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Microsoft

O'Reilly Sez Ask Craig Mundie 201

Posted by Hemos from the talking-with-the-man dept.
There's a news article up at O'Reilly that hypes their upcoming Open Source Convention and also sets up a forum to submit questions to potentially be asked to Mundie when he gives a keynote at the convention. Should be an interesting, perhaps vitriol-filled morning there.
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O'Reilly Sez Ask Craig Mundie More

O'Reilly Sez Ask Craig Mundie

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  • Re:So... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Answer 1.
    .Net is like smoking lots of pot while snorting Classic coke from a Playboy model's clitoris while mainlining to the mainframe while being sucked off by everyone you ever looked at while listening to all of the Velvet Underground, Bill Hicks, Kraftwerk, KLF, Radiohead & Yello jamming while completing the original Jet Set Willy & Jet Set Radio while walking in space while knowing everything that ever happened or will happen simultaneously while playing Civ, but with a real planet. In your toilet. Twice.

    Answer 2.
    To draw an analogy,
    Open Source is like this - %
    Free Software is like this - ^
    Linux is like this - *
    GPL is like this - ! [goatse.cx]
    Hope that clears it up.

    Answer 3.
    You're thinking of Craig Shergold. Or Clint Eastwood. Or maybe Clint Mansell. Or Colin Powell. Or maybe the man page for Tom Cruise. Or Captain Hemos. Or Skullkid. Or Shueboy. Or Cyborg Monkee. Or Bojay. Or Spork. Or Bismallah. Or the registry entry for HKEY\Longpig.
    Choose Liff.

  • dumbass (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Why are you asking here?

  • Serious Question for Mundie (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Do you get sick of listening to linux bitches raking you over the coals when they themselves can't seem to run a lemonade stand profitably?

    Do you get pissed off at the fact that these very same linux bitches who never let up actually use Microsoft products most of the time and actually use IE to pen half of their anti-MS rants?

  • Re:Question: what about the BSD License (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Berkeley TCP/IP was a government funded project intended to benefit the computer industry as a whole by providing a standard protocol reference.

    Trying to associate the TCP/IP developers with the "OSS" types such as Alan Cox or Eric Raymond is silly. At no time did the Berkeley developers have any doubt that their work would be used by commercial companies - in fact that's exactly what they wanted. The lead programmer, Bill Joy, even went off and started his own "The Network Is The Computer" company and became very, very rich largely from his "OSS" work at Berkeley.

  • Re:Question: what about the BSD License (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    MS has already used BSD software. Most of the network command line utilities and much of the internal networking is based on BSD.

    Several people have run strings on the ftp command and it reveals the BSD copyright. You should work that into your question since it points out that MS has benefitd from OSS.
  • When large groups of Microsoft employees at pep rallies chant, "Microsoft, kill them!", who is 'them'? Is there a defined 'them' that, once killed, will make this attitude unnecessary, or does 'them' expand with Microsoft's own growth?
  • Not so fast- we already know that clown gets heavy coverage everytime he says anything. Maybe the idea is for the heavy coverage to include stuff like "Mundie was greeted with a barrage of boos and catcalls, and when he completed his keynote he was met with stony silence- and then a pie in the face, and the room erupted with laughter".

    At the very least, it means being able to have instant rebuttal to whatever he says, instead of having to wait a few days :)

    And most of all- how many times can you get a Microsoft guy to cause 'open source' to be mentioned in the news? Apparently quite a few times... apparently he can be made to keep those words in the news day after day as Microsoft's sketchy reputation continues to slooooowly erode...

  • heh, Irony list..

    1) Microsoft does use Open Source yet they call it a cancer.
    explanation: Misunderstanding of what Open Source defines, however it is the same misunderstanding that most people have. Thank ESR. But even from RMS's comments one isn't too sure if Open Source is a subset of Free Software, or vice versa.

    2) Microsoft get their message out riding on Open Source waves.
    caveat: Open Source gets their message out riding on Microsoft's waves. This is a classic brawl that attracts much publicity and media for both sides. As with most debates, not one will win with a sound bite. Nor will anyone be able to trump with the name calling and self aggrandizing that goes on with Slashdot. In fact, it most likely going to be a cool, corporate version of a political debate. Plenty of light hearted laughter mingled with frontal assaults and slippery linguistic undermining.

    3) Microsoft has a good point about the GPL.
    explanation: A truely cunning "good point" is agreed to by both sides, yet interpreted very different by both sides. Their good point is one of those, and I'll go further in depth.

    "Using Open Source will make you have to release all your Intelectual property," they say. "Good point" some say, because to them use means "use the code". However on the other side, they see Open Source portrayed licking its perverbial lips, with a napkin around their neck and a fork and knife in both hands like Wile E. Coyote watching the road runner pass by. Use means the same thing as "Using Microsoft Office 2000, a tutorial for dummies" And this restriction is obsurd and unfair. This brings us to the last point of Irony...

    4) Microsoft wants freedom, the GPL is too restrictive.
    caveat: Freedom is gained through sharing or by taking it from others. In some metaphysical sence, one can twist freedom to mean the right to restrict others freedom. After all, freedom means ability to act, and that is an action. But as a recurcive programer knows, you don't survive long when you refer to yourself by destroying yourself.

    Conclusion:

    Now Microsoft has been guilty of many things in the past. So far their battles have been corporate, and we all know that in such a dogfight we expect to see some bloody combat. Some may even excuse them of their crimes for the nature of the conflict, their enemies were no more ethical than they were. But now they are picking on something more rooted in the freedoms that we desire for ourselves. The freedom to create our own lifestyle and the pursuit of our own happiness.

    They looked like they would do this for years, and now they are. And those who haven't learned the meaning of their freedom or its value will be like the one guy in the Matrix, seduced back to a world where freedom is a piece of wool being pulled over their eyes.

    So, no they do not have a good point, not through Open Source or other eyes.


    ~^~~^~^^~~^
  • Not only that, but there's no way a round manhole cover will fall _into_ the hole by accident (or with a little help, hehe).

    --

  • What is O'Reilly thinking? Why should people attending an Open Source conference spend time listen to Microsoft? Get Open Source developers to be educated by Microsoft, or the other way around?

    Everything that needs to be said has been said. Can there be anything new from Microsoft?

    O'Reilly may as well get Bill Gates in there to re-issue his Open Letter to Hobbyists, to the Open Source hobbyists.
  • The "success" of proprietary software business model

    Question for Mundie,

    You claim that the proprietary software business model is a successful business model that creates innovation and wealth. If that's the case, how can you explain that there are no viable competitors to Microsoft in the major software categories, i.e., office suites and operating systems, that follow the same business model? How come the number one threat to Microsoft, as state by the Microsoft CEO, is Linux, a freely distributed piece of software developed by non-profit community volunteers? How can the main beneficiary of this business model be just one company, Microsoft?

    Don't you think this business model imposes significant cost in society, which concentrates wealth in a few people, i.e., Bill Gates? How can this business model be successful if only few, not many, commercial enterprises enjoy its fruits?

    Isn't the proprietary software business model cancerous to the well-being of our society?

  • Under the .Net CLR, int is 32-bit and long is 64-bit.

    Just might want to keep that in mind. :)
  • As I recall, Rational or some similar company intends to offer Java compiler for the .Net platform.

    It's not Microsoft who is trying to kill Java, that privilege belongs to Sun who wishes to keep it proprietary at all costs.
  • Your absolutely right!

    "It's the economy stupid!"

    Microsoft fuels the economy, the GPL does not. :)
  • Consider this example:

    Microsoft sells GM 40,000 copies of Windows 2000 for several million dollars.

    Microsoft in turn takes this money and gives salaries to many of it's employees.

    Employees take money home and decide to buy Chevy Tahoe trucks.

    It's a big cylical thing, the economy.

    I realize that's overly simplistic, but it ought to help you on the path to enlightenment. :)

  • Ahh, but now you want to argue efficiency.

    What is more efficient, spending $1 million rolling your own software.

    Or buying it from someone else for $1,000.

    That's the problem with the Linux paradigm, it's a belief by some people that commercial software is evil and it is much better to write your own than succumb to their evilness.

    Again, the GPL does not cater towards efficiency, nor does it fuel the economic spending.

  • Re:What .NET is... (Score:3)

    by Jonathan ( 5011 ) on Friday June 08, 2001 @04:04PM (#165652) Homepage
    One place .NET shines over Java is that you are not forced to do all your development in Java but instead can use the right tool for the job

    But what if one of the right tools is Java? Forcing someone *not* use Java (as .NET does) is just as bad as forcing someone to always use it (which Java doesn't BTW -- long before MS "innovated" .NET, Java had JNI)
  • Have you ever looked at their developer materials? They are very good at documenting and encouraging you to use their extensions. Asking him if they plan to open up their proprietary extensions is kind of silly.
  • You don't need to have the original CD around to apply service packs, etc. Copy the source CD to your hard drive and install from that, or update the registry afterwards to point to wherever you've put the original files.
  • Microsoft fuels the economy, the GPL does not. :)

    In what way does Microsoft sucking $26 billion out of the pockets of comsumers and businesses each year fuel the economy? Given that the GPL allows these customers to get the same benefits in terms of productivity as Microsoft products do but without the costs, don't you think that fuels the econonmy? To put it more bluntly, imagine how 'fueled' the economy would be with an extra $26 billion in it doing real work instead of just building castles for Bill Gates. Oh, and how does rebooting twice a day fuel the economy?
    --

  • "If the source code is placed under a less restrictive license such as the BSD license where the code can be integrated into proprietary products such as Microsoft Windows, then the customer will be forced to pay the vendor of the proprietary software for something they have in fact already paid for when they paid their tax to the government."

    How many times do we have to go over this?

    Until you astroturfers understand it.

    Your taxes paid for the original software to be written, not whatever Microsoft writes. If you want their program over the free version that is still available from the government, then obviously Microsoft has ADDED VALUE to the software ... and thus you should pay for it.

    You *should* only pay you for the added value but Microsoft will make you pay for the whole thing, including the part you already paid for. Moreover, Microsoft will attempt to "add value" in such a way that you are forced to use only their modified version. In fact, such "added value" may consist of nothing more than a proprietary lock-in. What kind of value is that?

    The original poster was correct.
    --

  • With the GPL, you are ensuring that no profit will be made from taxpayer funded software.

    No, you are only ensuring that no profit will be made through secret modifications to taxpayer funded software.
    --

  • Microsoft sells GM 40,000 copies of Windows 2000 for several million dollars. Microsoft in turn takes this money and gives salaries to many of it's employees. Employees take money home and decide to buy Chevy Tahoe trucks.

    The same millions of dollars would have been spent better spent by companies operating efficiently, trying to do the best thing for their customers, instead of by Microsoft, which just spends it trying to defend its monopoly.

    It's a big cylical thing, the economy.

    Common misconception. Some people believe that an economy will expand by the mere act of having money circulate in it. Nope, sorry, if you believe that I have this here perpetual motion machine to sell you. An economy is fueled by efficiently carrying out the work that needs to be done and generates luxury as a dividend. The act of rebooting a computer does not fuel an economy, it drags it down, and paying a 10-times inflated price for the privilege drags it down further. That's money that Joe could have spent on a new truck ;-)

    Think of two countries, in all respects equal, but in one of them all businesses are monopolies, in the other, all businesses compete freely with each other. Both arrangements sound pretty good don't they? All the usual arguments we are used to hearing from you and other Microsoft employees apply to why monopoly-land should outperform competition-land, but guess what? History tells us that competition-land will win in the end. Yes, you know what I'm talking about, think about how America finally won the cold war.

    I realize that's overly simplistic, but it ought to help you on the path to enlightenment. :)

    Quit your job at microsoft and feel like a man again. :)
    --

  • Ahh, but now you want to argue efficiency. What is more efficient, spending $1 million rolling your own software. Or buying it from someone else for $1,000.

    Getting it for free.

    That's the problem with the Linux paradigm, it's a belief by some people that commercial software is evil and it is much better to write your own than succumb to their evilness.

    That's the problem with Microsoft astroturfers, 1) tell a lie 2) draw several conclusions from their own lie. Again, the GPL does not cater towards efficiency, nor does it fuel the economic spending.

    See? I knew you were going to do that. Why do you bother, haven't you learned yet that every time you FUD the open source movement you just create an opportunity for one of us to get up on the soapbox and tell the truth. This always backfires - the more you do it, the sooner you are going extinct. So, see, your best strategy is to sit down and shut up. Heh, especially on slashdot, where the only person you will impress is your boss, and that's only if he doesn't read *this* comment.
    --

  • Well, Apple didn't invent the WIMP itself. But they did invent pull-down menus, the file/folder file system viewer, and many other things which made the GUI workable.

    And above all, they sold it for a couple thousand bucks -- Most of Microsoft's innovations fall into that category too: Existing ideas refined for mass consumption and priced accordingly.

    Which is why MS's defense of "innovation" is so silly. Historically, their vision was "A personal computer on every desk and in every home" -- meaning they were commodizing technology for the everyman, ergo they were the cheapest vendor (and with the exception of open source and Office, they still are). This did them quite well until they felt they needed some intellectual argument against the government. I'd much rather have them point at the installed base of PCs in 2001 versus 1981 and their original mission statement than this BS innovation PR crap.

    But then again, when I hear the word innovation, I reach for my pistol.
    --
  • I hope someone videotapes or broadcasts this thing (realvideo please) so we can all enjoy the event! Hopefully oreilly will do it themselfs!

    Geoff
  • It looks to me (from some of the memos brought into evidence at the DOJ .vs. MicroSoft anti-trust suit) like Microsoft's employees are generally crude and impolite, as well as being fond of violent metaphors ("let's cut off their air supply" and "we're going to kill [insert competitor name here]"). Not that it's unusual for computer geeks to have poor social skills ;^).
    Mundie will probably be ready and willing to deal with the types of questions people are posting here (yes, I understand you're just venting, the real questions are on the O'Reilly site) so let's use a little akido on him and be nice.
    He'll come in all combative and we'll show the world how reasonable and well-spoken we are. You can't buy publicity like that. Well, OK, you can, but it's out of Tim O'Reilly's price range.
    --Charlie

    It's more effective to fight fire with water. Yes, I know this sounds weird coming from me, but consider it strategy.

  • Currently Corel's WordPerfect is the (more or less) standard office product for the Linux world, and I sort of wonder if Microsoft would be willing to challange that dominance, and perhaps gain a (little) bit of good will from a community that it has otherwise sorely alienated (to say the least).

    I think that'd be a no-win situation for Microsoft. On the one hand, if Microsoft doesn't port Office (ie, the status quo), they're blamed for tightly integrating it into the OS, and using their OS muscle to move Office units (neither of which are true, as witnessed by the fact that Office runs natively on the Macintosh, and runs well, and sells well even though Microsoft doesn't own the Mac). On the other hand, if Microsoft does port Office, they'll get called down for "trying to expand their monopoly". Not to mention not being able to recoup their developement costs due to the fact that lots and lots of Linux users are of the mind that everything for Linux should be free (wouldn't surprise me if some thought the hardware should be free as well) (note that's free, not Free, which is another can of worms, and I'll leave that for some other time).

    That said, Microsoft's spokespeople have said more than a few times that whether or not they port applications to other platforms is a function of the demand for that application (coupled with profit potential, obviously, but that's why they're a business and not a non-profit organization). If you really want to see Office on Linux, start a letter-writing campaign. Rally everybody you possibly can, give them a well-written form letter expressing the desire to see Office on Linux and the willingness to pay reasonable prices, and bury Redmond under a deluge of requests to see Office/IE/Money/whatever on Linux. I'm sure you'll see some results.

  • Stuff released under GPL is NOT public domain.

    Right; and stuff released into the public domain is not GPL (though derivatives can be).

  • What I'd ask (Score:3)

    by Lumpish Scholar ( 17107 ) on Friday June 08, 2001 @10:51AM (#165679) Homepage Journal
    Mr. Mundy, you talked about how horrible it would be if software whose development was funded by the U.S. govenment was "Open Source" (presumably GPL'ed). Such software is always public domain, which means there are no restrictions on how Microsoft or anyone else can use it.

    Were you just being disingenuous, or did you actually have a point?

    (I'd have posted this to ora.com, but it wouldn't accept a request from behind a proxy server.)-:
  • 11) What is the code to get 30 lives in Contra?

    --

  • Unsigned or signed?

    [ignore this text, it's to override the moronic "lameness filter]

    --

  • 20. WebTV.

    Microsoft bought that.

    --

  • Smart tags, wheel/optical mouse, modularizing the web browser engine as just another system component, intelligent menus or whatever they're called, SOAP/UDDI. Well, that was easy.

    Smart tags--what about XML/XSLT?

    Wheel/optical mouse: I know a guy who came up with the wheel mouse back in late 80s and I beleive he even filed a patent application (I don't know if it was awarded or not...maybe patents.ibm.com could come up with the answer to that?). He wanted to sue Microsoft, but couldn't get the money for a lawyer

    Optical mouse: I remember optical mice as early as about 1986 .... they required a special reflective mouse pad and were much more expensive than traditional mice but they were there!!!

    Intelligent menus are also nothing new.

    I don't know what SOAP/UDDI is, so I won't answer that one. :)

  • Having the webbrowser as an OS component isnt always a good thing

    Not a good thing? KHTML is cool, IMHO. It allows many KDE programs to view Web pages right inside their program. This is good.

    OF course, if you run Linux you don't have to have KDE, and therefore you don't have to have KHTML. I can't say the same thing for Windows. If I have Windows, I'm pretty much stuck with Internet Exploiter.

  • Frankly I'm not all that interested in what Mr. Mundie or anyone else at Microsoft does. I'm going to keep on using Linux when it's the appropriate tool for the job and keep on coding on my humble pet projects [abelsson.com]. Nothing what Microsoft or anyone else does changes that for me. Do i care if linux has a 5% or a 25% market share? Not really.. Free software has existed for a long time, and will continue to exist long after microsoft is gone. I use windows occationally - for the tasks it's better at than linux. I'm not a religious free software fanatic, i just use it because it's better.

    A large part of why free software is "better" is because i *know* i can fix things that annoy me. Case point: i thought XMMs playlist handling sucked for a playlist of a few thousand songs, so i implemented playlist filtering (start typing in the playlist area and it filters out all songs that doesnt match). The XMMS maintainers weren't interested in accepting the patch, because it broke the keyboard shortcuts in the playlist. That's fine with me, they wrote it and can accept or reject patches as they please - but i never use those shortcuts so i didn't care about breaking them.

    End result: I'm running a version of XMMS that works the way *I* want, and the maintainers are distributing a version they like. *That* is the power of free software. (and if you happen to be interested in the playlist filtering patch, just mail me)

    -henrik

  • Shh! (Score:3)

    by RebornData ( 25811 ) on Friday June 08, 2001 @01:15PM (#165687)
    What do you think you're doing? It can only be a good thing of the knee-jerk, mindless flames / trolls masquerading as questions get posted here, rather than in the other forum where they might actually be submitted. Do we really want the questions of people too clueless even to read the /. blurb before posting to go there?
  • While Closed source apps for Open Source OS's is a nice idea, and a viable buisness model, there is a proviso:

    It only works, if your product is worth someone paying good money for.

    In the case of MS, they definately make products that are considered the de-facto standard. You'd think this would encourage them to make it available on other platforms, however their dominance of the platform AND the app market ("Office Suites") translates into complete control of the industry.

    If they released Office for Linux (or BSD) then they wouldn't have the same "tightly integrated development relationship" with the OS developers. They would be forced to compete with others on a much more equal playing field. Plus, I'm not sure if even WINE could make Office compile on Linux, since so many of the "standard" DLLs are incorporated within the product (note that I'm not talking about running MS apps with the DLLs available, but rather compiling a Linux native version of the app).

    Lastly, they wouldn't be able to force the upgrade cycle as much, since you could always upgrade the OS, without necessarily upgrading the Office Suite, and vice-versa. That alone is reason it will probably never happen.
  • Whatever else your feelings, the potential of debate and discusion from those Keynote speeches and that panel should be enough to draw a decent size crowd. That should sell conferance tickets/media/etc.

    Should make O'reily a few dollars (not that I wouldn't go if I could ::grin::)

  • Not a good thing? KHTML is cool, IMHO. It allows many KDE programs to view Web pages right inside their program. This is good.

    Yes, it is good. But you missed the whole point of the earlier statement. KHTML is not a part of the OS any more than X or Qt or KDE itself. Now, you can argue that one can uninstall IE and therefore it's not a part of the OS, but that's not a debate to have here (and IIRC, such a demonstration didn't work out too well during the anti-trust trial).

    And I'm posting this from Mozilla on Windows, not IE, so I do have a choice there.

    -sugarescent

  • Is Microsoft gonna GPL Windows? (Score:3)

    by SpinyNorman ( 33776 ) on Friday June 08, 2001 @11:19AM (#165701)
    Mr. Mundie, given that Microsoft is so fearful of the GPL yet has the option of maintaining it's own "shared source" business model, does this mean that:

    a) Microsoft is considering GPLing Windows, but is worried about the outcome

    OR

    b) Microsoft realizes it is being out-competed by GPL'd software

    P.S. Which swear word does Bill Gates most commonly use when referring to Linux?
  • If all you say is true then why is MS badmouthing OSS. Looks like companies can make billions from OSS.
  • SOAP is a collaboration between Dave Winer (userland), MS, IBM and I think Sun. Figures a ms astro turfer would credit MS solely though. That Zico is a hoot.
  • NONE of the things you stated were invented by MS no matter how you define the term invent or innovate. Are you seriously claiming that the optical mouse was invented by MS? That SOAP was an MS protocol? Get real willya.
  • From revelation chapter 13

    16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
    17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
    18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.

    Does this sound like hailstorm to you?
  • Right. Because the people at microsoft are so absolutely honest (have you ever heard even one MS employee lie?) that they would never remove comments from code and they would always absolutely honor the wishes of people they took code from.
  • The OSS is a license spec. It says nothing about how something is developed only about how something can be distributed.
  • Really? I can't remember now, but for year's I've been remembering the line as if it were spoken in the Inigo's voice. Hrm... here we go, IMDB [imdb.com] to the rescue:
    [Vizzini has just cut the rope The Dread Pirate Roberts is climbing up]

    Vizzini: HE DIDN'T FALL? INCONCEIVABLE!

    Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

    In any case, I'm gonna be quoting that movie to myself all weekend now. Too bad I don't have a copy of it.

    Prince Mundie: Surrender!

    Slashdot: You mean you wish to surrender to me? Very well, I accept.

    Heh heh heh...

  • WILL YOU PEOPLE PLEASE STOP USING THE WORD INNOVATE?!?!

    Every time Ballmer opens his damn mouth, every other word seems to be "innovate". The more he says it, the less I believe it. If he was so busy innovating, where does he find the time to draw attention to it so much?

    It reminds me of so many things, none flattering.

    • It reminds me of the movie "Princess Bride", in which the Spaniard quizzically points out the the Sicilian "you keep using that word -- I don't think it means what you think it means...".
    • It also reminds me of the movie "What About Bob", in which Bill Murray tries babie steps therapy: "Baby steps gettin' out of the chair, baby steps walking across the room, baby steps opening up the door, baby steps walkin' through the door, baby steps closin' the door..." ad nauseam.
    • Closer to home, it reminds me of Philip Morris' recent PR campaign, in which they make sure that the audience knows how many millions they're spending on public service campaigns. What they don't mention in those ads is that they're spending about ten times more money on the ad campaign than on the actual charitable services that they claim to put so much emphasis on. What's more important to them? Actually helping out, or giving the appearance of helping out, such that they might throw off some of the lawsuits against them? I know I'm suspicious.

    And so it is with Microsoft's "innovation" campaign. It just seems like you're more "laterally" innovative than anything else. You embrace open source, kinda, but in a way that carefully distances you from the whole "open" part of the equation, thus defeating the whole point.

    For a huge, powerful company, there are a lot of ways to go about things, as you well know. For the /. crowd, true innovation could nicely start with really & honestly opening up your source code, but I doubt you'll ever relinquish that much control over what you have worked so hard for, and I won't begrudge you for that. And I do realize that there's a marketing role to be played, and that the perception of being an innovator can be just as useful -- and much cheaper -- than actually being one. Maybe there is something to be said for putting all your efforts into such "lateral" innovations -- getting people to think you're pushing the frontiers, and giving the public enough (profitable!) little shiny chrome frills [slashdot.org] and vaporware [slashdot.org] for the claim to be at least plausible, while not actually providing anything that is truly, fundamentally new.

    But could I suggest trying to meet halfway here? Is it not the case that Microsoft earns more from support contracts than actual product licenses? (I don't know, this is just my impression, but I'd be interested in more concrete information). Do you *really* think people can be talked into going to a subscription model, benefits be damned, if it's going to mean having to pay a software bill every month? I think there's a lot to be said for it (I like Windows Update, Mac OSX's Software Update, and Debian's apt-get features, and these are all embryonic versions of the same idea), but I also think that people will strongly resist the idea of having to pay a recurring fee for something that they were allowed to use outright & in perpetuity in the past.

