Microsoft looking for FreeBSD Skills

After last Sunday's story about Microsoft looking for Linux skills, Alfred Perlstein wrote in with the news that talented FreeBSD admins can also find themselves positions with Microsoft, in particular, at Hotmail. The Hotmail guys do seem to have a sense of humour though; witness hostnames like rotate-the-shield-harmonics.hotmail.com.

Comments

This smells of "port"

[Uruk]

Well, when I hear that Micros~1 wants linux people, and now freebsd people, it smells like a port of some of their more "popular" software.

MS Office, Explorer, all that stuff. (I'm pretty sure that Explorer already exists for x86 and sparc Solaris boxen, but nowhere else). With all of the newbies from windows land flooding into the linux and BSD* worlds, I bet that they could actually attract a few people who are moving to something they don't understand by using some software on UNIX that they already know.

Of course, that would be some type of low level concession, since if we can't have our customers on our platform, we'll have our customers on your platform, but still, I think the bucks are there.

So when are they going to start hiring Plan9, Eros, and Pick programmers? :)

It would be interesting to see them port some of their software that relies so heavily on ActiveX and all that other stuff. They may have to bring that stuff with them when coming to Linux/BSD

Just my $0.02

Re:This smells of "port"

[reptilian]

They might port, who knows, but I don't think that's the case here. Hotmail uses FreeBSD, and it would seem they're looking for people to help out over there. Remember, MS does more than make software.

Man's unique agony as a species consists in his perpetual conflict between the desire to stand out and the need to blend in.

Re:This smells of "port"

[MillMan]

Before you start getting paranoid, actually go the site and read it. The jobs are for hotmail. Hotmail was running *nix before microsoft bought them. As I remember, they tried to get their servers to run NT but it wouldn't work. Therefore they are stuck with *nix, apparently FreeBSD.

Re:This smells of "port"

[Osty]

FYI, ports of IE4 exist for Sparc Solaris and PA-RISC HP-UX. I don't think an x86 port exists for Solaris. However, these ports are very subpar, and though IE is normal a superior browser, these ports don't hold a candle to Netscape, even with all of Netscape's problems.

Re:This smells of "port"

[jeremy f]

I can hear the shouts of "assimilation", the borg refernces, and the rest already.

Wouldn't the shouts of "assimilation" come in the opposite direction of what we're expecting? From the Microsoft supporters?

We're seeing the possible advent of Microsoft software on the *nix's & the *BSD's, not the possible advent of *nix & *BSD software on Microsoft OS's. If they were truly assimilating, wouldn't they take our technology, and add it to their own? Instead, they're taking their technology, and putting it into a market where they've already found out that they can't compete unless they adapt, not by forcing us to adapt.

Re:This smells of "port"

[alfredo]

But will they bring the security holes, the bloatware that we all know and love? will the quality of work be up to snuff? Will the software be made to work, or made to make money?

Re:This smells of "port"

[AussiePenguin]

Do you really thing people will complain if *icrosoft ports their software to Freenix? What's wrong with that?

I don't like Microsoft. But I wouldn't complain if Microsoft ported their software to Linux. It would give people more choice!!

a) M$ Office users could then use Linux as an alternitive OS.
b) Linux users could use M$ Office as an alternitive from Sun, Corel or Applix.

AussiePenguin
Melbourne, Australia
ICQ 19255837

Re:This smells of "port"

[4of12]

Well, if the Macinstosh ports of M$Ware are any indication, the *NIX versions will be just ever so slightly annoyingly incompatible or incapable with what the same application does running on M$-OS.

Is that not the main reason for the corporate IT world quashing out Macs in their stables (I means, other than the fun and amusement from annoying Mac Users)?

hotmail

[MillMan]

Looks like the jobs are all hotmail support, which shouldn't be too suprising since they couldn't get the system to run on NT when microsoft bought them. I wasn't aware that they were running FreeBSD, though.

They got what you ask for

[Money__]

System Administrator
Hotmail in Sunnyvale, CA
[snip] We need someone to administer the Hotmail system of 45 million plus users...[snip]... solid troubleshooting skills, system installation and configuration, fundamentals of security, [snip]

No wonder Hotmail is easier to crack than a cookie jar.

:)

_____________________________________

Re:They got what you ask for

[bfumerola]

That's not exactly accurate.

All of the recent problems that Hotmail experienced related to security were a result of bad (cgi) programming, not bad system admins.

Re:They got what you ask for

[marxmarv]

You know, that's a thread all its own right there: ever notice how often web developers lack security skills and are all-around poor architects? Also, have you noticed how undegreed sysadmins are actually good at this stuff more often than you'd think?

-jhp

I doubt it...

[Skim123]

Well, when I hear that Micros~1 wants linux people, and now freebsd people, it smells like a port of some of their more "popular" software.

I doubt it. When people switch from Microsoft to an alternative OS, like a BSD or Linux, isn't it, in part, to get away from Microsoft? I've never heard anyone say, "I like Microsoft products so much I am going to start using Linux instead of NT." I guess one could argue that people may like Office, but not Windows, but I don't know - Office has that Windowy feel about it.

Anyway, I seriously doubt Microsoft would start promoting software that would adversely affect their core business - the Windows OS. I would wager that the reason they want these BSD folks for the Hotmail group is because Hotmail still runs on a bunch of FreeBSD servers, which were suppose to be converted to NT boxes. (The conversion process has been riddled with problems, hence the reason only part of Hotmail uses NT, the other half using non-Microsoft solutions.)

Re:I doubt it...

[Osty]

When people switch from Microsoft to an alternative OS, like a BSD or Linux, isn't it, in part, to get away from Microsoft?

I have to disagree with that. To switch operating systems simply to "get away from Miscrosoft" seems a pretty poor reason to switch at all. If your current OS does everything you require and does it well, why switch? However, if there is an alternative out there that better fulfills your needs, then by all means switch. But don't do it for some superficial reason like "Microsoft sucks!" or "I hate Apple!" or whatever.

Granted, there are often better solutions than MS products for specific problems, but for many users, Windows provides everything they need and does it quite well.

In a perfect world, operating system choice would not rank on a level with religious choice, but unfortunately that's not this world.

Re:I doubt it...

[apathetic]

i know a few including myself who are working on it. i have a laptop that boots linux and win98 and i try to use linux whenever possible so i can learn my way around it and as soon as i can save up enough i'm going to build a box just for linux, i can't make the full switch yet as i need my 'puter to do things for school and sometimes i just don't have time to stumble around an os that is new to me to do something i can do in 2 seconds under win98

Re:I doubt it...

[Guy Harris]

I've never heard of anybody switching from Microsoft to a Linux.

...but that's insufficient reason to believe that nobody's done it. Most users of Microsoft OSes on the desktop may still be using a Microsoft OS on their desktop, but I would not be in the least surprised to hear that at least one member of the Slashdot audience dumped it in favor of Linux (which does not ipso facto mean that people will ever do so en masse - I don't expect to see any such move, at least in the short term, and possibly not in the long term - it just means that it's probably foolish to take the fact that nobody you've met has done so as an indication that nobody's done so).

Re:I doubt it...

[Menthos]

Well I just did it. I used to have a Linux box and a Windows box, now there's just two Linux boxes.
And I can count at least two other friends that completely left Windows for Linux on their home systems.
So, I would say that there is definately people switching from Windows to Linux.

Re:I doubt it...

[barnaby]

This MCSE switched.. and I'm loving every minute with Linux. Turned down plenty of Windows related jobs as well. I've had more than enough of NT and Exchange.

