Gates Embraces Web Service Interoperability 444
djh101010 writes "In a CNN article which looks more like something out of The Onion, Bill Gates expresses his interest in participating in interoperability with rival technologies, through common standards. Specifically mentioned are IBM's WebSphere, and Linux. 'We're being as inclusive as we can,' Gates said of Microsoft's role in the cross-platform project. 'This is a fabric for someone to do e-commerce that's independent of the operating systems that are out there.'
XML (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:XML (Score:4, Funny)
Re:XML (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly (Score:5, Informative)
Disclaimer: I work on the XML team at Microsoft but not directly with Microsoft Office.
Re:Exactly (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Exactly (Score:5, Funny)
Wow. You have more balls then I would.
Three?
Re:Exactly (Score:5, Insightful)
Because one developer says that MS is using XML standards correctly, does this mean that MS will actually keep it's formats open and backwards compatible?
Keep in mind it's the MS developement team that have created the file format mess in the past that is so horrid that entire countries are moving away from your closed formats. I can't even send an word 2000 doc to my father in-law who has OfficeXP with out it getting screwed up.
Even if what you say is 100% accurate, and MS delivers a compatible format that works with say, OpenOffice and Start Office, you have absoultely _NO_ gurantees that MS will not change the file format on the next upgrade and at that point turn the data to a completely proprietary form that is accessible only to the next upgrade of office.
Very few people in their right minds will trust MS anymore, and for good reasons.
Re:Exactly (Score:3, Informative)
I didn't mention anything about a "standard", I said "compatible".
If you call OpenOffice XML format - standard,
No, I didn't.
then Microsoft Office XML is standard is well. It is just a different standard.
Most things MS creates use different standards, that is the problem. Microsoft's own Office programs can't even open their own files without it getting messed up, what is the point in trusting any new document designs they come up with?
Re:Exactly (Score:5, Interesting)
Who is saying MS is/will forever use only XML in their formats? I think it's naive of us to think just because they use XML that it will be compatible and remain compatible with other office like products.
This is a trust issue. The last thing I want to find out is that after 3 upgrades to office, I can no longer open any of my archived documents, or that I have to upgrade again to maintain my documents. Also, I don't want to have to upgrade Office just because my clients have a newer version so I can't read their files.
This is what concerns me is that my data is in a format that is in constant limbo without long term gurantees of the integrity of the applications (or it's formats) that create and update my data.
Considering that within 1 upgrade cycle I have lost information, what will happen within 2 or 3? Sure you can keep older copies of office, but what if you no longer can run them because the OS they are on is obsolete you upgraded that as well? You also can't have more than one version of Office on one machine at the same time, etc...
This is a real problem, not an imaginary one that is based on opinions about XML. XML is a markup language, my opinion about how to use it is actually irrelevant.
Re:Exactly (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't particularily think that they need "a higher standard" I think they need an "open standard". If I am wrong, and their standard is fine with people who are more in the know than I am, great.
But since I don't trust Microsoft, I won't be investing any more money in Office just because my concerns over formats have been cured by their implementation of XML.
All of these changes has caused some information loss.
I suppose, but at least
Re:Exactly (Score:3, Interesting)
Hard not too be, I just had a bad crash with win2k after upgrading to Service Pack 4, and the thought of having to reinstall Office yet again (ugh) has pushed me to using Open Office.
Also, I lost tons of sensitive data because I used Microsoft's default encryption for my data files and when I reinstalled win2k, I could no longer access my files because Win2k thought I was a different user. After hours of searching online for how to solve this and get my information from my own compu
Re:Exactly (Score:5, Informative)
KDE recently announced that KOffice would embrace the document formats of OpenOffice.org.
This means that a Windows user running OpenOffice.org could save a document, send it to a KOffice user on Linux, and expect it to open.
There is an effort to make a standard XML based office document format. Two office suites, so far, embrace it.
Article in InfoWorld [infoworld.com]
OASIS charter [oasis-open.org]
XML for the masses [coverpages.org]
Re:Exactly (Score:5, Interesting)
Let me clarify for you:
I send him the file with basic formatting and it looks fine in Word 2000. (office 2000) I send him the file and he opens it, and the words are in the wrong place, the formatting is either gone or changed.
This is even based on templates from within Word itself. He even sent me the file back to make sure it wasn't corrupted, and the file was fine on word 2000.
This is _not_ a user error, it's simple lack of proper backwards compatibility.
