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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.
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 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.
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.
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".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.
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.
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!
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
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.