Slashdot Mirror
The Competition for Developers
Ray Cromwell writes "Software competition a concern is a major concern, according to Steve Ballmer.
Amongst other things, Steve says
that the growing amount of development done for the Linux operating system by the work of volunteers developers worldwide is "scary."
Ballmer also characterized the free-form Linux community as "somewhat crazy," but said Microsoft now has "a real server competitor."
"
Despite the fact that this is largely a bogus argument in the here and now (that Microsoft is not a monopoly because of this *potential* threat), over the long term, I think this is Microsoft's greatest fear, and constitutes a threat that is very, very real.
I think this article indicates that it is currently "top of mind" at Microsoft.
I don't know how they are going to keep developers away from Linux/BSD/etc., but they sure as hell are going to try.
--
It's funny that Microsoft wants us to believe that Linux and NT are the only real competitors in the server market. They're trying to defeat IBM, HP, and Sun (their real competitors in the high-end market) by excluding them from the contest.
The next step is to publish white papers like "Linux or Windows 2000, which is better for your enterprise?". Lets face it, neither Windows nor Linux is ready for seriously massive enterprise deployment today. But if MS can make it seem like these are the only choices they might take market share away from the companies that really have viable products.
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
1. MSDN CD's cost $500 per year last time I
subscribed. Linux API docs and source are free.
2. Visual C++ subscriptions costs $250 last time
I bought it (circa 1996). Linux dev tools are free.
3. Microsoft constantly assures developers that their
new XYZ API is the way of the future "Port all
your code to XYZ now before it's too late!"
then a few months later they either abandon
XYZ or change the rules of it completely. How
long do you expect me to tolerate that?
4. Microsoft constantly competes with it's own
3rd party developers and beats them senseless.
5. With the Open Source paradigm it's not about
selling software anymore -- it's about *using*
the tools available to build entire systems
and content. If you you reach the limits of the
software then open your code editor and dig in.
6. Geeks are leaving Windows because it's not
interesting anymore. Linux, BSD, Apache, Perl,
GNOME, KDE, GIMP, etc.. those things are
interesting. News things are happening everyday
in those areas and people are contributing code
because it's useful, interesting, challenging,
and other programmers are actually listening
to their suggestions rather than letting a group
of marketing droid design the software using
zombie focus group of morons.
More FUD! MFC is not a neccessity to write a Windows application, and it actually limits you quite a bit if you want to do anything out-of-the-box (overrides are a pain in the arse). It's no more difficult to write a nonMFC application than it is to write a GTK application. If you can't figure either of these out, you need a) more practice, or b) Visual Basic or Glade.
Not only is this lame, but who knows how many bugs are in that AppWizard code? Knowing MS, probably tons. If I'm on a development team, the last thing I want is to track down bugs in M$ code :)
That's funny (really!) but also untrue. The AppWizards give you a skeleton application - there isn't much room for error. I've never found one in appwizard generated code, and I've never heard of anyone else finding one. All my errors are mine! Mine alone I say!
--
Kick down the stable door and run free with Linux!
It even got so bad that at one point I heard a Microsoft developer say, "the source code is the documentation." What kind of bullshit is that?
Now I work on BIOS's, which are OS independent, for the most part. And at home I work on OS/2, which has an API that hasn't changed in 10 years (and still works great!)
Timur Tabi
Remove "nospam_" from email address
Microsoft certainly has a legitimate concern when it comes to attracting developers. Let's take a common scenario: your average Genius Hacker gets a brilliant idea for an application/utility/tool that no one else has written yet.
Assuming he can scrape together the money to get himself a good Windows development environment (a few boxes running both 95 and NT, various Microsoft developer products - Visual C++, etc) he then has to face:
- working on a platform with a somewhat obtuse API and dealing with it's inconsistencies. At the same time he can make his job MUCH easier by using Microsoft's wonderful classes, thereby tying his soul forever a Windows platform.
- but because he's developing on Windows he'll immediately have access to millions of PC users, right? Well, in actuality no. The costs for getting "certified" to run under Windows and getting a PC distributor to give him a chance are pretty slim.