Re:I doubt it...

[peter]

You're right, but I think that when the first poster said, "to get away from Microsoft", he meant "to get away from all the crappy \"features\" of Microsoft software, etc.". That's a perfectly valid reason, as anyone who has beat their head against windoze knows all too well.
BTW, my PC has no windoze partition because I never felt the need for windoze, so I never got around to installing windoze on the partition I left for it. I decided to never do it, and started using it for a swap partition. I stopped doing that because somebody pointed out that the kernel tables to manage all that mem was inefficient. Anyway, I use windoze for swap space. Hah.
#define X(x,y) x##y

Re:I doubt it...

[AussiePenguin]

I've never heard of anybody switching from Microsoft to a Linux. Honestly.

At Home I have completely switched from Microsoft to Linux for my own personal uses (12 months ago). The Firewall/proxy here is Linux too.

Note: There is two windows computers in this house that I have no control of. They are my dad's and he won't switch to Linux untill M$ Office is ported. If it wasn't for me he'd probably using wingate on a win98 for the proxy.

I am also replacing the M$ Proxy at school with Linux. M$ Proxy is too bloated and does less than Squid which is way more powerfull and less bloated.

AussiePenguin
Melbourne, Australia
ICQ 19255837

Re:I doubt it...

[Skim123]

You misread what I wrote. I said:

I've never heard anyone say, "I like Microsoft products so much I am going to start using Linux instead of NT."

I would wager that you were not happy with Windows, hence you switched. If you were perfectly happy using Microsoft products, why would you switch to Linux?

I am not saying that no one is switching to Linux. Hell, I have Linux installed on my computer! I was just saying, those who were happy with one choice (be it MS or Linux, would not up and switch to another). This statement did not mean to raise such controversy, rather I thought it was a striaght-forward assertion. My bad. :)

Re:I doubt it...

[Darchmare]

I'm thinking you should have done your research before you posted 4 messages accusing people of misquoting you.

- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)

Sounds good to me.

[Patman]

I can think of a couple of reasons that MS/Hotmail would want Linux/BSD people.

1. They wish to port various tools (Office, Encarta, FrontPage) to Linux or BSD. This is most definetly not a bad thing, and is, IMHO, good. The plethora of tools for LInux/BSD can only be a good thing.

2. They recognize the value of BSD(in Hotmail's case) and are willing to hire people to keep it going. This is also a good thing. If they recognize that BSD works well enough not to replace it with NT or some such, that can only be a good thing.

3. They plan to use it as a FUD generator. Inthis case, I don't think they would hire people with Linux/BSD experience, because generally, those people wouldn't find faults, only differences. IMHO, the most clued computer people are those who see things more as differences, and not faults.

4. They want to make Windows/Linux integration easier. SOunds good to me.

5. They want to make a Linux distro. Neither good nor bad, really - thanks to GPL, they can't possibly take over the market, and another distro probably wouldn't hurt anything.

Basically, I see this as a win-win situation all around. I hope we see more of this sort of thing coming out of Redmond soon.

Re:Sounds good to me.

[mabinogi]

They just want someone to run their servers.

This is no more significant or strange or thought provoking than if any other company wanted administrators for any other operating system.

Re:Sounds good to me.

[babbage]

1. They wish to port various tools (Office, Encarta, FrontPage) to Linux or BSD. This is most definetly not a bad thing, and is, IMHO, good. The plethora of tools for LInux/BSD can only be a good thing.

Hmm. My first thought was "Fat chance. Read the Halloween Documents." But then I thought about it a bit longer. Maybe this is MS looking to the post-trial world, and trying to be ready for it. If the final decision forces them to open up their OS, then under their current corporate architecture, they've lost their revenue base. Or have they?

If they can manoeuver themselves to be a supplier of desktop applications under a "commodity O/S market" or whatever, then ...well, what then? Is that a bad thing, a good thing? Would they matter? Show of hands -- who here is willing to drop vi or emacs for Word2K? Nobody? I didn't think so. Though most people might be happy with Office, I'm not sure the Linux crowd would be all that interested. Hmm.

My first instinct was just to dismiss your comment out of hand (my guess is they simply want people to administer Hotmail, which entails no strategic scheme -- they just want the damn thing to work). But maybe there is something to your point.

As things are right now, Microsoft really has nothing to gain by embracing Linux or anything about Linux -- they're in the dominant position, after all. But tomorrow, after the court case is over with, maybe the playing field will be different, and MS will have to embrace the current opposition. In that light, this could be their move in that direction. I'm sure they wouldn't be doing anything to support Linux if there was no anti-trust issue in the background...

Re:Sounds good to me.

[jeremy f]

If they can manoeuver themselves to be a supplier of desktop applications under a "commodity O/S market" or whatever, then ...well, what then? Is that a bad thing, a good thing? Would they matter? Show of hands -- who here is willing to drop vi or emacs for Word2K? Nobody? I didn't think so. Though most people might be happy with Office, I'm not sure the Linux crowd would be all that interested. Hmm.

(Raises hand)

I would. In a heartbeat, as long as the price was something I could afford. I find both vi & emacs almost intimidating with their REQUIREMENTS of learning the keyboard shortcuts. I can use vi to edit any file that I mess up and as a result am forced to boot into my system -- but that's the extent of where I use it. I've tried emacs. It's big, it's slow, it's powerful, and it's not for me. If we lived in a command line only world, I'd use it more than anything else, but this is the age of the GUI, like it or not, and I'm looking for something that's functional, stylish, ergonomic & streamlined.

For some reason, Microsoft products seem to fill out these categories fairly well, even if they skimp out on the stability & the software becomes horribly bloated by features most people will never use.

I don't want to spread around pro-Microsoft or pro-Linux FUD, because I'm quite happy with my dual boot system. But like any reasonable computer user, I have gripes with both sides of my computer. Microsoft releasing some of their prodcuts for Linux would definately help to reduce the number of gripes I have with Linux.

Re:Sounds good to me.

[MasterMnd]

I use vi, and am learning to like it (haven't been using it long) quite simply because I know when I learn all the keys and so forth it will be fast and streamlined.. and imho Word is just the opposite - a big bloated app that is moch more than what's needed to do 99% of what I do. the only reason I'd even need a full-blown word processor (and when I do I just use wordperfect) is when I need to print something that looks pretty for my boss or somethign similar, otherwise vi is it.. try putting ms-word on your emergency bootdisk :)

Re:Sounds good to me.

[AussiePenguin]

If they can manoeuver themselves to be a supplier of desktop applications under a "commodity O/S market" or whatever, then ...well, what then? Is that a bad thing, a good thing? Would they matter? Show of hands -- who here is willing to drop vi or emacs for Word2K? Nobody? I didn't think so. Though most people might be happy with Office, I'm not sure the Linux crowd would be all that interested. Hmm.

I wouldn't be able to get my dad to use Linux unless Microsoft Office has been ported. So I am hoping that they do port it and I am thinking that for them to do it will require the anti-trust case to break up Microsoft into seperate smaller Microsoft's that don't say decide not to port Office because it will effect NT's market share.

At the moment though, they reallly have to get thinking, what would happen if Linux takes off in the Desktop market with Word Perfect and Star Office? and there is no Mirosoft Office for Linux and that leaves NT for dead. While that is my dream, it is really something for Microsoft to think about, because if that did happen their only hope would be Micorosft Office to keep them alive and whopps they didn't port that to Linux because they wanted to use it to protect NT which is dead anyway.