    If you're going to plow ahead with this "innovation", can we at least ask for someting in return? I think I could actually deal with having to subscribe to a .NET system that allowed me to look at & modify the code I was receiving. Allowing others to share & modify it as well would be even better -- that's why they call it open & free software -- but if you at least agreed to publicize what it is that you're trying to get people to do, you might encounter a bit less resistance than you're begging for now. As it is, you're just singling out this particular demographic of clued up, tech savvy devlopers and saying we want nothing to do with your or your freaky hippie ways. The resulting "yeah well fuck you too" should come as little surprise. Maybe a truce can be reached? I'd be happy to see it, but the ball is in your court...

  • And I just want to say -- why not?

    One need not love the GPL or Linux to appreciate and advocate open source or free software.

  • Re:Wow, Smart move by Tim (Score:3)

    by Zigg ( 64962 ) on Friday June 08, 2001 @11:22AM (#165720)

    Tim seems to have a knack for calling controversial folk to the mat. Remember Bezos and one-click?

  • Does anyone else find it quite odd that Mundie is giving a speech at an Open Source conference? It seems to me that's like having Louis Farrakhan as the keynote speaker for a conference on Judiasm.

    Still, I suppose they'll get some good press out of it. Hopefully they'll be able to show the PHBs why putting up with a company that rapes you with forced upgrades isn't necessary or wise.

  • Governments (Score:4)

    by AirLace ( 86148 ) on Friday June 08, 2001 @11:15AM (#165730)
    You said in one of your previous speeches that Microsoft is opposed to governments releasing source code under the GNU GPL Free Software license. I beg to differ.

    Surely if the government has been funded by the taxpayer to develop this software, then it should be placed under a license that requires that it remains free to the funders? If the source code is placed under a less restrictive license such as the BSD license where the code can be integrated into proprietary products such as Microsoft Windows, then the customer will be forced to pay the vendor of the proprietary software for something they have in fact already paid for when they paid their tax to the government. Do you think that this secondary "Microsoft tax" is fair on customers?
  • Someone please mod this down - it's got a goatsex link.

    --
  • So Mr. Mundie...

    ... what are your super powers?

    "I may not have morals, but I have standards."

  • Re:What .NET is... (Score:4)

    by blakestah ( 91866 ) <blakestah@gmail.com> on Friday June 08, 2001 @12:34PM (#165733) Homepage
    Come on, don't spew the company line. Talk in plain English.

    .NET is several things to Microsoft. First and foremost it is intended to kill Java and any other competition for internet based apps. Secondly, it is designed to interoperate with Microsoft's new revenue model in which each person pays $100 each year for the privilege of using Office, and varying amounts for other Microsoft apps. Thirdly, it is meant to give Microsoft a stranglehold on all internet based communications. .NET will require Microsoft name resolution, Microsoft SMTP, and just about anything else from Microsoft as well. The internet will be a COMPLETELY different world if you are running Windows than if you are not.

    In short, with .NET Microsoft hopes to do to the internet what they did to the desktop in the early and mid 90s - own it and leverage it. It will promise benefits to the consumer but provide none.

  • Mr Mundie (Score:5)

    by 4of12 ( 97621 ) on Friday June 08, 2001 @10:59AM (#165734) Homepage Journal

    Sir:

    Much controversy has surrounded Microsoft's Shared Source initiative, particularly given the differences between the licensing terms that apply to MS Shared Source and the licensing terms that apply according to the GNU Public License.

    Hypothetically, suppose I am a programmer with MS Shared Source in front of me on one hand, and a different GPL source in front of me on the other hand.

    Suppose, further, that in both cases I have a brilliant idea, an idea that will substantially increase the feature set, reduce bugs, and increase performance.

    For both application programs, each under its own license, describe exactly

    1. the costs (money, time, opportunity)
    2. the benefits (same)
    that would pertain to each of three important parties
    1. myself, the programmer
    2. Microsoft corporation
    3. everyone else (public users, other companies, other programmers, etc.)
    both in the short term and in the long term if I were to improve the code for the respective application program.

    I would most appreciate a ranking of those costs and benefits.

  • That's not entirely true. For example, a 2'x2' square cannot fall into a 2' diameter circular hole. Why do people always thing the lid has to be the same shape/size as the hole? Even manhole covers are slightly larger than the holes (though they are the same shape).

    It is the cheapest shape with that property.

  • Actually, even the last statement isn't true, as the cover doesn't necessarily have to be the same thikness, so it could be just as cheap to make the square cover. This depends on whether or not manhole covers are so weighty so that they can stand the cars on top of them, or so they are harder for a lay person to pop off. If it's the first, then it probably is the economics of it.

    Otherwise, the round cover is arguably more useful because you can open it in any direction (after rotating the pivot point), and it's marginally easier to close (you don't have to get position and rotation correct). But it's probably more of a case of "round hole, round cover" logic that isn't actually a good reason why, just the reason why.

  • "Java is write once, run anywhere. This is a major advantage if you are running lots of client Java code on varying platforms. But since most Java development is server based then the fact that a program is WORA loses its charm"

    Ummm ... you don't develop server code, do you? You have this backwards. And I say this as a professional server-side Java developer.

    Client code is precisely where WORA is irrelevant, because Windows might as well be the only game in town. This is one of the big reasons why Java hasn't exactly taken the desktop by storm -- any sensible person, even a Java fan like myself, will tell you that Java has a number of disadvantages (primarily WRT to the GUI), and the ability to move to non-Windows platforms doesn't generally hold enough attraction to outweigh the disadvantages.

    The situation is completely different on the server, where there are tons of different architectures (Solaris, Linux, BSD, Win NT & 2000, AIX, etc.), and clients don't like having to buy and support new servers just to run your software.

    So if you want to deal with an AIX shop, you either write highly portable Unix code (a chore in itself) and rule out the Windows/etc. market, or you write Java code. A lot of people have been taking the latter option (and of course on a server there is no concern about Java's poor GUI performance). Java absolutely kicks ass on the server precisely because of its portability.

  • Re:What .NET is... (Score:4)

    by Carnage4Life ( 106069 ) on Friday June 08, 2001 @11:15AM (#165741) Homepage Journal
    In other words, java - without the advantages of java.