Re:Exactly (Score:3, Interesting)
That's interesting, does anyone think it's good software design to have a completely external and seperate entity (printer driver) determine how things should be displayed? What if neither one of us had a printer installed? What if I change my printer in the future? I will then lose my formatting? This some how sounds insane...
I personally think that MS should have enough foresite to see this as an issue and make some k
Re:Exactly (Score:3, Insightful)
does anyone think it's good software design to have a completely external and seperate entity (printer driver) determine how things should be displayed?
No, it's obviously not good software design.
But if I had over 90% market share with my office productivity software, and further profits depended upon me keeping users from migrating to rival office productivty software that must needs be compatible with mine, then the decision to hide the presentation rules makes a hell of a lot of sense from a pure bus
Re:Exactly (Score:4, Insightful)
Word _acts_ like a layout program only very poorly. Sure it is a WYSIWYG but I don't see how this definition has anything to do with it's behaviour, the point of WYSIWYG is that what I see on the screen is what I print, but it also means that what I see is what other people will see as well, and if they don't see the same thing, then something is broken, as in webpages not looking right on different browsers due to not sticking with globally recognized html standards. *hint* IE.
designing software that reformats documents when you change the printer is harder than not doing so.
Then if high quality layout programs (quark for example) or low quality programs don't do this, and it's actually more work to code, and it produces more inconsistent printing, why does MS code Word this way?
Considering that the reference implementation of RTF is Microsoft Word, I doubt it.
I don't use Word for reading or editing RTF files. Outside of that, I really don't know what you are saying...
Re:Damned if you do, damned if ou don't (Score:3, Insightful)
Unless everyone in the world has the same printer I can't see how both goals are not contradictory.
PDF seems to have no trouble printing identically on all black-and-white printers. If a page layout program must base its formatting decisions on the characteristics of the printer attached to the last computer that edited the file, why not save those characteristics in the document?
Re:Damned if you do, damned if ou don't (Score:3, Insightful)
Because some files I never plan on printing, have nothing to do with paper and should not be forced to be related to a printer.
If I believed that every word processor in the world did this and it _had_ to do it this way, I wouldn't even bother with a comment. But since _none_ of the other formats or software I've ever used (within my knowledge) base their layout on the printer drivers, then I can only ass
Re:Exactly (Score:3, Informative)
No one else has these problems? [slashdot.org]
Microsoft just doesn't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want to convince people that Microsoft is becoming more open, you have a lot of work ahead of you learning how to distribute standards, sample implementations, and other documentation:
Until you start distributing stuff so that people can actually download and use it without Microsoft products and without signing their life away, all that talk of embracing open standards is just meaningless fluff.
Re:Microsoft just doesn't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll make one that is very valid.
Because of Microsoft's past behavior, people are naturally suspicious of any apparent attempts at good behavior. Especially if you liked Microsoft in the 70's, and then watched the development of the industry over the last 20+ years. It is just plain difficult to trust Microsoft. Too many times this trust has been betrayed. In fact, I would suggest that anyone who does trust may be a fool, and this conclusion would be supported by Microsoft's past action. Every time Microsoft tries to be "open" is always in some non-open way. The only time I have seen Microsoft embrace true interoperability with anything has been whenever they first get into something and are the minority player.
While the pointers to the Microsoft XML are very informative, the response to it does make valid points.
- Why is supposedly "interoperable" stuff downloadable as an EXE?
- Why use non-open formats?
- Why not have the license clearly visible before you download (or before you purchase for that matter)?
I hate to break it to you, but these ARE valid points.These points criticize an apparent continuing behavior of trying to seem open, while not actually being open.
Re:Microsoft just doesn't get it (Score:3, Informative)
This is just about the timeframe I am thinking of.
By 1978-79 Microsoft Basic is well known, and liked. Microsoft has other great products that I like, such as Microsoft Adventure (a micro computer clone of the famous Adventure game).
Think about how M$ achieved its market presence.
By leveraging monopolies. Exclusionary agreements that prevented any other successful OS. In the early 80's, there were some other OS choices before MS-D
Re:Exactly (Score:5, Interesting)
The whole POINT of XML is interoperability. So can this XML be used by someone else? Is it limited to Office?
If the namespaces can't be reused by another applicaiton, then NO, it isn't "cool" what MS did. It's the classic MS crap. They may as well have forgone the entire process and left it in a binary format.
"Proprietary" XML is marketing blather and not something that adds value to the end user...
