Linux Foundation Calls for 'Respect for Microsoft' 486
kripkenstein writes "Jim Zemlin (executive director for the Linux Foundation) gave a talk at LinuxWorld saying that the open source community should stop poking fun at Microsoft. From the VNU article: 'Open source vendors have to recognize that Windows is here to stay and that together with Microsoft it will form a duopoly in the market for operating systems. This also requires that the Linux community respects Microsoft rather than ridicule it. "There are some things that Windows does pretty well," Zemlin said. Microsoft for instance has excelled in marketing the operating system, and has a good track record in fending off competition.'"
Uh-huh. (Score:5, Insightful)
okay (Score:1, Insightful)
So MS does marketting, Linux does software? (Score:4, Insightful)
So what he's saying is that Linux excels at being good software, while Microsoft only excel at marketing practices? Sounds like a double-edged compliment to Microsoft to me!
Wait, what? (Score:1, Insightful)
Microsoft is so... 1998 (Score:3, Insightful)
MS has lost it's way ( as documented in Joel's "How Microsoft Lost the API War" ) and with applications moving more towards the web as a platform, things don't look to improve.
Jim
RunFatBoy ( http://www.runfatboy.net/ [runfatboy.net] ) - Exercise for the rest of us.
Old Idea, Some Quotes to Reinforce (Score:5, Insightful)
Poking fun at them is only a sign of overconfidence as Luke once said to Darth Vadar & Emperor Palpatine
Sarcasm (Score:4, Insightful)
Saying all Microsoft has ever done well is marketing and fending off competition is setting an example for not ridiculing them? I believe he's just being sarcastic.
Re:Uh-huh. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I thought OS X Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
No thanks (Score:5, Insightful)
Not just that. (Score:5, Insightful)
And that anyone using Linux (unless specially licensed) owes Microsoft some money.
And for Microsoft's continuing attempts to kill / marginalize the ODF standard.
Yes, Microsoft deserves your respect and not your disgust. So says an executive from a company that has purchased a "partnership" with Microsoft.
Re:Wait, what? (Score:3, Insightful)
Have you ever used XP or 2000? It's not "shitty". It's certainly not the best thing ever, but it sure as fuck beats using Linux for a desktop machine. Please note that I ran Linux as my only OS from 1997 through 2002 and then went back and haven't returned.
Vista was a mistake (much like 3.11 or ME) but they have made some OSs that are quite solid, work just fine for the majority of users, and are deployed (tactics or not) on 100s of millions of computers.
I don't think Microsoft should be hailed for their business practices but they certainly haven't always made "shitty" software.
Re:I thought OS X Linux (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Old Idea, Some Quotes to Reinforce (Score:3, Insightful)
Should I get you a copy of Bartlett's for your birthday? I mean there's got to be someone else who said "pride goeth before a fall," right?
--
Toro
Uh huh... (Score:5, Insightful)
No matter how important a role some group plays towards making something else important work, the nature of humans and comedy are going to have everyone and everything important to everyone mocked constantly. And no matter how bad that paints a picture of the large groups who mock other groups as part of that process - people are going to be mocking eachother as long as mental associations can be made.
The message behind this suggestion seems to be more a message to "act more professional people, you're making us look like bozos". Yes... it's nice to imagine sometimes that a loose community of groups and individuals didn't have to act exactly like the kind of human grouping it is. But we are humans, and Windows IS fun to make fun of, and most of us say that as Windows users.
Yes, Windows has contributed much for everyday users of computers - it has made many things possible that may not have been possible otherwise, and it will continue to be the best path towards many kinds of progress for the everyday use of computers going forward for the immediately foreseeable future... but it's still contains an endless variety of deep flaws that both mock the underlying nature (DRM motivations, artificially segmenting functionality for legal/marketing needs) of the software, and the human nature that lies behind these things, and our reaction to them.
Ryan Fenton
Re:Wait, what? (Score:5, Insightful)
not the tech (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wait, what? (Score:1, Insightful)
The "Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation" gives hundreds of millions (billions?) of dollars every year worldwide for health, education, and poverty. Where'd the money come from? Windows licenses, of course. Assuming Bill follows through with his promise to donate the vast majority of his fortune (which I believe), then, Microsoft is a pretty interesting company.
They channel massive amounts of money from consumers who don't know much about computers, into improving the lives of countless people around the world.
Let's face it: if you can afford a computer, you're not *that* bad off. He's simply adding a voluntary $100-or-so tax to every PC, and helping to push some of that to people who need it more than you.
