Microsoft Clarifies Linux Myths

mikeraz told us about Microsoft's new page on Linux Myths. Designed to convince the seasoned business professional that Linux doesn't measure up to the hype. Some good points. Some not-so-good points. Care to comment? Update: 10/05 06:43 by CT : Mandrake has comments on his page.

Thanks, Microsoft.

Now the Linux community has a nice, tidy 'to-do' list, thanks to Microsoft's time investment in finding all of the places where NT has on-paper advantages.

Give us another 6-12 months, and we'll render all of these points moot. Very friendly, almost selfless, of them to help focus the community's attention on areas that need development.

(*grin)


--

FUD.

I think my favorite quote is this: "Free Operating System Does Not Mean Low Total Cost of Ownership"
Notice how they pointed out they were speaking about free as in beer; not free as in speech.

I think it's a shame that they continue to spread FUD despite their current fight with the Department of Justice.
Joseph Elwell.

Fun with Lawyers (was: Re:Funny)

I am not a fan of using lawyers to resolve differences (in the US, we tend to think of them as first resort rather than last resort), but I think that this is the place for them.

Microsoft is not only contradicting itself, but is contradicting itself in two realms where it is illegal to lie. Lying in court is called perjury. Lying about the capabilities of one's own product is called false advertisement. Lying about the capabilities of someone else's product is called slander.

Red Hat has a large amount of money right now, having just gone IPO. People are still trying to figure out what RH is going to do with this. Obviously, a lot of it is going to promote Linux in its entirety (it seems that Linux companies find it more profitable to grow a bigger Linux pie than to fight over one's piece of that pie).

I am not saying this out of any real or perceived "duty" on the part of RH, but from a Red Hat profit/loss perspective. Is it worth it to Red Hat to move some of their marketing budget over to legal to take some of Microsoft's more obviously false claims and ram said claims down their throat? That is, sue for slander, charging for legal expenses and a reasonable award of lost business (not a huge money amount). And the important part: do not settle.

While this sounds like a lot of fun, this may also be good marketing. If you can win a slander lawsuit in court, you force Microsoft to retract the statement, and can use the counter-statement (a matter of public record) in marketing.

There has been a big stink on either side about Microsoft and the law. The lawsuits tend to be about antitrust law or IP. To Microsoft's advantage, both pieces of legislation are themselves contraversial: some of us don't believe that the laws being applied should even be on the books, regardless of what Microsoft is doing with regards to these laws.

Slander suits are a beautiful way to sidestep this and to fight legal battles on much firmer ground. After all, who opposes anti-slander legislation?

Just imagine what would happen to the software industry, and especially the Linux industry, if we could just keep Microsoft from lying.

Re:What is the proper community response to these?

Microsoft seems confused as to just what Linux really is. They make reference to the 'Linux Community' but then later refer to Linux as though it were a corporation:

therefore Linux has yet to demonstrate their capabilities as a database server.

They then later state:

Myth: Linux is more reliable than Windows NT
Reality: Linux Needs Real World Proof Points Rather than Anecdotal Stories

I don't know about most people, but I don't need PC Week or Ziff-Davis to tell me Linux is more reliable than Windows NT. I refuse to run NT on my network, and my servers have uptimes exceeding 100 days, and in a few cases, 180 days. Our test NT servers never made it past 7 days.

Then this, which is disinformation (as our ceo calls it):

Linux lacks a commercial quality Journaling File System

What about the fs that SGI is contributing?

And the best comment:

Every member of the Windows NT family since Windows NT 3.5 has been evaluated at either a C2 level under the U.S. Government's evaluation process or at a C2-equivalent level under the British Government's ITSEC process.

ONLY IF YOU DO NOT CONNECT IT TO A NETWORK!

Microsoft is going to try to win the battle in the only forum they can compete with Linux in, the PR forum. The are not very many major Linux promoters, Red Hat probably being the closest to Microsoft that Linux has. Becuase Microsoft cannot out innovate or even out perform, they are resorting to FUD and PR tatics to convince people that Linux is a Bad Thing (tm). Kinda like the Ministry of Peace.

99.9% Availablity

"...unlike Windows NT where Compaq, Data General, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and Unisys provide 99.9 percent system-level uptime guarantees for Windows NT-based servers."

Assuming it takes 10 minutes to identify a crashed server, power-cycle it, and wait for it to reboot (this time varies GREATLY different systems), 99.9% availabity would be one crash per week (I did the math). I'm *SURE* they are not counting "planned" down times (You know, you have to reboot now that you made that change), and I am pretty sure they aren't counting hardware or power failures or other things that are quite outside of MS's control.

I don't consider a crash per week acceptable. Sorry.

If I don't hit 99.9% of the other cars on the road when I'm driving, am I a good driver?

