Ballmer Sees Free Software as Enemy No. 1 717
geekinexile writes "Bloomberg is running this Microsoft vs. Linux article as a top story on the Bloomberg system. Not so notable for what it says about Linux, but rather for the fact that the financial community is starting to actually get open source."
Figures... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Figures... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Figures... (Score:5, Insightful)
(which is not to say that it isn't true, but hell, as far as I'm concerned it applies equally to the roots of Windows too, and it's no bad thing)
They have also been trying to build up a community around them much more since .NET, but that's a lesser issue.
Re:Figures... (Score:5, Insightful)
If I were MS, I would do everything in my power to make sure that OSS users were isolated as much as possible from the main computing public, in what they do, and how they do it. As you have said, they are trying pretty hard to build up a community around themselves.
If DRM legislation comes about, the sides may very well have turned. I, for one, am scared that the American Public will let it happen. Afterall, it's pretty clear that even with the outcry of hundreds of important industry leaders, the government doesn't really care about MicroSoft's anti-competative actions... This one will just be the action to end all competition.
It won't work (Score:5, Interesting)
The DRM thing could be a problem too, but I really think it will be such a disaster that it will be completely rejected by consumers. The sticking point is not the basic erosion of fair use copying, but that it is going to be so broken in implementation that it will keep people from doing what they are supposed to be allowed. Average comsumers don't have a lot of patience for bogus technology that won't do what they want, and DRM is likely to screw them over and over. At least the single function DVD player will play the DVDs they rent and buy reliably, and a DRM enabled PC will fail to do this often enough to make them royally pissed off. Put that in your business model and smoke it!
Re:Figures... (Score:5, Interesting)
That's precicely why I'm scared; once all new computers are hardware secure*, open source will have to relegate itself to older platforms (or ones that have no hope to run software designed to be run on a secure platform). It's a sad state of affairs, and a future I think could come about.
*As the XBox has illustrated, hardware security is a laughable--unless one is willing to take extreme (and expensive) measures. Anything short of strapping a small block of C4 on the motherboard, and rigging it such that any attempt to circumvent the hardware causes it to blow the thing to hell, will fail. Hardware will be cracked; it's a function of how badly it needs to be done, and how many people are working on it. Though, in all practicality, draconian legislation like the DMCA will criminalize anyone attempting to distribute that knowledge. Freenet [freenetproject.org] may be our savior after all.
Re:Then he's failed already... (Score:5, Insightful)
Most open source software is indeed completely lacking in innovation.
However, you appear to think that CEOs actually think about software...
Re:Then he's failed already... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yea, but "innovation" in Windows is simply switching around a few menu items here and there, integrating freeware, and selling it for a premium. How is that innovative? I think Ballmer throws that word around way too much. Microsoft hasn't done anything truely "innovative" in a long time. Ballmer has some nerve calling OSS "cloned" software when Windows has cloned features from many other OS's.
China is enemy #1 (Score:5, Interesting)
-
China is a communist country. The government controls the majority of the chineese economy and can mandate standards and shared cost allocation. China may ban Microsoft products from all state run businesses and government functions, although I doubt they would interfere with sanctioned, entreprenual computing systems.
- China has unreliable relations with the United States. China needs control over its critical infrastructure, including its computing systems. A sudden change in relationships with the United States, e.g., an invasion of R.O.C. (Taiwan), could cut of imports, upgrades, and technical support from Microsoft. It is as prudent to mandate self-determination of operating systems as of electrical power.
- China can take a long term view. China is the Middle Kingdom, with thousands of years of continous civilization. China, unlike the United States, could decide to embark on a path and resist pressure until it pays off.
- China is large, really large. The factbook [cia.gov] states China is 1,200,000,000 (1.2B) people with a GDP of over $5,000,000,000,000.00 ($5T). China is the only country that could easily decide to commit a million people to full time Linux development and support.
The nighmare senario for Micosoft is that China makes the Linux operating system and open source applications a national security priority. Think of the effects of this quadrant of the planning grid:China leverages support for open source to build tighter relationships with countries besides the U.S. Open source authors are invited guests at massive conferences in Beijing. X-windows is replaced in two years. ChinaLinux preconfigured desktops surpass Microsoft in terms of reliability, ease of support, and scalability. Attempts to foster opposition in China due to massive revenuse from 100,000 person export-only support center.
A good future.
Cheers,
Chasm
Re:China is enemy #1 (Score:4, Funny)
Why are you pinning your hopes on China? (Score:5, Interesting)
They're already pirates on a grand scale, so what revenue would Microsoft be *losing* if they switch to Linux?
Re:Why are you pinning your hopes on China? (Score:4, Informative)
A few years ago, you could buy pirated software and CDs nearly everywhere. If you go to China now, you'll see that most of those dealers are gone (or at least hidden in dark, small places).
The Chinese government is enemy #1 (Score:5, Interesting)
communists. They believe that China will fully open up their markets
for American goods, but forget it. China wants to be self-sufficient.
That's why they build their own Linux version, their own CPUs, their
own motherboards etc. The communists doesn't see the west as a reliable
partner, and just as you stated... they want to be able to say fuck off
to the west if necessary.
I make a big distinction between the Chinese people and the communists.
(after all, the Chinese communist party just have 50 million members.
The Chinese people are in general very nice and hardworking people, but
the communist regime is a bunch of unreliable liars.
Re:The Chinese government is enemy #1 (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:China is enemy #1 (Score:4, Informative)
Microsoft makes about 60% of its revenue from sales outside the USA. So international markets are extremely important to them, especially when they need "new" markets because they already own 95% of the existing markets.
Re:China is enemy #1 (Score:5, Interesting)
what's to stop them from taking the code and running so to speak? RMS invades?
much more likely, you will never see the first line of any serious linux based code written by the chinese government
can you imagine lots of kiddies downloading the linux based kernel that drives chinese missile batteries? i think not
Re:China is enemy #1 (Score:4, Interesting)
If China has any sense, they are gong to use this to leverage thier position to become the world center of technology. Destroying MS will be a byproduct of that.
Everyone world-wide will turn to China as it becomes the number one source for software. They will Presumably eventualy dominate in the area of CPUs/hardware as well.