It's a crap operating system, but building a great system takes a lot more work. If he spent the time and money to make it great, the margins would be lower, and he might have gotten eaten by Apple or NeXT or Be. So while I don't like Windows (and don't use it, at work or at home), and I don't claim that Bill started out with this plan, I do respect the work that he's doing now.
Please, everybody, keep buying Windows licenses. Or even better, install Linux, and donate the price of a Windows license directly to your favorite charity. Because in the big picture, if you own the computer you're reading this on, you're one of the richest people in the world.
I'll start respecting Microsoft.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Wait, what? (Score:4, Insightful)
It may not be shitty in an absolute sense, but given the amount of money and time that have been spent on it, shitty it still is. If our industry was composed of several large operating system companies rather than one behemoth and a dozen hanging on by their fingernails we would be much much better off. Microsoft didn't get where they are primarily by the strength of their technology offerings but by other less ethical means. Bait and switch, kickbacks, embrace and extinguish, buyout and extinguish and numerous similar gimmickry do more to describe the company than any feature set, or heaven forbid "innovation" that they are responsible for. They are where they are for little other reason than the federal government (followed by the states) eventually standardized on their products forcing a chain reaction of most companies to do likewise.
If they made any other product than software (which still possesses a mysterious legal immunity) they would have been sued out of business by now.
Given the amount of time and money they have had to spend on it, it would be a miracle if they hadn't achieve some degree of stability by now, as it is, it is a miracle that they have achieved as little as they have.
Glad you are enjoying your Microsoft experience again. I switched to Linux in the late 90's too and have seen no reason to go back. Linux is marginally harder to install, but the "thrill" of re-installing operating systems wore off for me while I was still a Windows user. Maybe you actually look forward to each "new" release.
Makes good sense to me (Score:5, Insightful)
He's absolutely right on other points as well. If Linux rises to desktop prominence, against a competitor that has a 95% market share on the desktop (a practical monopoly), then the next logical step must be a duopoly, and it is doubtful that Microsoft will ever "go away." They will likely change the way they do business, like IBM did. Perhaps they will produce their own "open source" products, and then the Linux/FOSS community had better be ready for it, because they certainly won't be free software.
Expect it.
They've already proven the first axiom of business. Courts are the slowest moving thing on the planet. Business decisions will always outpace court decisions. That's how they got away with their illegal actions to slaughter STAC and Netscape. It didn't matter by the time the courts had decided. That's how Microsoft managed to pen a patent agreement with Novell, who won the MS-funded patent case against SCO, before the SCO case was even over. Did anyone notice that?
They're moving faster than anyone can litigate. Being right is not good enough here. You have to be right, clever, and decisive. If you can be ethical too, good for you, but ethical doesn't tend to work against an unethical opponent. Try winning a fair fight against a guy who is willing to kick you in the crotch and throw sand in your face some time.
Developers had better keep a careful eye on this gorilla, or you're going to end up working for him. Respect the gorilla.
--
Toro
Re:Uh-huh. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Uh-huh. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Uh-huh. (Score:4, Insightful)
I got my boss to switch to open source for a lot of things that way.
really? (Score:1, Insightful)
really??? how about MS stop lying about Linux and stop putting small companies out of business.
Re:Wait, what? (Score:3, Insightful)
There are reasons... (Score:5, Insightful)
One should respect MS as a relationship with MS could be compared to a relationship with any other vendor.
A typical non-OSS user won't exactly be enchanted if they see the OSS community treating another company like degenerates. They don't know the difference between MS and any other company, all they see is OSS devs/users treating a company like crap. If you take a one-sided view, that makes OSS devs/users look bad. That's probably the only view they'll be taking since they haven't worshipped at the church of FLOSS.
If you look at the civil rights movement, Martin Luther King encouraged all to be non-violent, not carry weapons, and not give any excuse for others to even mistake them for wanting to possibly even slightly exhibit any negative behaviour or thoughts. That's to take any power away from the enemy, as they can't say anything if there's nothing for them to point out.
Another reason is that truth can come from anywhere, and a good argument will stand no matter who makes it. If we simply expect everything out of MS to be garbage, then we will also miss any jewels, and that's just hurting ourselves.
Anyway look. Bottom line is to be better than MS, we can't let ourselves go by saying "Oh, well, MS fucks up, we can too, just not as bad." That's pretty asinine. Nope. To be better than MS, we have to actually be better than them, not stoop just as low as them.
I've been saying this forever. (Score:4, Insightful)
Sun Tzu was right though, you can either wean yourself off the enemy and create your own destiny, or you can destroy Darth Vader and take his place at the Emperor's side. Either you choose a side, or you don't play their game. Most Linux geeks have chosen a side, and will eventually find themselves in Darth Vader's shoes. It is inevitable when one takes the path of confrontation. One monster must be created to oppose the existing one, unless the wise man fends off the monster and lets it die of its own irrelevance.
