That was surprising to see Asus listed since they pretty much signed a multi-year contract with Microsoft to stay away from Linux. I can only guess that this deal will give the Microsoft employees now working inside of Asus a chance to dig deep and dig early into what the Google Chrome OS is and how they can market against it.
you forgot the bit about making famous the three key salute to Bill Gates and Microsoft. Ctl-Alt-Delete
Did you ever see the video where the IBM hardware guy gives Bill credit for this and Bill is on stage? His face when that was said is as good as when he got pie'ed. Priceless.
I never knew C or C++ to be tied to patented libraries and marketed with and for the use of those libraries. I know many developed libraries you could license but the compilers were not designed with the same extensive libraries as Java or MS.NET
FYI, I didn't think much about Microsoft or their technology at first but over the years, it became quite clear that Microsoft's motives and actions can damage or limit your livelihood. FYI, it's not FUD, it's from over 20 years of experiencing Microsoft's business methods and being forced to change jobs because of their actions.
"what does that have to do with not developing hybrids?" it has everything to do with it when they do it to the exclusion of the other technologies. The US auto makers were even anti-hybrid while the Bush/Cheney administration was paying them to go after hydrogen. Toyota has a fuel cell vehicle also but they didn't blink on continuing the hybrid line. I saw it as a way to keep a hand in the market incase there were the required breakthroughs to make them viable. It's the exclusionary aspect of how the Big 3 went from saying they'd have hybrids in 3 years in late 2000 to saying hybrids were bad just a year later.
They had been working half-assed on hybrids since 1993 and were more than happy to give all that up to take cash from the US government to show million dollar hydrogen prototype cars and trucks. Can you say dumb? Unfortunately, the US government is allowing them to continue operating and sticking US citizens with the bill. IMO, any of those three which couldn't continue operating should have been parted out and the remains crushed like GM did with the EV1. What a waste of money and it is their own fault Toyota is going to stomp on them with patent licensing costs as they should. After all, Toyota was the one who had to endure about 8 years of bashing by the US press and US auto makers for doing hybrid systems. They even had to endure a law suite by Mobile/Texaco when Toyota and Panasonic built prismatic NiMH batteries the oil company said were outside of the NiMH patent licenses which Mobile/Texaco purchased from GM. The large NiMH batteries used in the Rav4 EV had to be discontinued but at a cost of millions of dollars, they were allowed to continue making and using the prismatic design used in the Prius battery packs. Toyota deserves to be rewarded for what they've done with and for hybrid system designs.
it's the same people who are pretty much computer illiterate and just squeak by using Windows who are Microsoft's best customers. Keep'em dumb, keep'em taking everything shoveled in front of them. The other day, a salesman from a computer shop specializing in Windows asked me to send his wife a link to some pictures. After a few emails, he didn't know the link I emailed him was just something he could use a browser to see. WTF and how to these people get paid for so little ability to use even the simplest parts of the computer software?
so you have the company controlling the compiler design and features and who markets all their.NET libraries as they way to develop software with C#. The company spends billions annually on advertising and marketing. And it is a good idea to use this compiler and runtime to develop software for Linux? Isn't this like using the Java JVM but not use any of the java.* libraries? You get what the JVM brings you but you miss out on millions of lines of code which makes it so much easier build OOP apps on. Wasn't C# and the CLI created because Microsoft needed Java to stop cross platform development? So now Microsoft says you can use C# language and the CLI but doesn't say you can freely use the libraries. What a great deal. You can't ride the trolley with everyone else and must walk the line instead and to make matters worst, you're walking inches next to the "third rail". You also have Microsoft ready to push you on that third rail at any moment. It just doesn't sound like a smart thing to chance and a waste of a whole lot of development time and effort.
it was said, "that still doesn't mean you get anything useful - if you write a simple app that does nothing, you're fine." and then goes on to mention doing a GUI, amongst other types of applications is going to require using some.Net tied libraries. While it was not _that_ clearly stated, the OP was really saying that using C# and the CLI to write more complex applications is very likely to be leveraging libraries instead of every aspect being written from scratch and those libraries are based on Microsoft's.Net patented designs.