Re:Exactly (Score:4, Insightful)
And how the XML format is only supported with the most expensive version of Office. If someone's spending $800+ on an MS Office, you can be pretty sure they're not looking at alternatives, so you don't need to worry about losing them as a customer through support for XML. The Office Standard customers, who might want to spend $100 on StarOffice, rather than $300 on MS Office, you don't give XML formats to, because they might realize they only need one copy of MS Office, and the rest of their computers can use StarOffice or OpenOffice.
One more thing, since you claim to work for Microsoft:
Why is microsoft.com so damned hard to navigate, and why does the site search engine suck so much?
Re:Exactly (Score:3, Informative)
While the question was not directed to me, I have worked for Microsoft in the past, and have actually asked this same question of my superiors.
They said that for the amount of information they host on their page, with the diversity of content, it's actually set up in one of the most efficient manners. It may take a little while to find what you're looking for, but you will ultimately find it.
And I've found this to be true.
Actually, with respect to getting bugfixes, support and product info microsoft.c
Re:Exactly (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Here is a sample of Word 2003 XML (Score:5, Funny)
Having said that, for those curious, here is a sample of XML generated by Word, just now created by me. I'm posting this using "Code" as the format so it is formatted correctly.
Here is the original message (I gave it HTML tags so you can see the formatting I gave it in Word):
This is a <b>test</b> of <font face="verdana" size="24"><b>XML</b></font>.
Now , here is the resulting XML after saving that line:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<?mso-application progid="Word.Document"?>
<w:wordDocument xmlns:w="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/ 2003/wordml" xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:w10="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:sl="http://schemas.microsoft.com/schemaLibra ry/2003/core" xmlns:aml="http://schemas.microsoft.com/aml/2001/c ore" xmlns:wx="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word
Re:Here is a sample of Word 2003 XML (Score:3)
Is your point that this XML file is too big?
Not enough information in it?
Hard to parse?
Hey if you are just after the text then only look for <w:t> tags. I'm guessing that means Word Text.
I see no problems here.
Re:Here is a sample of Word 2003 XML (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Here is a sample of Word 2003 XML (Score:3, Interesting)
Even assuming you're not joking, but assuming that you entered it correctly, what's <; w:versionOfBuiltInStylenames w:val="4"/> doing in there, or <; w:style w:type="list" w:default="on" w:styleId="NoList">? Is that Slashcode munging your text, or is that in the source? ";" isn't a valid name for an element.
Also, I'm curious, but what happens when you toggle the value in <w:saveInvalidXML w:val="off"/>?
Re:Here is a sample of Word 2003 XML (Score:5, Informative)
content.xml:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE office:document-content PUBLIC "-//OpenOffice.org//DTD OfficeDocument 1.0//EN" "office.dtd"><office:document-content xmlns:office="http://openoffice.org/2000/office" xmlns:style="http://openoffice.org/2000/style" xmlns:text="http://openoffice.org/2000/text" xmlns:table="http://openoffice.org/2000/table" xmlns:draw="http://openoffice.org/2000/drawing" xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xmlns:number="http://openoffice.org/2000/datastyle " xmlns:svg="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:chart="http://openoffice.org/2000/chart" xmlns:dr3d="http://openoffice.org/2000/dr3d" xmlns:math="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:form="http://openoffice.org/2000/form" xmlns:script="http://openoffice.org/2000/script" office:class="text" office:version="1.0"><office:script/><office:font- decls><style:font-decl style:name="Tahoma1" fo:font-family="Tahoma"/><style:font-decl style:name="Arial Unicode MS" fo:font-family="'Arial Unicode MS'" style:font-pitch="variable"/><style:font-dec l style:name="Tahoma" fo:font-family="Tahoma" style:font-pitch="variable"/><style:font-dec l style:name="Times New Roman" fo:font-family="'Times New Roman'" style:font-family-generic="roman" style:font-pitch="variable"/></office:font-decls>< office:automatic-styles/><office:body><text:sequen ce-decls><text:sequence-decl text:display-outline-level="0" text:name="Illustration"/><text:sequence-dec l text:display-outline-level="0" text:name="Table"/><text:sequence-decl text:display-outline-level="0" text:name="Text"/><text:sequence-decl text:display-outline-level="0" text:name="Drawing"/></text:sequence-decls><text:p text:style-name="Standard">Hello.</text:p></office
meta.xml:
< ?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE office:document-meta PUBLIC "-//OpenOffice.org//DTD OfficeDocument 1.0//EN" "office.dtd"><office:document-meta xmlns:office="http://openoffice.org/2000/office" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:meta="http://openoffice.org/2000/meta" office:version="1.0"><office:meta><meta:generator> OpenOffice.org 1.1.0 (Win32)</meta:generator><!--645m18(Build:8687)-->< meta:creation-date>2003-09-18T11:55:07</meta:creat ion-date><dc:date>2003-09-18T11:56:33</dc:date><dc
settings.xml I can't include because it has a UUEncoded section that Slashdot refuses..