I have a client who had a Novell server go over 900 days without reboot (A two-day power failure finally took it down). I think I can say quite certainly _No_ NT server in history has done that. That is the way things are supposed to work. Linux seems a heck of a lot closer to my ideals than NT is.

I can't speak for DG, IBM, or Unisys, but I have seen Compaq's "Guaranteed four hour service" program in action at a couple clients. Never seen a client broke for less than 24 hours with that program, either. I don't trust Compaq's "guarantees" when it comes to servicing their own products, how can they guarantee someone else's software??

Nick.

NT "Facts"

Microsoft says:

The very definition of Linux as an Open Software effort means that commercial companies like Red Hat will make money by charging for services. Therefore, commercial support services for Linux will be fee-based and will likely be priced at a premium. These costs have to be factored into the total cost model.

Guess who's website this is from:

Incidents may be purchased on a pay-per incident basis, or in packs of 5. Phone submitted incidents are $245 each, or a 5-pack for $1225. Web submitted incidents are $195 each, or a 5-pack for $975.

This blurb is from Microsoft's web site regarding Windows NT server. That's what I call a premium.
Forget about this site. In fact, we need to put together a compilation of facts about Windows NT server. I'll start:
NT only has the C2 security rating if it is not connected to the network and doesn't have a floppy drive.

More FUD from MS

Hmm. This page looks an awful lot like a private anti-Linux pro-Microsoft page I ran across recently. I'll see if I can find the URL and post it here.

My responses:

1) RE: Benchmarks. There are three types of lies: lies, damned lies, and benchmarks.

2) WTF is a "proof point"?

3) A journalling file system does _not_ prevent data loss! It simply makes fscks faster (a worthy goal in itself, but much short of the walking-on-water powers normally associated with journalling file systems).

4) I wouldn't brag about the uptime gaurentees provided by HP, at least- they gaurentee that uptime _only_ running a small number of "certified" apps and only one a small number of machines and configurations. And you pay for it. And they don't count scheduled downtime. And 99.9% is sucky- that's like 9 hours of (unscheduled) downtime a year. No wondering clustering is so important to NT.

5) The only TCO study I've ever seen showing that NT is cheaper than Unix (which was included in the MSDN, BTW) among several other humorous assumptions, assumed that anyone using Unix on the desktop also needed to have a Windows box on their desk as well for office apps, email (Unix doesn't have email, don't you know...) etc. In other words, TCO(NT) = TCO(Unix) + TCO(NT). Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!

6) I'll be the first person to agree that ACLs are better than Unix's protection scheme. The only problem with NT's protection scheme is that you can't use it. Little known products like Microsoft Office need all sorts of rights, like the right to write in C:\Windows. Yeah, if you know what you're doing, you can mostly lock down an NT box (leaving only a few gaping security holes absolutely required by the applications), but most people _don't_. Yeah, Unix's protection scheme could be signifigantly improved, but at least it's used.

6) I like the weasling on the C-2 security ratings. Last I heard, NT only got C-2 by disabling the networking. And 4.0 wasn't certified for years- so long the guy who was originally suing them was threatening to take them to court. Oh, and C-2 doesn't mean that much- the only lower rating is D (no security at all, ala DOS). Some versions of Unix can even hit B levels of security (there's a version of HP-UX that does this, IIRC). The only reason Linux hasn't gotten C-2 is simply that no one has walked it through the paperwork (i.e. for the same reason it's not "Unix").

7) Um, NT doesn't support PnP either. My experience has been that Linux has support for more hardware than NT. And is gaining on 98 (especially since 98 seems to be dropping support for older hardware). And hardware support is mainly done by the hardware vendors, not by Microsoft- Linux is starting to pick up support from the hardware vendors. For instance, I'm willing to bet that Linux will be native (and 64-bit, but that's cheating) on Merced before Windows will...

8) Funny, I'm using Linux on the desktop even I type this (at work, even). For my work Windows would be _less_ effective. But I'm willing to agree that I'm a special case. "Easier to administrate" is a tricky concept- administrating one Windows box (or one Mac) is easier than administrating one Linux/Unix box, agreed. But administrating 500 Linux/Unix boxes is signifigantly easier than administrating 500 Windows boxes. Things which make life _more_ difficult in the single-box (like using text-files for configuration) suddenly change to be helps in the 500-box situation (for example, letting you write scripts to automatically reconfigure all those systems).

Once you start ignoring administration costs, I'd pit Gnome/Enlightenment for user friendliness against anything Windows has to offer. Especially considering there is no user interface rule that Microsoft themselves don't violate (for example, the DDK viewers don't even have menu bars, just tool bars).

And the question is not "how many applications are on a given OS", but "are the applications you need on the given OS?"

Re:FUD.

That got me too.

Of course, the entire page refuses to address NT's TCO, like:

• Total system re-installs when something hoses the registry.
• Endless waits on hold when you have a problem that requires a tech-support call.
• The wasted time when the tech-support information turns out to be wrong.

