Slashdot Mirror
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.
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
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
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.
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.
_____________________________________
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.)
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
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.
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
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
- 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".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.
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?
(Please browse at -1 to read this comment.)
Somone jumps to an unwarrented conclusion, and then that person is moderated to the top the
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.
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
"Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there" - Will Rogers
So, then need to hire admins and programmers....whats the big deal?
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.
Well all those records set by Win NT and 2K were with static content. Hotmail is VERY dynamic.
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.
Or Mainsoft is, with MainWin for Linux (Mainsoft's MainWin is what Microsoft used to port IE5 to UNIX (and IE4 before that).
That's just the frontend... Want to bet that the backend runs on anything but Solaris? :)
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.)
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.
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
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.
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*
Mmmm.. Donuts
Based on the McLibel case, I'd rather work at Microsoft than McDonalds.
/. 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.
Think about what would happen if Microsoft took a cue from McDonalds. About 90% of the people that post on
"Flame Microsoft? We'll see you in court."
Even MS hasn't stooped to McD's level yet...
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.
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.
...so Microsoft is looking for replacement.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
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
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.
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
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.
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
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.
No, I said that the person who responded to you, who is the person to whom I was responding, said that, which they DID .
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)
:) But we all know that that would be trollish BS. :)
You want paranoia? I could have said, "It's only a matter of time before CmdrTaco jumps ship and goes to work for microsoft!!!!"
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
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"?
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.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy