Microsoft to Give Away Software 197
dptalia writes "In an attempt to suck up to the European Union, Microsoft has announced that it will give away software allowing multiple operating systems to run simultaneously. Microsoft says this is part of their strategy to make more software available through OSS." From the article: "Georg Greve, president of the Free Software Foundation Europe, said he had not seen the details of Microsoft's giveaway but cautioned against assuming it was motivated only by pragmatism or a new spirit of cooperation. 'If Microsoft were doing this for altruistic reasons, it would be a first,' Greve said. 'I think they are probably trying to get more machines on the Windows platform, and they may also be trying to improve relations in Brussels.'"
Maybe it will be rigged (Score:5, Funny)
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It's just the Microsoft astroturfers with mod points again+1...
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New game: Spot the lying astroturfer [wikipedia.org] on /.!
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Let them hate so long as they fear.
Lucius Accius, Fragment
(170 BC - 86 BC)
Re:Maybe it will be rigged (Score:5, Insightful)
Slashdot LEANS anti MS (It's debatable and I'll get back to that) so they are against one corporation.
What's wrong with being against a corporation which everybody, even their defenders acknowledge acts unethically? Not one person who defends MS stands up and says "MS is a beacon of light and hope to the world" it's always "Sure they have done some crappy things in the past, but they are doing this one thing OK" or "sure they acted unethically but all businesses do" or "sure they acted unethically but they should not have been prosecuted because the anti-trust laws are bogus". Nobody, not even the most ardent defender of MS disputes the fact that the company is unethical.
Why do you get so worked up MS anyway? It's just another corporation, there are thousands of corporations. If I said Nissan, maytag, or rockport was a crappy corporation or made crappy products would you have a knipshiin about that?
Now does
Finally.
So what? I am sick of hearing this complaint. If you don't like people critizing MS then go to gotdotnet or any one of hundreds of web sites where people dance around singing holy holy holy about MS and Bill Gates. It's a big internet, there is room for everybody.
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Now, I was never against Linux, and in fact ran it from the beginning when you had to install it from f
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Why do you get so worked up MS anyway? It's just another corporation, there are thousands of corporations. If I said Nissan, maytag, or rockport was a crappy corporation or made crappy products would you have a knipshiin about that?
Because the Slashdot community, in general, is critical of anything Microsoft does not because it's objectively bad, but because Microsoft did it.
Now does /. lean anti MS? I don't think so. There are a dozens if not hundreds of MS trolls, astro turfers and shills here on /.
S
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So what? It's just another corporation. People say bad things about all kinds of corporations. I have a friend who hates anything made by GM. He is constantly pointing out various GM cars and telling me what piles of shit they are. You know what I don't feel the need to jump up and down and defend GM. I just don't give a shit about GM the corporation and GM pro
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So what? It's just another corporation. People say bad things about all kinds of corporations.
The problem is not saying bad things about corporations, the problem is dismissing everything one particular corporation does for no other reason than a long-held bias against them.
I have a friend who hates anything made by GM. He is constantly pointing out various GM cars and telling me what piles of shit they are. You know what I don't feel the need to jump up and down and defend GM.
So if you _knew_ he was m
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The problem with comparing yourself to the worst of the world and patting yourself on the back for not being as bad as the most vile and evil person is that you end up being pretty vile and evil. You set low goals for yourself and you are likely to achieve them.
BTW I think the worst thing MS did ever was to fight SPF. We could have put a decent in the spam problem if MS had just accepted that standard instead of sabotagi
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I can never understand why some people think it is wrong for customers to stick up for and to support other customers. I mean, we as customers will benefit by it and every cent of
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
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I cant wait till they release cfdisk.
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I imagine it's part of their DRM/TC/lock-in strategy. Right now, you can run VMware on Linux, and use tools like usbsnoop to reverse engineer drivers, create virtual devices, and generally prevent the guest OS from doing things it shouldn't be. With Xen being free software, it will be even easier. Microsoft has always wanted to control the platform, and this is yet another attempt to garner that control.
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Something that the experienced user could set with ease, but with a default setting that would downgrade processor performance or suchlike 'to prevent damage' which newbie users wouldn't even know about, and would see as poor performance.
