MS No Cathedral, Open Source No Bazaar? 170
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.
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.
Re:deja vu? (Score:5, Insightful)
After reading that 'standards' line it makes me see Microsoft as nothing less than a hydra:
Re:deja vu? (Score:2)
In a weird way, it works both ways (Score:2, Insightful)
The idea of calling MS open is beyond bizarre. It is positively Machiavellian and reminds of me when MS was pushing the idea that THEY developed the internet.
Re:In a weird way, it works both ways (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, there is another question. Does Microsoft truly think we're so stupid as to buy into any of it?
Re:In a weird way, it works both ways (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:In a weird way, it works both ways (Score:2)
A few Google searches says the story's not so simple. [alexhopmann.com] The link's longish by today's standards, so TWLAS (Those With Limited Attention Span) need not apply. The gist is that they had all the pieces in their hands to rub together. They built some of those pieces themselves, they built on some pieces from elsewhere, incorporated some more unchanged, put them together to build the first AJAX application ... and didn't invest any more effort.
They're on to things that they can make fully proprietary, now, which (naturellement) are much, much more wizzo.
Re:In a weird way, it works both ways (Score:3, Funny)
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?
Re:In a weird way, it works both ways (Score:2, Informative)
And that's where it would have stayed.
Oh, wait, maybe it would have developed further - Windows Update might have used it...
Not to mention that some malware author probably would have used it at some point...
It was OSS who DEVELOPED the whole NOTION of AJAX - who cares about XmlHTTPRequest alone?
Look around you, Windows shill. There are tons of OSS AJAX toolkits. Who cares about the Microsoft one with the
permissive license"?
That moron can't even understand the point of OSS licensing when he says the word "permissive".
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.
Re:In a weird way, it works both ways (Score:2)
He's confusing Microsoft with Al Gore. That happens a lot.
Re:deja vu? (Score:2)
...a New York hot pretzel, with a dash of moebius strip...
How much mustard would you need for that?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.
Re:Either there's been a complete sea change.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Either there's been a complete sea change.... (Score:2)
Re:Either there's been a complete sea change.... (Score:2)
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.
Re:Either there's been a complete sea change.... (Score:2)
I guess you didn't notice the "By that logic" in the post you quoted from.
Re:Either there's been a complete sea change.... (Score:2)
"by some other tortuous and completely unrelated logic" perhaps.
Re:Either there's been a complete sea change.... (Score:2)
Microsoft would not, under any circumstances, allow one of their products to be forked and come under the control of another entity.
Re:Either there's been a complete sea change.... (Score:2)
I don't see any evidence that Microsoft "gets it".
I think the suits responsible for managing the development of ASP.NET JAVA have confused "bizarre" with "bazaar", and precisely aimed for, and hit, the wrong target. This is a truly bizarre thing that MS is attempting to foist on the world.
We can expect more weirdness like this coming from Redmond. As a corporate organism, Microsoft was never endowed with very much of the higher cortical functions that are needed to work the top levels of the Maslow pyramid. It is not surprising that as it begins to die, the the small amount of high level cognition needed to maintain an integrated world view has disappeared before the lower level capabilities that allow formulation of clever word constructions has gone. We can expect different parts of Microsoft to express increasingly different world views with a confusing lack of over-all integration of vision, and with an increasing amount of openly expressed conflict between various strategies and tactics.
At worst, Microsoft is a dinosaur entering its death throes, and anybody who has teamed up with that beast needs to break harness and back away to a safe distance. At best, Microsoft is undergoing a massive mid-life crisis, and there is no telling what it will strip off and throw away, or how it will transform the portions of the old Microsoft that it will keep. Mid-life crises are damn hard on relationships. Just as the smart manager realizes that he needs to relieve an employee in mid-life crisis of any mission-crtical responsibilities, companies who have been working with Microsoft need to evaluate whether they should put more distance between themselves and Microsoft's uncertain future.
This is an unusual post for me, because I've been talking about Microsoft, yet I have managed to refrain from making any mention of its monkey dancing, chair throwing, potty-mouthed CEO.