- and most importantly, once the product is developed he needs to stave off Microsoft from developing a competing product. Microsoft has gone from sucking up companies to taking "embracing and extending" to an all new level. Let's take this weeks headlines - Microsoft Messenger not only supports ICQ and AIM, but Microsoft's own messaging protocol. What a shocker! While it was once viable to start a company with the hopes of being bought out by MS, now they can play 500 lb gorilla and simply overwhelm the distribution channels any small developer could hope to use.
Compare that to developing on Linux:
- free development environment
- you no longer have to "hack" your program to accept the OS's limitations - you can actually contact other developers with patches to make their code work properly
- multiple toolkits are available - including those that also support Windows
- friendly distribution channels
Unfortunately you won't be able to take as many coffee breaks when coding - the OS won't crash during compiling/debugging.
----- obSig
> "and it's led to a big boom of GUI programs for
...
..)
> Linux. "
> Mostly frontends to "whois" etc...
Check freshmeat; wrappers for existing commandline software are a minority. 80-90% of GTK apps are "original" in design and often functionality. (you'll see similar numbers for Qt; I'm not making comparisons with other widget sets)
> By the way, you shouldn't compare Win32 API to
> Xlib - those are on completely different
> levels. It is more like Win32 API = GTK
That's not actually an appropriate comparison either; GTK (or Qt for that matter) covers a very small subset of the functionality of the Win32 API (the remaining functionality is supplied by the POSIX stuff).
> And I agree with previous poster - GTK is ugly
> and simply not pleasant to program in or use (
> hint ; try QT and you will see the truth
Qt's a nice piece of work, as far as C++ APIs go. GTK's C++ binding is _decent_ -- although it's not quite as good (or at least as complete) in some areas.
From the perspective of a C++ programmer, GTK's C binding is quite evil, but the problem is precisely that it IS C. There really isn't a better way to do that kind of OO thing in C -- Qt's C binding (yes, there is one), for instance, does not take anywhere near as good an advantage of inheritance and other OO constructs.
I guess one advantage of GTK over Qt, at least in C++, is that you can program GTK in standard C++. You can't (in most cases) with Qt; some of Qt's functionality necessitates its own special C++ variant, requiring a special preprocessor. On a practical basis, that's not that big a deal, but I do prefer to stick with accepted language standards.
These issues aside, Qt is better than GTK, yes. Just be aware of the caveats.
---
DNA just wants to be free...
Look at your Windows computer (if you have the great misfortune of having one, of course).
What software is on it?
I'll tell you what software is on mine.
Microsoft FoxPro, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Access. Do you see a pattern here?
At least with Linux or Be, third-party developers have a fighting chance. In the last couple of years, Windows has changed from an open platform to one that's proprietary in all but name. Third-party applications? Bah! Who even uses them anymore?
Microsoft is bound to lose developer mindshare in this type of situation. After all, 0% of 100,000,000 computers is still, well, zero.
D
----
Occasionally I do engage in billbashing, of course, but I'm not really much into Linux versus Windows/NT thingy. Still, I can't resist flaming here.
Fortunately, my consulting work involves mostly UNIX development. From now on, I've made a decision that I will NOT accept any more consulting assignments that involve any kind of development in Windows platform. Not Visual C++, not Visual Basic, nada. I've done both in the past, but not any more. Basically, right now there's one fewer Windows developer out there, but I bet that I'm not the only one who've made the same decision. Here's why.
Basically, I just can't tolerate it anymore, that's all. Windows-based development is so technologically crippled that I feel like I need to have my IQ artificially reduced by a few digits before I start coding.
Visual C++ is the only C++-based environment that I know of that actually *requires* a bloody WIZARD to develop. Souls who are cursed with having to use VC++ know what I'm talking about.
The damn thing is so silly, I have to laugh at it. So much absolute GLOP has to go into a VC++ program just to support the patently idiotic Windows API that even the smallest applications come out of the gate already bloated beyond all recognition.
And I won't get into the fact that even the most simple Windows-based applications have to be written using an event-driven model. That is so downright stupid that I can't even find the words to describe it.