The fact that Microsoft is mentioning this stuff about C# and the CLI while saying nothing about the.Net patents and libraries should be a red flag because the issue is Mono. Mono is C#, CLI and.Net libraries. They are dancing around the main issue and almost everyone is missing this.
you forgot this one, if a sleeper patent hits h.264, DivX, VC1, or any of the codecs then in every case it will have to be dealt with. Sorry, I just don't buy the bit about only one codec, the open source one, being subject to patent issues.
sssssssssssssssssssh, you're gonna make trouble with talk like that. Stay in line and keep quiet and all will be good and taken care of. Be a good little lemming.
except that when there is a large migration from Windows to Linux then Microsoft comes in and sometimes spends tens of millions keeping them from migrating. Only in a few cases have the migrating parties given MS the finger and continued with their Linux migrations and those were so large that it's a multi-year project and people tend to forget about those quickly. The world still runs mostly on Microsoft because the PHB's feel safe and they are bombarded with reasons why Microsoft is great by Microsoft funded research. And the belief that nobody gets fired for picking Microsoft. They may put the company in the red with all the expenses of that choice but it won't get blamed on the CTO or down that chain. IMO
in the 80s and 90s they were able to control mindshare by controlling a few companies like Ziff Davis and PC World. Most all information was spread via hard copy press and Microsoft was very good at molding what was posted, when, and how. Today, they may still have some control over Ziff....C/Net and still purchase "market research" and get newbie authors to put their names on PR releases but blogs,/. and many other online agencies are able to poke such large holes in these kinds of things today, if this Microsoft fabricated PR releases were the Titanic, it'd sink in an hour with such large holes in it. It also helps that they can't make profits off of anything but the age old product that is Windows. MSN? nope. Windows Mobile? nope. MSN Live Search? nope. Zune? nope. XBox? nope. etc etc etc. So the writing is on the wall that this company is incapable of actually producing any other money making product but they keep trying. They also have such wealth from Microsoft Windows that they can spend 10+ years of losses on these other products and tell an analysts they are long term profit centers. So they are trying to have focus on something that'll make them money as Windows slowly dies. And they never really had any focus on Windows, it was a lucky chance they got that IBM contract and once they got it, they easily grew a distribution channel so easily controlled it's never mattered how poor Windows operated technically. They just needed to make it different the next upgrade/version so they could put a new label on it and force the OEM's to use it instead of the previous version. IMO
in the 90s, the Watcom compiler produced some of the fastest code out there. I know it was open source and is still used but it would be interesting to see what it could do in cases like this. If it's as good as it used to be, showing a 15% improvement and eliminating any speed advantage MS compilers might have would be eye opening for many who might consider gcc the only compiler for GNU/Linux software.
that example of someone having shipped a Linux system without a wifi driver does not change anything. That is an OEM issue and not a Linux issue though time after time junk like this gets blamed on the distro or GNU/Linux in general. And yes, I know there are some drivers which are hard to work with or hardware which won't even work but it is the job of the OEM, if they insist on the preloaded OS route, to enable all hardware even if it means working with the hardware manufacturer.
dude, Linux is being eliminated from getting on devices users can purchase so exactly how is the Linux community going to learn from this? And don't say that people can buy the Windows version and install Linux because once people do that, they are not generic consumers and the problems are about installing. Preloaded distro's eliminate 80% of the problems people complain about Linux, 10% of the complaint are basically because Linux is not Windows and they have no clue that there is a builtin app-store on pretty much every Linux system available. They complain about installing software because it's not like Windows. Duh, iPhone people don't complain that the iPhone isn't like Windows now do they? the last 10% could be real info about UI stuff and app issues but guess what, we don't get that feed back because normal users don't get the choice to get a netbook device with Linux on it. THAT is why you probably got mod'ded down since the article is about Microsoft putting pressure to stop OEMs from shipping Linux based products.
I think the number was around 3 million Linux based netbooks that first year. What really gets me is not that Microsoft lemmings keep saying nobody bought or liked Linux netbooks, it's that the damn press is still bought and paid for by Microsoft. They all keep blowing the same smoke up the ignorant publics butt and it all smells like Microsoft.