Oops...
Re:Either there's been a complete sea change.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft is slowly decommoditizing standards by patenting the underlying logic(something's gotta stick). On the other hand, you can't really blame them for taking advantage of our broken patent system. There are plenty of other parasites out there eager and willing to do it.
Hmm. First example of it. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Hmm. First example of it. (Score:3, Informative)
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...
Re:Hmm. First example of it. (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:2)
Re:Hmm. First example of it. (Score:2)
You know, it would have been better if they hadn't. The problem is they make code that pretends to be XHTML, but it isn't. They still use the HTML mime type: sending XHTML with the text/html mime-type is bad [hixie.ch]. If they had stuck with XHTML 1.0 Transitional that would have been okay, because those specs make room for nasty browsers that don't support XHTML [microsoft.com], but XHTML 1.1 should always be sent as application/xhtml+xml.
Re:Hmm. First example of it. (Score:2)
Re:Hmm. First example of it. (Score:2)
Re:Hmm. First example of it. (Score:1)
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).
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?!?!?!
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.
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.
Re:Hmm. First example of it. (Score:2)
You've missed the entire point, I'm not telling AD is the only (or best) option. Yet AD can be setup and maintained very fast and easily.
For your information, the server in question was set up just after the release of Windows Server 2003 SP1. After that it remained online without an antivirus or firewall service on for a long time that I cannot remember. (With no failures or successful attacks, yes the automatic updates option was enabled).
Recently it's been reformatted to install Windows Server 2003 R2. Btw the network remained online, automatically switching to another domain controller (actually they've always been redundant anyway).
Btw, we also maintain (our bigger) system on CentOS/Fedora Directory Server. Yes, it's possible to do everything on an OSS system. But it takes much more time (yep we have that too).
Sorry, but looking at the issue from only a single side is no good. You have to extend your options.
Re:Hmm. First example of it. (Score:3, Informative)
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 setups all use mysql backends, not any kind of DS)
Re:Hmm. First example of it. (Score:3, Insightful)
In short, the difference between the cathedral and the bazaar is not and has never been the difference between closed and open source. It is the difference between two open source development strategies. If you're not sure of this, go read ESR's essay again. http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaa
Re:Hmm. First example of it. (Score:2)
By that definition, I have never heard of any projects using the bazaar model. I mean, do any project supply public commit access?
No, I'd rather think of the cathedral model as the model used in certain BSD systems, as well as in the development of XGL, which is a klosely knit team of programmers write the code without accepting patches from the public, while still releasing their code to the public. The bazaar model is used in most F/OSS projects, where anyone can contribute, but contributions are assessed by the project management or maintainers before making it into the official codebase.
Re:Hmm. First example of it. (Score:2)
Re:Hmm. First example of it. (Score:2)
Microsoft did not invent anything anytime, they just bought up or copied it (badly) from someone else and made it sound like they did it. From the beginning (BASIC & DOS) till now I have not seen a single drop of innovation or invention come from Redmond. I have basically grown up with Microsoft products around me (from Windows 1.0 & GW-BASIC on DOS 3.1 till Vista now) but my mentor (family member) in computer sciences also had the alternative (or back in the day, the mainstream) solutions and I have never liked Microsoft, nor will I ever like it. The only thing they do is buy something, extend or enhance it so it looks better to the one who buys and then sell it again and forget about their customer.
Re:Hmm. First example of it. (Score:2)
I'll look at Microsoft code when it's under a GPL, BSD, or similar, somewhat friendly license. Not something under a license from a clearly hostile corporation. IAMNAL, don't want to be a lawyer, and don't want to have any doubts in my mind. The few people I know who've seen Microsoft code don't give me better than average reviews. I just don't see any up side, unless, say you're on the Samba team, operating under a specific agreement.
Even then I might be wary, in the specific case of Samba. I have pretty strong notions of why you might want to *keep* the separate functions of authentication and authorization separate. I'm not a believer in doing both under, say, a Free LDAP server. Nor an AD server, even if wrapped in proprietary Kerboros extensions.