I'VE HAD IT! Bye, Windows. I won't even miss you.
--
Well, I agree with you there. They wrote up a big whitepaper and posted it on their NT Server site saying the usual stuff. Yada, yada, It's free, there's no "insurance" if it fails, you can't pay anyone to hold your hand, it was written by a bunch of bum who just have to much time on their hands, it'll make hair grow out of your nose, it'll date your girl friend, it'll send nasty e-mails to your dog. Now Steve Ballmer decides, "Whoa, This is a really good product. Omigod! It's actually a legitimate competitor to NT" What next? A recanting of the whitepaper? Is Steve Ballmer becoming senile. Is it time for Microsoft to give him a few million and tell him to enjoy life?
This reminds me of when Paul Maritz said, under oath that Abi Source was developing a very high-quality word processor. But do you think that's what they are going to be telling consumers? Tommorrow, they'll have another "bogus" Mindcraft test, just to make sure that everyone who is "important" understands what they *really* think of competition.
Sure, they can fool financial analysts, and they *think* they can fool Judges. They can even coerce OEM's to only preload their OS. They can deceptively market to consumer who "trusts" them. But they can only do it for so long.
Because, you can't lie forever. Eventually, you make that one wrong move. Microsoft has chosen their bed. Now they will lie in it.
-BrentInstead we got Visual C++, Win32, MFC, COM, and all the rest of it.
And things have been getting worse, rather than better.
Microsoft's APIs, "drag-and-drop" approach to programming, non-round-trip wizards, lack of runtime safety, lack of API error checking, and dozens of released attempts at getting some APIs right, to name just a few, make Windows programming the most painful kind of programming I know.
But worst of all, their "designs" just lack coherence. It may take me a few hours to figure out the design and functionality of GTK or X11 or Berlin or Qt or Zope or many other libraries designed for UNIX. There are a few parts of Windows that are similarly coherent. But, for the most part, after more than five years of Win32, I still don't "get it", and I have yet to meet anybody who does. Microsoft seems to have a nack for taking basically good ideas (message passing, MVC, core-COM, etc.) and turning them into systems that make the Winchester Mystery House look tame by comparison.
BTW, I'm among the "1 million programmers" signed up for their developer program (MSDN, full subscription), as are many of my friends and colleagues. Also, a lot of "Windows programmers", in particular on the server side, are simply UNIX programmers that do the minimum amount of work necessary to make UNIX server software work on NT, without ever using a lot of Microsoft's APIs. And, as I like to quip when people marvel at the amount of software for Windows, "Windows has 50000 application programs for it, 45000 of which are there to fix bugs, provide missing OS functionality, and work around UI problems in Microsoft Windows".
Yes, I think Microsoft should be worried about this: this is a hard problem they are up against. Their usual approach of adding more code and APIs to the system won't fix it--it's at the heart of their problem.
oh yeah .... I wish GTK API was at least as stable as WIN 32 ... One thing MS managed to keep is binary compability between changes. Linux is a mess compared to Win. You never know if well behaved program written on RH 5.2 will run on SUSE or even RH 6.0 ( not to mention Slackware )
This is horrible and very painfull for someone who develops for Linux...
- We all know M$ is deep in their DoJ trial. Check.
- They are in this situation because of bad (illegal?) marketing practices which prevent competition (Yes, I saw it up close and in person).
- One of their biggest "defenses" is that Linux is "competition" to them.
- We've probably noticed that M$ has let up a little on their OEM restrictions since this trial began (e.g., we're now actually seeing some OEM's selling linux boxen).
Now.. consider this article, and Ballmer's statements, and also the article earlier today on MSNBC about *BSD.- Right in the middle of the *BSD article, they placed a link to "Discuss Linux and BSD on the BBS", opening up a forum for the less tactful Linux advocates to do their less-than-tactful Linux advocacy.
- This latest article portends to cast a shadow of competition behind Linux, taking some heat off M$.