How much MONEY have they sunk into it? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes they are. Here's why:
#1. The registry. It's too fucking brittle AND it is constantly open by Windows AND it is not automatically replicated X times over Y days so you can recover when it does break. And it will, eventually, break.
#2. Which is why Microsoft shops advocate the "Wipe & Reload" method of "support". It broke, don't spend time trying to fix it. Fixing it is not an option. Wipe it and reload the "base image" that your shop uses. Sure it will take 30 - 60 minutes, but even if you have to do that for a dozen machines a week, it's still faster than finding the real problems.
#3. Viruses, trojans & worms. At least with Linux I can boot from a "Live CD" and chroot the local hard drive and check it / edit it to remove problems. WITHOUT losing all the data that the user has saved to it (see #2 above).
#4. No packaging system (see Debian & Ubuntu). And don't start going on about how you can make a "package" in Windows. That just shows you don't know what you're talking about. In Windows ANY app can replace ANY file when you install it. Under a real package management system, each file is owned by one AND ONLY ONE package. That file is NOT replaced unless you upgrade/remove the package that owns it. (or choose "force" and know that you're probably fucking up your system)
Some of the end-users prefer Windows. That's fine. It's personal choice. But it's still a "shitty" operating system based upon "shitty" decisions.
Re:I thought OS X Linux (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Uh-huh. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Uh-huh. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Respect? For M$? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah. That didn't work in Kindergarten, and it doesn't work now.
From TFA: "Open source vendors have to recognise that Windows is here to stay and that together with Microsoft it will form a duopoly in the market for operating systems."
Um, what abour Mac OS X? You know, that "other" OS with a higher market share than Linux?
Re:I thought OS X Linux (Score:4, Insightful)
The provision of "general use" is unecessary. A platform is a platform.
Re:Uh-huh. (Score:1, Insightful)
That is fine, but when you're trying to get me (as a customer or just as an interested third party) to buy into your non-Microsoft solution (either for business or home) and you tell me that Microsoft are a "bunch of crooks selling a third-rate products" then you've immediately lost, do not pass go and do not collect £200. However correct that may be.
You may not like Microsoft, you may not respect them - but in advocacy ridiculing a competitor is not a way to encourage people (and those in companies that make the key decisions) to change. Sell them on what Linux can do for them, not how much Microsoft sucks.
Re:Uh-huh. (Score:4, Insightful)
In a word: no. (Score:4, Insightful)
As long as they claim to have the most secure operating system ever: No.
As long as they count one defect against Linux multiple times in comparisons: No.
As long as they treat paying customers like criminals: No.
As long as their software comes without a warranty and they use a lack of a Linux warranty as a reason to not use OSS: No.
As long as they do not count "maintenance windows" as part of downtime in their uptime/availability comparisons: No.
As long as their marketing literature is based on lies/FUD rather than facts: No.
As long as their 2007 "3D desktop"'s features barely matches that of what OS X could do in 2003: No. Want a proper 3D desktop? Check out XGL and Beryl on Linux, 3D Desktop on OS X.
I think we'll be making fun of Microsoft for years to come, as long as they keep up their FUD and they keep promoting minor cosmetic changes, DRM, and annoying features like [CANCEL] [CONTINUE] as innovations.
Re:Uh-huh. (Score:2, Insightful)
I'd lose respect for myself in the process ... (Score:2, Insightful)
Microsoft's continual lying and dirty tricks indicates a gross lack of integrity at the very top. You cannot respect someone you cannot trust, and still respect yourself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respect [wikipedia.org]
Microsoft has gone out of its way continually to avoid fair competition, accountability for its own illegal actions, etc. They are unredeemable and should be treated as pariahs, not lionized (unless you're a dickhead* [trolltalk.com] nicknamed "Pretenderle", the MoGTroll, or "Lyin' Lyons").*WARNING - link is "NSA" - "Not Safe Anywhere"
Re:Respect? For M$? (Score:2, Insightful)
A complement would be "Microsoft did a great job signing up and restricting certain hardware companies to make drivers only for their own operating system..." wait, no, that's not a complement at all. Oh, here's one: "Microsoft did an excellent job copying core functionality of the Mac during the genesis of their own GUI..." Oh, wait, sorry, that's not a complement either.
Seriously, a complement and an embrace would be something along the lines of "Gee, we really need to respect Microsoft's dedication to creating a really great foundation of tools for third party developers, and maybe see if we can do that too."