I wish the Samba team the best of luck, as I'll probably have to do more interoperability work in the future. But it's just a 'dealing with what's popular' thing, for me. Definitely not a 'good idea' thing. Given a choice, I'd keep the functions separate, and implement LDAP next to RADIUS, or TACACS+ (At a minimum. I don't really want to use TACACS+, unless it's improved beyond the flaws Solar Designer found several years ago. I quit tracking or recommending it, at that point, and things may have changed.).
Most networking ideas MS has come up with aren't really things that I buy into. They've been more about lockin than open standards, security, and network efficiency since they discovered networking. Granted, the same could be said about early IBM, MS NETBIOS, Novell IPX, etc., networking. But that stuff is mostly gone, and good riddance.
I'd hope that the future of workstation-friendly networking, where you might want to go beyond the basics of DNS, LDAP, RADIUS, various network filesystems, etc., would lie more along the lines of Zeroconf.
http://www.zeroconf.org/ [zeroconf.org]
http://zeroconf.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]
That will get MS, BSDs, Linux, and Apple machines talking. It's even making inroads into HP-UX and OpenSolaris. Be advised that I haven't done a security review--I'm just tossing it out because:
a) A complete security review should finally be *possible*. Shouldn't be as much of a Samba/AD scenario, as, well, Samba/AD.
b) Problems found are probably more politically fixable.
c) More universally applicable, including easier mixing of KDE and Gnome desktops, which is a big deal for me.
Especially given c), I'll be plugging some serious hours into it starting in April, and continuing for 2-3 months after that. I know at least a couple of other security guys will be doing the same, as we're starting to talk about collaboration. Including extending some tools. I know I'd like a firm handle on Zeroconf as the KDE folk release 4.0, and a couple of Gnome-heads I know are pushing the group, as well. It should be interesting. I only wish we had an AIX guy, as well.
Some of this is going to end up being client-only info, but a couple of us are also pushing for up-front agreements to release docs and code as a joint effort. I'm definitely going to release everything I can.
Re:Hmm. First example of it. (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:Hmm. First example of it. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Hmm. First example of it. (Score:3, Insightful)
When IE starts supporting standards then I'll believe Microsofts claim of standards based Internet.
Re:Hmm. First example of it. (Score:2)
Yes, I would like to see that particular business model destroyed.
Re:Hmm. First example of it. (Score:2)
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)
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 ?
Re:Could someone explain me wth does that mean : (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaa
Re:Could someone explain me wth does that mean : (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Could someone explain me wth does that mean : (Score:3, Informative)
Written by Eric Raymond about the differences between open and closed source, pretty much.
Re:Could someone explain me wth does that mean : (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Could someone explain me wth does that mean : (Score:2)
That certainly explains Stallman's attitude that he's the Pope (the current one, the one who used to be head of the Inquisition) and only his proclamations are to be adhered to...
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.
Re:Could someone explain me wth does that mean : (Score:2)
Re:Could someone explain me wth does that mean : (Score:2)
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.
Re:Could someone explain me wth does that mean : (Score:2)
The Netscape only and Mozilla browser only installs/binary were the same source tree as the suite packages. My understanding is that Firefox is a separate development from that linage and it isn't compatibly with the suite programs like the other binary installs were. I failed to give the older browser only installs credit because of this. I always took them as the same thing where Firefox was different.
Re:Could someone explain me wth does that mean : (Score:2)
The gothic cathedral was in many ways a communal project that evolved over decades and even centuries. David Macaulay: Cathedral DVD [shoppbs.org] The medieval craft guilds had a very large say in who sold what and where. Medieval Gulds [iastate.edu] I can't find an anchorage for Raymond's analogy in any historical reality.
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.
Re:MS and standards (Score:2)
Well. Taken literally "enable" means "make possible", "supply with means, knowledge, or opportunity", "give sanction to" or "make operational".
In other words: you can't play unless we let you.
