META Predicts Linux Software From Microsoft in 2004 568
trandles writes "According to this story at NYTimes (FRYYY), META Group is reporting that Microsoft will begin selling Linux software in 2004. It also goes on to report that a META Group study comes to the same conclusion as the earlier (MS-funded) IDC study that Linux has a higher TCO than MS solutions for some applications." Remember, this is speculation on the part of META, and has to do with back-end software, not Office. (But if Microsoft wanted to, they could become the world's biggest producer of Linux software.)
LinSolitaire? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:LinSolitaire? (Score:5, Interesting)
Point-by-point rebuttal here (Score:3, Informative)
Re:LinNotepad - the *killer* app (Score:3, Funny)
Aaargh, wrong setting, sorry... (Score:3, Funny)
Actually, I'm waiting with baited breath for Microsoft Emacs. I'm hoping it will sport the following features...
Feel free to mod down the mis-posted original; I have the karma to spare.
ActiveLinux? (Score:3, Funny)
Or Linux Professional.
How about .Linux?
Visual Linux.
MSL?
Linux#?
Re:ActiveLinux? (Score:5, Funny)
Un-Free Linux?
Blue Screen of Linux?
Maybe All-Your-Torvalds-Are-Belong-to-Microsoft?
In Soviet Russia, Linu(*BANG!!!!*)
Re:ActiveLinux? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:ActiveLinux? (Score:3, Funny)
mslinux.org (Score:2)
Re:ActiveLinux? (Score:2)
Cool (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Cool (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Cool (Score:2)
Re:Cool (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cool (Score:2, Informative)
Welcome to the world of 75% of all offices.
You will use the software we provide as installed, or not at all.
Re:Cool (Score:3, Interesting)
Well that's already happened, anybody that wants to can run MS Office on Linux via CrossOver. Running an app under Wine is pretty much the same as running it on Windows integration-wise, the only difference really being themeing (or lack of it). But somehow most of use all use OpenOffice. Perhaps because, good though Office is, it isn't worth the price they charge for it?
Re:Cool (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cool (Score:3, Insightful)
To think it of another way, MS Applications are the 'value-added' portion of the Windows OS.
Re:Cool (Score:5, Insightful)
Office for Linux (was Re: Cool) (Score:5, Interesting)
too late (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft are slowly loosing there Office Monopoly, once that starts to dwindle then there OS monopoly is up for grabs.
Async IO and N:P threading in the 2.6 kernel will help along the way.
Re:too late (Score:2)
Yeah! Because the moment they lose their Office Monopoly (which is illusionary anyway, but...) games will just MAGICALLY APPEAR on the Linux platform, causing a huge wave of gamers to switch to Linux.
Re:too late (Score:2)
Gamers all have licensed copies of Windows? come-on.
Anyhow the majority of M$ software is in companies not in homes, Games aren't the big thing on Windows, Office is.
WineX is coming along quite nicely if you want to play game not-on-windows or you could be a PS2.
Blue screens... (Score:2, Funny)
Sure.. (Score:4, Insightful)
1. Closed source, commercial Linux software
2. Open Sourced/GPLed Linux software.
Hah, they'll probably GPL notepad.
Re:Sure.. (Score:3, Informative)
Why bother when Wine Notepad (an almost exact recreation) is LGPLd?
Re:Sure.. (Score:2, Funny)
It only makes sense (Score:4, Funny)
Re:It only makes sense (Score:2, Funny)
Also... (Score:3, Interesting)
------
and I would have gotten away with it too if it wasn't for you lousy kids [wallpaperscoverings.com] - Amusement park operator
MS could take control of Linux (Score:5, Interesting)
Embrace, extend, control. After a while, everyone will write software for Microsoft X# or X++ or X-Windows(tm) or whatever they call it, and MS will call the shots.
Re:MS could take control of Linux (Score:2)
Re:MS could take control of Linux (Score:3, Insightful)
> We're safe for now.
For a very short now. Make good use of it by grabbing every bit of Microsoft's marketshare that you can.
> MS makes all their profit on Word and Windows.
> This would mean that they can only make a profit
> on the Word processor since they're giving away
> the GUI and OS, thus halving their profits.
No, they will be basically giving both Office and OS away, as free as AOL disks. Use of the software will be charged for, again and again, and the software will stop working when you stop paying.
At that point, it won't matter what the software is running on.
The name of the game is "Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish".
And if you think Microsoft has played that game like hardball, you haven't seen anything yet.
"At this moment, it has control of systems all over the world.
And...we can't do a damn thing to stop it."