Get to the point!! Okay. Consider what's going to happen if the DoJ -does- by Microsoft's claims of competition from Linux. Consider also that having a lot of money (which Bill Gates has more of than anyone else in the world [except maybe that one sultan of somewhere.. right? ugh]) can get you a LOT of bonus points in the American "Justice" system. So, let's suppose that M$ gets out of this anti-trust suit with a "not guilty", or whatever the equivalent ruling. Or even suppose that they get off with a slap on the wrist.. then what? Then they dive head-long back into their anti-competitional business while they still have a majority of market share. OEM's and customers alike still depend heavily on M$ because they haven't had the time to switch strongly to Linux (and let's face it.. Linux isn't quite ready). Next step? M$, using their traditional brute force, retakes the market share they've lost in the past few months, summarily crushing the "Linux Movement". Wow.. don't I sound paranoid? Probably, but that's honestly how I see it. Anyone else agree? Zeitgeistperl -e 'print "zj5GuPW9b.sEiQQVgvL1Tr." ^ pack("H48","000f5c3312353e4a166e12311d363d3905172
In a perfect world, Microsoft's approach to competition should be "bring it on!", but instead they continue to think of competition as a win-lose situation; someone can only succeed at others' expense. As long they respond to competitive threats with better code, then they might not disappear off the face of the earth once thier market share slips. I guess anything less than everything can only look like a loss when you've been ahead for so long.
In most cases, lying is a Bad Thing, but certainly not illegal. Two cases where lying is illegal, however, are under oath (that's perjury) and making claims about a competitor's product (that's slander). A good law firm should catch them talking out of both sides of their mouth in these arenas, and thus show them guilty of one or the other offense.
Microsoft could either say that they overstated the competition's quality in the DOJ trial, or understated the competition's quality in the realm of the marketroids. If they do the former, they dig themselves deeper into the antitrust hole. If they do the latter, they have to retract the statements, you get legal press releases, and the competitor can use the DOJ statements (wow, this is really good software, it competes with ours) as advertising copy. AFAIK, court transcripts are not subject to copyright law.
--The basis of all love is respect
That is why I won't program for Windows, not because I can't, not because I don't like Windows (actually it's very pretty), not because I don't like Microsoft (except for the way they treat me), not because I hate/fear/envy Bill Gates, but because it's bad for me in the long term.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
This is why Microsoft has already lost. The fact that entry-level programmers are migratating to OSS is disturbing. The fact that senior-level developers have seen the Microsoft-centric universe... and the fact that we have absolutely no role in it (other than as glorified button pushers) is fatal.
When I start my own software company, will I try to compete in the Windows environment where MS has repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to obliterate any competition? Hell, no! Even if I didn't think OSS was technically superior, I would be *forced* to choose it since there's simply no viable alternative!
When I develop specifications for a new product for my employer, will I merrily tie my company's future to a company which has repeatedly shown a willingness to frivilously change APIs so ensure the market is forced to upgrade? Hell, no! Again, even if I didn't think OSS was technically superior, I would have to mark down the Microsoft solution since it would require constant maintainance due to the continually changing API.
When the software industry was a small piece of the economy a single company could effect a stranglehold on it. But now software is *everywhere*, and *no* single software company can long dominate the marketplace. I often think of this economic sector like a farm: the best way to ensure a solid harvest is to rotate your crops. Leaving a field fallow may look like a "waste," but those small plants inject valuable chemicals into the soil.
Microsoft is classic corporate farming. It keeps harvesting the same crop year after year, and it uses every bit of the plant while violently ripping out any non-crop plant. This depletes the soil, and its response is to pile on the shit. Sorry, the petrochemical fertilizers. But that will only work so long; it replaces the gross biomatter, but it still messes up the microculture.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
I guess what realy scares M$ is that most of the young guys studying computer science has no interest what so ever in Win32.
Here in Sweden when we recruit new software engineers direct from college they show no particular interest in Win32. Instead they are fluent in the UNIX/Linux environment. I have also got the impression that this distaste for Win32 is valid in most countries.
Each time a fresh guy comes on interview and passes my room, he smiles and chuckles when seeing my Linux posters. He becomes very comfortable and often admits to use Win32 sometimes for gameplay but not for any real serious things. This is a big plus and one step closer to get an offer.