The arrogance is astounding. Of course it may in fact be the case that Microsoft can make everyone pack up and go home if they want to. Does this mean they've decided to let it live?
Nah. It probably doesn't mean anything.
it's called stealing mindshare .. (Score:2)
Now that they have figured out that they can't kill open source through the pollution of open standards, they pretend to engage with it so as they can steal back mind share and subvert it from the inside. To the general public MS = computers, so it would odd that advances were happening elsewhere the MS wasn't involved in. Gets Microsoft and Open in the same sentence, get it. Watch out for a joint Open Source company + MS conference. Oh, wait
was Re:MS and standards
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:Open Standards == No one is Using it (Score:1)
I had a problem with exchange and had to use a MS support call. I had the solution within the hour. On the support line i was on, you talk to people who know about those components. I had a related problem but closer to a programming support problem, and they pulled somebody else into the call to advise as well.
Re:Open Standards == No one is Using it (Score:2)
Google and public Wikies are often far, far, far faster and more detailed than the Microsoft tech support, especially for the more obscure subtleties of hardware and software interactions among products from different vendors.
Re:Open Standards == No one is Using it (Score:2)
There is NOTHING about OSS that REQUIRES forum-based support. There are plenty of OSS developers offering support for MONEY.
Another Windows shill red herring.
You people have utterly NO intellectual integrity, do you?
Re:Open Standards == No one is Using it (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Open Standards == No one is Using it (Score:2)
Re:Open Standards == No one is Using it (Score:2)
Ah that's an easy one. You see, if you nuke the crap out of a planet, eventually the minute particles of cathedrals and bazaars will evenly spread out through space by a form of osmosis. It's a perfectly simple principle of discombobulation.
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...
Re:Weird site, opensourcelegal.org (Score:2)
Re:Weird site, opensourcelegal.org (Score:2)
I agree. The negative aspects listed had stronger qualifiers than the positive aspects, which makes it feel more negative than positive.
By the way, won't you agree that Peter Moldave (their contact) looks a bit like Bill Gates? ;)
Step 1 (Score:3)
Step 2 (Score:4, Funny)
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)
Re:The Proof Is In The Pudding: Open Source Direct (Score:2, Informative)
I'm sure you can find plenty of articles on slashdot for this one.
Re:The Proof Is In The Pudding: Open Source Direct (Score:2)
Given their long history of breaking standards, it is quite hard to believe that they have really changed attitudes in the last month. It is much more probable that this is just another marketing spin from Microsoft, trying to sound like they advocate standards while they in reality are trying to destroy them.
We are from the Government.. (Score:2, Funny)
We are from Microsoft and we enable Open Standards.
ASP is not an open standard (Score:1)
Re:ASP is not an open standard (Score:1)
Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition! (Score:1)
Come to think of it, their BSA raids on small businesses is kind of like the Inquisition... I guess you could have worse business models than the church. I mean, they are still around after thousands of years and still raking in the money.
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.
Re:"Permissive Licence" doesn't seem awful (Score:2)
Credit where it's due, surely? If a person has made a contribution to the software, surely it's only fair enough to credit them if they so desire? I do appreciate your point about aesthetics (which I firmly believe matter), but in most cases surely a well-designed credits page/screen/listing output/whatever should be perfectly acceptable. For example, take a look at the credits for Firefox (Help->About->Credits); that's a very long list of people, but still nicely presented.
you can't really call it anti-business when the world's largest software vendor implemented parts of it in their own license
Of course you can. Just because one or more clauses are not anti-business doesn't mean that others, or the licence as a whole, is not. Not that I'm arguing that that is the case (as I'm not), just pointing out an easy rebuttal to your assertion.
enabling open standards .. (Score:2)
'One strategy is to jump on the Java bandwagon and try and take control [edge-op.org] of the class libraries and runtime'
'Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Lets move on and steal [edge-op.org] the Java language'
'Outlook will not run propedy on top of GroupWise 5.1 because it uses/expects unknown MAPI calls/parameters. We have asked our normal Microsoft contacts for assistance in getting this to work
'If the application is written in Java, the Microsoft [edge-op.org] Virtual Machine for Java will be the default VM'
Sure it runs on Linux (Score:2)
This is especially significant in a world where the content consumers are more and more also the content creators.