The whole idea of Linux, if it were told as a story would be dismissed as implausable. Imagine then, an army of developers accelerating its development beyond our imagination. The effects of such an operating system, in every area, will be profound, to say the least.
Re:China *Will* Obey the GPL (Score:5, Interesting)
It would be nigh on impossible for, shall we say, Americans to chechk through that much source. There simply arent enough developers to do this. We would end up simply having to trust that the Chinux source/packages were entirely benevolent, or, not use them.
The latter will not be an option by the way, since it will be the defacto world standard. Hmmmmm sounds VERY familiar!
Re:Figures... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, Microsoft created Linux, much like an antibiotic creates resistant strains. It's Gates' fault. Had he not gone into the Great Internet Panic of 1995, Microsoft would have maintained a steady 60-70% market share for years, with a solid second place competitor in each market followed by a distant third. But no, they went into panic mode much like a bull in a china shop, and by 2000 when the smoke had cleared they held 90%+ in almost every market except for personal finance.
Free software isn't thriving necessarily because people are philanthropists. Free software is thriving because it's the only infrastructure software that can survive. No OS will be able to compete with Windows on its own turf unless you give it away. Ditto with MS Office, and even then it's an uphill battle. But Microsoft had turned the screws down so hard that it was inevitable that an entity would arise that could provide a free product indefinitely.
I find it amusing (and this has nothing to do with the parent post) when people talk about Linux and OSS in terms of feel-good granola hippies.... Regardless of what the original intentions were, Linux and OSS are brutal dumping machines. These entities can ruthlessly dump product and survive forever in a way that would make 1980's Japanese chip makers blush.
But IMO, Microsoft brought this on themselves by not allowing Lotus, WordPerfect, Novell, and Netscape keep a distant 25%-40% of their respective markets, like all mature markets generally develop (GM/Ford, Coke/Pepsi, Levi's/Lee, etc). When you get that big you need a number two competitor to lean on. Microsoft's management in general and Gates in particular should have considered the long-term ramifications of their actions.
Fighting OSS will kill MS (Score:5, Insightful)
The motivation is to create software tools in a cooperative environment and be able to freely share ideas about the software without having to pay outrageous rents to companies trying to lock up software for only their own benifit. All of this would be happening whether Microsoft existed or not. As any number of people have pointed out, this doesn't mean nobody gets paid for software, just that the basic tools to do our work should be free (and are now to a large and growing extent). Lots of people get paid to develop free software and lots more get paid to use free tools to build very specific programs that are very specific to the businesses that use them (and pay for them, of course).
Regardless of what the original intentions were, Linux and OSS are brutal dumping machines. These entities can ruthlessly dump product and survive forever in a way that would make 1980's Japanese chip makers blush.
This is just plain wrong. You need to do some more research into the phenomenon of Open/Free Source. The incremental cost of making a copy of software is zero, so it isn't being sold below cost, and therefore it isn't dumping. MS is the one using monopoly practices to drive out the competition and raise prices.
In the beginning, MS wanted all sorts of companies to make applications that would run on their OS, then one by one, they picked them off and drove them out of business. They used their dominant position in the PC OS market to do this, and now nobody trusts them. They are destroying their own market.
Frankly, I find the whole thing pretty funny because they are attempting to put Linux and OSS in general in the crosshairs just like they have with each competetive challenger along the way, but it can't work because OSS projects don't compete.
It comes back to the motivations I mentioned earlier, and it's not about any individual project anyway. All the projects, the whole spectrum from Free as in Speech GPL projects to less pure Open Source projects, are creating an entire network of interacting open standards as embodied in actual implementations. This is very much in the best interests of anyone who wants to use software to implement complex systems because this creates the stable interfaces necessary to create extended functionality through modular development. The embrace and extend approach of MS only helps you to get further locked in to whatever MS wants (Where do you want to go today?).
What's really cool is that the business world is starting to figure this out. The really stupid thing is that so many software developers think this is the end of the world, and that they will never be able to make money writing software after GNU/Linux wins. Then others jump in and start blaming it on the immigrants. Give me a break.
Misses the point.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why companies are taking Linux seriously isn't because it's free-as-in-beer. They're taking it seriously because:
<li>it's stable. No need to "preventative reboots" every night to keep your servers from crashing without explanation. (I know, XP is better, but I still have to rebot my XP workstation at least once a week or things start breaking. My grossly underpowered Linux servers (200 MHz, 32 MB) run for months without a bit of trouble.
<li>it's secure. It's not perfect, but far easier to lock down than Windows.
<li>it's open. I write a lot of documentation, and I HATE HATE HATE Word because once I put something into Word it ain't coming back out. In contrast, DocBook can be a pain to edit in a text editor (doing all tags by hand), but I can pull out information with ease. I can store it in a database and generate the material on the fly. There's no grief about different versions being unable to share files, or information hidden (or simply left) in the document, etc.
<li>it's predictable. The GPL and BSD licenses are very clear, you don't have to worry about the vendor changing license terms in a year or two. They say it's "revenue neutral," your lawyers tell you it will cost you millions of dollars, all you know is your departmental budget is shot to hell.
Finally, there's all the training costs associated with the different software packages. Learning Unix can be tough, if you've grown up with Windows. (But at the same time, I find Windows extremely difficult to use and non-intuitive...) Companies have trusted Microsoft that the cost of retraining wasn't worth the benefits, but they've ruined their own point by continuing to make changes in their own software. Unix retraining is a one-time expense, Windows retraining seems to be a recurring expense (in salary while people are in training, lost productivity, etc.)
Re:Figures... (Score:5, Insightful)
MS and Windows can't compete with us here--ever. They'd have to do with Windows what Apple did with Mac OS--open source some of it and build it off of UNIX, and keep it UNIX 'enough' to keep people listening. That just wouldn't happen--they're commited to the position that Windows is an architecturally superior OS. And it will bite them where the sun don't shine.
Re:Figures... (Score:5, Insightful)
WINE proves Unix can have Windows Binary compatibility. Mac OS X proves that Unix can be shoehorned into a usable Desktop environment.
Microsoft proves they're too stubborn to evolve with the times. Instead, they would rather force the times to evolve around them. If they're smart, they're already working on aways to build a Windows OS on top of FreeBSD, but I'm guessing that's not going to happen anytime soon.
Re:Figures... (Score:5, Insightful)
One more time...
