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MS No Cathedral, Open Source No Bazaar?
Posted by
kdawson
on Sun Mar 25, 2007 07:03 AM
from the says-the-high-priest dept.
from the says-the-high-priest dept.
AlexGr sends us to InternetNews.com for an account of a Microsoft VP demonstrating Microsoft's ASP.NET AJAX product running on Ubuntu at AJAXWorld. In his earlier keynote, Brad Abrams had declared that, when it comes to AJAX, Microsoft is not the cathedral and open source isn't really a bazaar. He noted that ASP.NET AJAX is available under Microsoft's permissive license with full source code. "The Web is built on open standards and we at Microsoft believe that we have to enable those open standards," Abrams said.
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deja vu? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:deja vu? (Score:5, Insightful)
As a web developer for the last ten years I wonder who they honestly believe they are kidding? No matter what your bias you can clearly see in their current policy that they have no interest in standards and less so in web standards.
Parent
Re:deja vu? (Score:5, Insightful)
After reading that 'standards' line it makes me see Microsoft as nothing less than a hydra:
- multiple heads
- with multiple mouths
- each able to say its own thing
...but they all share the same heart.Parent
In a weird way, it works both ways (Score:2, Insightful)
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Yes, they truly think that. And many many people are exactly so stupid. If BG says it, it's true. And if you point out that it's false, you're just jealous of BG's money.
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B.S. MS had absolutely NO intentions of doing AJAX. They did not create JavaScript. They had no intention of using Javascript combined with XmlHTTPRequest. XmlHttpRequest was developed to give them a RPC capability for their apps. They had absolutely no intention of using it with their browser. This was a pure OSS idea. That is why MS was the last party to the game WRT ajax.
Re:In a weird way, it works both ways (Score:5, Informative)
Do you enjoy writing fiction and lies?
Parent
Re:In a weird way, it works both ways (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft sometimes creates useful things, like once every couple of years. :)
AJAX is certainly one of these (few) things.
Parent
Either there's been a complete sea change.... (Score:5, Informative)
This is the company that wanted to decommoditize standards and protocols [scripting.com], yet they come out with the line "The Web is built on open standards and we at Microsoft believe that we have to enable those open standards"
Re:Either there's been a complete sea change.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll be willing to bet they never would have made source for ajax available had open source not existed. Once again they lead by following...
And anyway, it's not open source, because I can't take the entire source and produce a rival product using it.
Parent
Re:Either there's been a complete sea change.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Either there's been a complete sea change.... (Score:5, Informative)
Where did you get that idea? Of course you can take GPL'd code and create a rival product and sell it. You just have to redistribute your changes to the GPL'd code as well so that others may take advantage of it like you did of the original product.
Parent
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Microsoft is slowly d
Hmm. First example of it. (Score:5, Interesting)
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They cannot release Win2k source code; doing so would violate their agreement with Sun following the Java lawsuit. Win2k binaries aren't even available on MSDN anymore. Basically, if you don't already have a Win2k disc, you're not going to get one.
Re:Hmm. First example of it. (Score:4, Interesting)
and is it served as application/xhtml+xml by default too? Because there's a certain browser by Microsoft that can't handle that...
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
That being said, last I checked, VS2005 default to XHTML 1.0 transitional, not XHTML 1.1 strict
Re:Hmm. First example of it. (Score:4, Interesting)
But Microsoft also handles many protocols nicely (as long as it's on the server side), and provides easy to use GUIs to setup and administer them.
For example, let's say I want to store all my infrastructure for user accounts, X509 certificate and DNS services and email configuration on a LDAP directory and would like to access via Kerberos as well.
The setup wizard for Active Directory will handle all these tasks (automatically) in less than 10 minutes (and add 30 minutes setup for Exchange and service packs). Additionally I'll receive many administration GUIs, fully redundant setup and backup programs. (Not including group policy which does not have a good alternative on Linux side yet).
On the other hand the same infrastructure setup on linux (with Fedora Directory Server or similar), requires coding plenty of scripts (LDAP gateway, sendmail configurations, kerberos password migration, etc, etc) and will probably take 3 days at best. Additionally I'll have to setup Amanda and similar backup strategies by hand.
So, I'd either choose to invest $1000 on a Windows Server 2003 license once, or hire an administrator with $1000 more salary per month than a current one.
Unfortunately many enterprises choose the first one
(btw our current setup uses Fedora Directory Server as main, while we also have an Active Directory installation in parallel, yet this is only because we're a university and we like to experiment more).