Other details like "Linux lacks a commercial quality Journaling File System" get me too. Does NT now have a JFS? I seem to recall that at the time Micro$oft first pointed this particular finger at Linux, NT did not have one either.

Ah, well. Being an embedded-systems guy rather than a sysadmin I am closer to being a (l)user than a kernel hacker, but it was just yesterday that I was hating the blasted Lose95 on the desktop because I didn't have awk available to extract some stats from my ICE trace-buffer dump files. Doing it in Excel is a pain in the butt. I hate Micro$oft. (I have to ask... do Cosmic and ZAP run under WINE? That would be a huge boost to my productivity.)

--
Deja Moo: The feeling that

Microsoft, Hotmail, and FreeBSD

If Windows NT is as good as Microsoft says it is then it seems to me they'd want to use it on their Hotmail service. The last time I checked, www.hotmail.com was running Apache and FreeBSD.

You can see for yourself at http://www.netcraft.com/whats/ [netcraft.com]

Take care,

Steve

The Man in the Mirror

I believe that what linux truly needs is some sort of a PR "department".

I believe they are referred to as "Advocates". Most definitely not professional (you get what you pay for), but still a presence. This is why it's so important the temper those that do, and will always, flame madly with well-thought out and pleasantly spoken arguments, delivered with lightning quickness. I personally have noticed the tone of articles (featured here and others) shifting from making flippant remarks and unsubstantiated FUD, to what can almost be considered toned-down respect. The fear of reprisal from the Linux community (and /.'ers specifically (what Effect?;^)) has caused behaviour similar to little kids walking quietly around a very aware, and very alert, bully.

Anyway, Linux doesn't need a full-time PR machine. The companies that sell it most certainly do (they've got to keep the zealots AND shareholders happy), but the community as a whole speaks for itself (loudly, and with very big bashing sticks).

They're scared...

I'm encouraged. Can you imagine MS doing something like this even a year ago? Putting that page together will have cost them a lot of money. Large organisations produce responses like that by forming a committee, producing drafts, arguing about wording and getting lawyers to check things. If it cost less than $100,000 I'd want to hire the manager.

They are clearly frightened by Linux. If you read it carefully, they attack Linux as a credible enterprise (>4 processor) OS, and they attack in the workstation environment. This is funny. Linux has never tried to be an enterprise OS. We'll get there, but we're not there yet. NT is nowhere near that level either. In the workstation environment, NT has a solid, strong presence. Many Linux devlopers (KDE & Gnome teams ) are working on this.

The real place that Linux is winning is in the workgroup/department sever space. This includes many small / medium sized enterprises. The reason they are scared is that this is the only place that NT Server has any significant presence.

Linux is starting to hurt MS. With a little help from the US DoJ, we'll hurt them badly.

The paragraph on journalled filesystems was probably the funniest. If you don't know why, please email me. Then hit the 'off' switch on your NT box. Then reboot it. If you still don't understand why that's funny then you are too stupid to own a computer.

MS Linux FUD Page

It seems to me that Linux advocates should take this as a great compliment - MS Marketdroids sweating over a free OS that wasn't even a blip on the radar a year or two ago. With the pace of development that is going on, what will it be like 2 years from now? Mature GIUs, several office suites, better SMP, 64 bit CPU support (something lacking in Windows AFAIK).

Now what is needed is a series of articles that debunk the various issues on this page, like the 128M swap partition limit, the 2 GB file limit (isn't this gone under 64 bit CPUs?), a list of industry benchmarks where Linux was shown to outperform Windows, a realistic assesment of support costs including showing the differences between RedHat and MS per instance support, the issue of remote administration, the FUD about having to relink the kernal to add features, and so on.

Coupled with this should be a list of Linux advantages over Win - the high quality free software certainly does drive TCO down in many applications (this is what attracted me to Linux in the first place).

All of this has to be nailed down tight.

And then post it on Linux.com for everyone to see.

Parody with some truth

MS Windows NT Myths

Myth: Windows NT outperforms all other operating systems

Reality: Windows NT only outperforms all other operating systems if MS is allowed to misconfigure the competition and avail themselves of technical support that no MS customer would have. In fact NT hasn't really been shown to outperform anything any way. What does outperform mean by the way? :)


Myth: Windows NT is a very reliable operating system.

Reality: Depends on how you shake "very" but yes it is realiable in staying up ... if you don't run too many applications at one time, don't install anything that isn't MS-certified and do NOT tweak anything except in MS recommended ways (with a little gui box to go with it). But as that is usually good enough for some people, this is a good definition of very.


Myth: MS Windows NT delivers a great OS at a great price.