Miyasaka, "Godzilla 2000 Millennium" (Japanese version)
Homage to Fairy Mothra, who first appeared on this date in 1994.
Another approach (Score:4, Funny)
the source code. That would ruin linux!
Re:Another approach (Score:2, Interesting)
As for secure, well, who knows...we'll see what the next big MS security holes are.. and as for price and open-source-ness, still a long way to go there.
In terms of usability and stability, MS has really come a long way from then Windows 9X days...the latest Windows seems to, in my opinion, have caught up to Linux in terms of stability, and is close behind in terms of speed as well... Of course, the argument of MS being an evil monopolistic company with equally evil business practices still certainly stands
Re:Another approach (Score:5, Interesting)
All of these advantages are theoretical. They also carry some disadvantages, notably in performance.
People have argued for years that traditional monolithic kernels must reach the point where network effects in the code make every change too expensive to make (too much chance of side-effects). So far, this hasn't happened with the Linux kernel. I'm only an amateur kernel hacker (working on reverse engineering an old framebuffer video card so I can make a kernel driver for it) and I don't claim to know much of the Linux kernel code (apart from the framebuffer), but it sure looks to me like the Linux kernel has managed to acheive a similar level of code independence by using good structure programming practice.
As for the superior "security" of the microkernel model, this comes from that same separation of service processes. Compromise a microkernel service and you cannot (in theory) leverage that into a compromise of other services. At the service level, this is true. A Mach or NT microkernel has this feature. The problem is that the Windows kernel isn't the Windows OS. The Windows OS is the gigantic flabby shared APIs written as DLLs. These are the things that are attacked and compromised. These sit on top of all of the sophisticated kernel plumbing and they provide a path to blithely leap between unprivlidged and privledged user space in the stuff that matters: network, file, and directory services. You don't need to compromise any kernel service to own a Windows box because it the is the Win32 APIs that have the holes, not the kernel services (Yes, I know I'm making rather broad generalizations, but the point is still true). Much of "Windows" privledge/authentication/authorization is in "user land" code. Microsoft emphasizes the sophistication of their underlying microkernel architecture. And I agree. The trouble is they have carried over the top much of the cruft from the design of the win16 and pre-NT win32 APIs in the name of backward compatibility and this has carried forward fundmental design weaknesses from those systems.
To be fair to Microsoft, these weakenesses weren't particularly problematic when they were introduced. At the time, each machine was an isolated, single-user device. Little or no networking was done with them. Also to be fair, Microsoft really didn't have a choice but to be backward compatible. They never would have got any users for NT if it didn't run all or nearly all existing software. I'll go further: they never would have got ISVs to switch to win32 if they hadn't done Windows95, marketed it like the second coming, and required ISVs to use win32 if they wanted the "Works with Windows95" logo. The much-maligned Windows 95 was the only reason every major piece of Windows software came to run well on NT.
So feel free to bandy the words "inferior" and "superior" but I defy you to provide and objective criterion by which you may fairly apply those words to the two kernels. "More advanced" v. "Less advanced", yes. "Sophisticated" v. "Simple", yes. I don't buy "superior" v. "inferior," unless you believe that newer necessarily means "better," which, obviously I do not accept.
I also do not buy the statement that these weaknesses "are a thing of the past." They have done a great job of cleaning up many of the holes, but the DLL hosted APIs are still a bridge that just circumvents the good kernel design. They have plugged thousands of holes, but the system design is still subject to them, just as the Linux kernel is.
I do agree that 2000 and XP are vastly more stable than any previous versions of Windows, but this is a product of API cleanup, not the inherent "superiority" of the NT kernel. The "NT" kernel has had these "superior" features from day one and it conferred no magic "superiority" or stability on early versions of NT.
Re:MS could take control of Linux (Score:5, Interesting)
Ok, and the situation will end up being identical to today, with people locked in MS X# or whatever instead of windows. In what way would this take control of linux? X11 and all the apps would still exists and you would still be able to use them.
The only consequence would be to get some extra kernel debugging and lots of linux kernels running in the background of desktop PCs.
They can't change X# to make it only compatible with the special closed-source Microsoft-approved linux kernel, because the kernel is GPL. Actually, Microsoft would give a lot of power in the hands of Linus: a few touches here and there and it would be update nightmare for Microsoft to make sure that their interface runs on every new release of the kernel.....
I think you are assuming that the only things MS wants is "control", while the aim is profit: control is only a mean to it. And this new scenario does not bring in any additional profit.
I sometimes question this (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not so sure about that. In the long term they are threatened by the emergence of new competition. It is in their best interest to prevent that emergence, so I think in any given decision control is viewed as a higher priority than profit.
