OSS on Windows the Next Big Thing? 351
Lam1969 writes "Linux geeks and Microsoft have similar interests, says Computerworld: They both are interested in seeing open-source software succeed. Linux geeks admit that the open source OS isn't necessarily a better platform for important applications, and Microsoft recognizes that many of its customers are using open-source applications, and doesn't want to alienate them." From the article: "Faced with the allure of inexpensive open-source applications among its core customer base of small to midsize businesses, Microsoft has toned down its rhetoric. 'It's a myth that open-source and Windows can't work together. Customers just aren't religious about these things,' said Ryan Gavin, a director of platform strategy for Microsoft."
Smells Like Astroturf (Score:5, Interesting)
What the article completely ignores is why geeks prefer Linux. It's not hard to understand. When you're setting up infrastructure, you want to plan for the long term. If you go with Microsoft there's really no telling what's in the pipeline--their whole marketing strategy is based on overpromising which renders their roadmaps useless. Linux and open source app development is more predictable. Even though Microsoft can push stuff out faster, everyone knows the ultimate goal is profits. That means they'll inevitably change things and add dubious features just to force upgrades. On the other hand open-source applications exist primarily to solve specific problems.
There are a ton of short-term reasons to go with Microsoft:
On the other hand, long-term all these reasons evaporate. Open source projects can fall into dis-repair too, but at least you know a project isn't going to be scrapped because it's not driving upgrades anymore.
Capturing Open Source Dollars (Score:4, Interesting)
A bad scenario for MS is some OSS company become big enough to compete for the PHB's attention with a bunch of lesser but valuable OSS applications. Which could lead to the nightmare scenario of the PHB walking away from the Active Directory/Exchange crack pipe.
OT:
I have to give them big-time credit for creating another crack house with Office and sharepoint. (or some other server CAL nightmare)
Re:And so (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree. However, in this case it is Microsoft that is feeling the squeeze. In a lot of cases the Free Software that people want to run on Windows competes directly with software that Microsoft sells. Having this software available for Windows means that it is not necessary to have UNIX knowledge to deploy Free Software applications. However, once you are using Free Software applications on Windows it becomes trivial to migrate to some other platform. Not only does Free Software on Windows loosen Microsoft's grasp on customers, but it makes it much harder for Microsoft to use its market power to embrace and extend protocols.
Why is that? (Score:3, Interesting)
I've recently used Windows in a VM environment (thank you very much, I'm a Mac and Linux geek) and I was browsing for freeware software. Almost all of that software had malware bundled with it. Gosh, I'm so thankful that I'm not using Windows every day. It is hilarious! You can't trust any single piece of software.
So yes, people like OSS because you can trust OSS. You know what's in there and you know that it won't harm the system.
And plus, OSS software is mostly of greater quality than the usual freeware.
Re:MS Grasping for Straws (Score:4, Interesting)
Apache, PHP... sure. OOo, no way (Score:5, Interesting)
Interestingly, the article has PHP and Apache icons to define its category. Sure, Microsoft wants you to run your Apache and PHP applications on Windows. What choice do they have? If you're already building Apache/PHP apps, you're probably building them on Linux. Any move to Windows is a net gain for Microsoft, and a net loss for Linux.
But OOo. It'll be a cold day in Hell before Microsoft recommends that on Windows. Or Firefox, or Thunderbird or any of the other desktop apps listed here. Of course, most of them run great on Windows (in fact, often better than on Linux, but don't get me started there...), so if MS were really serious about encouraging OSS for Windows, they'd be on board with these apps too.
Anyway, if you've gotta run Windows, lots of OSS desktop apps are available, and you oughta use 'em. But, don't expect Microsoft to tell you that.
Re:MS Grasping for Straws (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, but so what? Most of the major OSS apps are available on both platforms at this point (or, more likely, many platforms beyond just those two).
Fine. So use the best tool for the job -- that's basically what the article is saying. As is the grandparent poster. As are you... I think. I'm not sure why you're taking issue with the GP for that matter -- you seem to be saying largely the same thing.
I use Windows at both work and home for my desktop, and Linux/Unix at both for servers. I develop C++ apps for *nix; at work our server code compiles under Windows for one and only one reason -- debugging. And it's a helluva lot easier to use Visual C++ for debugging than trying to beat TotalView into not crashing, or attempting to use gdb on AIX (pain... agony... coredumps).
Most of the apps I use on a daily basis (vim, putty, firefox, virtuawin, cygwin, numerous command line tools, tortoisecvs, and numerous others) are OSS and they or equivalents are available on both platforms. But other apps that I use are not free (in either sense), nor are the games that I like to play at home. And they're all Windows only. The availability of so much OSS software on Windows, however, means that I really can have the best of both worlds.
And for the rare stuff that's just better on *nix -- again, that's where putty and Cygwin come in. But, as you note, the need to run X apps is increasingly rare.
Re:The Challenge For OSS On Windows (Score:3, Interesting)
Cheers to that. The Grandma test is pretty much what keeps people out of linux. I love firefox, but its not because its better than any other open source software package; its because on Windows firefox installs like any other program. It has an executable installer that runs in GUI space on windows. I don't have to go into cygwin or do some crazy config file editing to get it to work. I don't have to compile it. It Just Works.
When mainstream people started using computers is when following the commands written like
type 'run a:\install.exe' became obsolete. there are great many OSS applications that require inside knowledge... most of the ones ported to windows have a shell that gui-fies that knowledge (like what config files to edit, etc). Once we got users to understand an easy-to-learn interface like WIMP (windows icons menus pointers), those OSes took off. Linux has a WIMP interface, but it hasn't taken off because you still need to go under the hood for a ton of things.