Reality: $4000 for 1 server and 10 workstation licenses? Come on, you gotta be kidding! (I know that number isn't quite right but it *is* in the thousands). Put in the hardware and user software packages and that's a bundle. I don't know about you, but if the OS alone costs me into the thousands, it better be as bug-free and secure as possible ... or at least bug fixes had better be timely and actually work. Oh yeah, add in support
and this could really be a lot of money. "Now which button should I press to get to the do-hickey thing that'll change this access permission?" the customer says. "Press the one that says 'XXX'" says the customer service rep. "It didn't work." "Oh, I mean 'YYY'." "That didn't work either." Two hours later: "I'm glad you fixed my problem," says the customer and the rep says "I'm glad we did too. Your bill is in the mail." "How much was it, by the way?" The rep tells him and the customer drops dead. :)

Oh and the "certified engineers" business is a load of hoooo-ey. Who cares if there exist well-trained lemming/sloths who paid thru the nose
to learn to service my NT box when I could easily learn MYSELF how to service my UNIX/BSD/LINUX/etc. box?


Myth: Windows NT has passed US gov't certification for security.

Reality: Uh, not to burst anyone's bubble but I think only Win NT 3.5 got C2 certification and *that* had to be with the box not connected to any other computer (no internet boys!) The others may have gotten the British Gov't's okay, but it's news to me.


Myth: Windows NT security fixes are easy while the competitions are really hard to understand.

Reality: MS publishes incorrect security fixes and sometimes takes weeks after and exploit is published to fix the bug and that's good? Oh, and a simple rpm -Uvh is hard?


Myth: Windows NT is a really intuitive system and so is a good desktop system.

Reality: Okay, personal story boys: When my family first got a Windows 95 machine, I was in high school. I had experience with apples and dos (and a funny little Tandy that I programmed basic on when I was very little). We even bought a thick $30 Que book on using Windows 95. It still took me a long time to figure out how to do simple things like rearrange my menus on the start bar -- and I *never* got to rearrange my desktop pop-up menu. Not to mention I didn't understand the utility of the start bar for a long time (like clicking on minimized programs to bring them up or to switch between programs.) Windows NT user interface is much the same, so the comparison is
valid. My point is not that the Windows UI is bad, it is that it is only "intuitive" because I've used it so much. It has been no more intuitive for me than the default Red Hat 6.0 window manager and default bars/menus/etc. I have a feeling that the idea that Windows is intuitive is simply because so many people have used it for so long that they don't realize the trouble they had when they first started with Windows (3.0, 95, etc).


Myth: Windows has so many good applications that it makes it the only choice.

Reality: Yes there are a lot of applications for Windows NT. Many of them are good or at least acceptable. But they generally cost a hell of a lot of money. MS Office costs at least $100 (if you are a student). Corel/WordPerfect may be cheaper, but it probably isn't much cheaper for business licenses. Development environments can cost a lot more (if you actually want to be able to distribute the end product, which the student licenses from MS forbid --- I don't know about Borland or the others). I'm usually happy with a text editor and a command line compiler. That's all I need or want, so I usually end up treating a MS Visual X as a text editor that happens to have the compile command on a menu. I know it's silly, but when you don't need the whole shebang, IDE's for Windows are just too much and the ported GNU tools just don't work too well on Windows (besides, DOS command line sucks). So why should someone who really only needs a text editor and e-mail and a web browsers and a command line compiler and a few games use Win NT? As that is about what most non-computer people I know need
(minus the compiler :) ).


Rachael

(This is my first ever post, so be gentle :) )

MicrosoftMyths.asp

Reality: Linux Needs Real World Proof Points Rather than Anecdotal Stories
...
Customer Testimonials
See how these leading companies and organizations have deployed Windows NT Server 4.0:
Nasdaq
Barnes & Noble
Dell Computer Corp
The Boeing Company
First Union
Chicago Stock Exchange

How ironi.
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First, it's worth noting that Linux is a UNIX-like operating system. Linux fundamentally relies on 30-year-old operating system technology and architecture.
Humans fundamentally rely on billion-year-old architecture in their genes, so they should be scrapped and reinvented.

Linux was not designed from the ground-up to support symmetrical multiprocessing (SMP), graphical user interfaces (GUI), asynchronous I/O, fine-grained security model, and many other important characteristics of a modern operating system.
Linux started out sleek, lean, and unbloated, and then evolved into a viable OS. In contrast, NT started out with bloated features you don't need in a server (running a GUI 24/7), and can barely support its own weight (finding bugs in NT is like finding a blade of grass in a cubic acre of hay).
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Reality: Free Operating System Does Not Mean Low Total Cost of Ownership