Whether the ultimate goal is profit is, I think, immaterial when the result is that every decision is made to favor control above all else.
Re:MS could take control of Linux (Score:5, Informative)
It "only" provided a 90+% installed base of browsers which support their standard instead of the normal one. A standard which, surprise surprise, is fully accessible when using their http server (otherwise, forget about the neat extensions).
This is the main difference with "free-as-in-speech": a 100% marketshare in free software does not give you leverage to extend monopoly in another market. On the contrary, proprietary protocols give you this power (proprietary = either that the protocol is unknown or that it's supported only by a specific proprietary app). Netscape was dangerous because, even if is now portrayed at the poor victim of the gorilla, was trying to play the very same game with their "agressively embracing open standards" (= adding new extensions) which, surprise again, were better supported by their http server. Microsoft had no control on the platform where that server would be running: in particular it would not have been NT Windows-only.
Re:MS could take control of Linux (Score:2)
However, the main downsides historicly for MS Windows is all the dirty tricks they pull to get more performance and features.. Putting graphics in ring-0 (kernel space), and even putting webserver stuff there!
Now imagine MS X-Windows(Tm). All the UI research and man-centuries of coding pooring into it, however without control over the kernel, file systems, and based on (and hopefully even contributed to) gcc/glibc/etc. Linux filesystems, network stacks, and the other alternatives that already exist on linux!
Then they might still call the shots for the UI (though XFree86 will still exist, so will kde/gnome) but the control over the 'platform' they would loose.
This would have the same positive effect as the sugested splitting up MS into sepperate Windows, User Apps and Server Apps companies..
Heh, if they ever do decide to do so, atleast we saved them the effort of porting linux to the X-Box They could even use wine as a basis to run 'legacy apps'
Or they could (Score:2)
Hmm, interesting. I think they'd more likely release software for *BSD. And probably colsed source at that or open source under a much more restrictive license than a BSD or GPL one.
Re:Or they could (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Or they could (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, I don't mean release the last version they had in the boiler room in Redmond HQ, holding the door closed
They already did release Office for BSD i.e. Mac OS X.
Good point
Well, if they wanted to release a new *nix variant, all they would have to do is go with a BSD system, like MacOS has done. Maybe even create their own windowing system like Apple. The BSD license will leave them free to do whatever they wish, to make a commercial BSD flavor without any IP/patent problems.
Re:Or they could (Score:2)
It's Reuters, not NY Times (Score:5, Informative)
Here's another source... (Score:3, Informative)
ZDNet UK [zdnet.co.uk]
No registrations required.
hail notepad!!! (Score:2, Funny)
the future is bright
How good that they won't (Score:5, Insightful)
I can only say that I find it good that microsoft doesn't port their office suite to linux! MS Office is not a success in because of a well written office suite. Not by a long shot! Better alternatives exists (even for linux). The argument that microsoft office thrives on: "but all our buissnes partners have MS Office, so in order to exchange data, we gotta have it to", doesn't work if you can't get MS Office! So I think it's a good think that MS haven't ported MS Office to linux. It might mean that the better alternative will prevail for once.
Re:How good that they won't (Score:5, Insightful)
Better applications exist, but only in very specfic domains. For example, if you know what you're doing, LaTeX is a superior typesetting program to MS Word. If you are editing very simple documents, then AbiWord takes less disk space. But there's no open source word processor that can compete feature-for-feature with MS Word, and open source lags even further behind for spreadsheet and presentation software.
I know it pains Slashbots to hear this, but MS Office is actually pretty good, and outcompeted offerings from other vendors.
Re:How good that they won't (Score:5, Insightful)
Staroffice crashes as much as MS office does for me.. Some problems i had with older MS offices where they got very unstable on large documents but thats much better now.
MS office does start up 100x faster then staroffice.. It also allows me to do whatever i need to do with min. hassle (as long as clippy is hiding) and i've seen complete a-technical people make great powerpoint presentations in MS office..
Granted you are almost forced to have it to participate in the buisness world, and it's a little expensive and bloated.. And i dislike MS to, for all their dirty technical, legal and ethical tricks and behaviours, however MS office is not a 'bad product'.
Saying so will only create more distance between you and the people you are trying to influance..
Show a end-user he could do his work better, faster and cheaper in an alternative suite, and he will switch. Telling him what he uses is 'bad' will only make it less likely he will ever switch
Re:How good that they won't (Score:3, Insightful)
For a word processor, sure. But for a spreadsheet, no. Spreadsheets like Excel are BOTH a visual document and a scripted program rolled into one. All the major spreadsheet programs have a scripting language, but unfortunately they all have different scripting languages, and that's the hardest part to tanslate from one spreadsheet to another. So as long as Star Office doesn't do Visual Basic, it cannot handle most Excell files properly. This is going to be a very major barrier to migrating off of MS Office.