AussiePenguin
Melbourne, Australia
ICQ 19255837

Re:Sounds good to me.

[BinxBolling]

Show of hands -- who here is willing to drop vi or emacs for Word2K? Nobody? I didn't think so.

Huh?

Emacs and vi are text editors. Word is a word processor. They serve two significantly different functions. I wouldn't want to use Word to edit source code, and I wouldn't want to use emacs or vi to produce a term paper.

If MS were to release Word for Linux, at a reasonable price, I'd probably buy it and use it, and have one less reason to boot Windows. But I wouldn't stop using emacs.

Re:Sounds good to me.

[kaniff]

I use pico.

Please. Hold your applause, I know you do too.

Re:Sounds good to me.

[Zaffle]

5. They want to make a Linux distro. Neither good nor bad, really - thanks to GPL, they can't possibly take over the market, and another distro probably wouldn't hurt anything.

Unfortunatly, this may not be such a great thing... I don't remember who did it, but someone wrote an article/rant on what MS could do. I believe it went something like this.

MS Releases MS Linux. Its nothing special, and probably doesn't containing anything new.

MS then ports MS Office to linux. (obviously it won't be open source) Good news at this point, since it'll mean more Linux users.

MS then makes some changes, tweaks, or a binary kernel module, than means that MS Office will only run on MS Linux. This will boost MS Linux up with whatever is the current leader (Redhat, Corel, Debian, who knows). Since MS has the best of both worlds. You can run anything any other distro can, but you can also run MS Office.

MS then begins to port other applications over to MS Linux, making sure each one can ONLY run on MS Linux. They could also port the Windows libraries to linux (aka Wine) and thusly allow you to run any windows program on MS Linux.

Yes, this tatic is mean, but its very possible, and if I were a Billionare, and were looking to take over the linux market, its what I'd do.

"We are simply embracing the new technoligy of linux." "We are no longer competing against it, we are working with it", etc etc

As I said, I didn't originaly think of this, but I personaly believe its very possible, though you can make up your own mind.

Re:Sounds good to me.

[mlc]

OK, I admit it: you can use emacs or vi in combination with troff (yuck) or TeX to produce decent-looking output. But why? Except for producing documents with lots of math typesetting, it's way easier to just use a WYSIWYG word processor. If I'm writing a a paper for my evil writing class, it's just way easier to just open up StarOffice, point and click until it looks right, and start typing. Sure, if I spent years learning TeX, I could use that with just as little time. But, I don't think I should have to spend years learning a typesetting system just to quickly produce half-decent output.

With all that said, the relevant FreeBSD position almost assuredly has nothing whatever to do with porting Word or anything else. It's a HotMail admin position, and it says so right in the linked document.

Re:Sounds good to me.

[Score Whore]

Are you a moron? I'm serious here. Until you get a full featured Word port for your favorite Unix, you will never have the word processing capabilities with vi and friends that the lowliest Windows weenie has with Word.

Re:Sounds good to me.

[Score Whore]

Perhaps you shouldn't equate the quality of the tool with the your biased perception of the quality of the product. Can you explain why your argument lacks logical integrity? Are you truly stupid enough to think that LaTeX's facility at producing equations and a basic level of document structuring, make it the most optimal choice for all document processing tasks?

In your quest for sub-average intelligence, you might find that it takes longer to find the examples you seek if you were to remove the mirror from in front of you.

Look into it and you'll find that, in reality, it's you who doesn't know what he's talking about.

Re:Sounds good to me.

[Score Whore]

Moron you say? Chump? Ah, yes. Instead of acknowledging the reality of the situation (and perhaps doing something about it with your l33t h4ck3r 5k1llz) you resort to strawman arguments and ad hominim attacks. As your next act are you going to demonstrate your mighty physical prowess by stealing candy from a baby?

Sorry my simple-minded friend, but the fact that I can code up a postscript document in vi or emacs doesn't make either of them the proper tool for producing any of a numerous variety of non-trivial documents. The ability to edit text, does not a word processor make.

-sw

Re:Sounds good to me.

[Score Whore]

Maybe you should understand that optimal is not a state one is ever in, it's the destination one desires to achieve.

Re:Sounds good to me.

[Score Whore]

Do you really not understand the argument? It's not about what can be accomplished, it's about what is the better tool. Does your thinking only follow in the same ruts it's travelled hundreds of times? Can't you understand the phrase "any of a numerous variety of non-trivial documents"?

Re:Sounds good to me.

[Score Whore]

Wrong. You cannot produce, using vi/emacs and latex/troff, the same document that I can produce using postscript. The whole point is that yes, you may be able to recreate a some documents or publications using your choice of tools. But you chosing the wrong tools doesn't negate the value of a better tool.

Stop thinking so shallowly, go back and reread the beginning of this subthread and then go out and find out what you can and can't do with Word, and what you can and can't do with LaTeX, and what you can and can't do with pic/tbl/eqn/troff. And then see what it takes to do each of the various tasks that the different tools provide. Then you'll see which one is more enabling of the user. And that's the whole point of computers, not to create a new upper class of technocrats.

Re:Sounds good to me.

[Score Whore]

I guess if you are going to be pedantic about the rules of a dynamic and changing language, then sure, I'll admit it. You are right. Optimal is a superlative.

Now stop trying to show your intellectualism, and learn to understand the purpose of language. Namely to communicate. Your repeated pointing out that I used a word in a way you consider sub-par, does nothing to disguise the fact that you weren't able to come up with a coherent disputation of my claim that the previous poster used a logically unsound argument to support his claim that LaTeX/ is a better document preparation program than Word.

Re:Sounds good to me.

[Score Whore]

I see my problem. I'm assuming that the people I am discussing with aren't close-minded twits. Maybe if I treat you like I treat my six year old nephew, we'll all be able to get along:

"Wow. I wish I was as l33t as you."

Or maybe even simpler:

"Yeah. You're cool."

Re:Sounds good to me.

[aallan]

I would. In a heartbeat, as long as the price was something I could afford. I find both vi & emacs almost intimidating with their REQUIREMENTS of learning the keyboard shortcuts. I can use vi to edit any file that I mess up and as a result am forced to boot into my system -- but that's the extent of where I use it. I've tried emacs. It's big, it's slow, it's powerful, and it's not for me.

If your looking for a relatively powerful GUI text editor then I would probably recommend NEdit, my editor of choice for larger documents when using X11. Lots of features, including syntax highlighting, programable learn/replay and macros. The next release (scheduled for this month) is under the GPL, previous releases have been under Fermitools license, which is why it isn't in widespread use.

Al.
--

Re:Sounds good to me.

[Score Whore]

You might mean "I wish I were", but I mean "I wish I was."

Re:Sounds good to me.

[Score Whore]

Free is the only thing in your sentence that isn't misleading, biased and demonstrative of an elitist attitude.

Word is fully capable of, and is used to a greater extent than LaTeX and troff combined, to produce *real* books. Real by any intelligent definition of the word real.

Re:Sounds good to me.

[Score Whore]

I certainly understand the term elitist. It's a derogatory term and has been for some time. Anyone who thinks that they imbued with some special quality that makes their writings somehow more because they are writing "technically", is a prick in the core of their being.

Re:Sounds good to me.

[Score Whore]

Think what you like, but what I said was grammatically correct. You may have misunderstood it, but it certainly is correct. Don't blaim the messenger if the receipient is an idiot.