    Depends on what you mean by the "advantages of Java". The primary advantages of Java are a.) ease of development and b.) cross platform support.
    1. C# is primarily a Java based language that fixes a couple of things Java got wrong (there is now a const keyword, there are out parameters, there is a foreach construct, there are enums, etc) and also has some annoying holdovers from C++ (what's the deal with the virtual keyword?).

      For ease of development I'd rank them about equal. If the development is Windows based then C# beats the pants off of Java since it has access to certain APIs directly instead of having to go through JNI as would be done in Java.

    2. Java is write once, run anywhere. This is a major advantage if you are running lots of client Java code on varying platforms. But since most Java development is server based then the fact that a program is WORA loses its charm. Secondly most Java communication between various platforms is done via RPC mechanisms (CORBA or RMI) and .NET supports an XML based RPC format called SOAP [develop.com] which is as cross platform as you can get since all the other platform needs is an HTTP server.

    One place .NET shines over Java is that you are not forced to do all your development in Java but instead can use the right tool for the job in different parts of your project and combine them seemlessly. Utilizing Perl classes from VB or inheriting from C# classes in C++ is very attractive and extremely cool.

    --

  • What .NET is... (Score:5)

    by Carnage4Life ( 106069 ) on Friday June 08, 2001 @10:54AM (#165742) Homepage Journal
    What, exactly, is .Net?

    Developer View:
    .NET is the next generation of Microsoft's component technologies (COM, COM+, DCOM) which incorporates lessons learned from Java. COM is a technology that allows you to interact with components written in different languages transparently and is descended from OLE (Object Linking and Embedding which is the technology that was developed to allow being able to drag an Excel spreadsheet into a Word document) and . The languages that support COM are the Visual Studio languages as well as Object Pascal (Delphi). COM has its own binary format and while works almost transparently from Javascript, VB, and VBScript is a bitch to work with from C++. DCOM is the same as COM but it adds being able to do RPC (remote method invokation for the Java heads) from components irrespective of what language they are written in, kinda like CORBA without the ORBs.

    .NET simplifies this by having a Common Language Runtime which is analogous to the Java JVM. COMable languages simply compile to the CLR format instead of to assembly code or a weird binary format. So this should lead to the best of both worlds by giving you all the functionality you have come to expect from the Java platform with the added benefit of using languages other than Java (C++, C#, VB, Javascript, VBScript, Perl and a few others) and transparently interact with objects written in these languages. Because all .NET languages have access to the CLR they can utilize it to extend themselves, e.g. Visual C++ has "managed extensions" that allows for garbage collection via the CLR.

    The major goal is then to use this technology to build XML based web services.

    Marketting View:
    Microsoft .NET is Microsoft's XML Web services platform. This is the next generation of Internet computing, using XML to communicate among loosely coupled XML Web services that are collaborating to perform a particular task. Microsoft's .NET strategy delivers a software platform to build new .NET experiences, a programming model and tools to build and integrate XML Web services, and a set of programmable Web interfaces. [microsoft.com]

    PS: Please do not take this as some official MSFT response, I'm merely an intern and in fact this is a reprint of a post [slashdot.org] I made before I got to Redmond.

    --
  • That which some claim is, in fact, true. Microsoft is wholly wiiling use and admit to using the BSD stack. This shows that they certainly will reuse code that they can legally reuse. But BSD code is free, just like the GPL is free. Then observe that they object to "open-source" pretending that it is GPL and hence "viral". In other words, they have no objection to re-using code that they can reuse, but object when they must share it back.

  • What rubbish speaketh you, Anonymous Coward.
  • Oh yes, they do use the BSD TCP/IP stack. Why don't you try running "strings" on the Windows kernel?
  • Well, so you know that it is all based on previous work, but you claim that it is innovative.

    Are you saying that that "whining" makes it all wrong but you saying it (i.e. not whining - by your own perceptions) is thus true.

    You would sound more sensible if you were not so self-contradictory.

  • No, a truly misguided view of innovation would be try to twist the definition of the very word to fit whatever it is that MS is doing.

    A true defender of MS would actually learn to choose the arguments that they can win. They can do this many ways, but the area of "innovation" is not one of them.

  • On Sun, we have long long :)
  • In my job, I work with both NT and *nix servers, so the ability to WORA is vital, and I can vouch for the fact that java lives up to its promise in this area.

    Also, using java, you're not tied to one company - yeah, Sun sets most of the standards (currently), but IBM, Borland, Apache and many other organisations are also involved.

    As for SOAP, java can support that as well. I don't think SOAP is the be-all and end-all though, because it is designed to work over http and pass through firewalls. I can't see too many secure sites will be rushing to use it.

    Granted, C# sounds very interesting but it seems waaaaay too Microsoft centric for my liking.

  • SOAP is a way of calling remote procedures using XML. Microsoft weren't the first with this - I believe Userland's XML/RPC predates it somewhat.

    UDDI is Universal Description, Discovery and Integration. It uses XML to create 'a kind of yellow pages for businesses', and it's actually derived from a collaboration between Ariba, IBM, Microsoft, and 33 other companies.

    So there !

  • Re:What .NET is... (Score:4)

    by Salsaman ( 141471 ) on Friday June 08, 2001 @11:01AM (#165759) Homepage
    In other words, java - without the advantages of java.

  • Innovation (Score:5)

    by Salsaman ( 141471 ) on Friday June 08, 2001 @11:04AM (#165760) Homepage
    Microsoft is always talking about 'innovation' in their products. Can you name five M$ innovations which were not copied or stolen from rival products ?

  • 9) Why are manhole covers round?

    It's the only shape that won't fall through the hole.

    Surprisingly, given how commonplace the question is, this answer is wrong!

    There are shapes other than the circle that can't fall through a slightly-smaller hole of the same shape. Here is how to construct one of them. Take three equidistant points. (Like the corners of an equilateral triangle.) Place the needle of a compass on one point and run the pencil from the second point to the the third. Repeat for the other two points. The result is an equilateral triangle with bowed-out sides.

    Not only can this shape function as a delightful manhole cover, but also you can roll a platform on top of logs with this cross section without it bouncing up and down-- just as if the logs had a circular cross section.

    (Martin Gardner wrote about this in one of his books.)

  • Mumdie's asnwers (Score:3)

    by Srin Tuar ( 147269 ) <zeroday26@yahoo.com> on Friday June 08, 2001 @10:52AM (#165762)

    To save you the time Ill tell you how he would answer:

    Q:What, exactly, is .Net?

