Seven Reasons Microsoft Loves Open Source 154
tlockney writes "Next week at Microsoft's MIX, whurley will be leading a discussion on 'Open Source, the Web, Interoperability, and Microsoft'. To kick off a bit of pre-session discussion and enlist the help of others in putting Microsoft on the spot, whurley, king of all things open source at BMC has written an article entitled 'Seven Reasons Microsoft Loves Open Source'."
Reason zero (Score:5, Insightful)
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Anyone care to confirm this story and/or post a link - If I'm wrong or remembering incorrectly, somebody set me straight(I can't find the actual story)
The moral of this story is that a few years ago Microsoft didn't think open source was worth worrying about and now they are on the wagon...
Re:Reason zero (Score:5, Informative)
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I don't think they're on the wagon. There are several reasons for Microsoft hating open source:
7 reasons Microsoft loves Open Source - RTFA (Score:4, Funny)
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Maybe they need a hint?
Worded differently (Score:5, Insightful)
I hate when they do that.
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I can see microsoft doing what apple did (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:I can see microsoft doing what apple did (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I can see microsoft doing what apple did (Score:4, Interesting)
To say nothing of the fact that UNIX and NT are architecturally very different animals.
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Indeed, and they work with Mainsoft for the Unix ports of some of their applications. (Not to mention Microsoft Xenix back in the day!)
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Microsoft has knowledge and experience with UNIX since the 70s [wikipedia.org]. I know someone how works at MS at a lab that has mostly Unix computers (Linux included).
Trust me, the REALLY know Unix.
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Re:I can see microsoft doing what apple did (Score:5, Informative)
Apple not only maintained is own Unix distro of A/UX, sold AIX servers, and created its own Linux distro prior to OS/X, but also ported the Mac environment to other Unix variants, using MAE and laster MAS.
- Steve Jobs and 20 Years of Apple Servers [roughlydrafted.com]
And everybody knows that NT's "POSIX compliance" was a bullshit dance designed to make NT legal to sell to the government. NT never offered anything more than pretend support for POSIX, and it was of no more importance to Microsoft as a subsystem within NT than was OS/2.
Further, since POSIX compatilbility is techniclly a paid seal of approval on a specific implementation of Unix APIs, of course Linux as general idea can't ever techically pay to attach the POSIX trademark to itself in the way Microsoft pretended to.
The reality is that the only value of POSIX is as a general synonym for "Unix-like compatibility." In the real world, Linux currently helps define what that is; NT does not offer this at all.
Are you really trying to argue that NT provides some useful sort of compatibility for Unix apps? Citing the Wikipedia as a source does not do much to create credibility for your conjecture.
NT POSIX memories. (Score:5, Informative)
In the NT3 timeframe (approx 12 years ago now), there was a big effort to sell NT to companies, such as the one I worked for then, supplying back office /server room style products. Many/most products of the time were running on Unix boxes or similar. We were using Unix x86 boxes (SCO etc) for compter tephony applications. NT had to check a few boxes to encourage people to switch: POSIX and streams driver support. This gave people a reasonable porting avenue to a cheaper OS (NT was about half or a third of SCO's cost at the time).
The POSIX and streams drivers were very inefficient, and were dropped within a short while (once the bait and switch had worked).
This ploy was very clever on MS's part. Using ourselves as a benchmark for people in this space, our customers were putting on some pressure to provide NT based products because they were eating the MS blurb and wanted to reduce costs. Our techies looked at NT and figured out what would be needed to port: POSIX-check, streams driver model - check. So we say that on paper it can be done with trivial architectural change. Marketing start hyping the NT-based offering. The business people say make it so, so we do. Unfortunately we find the POSIX and streams driver model are very slow on NT, so end up having to start doing native drivers and non-POSIX code. We start slipping, marketing starts screaming and the portability gets dumped in favour of getting shipping. The bait and switch has worked.
We never got any benefit from NT POSIX or the MS streams driver. Our systems went from requiring low-end (16-25MHz) 386s to 100+MHz 486. Basically a very bad case of bait and switch.