It does if "when we speak of free software, we speak of freedom, not price". Unless the latest version of NT comes with working source code, I can't tweak the OS, or any underlying components to my liking.
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Myth: The Linux SWAP file is limited to 128 MB RAM
Reality: Go read the mkswap(8) man page: the OLD (v0) swap spaces could only be 128MB (on an i386). The new ones (v1) support up to 2GB. Get your facts right, Microsoft. This has been around since kernel 2.1.117.
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There are no commercially proven clustering technologies to provide High Availability for Linux.
Can you say beowulf?
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This is made complex due to the fact that there isn't a central location for security issues to be reported and fixed.
Try dselect update install on any Debian system, or the RedHat errata, etc.
------
No Linux products are listed on the U.S. Government's evaluated product list.
Because we don't care about the U.S. Gov't stupid encryption "security" policies, approval would only make Linux look more insecure.
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Configuring Linux security requires an administrator to be an expert in the intricacies of the operating system and how components interact.
Or an admin with a port-scanner.And you tell me an NT box is secure without an admin who knows about the system? Nice try.
-----
Reality: Linux Makes No Sense at the Desktop
We never said it would... but my sister seems to like her Windows-free desktop (and she is totally OS-indifferent).
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Windows NT 4.0 currently supports over 39,000 systems and devices on the Hardware Compatibility List
Assuming they were bought in the last 3 years, otherwise, it's obsolete.
-----
Linux does not support important ease-of-use technologies such as Plug and Play, USB, and Power Management
Sad, my Linux box seems not to exist.
-----
The Linux operating system is not suitable for mainstream usage by business or home users.
We never said it was good for mainstream by home use, we projected by current developmental progess that it WILL be soon.
And business? Go ask RedHat if businesses don't like their software.




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"I already have all the latest software."

Anecdotal Evidence?

One of the (valid) claims MS makes is: "Linux Needs Real World Proof Points Rather than anecdotal Stories"

They then post the first bullet to this statement as nothing more than *their* anecdotal evidence regarding NT: "Customers such as Barnes and Noble, The Boeing Company, Chicago Stock Exchange, Dell Computer, First Union Capital Markets, Nasdaq and many others run mission critical applications on Windows NT 4.0."

Look! We've got better anecdotal evidence!

C'mon guys, we're *still* waiting for a few real benchmarks...

Funny

Regardless of what benchmarks say, what the TCO of NT vs Linux is, GUIs, installation, or whatever FUD that gets spread around, consider this:

Under oath, Microsoft claims that Linux is a threat.

Now the PR department claims that Linux isn't competetive with NT (non-threat).

One way or another, Microsoft is lying.

Do you want to support such an unethical company?

A 30-year old operating system

Well, it is true. Linux has its roots in Unix, which was created in the 1970s. Linux was written to be compatible with Unix, because Linus Torvalds thought Unix was cool and wanted a Unix for his own use. He also had the Minix source code to look through as a reference.

The cool thing about Unix is that it was designed as an infinitely flexible basic foundation on which to do anything. It was developed originally to play Spacewar. From there, it was moved to text processing applications. Now we have Netscape, StarOffice, Gnome and KDE - all four of which are indisputably late 20th century programs.

The big advantage of that 30-year development is that we know it works, and works well. It's been honed to the point that there are minimal amounts of bugs. That's a tremendous advantage over NT, an operating system that was created under strict deadline pressures unimaginable in the Unix and open source worlds.

The foundation works. There's little point to changing it, especially since it outperforms NT as it is in many if not most situations.

D

----

Microsoft's support??

My favorite quote:

"The very definition of Linux as an Open Software effort means that commercial companies like Red Hat will make money by charging for services. Therefore, commercial support services for Linux will be fee-based and will likely be priced at a premium. These costs have to be factored into the total cost model."


And microsoft's policy of charging for support is any different? Well ok it is, you pay for the product and then the support :-)

Asynchronous I/O != Asynchronous filesystem writes

Nor is it select/poll.

What they're talking about is that you queue an I/O, and you get a notification when it completes. I.e, instead of calling write and expecting a result, you call something like write that sets a semaphore, and semaphore is released when the bits are actually on disk and the filesystem metadata reflects that. In classic Unix, you really can't do this - write just stuffs the bits in the buffer, and only blocks if there's no buffer space, so a return from write doesn't mean the data is on disk. You can call fsync, but then you have to wait. You can wait in a thread, but this gets ugly if you're doing a lot of transactions at once - you start filling up your process table. The same is true on read - you can't really doselect on a disk file, for example - it'll always say ready, even though it isn't, and even if you hacked select to say "yes, there's data in the readahead buffer," there's no way to ask how much, or to say "do you have the 4096 bytes starting at location 131072 yet?"

This is a really nice feature, and is something for which I believe there is a Posix spec. Unfortunately, neither Linux nor NetBSD currently implement it. Database vendors in particular consider this to be A Big Deal. The ISC DHCP server has this problem, because it can't grant an address to a DHCP client until it's sure the record of the grant is on disk, which has to be done with fsync. This is probably our biggest bottleneck. :'(

Read It, Heard it, Bought the T shirt

Welll Ive read all this before, hell I have seen it all before. ok lets review some details

1. Anecdotal stories:
Well Reliance Mutual look to be moving to Linux. And then there is the My own Company (Who promote NT) whose website runs FREEBSD, then How about the fact that Rodenstock Germany (Big Optical Company) work with Linux as a development platform. The US army think NT is poor performer. No major, and for this I mean AOL, UUNET, DEMON ISP will use NT as its backbone in service provision.

