 8.

http://www.geek.com/news/redhat-will-pay-microsoft-to-ensure-fedora-18-runs-on-windows-8-pcs-1493367/

Redhat and Ubuntu are the Microsoft sellout wannabe's of open source world. The only other cunt in Linux world is systemd.

It's simple folks. http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=8445845&cid=51078199

Re:Shillapalooza

[Anonymous Coward]

http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=8451959&cid=51086003

Let's not forget the return of the Windows start menu in 8.1. A big fat "suck our dicks". Now it's "suck our dick with this adware" in 10.

gtfo Microsoft. archive.org for your shit.

Not a good day to Zune

[dbIII]

Most days yes, but on that one day a year on a leap year it's the classic example of an utterly stupid newbie mistake that would have failed a high school programming assignment in 1985.
Files with an expiry date beyond which the music would not play meant it needed to know the date so a calendar was thrown in as an afterthought without even the most simple tests being applied - so on the last day of leap year the Zune would not work at all. A failure so epic that it is one for the textbooks and will be remembered long after anything else about the Zune.

Re: Not a good day to Zune

[jmac_the_man]

iPods from the same era as the first generation Zune had an identical bug, but Apple turned out OK.

Re: Not a good day to Zune

[dbIII]

Really? I missed that one. I believe you but do you have a link in case I want to mention it to others?

Re:Not a good day to Zune

[unapersson]

But surely being able to squirt songs at each other on the other days made up for that?

Re: Not a good day to Zune

[jmac_the_man]

I can't find it anymore for some reason, but this was covered on Slashdot. The Apple bug was exposed later than the Zune one. I know I yelled at someone with "Mac" in their username for saying "The Apple bug is no big deal" and posted examples of them shitting on Microsoft for the Zune bug. (Slashdot had three stories on the Zune bug, by the way, but one on the Apple bug.)

Re: Not a good day to Zune

[dbIII]

Thanks I'll keep it in mind and look out for it. It shows how little testing is done on these products that such a pre-newbie mistake can get through - a high schooler would be given a hard time for making such a stupid mistake.
Of course the MS fanboys blamed it on outsourcing and it's possible that Apple did that too, but that is no excuse for a company not properly testing something with their name on it before release.

Its a trap.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, seriously. They are doing it because it's convenient at the moment. In the meantime they are (as is Apple & co) driving wedges between the different flavours of Free--Open, and trying to marginalize the more strict free licenses (those about the users, remember?). But it's the diversity which always was the strength of this movement.

The corporates all dream of a well-domesticated "open source ecosystem", to be a resource to "tap into", if possible for free, as water, land, air and "human resources" were to classical industry.

Know what, Microsoft? As far as I'm concerned, you can get stuffed. You'd have to do *a huge lot* before you could make good what I have seen you doing for the last thirty years.

I haven't forgotten.

Absolutely true

[waspleg]

and obvious for a very long time. I remember it being clear that Redhat wanted to be the Microsoft of the Linux world even before they had an IPO. Canonical are horrible shit lords.

I don't understand, at all, why anyone would believe anything but vendor lock in monoculture would come out of Microsoft. It's been their schtick for 20+ fucking years.

This is their attempt to get free developers. They would very much like their walled garden to be as popular as that of Apple and Google but they've already lost the phone wars.

off post, butGet updates right first

[labiator]

Just this year, I have been hit by 3 bad updates from Windows update. I only remember one bad update from the pre Nadella era. Keep this up and I will remove all MS software from my DC and users desktops as I don't have time to fight your spying and bad updates.

PLEASE... GET SERIOUS

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft is a dead junk in the void....

The proper "DEFINITION" of their "CERTIFICATES" is UNPRINTABLE....

There are indeed a lot of serious institutions past and beyond what MS thinks about tech
which issues the proper and legal "CERTIFICATES"

Enough said - the definition of such papers belong to the POT...

Regards