Some other hotmail domains

[/]

judge-jackson-won't-look-for-us-here.hotmail.com

bork-bork-bork.consumers.hotmail.com

here-come-the-clowns.legal.hotmail.com

And don't forget:

what-me-worry.linux.hotmail.com

Hotmail hostnames

[Captain Zion]

Here are some other funny hostnames:

• 216.33.238.149: rotate-the-shield-harmonics.hotmail.com
• 216.33.238.147: ham-in-a-can.hotmail.com
• 216.33.238.148: 27eyedwalleyedbass.hotmail.com

And I complained when they called our server "mrhankey".

Re:Hotmail hostnames

[Anonymous Coward]

rolo.hotmail.com. A 209.185.128.203
nexus.hotmail.com. A 209.185.243.9
wonka.hotmail.com. A 209.185.128.201
avu.hotmail.com. A 206.159.213.26
skittles.hotmail.com. A 209.185.128.207
bud.hotmail.com. A 209.185.128.248
law-entrance.hotmail.com. A 209.185.130.253
cholesterol.hotmail.com. A 209.185.128.202
27eyedwalleyedbass.hotmail.com. A 216.33.238.148
lalala-and-stuff.hotmail.com. A 216.32.182.248
partner.hotmail.com. A 207.82.250.213
eieio.hotmail.com. A 216.32.182.247
metrics.hotmail.com. A 209.1.113.62
moo.hotmail.com. A 209.1.112.25
graph.hotmail.com. A 209.1.112.251
h0h0-is-my-friend.hotmail.com. A 216.32.182.246
devnull.hotmail.com. A 216.32.183.42
venus.hotmail.com. A 207.82.250.129
natkit.hotmail.com. A 216.32.183.200
ham-in-a-can.hotmail.com. A 216.33.238.147
snickers.hotmail.com. A 209.185.128.205
goobers.hotmail.com. A 209.185.128.199
rotate-the-shield-harmonics.hotmail.com. A 216.33.238.149
netops.hotmail.com. A 216.32.183.201
oero.hotmail.com. A 209.185.128.206

Re:Hotmail hostnames

[Wariac]

27eyedwalleyedbass.hotmail.com is a referance to a song by the Dead Milkmen off (I believe) "Not Richard, But Dick."

"...It was a walleyed bass...with 27 eyes! It was a 27 eyed walleyed bass!!"

Re:Hotmail hostnames

[ivarneli]

Just wondering, how do you find these hostnames? Is there some way to query their DNS to list all sub-domains?

Re:Hotmail hostnames

[dizco]

host -l -v -t any hotmail.com |less

note that this doesn't work with a (in my eyes) properly configured dns.

Re:Hotmail hostnames

[vectro]

So I guess you block all mail from 1800flowers.com? There's no restriction on using numbers in domain names.

Re:Hotmail hostnames

[vectro]

RFC 1035 states, in section 2.3.1 that labels should "start with a letter, end with a letter or digit, and have as interior characters only letters, digits, and hyphen." but it also says in section 3.1 that domains may use any ASCII characters. In fact, you are even allowed to have "."s in your domain.

So I believe that the all-numbers is merely a convention (and not a requirement) and also an InterNIC restriction.

Re:Hotmail hostnames

[iago]

27eyedwalleyedbass.hotmail.com is a referance to a song by the Dead Milkmen off (I believe) "Not Richard, But Dick."

I believe the name of the song was "Story of Earl". The song with the great line, "She could only say two words, which were dog and pussy. We have out later that she was trying to say dog-pussy, one big long hyphenated word.

peace freaks
don

Re:Hotmail hostnames

[jeremy f]

Anyone wanna run NMAP on all these servers & grep the server OS version output on here? I would, except until I get back on campus, I have no 'net access in Linux -- too lazy to reconfigure PPP.

Re:Hotmail hostnames

[vectro]

I agree that 's a mess. The internic won't register it for you, but I believe that yes, you could have a 3rd-level domain with backspaces in it. or dots (how about ....hotmail.com?). I think that what section 3.1 is saying is that you should follow the conventions that are appropriate - ie., the limitations of /etc/hosts, or the rules in the various mail RFCs.

Re:Hotmail hostnames

[QuMa]

Why shouldn't domain transfers work to any host? Is your security based on people not knowing which hosts you have?

Re:Hotmail hostnames

[phil reed]

My bank is at www.53.com. Works fine.


...phil

Re:Hotmail hostnames

[David A. Madore]

Apparently they haven't read RFC1178 :-)

Re:Hotmail hostnames

[*borktheork*]

Yeah, really. I hate it when small time networks think it adds to security to disallow zone transfers. Urgh.
Anyway, it has plenty of legitimate uses.
Besides, what's the point. Reverse lookups are trivial.

Re:Hotmail hostnames

[Score Whore]

Not to mention the fact that a zone transfer takes bandwidth and forcing people to write scripts/code will deterr your average net user from pulling your zone out of curiousity.

Re:Hotmail hostnames

[QuMa]

Most websites, and even some companies (though I must admit, I don't think this includes hotmail) have a (sub-)goal of giving information. Imho, if allowing transfers allows some people to find this more easily, why not. It's not like it sucks up more bandwith than just a casual browse over the average website.

Too much being read into this

[spaceorb]

I doubt Microsoft is looking to port software. or are looking to generate FUD. It is no big surprise that NT/W2K cannot handle a site as massive as Hotmail, and even management would be stupid to think otherwise. I think they are using FreeBSD just to avoid the press coverage that they actually went and bought a commercial Unix/competing product (such as Solaris), and figure FreeBSD is the lesser of two evils.

Re:Too much being read into this

[DanaL]

And they probably also realize that FreeBSD is a cost effective solution for their problems. (Although, as has been said, they've been running *nix on Hotmail since before it was bought by Microsoft)

Still, I'm surprised they haven't made another go at converting Hotmail to W2K (perhaps they will now that it's in production). They are going to be billing it (W2K) as a unix competitor and trying to convince people to migrate from unix to W2K, and getting Hotmail converted would be a good case study for them.

On the other hand, maybe their tech managers just want to stick with technology their staff already knows.

Dana

NT is backup software

[cmpute]

-snip- Experience with commercial backup software especially Legato and Windows NT is a plus. -snip-
Interesting, NT is only backup software. They finally realized it.

BSDers have always been more open towards Windows

[Karma Sucks]

It strikes me that BSDers have a much different attitude towards windows than Linuxers. I've seen this among my own circle of acquantainces as well as on newsgroups/mailing lists, etc.

Basically, BSDers promote BSD on the server and Windows (or Mac) on the desktop. They realize and accept that Windows is good on the desktop and resign themselves to the fact that BSD will never be able to compete in that area.

Linuxers on the other hand, tend to take the Linux everywhere philosophy and only use Windows with much bitching and moaning (sometimes hypocritically).

Wouldn't be interesting if Microsoft adopted the BSD attitude though?

Re:Some other hotmail domains - unresolvable

[Mite0]

These domain are unresolvable for me...

[OT] Re:hostnames

[Mawbid]

That might be fun for a while. So was this.
--

Re:[OT] Re:hostnames

[AussiePenguin]

Reminds me of telstra.is.lame.nu. Telstra being the Australian Telecommunications giant that every .au person would hate!!

(Danm the above site seems to be down all the time now =( )

AussiePenguin
Melbourne, Australia
ICQ 19255837

Defining BSDers and Linuxers is hard.