Microsoft do have every reason to be scared. They will have huge difficulties to steal any new technology from small upstart companies. Their foodchain is completly broken.
//Pingo
--- Linux or FreeBSD, it's like blondes or brunettes. I like both. ---
It's interesting that you're taken with the MFC (and hence the underlying Windows) message passing. This is the main cause of slow app. behaviour and the reason that adding new features causes the application to slow down.
:-).
The Windows message passing requires every window in the food chain to examine each message with a string of compares to see if it handles this message. This causes an geometric increase in message processing time with increased functionality (each added unit of function uses a "Window").
Ironically enough, considering the Winbloat phenomenon, this was a conscious trade-off sacrificing speed to reduce size. Reasonable enough on a 1MB system with a 50 MB hard drive, but not we have 64 MB systems with 8 GB hard drives and we STILL pay the price of that decission. (So much for WGIII's legendary technological leadership
Well, the Win32 API is just one of the APIs that Microsoft offers on the NT kernel. There's a pretty nice Posix API made by a third party (Interix) that rumor has it may be folded into the NT system in a big way. It's fairly robust implementation of Posix (includes GCC, but it also integrates Microsoft C for building Posix binaries), and lets most Free Software packages be built and run on an NT kernel. And it's totally alien to Win32, unlike Cygnus (it has pretty much equal status as far as the Kernel is concerned).
But I know how crazy it is to talk up anything Microsoft does in this forum. Sadly there are a lot of people with an irrational hatred of Microsoft in the world. They somewhat blunt the real criticism that is due that company and their products.
Oracle has a LONG LONG history of vaporware that goes back to when the company started. It's well established in the printed record. This spring I read a 'sympathetic' biography of Larry Ellison (it was obvious that it was written by somebody who had received friendly access to Larry) where some of his personal ethical lapses were documented. Things like sleeping with employees, having them fired when he breaks up with them. Outright lieing to customers about new releases. The book title is "The Difference between God and Larry Ellison (God doesn't think he's Larry Ellison)".
Oh, and wether or not a company has "credible competition" has nothing to do with wether a company is ethical or not.
I am NOT writing this to apologize for Microsoft in any way or form, just to point out that it's not a pink-and-fuzzy world out there of happy ethical competitors, except for big mean bad Microsoft.
Get real.
They are just trying to make people think this.
"BSD or Linux" equals server.
"BSD or Linux" does not equal Desktop.
He wants most people to think that it is only for servers, and that it wouldnt do them any good at home.
After reading all this craziness I just cannot resist putting in my 2 cents.
I work for one of the nations largest ISPS and have first hand experience of going from a strictly windows enviroment to a Unix flavor.(freeBSD).
Granted that all flavors of Unix tend to be more reliable and more scalable than Windows version out there. I use to replace Unix boxes with NT servers and learned first hand the trouble caused mainly due to reliability. I would take down an 8 year old 286 that had been totally stable and then explain that the nice shiny NT server might need some TLC every now and then. BUT this brings me to two points.
UNIX - is a great OS, how cannot it not be with so many years of growth under its belt? But Unix is so cumbersome to the average user that the apps written for it for the average user have to be choice based, leaving out any intuition on the user . You can either hit this key or that key.
And, when Unix crashes, you actually have to make a trip out there because there is no way you can walk some average joe through a fix on the phone.
Windows on the other hand is buggy but easy to use. People have it at home and tech support though often is fairly easy(hit the rest button). Windows best point is that it gets the average user pissed off enough to look under the hood, maybe install a new device, build a new pc, and decide that they like computing so much they need to find a real OS, change their outlook on life, and leave home.
The average user is where we make our money. Windows gives the average user what they want. Ease of use and out of the box functionality. When Linux matures enough for that then the world will be a better place.
AND as for the guy who turned down 120 grand and stock options? You sound like a physician just out of med school who thinks by grace a god he should be paid big bucks. Or an MCSE.
Frizz0
p.s. I run linux with apache at home, as well as 98