No wonder people are looking to bloggers for news and information. there is no such thing as reliable information coming from the corporate news media outlets. It's bought and paid for marketing drivel. IMO.
this happened at the mobile phone conference in Feb or March of this year. Nobody was showing Android models and nobody would talk about it. They all talked about a future version of Windows Mobile due out next year. then just one month later, we hear there'll be a half dozen Android phones out this year. Another month or two later and we hear there will be close to 20 Android based phones shipping this year.
Wanna bet who's paying those companies to NOT show Android based phones and ONLY show and talk about Microsoft products? If this is capitalism, it sucks. IMO
that's all fine and dandy but there is an elephant in the room. Did you know that earlier this year, the largest mobile phone conference was held and reporters had to pry vendors to talk about Android while they were all willing to talk about Microsofts Windows Mobile due out in 2010? Some of the press was thinking this was quite strange and now we find out that almost 2 dozen Android based phones are due to hit the market _this_ year.
The elephant in the room is the fact that Microsoft has lost over $15 billion, yes BILLION over the past 13 years playing these marketing games. I would not doubt that Nvidia has a deal with Microsoft which provides Nvidia with some good profit as long as they yank the Microsoft chain and talk about Windows. And did you see Asus, the company who put Linux on a tiny laptop and started this market, apologize for Qualcomm showing an Asus ARM device running Linux? And wasn't that Microsoft on stage with them during the apology? Money talks and that's all Microsoft's got so I will question the validity of Nvidia's platform choice. As others have said, Android is just one distro of GNU/Linux and there are many more that have been on the market for years and run on ARM. But Nvidia only talks of Android and they talk of Windows CE. Fishy and likely part of Microsoft's marketing methods. IMO
good point but that is behind the scenes and even the exposed court documents don't make it into general public knowledge. It's the PR tricks that people see and hear day in and day out from all over the place. Just like this dumb story trying to get people to believe MS Live Search....MS BING has Google panicking. I would put their skills as you suggested, Distribution channel control, Marketing(PR, paid for research, articles, ads and public statements), Software.
you'd have to actually think Microsoft has a desire to be better and they don't. They only have a desire to be profitable and never in their history have I seen where they were driven by building a better product. If "BING" really is Bing Is Not Google, then it just shows you that it's not only about killing Google in search( not about being better here ) but also about Google's relationship to open source and GNU. If you don't know, the Free Software Foundation started all this open source stuff long ago and not only are they famous for the GPL license but also the use of backronyms. I think it all started with GNU = "GNU is not UNIX"
So this name, MS Bing, is very telling in what they fear is hiding under their beds. I think Steve Ballmer also showed a pie chart where he put Linux with more marketshare than Apple. The expensive marketing deals they are making with the netbook manufacturers and OEMs is also very telling as to the extent they will go to block OSS and GNU/Linux from infesting their market from the bottom.
So "Bing" is another name for MS search but we are supposed to believe they jumped Yahoo by changing the name? That would mean not only would have all the previous MS search lemmings basically stayed put and people jumped from Google and/or Yahoo. That's just dumb and I have no doubt this is just another Microsoft marketing gimmick so more lemmings might get a warm and fuzzy feeling thinking there weren't the only ones using MS Bing. But, knowing Microsoft, maybe they did an OS patch which "fixed" the default search field for everyone using Windows and now they all use Bing. Or they only did that to the ones naive enough to still be using MS Vista. IMO.
What made me laugh when I tried MS Bing was when the search returned something like 6 pages but from page 3 onward all it did was reshowed the same last page of search results.
that's why Microsoft does not like it. They must play here but like with MS-OOXML, they will do anything and everything they can to somehow tie it to Windows, to one software environment. After all, their profits and growth come from Windows and without Windows, they house falls down.
native code might sometimes be optimal but guess what? A heck of a lot is good enough in a browser and that means it runs on nearly every device and not just the ones with the Windows logo on them. Look what happened to the netbooks when Windows got ahold of them. They got fat, they got shorter battery lives and they got more expensive. The OLPC XO is another example, Windows doesn't fit on everything but the browser does. Good enough.
Slashdot Mirror
That was surprising to see Asus listed since they pretty much signed a multi-year contract with Microsoft to stay away from Linux. I can only guess that this deal will give the Microsoft employees now working inside of Asus a chance to dig deep and dig early into what the Google Chrome OS is and how they can market against it.