In addition at the enterprise level: AJAX isn't easy to implement when you're using it for really intense UIs... you need an IDE for this to do it well in a large organization with varying levels of programming experience. MS wants businesses to convert all their old web based or non-web based internal apps to using this stuff (killer app style) and they want to be selling the IT dept. the tools to do so. When your IT dept. runs an OS, they would rather the people they support also run that OS, makes providing 1st level support SO much easier.
Bazaar (Score:2)
He doesn't say this particular release makes OSS any less of a bazaar, his statement is that most successful open source software is backed by a corporation, thus blurring the line between cathedral-bazaar. It isn't as much a bazaar as idealists like to think.
Re:I don't get it. (Score:2)
Re:I don't get it. (Score:2)
2. Grant of Rights
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(B) Patent Grant- Subject to the terms of this license, including the license conditions and limitations in section 3, each contributor grants you a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license under its licensed patents to make, have made, use, sell, offer for sale, import, and/or otherwise dispose of its contribution in the software or derivative works of the contribution in the software.
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3. Conditions and Limitations
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(B) If you bring a patent claim against any contributor over patents that you claim are infringed by the software, your patent license from such contributor to the software ends automatically.
(C) If you distribute any portion of the software, you must retain all copyright, patent, trademark, and attribution notices that are present in the software.
(D) If you distribute any portion of the software in source code form, you may do so only under this license by including a complete copy of this license with your distribution. If you distribute any portion of the software in compiled or object code form, you may only do so under a license that complies with this license.
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Re:of course not (Score:2)
Well, no.
Ballmer is not "God".
Bill Gates is "God" - certainly to the MS shills here and people like Rob Enderle and Daniel Lyons.
Ballmer is Gabriel - who throws chairs.
Of course, to the wage slaves who work at Microsoft under the Microsoft management hierarchy, they probably would invert the analogies...
Just watched "Constantine" again the other night - Redmond as Hell matches a nuked LA as Hell... In fact, the "half-breeds" sorta compare with Microsoft shills, too...
Re:of course not (Score:2)
Not to mention Laura DiDio [wikipedia.org] and Maureen O'Gara [wikipedia.org].
Re:Just a move against Java (Score:2)
Re:MS supports open standards... (Score:2)
The file format is open though, if not necessarily a standard. The specification is available for free from Adobe's web site.
Even such PNG files that contain transparent parts?
Since only Microsoft have the Windows source code, requiring a filesystem developer to recompile the Windows kernel would be pretty stupid. T'd rather think this is an erroneous jab at Linux, which has a reputation among some people (especially trolls) that its kernel needs to be recompiled for just about anything.
Maybe so that third party developers could create filesystem drivers for Windows? You know, Windows gains value if more software is written for it, which would make it pretty stupid to not document the IFS mechanism and API.
Samba is based on reverse engineering of various Windows protocols. Hardly an ideal situation, as reverse engineering is a very complex and time-consuming task.
Not any more interoperability? I'd really like an explanation why text files in XML format are equally interoperable to proprietary binary blobs. Besides, compressed XML files are usually more space-efficient than binary blob files, just compare equal documents stored in MS Office formats and OpenDocument Format. The latter are usually much smaller. I'd guess that the same thing applies to Microsoft's later XML formats.
All reverse-engineered (see above).
Which would be pretty much unnecessary if they could agree on a common (and open) denominator format.
Google Talk is based on the open Jabber protocol. Any client can connect to their servers for free.
The one and only reason they give away anything for free is to tie people harder to the Windows platform.
Obtained though reverse engineering (see above).
I may not have a choice. People may send files in proprietary formats to me and expect me to open them, or send links to such files with the same expectation. I would not choose such formats if the format decision was mine.
The Ogg format family seem to be unencumbered by IP issues. This family includes the Vorbis, Speex and Theora codecs.