styles.xml:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE office:document-styles PUBLIC "-//OpenOffice.org//DTD OfficeDocument 1.0//EN" "office.dtd"><office:document-styles xmlns:office="http://openoffice.org/2000/office" xmlns:style="http://openoffi
Re:Here is a sample of Word 2003 XML (Score:4, Insightful)
I say this because I fear some may get the impression that OOo's document format is inefficient based on the parent post.
Re:Here is a sample of Word 2003 XML (Score:5, Informative)
If XML is your primary document format, as it is for OOo, then it is important to use Zip. There is another important motivation for OOo to use Zip. Because Zip is a container format, not just a compression format. Multiple XML files. plus bitmaps, and other objects are included within an OOo document.
Suppose you have a Word doc with lots of bitmaps. If you save this as XML, then those objects must either be (1) Omitted, or (2) converted into a textual form and put into the XML. Contrast with the efficiency of OOo's format. A bitmap or OLE object would just be added to the zip file in its native form. Plus the OOo zip file can contain multiple XML files, such as the Content.xml and a separate style sheet xml, for instance.
To get to a single item within a Word XML, I would have to parse all of the XML, skipping large blocks of textual binary data. But in OOo's zip file, I have direct lookup access to obtain, say, a bitmap object that I need right now.
Zip is not used so much for compression as it is as a container. In fact, the OOo zip file could hypothetically not use any compression, yet be fully forward and backward compatible with all implementations of OOo, or even KOffice. Saving a document uncompressed results in faster performance, but it is still a zip of numerous files, including xml files.
So a future OOo could do a "quick save" in a fully compliant way, but with no compression on some/all of the zip items.
Also, don't forget that most people if saving as XML won't want to send around a zip file in email as their primary use of such a file format. They're more likely to do something else with the XML data instead. Which means that with OO, you have to unzip it to use it.
Again, in OOo, the zipped-xml is the primary document format. The fact that standard tools can process it (zip and xml) is just a bonus. OOo doesn't need a separate format (like Word's XML format) to turn documents into a "readable" form.
OOo's native doc format is already very readable and accessible. Just take a Writer doc (.sxw) rename it to (.zip), unzip it, and you've got a folder of xml files and possibly other files.
Results of opening in Mozilla--please read (Score:3, Informative)
<?mso-application progid="Word.Document"?>
<w:wordDocument w:macrosPresent="no" w:embeddedObjPresent="no" w:ocxPresent="no" xml:space="preserve">
<o:DocumentProperties>
<o:Title>This is a test of XML</o:Title>
<o:Author>User</o:Author>
<o:LastAuthor>User</o:LastAuthor>
<o:Revision>1</o:Revision>
<o:TotalTime>1</o:TotalTime>
<o:Created>2003-09-18T15:29:00Z</o:Created>
&nbs p ;
White Goat Studios (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Here is a sample of Word 2003 XML (Score:3, Informative)
31 Unpatched IE security holes [pivx.com]
Server attacks stump Microsoft [com.com]
Credit card theft feared in Windows flaw [com.com]
Microsoft issues patch for "serious" XP hole [com.com]
Windows flaw threatens PC services [com.com]
Microsoft's Source Code Actions Speak Louder Than Words [newsfactor.com]
Why I hate Microsoft [euronet.nl]
bsod_videowall [euronet.nl]
bsod_airport [euronet.nl]
License to plunder [infoworld.com]
Microsoft Media Player logs users' DVD picks [itworld.com]
MS wanted to 'extend, embrace and extinguish' competi [com.com]
Re:XML (Score:5, Informative)
Or.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Sounds like dot-com era dreaming (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Create interoperable standards so users can migrate from one OS to another without rewriting code
2. ????