LoB
you forgot the bit about making famous the three key salute to Bill Gates and Microsoft. Ctl-Alt-Delete
Did you ever see the video where the IBM hardware guy gives Bill credit for this and Bill is on stage? His face when that was said is as good as when he got pie'ed. Priceless.
LoB
I never knew C or C++ to be tied to patented libraries and marketed with and for the use of those libraries. I know many developed libraries you could license but the compilers were not designed with the same extensive libraries as Java or MS .NET
FYI, I didn't think much about Microsoft or their technology at first but over the years, it became quite clear that Microsoft's motives and actions can damage or limit your livelihood. FYI, it's not FUD, it's from over 20 years of experiencing Microsoft's business methods and being forced to change jobs because of their actions.
LoB
"what does that have to do with not developing hybrids?" it has everything to do with it when they do it to the exclusion of the other technologies. The US auto makers were even anti-hybrid while the Bush/Cheney administration was paying them to go after hydrogen. Toyota has a fuel cell vehicle also but they didn't blink on continuing the hybrid line. I saw it as a way to keep a hand in the market incase there were the required breakthroughs to make them viable. It's the exclusionary aspect of how the Big 3 went from saying they'd have hybrids in 3 years in late 2000 to saying hybrids were bad just a year later.
LoB
They had been working half-assed on hybrids since 1993 and were more than happy to give all that up to take cash from the US government to show million dollar hydrogen prototype cars and trucks. Can you say dumb? Unfortunately, the US government is allowing them to continue operating and sticking US citizens with the bill. IMO, any of those three which couldn't continue operating should have been parted out and the remains crushed like GM did with the EV1. What a waste of money and it is their own fault Toyota is going to stomp on them with patent licensing costs as they should. After all, Toyota was the one who had to endure about 8 years of bashing by the US press and US auto makers for doing hybrid systems. They even had to endure a law suite by Mobile/Texaco when Toyota and Panasonic built prismatic NiMH batteries the oil company said were outside of the NiMH patent licenses which Mobile/Texaco purchased from GM. The large NiMH batteries used in the Rav4 EV had to be discontinued but at a cost of millions of dollars, they were allowed to continue making and using the prismatic design used in the Prius battery packs. Toyota deserves to be rewarded for what they've done with and for hybrid system designs.
LoB
it's the same people who are pretty much computer illiterate and just squeak by using Windows who are Microsoft's best customers. Keep'em dumb, keep'em taking everything shoveled in front of them. The other day, a salesman from a computer shop specializing in Windows asked me to send his wife a link to some pictures. After a few emails, he didn't know the link I emailed him was just something he could use a browser to see. WTF and how to these people get paid for so little ability to use even the simplest parts of the computer software?
LoB
so you have the company controlling the compiler design and features and who markets all their .NET libraries as they way to develop software with C#. The company spends billions annually on advertising and marketing. And it is a good idea to use this compiler and runtime to develop software for Linux? Isn't this like using the Java JVM but not use any of the java.* libraries? You get what the JVM brings you but you miss out on millions of lines of code which makes it so much easier build OOP apps on. Wasn't C# and the CLI created because Microsoft needed Java to stop cross platform development? So now Microsoft says you can use C# language and the CLI but doesn't say you can freely use the libraries. What a great deal. You can't ride the trolley with everyone else and must walk the line instead and to make matters worst, you're walking inches next to the "third rail". You also have Microsoft ready to push you on that third rail at any moment. It just doesn't sound like a smart thing to chance and a waste of a whole lot of development time and effort.
LoB
it was said, "that still doesn't mean you get anything useful - if you write a simple app that does nothing, you're fine." and then goes on to mention doing a GUI, amongst other types of applications is going to require using some .Net tied libraries. While it was not _that_ clearly stated, the OP was really saying that using C# and the CLI to write more complex applications is very likely to be leveraging libraries instead of every aspect being written from scratch and those libraries are based on Microsoft's .Net patented designs.
The fact that Microsoft is mentioning this stuff about C# and the CLI while saying nothing about the .Net patents and libraries should be a red flag because the issue is Mono. Mono is C#, CLI and .Net libraries. They are dancing around the main issue and almost everyone is missing this.