    A: .Net is Innovation.

    Q: And what is the difference between Open Source, Free Software, Linux and GPL.

    A: They are all the same

    Q: Do you have cancer?

    A: No, I do not use open source products.

  • Unfortunately, the link you gave won't work since it uses the Referer: header to determine where the comments came from. Or at least, it did for me - the page claims this will be "fixed soon," so if it works for you, they've fixed it!

    Until then, either set your HTTP client to send Referer:http://oreilly.com/news/mundie_0601. html or simply go here first (the originating page) [oreilly.com] and follow the link that reads "Post your questions to Craig Mundie here, or read what others have to say!" that's on the very bottom of the page.

    --

  • Forcing someone *not* use Java (as .NET does)

    Well, since .NET is an open spec there is nothing to prevent Sun or IBM from porting Java to it.

    However, because of Sun's stranglehold over Java, Microsoft cannot legally do this themselves. Someone else must do this.

    Don't blame MS for leaving Java out of .NET. It's really Sun who is "forcing" this, as you put it.

  • Dear Mr. Mundie

    Given that 95% of the questions posted here and on Oreilly.com are uneducated and highly biased flamebait, given that no matter how intelligently you answer your questions to the open-source community you will be spat on and tarred and feathered like the enemy you are to these people, I have just one question?

    Why bother?

  • The GPL has its place, but I don't think it belongs in publicly funded software development.

    With the GPL, you are ensuring that no profit will be made from taxpayer funded software. Generally research projects(not just software) are intended to stimulate the economy and private enterprise. With a BSD licence, anyone can use the code and make money with it. Not only big players, but you or I if we want to start a software company. That makes better sense for the economy than GPL'ing it does. And the code base itself still remains free even after software companies take it and modify it.

    As far as I know, the vast majority of govt. and uni research has been released under a BSD style licence. Change that to the GPL, and you ensure that nobody gets to use this publicly funded software in a commercial product. IMO, a publicly funded software project should belong to everyone without restriction, and I hope things remain that way.

    Besides, the GPL is intended for the developer(read: not the disinterested taxpayer) to decide that they don't want other people using their code. Because the GPL is centered around the developer, rather than the end-user, it is inappropriate for publicly funded software.

  • This is great news. (Score:4)

    by the-banker ( 169258 ) on Friday June 08, 2001 @10:50AM (#165768)
    Isn't this what we want? Engaging Mr. Mundie in a controlled debate of the issue definately favors Free Software, IMO. What better way to confront the FUD than face to face.

    I also believe that as a community we need to stay focused on what is important and avoid falling into the same headline chasing FUD tactics that Microsoft uses. Competing with MS on their terms is foolish. Remember when Clinton's '92 campaign reverberated 'It's the economy, stupid!'? We need to stick to that same sort of level, but substitute economy with technology and freedom.

  • embrace & extend - open source (Score:3)

    by maddogsparky ( 202296 ) on Friday June 08, 2001 @10:40AM (#165774)
    Microsoft often uses the phrase "embrace and extend" to describe its extentions to existing standards. What are Microsofts plans with regard to opening up its proprietary extensions to other developers, in light of its recent expansion into "open source?"

  • Closed source apps for Open Source OS's (Score:4)

    by Lechter ( 205925 ) on Friday June 08, 2001 @10:49AM (#165775)

    Does Microsoft have any plans to release binary versions of some of their more popular office applications for Linux or other open operating systems?

    After all, apparently Microsoft makes the lion's share of its profits from applications rather than windows. I'm sure there's a decent-sided market for Office for Linux. I use Linux, and I'd certainly like to be able to use Word and Excell nativly - if nothing else then because their formats are the "defacto" standard these days.

    Currently Corel's WordPerfect is the (more or less) standard office product for the Linux world, and I sort of wonder if Microsoft would be willing to challange that dominance, and perhaps gain a (little) bit of good will from a community that it has otherwise sorely alienated (to say the least).

  • Question: what about the BSD License (Score:5)

    by Lechter ( 205925 ) on Friday June 08, 2001 @10:40AM (#165776)

    OK I can see why you mighn't like the GPL, since it doesn't do corporations any good, but why don't you try releasing software, or using software under the BSD license, much as Apple did with Mac OS X? Perhaps that would allow programmers to have a deeper understanding of the workings of your software.

  • If the source code is placed under a less restrictive license such as the BSD license where the code can be integrated into proprietary products such as Microsoft Windows, then the customer will be forced to pay the vendor of the proprietary software for something they have in fact already paid for when they paid their tax to the government.

    How many times do we have to go over this? Your taxes paid for the original software to be written, not whatever Microsoft writes. If you want their program over the free version that is still available from the government, then obviously Microsoft has ADDED VALUE to the software ... and thus you should pay for it.

  • This Is Not A /. Interview! (Score:5)

    by update() ( 217397 ) on Friday June 08, 2001 @11:11AM (#165780) Homepage
    All you people submitting questions -- this isn't a Slashdot interview! Ask them here! [oreilly.com]

    Every time there's a headline here with the words "interview" or "ask" people start frantically posting questions. I confess I've been guilty of that a couple of times myself... ;-)

    (Original subject: First "This Is Not A /. Interview!" Post! Apparently that trips the lameness filter.)

    Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.

  • or long int?

    We are talking billions and billions here.

    Or would you use a real number for the decimal accuracy?

  • Windows NT, Windows 2000 and presumably Windows XP had a "native" API that Microsoft never bothered to document publicly. Microsoft has used this on various occasions to aid favored 3rd party vendors (Exececutive Software received access to the native API for "Diskeeper") and to hobble despised 3rd party vendors (Netscape's web server was much slower than IIS, because IIS used the native API, and Netscape used Win32).

    Once Microsoft lets people view NT/2000/XP operating system code, the "native" API will be out of the bag. Microsoft won't have semi-secret "native" APIs to barter with.

    How much of a force *against* the "shared source" approach was the existance of the "native" API?

  • Considering that Microsoft has no plans to implement GPLed code into its own products, nor does it plan on sharing its source code with the general public in the same wide and unrestricted (from the point of view of obtaining and viewing) manner as GPLed code, how can MS justify its recent information campaign clarifying its stance on the GPL? MS's opinion on the GPL is as irrelevent as Coke's opinion on orange juice.