3. Profit!
Except I have a strong suspicion that number 2 is:
2. Erode competitions' standing in marketplace and watch customers gradually migrate to your software, because migration is no longer a hassle
Re:Sounds like dot-com era dreaming (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Sounds like dot-com era dreaming (Score:2)
Yeah I'm not saying that Step 2 HAS to be evil. I'm just saying that if you're standing at Step 1, then Step 2 is a logical next step for a corporation whose primary goal is increasing shareholder value.
but... (Score:2)
Re:Sounds like dot-com era dreaming (Score:4, Insightful)
basically a framework to sit atop SOAP, for common application standards (security,transaction control,etc).
you'll still be OSvendor-locked when you write your web service code; but a web service consumer (website end developer) could choose a web service provider with OS-independence.
this isn't as ground-shaking as it sounds.
it's analogous to microsoft's embracing of HTML.
it will be supported (as IE supports w3c html) - and then doubtlessly extended through proprietary means (simplistic analogy to the IE-specific 'marquee' tag), to benefit those who use MS (can only see 'marque' if you use IE). while the extensions won't be necessary to participate (you dont necessarily -need- to see 'marquee'), they're hoping for a critical mass of developers to use their extensions (lots of sites using ) to encourage users to switch over, further incentivizing developers to use their extensions. (enter: feedback loop + network effect)
'marquee' being a simplistic and not very rich example for the analogy, i know - but you get the idea.
Re:Sounds like dot-com era dreaming (Score:4, Insightful)
Bear Hug (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Bear Hug (Score:3, Funny)
n.
1. An act of holding close with the arms, usually as an expression of affection; a hug.
2. An enclosure or encirclement: caught in the jungle's embrace.
3. Eager acceptance: your embrace of Catholicism.
Yikes (Score:2, Insightful)
To paraphrase... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:To paraphrase... (Score:5, Funny)
"It's a trap!"
Doesn't work with me (Score:2, Insightful)
this would be the (Score:2, Funny)
part.
Microsoft FUD (Score:5, Insightful)
Gates said the Redmond, Washington-based company's work toward Web services standards would be "royalty free." That remark led to questions from the audience, which wanted to make sure Gates hadn't misstated the deviation from the company's royalty-based software sales model.
Royalty free? Not if SCO can do something about that. What I found a bit odd, would be his comments on standards: "Standards are always a give-to-get bargain," he said. Standards are also done on behalf of everyone for everyone in order to make services work the right way. It's the only way to get products working with eatch other. So for one, he is not obligated to participate in any standards, but at the same time he is as if he doesn't, his products might not perform well under other vendors' products. So in essence whether he likes it or not, he is obligated if he wants to stay in the game and make money. As for the Netscape mention, personally I don't see Netscape as being around too long as a browser considering Netscape's parent AOL recently signed a deal with Microsoft. Just my two coppers...
Heh, the key phrase is... (Score:5, Insightful)
In other words, they are giving so they can get something which in the end they can use to further lock out other applications and companies from being compatible.
A famous quote comes to mind:
"I fear the Greeks, even when they bring gifts." --Virgil
Be curious to find out how they will try to spin this to their advantage while disadvantaging everyone else.
I thought it was... (Score:5, Funny)
although.... (Score:5, Funny)
and was heard to utter You think they bought it? as he left the interview.
There has always been a master and an apprentice (Score:2)
I wonder if dad can shot lightning out if his finger tips?
Best quote (Score:2, Insightful)
Big headline, no content ... (Score:3, Insightful)
The usual tactic (Score:5, Interesting)
The point is just because he said lots of fuzzy words today it doesn't mean he won't try to "cut off the oxygen supply" of those same groups tomorrow. Is he suddenly buddy-buddy with Linux? Nope, his company is still fighting it tooth and nail around the world, putting out FUD, doing whatever it takes to head it off at the pass.
Good PR moments such as this do not negate the overall approach Gates will take. Do not be fooled, he's the same old monopolist.
Re:The usual tactic (Score:3, Funny)
Indeed (Score:3, Interesting)
Then if/when you gain a stronger footing, you can open your Dirty Tactics (tm) book and begin the takeover.
Then once you're #2 or #1, you start deviating from the standards, thus making it more difficult for the losers to interoperate.
Stuff a couple more billion in the bank, donate a couple million with grand fanfare, and you're really showing who's boss
Re:The usual tactic (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sure Bill Gates can be a dab hand at making fawning concilliatory noises too, but while he and his cohorts are doing their best to stifle open standards, open source with their every deed, it all ring
Well of course! (Score:2, Informative)
Bill's doing this to get the skinny on the competing technologies...then he can invent something different about it, push it out the door in the next release, and it'll look, to the MS user, that MS is right, and all these other people are wrong. Remember Gates telling the ISO that he needed to change the work of 270 nations and make his codeset a little different? IE will show apostrophies....everything else shows question marks.