LoB
you forgot this one, if a sleeper patent hits h.264, DivX, VC1, or any of the codecs then in every case it will have to be dealt with. Sorry, I just don't buy the bit about only one codec, the open source one, being subject to patent issues.
LoB
Why does a review, whose reviewer didn't even bother to do elementary facts checking, end up on the front page?
when it's a slow news day and/or there's a need for more ad dollars.
Lob
sssssssssssssssssssh, you're gonna make trouble with talk like that. Stay in line and keep quiet and all will be good and taken care of. Be a good little lemming.
LoB
except that when there is a large migration from Windows to Linux then Microsoft comes in and sometimes spends tens of millions keeping them from migrating. Only in a few cases have the migrating parties given MS the finger and continued with their Linux migrations and those were so large that it's a multi-year project and people tend to forget about those quickly. The world still runs mostly on Microsoft because the PHB's feel safe and they are bombarded with reasons why Microsoft is great by Microsoft funded research. And the belief that nobody gets fired for picking Microsoft. They may put the company in the red with all the expenses of that choice but it won't get blamed on the CTO or down that chain. IMO
LoB
the problem is, when hiring people for administering Microsoft software, they are screened and rated on how muscular the index finger is.
LoB
in the 80s and 90s they were able to control mindshare by controlling a few companies like Ziff Davis and PC World. Most all information was spread via hard copy press and Microsoft was very good at molding what was posted, when, and how. Today, they may still have some control over Ziff....C/Net and still purchase "market research" and get newbie authors to put their names on PR releases but blogs, /. and many other online agencies are able to poke such large holes in these kinds of things today, if this Microsoft fabricated PR releases were the Titanic, it'd sink in an hour with such large holes in it. It also helps that they can't make profits off of anything but the age old product that is Windows. MSN? nope. Windows Mobile? nope. MSN Live Search? nope. Zune? nope. XBox? nope. etc etc etc. So the writing is on the wall that this company is incapable of actually producing any other money making product but they keep trying. They also have such wealth from Microsoft Windows that they can spend 10+ years of losses on these other products and tell an analysts they are long term profit centers. So they are trying to have focus on something that'll make them money as Windows slowly dies. And they never really had any focus on Windows, it was a lucky chance they got that IBM contract and once they got it, they easily grew a distribution channel so easily controlled it's never mattered how poor Windows operated technically. They just needed to make it different the next upgrade/version so they could put a new label on it and force the OEM's to use it instead of the previous version. IMO
LoB
in the 90s, the Watcom compiler produced some of the fastest code out there. I know it was open source and is still used but it would be interesting to see what it could do in cases like this. If it's as good as it used to be, showing a 15% improvement and eliminating any speed advantage MS compilers might have would be eye opening for many who might consider gcc the only compiler for GNU/Linux software.
LoB
that example of someone having shipped a Linux system without a wifi driver does not change anything. That is an OEM issue and not a Linux issue though time after time junk like this gets blamed on the distro or GNU/Linux in general. And yes, I know there are some drivers which are hard to work with or hardware which won't even work but it is the job of the OEM, if they insist on the preloaded OS route, to enable all hardware even if it means working with the hardware manufacturer.
LoB
dude, Linux is being eliminated from getting on devices users can purchase so exactly how is the Linux community going to learn from this? And don't say that people can buy the Windows version and install Linux because once people do that, they are not generic consumers and the problems are about installing. Preloaded distro's eliminate 80% of the problems people complain about Linux, 10% of the complaint are basically because Linux is not Windows and they have no clue that there is a builtin app-store on pretty much every Linux system available. They complain about installing software because it's not like Windows. Duh, iPhone people don't complain that the iPhone isn't like Windows now do they? the last 10% could be real info about UI stuff and app issues but guess what, we don't get that feed back because normal users don't get the choice to get a netbook device with Linux on it. THAT is why you probably got mod'ded down since the article is about Microsoft putting pressure to stop OEMs from shipping Linux based products.
LoB
I think the number was around 3 million Linux based netbooks that first year. What really gets me is not that Microsoft lemmings keep saying nobody bought or liked Linux netbooks, it's that the damn press is still bought and paid for by Microsoft. They all keep blowing the same smoke up the ignorant publics butt and it all smells like Microsoft.