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Are you really trying to argue that NT provides some useful sort of compatibility for Unix apps? Citing the Wikipedia as a source does not do much to create credibility for your conjecture.
And citing roughlydrafted is better? Sorry, couldn't resist.
Beat me to it... (Score:2)
What, how can you not take a site that has poorly photoshopped heads of corporate executives onto movie posters seriously?! That is the epitome of credibility! Besides, it even has pretty pie charts and sound bites in the articles. Which is good, because I feel very informed when I read it. It is fair and balanced, that's what. Anyway, I'm off to find some more anti-Apple bias in the media!
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Re:I can see microsoft doing what apple did (Score:4, Interesting)
That is certainly a loss for Bill Gates and perhaps the rest of the original cadre of MS corporate officers. Throughout the 80s and 90s, MS was steered consistently toward a "vision" of dominance that really wasn't profit oriented. MS has consistently passed up the opportunity to make profits in its efforts to become the dominant player in different digital markets. It has thrown more money down the toilet to prevent someone else from succeeding in an area where it wasn't good enough to win on merit than many companies had earned during those 20 years.
When MS gives up this foolishness and starts acting like a profit-oriented business, it will almost certainly lose its tarnish and become a respectable member of the business community.
That will be a long-term winning situation for MS. The only losers will be Gates (who has already thrown in the towel), Balmer, and the rest of the original dreamers with their juvenile fantasies about attaining world dominance.
Not a win situation.. (Score:2)
Musical chairs (Score:3, Funny)
Fixed(TM)
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The (current) NT kernel is quite reasonable, but that does not imply your conclusion, that Microsoft have no reason to replace it with the Linux kernel. Let's say that they are equally capable for sake of argument, still, Linux can be used by Microsoft at no cost. Maintaining the NT kernel all by themselves is expensive.
(Of course there are other factors here, I just mentioned o
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No, it's not. Microsoft themselves refer to it as a "hybrid kernel"; practically, it means it's a monolithic kernel that sort of looks somewhat like a microkernel if you squint and turn your head a little, but it still misses out on most of the relevant advantages of a real microkernel architecture. Most modern operating systems have kernels that support pluggable binary format and other kernel service modules, but the amount of marketin
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Re:I can see microsoft doing what apple did (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not sure who "everybody" is... but such claims ignore history. It ignores the very impressive turn-on-a-dime business strategy Microsoft pulled off after they initially failed to realize the importance of the Internet. And it ignores a historical precedence in the changing of IBM's desktop hardware market when it shifted from a proprietary to commodity platform.
Micorosoft is not going to simply curl up and die. They've proven to be agile enough to react to threats / lost opportunities. And they have the momentum and resources to deal with a suddenly difficult market.
If we're lucky, Microsoft will become the software / OS equivalent of IBM. Sure - they're still powerhouses in the Industry... but they no longer control it. They have influence but have to compete with every other market player for that influence to pay off and drive the market in their desired direction.
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They haven't proven agile at anything. Nothing they've ever shipped was worth looking at until the third version. They've simply been big enough to use monopoly power to buy out or block competition long enough to get their own mediocre solutions entrench
Re:I can see microsoft doing what apple did (Score:4, Informative)
That sounds plausible except for a few minor details. The first of which is the GPL. One of the major cornerstones of the GPL is that there are protections to prevent people from exploiting GPL code in the way MS would certainly exploit it. Microsoft has built an empire of locking every other competitor out (sometimes through illegal means). The famous extend part of the embrace, extend, extinguish ploy would not be allowed by the GPL.
Also, Apple was able to develop OS X not using Linux. Apple acquired NeXT which had developed some advanced technologies used in OS X. Also they based their kernel on BSD which does not have the same restrictions as Linux.