Parent
Re:Hmm. First example of it. (Score:4, Interesting)
So, you mean that they abuse their economical power... But it is ok, since they do that with a nice GUI? Or are you saying (falsely) that Microsoft has not extended those protocols? Because they have extended (or tried) almost all of them, DNS being the only exception, and irrelevant since they already tried to extend TCP.
Now, you seem to be very uninformed. There is quite a long time since people don't need to edit sendmail configs for a normal server (unless you talking about setting your netmask), Windows didn't deal with email by that time. There is less time that LDAP gateways and kerberos servers work easily, but they also do. And I'd really like to know what nice backup solution you get on Windows out of the box, even completely ignoring that to set-up amanda one just need to say where to put all those files and what to backup (I really doubt any other solution won't require that information). Someone that already knows those systems may very well configure it all on a day.
And, at leat at my box (hint, it's Debian, one of the most geeky and hard to configure distros out there) there are GUIs for most of those.
That tells how good at math are those people... Of course 3 days of work by $1000 a month are much cheapper than $1000 on licences and not accounted work on making all that software work as intented.
And, are you implying that windows doesn't need maintence?!?!?!
Parent
Re:Hmm. First example of it. (Score:4, Informative)
In order not to get further into a flamewar, it'll try to get technical.
Let's say we need to build an infrastructure on the open protocols mentioned above. While there're plenty of alternatives, one can propose Active Directory can also do the job well (this does not mean it's best or anything).
The required setup is done less than an hour, and will require a (less competent) system administrator for maintenance in the long run.
(It can be argued that the Linux side will require a more educated - i.e: more expensive - system administrator, and preparation of many site specific scripts and configurations - yet this may not seem objective for some people).
Don't misunderstand I'm not proposing converting all the systems to AD. I'm telling AD is also a fine solution based on open protocols.
Parent
Re:Hmm. First example of it. (Score:5, Interesting)
I also find no mention on the WS2003 server feature page that it can serve anything remotely CUPS'ish. You were probably thinking of IPP? RDP support on unix hosts should definetly not be credited MS.
The AD compatibility list and its features may look nice on a glossy paper. To be honest - I wouldn't touch it with a long stick. Its a one way street into a long life of MS induced pain - non-compatibilities, forced upgrades, a license policy that you need professional help to understand etc.
Not to mention the happy fact that with AD, MS has a perfect instrument to enforce any diabolic license-policy they can think of - at any point in time they want to. They are in complete control of your core infrastructure.
Parent
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1) Just because you can do it easily doesn't mean you can do it right
2) Have you ever tried using NDS ?
3) Try using Exim instead of sendmail. You can do the "configuration" in 2 minutes or less.
I hate LDAP as much as I hate Windows AD. Even tho I don't like Novell, NDS is still the best directory server around (when you want to handle multiple platforms). Btw, unless I'm much mistaken, Novell was the one to invent directory services in the first place.
(btw, my current setup
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In short, the difference between the cathedr
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MS would use closed, proprietary, patented protocols/standards (furthering vendor lock-in) wherever they could, if people didn't immediately jump to Apache/PHP if they did.
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When IE starts supporting standards then I'll believe Microsofts claim of standards based Internet.
Correction (Score:3, Funny)
standards," Abrams said.
There, fixed spelling for you.
they did the obvious but finished last (Score:3, Insightful)
most if not all of them aren't even tied to a specific server-side technology -> so more choice.
they point out it's open source? hey of course it is! the major part is in javascript. it's open by design and even if it were possible to scramble, obfuscate and encrypt their code. it would be useless because developers will have the need to extend the widgets to their specific needs at a certain level.
Re:they did the obvious but finished last (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Could someone explain me wth does that mean : (Score:3, Insightful)
what cathedral ? what bazaar ? what relation does any cathedral and bazaar have, what kind of metaphor is this, and just what the heck does that mean ?
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http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaa
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Written by Eric Raymond about the differences between open and closed source, pretty much.
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Re:Could someone explain me wth does that mean : (Score:5, Informative)
This is an (indirect) reference to Eric S. Raymond [wikipedia.org]'s seminal paper, "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" [wikipedia.org] (actual essay is here [catb.org]), in which he talks about software development being done in one of two ways, by huge development companies in commercial environments, being similar to the way medieval cathedrals were constructed, versus open-source development in which just about anyone can get involved if they want, and that development is closer to the typical bazaars where anyone can walk up and put up a booth to sell rugs. It is this paper that was basically the cause of Netscape deciding to open-source its browser.