That's probably fanciful, but if they can justify trying to make people re-buy an OS costing hundreds of pounds just because they've replace some hardware a few times, then I would not put it past them tr
Gentlemen start your copiers (Score:3, Funny)
A software to run multiple OS? (Score:2)
Are M$ going to distribute LILO through their distribution channels? I like that!
Oh..wait...that's not it? Ah well..I never read the FA anyway.
Part left out? (Score:2)
Doh!
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Given this fact, why would Microsoft care to find out why those people don't run Windows, or to ruin their non-Windows experience? It'd be a waste of money chasing people who will never buy your product. Why would they go to all that effort to spite and/
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That they care about potential customers is why they might want to know about people with a windows box running something other than windows. MS has always had a deep paranoid streak with respect to urban legends of a kid in a garage coming up with the 'next big thing' and displacing them. It is as irrational as it sounds, but they've always seemed to act as though that were a potential threat.
They're not giving software away... (Score:5, Insightful)
Its giving away (if you believe that) the data layout for its virtual hard disk (VHD) format used by VirtualPC and Virtual Server products.
I don't see anything about giving SOFTWARE away
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Wake up, Slashdot.
(-1, Retarded)
Awww. (Score:2, Funny)
And they would have been able to be so if it weren't for those meddling European kids...
"Old Man Gates! It was you all along!"
You just wait.. (Score:3)
But how legal is this OEM thing? (Score:2)
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I don't know about how things work over there, but here, places like Fry's and Newegg will sell OEM WinXP with things like power splitters, IDE cables, or even a bag of screws. If Microsoft had a problem with that, I'm sure someone would've ratted them out and they would've been stopped long ago.
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"Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" all over again (Score:5, Insightful)
So now they're going to do to VMWare exactly what they did to Netscape and others?
a few differences (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, they will try the triple E tactic. It is what they know. If they knew how to write good quality software and did that, this would be a different sort of competition.
Re:a few differences (Score:4, Insightful)
The EEE technique is about conforming to standards, and then extending their products to use those standards along with proprietary parts. Quench competition since they aren't allowed to use this patented technology, and then rule supreme again.
Different tactics, same anti-competitive bullshit.
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http://www.vmware.com/products/server/ [vmware.com]
The software was already free (Score:4, Informative)
This is a news story from an uninformed reporter who seems to be confusing software and standards. The announcement appears to be that Microsoft is "relinquishing all license claims on its Virtual Hard Disk Image Format." This, to me, sounds like less of an altruistic move than a competitive one -- because, of course, VMware's image format is already free. [vmware.com]
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Jason
Summary is Totally Misleading (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft said it was relinquishing all license claims on its Virtual Hard Disk Image Format - new software that will allow computers running on rival products like Apple's OS X or Linux, its chief competitors in operating systems, to simultaneously run Windows.
They aren't giving anything away. In fact, they are going the other way allowing you to run other OS's. It will come as no surprise that it will be very easy to migrate to the MS crack pipe. But won't be able to go any other way.
Matusow said the decision was part of a Microsoft initiative begun in June to make more software available through so-called open source licenses, which enables independent designers to incorporate Microsoft products in their own software that they can then distribute for free.
This is a very good effor to subvert the term "Open Source" into something more business friendly for Microsoft. It appears as the submitter was correctly confused. Score one for Microsoft.
I'm guessing the reason is quite simple... (Score:5, Interesting)
BIOS -> LILO/GRUB -> Windows = No TCPA
With their bootloader you can either go:
BIOS -> Windows Boot Manager -> Windows = TCPA
BIOS -> Windows Boot Manager -> Other = No TCPA
The rest is just marketing fluff so this solution is adopted.
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TC could help you run a completely bulletproof server by signing all of your in-house code and the OS, but not allowing any other code to run, period. If it's secured on the hardware level, remote exploits become a thing of the past.
Nope. In theory a non-administrator account can't compromise a machine either, particularly if their home folder/directory is made non-execute. TC is just as susceptable to bugs like buffer overflow as any other software security.