In other news! (Score:2)
2008 winter olympics to be held in hell
I'll believe this when I see it. Microsoft releasing any kind of product for linux would be like admitting defeat. Customers would ask why they develop product for an inferior[1] platform. What we might see is some microsoft funded third party developing linux software (as in frontpage extensions for apache)
[1]: Not my opinion, but that's what they'll ask microsoft
MS OFFICE for Linux (Score:4, Interesting)
Big news? (Score:3, Interesting)
I think it is rather obvious. As they must by 2004 have realized, that they cannot kill Linux as an OS - they will just have to start making money with it - by SELLING their products ported and tailored to run on it. It is just so easy to actively forget, that Microsoft is much more than just the operating system - they have multiple products that could actually benefit many - even (and especially) if people want to keep running Linux. I could easily name some Microsoft products, which I would like to see running on Linux - ones that would enable myself to stop running two operating systems at work, for example.
Already producing Office for BSD... (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, if you think about it, it makes a lot of sense for MSFT to have a "Linux business unit". Just like MSFT likes to keep Apple on a leash to provide them with cutting-edge ideas on user interface and applications, they could do the same with Linux in regards to security and server software.
Re:Already producing Office for BSD... (Score:2)
and bring clippy to linux... (Score:2)
Comapred....? (Score:2)
Surely they mean including all of their server software so that can favourably^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H be compare against 'free'
I didn't know Bill was sick (Score:5, Funny)
My condolences to the Gates family - what does Bill have? Cancer? Alzheimers? AIDS? ALS? CJD?
Whatever he has, my condolences. I know what it is like to hear your loved one only has about a year left. The next few months will be hard, but know that you will get through it, and while it never gets better, it gets easier.
</humor>
Because the only way Microsoft will start selling software for Linux is over Bill Gates' cold, dead body. So the only way you can say that MS will be selling Linux software in 2004 is to say that Bill is not long for this world.
And somehow I doubt Bill is even sick.
Re:I didn't know Bill was sick (Score:4, Insightful)
And he told you this personally, did he?
MS write and have written software for a number of platforms. Office for Mac, MSIE for Solaris, CLR for FreeBSD to name but a few. Bill and Microsoft do what they do because they believe it will generate the most value for their shareholders - if the competitive landscape changes, so will they. Look how fast they changed their Internet strategy, for example.
Why would MS want there own OS anyways ? (Score:2)
Dollars to donuts... (Score:3, Interesting)
Think of it from a business strategy perspective (Score:4, Interesting)
We all know that MS Office and the "Microsoft tax" (the price we pay for buying Windows desktops and servers) are by far Microsofts main sources of revenue. Could Microsoft support Linux and maintain these cash cows? I believe they could.
Firstly, there is no reason why Microsoft couldn't sell their own version of Linux for the server, and charge the same as they charge for their current Windows server software. I am quite sure that it would sell well, and could reduce the numbers of people migrating to Red Hat, for example. Secondly, I see no reason why they couldn't come out with a version of MS Office for Linux and charge a similar price for it. This might also prevent people migrating to OpenOffice.org or Star Office.
If they did this, they could also try to use their considerable muscle to sway people away from technologies they don't want people to use. So for instance, the MS Linux would probably not include MySQL and PHP, and perhaps not even Apache.
I don't see any reason why they couldn't do this. Of course, they still have the long term problem of the erosion in value of what they offer as free competing solutions improve, but there's not much they can do about that other than try to fight off the inevitable.
Re:Think of it from a business strategy perspectiv (Score:3, Insightful)
Their own version of what? They couldn't even touch GPLd code with a 10 feet pole. They can't buy all copyright holders.
They can only plant the seeds that will mutate Linux into one of their allies, and yes, this will be a very unhappy day for many folks.
Java is the only thing standing in the way, but as we all know, it's easier to develop for
Web Services (Score:2, Interesting)
Hmmm... (Score:2)
But if Microsoft wanted to, they could become the world's biggest owner of Linux software
.NET (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:.NET (Score:3, Interesting)
MS's favourite tactic is not just to play the game well, but to move the goalposts, tilt the playing field, change the rules of the game, and mangle other sports metaphors :)
OS-dependence seems to be one of those. The option of rapidly decoupling thier apps from the Win32 OS kernel may be important to them, for Linux, WinCE or whatever reason.