YOU
The only way to steal BSDL'd code is to use it without attibution - which, so far, Microsoft has always done. Unlike Linux, with the infamous RedHat-supplied ATA header code...
If the license terms are complied with, it's NOT stealing.
Re:Figures... (Score:5, Insightful)
The important point is not that it costs nothing, it's that as long as it's licensed under the GPL, you are free to make changes to it as you see fit and redistribute those changes. In turn, you give others the same freedoms.
Stallman certainly has his detractors, but I think we owe him a huge debt for making this valuable point. Money is not the issue at all; freedom is. Too many people think the greatest thing about Linux is that it can be had for only the cost of the CD or download, but that misses the big picture.
Microsoft always tries to misconstrue the GPL as a license that does not allow them to make any money, but they are perfectly within their rights to license some of their software under the GPL and sell it. What they conveniently fail to mention is that they loathe the idea of releasing their source code, and that is why they hate the GPL. That is my theory.
Re:Figures... (Score:4, Insightful)
Or you could do as Canada does and simply integrate them into your society as citizens, rather than immigrants, teach them, and make sure they do as good a job as any other citizen, for the same level of pay.
Re:Figures... (Score:4, Insightful)
Or you could do as Canada does and simply integrate them into your society as citizens, rather than immigrants, teach them, and make sure they do as good a job as any other citizen, for the same level of pay.
Or you could do what we do here in Australia, and lock them up in concentration camps in the middle of the desert.
Yes, I spoiled my vote rather than vote for either party in our two-party system, both of which are in favour of this.
Re:Figures... (Score:4, Insightful)
That's a very narrow view, IMHO. Can I suggest you walk by a local university and/or a college in Canada?
I think you'll find a literal explosion of new immigrants taking courses. In fact, in some classes, I've seen _more_ immigrants taking courses than "homegrown" Canadians.
What the is wrong with running a corner store or pizza shop? You have a problem with students getting easy employment when they want it? You'd rather that mom-n-pop corner store run by Pakistanis be a McDonald's run by rednecks?
And running cheap ass apartment buildings is bad? I've seen numerous articles in my local newspaper about numerous people virtually starving themselves because their choice is either an $800/month apartment or social assistance. The housing situation at the "bottom end" right now is _really bad_. There is virtually none in the sorts of places where one can actually get a leg up in life.
>They piss us off because they screw us broke
So do the beer drinking/pot smoking hippies, which, unfortuantely, describes far too many Canadians (at least to the rest of the world, no thanks to SCTV).
>and pretend to not understand english/french when we try to reason with them.
You're watching too much "To Protect and Serve" there...
>At least around my neighborhood, they're practically all racist penny-snatchers who despise the locals as if we were wild animals.
I'm sorry that's your experience. My personal experience with immigrants I've known has been (excluding my parents*):
- One is a manager at a pharmacy
- One ran a mini mart
- One is a tool and die worker
- One is a welder
- One just finished college to be an EET
- One runs a tool and die company (not related to the one above)
- And another owns a nursing home
And I never felt anything less than welcome in their company. Some offered far more hospitatlity to me than many born Canadians. One was a lawless, greedy person, but at least they tried to keep it hidden.
* Most all people in Canada today are either 2nd generation or 3rd generation from an immigrant family, or, in fact, immigrated here themselves. Currently 40% of all new Canadians per year are immigrants, the other 60% being births.
>Being nice sucks in the long run.
Being nice is what got us the 30 million people that are in Canada today (that, IIRC, is subtracting the only "true" Canadians, the Canadian Aborginals). Many of our most respected inventions, such as the telephone, the gramaphone, the light bulb, and the odometer were invented by immigrant Canadians.
Re:Figures... (Score:4, Insightful)
Same with Microsoft. If they would be able to do their job, there would be no Linux and nobody would cry foul. But because they suck, there is a need for external help. And are they scared now when there is someone better around the corner? Hell yeah! :)
You're talking about Minix (Score:5, Insightful)
Ummm, I hate to shatter your world-view or anything, but Linux was created because Minix was not able to do the job (or, more accurately, Linus was not able to do any job with Minix, but it's the same difference). The creation of Linux had nothing (or "very, very little") to do with the existence of Windows. Put another way, the two would still have been created in absence of the other; their creations were orthogonal to one another.
Call me crazy, but I just don't know why Linux and Windows always have to compete for the same space. Sure, there's a little overlap, but generally the two (inter)operate separately and nicely. Right tool for the job... choice is good, eh?
-B
Re:No, he's talking about Windows (Score:5, Interesting)
I've seen more than a few companies that simply will not run Linux (or BSD, or Plan 9, or BeOS, or whatever). My wife's company is going to bankrupt itself because it *has* to get on the MS license subscription bandwagon. Which is fine. If MS can sell that bill of goods, then bully on them. But the people at my wife's firm think that they can't even run Linux. They don't even consider it. I don't know why that is.
If they need to run Exchange, then so be it. Does that mean their web server needs to be IIS? Not at all. They don't know that.
You're right: MS is competing with Linux. But there's a lot of room to move in the small server/edge network/whatever area; it's a huge playground, and they choices don't have to be mutually exclusive.
-B
Cheaper == better, in management eyes (Score:4, Insightful)
Thus the resentment by actual citizens trying to get the same job. Whether you fit the crap lable or not has nothing to do with complaints about H1Bs. You are tarnished by the management incompetency brush.
Why does that piss you off? (Score:5, Insightful)
Just as the music industry has to live with a changing world, a lot of programmers are going to have to live in a world where salaries equalize to some degree across the globe - though personally I think that specialists will always command a pretty high salary whereever they are, I think the average programming position that pays 80k+ probably will fade away.
I'm just grateful to live in a time where I can make a lot of money for soemthing I love to do, but I'll be just as happy even if my salary is cut in half someday - or if not I'll move on to something else. The geeks I talk to are not pissed, in fact they agree that we are all probably way overpaid! If the business thinks tomorrow that they are way better off with a group of programers that live halfway around the world and don't know the business inside and out, then I'll shake my head and say good luck to them all!
I would not say I am out to "beat" the immigrants. Instead I am doing the best job I can as a professional to make it worthwhile to keep me around. So far my value to the business has exceeded (by a great margin) my salary so I guess they are doing OK.