TC does add another tool to the security to
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no, it doesn't need to be in control from boot (Score:2)
Tell the hardware where the security code is. The hardware locks out all writes to that area, including via DMA. The hardware verifies a digital signature on that area. The CPU then runs code in that area. The code checks the OS. Then the OS can run with trust, possibly in a virtual machine.
The thing they're giving away... (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't get carried away. I think I read here last week that MS aren't going to allow Vista to run inside a virtual machine - am I correct? And there's Vista messing up the boot sector too. It looks like this is not a two-way street.
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Don't get carried away. I think I read here last week that MS aren't going to allow Vista to
run inside a virtual machine - am I correct? And there's Vista messing up the boot sector too. It
looks like this is not a two-way street.
I think you are recalling the licensing story that was posted on slashdot. Vista should run just
fine in a VM. We are already running the RC beta in a VM and it works great.
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This is incorrect. The low-end versions of Vista (according to the current version of the EULA) aren't allowed to be run in a VM, but the higher-end versions not only can be run in a VM, but they will include a new version of Virtual PC and licensing to allow you to run up to
No Way! (Score:2)
RTFA (Score:5, Informative)
Microsoft said it was relinquishing all license claims on its Virtual Hard Disk Image Format - new software that will allow computers running on rival products like Apple's OS X or Linux, its chief competitors in operating systems, to simultaneously run Windows.
So it's giving away or opening up its disk format for some kind of Virtual PC-like product. There's no mention in the article of exactly what this means. Sounds like they're competing with Xen or VMware ACE possibly. Nowhere does it mention a free OS, so I'm assuming that part or all of the virtualization will be free (speech or beer, not sure which) but you still get to pay for the OS on top.
Viewpoints (Score:2, Insightful)
Point 2: Microsoft would never do anything without knowing they will make more money off of the deal in the future. Nothing is free if you have to pay more for other products needed to make it work (See also: Microsoft AntiVirus)
Poi
IDC claim (Score:2)
dual boot or virtualized? (Score:2)
Dual booting servers is rare, but not unheard of. Servers in this case are farms that are repurposed frequently. However, at least the outfits I've seen, this is typically done using rapid image deployment, but having both images on drives and fitzing w
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Self-interest is fine... (Score:2)
I don't need Microsoft to be altruistic. In the abstract, it's fine for Microsoft to be self-interested; I only have a problem with Microsoft when they're stupid and vicious. For example, Microsoft could see the looming threat that there are a lot of IT people who hate them and find their software frustrating, and Microsoft could make their software better and easier to use, and make the best software in the universe, all in order to keep their customers happy. This would be a good self-interested move,
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I don't know how you're putting that metaphor together. Are car companies making most of their money by selling directly to local garages? Do local garages hate putting up with crappy design choices made by car manufacturers?
Because I assure you, I am an "IT person", and in every single place I've worked, the network support and desktop support have plenty to worry about without Microsoft making it harder on us.
So? (Score:2)
In other news (Score:2)
This is odd given the restrictions for Vista (Score:2)
Maybe i'm confused.
Enlightened self-interest (Score:2)
News flash: companies tend to do things only when they have s
So it's OK ... (Score:3, Funny)
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Not like Georg (Score:2)
Of course as president of the Free Software Foundation Europe since 2001, Mr. Greve has never received a penny of salary due to his well-known dedication to altruisism, so we can trust him.
Some altruism perhaps? (Score:3, Insightful)
Each thing they do is met with people saying they're JUST doing it to increase market share, or to trap customers into certain situations, or to extinguish competition. Hell, even the article about the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation donating TONS of money to good causes was met with people complaining about how Bill Gates made that money in the first place.
It's quite easy these days to purchase a computer without an operating system on it. It's just as easy to install non-MS software on a Windows system, setup a dual boot system, or set a non-MS program as the default handler for certain file types. It's been a while since I've seen a company go out of business because of Microsoft. In fact, many more companies are in business because Microsoft makes it relatively easy to program for their platform (look at all the crap software that's out there and tell me that it takes more than an idiot to make a Windows program). Lots of linux zealots say that they won't give MS the benefit of the doubt because of their past practices, but Microsoft's past practices now involve a couple of years of doing the right thing.