Re:.NET (Score:3, Insightful)
The main advantage of
Efficiency of development is the primary goal, anything else that
Web services and server software? (Score:3, Interesting)
'SEATTLE (Reuters) - In a major strategy shift, Microsoft Corp. (NasdaqNM:MSFT - news) will introduce software based on the Linux (news - web sites) open source operating system in 2004 for Web services and server software, market researcher META Group predicted on Monday. '
; this will gradually include the major Microsoft back-office products, such as SQL Server, IIS, and Exchange," META Group said.
So there going to sell insecure web services, over say Apache, web services is M$'s weekest market, and IIS i can see people buying IIS on Linux.
SQL server, hmm... why.... Oracle, DB2, anything else except SQL server is already on Linux, they havn't a hope.
There only viable Server port would be Exchange since there isn't a non-windows variant, but that would be dangerious for M$, since there are a few companies who only have windows boxes for Exchange.
MONO are already doing
I think there talking shit....
Microsoft *NIX (Score:2, Insightful)
So really they're not *that* new to this, but, depending on your point of view, then either MS are trying to do a passable cover-the-bases routine, or they have some other plan in mind.
Let's be honest here - and I think we all know this - if Bill & The Boys did go down the linux route, then it would change linux completely; can you see MS open-sourcing all their code for this project?
No, me neither!
distro (Score:2, Funny)
But Microsoft already has it's own linux distribution [mslinux.org] ready slated for release in november 2003. Knowing MS and it's slipping OS release dates this will probably end up being released in 2004.
Microsoft's Surrender? Not by a long shot. (Score:2)
There are several reasons I can see:
I'd say getting into Linux would be in character for Microsoft.
However, DON'T expect them to make it look like anything but a Oh-We-Care-For-Consumers routine. Expect something more along the lines of "Microsoft produces an advanced, user-friendly version of the popular operating system. Now you can take advantage of the best of both worlds" or something.
BTW, if this happens, there may be a massive shift in what skillsets employees are interested in. Something to watch.
Cute... (Score:2, Interesting)
"It's initially cheaper to purchase and install a [insert competitor here]'s hardware and software, but more expensive in the long run with regards to administration and people."
Could this be a sign of desperation?
Anyhow, the chances M$ will come out with a GPL'd version of Linux are like nil. Now, a proprietary version of Linux... that is more likely, especially if the level of desperation rises!
Interesting Idea (Score:2)
Necessary but insufficient (Score:2)
What they do not include are estimates of the cost of non-availabilty. Obviously this is difficult to quantify, since it varies according to the application and business. However since we are talking about Linux and Windows in the entreprise one ought to be able to put some kind of estimate or estimates together (this much per hour of down time in a small development shop, this much in a bank). I think one would then see what the real cost of ownership of each platform is.
I see it now (Score:2)
Has META ever predicted anything useful? (Score:5, Informative)
Hold your horses, gentlemen.
Their German subsidiary just sold a well researched and completely unbiased prediction [slashdot.org] that Linux won't stand a chance against Windows on servers and desktops to the Swiss a few months ago. The study claims that Unix scales better than Linux and yet Unix will become a back-end, legacy OS platform by 2003.
Oh, and they also pumped out a different study [metagroup.de] (which is, by the way, also completely unbiased and astoundingly well-researched) where they predicted Linux will grow from 25% to 35% in the next 2 years, only to be outpaced by... Windows 2000?!
ROTFL! Nobody in their right mind can take these people seriously! I don't even have to contradict them, they do it themselves!
BTW: The PDF is in German, but the pretty figures are all English, so you should have no problem understanding what they are saying.
PS: What good luck we have that their study is a PDF! In it you will find the assertion that Star Office has "uncertainties" opening MS Office files and thus you can't use Linux. Um, well...
TCO depends on lots of factors (Score:5, Insightful)
If you are running a Windows shop and put people with only MCSE training to work on UNIX/Linux machines, they won't know what to do, they won't even know how to find out what to do, and they will hate it. Your systems will run miserably and your TCO will be high.
What does that mean? Your Linux TCO depends on how your run your shop. If you do things right, the achievable TCO is better for Linux than for Windows.
Makes Sense - But When (Score:3, Insightful)
It's very logical for Microsoft to make Linux software at some point in time.
They're still in the phase where they're fighting tooth and nail to swallow up the server market (as well as the console game, PDA, cell phone, and ISP markets:)
Only when Linux makes more serious inroads into the server market will they commit to a product for Linux. For now, the more profitable strategy is the one they're currently pursuing.