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Re:I can see microsoft doing what apple did (Score:5, Insightful)
If Windows ever used a Linux kernel (hah!), there'd really be very little difference from the current status quo. They'd probably have to fix up the NTFS driver a lot (or use a different filesystem--most users wouldn't notice or care), they'd certainly benefit from all the built-in drivers, but the graphics subsystem would probably be a big showstopper since they'd either have to use X and change a lot of things, or make their own subsystem built into the kernel which they seem to like to do. Other than that, they'd certainly keep their whole system libraries proprietary and secret, which would make it non-trivial for people to run Windows applications on free software. Yes, they could use WINE, but that's still trying to hit a moving target and is developed slowly because of the need for reverse-engineering. Personally, I don't see why MS would ever bother using a Linux kernel; it doesn't provide them much technical benefit.
Re:I can see microsoft doing what apple did (Score:4, Insightful)
Then again, the NT microkernel seems a bit overstressed for what it's being pushed to do in Vista, and it's starting to show... badly. Two versions from now, they're going to have to replace it with something... 'cause what they got now simply isn't going to cut the mustard (well, unless they up the minimum HW requirements to an 8-core box + 16GB of RAM + four SLI-chained vidcards...)
That said, I do agree that it prolly won't be Linux - MSFT will most likely snag the latest *BSD kernel (one that has no GPL encumbrance) and lock it down good and hard. Then they'll build the world's ugliest set of wrappers and APIs for it, then call the results "innovation".
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As for two versions from now, that's over a decade away, probably more, at the rate that MS releases major new OS versi
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No, it's API compatible at the source level. I have my own GNUstep build on my Slackware box, and on it, just because it can be done, I have Emacs on Aqua [sourceforge.net].
I don't actually "do" emacs, but I have my own home-made build system, and I put various things in it for toys to play with, including GNUstep and other interesting bits and pieces.
Is this the right talk for him to give? (Score:2, Insightful)
"loves" used very loosely (Score:5, Funny)
Where I'm from, they have another word besides "love" for that.
Why microsoft really loves open source (Score:2, Interesting)
Admitted (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Admitted (Score:5, Insightful)
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How is open source not a threat to them again?
What's a whurly? (Score:4, Insightful)
This synopsis annoys me because it is written as if we're all just supposed to know what the hell a whurly and a BMC are.
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Anyways, you are all just going to have to wait for the movie if you want to know the really juicy bits. Like the time I took all my IWW union organizer friends to the pagan pan-sexual house. Oops! Darn my loose lips.
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I should sleep more.
Duh (Score:5, Insightful)
No competition = stagnation (Score:5, Insightful)
Arguably this is not true for all their markets, such as development tools and Office, which historically have not been too contested (not lately at least) and yet have not resulted in the same stagnation.
Many people want open source to succeed, because one of the end results of that is a better Microsoft. I've always included myself in that group.
As for the article, I think it's a good read for all the "LOLOL M$ is TEH AFRAID OF THE GNU/PENGUIN ETC" crowd:
Microsoft fears IBM and Novell and CA. It doesn't "fear" Ubuntu or Gentoo or Torvalds. That's the key issue that RMS managed to miss (or probably chose to ignore for the oomph effect) in his incisive analysis of the "Halloween documents".
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That is to say that now that OS technology is mature it just doesn't increase in value as much any more. So MS has a problem shifting its new OSes because the old OSes have enough value as they are. Same with Office products. Unfortunately for MS its business model requires that the value of its products does not lower over time - hence they are inevitably required to find ways of artificially increa
Re:No competition = stagnation (Score:5, Insightful)
I would have though that reality backs up the opposite: MS doesn't want to open their code or specs.
Right now, they're giving the EU a tough time over specs,
I can't imagine how "They realize open source is their future".
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Then you are short on imagination. The simple answer is that barring legislation that cripples it, Open Source is the future, whether that is a future of Free Software or not.
The industry became closed because there was money to be made at it. But it is "trying" to reopen (in the same way that information "wants" to be free) because that is logical. Everything (except the fleecing of th
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As far as the EU is concerned, they can go fuck themselves. However, the ridiculous protectionist dickfest they've or
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The competition policy in Europe has nothing to do with protectionism. It is trying to make the European market open and transparent.