2. Linux Community:
The report uses it to sound denegrating but lkets see. For each app, utility and service there is a clear line of responsibility, opportunity and information. Heck we even know who co-ordinates on the Kernel updates, patches and we can redress the distributors and autors or modules for any extra help if we see fit.

3. Promises of SMP ....
Well excuse me for not running a superserver but most mid level and small businesses, lets face it they are the ones paying for MS licenses, will not need or require that level of service. Those looking for hight end server perfromance are most likley running 64Bit systems (can anyone say Alpha? Unix?)

4. Late release of FUD
most likely.

As a lecturer in Visual Basic and a seasoned tech support professional in NT and windows I will say this. Out of 20 Students on my part time course in VB over half are llooking to install Linux. Of the 14 People who consult me about installing and upgrading their machines, or getting into the "industry" all will want to install Linux by christmas.

Ummmmmm....
This is the Barn, the horse is gone! do you wish to close the doors?

Marketing Wisdom

There is a little something I learned about marketing in school:

If the market leader acknowledges a competetor in an add or public forum, he may cease to be the market leader in the market's eyes.

-AP

Quite Misleading

This article starts off on good ground, citing publicly available statistics regarding a few specific areas of performance. However, the remaining myths are jokes.

Their only real point concerning reliability is the lack of a journaling filesystem. Just because someone out there (such as Microsoft) is willing to guarantee uptime for NT does not automatically make NT stable and Linux unstable. Perhaps Linux doesn't need such a silly guarantee (though someone could make some easy money that way). Sure, they can list some big names that use NT, but there's big names using just about every OS on the face of the planet. That really isn't enough information to prove or disprove that one OS is more stable than the other. In fact, it's really difficult to compare stability through anything other than anecdotal evidence (polling system administrators?).

The article does a good job discounting the free beer myth, but it does not prove in any way that the total cost of ownership for NT is less than that for Linux. It simply says that it has supposedly been proven that NT is cheaper than UNIX, and then tries to apply that to Linux. We then once again see the tired argument that there are no "certified engineers" for Linux. If Linux is so much like UNIX, why not borrow from the pool of UNIX "certified engineers"?

Linux's security model is in no way weak. At worst, it's a tad bit crude. Security is not all or nothing. That's what groups are for. That's why I can listen to music without su'ing to root. Again Microsoft's tired and flawed arguments are provided. Apparently since NT can achieve a government security rating (which they didn't even bother to define), NT is more secure than Linux, since no one's ever tried to certify Linux. I don't really believe that NT also doesn't require "an administrator to be an expert in the intricacies of the operating system and how components interact." I think here the crude simplicity of the UNIX security model actually wins out, if that's their argument.

As for Microsoft's argument against Linux on the desktop, they contradict themselves once again. If NT is supposedly so much more complex, powerful, and well designed than Linux, why would the "complexity of the Linux operating system" inhibit Linux's acceptance on the desktop (assuming NT would be accepted :P).

I think whoever wrote this article worked very hard on the first section. Then they must have gotten sick of the task and simply dozed through the remainder. The article starts out with some nice facts and figures, and even a convincing argument or two, but then suddenly degrades into the same tired old dogma. A lot of it is entirely self-contradictory and quite disingenuous (but what do you expect?). As always, Microsoft only strives to convince the idiot. :P

All FUD?

Perhaps not, but this only serves to polarize people further. The Microsoft faithful will wave this around as proof of their beliefs and the Linux zealots will point to it as more proof that Microsoft is a nothing more than a hive of marketing droids who can lie better than they can write code...

And those, like me, on the sidelines will be pushed more to one side or the other. Even if we might otherwise lean towards the NT camp, I think many will be so embarrassed and saddened by this kind of brookmanship that we may now move the other way. FUD or not, this was a mistake on Microsoft's part. I will not be surprised if the web page dissapears sometime real soon.

Jack

What is the proper community response to these?

I'm sure this post is preceded by the usual trolls and flamers, so let's just ignore them.

I just finished reading the article and considered writing a point-by-point analysis. As Rob pointed out there are some good points and some bad points made. It shouldn't take much time to evaluate each claim and write a reasonable response. So should we?

The fact is we are starting to see more and more of these (hey, it's almost Halloween again, isn't it? (: ). Another fact is that some of these claims clearly are FUD. "Security on linux is an all-or-nothing proposition" (paraphrased from the document). Huh? Claims like this are flatly wrong, either intentionally or accidentally (should we expect everyone to know about sudo and groups?).