I can't empathize with MS at all, because they same to have almost the same rigidity in behaviour and unwillingness to change that has hurt the music industry and will really hurt or marginalize themselves in the long run. They have poisioned the well in that there are MANY very technically ept people who would go out of thier way to stop MS instead of being neutral or friendly about technical issues, and in any case would not willingly help them.
Today's programmers == Tomorrows car mechanics? (Score:4, Insightful)
The work they do has life-and-death implications for me. I rely absolutely that the brake pedal will stop the car.
I imagine that once-upon a time, when cars were new, the mechanic was a highly respected person in society-- like a doctor is today. (I could be wrong).. But today, do people see the local wrench-puller as someone to look up to?
I know how much I pay to get my car fixed. It ain't THAT much. I can't imagine those guys are pulling in $80K/year.
Today computer "gurus" are thought of-- for the most part-- as a highly trained specialty professionals. But for how long?
I wonder if computer programmers will be the grease monkeys of the future...
Re:Why does that piss you off? (Score:4, Informative)
the analogy isn't quite accurate (Score:5, Insightful)
So anyway, perhaps there's a proportional difference in pay, but not in skill, motive, or job satisfaction. This is all microsoft's fault for cornering the market, they get what they deserve.
At least he isn't one of ours (Score:5, Funny)
Re:At least he isn't one of ours (Score:4, Funny)
Don't tell me we're better off with RMS!
Re:At least he isn't one of ours (Score:5, Funny)
I've rarely seen anyone making a public speaking appearance with that much underarm sweat. The mpeg of that is one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time. After viewing it, I have absolutely no problem accepting that humans and apes descended from a common ancestor.
Not to be gratuitously mean to MS on this, but you can at least wipe down your corporate officers to make them presentable before having them rant at the people who support the company (the DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS). I mean, what does a towel cost? Maybe a little Mitchums (for "problem perspiration"), perhaps?
guac-foo
Re:At least he isn't one of ours (Score:4, Informative)
guac-foo (thanks to ProfMoriarty for posting the link again in another thread)
Re:At least he isn't one of ours (Score:5, Insightful)
Where did the money from the "blow-out quarter" come from, though? It came from rushed last-minute upgrades to get current enough that businesses can stay on the approved Microsoft upgrade path. The size of that bubble is an accurate indicator for Microsoft's near-term customer base and cash flow; everyone who didn't buy in at that point is probably seriously looking at Linux right now.
It remains to be seen if providing a "drop dead" date for your customers (although, in truth this drop dead date did get pushed back a couple times IIRC) is really good leadership in terms of the wider world of the software industry. Ballmer has effectively separated the Microsoft die-hard customers from the rest of the herd; it remains to be seen if segmenting the market like this is really to Microsoft's advantage or not.
It's true that Microsoft can usually focus on an enemy that's slipped past their radar, and eventually triumph. I don't know if they can triumph over free software, free or cheap support, and every incoming college kid knowing Linux [funny story below], though. They really will have to change more than just their business practices to beat this one; they will have to change developer relationships and really their entire position in the software world to beat back free software. And it can never really be killed; like the cancer that Ballmer says it is, free software is always going to be there, waiting to come out of remission if Microsoft lets up the fight.
The promised funny story: A while back at the multinational megacorp that I work for, the new CIO and upper management folks really liked Microsoft. So they ripped out quietly-working sendmail servers and replaced them with Exchange. Mail moved slower, sometimes didn't move at all, many more physical servers were required for the same number of mailboxes (actually due to layoffs the total mailbox count probably was decreasing, but I digress) and observed server availability plummeted (not reported availability, mind you, but to the average guy on the ground floor it was pretty clear). Then a year or two later we see a piece in the internal IT newsletter about some whiz kid straight out of college who looked at the internal email backbone, prototyped some sendmail boxes, and increased throughput and reliability by some huge amount. This was lauded in the newsletter as akin to the second coming. It was, of course, not a surprise to the folks who had been there back when this was well-known to be a quiet, strong workhorse of a solution.
The moral of this story: sometimes, in the corporate world, things have to fail before people learn and things can get better. You can draw your own Microsoft and Linux parallels from that.
No brainer (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No brainer (Score:3, Insightful)
Quality is more important than price.
Re:No brainer (Score:5, Interesting)
With a closed, proprietary system, our clients are at the mercy of a single vendor. With linux (or the BSD clones), GNU, and other open source software, they aren't at the mercy of anyone.
But, of course, the DP departments in the big conglomerates are your typical bumbling bureaucracy who can't program their way out of a wet paper bag. So they hire a small team of hotshot linux hackers to do the job.
Computers will always need programming, for far longer than any of us will be alive. Most people will never be programmers, just like most people will never be mechanics or accountants or surgeons. There will be a lot of work for a long time, unless the economy goes totally flatline.
Having a quality OS and libraries that are open to study and modification is nothing but an advantage for everyone, both the programmers and the people who pay them to program.
Microsoft makes shoddy software, and hides the details from users and programmers so they can't fix problems. They survive solely because they still have a humongous marketing budget (and the power to bribe politicians and top management). They deserve to fail.
Of course not... (Score:5, Funny)
Would you talk negatively about your own company?
Re:Of course not... (Score:5, Informative)
For those who don't understand (Score:5, Informative)
Wall Street buying Linux (Score:5, Interesting)
a fitting quote (Score:5, Insightful)
then they laugh at you,
then they fight you,
then you win.
-Mohandas Gandhi
Re:a fitting quote (Score:5, Funny)
First they help you,
then they ignore you,
then you invade your neighbor,
then they skunk you,
then they ignore you,
then they threaten to skunk you even harder
-Saddam Hussein
First they ignore you,
then they change channels.
-Carrot Top
First they listen to you,
then they get screwed,
then you get fired,
-Neville Chamberlin
Now for the serious side: Passive resistance only works when the enemy holds itself out to be civilized and cares what other people think. It worked against the Brittish in India for these reasons. Ghandi knew that; I don't know if he ever explicitly elucidated that, but he was able to make enough people understand so that they followed him to success.
Neville Chamberlin worked opposite a force that was neither civilized nor concerned with world opinion. Passive resistance against the nazis was doomed to fail. They saw people as raw meat to be consumed.