I do not know about other European countries, but when Karel Van Miert was commissioner (he is from Belgium), there where several cases of Belgium companies being punished.
Besides, most software companies profiting from breaking MS monopoly would be American ones. Europe does not really have a computer hardware industry, and I can on the top of my head only name SAP and Soft
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I think that the poster is treating "Open Source" as meaning Open business practices as well as literally open source code. These things are happening at MS.
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http://www.catb.org/~esr/halloween/ [catb.org]
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Actually your first paragraph was right: MS doesn't innovate in ANY market where it doesn't face competition.
Office has not seen innovation in years, since it beat WordPerfect and 123. The innovation now is with other players, who are designing truly innovative interfaces (e.g. Google Calendar's quick appo
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Yes, yes. And Windows has not changed since 1990, etc.
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Microsoft fears IBM and Novell and CA. It doesn't "fear" Ubuntu or Gentoo or Torvalds. That's the key issue that RMS managed to miss (or probably chose to ignore for the oomph effect) in his incisive analysis of the "Halloween documents".
The same as you seem to constantly manage to miss the real issue RMS has. It's called "software obstructionism" and has nothing directly to do with Microsoft, even though he considers Microsoft als one of today's key proponents of said obstructionism.
RMS' issue came from 1984, when Unix Source Labs tried to renegotiate all UNIX software licenses. MIT and UCB put lots of work into UNIX and added many components to its software stock. But according to the license USL reserved the right to call those componen
WHAT? (Score:5, Funny)
7 reasons a mouse likes a cat
7 reasons why oil likes water
7 reasons why intelligent design likes pasta
or
7 reasons why office users like clippy
Hopelessly naive (Score:5, Interesting)
Um, no. Both are threats to Microsoft. Linux, as a product, is obvious.
Open source, as a larger concept, is a threat to Microsoft because it is the antithesis of their power base. Microsoft has gained and held its control over the industry by clutching tightly its file formats and protocols. The only reason we ever got Office compatibility and the SMB protocol in the Open Source realm is because of careful reverse engineering and the hope that Microsoft's patent lawyers would keep their guns holstered.
I think Microsoft is realizing that the problem isn't the source, which is eroding as a base of power, but the software patents. On the one hand, they hold enough to crush pretty much anybody they choose. At the same time, they've already been victimized once by Eolas. The Novell deal shows how reluctant Microsoft is to really enforce their software patents. It's as much a defensive action for Microsoft as it is for Novell. Obviously, Novell can step out from under that Sword of Damocles. Microsoft, however, by not filing a straight-up patent suit, avoids throwing the first punch in a barroom full of patent trolls, all of whom are itching for a brawl.
Heh... (Score:2)
Loves? (Score:2, Interesting)
OpenOffice poses more of a long-term threat to Microsoft than Linux, because Microsoft's revenue stream for Office is l
Linux not the threat; the GNU GPL is (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft has made it clear, many times, that they consider the GPL a "cancer" and "Communist". They've also said that "we're not against 'open source'. We like BSD, that's fine. What we don't like is the GPL."
The GPL is their enemy because the GPL proactively defends our freedom. Is the BSD license a Free Software license? You bet! But it doesn't proactively defend our freedom like the GPL does, and it is that characteristic of the GPL that frightens Microsoft to its core. That's also why they're fighting so desperately against the OpenDocument file formats; to Microsoft, actual, true Freedom for users is a very, very scary thing. [mailto]
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As far as Apple's use of "a lot of FreeBSD code", no shit, sherlock! The MacOS X roots date back (through NeXT) to the mid-late 80s. Their whole underlying structure has always been BSD.
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You mean the freedom to choose a different license for other portions of the program that uses portions of the original code?
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Hmm... do you take the same stance with the binaries?
I don't know what magic the source code has that means that if you are selling source rather than a binary that you would have to let your customers do whatever they like with it. Would you please explain?