Sure, there's a few blemishes (genuine advantage, DRM) mixed in with that good stuff, but overall MS has been doing a decent job lately. Perhaps it's time you all try looking at it with a balanced outlook rather than immediately thinking the worst.
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Err.. how about:
1) Allowing people to upgrade their PC hardware more than once before they have to re-buy Vista.
2) Take all the crappy DRM out of vista so we can play our own damn media
3) Get rid of the stupid Eula clause that says vista can only be used on a single screen.
4) Get rid of the stupid Eula clause that says vista can't be used in virtual machines
5) Not purposely outdate XP by making DirectX 10 vista-only
There's no such thing as altruism for
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As for 2, nothing on Vista will stop you from using your own media player to play any format you like. If you don't like DRM, talk to the content publishers who use it.
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Re:Some altruism perhaps? (Score:4, Insightful)
(a) they're only doing it because of two very expensive legal actions against them by the governments of the US and the EU; and
(b) time and again they have shown that they can't be trusted; and
(c) habitual criminals don't tend to inspire trust.
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Undo the damage they've done.
Well, that might be a bit much, even they can't pay that (that's the nature of monopoly rent - it's a net loss for the economy because the monopolists gain is smaller than everyone elses loss).
So, how about just going away and stopping to do more damage? That'd do for me.
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Re:Some altruism perhaps? (Score:4, Insightful)
ALL of us? There's probably nothing they can do. IBM still has fervent detractors after two decades of trying to improve their image. However, I see little sign that MS is even trying. This, as others have noticed, is a fairly trivial thing they've done here, misreported, and quite possibly designed as an attack on VMWare, not a generous giveaway.
> Each thing they do is met with people saying they're JUST doing it to increase market share, or to trap customers into certain situation, or to extinguish competition.
Yes, and IBM still gets a lot of that too. And available evidence suggests that it's still sometimes true for IBM, and still usually true for MS. MS has proven, repeatedly, that they're willing to lie, cheat and steal to get what they want. And they've proven that they're willing to give stuff away solely for the purpose of undermining their competitors. The fact is that they've been utter rat-bastards for nearly three decades, and it only looks like they're changing if you squint funny and try to ignore a whole lot of stuff.
> It's been a while since I've seen a company go out of business because of Microsoft.
Then you haven't been looking very hard. Of course, they're going after some tougher nuts these days. Symantec and Google aren't going to simply fold up and blow away at the first adverse wind. And Nintendo and Sony have a lot of experience with tough compettion. But a lot of smaller A/V companies (just as a for-example) are dropping off the map.
> Microsoft's past practices now involve a couple of years of doing the right thing.
While I agree that there are signs they're trying to do better (amazing what a major investigation by the EU will do), their current practices still involve lots of questionable stuff. They've got a long way to go before you can even begin to pretend that the balance of their behavior is "the right thing". And even then, it's going to be a long time before they make up for the harm they've done, and even longer before some people are going to be willing to forgive and forget. Again, just ask IBM about that last.
You seem to think that any little not-wrong thing they do should be an enough to make us forget all the harm they've done in the past, and all the harm they appear to be continuing to do. Well, sorry, bub, we're not that stupid or gullible. Maybe it's time you took a more balanced outlook instead of immediately assuming the best!
Re:Some altruism perhaps? (Score:5, Insightful)
Until then they're just taking advantage of their monopoly position to screw us all up
Re:Some altruism perhaps? (Score:5, Insightful)
Me, I'd start off by asking for less lying and bullying, which seem to be almost uniquely Microsoft's in the software world:
* No more saying "we can't remove the browser from the OS", when they have more than adequate resources to rewrite vast parts of the operating system.
* No bullshiting the EU saying they'll create thousands and thousands of jobs by releasing a piece of software which isn't that monumentally different from the one already out there.
* No more using the "user error" excuse whenever a user complains.
* No more purchasing of false research saying Windows is "cheaper" than Linux. It's not always cheaper. Sometimes it will and part of the time it won't. I know it's "just marketing" to say that you're the "#1 product", but these false studies are well beyond reasonable marketing.
* No more pushing businesses out of the market by buying their competitors and dumping their product, by attaching it to Windows for free. Healthy competition, actual innovation, and acquiring other companies is fine. Abuing a monopoly isn't.