    Furthermore, the only parallel that MS products and GPLed applications have in common is from the point of view of end-use, NOT further development on the core product, and this does not involve the GPL at all. On the surface it appears that MS is using the GPL, which is a distinguishing feature of one of its major competitors, the Linux Operating System, as a focal point for criticism to gain an edge in the general public's eye, despite the fact that the general public will probably have no need to explore those areas of the competing product which will actually involve the GPL. Given this, once more, how is this information campaign relevent, and how is it ethical?

  • Why do Microsoft's operating systems do not attempt to cooperate with any other bootloaders, FreeBSD's, LILO, etc... when all of the other boot loaders go to great pains to make sure that all of the information for any operating system is left intact.

    It is not impossible to recover from installing a Window's after other operating systems, but it is inconvenient.

    This should be will within Microsoft's ability to do, so why hasn't it been done? And I will not accept any cheesy arguments like ours is better than theirs or the others won't work. They work well, and we all know it.

  • Hypothetical Example for Comparison (Score:3)

    by Ranolf ( 255412 ) on Friday June 08, 2001 @12:32PM (#165799)
    Microsoft appears to believe that the GNU Public License (GPL) presents some kind of danger to "intellectual property" rights, and that in particular Microsoft is trying to warn other companies [and not just software companies] of the danger.

    With the exception of software companies, what danger does the use of the GPL really pose to most businesses, given that for them software is means to end and not the thing which defines them as a company? And how does Microsoft shared source offer GPL like benefits without the "IP Liability"?

    I would like to offer a simple but specific example to clarify the context of the question: a small widget manufacturer has a production line, which he wishes to automate to stamp the logo of his customer on each widget. He has a database of customers, and a program developed by a large software company which controls the stamping press. He wants to connect the database and the stamping press program to change the stamp pattern according to his purchase orders in the database. This is a very simple adjustment. He cannot however modify the program, because the company which developed it has gone out of business, and he has no access to the source code. GPL software exists which he could use, but at the price of [potentially] sharing the that change with his competitors, but Microsoft also has a stamp press controller which he could buy, and get a Shared Source license for, enabling him to make the change. The question is, why should he choose MS and Shared Source over the GPL code? Is this ability really the core competency of his business, or merely a tool to help him in his real compentency which is making the best widgets? Presumably, if all that distinguished this manufacturer was his ability to stamp logos, how would the MS shared source license accomplish his goal of obscurity? Would MS not be privy to incorporate changes he made, and sell it at later date to his competitors or to make it a feature of MS StampPress? Would the low cost and low overhead of using GPL outweigh his concerns about IP competition? Furthermore, even supposing his competitors did end up using the "custom" code, does the fact that he can now benefit from any improvements THEY make change his decision - and can he benefit from changes other's make if he goes with MS Shared Source?
  • Well, that was my question too! How the hell do you let Craig "Opensource is evil and stifles innovation" Mundie to be the keynote speaker at an open source conference? Or more to the point, why would you want him to be the keybote speaker at an open source conference? Do you not know what Craig is going to say about open source? Is this not the world's largest troll?

  • Craig Mundie (Score:5)

    by Dancin_Santa ( 265275 ) <DancinSanta@gmail.com> on Friday June 08, 2001 @10:54AM (#165807) Journal
    1) Do you pronounce "Monday" and "Mundie" the same, or do you emphasize the "day" in "Monday"?

    2) Before you came to Microsoft, what special talents did you possess?

    3) If I were to grep the Windows source code, how many "We'd be totally fucked if our customers knew we did this" comments would I find?

    4) Are you wearing a hairpiece?

    5) What's your /. ID, or do you troll anonymously?

    6) When Bill or Steve makes a joke, does everyone laugh? Is it a fearful laughter?

    7) How much Linux code is actually in Windows? Haha, just joking. Windows would be a lot stabler if it had any.

    8) If you were a Hostess snack cake, which one would you be and why?

    9) Why are manhole covers round?

    10) Have you thought about suing tobacco companies and making a quick billion or two?

    Dancin Santa
  • Does anyone else find it quite odd that Mundie is giving a speech at an Open Source conference? It seems to me that's like having Louis Farrakhan as the keynote speaker for a conference on Judiasm.

    ... or like having Ralph Nader as the guest of honor at the Corvair Society of America's national convention.

  • No, Java can't do it.
    Or, to be rather exact, Java doesn't *do* it.
    ObjectWatch had a research about the details.

    It should be in http://www.objectwatch.com/Issue_33.htm in a couple of days.

    I no longer have the email, sorry.



    --

    Two witches watch two watches.
  • You *do* realize that 100$ a year, plus the automatic upgrade, is *cheaper* than the current price?

    --

    Two witches watch two watches.
  • Well, that depend on the unit that you measure it.
    If you measure it in billions, you could use a byte, unsigned one, for the next couple of months, then you would have to move to unsigned short.

    If you want it in dollars, then it's:
    huge long long hllMicrosoftProfits;



    --

    Two witches watch two watches.
  • Have you check Office prices?

    Better enclose 800$ :-D

    --

    Two witches watch two watches.

  • what we really want to know (Score:3)

    by Magumbo ( 414471 ) on Friday June 08, 2001 @11:36AM (#165824)
    Mr. Mundie,

    Did Microsoft purchase O'Reilly and Associates? If so, will they continue to use *TeX or switch to doing layouts using Word? Also, please leave the 18th century woodcuts alone, we like their distinctive look. Thank you.

    --

  • Questions (Score:4)

    by Violet Null ( 452694 ) on Friday June 08, 2001 @10:53AM (#165828)
    If the GPL is described as a "cancer", what malignant term does that leave to describe Microsoft's behavior? Microsoft bills itself as "software for the agile business". How does having the XP software force customers to call Microsoft when they change hardware contribute to agility? Similarly, how does having the XP software require the exact same CD that was used for installation be on hand for verification, applying service packs, etc. contribute to agility? Where do you get your drugs, and do you have any to share with the rest of the class? Seeing as how the linux faithful already view Bill Gates as the antichrist, do you have a particular character from Revelations that you would like to be viewed as?

  • cnet article (Score:3)

    by ghack ( 454608 ) on Friday June 08, 2001 @11:10AM (#165832)
    cnet has an article about the same subject. according to them, Red Hat's Michael Tiemann is going to be in a debate w/Craig Mundie... http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-6218716.html? tag=st.lx.1491268.today.1003-200-6218716

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