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Microsoft and Novell Open Interoperability Lab
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Wed Sep 12, 2007 12:04 PM
from the still-in-the-skeptic-camp dept.
from the still-in-the-skeptic-camp dept.
An anonymous reader writes to mention that the Microsoft and Novell Interoperability Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts opened today. The lab is supposed to allow both Novell and Microsoft developers to work together for better interoperability between SUSE and Windows Server. "Located in Cambridge, the 2,500-square-foot lab and workspace will be home to a combined team of the best and brightest Microsoft and Novell engineers focused on making Windows Server and SUSE Linux Enterprise work better together. The first priority for the lab team will be to ensure interoperability between Microsoft and Novell virtualization technologies. Additional work will include standards-based systems management, identity federation and compatibility of office document formats."
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Submission: Microsoft and Novell Open Interoperability Lab by Anonymous Coward
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itsatrap? (Score:5, Insightful)
Having said that, Microsoft, like many gigantic corporations, has several "personalities" in the sense that different divisions may be operating on different guiding principles that don't necessarily mesh with each other. In this case, for instance, I'm willing to believe that the MS engineers joining this interoperability effort will genuinely do good work towards making MS products work with Linux in a smart and efficient way. So, I can see a lot of good coming out of this.
Yes, we should be wary of any attempt by MS higher-ups to subvert this process and use it to break interoperability (or to make Linux look "unfit for business" or whatever)... but to some extent I'm willing to give MS another chance here.
Re:itsatrap? (Score:5, Funny)
Of course it's a trap. Imagine you were walking along and you saw a bear trap on the ground, with a trip wire beside it leading to a gas canister. A cage is suspended over it by a rope, and there's a sentry gun mounted nearby. You might think, "this is a trap", unless you were a Novell executive, in which case you would step into the the apparatus try to find ways to "interoperate" with it.
Parent
Re:itsatrap? (Score:5, Insightful)
This lab is the result of the Microsoft-Novell FUD agreement.
And at 2500 square feet, I.E., a 50x50 foot room,
the techs don't have a lot of room to interoperate.
It's a farce to appease the EU.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, but it's in Cambridge where software engineers are used to be tucked into tiny cubicles!
But then again, it being Cambridge, the land of the FSF, MS is walking into pretty hostile territory. How many MIT hacks will be pulled on that office is beyond my guess...
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The 2,500-square-foot lab was completed in July and includes about 80 servers that are running Intel Corp. dual- and quad-core chips, as well as dual-core chips from Advanced Micro Devices Inc.
So far, the lab has four engineers on staff, with another four to be hired by the end of the year, Hanrahan said. Other engineers from Microsoft and Novell facilities around the world will also work in the lab, he said.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
the techs don't have a lot of room to interoperate.
No research needed (Score:3, Interesting)
It's actually not that difficult. Have most of your apps spit out strings of text in some documentable (or, ideally, document*ed) format and basically voila!
What's difficult is having interoperability without actually having it. In fact, I suspect they could research that until doomsday.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm willing to believe that the MS engineers joining this interoperability effort will genuinely do good work towards making MS products work with Linux in a smart and efficient way. So, I can see a lot of good coming out of this.
Um, no. They will do work towards making Linux work with MS products. Whether this work will be good or not remains to be seen, but their track record does not speak well for them. No doubt much of this work will be closed-source proprietary software designed to run on Linux. And I have no doubts that one of their first jobs will be porting WGA to Linux.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Not to be flippant, but wouldn't a "smart and efficient way" include a decision on the part of Microsoft to stop "not interoperating"? Seems to me that over the years they've actively and repeatedly pursued a course that was designed to maintain monopoly and thwart interoperability of any sort.
Then a
Re:itsatrap? (Score:4, Interesting)
Though I am stuck using MS at work, and at home (for a couple games I like to play that aren't available/playable on any other platform), and don't really mind using the products (because, in this case, they are the right tool for the job), I very much dislike the company (in the way it does business... I'm sure at least some of the people that work there are great people otherwise...)