Microsoft's dilemna, though, will be that various free and open source software will fill in the holes of providing MS services on UNIX. SAMBA and Mono, for example. If they released it now, they could own .NET on UNIX, but it would unfavorably leverage against their other strategy of having Windows take over more of the server OS market. The latter strategy puts them more in the drivers seat as far as coming out with new products, calling the shots for upgrade cycles, etc. and is therefore preferable to them at this point in time.
Highly unlikely - and here's why (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a good piece, but it's subscription only
Microsoft Wages Campaign Against Free Software
By WILLIAM M. BULKELEY and REBECCA BUCKMAN
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Sometimes it seems as if Microsoft Corp. doesn't want government to save money -- at least not if it comes by using free software. Microsoft is waging a major lobbying and public-policy campaign to stop government agencies in the U.S. and abroad from embracing free, "open-source" software, especially the Linux operating system, which poses a growing threat to Microsoft's Windows.
In the past year it has argued with the Defense Department over the content of a report extolling free software. It has organized a world-wide lobby to oppose laws that mandate using open-source software. It has persuaded some congressmen to ask the new Office of Homeland Security not to fund research that uses certain open software.
But even Microsoft is having a tough time persuading governments from Washington to South Africa that getting software free is a bad thing -- especially when rivals like International Business Machines Corp. are telling them that open-source software works just fine.
Open-source software is software whose source code, or base layer of commands, usually can be copied freely and then modified, unlike most proprietary software, which is generally controlled by a profit-making company. It is championed by a far-flung community of programmers, researchers and companies who share their work over the Internet.
Open-source software has grown in recent years to become a full-fledged rival to Microsoft, used by companies, universities and others in their computer rooms. Many open-source programs are free, or nearly so.
The best known open-source software, Linux, increasingly is being embraced by computer companies including IBM, Dell Computer Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co. as a way to sell more hardware and services. According to International Data Corp., a technology-research firm, sales of server computers that use Linux grew 6% in the most recent four quarters, while sales of Windows-based servers grew just 1% in revenue.
Microsoft says it isn't against the concept of open-source software. But it is working hard to prevent government researchers from adopting software covered by the general public license, or GPL, that governs reuse of much open-source software, including Linux. The GPL requires anyone who copies the software to freely share any improvements or additions they make to the code.
Because commercial companies often adapt programs written by government-funded university scientists, Microsoft argues that wider use of GPL-licensed software would stifle innovation. Commercial companies, it argues, would have no incentive to sell "free" software derived from the research. What's more, Microsoft worries that its own developers could inadvertently combine Linux or other GPL-licensed programs with Microsoft programs, which could potentially make the Microsoft programs subject to free-sharing as well.
"The GPL, in my view, is bad in all its dimensions," says Jim Allchin, the Microsoft group vice president who heads the powerful Windows group.
In some cases, Microsoft has leaned on government agencies directly. The U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency, an arm of the Defense Department, says that last spring it granted a Microsoft request for an exclusive advance look at a report by research firm Mitre Corp., Bedford, Mass., on Pentagon use of open-source software.
After Ira Rubinstein, a Microsoft lawyer, detailed Microsoft's objections, Dawn Meyerrick, chief technology officer at the agency, says she asked Mitre to make changes in the report. Among them, it dropped the conclusion that open-source software was more secure, and it added cautionary words about the GPL.
Open-software advocates also perceived Microsoft's influence in a letter from a group of congressmen to Richard Clarke, who heads cyberspace security for the newly created federal Office of Homeland Security. The initial letter urged the government to continue past practices by "explicitly rejecting licenses that would prevent or discourage commercial adoption" of software developed under federal contracts.
But as the letter was being circulated, Rep. Adam Smith, a Washington Democrat -- who receives the most donations of any representative from Microsoft's political action committee -- added a "Dear Colleague" letter to further explicate the original. That letter said that "licenses such as the General Public License (GPL) are problematic and threaten to undermine innovation and security," and suggested such open-source software shouldn't be developed by the government at all.
That echoed Microsoft's position. A Microsoft spokesman acknowledges that Rep. Smith met with its chief technology officer, Craig Mundie, before the letter was sent, but only for "informational" purposes. Mr. Smith's press secretary says that the "dear colleague" letter was meant to clarify the original because "we believe in innovation."
Open-source fans believe Microsoft is bringing its political power to bear because it sees a market threat to its desktop-software monopoly. But in some cases, Microsoft's appeals have fallen on deaf ears. Last year, according to people familiar with the situation, Microsoft objected "vigorously" when the super-secret National Security Agency developed a secure version of Linux and then posted it on the NSA Web site for anyone to download. But NSA didn't back down and the software is still available.