Re:MS Grasping for Straws (Score:2, Interesting)
In the past, I would have agreed with you on this, but in the present day, your all washed up. You can get express versions of almost every development tool available from MS now (C#, VB, J#, Managed C++, SQL Express, MSDN Express) for FREE. In fact, just this week they've also stated that all future MSDN libraries will be free (you can get the fullblown 3 disc set for FREE from them today) All of which is to say, this isn't just lip service, they're finally getting on the bandwagon (even if some hand-holding may still be necessary.)
Also because of the lack of developer tools out of the box with Windows, there is no advantage to running OSS for most people. If I don't have the toolchain to recompile the source, the fact that it is OSS is moot. Might as well be closed source freeware.
Here I'll have to concede. I really wish Vista would include some default development setup, perhaps even a seperate SKU for Students/Teachers that includes the full dev suite on a scratch install from media.
Here is a little anecdote which demonstrates the OSS unfriendliness of Windows: I was having a problem with the MySQL ODBC client in Windows. There is an outstanding bug that was preventing my school from doing some very important MS Access -> MySQL queries. I managed to track down an unofficial patch to the ODBC client. Great, I thought, it is open source. I can just download the source, apply the patch, and recompile. But wait, I needed to get the Qt libraries too! I downloaded a trial version of that.A few hours later of dicking around with that, I was read to try to recompile the client. Well, turns out that the MySQL ODBC client is a Visual Studio 6 project. I don't have VS6. I downloaded VisualStudio 2005 Express (or whatever it is) hoping it would be compatable. It wasn't. Ok, well, then had to try to get it to work with mingw. So I spent a few hours trying to get that environment setup. Eventually I had to turn over the task to a friend who has a little more experience with Windows source code. He eventually got things to build, but it wasn't easy. Keep in mind, I'm no newb to compiling software. I've just never done it on Windows. Totally OSS unfriendly.
Again, I'll concede the point, but to that end I have to say things appear to be improving. I think at this point though, MS is still somewhat unsure of what the best strategy of implementing OSS friendliness is, given their currently closed proprietary stable of OS/Apps/Dev Tools. They want to generate the community aspects that OSS brings to the mix, without having to give up control of their IP, yet still allowing us the end users to tinker and plug things together. That's a tall order given a company with such an knack for embrace/extend/extinguish.
But that's just my opinion, and I've been wrong before...
Re:MS Grasping for Straws (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, I did that. Didn't help. Also, what if the project is done with mingw? Do I have to maintain both toolchains? Windows is quite OSS unfriendly. At least for any project that expects to get user supplied patches and other input.
You mean platforms that have a single, ubiqutous toolchain like gcc/gmake/etc? Seriously, OSS is so much easier on Linux/BSD because it is the norm and everyone has pretty much the same toolchains... out of the box.
-matthew
Re:It's what made me switch to Linux. (Score:3, Interesting)
I think this is one of the most important (and most forgotten) problems regarding the Linux OSS community. I hate to generalize, but I know there are a (not-insignificant) group of people who feel that OSS projects shouldn't be ported to Windows, and instead should be reserved as a "killer app" to convince others to migrate. While the logic is understandable, the issue is that most people aren't going to plunge into something as intensive as installing a completely foreign operating system for the sake of an app or two that hasn't been ported.
Case in point, Amarok. I absolutely LOVE using it over anything Windows has to offer, and while iTunes and Winamp do the job for me on this side of the MBR, it'd be really nice to have another copy of Amarok running natively on Windows. I know at the moment, however, the consensus has been, if you want a Windows port, you're going to have to do it yourself. I realize the sources are around, but something like a Windows port is not a trivial undertaking. I don't disagree that dev time may be better spent adding features and fixing bugs, but I'm a little disappointed that its use is relegated to the uber-geek status of those who have the time, energy and knowhow to go about installing Linux.
Rather than trying to convince others that forsaking the warm familiarity of Windows is the only way to reap the benefits of cool OSS, we (as an open source community) should try to get the masses' collective feet wet without requiring such an ungodly effort on the user's part. Thankfully, that's starting to happen with some of the more mainstream OSS packages. Firefox has made enormous headway into the browser market, and OO.o is becoming an acceptable substitute to MS Office. What ultimately needs to happen is for these open source projects to become superior to their proprietary counterparts. Obviously, many are not yet up to snuff, but the fact that Microsoft is beginning to put its tail between its legs is a great sign. Your anecdote is a great example of (my view) the future that lay ahead of us. As users begin migrating piece by piece to open source alternatives, ultimately our applications can become OS agnostic, Linux on the desktop can continue its foray into user-friendliness (ala OSX), and more and more Average Joes, given the ability to choose freely between Linux and Windows, will readily make the plunge into FOSS.
Re:MS Grasping for Straws (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe you don't understand the difference between simplay changing partitions/creating a new filesystem and actually wiping the disk.
I already knew there was dd for Windows. But since you can't do something lke 'dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hdc' it doesn't help much in this (and many other) situation. And does "format" write zeros to the disk? I know it can do a surface scan, but I don't know if that actually clears the data. I know that fdisk simply changes the partition table. It doesn't touch the rest of the disk. And the MMC... does that wipe the disk? I'm not aware of it doing so. Creating a new filesystem struction != wiping the disk.
-matthew