Parent
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The main difference besides timing is that Mozilla was a web suite like Netscape traditionally was were Firefox was the fist stand along browser of the legacy.
MS and standards (Score:5, Insightful)
Enable ? Hardly. Follow ? When PR requires. Open ? Yeah, right.
"Enable those open standards" does this even mean something ?
First they don't do it. Then they do something similar for a second and act as they've always done it and behaved accordingly forever and even act like it's their ground philosophy.
Not that I would care what a company does to ensure a certain future - economical, technical or otherwise - yet there are certain boundaries to arrogance - like in we think you're ignorant enough to eat whatever we serve you for dinner kind of arrogance - that sometimes just blows the hood.
Open Standards == No one is Using it (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone have any idea what this claptrap means?
Oh right, this is what it's about. You're trying to stop people from using all the open source AJAX implementations out there, and you believe one way to do this is to claim that open source software has no support? As everyone who uses this kind of stuff should know, it's far faster and more responsive to discuss things like this with like-minded people (and/or employees) on a mailing list or forum than wait for a meaningless answer from some dumb witted twit who doesn't understand the software he's been cajoled into providing support for. You're going to fail there, so no, you don't understand how people are using AJAX at all.
Yes, because most of the servers on the web aren't Windows, damn it! Oh sorry, that quote was taken out of context.
Forgive me for being just a tad sceptical, and wondering why this was good enough to make it as a Slashdot news story.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Weird site, opensourcelegal.org (Score:4, Interesting)
Generally sites talking about open source tend to be keen to advocate the open source philosophy, but the tone of this site is mostly neutral and lacking any overtly expressed opinion. If anything, the page titled Why Open Source? [opensourcelegal.org] seems more negative than positive.
So perhaps the legal firm running the site is playing up the difficulties and uncertainties surrounding open source as a way of promoting its legal help on the subject? But I can't see anything on the (rather small) site advertising legal services at all. It doesn't really have enough content to get many visits for its news or information. I wonder why it was set up...
Step 1 (Score:3)
Step 2 (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Step 3 (Score:2, Funny)
The Proof Is In The Pudding: Open Source DirectX (Score:5, Informative)
* "Microsoft breaks with standards effort" [zdnet.com] 03-25-2003
* "Microsoft quits W3C standardisation panel" [theinquirer.net] 03/24/2003
How about a free and open standard in gaming?
* "Microsoft DirectX killing innovation" [theinquirer.net] 03-27-2003
Re:The Proof Is In The Pudding: Open Source Direct (Score:2, Insightful)
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I'm sure you can find plenty of articles on slashdot for this one.
We are from the Government.. (Score:2, Funny)
We are from Microsoft and we enable Open Standards.
Clear and Correct perspective on MS. (Score:4, Interesting)
They can and will say what ever they need to to get people to buy.
Second in priority is Microsoft is their own legal advisors to advise
themselves, (based on their interpretation of the law - no different
than any other lawyer or law firm) on what they can get away with, what
they can get in trouble for but balanced against what they gain in
breaking the law (do they gain more than they lose - if so then they
see it as a cost of doing business).
Third in priority is the bullying and buy out of the competition. Of
course their legal house is involved in this too.
Forth has become the application submittal for as many patents as
they can get, even stupid stuff that is clearly not patentable. In
the battle against open source this will become combined with the
third priority more and more.
What you don't see in any of the above is genuine innovation.
Microsoft does NOT enable fair play. But they often make claims
in contridiction of what they actually do.
Microsoft has a very long and hard earned reputation of being
dishonest with marketing speak.
But we all know this, those of use that read slashdot.
And slashdot users are not who this markting bull is aimed at.
Or maybe we should thank MS for enabling us to be open?
"Permissive Licence" doesn't seem awful (Score:5, Interesting)
I noticed two main things in that license text:
You can't remove any copyright, patent, or atribution notices. Kind of like the dreaded BSD advertising clause, in that if someone puts "Parts written by 1337 h4xx0rz" in the output of the program, you have to leave it there. Repeat ad nauseum for every contributor that jumps on the bandwagon, and things could get... unaesthetic.
They use almost the exact same patent control system as the GPLv3. If a program contains patented code, you're granted permission to use those patents to execute it. If you sue one of the patent holders for violations of your own patent, that permission is revoked. I think this is called the "please don't eat me, IBM!" clause. Seriously, though, this needs to be pointed out every single time some Microsoft shill attacks the GPLv3. You can dislike v3, but you can't really call it anti-business when the world's largest software vendor implemented parts of it in their own license.