In the developing world, where free software like Linux may have its greatest appeal, Linux advocates say they have "noticed that Microsoft has made a substantial portion of their quote 'gifts' to developing nations that have indicated a strong preference for open-source software," says Mark Webbink, general counsel of Red Hat Inc., a Raleigh, N.C., company that sells versions of Linux.
In India, where at least one state government endorsed Linux recently, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates last month announced a $400 million gift of donated software and business-development aid.
In South Africa, a Microsoft offer to provide software for 32,000 schools came just days after that country's National Advisory Council on Innovation called for the government to adopt open-source software to build local programming skills and avoid sending hard currency to the U.S. to pay for Windows. Nhlanhla Mabaso, a government chief information officer, says that while the free software from Microsoft is tempting, "Personally, I believe this is not good for South Africa."
Bradford Smith, Microsoft's general counsel, says any donations "are made to meet a social need" and not to counter Linux.
Microsoft concedes that its opposition to open-source software has sometimes backfired, and it says it intends to move the battle to more straightforward commercial issues.
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Sure, .NET (Score:3, Insightful)
Honeslty, I think .NET is very akin to Java (not just the language similarites, but the bytecode/CLR, VM, libraries, etc.). In fact, I think Microsoft will give up their OS monopoly that they've been beaten up about. Just before they giove it up, though, they'll finsih porting everything to .NET amd then sue any platform running .NEt without a license. Trading one monopoly for another.
Windows for Linux (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course the equivalent Linux strategy is offering a replacement for X, including a Windows-like desktop and support for the Windows API. I'll bet they are already experimenting with this.
If Micro$oft releases their version of Linux... (Score:3, Funny)
MS already writes software for Un*x (Score:3, Informative)
What about the FrontPage extensions module for Apache? MS are not ideologues, they will do whatever suits their bottom line. And, as has been demonstrated on numerous occasions, they really don't care about performing u-turns.
I can't believe some of the arguments being posted here, especially the 'no-one would buy MS products for Linux' one. That's been the argument for just about everything they have ever produced, and, in almost every case, they have ended up with the lion's share of the market. A couple of years ago, the story was that no-one would use Media Player instead of RealPlayer.
And OSS wps are just so bad! Do any of the people singing the praises of Open Office actually use it in a corporate setting? I'm about to install W2K alongside my Linux network just so the clients can produce CVs that anyone else in the world can read more than one time in three.
Now it makes sense.... (Score:3, Insightful)
I have often heard from my friends at MS that they like their engineers to have a strong UNIX/LINUX background. As laughable as that may seem given the immaturity of MS products, this seems to make sense if MS is looking to get into the Linux market.
For instance, if MS were to release Office for Linux I wouldn't be booting into Windows as often as I do (I have a dual-boot setup). I also think that by releasing Office they would succeed in luring in a whole new demographic into trusting MS that had previously only bashed them. The result would be Linux people using MS and Linux gaining respect in the eyes of non-techies. How is this good for MS? All MS would have to do is release MSLinux and everyone would migrate to it in a flash. If anything I think MS's OS business would grow along with their apps.
I hate to admit it but when it comes to usability (GUI, ease of software installation, system navigation) MS is tops. A lot of you are probably grimacing at that last statement but after having seen my grandmother (age: 70+) competently surf the net, write emails, and install software only after a day or two of help from my 10 year old cousin I'm a believer. If MS comes out with Linux tomorrow I know I wouldn't have a dual boot anymore....
Re:Now it makes sense.... (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you probably meant to say, "I hate to admit it, but when it comes to usability (GUI, ease of software installation, system navigation) MS is what I believe to be the easiest system that I have used."
Are you really going to try and back up the claim that Windows XP is easier to use than MacOS X? For everyone? Apple did lots of usability testing, and created an operating system that new users can just pick up and run with. Software is also distributed as one file, and the GUI looks much nicer than that of Microsoft.
Of course, these are just the opinions of many happy MacOS users (except for the usability testing and the software distribution; those are facts). Personally, I can't stand to use Windows. I find Enlightenment _far_ easier to use for my daily tasks. I find the software to be much better for my needs. I even like it better than MacOS X.
If set up properly, Linux can be easier for end users to casually use (Web browsing, word processing, email) than Microsoft operating systems. I know; I've helped to do it at the Agape House and I've done it at The Retriever Weekly . It can be customized down to the point of being as simple as possible, without the complexity of a Start Menu and other things which are unnecessary to the user of a few applications.
I find that using Linux as my own desktop is like using vi as my editor. Yes, it took longer to learn than Notepad. However, I can do so much more with it now, and work so much more efficiently. Windows (on other people's machines; I don't dual boot) feels clunky in comparison.