Same stuff, different day.
Extenditus (Score:3, Funny)
Bill had the first documented case of Extenditus, and being such a touchy-feely guy, he's embraced a lot of people since, spreading it far and wide.
We recommend an immediate quarantine of Microsoft and all organizations that have engaged in "Group Hugs" with them.
Typical M$ strategy (Score:2, Insightful)
Become the standard, close out the competition.
I have 3 words... (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft is most likely finding a gateway between their technology and everyone else's to create a migration path towards MS products. Once everyone has flocked over, the usual grab-you-by-the-balls policies apply. What I think they're missing is that the technology works the other way too. You can use this interoperability to get off the MS train. Look at Services for Unix... it created a path that goes both ways between *NIX and MS. MS probably designed it as a one-way tunnel, but in return we got a pathway to migrate off.
Conspiracy theorize all you want to, but MS may have just handed linux the keys to the desktop.
IBM has not learned ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Since IBM does not have a decent web/app server they probably are trying to get a foot in the door for their
I have so far understood their "embrace" part. But what I don't get is where does the "annihilate" part come in? By standardising the XML standards Java also benefits, right? So how does M$ plan to screw Java and IBM
Re:IBM has not learned ? (Score:2)
Ooops , I meant Microsoft ofcourse....
Obvious marketing (Score:3, Interesting)
OF COURSE he's going to say something like that.
Because of what he says in this article, there are now pointy-haired managers out there that are saying to themselves, "Well, we were considering using Linux, but instead we'll buy Microsoft for now and we can still switch in the future if we want. Microsoft uses standards -- Bill would never lie to make a buck."
Bill Gates doesn't want to make people think that Microsoft is the devil.
Slashdot: WTF? (Score:2)
BillG: I'm going to open up some standards for everybody so we can all benefit.
bersl2:
But seriously, did the Earth get swallowed by a black hole, and we reappeared in some alternate universe? Maybe here, things can make negative sense.
Lastly, who is sticking their hand up Gates' ass and puppeting him, because that's not the Billy Boy we all know and love to hate.
Excellent! (Score:2, Funny)
I'm waiting for an XML document that exploits a buffer overflow in Windows somehow. Come on, you know it will happen someday!
Microsoft is hedging its bets. (Score:5, Interesting)
(calls up Ballmer)
Bill Gates: "Hey, Steve -- do me a favor, would you? Round up some of our better R+D guys, and have them work up a system that lets us totally interoperate with all the other, competing web services systems out there, wouldja?"
Ballmer: "WTF???"
Bill Gates: "Why lock ourselves out of a big chunk of the market? We've got our section, now we can play with their section too."
Ballmer: "Ok, I'm on it..."
This is strictly hypothetical, but I bet it's pretty close.
What this really means... nothing to lose? (Score:4, Insightful)
If this stuff (what little there is) is true, this probably is just extends what Gates has known for a while, in spite of
Just my opinion.
Hey Bill! (Score:2)
This may actually be true (Score:3, Informative)
Do not make the mistake of thinking that this extends to the desktop though. They are quite happy for you to buy Visual Studio.NET, write ASP.NET web services and deploy on Linux, as long as the clients connecting to it are running Windows.
Brave Words (Score:3)
This is a fabric for someone to do e-commerce that's independent of the operating systems that are out there.'
Of course everyone recognizes this for sales droid talk, telling people What They Want to Hear.
Nevertheless, it's significant that Bill Gates not only recognizes the sentiment of user's not liking to be locked into one product by virtue of using another, but that he is actually willing to give voice to it publicly.
Especially when so much of Microsoft's corporate culture has been built upon leveraging, using products that either ubiquitous or well-designed (yes, I must admit that) to lock users into other products that are either poorly designed and/or expensive.
Microsoft is a poor steward... (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft has said this before, and the results have always been bad for developers and consumers (for example the Java and XML debacle).
I don't mind Microsoft using existing standards; I do violently oppose them guiding the course of standards, because they have been shown to be a bad steward for any public standard they get their hands on.
I would be so bold as to argue that it is not out of hubris that they are as they are, as much as from greed.
Has anyone here read... (Score:5, Insightful)
The central premise in this book is Bill Gates' philosophy of product development. Although the author presents it as a pragmatic, thought-out business plan that evolved from Bill Gates' examination of the market, to me it always came across as a response to basic insecurities that exposed more of Bill's personality flaws than any understanding of the market.