[spaceorb]

I use BSD and Linux, so what am I? Linux is great for my desktop, but probably not for anyone elses. I think a lot of people don't understand that. Most users have enough trouble with the Start button under Windows 95 that I wouldn't even want to support Linux where I work. Just my 2 cents.

Re:Defining BSDers and Linuxers is hard.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I use linux and OpenBSD in my computer room and CrestBSD as a toothpaste and L'inux as a between meal snack. My wife uses O'bsd when she feels less than fresh. We fertilize the back 40 with MSoffice.

Just because I don't have a sig don't mean I aint watchin'

Everytime MS posts a Unix job ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Somone jumps to an unwarrented conclusion, and then that person is moderated to the top the /. page.

The idea that MS is going to "port" (sic) their software to FreeBSD is entirely offbase, give the facts at hand. Uruk obviously didn't read the linked article, or the header which clearly indicates that this is Hotmail, which has always been a unix shop.

in my humble opinion...

[mr. creep]

i don't think that i would want to use any crippled and broken microsoft products under linux or *bsd. why mess up a good thing with something thats proven to be crap. :)

They want Solaris admins

[hbo]

The FreeBSD positions are for implementation and software engineers. I infer from this that their front-end runs on Solaris, and the backend on freebie.
Honestly, this is a little embarassing for Microsoft, but on the other hand it shows a certain willingness to use what works well. On the other hand, it wouldn't be good PR if the number one free email site fell apart over a conversion to Win2K.

Howard Owen hbo@egbok.com Everything's Gonna Be OK Consulting

Re:They want Solaris admins

[bfumerola]

It's actually the other way around. Front-end
servers are FreeBSD and back-end (read: database)
servers run on Solaris

Re:They want Solaris admins

[Stonehand]

That's consistent with what we already know.

It would NOT be a good idea for them to botch a conversion and deny their 45 million accounts e-mail access, even for a week... and these aren't meant to be beta-testers, either. Not all of these folks are spammers or trolls using throwaway accounts, either.

To convert the entire system -- interface, backends and all -- might mean re-designing an entirely new Hotmail optimized for an NT variant rather than BSD/Solaris.

Re:They want Solaris admins

[NtG]

Says who? Mindcraft? Well according to them Windows would be more suitable for the task, but we all know what happened to that. Isn't Slashdot's performance even slightly indicative of Linux's ability to handle large loads? I personally would like to see Linux get a chance as a real-world large-scale server OS.

Re:hostnames

[profi]

Well, you could always settle for an email address at fuckmicrosoft.com. Unfortunately this involves paying a one-time setup fee of $10.

Hotmail runs on FreeBSD. What's the big deal?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, then need to hire admins and programmers....whats the big deal?

Funny thing about Microsoft

[heroine]

You'd think of Microsoft as the economic tyrant, sucking the life out of the economy and degrading technological standards. On the other side you'd think VA Linux and Red Hat as the saviors, putting money into the economy, creating new technology, and saving the world. Yet it's Microsoft who announces job openings for FreeBSD and Linux knowledge, creating a need for these people and it's VA Linux which announces simply: "I'm not going to minimize my attachments by giving it all away, though, so you evangelists for a zillion worthy causes can just calm down out there and forget about hitting me up for megabucks. I am *not* going to be a soft touch, and will rudely refuse all importunities." Quite ironic.

Re:Funny thing about Microsoft

[OnlyNou]

Microsoft is only doing it for money. They need to do it becuase everyone else sees the importance of linux. They're not blind and will do everything they can to stay on top. Even if that means sleeping with the enemy.

VA and REDHAT on the other hand, don't need to post job openings, because they seem to be hiring already established Open Source developers and giving them some money to live on why they code stuff that they're interested in.

everyone wants to make money, what matters more is how much they contribute back. until MS-Tyrant, change and contribute like IBM has and SGI moving towards it, then i still would side with the anti-MS people.

the Linux People are putting money back into the economy, creating not so much new techonlogy but a different way of making money and software and saving the world.

i mean, thanks to linux, i have a job at good rates and wouldn't have liked it as much if i had to fix problems with NT being the only cheap solution (of course there's always FreeBSD).

Re:Funny thing about Microsoft

[Ent]

I don't understand why people only think Microsoft and its employees are in the game for the money. Microsoft pays considerably less then most other tech/software companies out there. On top of that the days of making mega-bucks off the stock market are pretty much over for anybody working at Microsoft unless they started in the early to middle 90's. Beyond that though the people who work in the OS divisions and on other products there are just as dedicated and brilliant as ANY Open Source/Linux/Etc. developer working now.

You need to learn to be less caught up in yourself and what you think is your movement and open your eyes to the world around you. Linux and the OSS movement are not godsends to the industry, but I think great idea's that still have a LONG way to go.

Re:BSDers have always been more open towards Windo

[OnlyNou]

there's more linux users, so they'll be more bitching going on.

If they can put up with Windows as the desktop then what's wrong with having to put up with Linux moving towards being something for the destop too?

Linux users are dreaming of not having to use windows ever again. this isn't a bad dream. sometimes it gets in the way of reality. but when someone suggests using linux for something that the MacOS or another OS can do better (like most media stuff) then that's just plain wrong. but i've always seen people correct what appears to be bad advice.

as a community, i've seen some good people do the check and balances that keeps the community healthy. it won't always be successful, since there are TONS of linux users today. but this doesn't make the whole "linuxers" a bad group.

Re:BSDers have always been more open towards Windo

[Osty]

I think the difference is because Linux tends to bring out a vocal minority of MS-haters. Saying that all Linux users hate Microsoft is just too broad, but unfortunately the few bad apples have given a bad impression about all of us. BSD users, on the other hand, tend to be less fanatical (at least, not vocally so), so while I would guess the same proportion of BSD users hate Windows/Microsoft as Linux users, BSD users haven't been tainted by extremely vocal zealots.

At least, that's my take on the situation.

Hotmail has *always* run FreeBSD

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a really simple reason for this.

Remember that Hotmail was not always part of Microsoft. Seems like everyone's forgotten that...

Hotmail ran FreeBSD from the get-go (and possibly Solaris and Linux also?), LONG before they were part of Microsoft. Microsoft bought it later, attempted to move it to NT, failed, and so they left it as it was.

My guess is Microso~1 simply needs FreeBSD people to maintain Hotmail as it's always been. This doesn't have anything to do with porting or any new open wource project or any other weird ideas that have been posted here.

Re:Hotmail has *always* run FreeBSD

[SerpentMage]

Exactly! People seem to forget this fact. From knowing MS very well, MS has tha attitude that if it works leave it.

Sure they tried to convert to NT, but it failed. And once that happens management within MS takes the attitude that you keep what works.

People tend to forget Microsoft is in the money game and not the idealism game...

*T?

[vectro]

Allright, I'll bite. What OS other than Windows NT ends with a capital T?

Re:*T?

[vectro]

Erhm, the reason the we say *nix instead of Unix is not to avoid trademark infringement, it's to get many of the unixes (unices?) out there, such as XENIX, Freenix (what Linux used to be called), etc. The Asterisk is a wildcard in a large variety of languages, including bash, regular expressions, and the DOS command line. In fact, *nix is not a good regular expression because of all the Unixes that don't follow it (irix, aix, linux, Solaris, etc.)

Trademarks only mean you can't sell a product and call it UNIX. You're still allowed to say the word UNIX to your heart's content, as long as a reasonable person wouldn't confuse you for the person who owns the trademark.

Re:*T?