For new users, I think I'd recommend MacOS X. For serious computer people, I'd recommend taking the time to learn a free *nix type system (such as Linux or FreeBSD). I would really only recommend Microsoft Windows to people who are used to it and who don't have the time to learn their way around anything else, or the money to buy a Mac. Sorry, but not everyone feels the same way you do.
No longer speculation (Score:4, Informative)
This is no longer speculation. I was listening to CNET Radio on my way into work this morning and the Chief Research Officer of Microsoft was the guest.
He confirmed that Microsoft was going to start developing Linux software and said Office was not on the list of things they had planned right away. IIS, SQL Server, and other such products would be placed on the burner first.
He also admitted some other interesting things. Namely that by 2006 they expected Linux to be shipping on 40% of Intel servers and that over time, the TCO of Linux would come to be the same as Windows in the server market.
I can't find any references to an announcement by Microsoft yet.. but you should be able to hear the interview in archive format at cnetradio.com [cnetradio.com].
Re:It's free in Yahoo. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:It's free in Yahoo. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:It's free in Yahoo. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:'Porting' doesn't mean 'develop' (Score:2)
So, I guess it'd be easy to port but...
Do MS want this ?
IMHO, they'd rather keep Exchange clients on Win*.* only so that their customers won't migrate.
Re:What do you mean if they wanted to? (Score:5, Insightful)
If Microsoft wanted to, they could become the world's biggest producer of fishing lures. Or coffee warmers. Or pencil lead. They have the money to be the largest producer of anything.
MS is currently trying to become the world's biggest producer of game consoles (or at least a serious competitor), and it doesn't seem to be working very well from what I've heard.
Re:What do you mean if they wanted to? (Score:3, Interesting)
A few years ago people were saying the same thing about WinCE in relation to Palm.
We're now starting to see news [news.com.au] indicating PocketPC is outselling Palm in many markets.
If Microsoft feels they can't do well in the market, they'll dump out of it like they did with UltimateTV, Bob, etc. That's one of the key reasons why Microsoft is successful, they'll admit their mistakes frankly and either improve the product or abandon it. Right now MS feels they have a chance with XBox and based on their sales performance I would agree. They're the #2 seller of game consoles right now, which is not a bad position to be in.
Re:LinuX (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:There goes the neighborhood (Score:2)
Re:The truth about Linux cost (Score:5, Informative)
Linux seems to be needing maintenance continuously, to keep it from breaking down.
Theoretical mumbo jumbo aside, let's talk about personal experience. At our shop we have a few Windows servers and a few Linux servers. One of the Windows servers is always down. OS code and design aside, it's hard to automate housekeeping system tasks in Windows - that's why Linux will run a lot longer.
Linux' native file system, EXT2FS, is known to lose data like a firehose spouts water when the file system isn't unmounted properly.
All non-journaling filesystems are prone to interruption errors (like FAT32, too). Luckily there are many other filesystems available that are native to any decent Linux distro (I like ReiserFS personally). My impression is also that systems like ReiserFS store files much more efficient than, say, NTFS - but a minor gripe is that you can't have compressed folders just like that (like on NTFS).
Factor in also the fact that crashes happen much more often on Linux than on other unices.
Linux should theoretically be more stable than Windows and many other unices. But there is indeed a problem with Linux' fault tolerance regarding hardware. This is more a philosophical problem, as Linux developers tend to say things like "if the hardware isn't 100% reliable my software won't run and you shouldn't have faulty hardware in the first place". Reality is, many hardware pieces are partly broken (be it some circuits on the board or a few faulty sectors on the harddrive) and Linux reacts very badly once it encounters those errors. But looking deeper that's not so much an inherent kernel problem as an issue in device drivers and filesystem code.
The system is a mix of features from all kinds of unices, but not one of them is implemented right.
In fact my experience with open source projects in general suggests that standards and specifications are implemented VERY strictly and correctly.
On top of that a lot of them spit out the most childish and unprofessional messages, indicating that they were created by 14-year olds with too much time, no talent and a bad attitude.
Yeah, some messages are a bit silly but hey, its not as if system messages have to be presented to the CEO each morning or something ike that. I think more serious problems are cryptic messages that defy any meaning (every system has them) and bad/lacking documentation.
Linux is not an option for any one who seeks a professional OS with high performance, scalability, stability, adherence to standards, etc.
And yet, Linux is deployed on a large scale for many environments, in some areas it pervades even more than MS and other unices combined. Why do you think IT people do that?
Re:Nonsense. (Score:3, Informative)