It goes like this: it doesn't matter how good the product is; it doesn't matter how well a product works; customers are fickle and will switch software at the drop of a hat. Therefore, the only way to keep customers is to 'lock them in', to leverage Office to increase Windows share and Windows to increase Office share by continually tying them together and forcing one to require the other. I am paraphrasing and working from memory, read the book.
My points are:
1. the basic business philosophy of Microsoft is so deeply rooted in the insecurities of it's founder and the founder is still in control
2. the whole idea of "open" standards is completely contrary to the concepts of "lock-in" that has worked so well for Microsoft up to this point
that this DOES sound like something from an alternate universe as one poster here has noted and that this has about as much chance of being even partially true as a snowball's chance in hell.
"We're being as inclusive as we can.." (Score:4, Interesting)
I.e. inclusive enough to give away 15% of the market to rivals and keep antitrust guys off our backs, but not inclusive enough to risk losing customers to any web services running on alternative OSes?
--LinuxParanoid, who doesn't yet believe Gates's philanthroipc altruism extends to other software companies
P.S. Note Gates's observation that "Standards are always a give-to-get bargain" and ask yourself "what does Gates think he is getting?" There are a variety of possible answers.
Danger - MS is trying to set the standards (Score:5, Interesting)
Standards from Microsoft are dangerous, even when royalty-free licensing is offered so that they can be implemented in Free Software.
Consider for example the ECMA standards 334 [ecma-international.org] and 335 [ecma-international.org] for the core parts of .NET - while Microsoft has promised royalty-free licensing for any and all patents that may be neccessary for implementing that standard, they are at the same time embracing and extending their own standard, and they have filed at least one patent application that seems to be designed to give them a monopoly on their extensions to the standard.
In some situations it may work to simply refuse to go along with the standards attempts from MS. Unfortunately, MS has so much leverage that this won't always work. For example, with .NET just ignoring it IMO won't work, that's why we're working on creating a competing "standard set of libraries" for the stuff which goes beyond the stuff that is safe from patent-based attacks (the safe parts are what is specified in the ECMA specs, for which MS has promised royalty-free licensing, plus everything which is thin wrappers around stuff that is simply too old to be affected by .NET patents, such as for example System.Windows.Forms). The strategy of the DotGNU [dotgnu.org] project is to re-use a good number of existing Free Software libs (written in C) and compile them for .NET - again since those libs are old, they're safe from being affected by any .NET patents.
Greetings,
Norbert.
dotGNU - what's the point? (Score:5, Insightful)
Even assuming this makes sense technically (see below), surely if you no longer care about portability between Dotnet and dotGNU, you've just lost the main justification for the dotGNU project?
If I have developed a Dotnet app, but I can't compile it on dotGNU because it calls Windows Forms, or ASP.NET or ADO.NET... why on earth should I care that, if I could compile it, the generated bytecodes would be the same instruction set as found on Windows? By definition, there cannot be any value for me to have portability at the bytecode level if it is missing at the application level. And, if I do go as far as changing every non-core API call in my app, I'm hardly going to care much if the bytecode is different - I have to maintain and generate two versions anyway.
Without portability, it seems positively perverse to seek to extend the influence of Microsoft technologies on Linux when there are already very well established equivalents (Java, Python, Parrot). Java-on-Linux investments alone must total something in the order of billions of dollars per year, judging by the number of large organizations doing rollouts of this type - I'd guess that currently Java is the single biggest factor pushing Linux into commercial organizations today.
So precisely what value is dotGNU bringing to the table?
Regarding the incorporation of old C libraries into DotGNU, it seems rather optimistic to assume they can just be wrapped or turned into managed code (ask MS about the effort invested in doing that for their code). Do these libs happen to support Dotnet style internationalization, multithreading, access control...? If not, you've got a huge chunk of work to do - and all to get you roughly where Python is already!
Gates actually is really smart (Score:5, Insightful)
Gates has realized that Microsoft cannot hold the crown of the software world forever. It's great at competing against companies that it can buy out or undercut, but it can't do either of those to Linux. IBM lost their crown when it failed to realize the PC, and the software running on it, were the new champs of the computing business. Ironically, I think this is the first step in Microsoft converting from a software company to a services company. It's pretty hard to make money on software if some geeks are giving it away for free.