MSFT does not hold itself out to be "civilized" in any way analogous to the way a nation holds itself out to be civilized. MSFT is a business, and as such it regards cut-throat competition as a positive ideal. Any appeal to MSFT to be "nice" because "it's the right thing to do" understandably falls on deaf ears.
The "caring about what others think" aspect does come into play in the form of advertising and public relations. Both sides have their wins and losses in that arena.
Therefore, it makes sense to compete ruthlessly with MSFT in the business world, and try to change people's minds as much as possible. This is exactly what's happening, but neither side appears to have moral superiority as in Ghandi vs. the Brittish. Instead, this is more a fight of Liberal vs. Conservative where both sides have a different moral base and therefore arrive at different conclusions.
Emperically logical (Score:5, Insightful)
It works here to - as soon as Microsoft starts fighting Linux, guess what gets free advertising? Even more, anyone in the business community can smell blood when they see one company getting so worked up over a competitor. If Linux wasn't the real deal, Microsoft wouldn't have to worry about it. So essentially, Microsoft fights Linux, Linux wins (in the sense that it gains larger name recognition, and hopefully, larger deployment).
Matt
Re:a fitting quote (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's see. Anti-Microsoft rants on Slashdot on the one hand; on the other, millions of dollars spent on FUD campaigns, threats and bribes to politicians worldwide, blatant lying from company officials about relative levels of security and reliability (combined with internal memos about how much better The Enemy's software is), prosecuting people who point out mistakes, shutting down anyone who dares to alter a product they paid for, etc, etc, etc. Yes, those OSS developers are certainly in the same league as Bill.
Bear in mind that about the only action taken by the OSS crowd 'against' a giant like Microsoft, and about the only action a bazaar could take, is to steadily improve their product and public awareness of same. Compare that to MS, whose lawyers cry foul every time someone points out a flaw in one of their products. The GPL reads like the Golden Rule. Microsoft EULA's are a few steps away from demanding your firstborn child.
Eventually... (Score:4, Interesting)
It won't be this year, next year, or the year after that, but politicians around the world have already noticed the movement.
That's where I think the 'Then you win.' comes in. Someone makes a speech that encapsules Microsoft's position in two or three easily understood sentances, that sends public opinion through the floor.
Balmer says ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Lol, what apps are easier from Unix to Windows? Viruses? that is about it.
I've switched all my companies servers to Linux and Solaris. I am slowly bringing linux on board at my full time job. When the shoe fits, wear it. Unfortunately for MS their shoe is a size too small.
"Windows servers cheaper"?? (Score:3, Insightful)
I totally don't get this statement. Can somebody please tell me how [hardware X + non-free-OS] can be cheaper than [hardware X + free-OS]?
.
Re:"Windows servers cheaper"?? (Score:3, Informative)
what a shock. (Score:3, Insightful)
unless, of course, Microsoft really means it this time and they were just warning us linux users the last few times they said this.
Although.." Microsoft marketers must rely on studies that show the cost of maintaining a Windows system is lower than that of Linux machines. Research has yet to show that people are replacing Microsoft products with free programs, analysts said. "
So we're going to be seeing MORE "studies" showing that Windows is cheaper to maintain? I'm sure they will be able to skew that towards Windows, but it's pretty hard to skew the fact that it costs quite a bit more to initially set up a Windows-based server infrastructure than a Linux-based one.
As far as the other bit? The major software that people would be replacing is Microsoft Office. I wonder how many are replacing it with something *cheaper* - like Corel's office suite. Gateway is already doing that...
Yes and no. It may be cheaper if you're an MS shop (Score:5, Informative)
"It is often preferable to simply backup you Exchange Server Data and reinstall, instead of trying to find the one hidden setting that is causing the error in your configuration."
That almost made me fall over in my chair.
From that day on I decided on a course for MS freedom. We now run Apache/Tomcat for our JSP server, MySQL for our DB Backend (until migration to Oracle is complete), and QMail/Horde/IMP for mail. It took a little time but saved around $6000 in software licensing costs and $5000 in new hardware that would have needed to be purchased.
So in the end I could deal with all the MS shit until the UI for managing Exchange got so bad it no longer became worth it to run MS on the server side. It was the best IT decision I've made (IMHO).
Of course... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's the economy, stupid! (Score:4, Interesting)
Free and low-cost alternatives to Win32/Office like Red Hat's imroving desktop and OpenOffice.org are being looked at seriously now.
Linux may have gotten alot of hype and speculative investment in the 90's, but the current economy is where its price/performance potential becomes evident.
Not only is Ballmer scared, but Sun announced 4,400 layoffs [theregister.co.uk] today. The demand for commodity operating systems is kicking them in the pants, and their quality, but proprietary hardware seems less of a bargain as commodity hardware improves in price/performance.
FWIW, open source is sending some proprietary UNIX employees to the unemployment lines already. Next, it's Redmond's turn as the desktop improves.
Unix is 40 years old??? Did I miss something? (Score:4, Informative)
Wow, All this time I thought Multics was in the late 60's and the first Unix came in November of 71.
Guess journalism and math don't mix.
Re:Unix is 40 years old??? Did I miss something? (Score:5, Funny)
My favorite quote: (Score:3, Funny)
Research has yet to show that people are replacing Microsoft products with free programs, analysts said.
"Just because the research doesn't show it, doesn't mean that it's not happening", said wiresquire, from his former MS box, now Linux box running Mozilla and StarOffice.
This is almost TOO easy ... (Score:5, Funny)
He must be new ...
Let's inform him on some of the "innovating" that Microsoft has done in the past ... shall we?
DOS ... Nope, they bought it ...
... Nope, got it from the Mac ...
... Nope, got it from NCSA (Mosaic) ... in fact, they almost missed the Internet ...
... Nope, WordPerfect was already around ...
... Nope, got it from the RIAA ...
Windows (UI)
Internet Explorer
Word
DRM
Hmmm ... seems that Micrsoft needs a little improvement for innovating ...
BTW, don't miss the Dancing Monkey [ntk.net]
Re:This is almost TOO easy ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Of all the modern OS's I feel the *nix world copies the most and does the least innovation. Think of all that could be done with kde/gnome - but instead they became win98 clones until just recently. Not that *nix software is bad it just being a wee bit hypocritical.