I believe that what linux truly needs is some sort of a PR "department". No not a fuddish (cool word) marketing department or bloodthirsty advocates for a particular distribution. Just a comprehensive document developed by a variety of people that addresses some of these common concerns and myths. Does such a document exist? Where?

-Scott

Foo!

I believe I speak for everybody here when I say that in the next 10 minutes the ultimate Mindcraft Redux will take place as tens of thousands of geeks simultaniously smash those NT servers and start requesting dynamic content by way of the /. effect.

Ah, the sweet irony.

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Re:at least two things are wrong

Since when do you put your swap file in RAM?

I can see that you've never looked at the NT source. You see, NT is actually a _lot_ better than Linux. More stable, more features, better all around. But it has a unique design feature. Main memory is on the disk, and it swaps to RAM. I'm not really sure _why_ this is done, but most of the times when NT crashes it's because of bad sectors on the disk and other shoddy hw manufacturing.

Why, if MS would put main memory in RAM, it'd smoke Linux's ass. It's unlikely to happen though, because MS firmly believes that it's a feature, not a bug.

;)

2 gig file limits suck

I'd be ecstatic if Linux could just do 4 gigs natively. 2 gigs only store 5 minutes of YUV 4:2:0 video. For 29.97fps you can only fit 2 minutes in a file and it takes just as long to delete. Why wasn't ext2 designed with 64 bits? You need to perform file deletions as batch jobs they take so long.

at least two things are wrong

I will only comment on two items that are simply wrong (at least _I_ think they are. Please correct me if I should have mistaken something):

The Linux SWAP file is limited to 128 MB RAM. In addition, Linux does not support many of the modern operating system features that Windows NT 4.0 has pioneered such as asynchronous I/O...

The 128 MB limit is long gone away, and IIRC ext2 is asynchronous by default.

Linux security is all-or-nothing. Administrators cannot delegate administrative privileges: a user who needs any administrative capability must be made a full administrator, which compromises best security practices. In contrast, Windows NT allows an administrator to delegate privileges at an exceptionally fine-grained level.

Someone please tell them about sudo!

They do however have a valid point on Journaling FS and fine grained kernel locks which are both in development. I won't even start talking about performance/stability and user friendlyness :)
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They do have one really good point...

The lack of a journaling filesystem for Linux is a real problem. Honestly, this lack is the only thing keeping me from deploying this thing as a server where I work. We're all pretty jacked about Linux, on the whole, but we only use it for DNS services at the moment.

Why? Simply because I have lost data from several Linux machines due to power failures.

Linux is highly reliable, but ext2 is fragile as hell. The last time I complained about this, someone said, "Well, gee, I've never lost a byte of data, I just used [some disk utility] and restored the 16th copy of the superblock and all was well. You must be a moron."

Apparently that was a valid criticism from his standpoint, but I have only a vague understanding of the layout of an ext2 partition, and I don't think I should be forced to learn it as an emergency data-recovery measure. I'm pretty geeky, but I'm not THAT geeky, and I don't think I'm ever likely to be, either. I'm interested in using the system to do fun stuff, not mucking about with the actual physical layout of the filesystem. (!)

NT, while it bluescreens and behaves mysteriously a lot more often than I would like, doesn't lose data when it crashes, except possibly the very last bit that was being saved. In my opinion, this strength makes up for many of its other failings. It may not be the most reliable OS in the world. It has horrible security. Administration takes way too much time. It's a tool that Microsoft uses to try to own everything in my life. But by god, it doesn't lose data from simple stuff like power failures.

Every OS has good points, and I think Microsoft really nailed it with two of NT's features: NTFS and their ACL system. I really like both. If I could have ACLs and a real journaling filesystem under Linux, without having to spend more than a day or two setting it up, I'd be very happy to deploy it all over my office.

I don't LIKE NT much... but I trust its filesystem.

haloween documents?

The haloween documents (granted, just a study, not company policy) implied that FUD tactics wouldn't work against free software.

Halloween I, quote #4 [opensource.org].

I guess that's not the official line?

Re:MicroFUD

This is the exact sort of propaganda Microsoft needs to promote to keep there O/S "ahead" of the game. That is, until the public finds out exactly how full of it they are :)

I'm curious - why aren't any of the big-name Linux companies (Red Hat, I'm looking in your direction) spreading their own version of FUD back at Microsoft?

Think of it like this: Some small company is looking to network their machines. They've heard of NT, they've heard of Red Hat, but they don't really know the difference other than who's made which. Now, anyone can just go to M$'s site and find that document and say "Gee, Linux has got some problems...hmm, I wonder what they'll say is wrong with NT." Now, I just went to Red Hat's site, and I didn't find a damn thing about why Linux is better than NT. So why, faced with 5 "facts" as to what's wrong with Linux, vs. apparently nothing wrong with NT, would some new purchaser go with Linux?