Ugh. It's not about viewing the sou
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That is the future that Microsoft wants to avoid at all costs; it will make the price of software as a commodity become
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Logic like this reminds me of people who promote Christian music over "secular" music. "You like Led Zeppelin? Well you shouldn't listen to them, there's satanic references in their music. Creed is almost as good, and they're Christian!".
Some of us prefer quality over ideology; I love FireFox, but I'll play Civ4/Starcraft over FreeC
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Yes, it is. In fact, the freedom to study and change the source code is the most fundamental freedom in Free software. If you don't have the source code and can't get access to it, the program is as good as proprietary.
One reason why it's all a lie (Score:2)
Love? (Score:2)
Reason Eight (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's face it, Linux is not going to destroy Windows, there's too many issues with it. People have already seen Linux and made their opinions then. We can change them but it's an uphill battle. The in fighting, the "hard core linux guys" vs. the Red hats vs. the Slackware vs. everyone else has ruined what little chance Linux has. The very fact that if Linux takes over, it won't be one version but every version and it will all create work for the end user means it's going to be problematic for it to even gain market share.
Open source diverts and directs a lot of time for the people who could take on Microsoft's products and that makes Microsoft happy. In theory it COULD make for a better product because everyone can be working towards one goal. But in reality every programmer has an opinion on how best to go about the assault on the big MS and with out true leadership (Torvalds isn't looking to lead the revolution, Stallman is but he's as polarizing as can be, hell Stallman will scare most corporations back to Microsoft's loving arms with his free software talk.) Even the term open source scares businesses and executives. It's a good thing after you understand it but there's a lot of parts of it that Microsoft can whisper in people's ears to scare them into using the Microsoft alternative.
So Microsoft loves the fact open source is here because if anything it's destroyed more genius ideas than they could probably fight on their own in a number of ways.
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And spyware and malware don't already create more work? For the average person who doesn't
know jack about computers (my mom) Linux is the best thing they can use. And have you installed
a distro lately? It's pretty easy and quick. This just isn't an argument any more...
The real reason Linux is slow to adopt is because the people like Dell and HP haven't advertised it yet.
They only dip their toe and then get scared of the water.
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Uh.... ?
I think Linux is where it is, because it has a vision (a free software philosphy) only because Linus has chosen to lead Linux towards that path. I guess I'm confused by the above observation.
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The other side of it is I was showing Linux is not the answer to overtaking Windows, at least not the Linux of 2007. It's diversity and other attributes bred out of Open sourcing is hurting it as much as helping (we like these things where we choose which Linux distro we want, however the home users will not.)
Ruined? (Score:2)
That's the cool thing. We've needed the push and I'm sure in some ways that's what's making it OK for distro's like Ubuntu to include non-free software and changes without being widely panned but the community.
I don't agree that open source is taking away from anything. Linux (my favorite example) has g
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But there hasn't really been many forks where distros create their own thing. Sure distros like Red Hat and Ubuntu invent end-user tools, but either it'll get accepted upstream or they will keep patching the latest Gnome/KDE/whatever release.
The differences between distros are in the long term relatively small. Ther
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I really wish more people thought like you.
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Catagorized List: (Score:4, Funny)
2. We can steal ideas!
3. We can steal design!
4. We can release a version that doesn't turn off noobies!
5. We can make a proprietary competitor and wipe the original FOSS off the map with our hegemony!
6. We can put out a press release about how we invented something again!
7. We can steal code!
the real 7 reasons (Score:2)
2) free development
3) innovation with low overhead
4) goals of stability to achieve
5) something to get baldy charged up before keynotes
6) hackers to blame
7) Novel^H^H^H Back-stabbing CEOs that will sign patent agreements
My comment refuting his points (Score:5, Interesting)
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I can't take you very seriously because there is a lot of misdirection and hand-waving in your article. I will give you credit that I didn't see any outright lies, which Microsoft directly uses, though. Here I'll point out some problems with your points.
"They include open source code in their products."