BTW, you missed
Re:This is almost TOO easy ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:This is almost TOO easy ... (Score:4, Insightful)
zope, postgresql, jabber, rsync, http, email, ftp, tcp/ip, DNS, distributed file systems etc. are all innovations that occured in the *nix world. I just stopped there but there are tons more. Just about every single piece of technology that you use every day come out of the unix world.
Re:This is almost TOO easy ... (Score:4, Funny)
What?! What about Tux Racer?
Re:This is almost TOO easy ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Jeez... are you serious? Come on, Unix is one of the more important platforms for research, if not the most important. It is flexible, it is reliable, most of the scientific community is familiar with it. And these days it is also free!
Just talking about Linux I could point you to Berlin [berlin-consortium.org], some guys with rather interesting ideas for building user interfaces. Or the Beowulf Project [beowulf.org], for massive distributed computing. Or RTLinux [fsmlabs.com] (and KURT [ku.edu]), for full featured real-time operating systems. How about ReiserFS [namesys.com], that takes database-like balanced trees to the filesystem level. Or SELinux [nsa.gov], a research prototype of a high-security operating system.
And the list goes on and on (forgive me for not looking up links, go Google for these ones): SPIN (a dynamically extensible operating system written in Modula-3, runs on Linux), all the research stuff at Mosix (including distributed shared memory, grid management, network RAM and more), the Hello Project (an operating system in Standard ML atop Linux), all the emulation stuff which hardly needs to be introduced, and all the kernel work for supporting different processor architectures.
Also note BDS's Kame Project, an advanced implementation of IPV6 and IPSec; the evolutionary scheduler for Linux; the networking kernel stuff, including the QoS work; OpenBIOS; the User-mode Linux kernel. Look up also the "C10K problem" for an interesting paper on server performance, (and while you're on that, khttpd and TUX kernel webservers).
Unix gave you the Internet, for root's sake. How much more "innovative" does it needs to get?
Innvation isn't just about features (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not someone to stand up for Microsoft, but this comparison _really_ is too easy.
What Unix users tend to forget is that Microsoft actually did some things right in Windows that Unix (or rather, the X Windows toolkits) to this date doesn't do right consistently. Take cut&paste. It's a basic feature, but the sheer scope of deviation among toolkits is just revolting. Tabbing between fields, same story.
As a matter of fact, the thing that I hold against Microsoft is precisely _not_ borrowing successful concepts from other companies. My favorite: Apple for years had a highly successful magazine for Apple Developers, called (wait for it!)... "develop". If a developer asked "develop" a question illustrated by an example, it would be answered with regards to the technology, but equally important, UI goofs would be pointed out.
If you look at MSDN, you will invariably see UI questions answered with "sure, you can do that, here's the code". No matter how counterintuitive or outright stupid the proposed UI is.
Microsoft sucks at trying to sway developers to pay attention to the looks of the UI (and, matter of fact, the WIN32 API doesn't make it particularly easy to do screen layout right), but much of the groundwork for UI behavior is done right, and screwing it up takes a conscious effort. A shocking innovation? I don't think so. Done better than the average Unix tool? You betcha.
Of course, Apple has much to answer for after they set the Dung Standard for user interfaces with their glitzy but totally unusable quicktime player [iarchitect.com].
Ommited Quote (Score:5, Funny)
A quote that didn't make the article:
In other news, Balmer has admitted publically that it is currently easier to move Unix apps to Linux than to Windows. May the mass porting begin!
F-bacher
to innovate or not to innovate, ... (Score:4, Interesting)
> to out-innovate the Linux community.''
Hmmm - usually M$ has the reputation to out-innovate competitors by
a) including the same features "for free" in the next release of Windows
b) buying the product/company.
Where Do You Want to Go Today?
out-innovating linux (Score:5, Insightful)
If Microsoft can do that, more profit to them. If they can provide the products people want and can afford, then they have nothing to worry about.
The problem is that they are a monolithic company. They have an official policy, some one decides to run a project, and throws programmers at it. They can make large scale (if not reliable) software quickly because they can afford to pay hundreds of programmers.
What they can't emulate is the ideas that come from a grass-roots community. If any one person has an idea, they can start to work on it. They have a huge body of software to research and re-use code from, and if they can demonstrate something that other people find useful, they can quickly gather programmers to the project.
Because it starts small, it may take longer to finish. But because it starts small, hundreds of ideas can be quickly tested, with the best being developed and improved by the community.
Haw can one company out-innovate that?
There's more to it than just that. (Score:5, Interesting)
It's kind of a shotgun effect. Sourceforge [sourceforge.net] and freshmeat [freshmeat.net] are perfect examples. At freshmeat you just need to filter on popularity to see what I mean. The well run projects that are tools community finds useful and stable will tend to be at the top. But you will typically have a choice among several project. You don't have to take the top one.
Microsoft can't do that in public. We've seen proof of that time and again. Their closed source model has gotten them in trouble time and again.
What is more scary... (Score:5, Funny)
Be afraid, be very afraid
Time to take a course in "logic" (Score:5, Funny)
Slashdot, you crack me up (Score:4, Funny)
Oh my..
In related news... (Score:5, Funny)
MINION: Master, your plan is unfolding nicely, Microsoft and the Free Software community are locked in mortal combat!
THE INSANELY GREAT ONE: (Steepling his fingers) Yes, this is perhaps my most diabolical plan ever, while these fools argue, I shall take over the world!!! (Maniacal laughter). Now, leave me...there is much to do...
Microsoft is taxing its ecosystem to death (Score:5, Interesting)
With executives like this, we shall never expect Microsoft to modify its ways, except to the extent forced by the government or the courts. Microsoft will keep pressuring consumers, sucking them dry. This monster is still growing without bounds and consuming ever increasing amount of food, despite the damage to the "ecosystem." Eventually the system will collapse, bring Microsoft down with it. Replacing it will be the system of Free Software, regulated by the GPL.
"Getting" open source (Score:4, Insightful)
What do you mean by this ? Do you mean the financial community is coming around to subscribing to "open source", in the sense of contributing their code "back" to the community, or do you mean that they are just using open-sourced code internally ?
Because if some company just realizes that open source software is cheaper or more effective to use, but doesn't release any code back (yes, I know they don't have to if they dont redistribute it), I hardly see why the open source community would be emboldened by this, and I can hardly see how the financial community could be said to "get" it.