I don't like M$'s lies any more than the rest of you, but I think we need to keep in mind that if you don't counter the FUD with something (and something very public and noticeable), then the public isn't going to "find out exactly how full of it they are."

Countering FUD - what have we done wrong

After repeatedly seeing on Slashdot news about FUD from MS, and a lot of enthusiastic reply from our community, I felt that something has gone slightly wrong with us - I feel that we are not countering FUDs effectively. The followings are my thoughts.

1. Audience
-----------
How many times have you read an article or a reply on Slashdot and thought, "damn, wouldn't it be nice if it were on CNet / Yahoo / Wired"? While Slashdot has gained some attention of the general public, get real - by posting a reply on Slashdot, we are only talking to ourselves. It does NOT help counter the effects of the FUD and MS knows very well that they have better FUD targets than us.

Spread the words to where it counts. e.g. Friends on your icq lists. Co-workers. Your boss. Anyone savvy enough to know about computers but not enough to distinguish facts and FUDs. Suggested action: get some words on redhat.com, linux.com, and maybe wired and yahoo. These are the sites where the curious or the helpless FUD targets are.

2. Reader-friendliness
----------------------
As an extension of the above point, our counters are too unfriendly to our audience (or helpless-FUD-target-IT-managers). Look at the jargons. "FUD" itself is a good one. And the long, way-too-technical counters.

Can't we summarize our points into some short, precise, easy-to-read sentences just like MS carefully does? Short does not necessarily mean vague, and with an open effort, we CAN out-FUD the FUDs. (Yes! It may be surprising, but the effect of FUD *can* be generated even with true statements!)

3. Professionalism
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How many of us have read the advocacy-HOWTO?
I've see far too much zealotry, foul languages, etc. on our anti-FUD replies. While the intention is adorable, an incorrect implementation may result in counter-effect.

MS's FUD technology is lightyears ahead of ours. Study the article. Count the number of formal sentences that they use. Count the number of euphamisms. Realize the inexistence of any bluntant, rude rebuttal to Linux (yes, euphamisms again). We have a lot to learn.

4. Effort
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How powerful are many small, personal voices from /. readers to capture the minds of the helpless-FUD-targets? From an outsider's point of view we look like nothing but a whining mob.

Is it possible for us to start an open advocacy/anti-FUD group to gather ideas, make counter-benchmark benchmarks, and make our voices known? How about making some public poll on "the number of crashes you have in NT in a week" vs. that of Linux, and make it a news on Wired?

Facts that are trivial to us may not be so to the helpless-FUD-targets. We must find some good ways to get our messages onto the other side.

Just my $2%

Re:Microsoft's support??

If my memory serves, Red Hat's support is way cheaper then Microsoft's for NT. Wasn't Microsoft charging something like $ 195 per incident?

I'd say that has to be factored into the calculations all right.

D

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The popular analysis

1. First they ignore you.
2. Then they laugh at you.
3. Then they fight you.
4. Then you win.

We seem to be at step #3 now. Microsoft must be pretty scared at this point.

Re:Assuming MS is right...

Can you imaging someone, who has Never used a computer before, try using Linux??

People forget what it was like to use a computer in the old days. KSR 33's. Cleaning the oil off the high speed tape reader left by previous nitwit user. Keying in bootstrap loaders from switch register. Clearing jammed punch cards from reader and retyping same. IBM JCL.

I think anyone not stuck with a subnormal IQ can learn how to use any modern computer.

http://enlightenment.org/rant.html

the other site I put that on (my normal site) doesn't have too much bandwidth (the machine is just fine however) so I mirrored my rant on enlightenment.org

see http://enlightenment.org/rant.html
--
Geoff Harrison (http://mandrake.net)
Senior Software Engineer - VA Linux Labs (http://www.valinux.com)

They do make some good points.... sorta

Really, folks, they DO make some good points. Stories of better security and reliability are pretty much anectdotal. It's one of those things that's taken as truth among the faithful, but if there's a good way to measure these things, I've yet to see it.

To be sure, for MS to claim better reliability on NT would be equally disingenuous and unproven. But more to the point: repeating the claims that "Linux is more secure" or "Linux is more reliable" without proof will eventually cease to be effective. MS has already managed to portray NT as being as fast or faster than Linux; claims that Linux is faster don't impress people anymore.

Rather than beating the "more reliable; more secure" drum, advocates should emphasize Linux's proven and unambiguous advantages. For example, you can install Linux without a GUI if you want to. There's no way to FUD that. Another example: the Unix file system tree is far more flexible than drive letter mappings. (No matter how much money Microsoft has, they can't add letters to the alphabet.) Text-based log files score another big win for Linux in my book, and troubleshooting is generally easier in Linux.

Concentrate on quantifiable differences; speed, reliability, and security are the kinds of things that a good PR machine can easily turn to their advantage.