[Guy Harris]

I'd thin *inux would take care of *edHat, *uSE, *MS (there's an R there, not a Bill)

Then you presumably mean *ebian *NU/*inux, not *MS. *MS is an operating system developed by *igital *quipment *orporation (now a part of *ompaq), running on *axes and, in its *pen*MS incarnation, on *lpha-based systems as well. (Not to be confused with *VS - formerly known as, I think, *S/*S2 *VS, or whatever, and now called *S/390 - a descendant of *S/360, running on *BM mainframes.)

Re:*T?

[*borktheork*]

It's what I call 'creative wildcard expansion'..

It's a lot of hassle to type
Windows NT
every single time, so you use '*' to expand it.

Re:BSDers have always been more open towards Windo

[Anonymous Coward]

There are a lot of technically incompetent Linux users with a lot of hate to spit out. BSD programmers tend to be older, more professional. This is NOT a flame. Listen carefully, and you'll see what I mean. Think of all the Microsoft-using kids with their PC's who put a Linux boot on their second partition just to be cool. They don't actually know it much. But they add it to their resumes. I've seen this millions of times. I don't see Microsoft users adding BSD "just for fun" or "to pad their resume".

My understanding...

[NightHwk]

Is that hotmail ran solaris before the MS takeover, at which point MS tried to switch to a NT solution and found that NT wasnt able to deal with the load as well as solaris was, so they stuck with solaris. FreeBSD may have some place at hotmail, but I'm pretty sure solaris has the primary role.

Re:My understanding...

[mlc]

According to Netcraft, www.hotmail.com runs Apache/1.3.6 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.8 SSLeay/0.9.0b on FreeBSD. Don't know about any of their other servers, but they are clearly using at least *some* FreeBSD, maybe even a lot. And, look: MS uses Apache.

Re:My understanding...

[um... Lucas]

That's just the frontend... Want to bet that the backend runs on anything but Solaris? :)

Re:My understanding...

[mlc]

I dunno... I was just pointing out that there's a valid need for FreeBSD admins at Hotmail.

Win NT not good for dynamic content

[Barbarian]

Well all those records set by Win NT and 2K were with static content. Hotmail is VERY dynamic.

Re:MS *is* porting Office and IE to Linux

[Guy Harris]

Though from the last I've seen, they're still working on the Win32 implementation

Or Mainsoft is, with MainWin for Linux (Mainsoft's MainWin is what Microsoft used to port IE5 to UNIX (and IE4 before that).

Musings...

[swerdloff]

Can we just think about this for a second?

This means making MSFT money, while supporting BSD. Then taking that MSFT money, not putting it _into_ BSD (the whole free thing that we keep chatting about) but _also_ not putting it into MSFT.

Seems cheaper then just buying their stock and holding it in a brokerage account you won't let your friends see now that you're wondering what'll happen to Red Hat's valuations.

Microsoft's money is so green even the Government doesn't know how they do it. Sounds like a plum to me, even _with_ reservations about working for MSFT, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em and turn 'em around from the inside since they're hiring you _specifically_ because you aren't an MSFT fan.

Then again, I don't suppose Einstein woulda worked for Germany no matter what they'd paid him, so... there you go.

Y'all are missing the point

[Anonymous Coward]

The source of old "*nix" joke is from the era when AT+T wouldn't even let the Unix vendors call their product "UNIX". It's the same idea as the GNU joke.

Thus you got all of these silly names like SunOS, OSF/1, Irix, and yes even Linux (instead of Sun Unix, Digital Unix (eventually appeared), SGI Unix, and Linus' Unix). It has nothing to do with what you can or can not call it in your meaningless Internet babbling.

Since "UNIX(tm)" got turned over to a trade group, the joke is obsolete, except for the old timers, although it still somewhat applies because Linux and *BSD will never be UNIX certified unless someone forks over some cash.

Re:BSDers have always been more open towards Windo

[mr]

Other "features" of BSDers:
1) They don't use the term Linux when they mean OpenSource OS. (The Linux camp is heavy into this idea...OpenSource==Linux.)
2) They don't really give a damn if Apple, Microsoft, Linux, or whomever uses thier code. Its a complement that you want to borrow their code.
3) Promotion of OpenSource means *ALL* of it, be it BSDed, GPLed, or whatever the OpenSource licence. The rising tide floats all boats.....
4) Know its a multi-vendor world and work to live in it accordingly.
5) Don't see big companies as the enemy, but rather as someone else who will use the code. And, if they are lucky, the bug fixes will come back, if not...oh well. Hence, the BSD crowd tends to be less upset when a company charges money for the code/improvements to the code.

Microsoft will be more than happy to take code from BSD. And, if they are going to produce an environment that can run Linux software, it will be some form of add-on module to NT. They won't throw away all of the work they did on VMS^H^H^HNT.

Not only FreeBSD.

[jarv]

I recieved a call from them a while ago, and interviewed for a position (only to find myself ending up somewhere else, which, in my opinion, is good.) Hotmail is also looking for Solaris (duh) as well as *OpenBSD* admins. Interesting eh?

Here's another interesting tidbit about hotmail which we must remember. Hotmail is it's own company, (except for that whole "being owned by MS" thing) But as of late, they're company policy has been to not use MS software for anything... This is, of course, until MS forces it upon them to migrate to W2K (sometime mid-next year) But i *severely* doubt that that will really go off.

Re:Not only FreeBSD.

[AussiePenguin]

If you do: $ host -l -v -t any hotmail.com |less you'd find that there are millions of hotmail servers. Converting all these to NT 4 or 5 would be way to costly. Of course they could do it if they wanted to, but I'd doubt there is too much incentive to do it. And there is probably allot of software that they've written for Unix that would need to be ported too. It would all be a waste of time. Noy worth doing it for some marketing thing to say they use NT themself.

It's also funny because microsoft.com servers in the past have been using *nix... but more recentally I've seen NT 3.51 which makes sense because that was when NT reached the peak of stability (and has been going downhill ever since). But more recentally I've seen NT 5. But it seems to random, different servers running different OSes.

And what happened to the rumours of the port of IIS to Linux? I'm pretty sure I heard that in the press once.

AussiePenguin
Melbourne, Australia
ICQ 19255837

Moving to Linux??? Re:They want Solaris admins

[mr]

>It would be easier to port from BSD/Solaris to GNU/Linux, but they'd still be hot water

And why would they want to do this?

Using BSD/Solaris:
"We are using what we have already. It was part of the purchase."

Going to GNU/Linux would offer a 'validation' to GNU/Linux, not to mention run the risk of having to give out the hotmail source code (that GPL thing).

If they are going to move, it will be to MS products. Remember: They "Eat their own dog food". Moving to anything BUT Micro$oft products would be an admission that they can't make their own tools scale to do the job.

No one seems to be able to think anymore

[donutello]

The Linux job was for a marketing person who would guide their strategy to respond to the competitor, Linux.

This job is for a support engineer for Hotmail.

Stop trying to read anything further into this. No, they are not porting Office applications to FreeBSD. No, they are not coming up with a Linux distro of their own. Just the simple fact that they'd require 100s of people, not just 1, should be a clue. Also, maybe actually reading the job descriptions might tip you off. *sigh*

Re:Also in the news today...

[jeremy f]

Based on the McLibel case, I'd rather work at Microsoft than McDonalds.

Think about what would happen if Microsoft took a cue from McDonalds. About 90% of the people that post on /. would get nice little legal notices in the mail accusing them of sladering & [verb tense of libel, I don't think libeling is right] Microsoft.