Microsoft Still Missing the Point (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft is so busy being upset over people resisting their entitlement to the world's computers that they are missing the mark entirely.
Companies are looking at Linux not just because it's cheaper or better, it's because Microsoft has cheesed-off most of the IT managers in the world with their arrogance.
Software assurance, the history of constant upgrades as a revenue stream, security flaws, magically changing EULA's and Microsoft's patently bad faith dealings in the business world have people just sick and tired of Microsoft (and for the most part, the software industry as a whole).
It's not just a question of what's better or cheaper. It's a question of what is tolerable as opposed to dealing with Microsoft, which for many companies is becoming intolerable.
It's a hard sell... (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's see, 20,000 inboxes times about $6/seat is $120,000 -- versus -- free. Yeah, Exchange does more than just e-mail, but for that kind of cash in a cash-strapped educational institution, it's just insane. Add in the need to retrain some of my unix systems administrators or fire and rehire (not easy in a government institution) and it approaches an impossible scenario...
Psst. You do realize, some people like windows... (Score:4, Insightful)
Truely, I dont think linux has a chance on the desktop. Hardware support isn't there, Application are not isn't there (Loki is gone). I know everyone is working thier ass off to make it, but until the average joe will want to drop Windows boxes for a Linux box, linux will be mostly a server os. (I'm not counting the slashdot crowd, most of us dual boot, and/or have a dedicated linux/bsd server.)
Servers are another questions, Unix is the only way I run my shops. After running DNS/SMTP/HTTP on unix and windows, I can tell from experience, a unix type os is the only choice. (We run Solaris) But hey m$ wins again, seems 1/3rd of all unix admin programs run only on windows or if they use a web gui, only IE is supported. (sigh/disgust)
-
Do you GLTron [gltron.org] ?
What Ballmer and the others don't get... (Score:5, Insightful)
There's one aspect of Open Source that Ballmer and his friends don't get yet. He talks about trying to adopt the open-source ideas to benefit Microsoft. That dooms him to failure right there. People don't contribute to open-source software to benefit someone else. They contribute to benefit themselves. They fix bugs and add features because they need that done. And the contribute it back because they've already benefited from previous contributions from other people. It's all aimed at the benefit of the customer/user. When anyone, whether they be Microsoft or Sun or whoever, sets up a similar system aimed to benefit someone other than the people actually doing the work, those people don't buy in and the whole thing kind of shambles off into oblivion.
If Ballmer wants to adopt open-source ideas, the first one is going to have to be "How can our users add to and change Windows to benefit themselves?". As long as "How can users add to Windows to benefit Microsoft?" takes priority, it'll fail.
Balmer is a fool. MS efforts will go nowhere. (Score:5, Insightful)
Open source is not a business. It's not an establishment. It's only a set of ideals that are suited to fulfilling a set of needs. For example, people who use open source software have a need for inexpensive, dependable, stable, secure operating systems. As a result, several such operating systems have been produced from open source development efforts. Microsoft does not, cannot, and will never fulfill those needs. Therefore, open source software and ideals will always thrive, just as they have for several decades now. (This nonsense about making software proprietary is still a relatively new one in the computer industry... and it's showing that it will soon fail).
We're not in competition with Microsoft. We can just sit back, laugh, write good code, and use the execellent software we've created to complete our tasks and solve our problems. Meanwhile, they'll run around like mad, trying to compete with an entity that cannot be competed with, spending billions in the process while we go by without burning a single cent! Sure, some people use open source software to compete with Microsoft (RedHat, IBM, et al). But in the end, we are not a business and the fools at Microsoft don't know how to deal with it. Soon, they'll go the way of the dodo and that will be that.
Microsoft will fail because they cannot identify needs and fulfill them. All this time, they'll be busy spinning marketing campaigns, filling magazines with FUD... when they could have been developing quality, open code. I suppose the customer is their last priority. This is a business doomed to fail.
M$ wants to compete...LOL (Score:5, Insightful)
They don't want to compete with Free Software. They want to illegalize Free Software, and force any would be Free Software developers to release their code into the public domain or under a BSD-like license: so that M$ can take all of their ideas, embrace them, extend them in their own products, and then give nothing back to the community.
Basically, if it were up to M$, what's your's would be their's and what's their's would be their's too.
Btw, for those of you blabbing about the Free Software community not doing any innovating, that's bull. Let's just take WM's for the moment.
PWM -- any proprietary window manager out there that can adequately handle tabbed windowing, a vastly superior system?
WindowMaker -- better than Win9x's UI or that of OSX, though WindowMaker and OSX share the same heritage, NeXT. Sure, WindowMaker was based off of the OpenStep standard, but it was an *open* standard. Can't blame the Free Software community for keeping something alive in a viable form when its own company had abandoned it.
Those of you saying that KDE and GNOME are exactly like Windows are wrong; its similar to Windows to make transition easier for Windows users. However, KDE and GNOME each have their own unique features which distinguish them from Windows.
Xfce is an excellent Free Software implementation of CDE; original? no, but excellent, yes.
Alot of you people saying that Linux WM's and Desktop Environments are just Windows clones need to actually use these things instead of just looking at the screenshots from themes.org. They offer many useful features which aren't found in Windows or Mac. There are also areas where Windows and Mac are better. Mac gets points for their universal file menu (any hope of them allowing us to make it hide-away?). Windows gets points for allowing you to make your desktop background a web-page, and for allowing you to add "docks" to the sides of it with your choice of applications/folders on them. WM's in Linux like WindowMaker get points for their elegant look and feel, simplicity (dock); PWM gets points for its excellent tabbed-windowing feature; Xfce gets points for being a nice desktop environment.
Check out my website [rr.com] for some of my suggestions on what would make an ideal WM.
Workstation vs Server licensing (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft will never win against Linux unless they drastically change their licensing model. Currently, a copy of Windows 2000 Professional costs AUD 685.00 here in Australia. Compare this to their server products: Windows 2000 Server costs AUD 2184.00 and Advanced Server costs a stunning AUD 7900.00. The difference in cost between the workstation and server products is an order of magnitude, but the install CDs are virtually identical except for a few marker files. They even share service packs. It's not like the Server editions have email or database functionality thrown in for free, they just costs more and have different logos.