No wonder people are looking to bloggers for news and information. there is no such thing as reliable information coming from the corporate news media outlets. It's bought and paid for marketing drivel. IMO.
LoB
this happened at the mobile phone conference in Feb or March of this year. Nobody was showing Android models and nobody would talk about it. They all talked about a future version of Windows Mobile due out next year. then just one month later, we hear there'll be a half dozen Android phones out this year. Another month or two later and we hear there will be close to 20 Android based phones shipping this year.
Wanna bet who's paying those companies to NOT show Android based phones and ONLY show and talk about Microsoft products? If this is capitalism, it sucks. IMO
LoB
that's all fine and dandy but there is an elephant in the room. Did you know that earlier this year, the largest mobile phone conference was held and reporters had to pry vendors to talk about Android while they were all willing to talk about Microsofts Windows Mobile due out in 2010? Some of the press was thinking this was quite strange and now we find out that almost 2 dozen Android based phones are due to hit the market _this_ year.
The elephant in the room is the fact that Microsoft has lost over $15 billion, yes BILLION over the past 13 years playing these marketing games. I would not doubt that Nvidia has a deal with Microsoft which provides Nvidia with some good profit as long as they yank the Microsoft chain and talk about Windows. And did you see Asus, the company who put Linux on a tiny laptop and started this market, apologize for Qualcomm showing an Asus ARM device running Linux? And wasn't that Microsoft on stage with them during the apology? Money talks and that's all Microsoft's got so I will question the validity of Nvidia's platform choice. As others have said, Android is just one distro of GNU/Linux and there are many more that have been on the market for years and run on ARM. But Nvidia only talks of Android and they talk of Windows CE. Fishy and likely part of Microsoft's marketing methods. IMO
LoB
good point but that is behind the scenes and even the exposed court documents don't make it into general public knowledge. It's the PR tricks that people see and hear day in and day out from all over the place. Just like this dumb story trying to get people to believe MS Live Search....MS BING has Google panicking. I would put their skills as you suggested, Distribution channel control, Marketing(PR, paid for research, articles, ads and public statements), Software.
LoB
you'd have to actually think Microsoft has a desire to be better and they don't. They only have a desire to be profitable and never in their history have I seen where they were driven by building a better product. If "BING" really is Bing Is Not Google, then it just shows you that it's not only about killing Google in search( not about being better here ) but also about Google's relationship to open source and GNU. If you don't know, the Free Software Foundation started all this open source stuff long ago and not only are they famous for the GPL license but also the use of backronyms. I think it all started with GNU = "GNU is not UNIX"
So this name, MS Bing, is very telling in what they fear is hiding under their beds. I think Steve Ballmer also showed a pie chart where he put Linux with more marketshare than Apple. The expensive marketing deals they are making with the netbook manufacturers and OEMs is also very telling as to the extent they will go to block OSS and GNU/Linux from infesting their market from the bottom.
LoB
So "Bing" is another name for MS search but we are supposed to believe they jumped Yahoo by changing the name? That would mean not only would have all the previous MS search lemmings basically stayed put and people jumped from Google and/or Yahoo. That's just dumb and I have no doubt this is just another Microsoft marketing gimmick so more lemmings might get a warm and fuzzy feeling thinking there weren't the only ones using MS Bing. But, knowing Microsoft, maybe they did an OS patch which "fixed" the default search field for everyone using Windows and now they all use Bing. Or they only did that to the ones naive enough to still be using MS Vista. IMO.
What made me laugh when I tried MS Bing was when the search returned something like 6 pages but from page 3 onward all it did was reshowed the same last page of search results.
LoB
that's why Microsoft does not like it. They must play here but like with MS-OOXML, they will do anything and everything they can to somehow tie it to Windows, to one software environment. After all, their profits and growth come from Windows and without Windows, they house falls down.
LoB
native code might sometimes be optimal but guess what? A heck of a lot is good enough in a browser and that means it runs on nearly every device and not just the ones with the Windows logo on them. Look what happened to the netbooks when Windows got ahold of them. They got fat, they got shorter battery lives and they got more expensive. The OLPC XO is another example, Windows doesn't fit on everything but the browser does. Good enough.
LoB