"Flame Microsoft? We'll see you in court."
Even MS hasn't stooped to McD's level yet...

The truth about MS and Unix

[bifrost]

Yes, for the bazillionth time, MS uses FreeBSD, and BSD/OS, and Solaris. Its not a big deal. How do I know and I'm not talking out my ass? I used to work there! sheesh! :)

Many of you may not remember this, but when windows95.com was launched, it ran BSD/OS 2.0 because Windows couldn't handle it. Big deal.
You've all been hearing about the MS new XML initiative, guess where a shitload of development and testing went on for that, MSN-Linkexchange with FreeBSD. Of course it failed miserably due to protocol implimentation, but hey, its development thats not on Windows.

Now, I wouldn't be too suprised if MS ported IE to Linux, however don't expect Office or anything like that, they'd have to rewrite the thing from scratch almost due to all the WIN32 specific stuff. IE has already been ported to Irix and Solaris, but its not like it works the same as it does on Windows. I tried to navigate MS's intranet with IE5 for Solaris, hah! it didn't work for shit. Same thing with Outlook for Solaris, barely worked. There's a long way to go, and MS has more important places to pay attention.

800.com [OT]

[ragnarok]

800.com

Apache Modules

[Anonymous Coward]

One thing I noticed in the reqs posted at that site is they are looking to make Microsoft Passport (their single login authentication system) into an Apache module. That's interesting to me because if you look around, the Front Page modules for Apache are among the most widely used (see http://www.e-softinc.com/survey/data/199911/news.h tml#modules).

Front Page's success in owning the non-skilled content development market comes from Microsoft understanding that they need to make it interoperate with the most popular Web server.

If they can get Microsoft Wallet to interoperate, it could become a defacto standard as well.

Windows isn't their "core business"

[FFFish]

>Anyway, I seriously doubt MS would start
>promoting software that would adversely
>affect their core business - the Windows OS.

I'd wager that they make more money from MSOffice than MS Windows; and from various support options for their software products than the software itself.

Does anyone have a reference to an actual breakdown of their product profits? What is MS *really* making big bucks on?

Re:BSDers have always been more open towards Windo

[RayChuang]

Mind you, people often forget that FreeBSD for many years was a VASTLY superior server operating system than Linux. Still is, in many ways today; after all, a large number of Internet Relay Chat servers run FreeBSD.

It's a case of while Linux gets the publicity, FreeBSD "gets the work done." Many high-volume trafficked web sites use FreeBSD, including Hotmail.

Re:BSDers have always been more open towards Windo

[Jeffrey Baker]

I'm curious to see the raw data that you used to arrive at your conclusion. Please send it to jwbaker@acm.org.

If I don't recieve a mail after some time, I will have to assume that you are just painting everything with a brush dipped in a bucket of your own personal bias. A similar process can be used to achieve racism, sexism, and other forms of prejudice.

I dislike being characterized by an extrapolation of your narrow world view.

-jwb

AFAIK some Unix sysadmins left Hotmail recently...

[Alex Belits]

...so Microsoft is looking for replacement.

Microsoft Monsters

[akikage]

Remember guys, Microsoft employees may be part of the Borg collective and a microscopic cog in Mr. Bill's catastrophic plan, but at heart they're just like us: compu-geeks. Sure they may be working a suck ass gig right now, but they're not inhuman freaks because of it. They put their pant on one leg at a time just like you and I. The funny machine names are just a reminder of this fact. Now, if they used names like destroyallthatisgoodanddecent.hotmail.com or billismygodnow.hotmail.com, then I'd be worried.

-Akikage

How do you know?

[J. J. Ramsey]

Do you work for or with MS? (How else would you know?)

No paranoia man

[Uruk]

I originally posted the comment - I intended no paranoia at all. I might have called the company micros~1, but I didn't express any negative opinion toward them or say that I thought it was bad that they wanted people for BSD. I was just stating opinion.

Before you get paranoid about people getting paranoid, please read the comment and think about it. :)

Re:No paranoia man

[MillMan]

I said paranoid to be sarcastic....but you didn't look at the job posts before you wrote that comment did you? With a bit of perspective, you'll see that this really isn't all that amazing. Just a bit amusing.

Use the preview button!

[Waldo]

Obviously, you meant to say: I've never heard of anybody switching from Linux to Microsoft. Remember to use preview!

Re:Use the preview button!

[Skim123]

Is /. not showing right? I've been misquoted about three times now. Reread my post. I said that no one would switch to Linux if they were happy with MS. The same goes for the other way aruond - why switch from one option which you are happy with to another? IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE.

Re:Use the preview button!

[Darchmare]

This is what we call 'user error'.

The post these people refer to is not yours. The post they are referring to says just this:

---
I've never heard of anybody switching from Microsoft to a Linux. Honestly.
---

...my guess is that you aren't browsing at the lowest level (it has a score of 0, being from an Anonymous Coward).

Oops.

Anyhow, I've seen cases where people thought they were happy with Windows, until they were presented with a superior choice (ie. Linux, MacOS, etc) - at that point, hindsight might say "wow, it really does suck".

- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)

Re:Use the preview button!

[Skim123]

This is what we call 'user error'

Stupid user! :) Yeah, my moderation limit was (and is) set to not see AC posts... I didn't realize that it would still lay it out, appearing as those who responded to the hidden AC posts appeared as though they responded to my post.

My bad, won't make that mistake again! Thanks for the heads up...

Settle down man

[Uruk]

Moderated to the top? I post with a base score of 2, which is where it's at now.

Jumping to an unwarranted conclusion? I figured my post had "speculation" written all over it. It was my thoughts attached to the article, which is what I thought comments were for. Sorry for being so unpopular.

Oh, and by the way, I did read the article, and I do realize that they were looking for admins for hotmail. I just don't think that it's way out in left field for them to consider hiring BSD programmers after looking for linux programmers, with the given facts that both are increasing in popularity and practically none of their products run on these platforms.

If you don't like the comment, ignore it. Don't just whine or meta-whine.

If *I* had a nickel for every time somebody posted a comment that said "Oh woe is me, slashdot is going down the drain that people can express themselves and throw ideas out there" then I'd be a rich, rich man.

It's just a comment, so settle down.

Hotmail

[rgaul]

One of my friends just quit as their top project/admin guy out there. He's going to yahoo. That's what the search is all about. A couple others left as well.

Re:Pretty amusing that they use the "enemy" =)

[TummyX]

I'm sorry, but don't be so 'pancy'. that's what all this reminds me of, linux weenies dancing aruond a penguin on a remote each chanting "tux tux tux tux".

microsoft.com, msdn.microsoft.com etc are all running on Windows 2000 domains now with Active Directory. Yes, that's right, the world's largest web sites with 6TB of downloads a day run Windows 2000.

Why break something (hotmail) when it generally isn't broke....it wouldn't be running BSD if microsoft started it.
MSN runs some unix servers because microsoft outsource the service. Unlike people here, Microsoft don't let 'political' reasons dominate business decisions. Who cares? They're all good operating systems.

Now, if you saw microsoft.com running linux (ROFLMAO if you could even get to the servers) then you'd have something to sing and dance about.

Re:What!

[Arandir]

Every BSDer that I've met or conversed with has regarded Windows as the something spontaneously produced by a violently ill camel ever so lightly garnished with lark's vomit.

Re:Egad, you misquoted me!