Believe it or not, most PHBs actually believe they are getting more when they are buying Windows 2000 Server, and that's how Microsoft likes it. To be fair, it's not just Microsoft doing this kind of thing: Have any of you noticed how SMP servers always cost at least a thousand dollars more than single CPU servers or workstations? Are one extra CPU socket and a slightly different North Bridge chip a thousand dollars worth of extra hardware? I think not. Dual CPU machines are largely sold as servers, and most large OEMs have worked out that they can charge more money for server hardware, even if it is almost exactly the same as their workstation products.
Linux, and open source in general, challenges such marketing hype. There is no workstation Linux or server Linux. Any home user or small business can set up a mail or database server without having to fork over five or six digits sums for software that isn't really all that special.
Where Open Source Falls Short (Score:4, Insightful)
Linux.. I can get the Intel hardware cheap, and the OS out of a book, or free. Not for the novice. I have to find someone who really knows what they are doing to get the apps set up and running. This takes time, and the cost can go through the roof.
Don't confuse inexpensive aquisition costs with inexpensive solutions. Until the mom and pop shops of the world can get accounting systems and small business software up and running inexpensively and easily, Microsoft will be around and making money.
N.O.I.S.E. ? (Score:5, Funny)
Netscape, Oracle, IBM, Sun, and Everyone else...
The article says they don't talk much about Netscape
anymore, or Sun, or Oracle. They still talk about
IBM and Everyone else, plus Linux. I guess that
means that their new acronym is L.I.E.
Microsoft just dont get the point. (Score:4, Insightful)
If they had cared anything about their customers they wouldnt be in this situation.
All their talk about "fighting linux" is just BS. How big part of the market has linux? I think there are enough space to cater both but MS seems to think that ANY competition is dangerous.
Why do they have such little faith in their own ability to compete on fair grounds? It feels liek they are grasping for straws. Maybe times arent so easy when there arent many companies to steal ideas from any longer. Any smart person with a wild new idea for a killer app just think Netscape and then puts it in a drawer until MS gets under control.
Free as in Market (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, Microsoft loses on all three counts - beer, speech and market. Which is why Ballmer has the big L on his forhead.
Oh, and yes, the speaker "got" the idea that you have to, in his terms, "close the loop" and give back to the community. The financial model of open source/free software is very clear to a financial person. For every $1 you put in, you get back $1000 (the $1 every one else in the community contributed). This doesn't work with real money, as the dot-com bubble proved once more. But it sure as hell works great with intangible thought-stuff like software.
Steve Ballmer would love Linux (Score:5, Funny)
Quote from CNET.com (Score:5, Interesting)
The biggest enemy of Microsoft is Microsoft (Score:4, Insightful)
The next stupidity out of Redmont now comes with Palladium and TCPA, do you really want to trust a mission critical system to an operating system where somebody might nail unasked an update onto. Do you really want to develop for a system where you in the long term might have to pay an annual tax to keep a signing key alive and do you really want to have somebody else decide if your program is allowed to run anymore or not... This is simply personal computing without personal computing. I think Microsoft and all the others will fall flat on their faces in the long term with this. And at that time, non TCPA implementing systems will be good enough so that you can push them onto the average joe.
Change of plan, gentlemen... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:No more Mircosoft Stories !!!! (Score:3, Funny)
Quit Slashdot Movement [washington.edu].
Re:financial community (Score:5, Insightful)
They're afraid of software without a final source. Yes, there are the free software developers, but they understand that linux is made by hackers.
Red Hat et al. is actually making inroads in this, because they can be a "final source".
But until the huge amount of software that an average bank uses that is seen as important for their job is available on another platform, then linux will be on the sidelines.
I used OSS on Wall St 10 years ago. (Score:4, Insightful)
Some of the business people did yell - "do you really see non-technical people using this 'Internet'?" and when we slid Mosaic to a few people "Do you really see business people using this 'World Web' thing?" . Yes, yes I do. "That just shows what you don't know about business." I'll get back to you on that one, ok?
Everyone had Unix desktops (well, most). Sendmail for 6,000 machines run mostly by, er, me, with end admins actually tossing in the binaries and one of 4 config files that ran the whole thing. SMTP got mail from London to Toyko, desktop to desktop, in under 2 seconds.
Did we live on Open Source? Well, the infrastructure did.
Trouble ticket systems took 2 years to be selected and rolled out.
Our group compiled "req" in a day and used that while we waited for Remedy.
Monitoring systems were selected for THOUSANDS per machine. /me looks at ethernet on the NeXT and Sparc 2 "no, hubs and routers, that sort of thing - just pony up the money for each box and we'll monitor it").
We put up CMU SNMP (would now use Net-SNMP) and got better results, despite management ("see, now, snmp is for Network devices"
Most importantly most trading system software is not store bought. Sure, on windows, they use some rapid development stuff. folks I know use a lot of Java, but it's a LOT of custom software.
The Unix problem was that X and Motif were so miserable to develop for. It was like punishment for choosing Unix. My hat is off to the KDE and GNOME folks for picking up the ball that the X Consortium dropped. Mandate application look and feel. You must quit apps through FILE -> Quit. That beats the random ways that you quite in Wordperfect or XV or Lotus or XTerm or whatever.
The financial world will go to where better app development and better support are. That's been MS for a while, I hate to say. GNOME & KDE may save Unix.
Re:Writing lessons (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Serious Question for Open Source developers... (Score:4, Insightful)
We'll do what we've traditionally done: get paid to write software. I'd say about 80% of software is by it's nature not amenable to being widely distributed. For example, a point-of-sale system tied tightly into the pump-control, tank-monitoring and other hardware of a truckstop. Half a million or so lines of code, all told, and all of it so specific to one company's way of doing business that there's only a handful of other people who could use it without major modifications and customization. For all that, though, it's so critical to keeping the company running that abandoning it in favor of more generic solutions would be corporate suicide. It would simply cost too much in lost opportunities to have to wait 5 years for someone else to implement an idea, not to mention the costs of customizing it to match the way the company works (or alternatively changing the way the company works, but that's letting the tail wag the dog).
In that kind of situation, open-source is infrastructure. It's the generic code that handles the routine jobs and the well-known tasks so the programmers can concentrate on the critical parts that aren't generic.