The decade of windows is about to close, it became the best OS for the average (non-programmer) user when Win 95 was released, and before that Macintosh had their decade. Linux's decade hasn't started yet, but Windows only has a few years left, and Bill realizes that. If you look at the way the economy is turning, you can see that while the pure programming jobs may go overseas, services can't. Many companies are already using the "give the software away, charge for services" model of doing business (actually, the company I work for is selling the software, services, and a required maintainance contract - I'm feeling pretty safe), and are surviving just fine.
Not that Microsoft hasn't turned every one of these initiatives in the past into either an "embrace-and-extend" or "embrace-and-block" (by being one of the founders and then never giving final approval to the standard) strategy. Maybe they'll go through with this one this time, but expect to see Microsoft make an about-face on software in the next ten years like they did with their position on the internet back in '97. It's just a matter of time.
Here's a great idea for a web service! (Score:4, Interesting)
Bill should just love it because it is based on 100% Microsoft technologies.
I hope some kind soul will do this.
Set up a Windows 2003 server running ASP.NET and also a copy of the new high end MS Office that writes XML documents. Write a web service (i.e. a front end to a remote function call) that...
Now other office suites, such as OpenOffice.org, or any software package could simply make such a function call to such a server to convert documents into MS-XML as a prelude to further processing the MS-XML into OpenOffice.org-XML.
Heck Sun could host such a service.
Standard macros could be included in OOo which convert Word documents, via. this network based service, into OOo documents.
Re:Here's a great idea for a web service! (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder if such a thing is enforcable? It might be possible for an interested party with deep pockets to get a declaratory judgement that this is a legal use of the software.
I wonder if the EULA really has any such restrictions? Any slashdotters with acce
standards are fine if you aren't the market leader (Score:5, Insightful)
Right now Web Services is all about standards, since there isn't much in the way of implementations yet. MSFT and IBM seem to be at odds with the other major players; seems like every major new standard is being duplicated. Can't we all just get along?
When Microsoft talks "standards"... (Score:3, Interesting)
We'll take an existing standard, make it "better" (bloat, non-standard syntax, non-compliant), market the crap out of it, and then everyone else can adopt it so that your products work happily with ours.
In other words... "make your program work with our software which was coded by pot-smoking-monkeys-on-typewriters (tm), and it will be interoperable."
Easy Reason: Apache (Score:4, Insightful)
It promotes interoperability when its platforms are not the dominant players in a field.
Remember how its efforts to get AIM opened? Now it's not asking it anymore since MSN is competitive enough.
Now it's apparent - how much market share does Apache have now? How about mod_php? How about IIS? ASP? Is there any wonder MS is seeking interoperability?
Anyone else check the date? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:OK I'll bite... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do you assume Bill Gates et al. is making the same mistake that a lot of other businesses make? For example, the RIAA member companies and several others. Everybody says, "Jeez, these business people are dumb and are fighting the inevitable."
What if Microsoft realized two things:
- Linux isn't going away.
- You get free shit from them.
Effectively meaning that they can start to actually embrace and integrate services, and actually expand and mutate their business model based on the economy and world, rather than what everybody perceives as their business model.I was chatting with a SCORE member, and he said that a true business plan should be a living entity that evolves with the world around it. Why is it so hard to believe that the most successful software company doesn't heed that advice?
Re:OK I'll bite... (Score:2, Interesting)
The old saying of once bitten twice wary still applies. In general, we refuse to take Gates at face value and continue to look for the fine print, but it would be nice if the guy would actually change his ways...
Re:OK I'll bite... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not defending the practice, just pointing out that it's considered legitimate by the software community at large, and used by some of the largest names in the industry. And that includes, but doesn't consist only of, Microsoft.
Here's why... (Score:4, Interesting)
My sense is that Microsoft will play as though they are open to working with these third parties because they really have no choice. Under the covers they will do what they can to subvert these other systems.
For the record, I'm sure IBM or Sun would do the same thing if they had the power to do so.
Re:OK I'll bite... (Score:3, Interesting)
I think the above is a great ideal and I personally prefer to work for companies that work like that, but many don't.
For a lot of companies they got successful, or maybe they feel they got successful, partly by luck. It was a matter of having the right product at the right time and making the right guesses about the market. A LOT more businesses fail than succeed beca
Re:Wow... (Score:2)
Ok, I'll bite... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Offensive (Score:2)
Re:In other news (Score:5, Funny)
in that order??
Re:In other news (Score:2)
Plague of painful sores
Seas, rivers, and springs turn to blood
Plague of darkness
Plague of Locusts
Great Earthquake
The four Horsemen
Gates embraces Linux
You must be new here (Score:2)