* No illegaly funding rediculous lawsuits against IBM for Linux.
* Since the big builders like Dell are not allowed to sell lower priced computers (and don't tell me they don't want to- Wallmart sure did when Linux became ready for its customers) by not having to pay for a Windows license. Hardware manufacturers have no trouble ignoring Linux because there's no financial incentive to spend the extra few bucks. It's all very convenient for Microsoft, but not for me.
On that last note, when my computer's power supply fails, I get "you need to have the original operating system installed" from my very large warranty provider. On the day I get a different answer, that will be the day when I'll start hating Microsoft.
Seems Easy to Me (Score:2, Insightful)
Its easier for others to use M$ format than for M$ to implement anyone's format - for anything
If others try to implement M$ format, there will be some bugs - they will be behind the curve. Better for M$ to be "Innovating" out in front
M$ can verify the images to make sure you've licensed all virtual OS images because they control the machine and the data format. As they've given away the VM, why use a competitor's product? Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player - Any o
Limit copyright of software (Score:2, Interesting)
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I would be surprised because IBM has passed on the opportunity to open source other software that they discontinued.
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IBM have a pretty good history of contributing to FOSS.
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Content-free article (Score:2)
Are they talking about a boot manager, or VMware-like software running under Windows? By "give away", do they mean bundled with Windows, or free($) download?
Microsoft Virtual PC (Score:2)
I can't believe they're trying to use free Virtual PC as some major bargaining chip to the EEC.
Basic good-company product trashing by bad-company (Score:2)
no chance (Score:2)
I don't think there is much danger of that happening here
THis is standard Microsoft tactics... (Score:3, Informative)
And pretending that it's a sacrifice and convincing people that free copies of Microsoft software is a reasonable settlement for lawsuits has worked very well for them.
Internet Explorer, for god's sake.
Why are people showing anything but disdain for this appallingly transparent bargaining chip?
sort of like (Score:2)
Little do they know they are getting Windows 3.1
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"The first one's always free"
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Re:Interesting Decision (Score:5, Interesting)
Their intentions seem pretty straightforward to me. It's not about running other operating systems so much as running other Windows operating systems, with other OSes being a side effect that doesn't cost them any additional effort (except the struggle to put aside their lust for dominance for a little while).
The reason Microsoft stated for buying Virtual PC was so that they could build an emulation environment that would allow them to bundle enough of the old versions of Windows so that they could basically scythe out vast swaths of legacy code from their OS. I suspect this is the intent behind this effort as well. Why bother supporting all those 16-bit apps when you can emulate them in a VM? That's doubly important if they ever plan to support 16-bit code in 64-bit WIndows (which they currently do not).
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Right now, I'm installing dropline gnome in the slackware linux 11.0 I'm running under virtual PC 2004. Usual Amessdos + loadlin + monolithic kernel for minimum fuss... Andy.
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I tend to not dual boot to avoid complications such as these. Maybe Grub will be able to substitute the entirety of the Windows bootloader?
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Nor did I imply that you did.
No, you asked if it would overwrite your MBR. You didn't ask if there was a way to avoid it. And I quote:
Now, if you wanted to know if there was a way
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Thomas Gray would be proud... (Score:2)
Here free from virii and Patch Tuesdays, lies
Virtual Hard Disk Image, the bane of admin's eyes,
Its stupid quirks won't rot another brain,
From Microsoft we'll ne'er buy again,
Few where the C.P.Us alotted to its breath,
Now let it sleep in peace its night of death.
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For a visualised MS Windows machine you could even go out and buy Windows S
Re:Giving away products a compatitor sells=dumping (Score:4, Informative)
So they are not giving software away, but leave it to the other manufacturers to figure out a way to read these windoze virtual HD images. So where exactly is VM-ware (gives away vm products) or Xen (is free from the very beginning) getting hurt?
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i run MS Virtual Server - while it is nice.. it is diffently aimed at small biz.. it would never scale to datacenters (well)
IBM has had it for many many many years.. and it works.. Sun also.. not aslong as IBM but just the same both kick ass in the datacenters...
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