You bring up the TCP/IP implementation as an example. That's not a good idea on your part because it's exactly the example people use to point out why Microsoft likes to let other people come up with good stuff under the BSD license and then selfishly take it with no thank-yous or giving in return. When it comes to a mutual sharing license that they can't take selfish advantage of, like the GPL, they spit venom, lies, quasi-legal lobbying interference with government action, violation of their court-ordered code of conduct from their anti-trust conviction, etc., etc. So basically, your first point illustrates that they just like code that other people open without restrictions so they can just snatch it.
"They support open source vendors."
I won't say a lot here because I'm not familiar with these Microsoft "programs created to test and verify open source applications on Microsoft platforms". If they do that, fair enough.
"They benefit from open source everyday."
It's called FUD. Have you read the content of the "free press" they pay for? That's kind of a twisted way to look at things to say that your competitors benefit you by giving you the opportunity to smear them with falsehoods. You're not understanding what the alternative situation was to this "battle with open source" they've been waging in the press. Before open source was maturing, Microsoft didn't have a big war in the press and had close to 100% market share. Everyone just kept buying it because they had never heard of anything else. Now Microsoft is having to viciously attack to slow the slide of their market share. Open source isn't doing them any favors there.
"They open source code."
Ah, UNIX tools for Windows. This is beating the ground where the dead horse rotted away several years ago. They did a small token action on a minor product most people don't use once, and we're supposed to be reminded of that over and over? That hardly seems like strong evidence to make it one of the "Seven Reasons Microsoft Loves Open Source". That's weak, man.
"They are adopting open source culture."
You're not recognizing what this is. Culture means actually doing something, which they're not. This is co-opting the language of open source to try to pretend to be something good, while remaining the wolf in sheep's clothing. It's the same with their proprietary data-dump of their new MS Office format, which they have ironically called "Microsoft Office Open XML". They want to have that word Open associated with them, even though the format is very closed and does not contain specs enough for anyone else to use it.
"They aren't threatened by open source."
Well this looks like a good place to continue the talk about the office document formats. They are threatened at least as much, if not more, by other forms of openness than just by Linux. Have you kept up with Microsoft's conduct in Massachusetts over the document format decision? They have been putting out some of their most blatant lies to convince them to use the Microsoft document formats, rather than go to a neutral document format that can be used by anyone, including Microsoft if they wanted to stop their tantrums long enough to do it. Read some of Andy Updegrove's blog to find out some of the story about that, including how they fed a false character assasination story on Peter Quinn to Boston Globe reporter Steve Kurkjian. The story was published before they even
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The predatory stuff they've done is bad, yes...but unlike the GPL, the BSD license doesn't enforce reciprocity, so they haven't done anything in violation of the license by not getting involved in the development of that.
I am deeply tired of the attitude found primar
insert anti-GPL FUD here .. (Score:2)
The GPL doesn't enforce anything, if you sell on an app with GPL code then you must include your own source code, else use the lesser GPL. You are not compelled to sell it on. The GPL prevents some company taking code and locking it up in some commercial product, like Windows for instan
"Love"? GMAB. A Naive List... (Score:2, Informative)
But enough from me. Be sure to read the comments below the article on the source page. They are very insightful and diverse.
Geek Wannabes (Score:2, Troll)
ehh (Score:2)
threats (Score:3, Interesting)
Really, any press release or fluff from OSS collaborators should be ignored. Any OS release should be examined for goodness - copied - then ignored. Any attempts to say that OSS is here to "wipe-out" MS should be ignored. OSS can never do that. Those people who whinge about OSS *not* competing with word, access, oh, get a life.
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If Linux will succeed on the popular desktop, then it will come preinstalled. It will come with manufacturer support -- or the manufacturer will have a support contract with another agency. And that won't be much cheaper than OEM Windows. (So incidentally, Linux only has a price advantage for people who can forgo support.)
who's afraid of the GPL .. (Score:2)
Except it won't be covered by the GPL. I would have thought they would create their own propriety protocols, 'partner' with a Linux vendor and start selling Microsoft Linux and threatenig other Linux vendors with litigation.
was: Re:He's right about one thing...