[Skim123]

Whassa? I think my statement made great sense, although you hacked my quote. I said:

I've never heard anyone say, "I like Microsoft products so much I am going to start using Linux instead of NT."

you said that I said:

I've never heard of anybody switching from Microsoft to a Linux

Which are two totally different things! What sane person would have an option that they're totally happy with, and decide to switch to something totally different. That would be like saying, "I really like Ford cars, I've been ever so happy with their cost, performance, appearance, etc., etc. Therefore, I will buy a Toyota."

What person would switch from one option that they love, to another, unless forced to do so (i.e., bosses)?

And, in conclusion, please don't misquote me! :)

I've got my moderation set too high

[Skim123]

Sorry about that, I have my moderation set too high so I don't see those AC posts, which lists your post as though it were a reply to mine.... sorry. :(

Egad, you're addressing the wrong person!

[Guy Harris]

you said that I said:

I've never heard of anybody switching from Microsoft to a Linux

No, I said that the person who responded to you, who is the person to whom I was responding, said that, which they DID .

Re:Also in the news today...

[Score Whore]

...how evil they really are.

Eh? Would you prefer hearing horror stories of midnight masses, baby sacrifices, various dark rituals, assassinations, pay-offs, and kidnappings? Is that what you figure Microsoft must get up to in their spare time?

Re:OS/2

[mr]

>although they did hire some Unix-hating DEC engineeers to design NT

How about the LEAD VMS engineer, Dave Cutler. And Dave is on record as stating: "NT is the chance to do VMS right" VMS was his baby. And it SYS$LIVES on in parts of the NT design.

Dave now says: "I'm vested." (shorthand for I don't care what happens. I have money.)

Somehow, hiring the lead VMS engineer sounds alot more important than "some Unix-hating DEC engineers", now doesn't it?

Links about it:
Link 1 The name as an initals thing.
Link 2Dave saying the guts of NT is VMS-like. A whole thread here.
Link 3How about a os/2 link?

Yeah, I did

[Uruk]

I did read the post, I just don't think it's that strange for somebody to think that microsoft might be thinking about a port under the circumstances. (Circumstances being that BSD and linux are gaining in popularity, they've hired unix folks before, and practically none of their software runs on UNIX)

You want paranoia? I could have said, "It's only a matter of time before CmdrTaco jumps ship and goes to work for microsoft!!!!" :) But we all know that that would be trollish BS. :)

Please note the following

[extrasolar]

Please note the following:

• Considering your post on-topic is a stretch.
• You managed to offend many Linux users
• Your bias is very clear (you use BSD, right? now how did I figure that out?)
• The Linux-everywhere philosophy is a dumb idea in my opinion and I am sure that a majority of Linux-users feel the same
• Linux has all the hype right now. Sorry. Didn't mean to. Please forgive and forget.
• Some of us beleive that a propietary operating system for the desktop is unacceptable.
• The copyleft is a good idea. Lack of the copyleft may be why BSD is inferior on the desktop and hence, is why BSD users "realize and accept that Windows is good on the desktop."

GNU/Linux is very viable as both a server and desktop platform. Almost all free software (even evil copylefted software that you can always port no matter who added their two-cents to the code) has been ported to other Unix-like operating systems. BSD deserves a lot of respect as an operating system.

Why can't we all just "get along"?

Re:Please note the following

[warmi]

-The copyleft is a good idea. Lack of the copyleft may be why BSD is inferior on the desktop and hence, is why BSD users "realize and accept that Windows is good on the desktop." -

That's funny but about 99 % of "desktop" type software available for Linux can easily be compiled on FreeBSD. Damn, even X is the same.
So where did you get that assumption that Linux is better on the desktop ?
In fact, in my opinion, both are shity in this regard ( as compared to Win or BeOS) and should only be used as server OS.

For internal use only

[acb]

Of course, it will be a cold day in Hell before Microsoft release any improvements to Apache to the outside world. Apache is the competition, after all, and an Apache server is one which will not be running IIS. It'd be against MS's interests to do anything that would deprive IIS of any advantages (such as MS's proprietary technologies).

Of course, if MS is split up and IIS and Hotmail go their separate ways, that could very well change.

wXk & hotmail, linkexchange, .... ms purchases

[dmz]

For those who say "bring it on" keep in mind that they aren't just hiring people for their skills in the OS to implement a Microsoft version. They are looking to get all of what we have come to love working in their Windows OS! So, instead of saying bring it on, don't worry they will. Lets just be sure we do the same and implement all of what people love about windows into linux. Pick up your debugger & get writing!

Re:BSDers have always been more open towards Windo

[D.A.Alderud]

)I can't decide where they'll go once FreeBSD gets too popular for them. NetBSD, HURD, or QNX? Amiga ;)

Re:Also in the news today...

[TummyX]

No, I think that he believes success is evil (but only if it's success from a company who makes it's own way very well - like Microsoft).
He's jealous that Microsoft gets the respect it does from the majority of the American public, and how 'normal' Bill Gates actually is. He's also jealous that Microsoft seem like the perfect company to work at, nice hidden away in a small town, easy going atmosphere, not stuck in the middle of a noisey city in a high rise building.

If I were a paid Microsoft Lackey ...

[FreeUser]

If I were an astroturfer on Billy G's payroll, I'd try to start the kind of inter-freeware flame fest comments like yours tend to engender. BSD is very good at some things and not so good at others. Ditto for Linux. Even Windows, for all of its numerous and severe flaws, has its uses (extreme masochism comes to mind, as does playing a few games unavailable on the other platforms. :-))

It's a case of while Linux gets the publicity, FreeBSD "gets the work done." Many high-volume trafficked web sites use FreeBSD, including Hotmail.

Not true. It is a case of BSD starting out with a solid base of code while Linux was written from scratch. FreeBSD had the misfortune of having its legal status put into question at a critical juncture -- a period of time where people like myself were looking for a good, open UNIX for our PCs and ended up joining the Linux camp because it was unambigiously free, while *BSD looked like it might be shut down by the attourneys of Berkely.

Fortunately for us all, the legal issues were resolved and BSD is thriving in its own way, here to compete with and cross-polinate with Linux. Had there not been this legal limbo during those critical few months, we would probably all be dancing on the BSD bandwagen, and Linux would be the "alternative" OS.

Argue the pros and cons of BSD and Linux if you like, or even the BSD License vs. the GPL if you like, but save your prejudicial innuendo for an appropriate forum such as alt.flame please.

Oh, and by the way, as parallel examples of Linux performing similar duties to BSD, consider deja.com and google.com. Both OSes are excellent and have many things in common, not the least of which they both outperform any and all of Microsoft's offerings by orders of magnitude.

Re:Also in the news today...

[warmi]

Go work at McDonald's - it seems like you belong there ...

ms hotmail jobs: freeBSD AND SOLARIS

[bolthole]

Jeez, you guys are as bad as MSNBC sometimes.
They filter out all MS anti-trust news. You guys filter out all "non free" UNIX stuff.

Half the UNIX jobs are BSD, and half are Solaris. If you actually read the link, you'll see that they are also looking to fill some "high end" positions, which (not surprisingly) are all Sun.

Re:Pretty amusing that they use the "enemy" =)

[Arkus]

Really, 6TB per day from the micros~1 domain...

That's an amazing feat considering most of their files are redirected for download on alternate servers (aka conxion.com).

Right! Somone should moderate your comment up!

[pinche gonzales]

Everyone seems to forget that hotmail wasn't always owned by microsoft. It's amusing that they weren't willing or able to port it to NT, but it's hardly a sign that redmond will implement any *nix solutions in the future.

pinche