Parent
Re:itsatrap? (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft has learned a lot about business from IBM in the past. Let's see if they can follow those footsteps going forward. I hope they do.
Parent
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Awesome! (Score:5, Funny)
In all seriousness though (Score:2)
Ulterior motives? (Score:2, Informative)
Peer or puppet? (Score:5, Interesting)
If Suse has to make all the running it will be pretty obvious who is wearing the trousers (as we say).
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Re:Peer or puppet? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Not too much to worry about (Score:3, Insightful)
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I mean, there is historical precedent (Windows' TCP/IP stack), less effort required to "play nice" w/ FOSS-friendly corps, and they'd (for once) have something more secure than what they've been issuing forth in the OS market.
Mhmm! (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I suspect that they have learned the lesson from SOAP that having an interoperable standard does not necessarily decrease business. It increases it if the standard complexity is above a certain threshold.
So some of them have seen the light of more revenue on the horizon already. It is a matter of the rest of the company following suit.
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Isn't it interesting... (Score:4, Funny)
Finally, standards compatibility! (Score:3, Funny)
We're at phase two already? (Score:4, Interesting)
Phase one - embrace. [linux-watch.com]
Phase two - extend. [slashdot.org]
Phase three - extinguish. [wikipedia.org]
Been good knowing you, Novell.
Visions of the past (Score:2)
Who is running this? (Score:5, Funny)
Optimist here (Score:2)
Hopefully, it's not an abbatoir. (Score:2)
Standards? (Score:2)
Though given the recent OOXML ISO happenings, maybe more companies will need these labs to make their products work together...
Obligatory... (Score:2, Informative)
Best? Brightest? Microsoft??
Priorities (Score:5, Insightful)
That is definitely not the place I would start. First of all, I hardly think interoperability in virtualization is the most important, and secondly, as far as I know, we already _have_ interoperable virtualization.
Instead of virtualization, I would start with file formats and move to protocols from there.
Of course, neither of these would be issues if there were standards and both parties adhered to them.
Re: (Score:2)
Of course we do (several varieties of it, even), but Microsoft doesn't. They see that virtualizing Linux is going to be big business; their goal is make SUSE on Windows using Microsoft's virtualization solution the 'premiere' way to do that.
My theory at least. Anyhow, I don't expect anything good to come out of this 'interoperable virtualization' issue except for Microsoft (and possibly Novell).
NTFS (Score:2)
Accountability (Score:2)
should have shared space with Sun (Score:2)
But really, are thes
Dead or Alive (Score:2, Insightful)
So if some is tainted, then through it away. People act like they don't care, but seem to. I guess in a way, who cares if Novell dies, we have their code, right? But at the same time, who is going to pick up all of the coding that will stop if they disappear?
Although, I am one of those that hopes, ad mist the flaws/bad choices, that they con
GPL Foils Traps (Score:2)
Novell's Linux products might eventually become traps for Microsoft lockin, but the code itself need not be if included in other distros. That would be up to the other distro.
brave company (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I thought that was what Wine was for?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
WINE actually provide a useful service that helps third party applications that were originally only developed for Windows to migrate to Linux. The project that does what you warn about is Mono, which encourages Linux developers to adopt proprietary Sue You Later frameworks without thinking about it. And Mono, co-incidentally enough, is the one with the close, close ties to Novell. I wouldn't touch SuSE with a 50m CAT5e cable, right now.
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Nobody said Microsoft doesn't try to force Windows so there's no need to go looking in caves :). Yes companies do tend to force their products because that's kind of how they make money. You probably won't see a company promoting somebody else's product in spite of its own. Look at any company and its product. A company will tend to sell its product whether your personally like it or not. You're basically describing business as u
Re: (Score:2)
Of course if Windows went away and it was all UNIX, perhaps a new generation of developers would get sick of it and create a new and better OS.
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MS customers are not so forgiving. Reimplementing Windows with a Unix core would be an enormous undertaking that is unlikely to be a cash-positive move for MS. Besides, most of the complexity of Windows wouldn't go away by c