I guess maybe because I AM a developer and not a marketer, I just don't see the respect in "they market better than us".
Re:Uh-huh. (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple chose a closed hardware and software platform that sells at a fixed price through a limited number of outlets. At any given moment, there will be a half dozen or so Macs to choose from on the market, and, if none of them quite fits your needs, well, tough luck. Microsoft liked the look of the IBM PC's modular design, and negotiated a deal that allowed it to license its OS to all comers. Again, at any given moment, there will hundreds if not thousands of PCs and PC-based devices available from seemingly as many vendors. It doesn't matter what your price-point is, how obscure or fantastic your needs are or how mundane. The My-First-PC for your kid? Point-of-sale in the mini-mart? Satellite Internet for the commercial trucker in the Arctic? The mil-standard armored laptop for duty in Iraq? The maxed-out gamer's machine at $5000. No problem. Someone will have an off-the-shelf Windows solution.
Of course Linux can do many of these things - perhaps all of these things. But Microsoft was there twenty-five years ago, thirty years ago. Microsoft defines the PC for a billion users who are not and never have been Geeks.
Re:Uh-huh. (Score:5, Insightful)
I respect the power of physics when I walk down the stairs. It doesn't make me an uncle tom.
The Linux community needs a "come to jesus" meeting, where we recognize the strength of worthy adversaries and study their moves, not dismiss them as unworthy of study. They most certainly are worthy of respect and study! They dominate the market! Dismiss that at your own demise.
Re:Respect because its professional (Score:2, Insightful)
Gates is the Chief of Grief. (Score:3, Insightful)
He's another computer professional with zero social experience. People don't like Microsoft because Microsoft is abusive. For example:
Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" or
"The whole world is our beta tester" or
"We can release sloppy, sloppy code because we have a virtual monopoly" or
"Security vulnerabilities make us money because many people with infected computers buy new computers, and therefore buy another copy of Windows".
Bill Gates is the Chief of Grief in the computer world. When you partner with Microsoft, you are partnering with someone who will be partly an enemy if that makes more money.
not so fast.. (Score:1, Insightful)
But there were many, many other ways to do it and many, many
other people who would have done it, and were working on it,
until they were squashed.
We may have to get on with life, but we should never forget
what Microsoft did to get where they are.
It's funny. Laugh. (Score:2, Insightful)
It's surely a joke, right?
I mean, there are some things Microsoft have done right. You can't say anything about their gaming tools, for one thing. So this Jim Zemlin guy must be some kind of very sarcastic hatemonger :)
Re:Uh-huh. (Score:3, Insightful)
"There are some things that Windows does pretty well," Zemlin said. "Microsoft for instance has excelled in marketing the operating system, and has a good track record in fending off competition.'"
Neither marketing nor "fending off competition" has a thing to do with Windows. Windows the product sucks. Microsoft the corporation has used illegal means to gain their dominance. Is Zemlin advocating that the FOSS community resort to illegal means to become this duopoly? Interesting point of view....
Why LinuxWorld is no fun (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I thought OS X Linux (Score:3, Insightful)
And he has a point as well -- OS-X has never been seriously positioned as a server OS like AIX, HP-UX, etc. It's not realistic to expect Apple to become a major server OS player with the machines they sell right now.
Even on the desktop - Apples market share might be increasing but it's very hard to see them go past 10 or 20% of the market. You can argue both ways about whether that needs to be counted or not (in said duopoly).
The reason I say Apple's share is unlikely to increase past that point: It's because they don't license OS-X for use on PCs (or create a Mac spec and license it out). That's a huge problem for the h/w industry. If Apple were to get, say, 80% of the market and for this year they only offer nVidia cards and Intel processors in their machines, well, AMD will go bankrupt. If they stick with Intel wifi chips, Atheros might go bankrupt. Basically the whole industry will have to come up with a way of ramping up and scaling down production as and when their products get selected/deselected for use in Apple's lines -- if not, the entire computer hardware industry will become a one-horse-race for any component that goes into a computer.
Who is Jim Zemlin? (Score:3, Insightful)
According to this mailing list post [freestandards.org], he's a marketing guy. Since when do we listen to marketing guys on slashdot now? Did I miss the memo or what?
Re:Uh-huh. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Uh-huh. (Score:1, Insightful)
No it isn't.
Re:Uh-huh. (Score:2, Insightful)
I cannot refute that they do make popular products that people buy in large numbers, but, your reasoning behind why they do it is totally naive. They too like MS want to lock-in people in their business model. Since they don't have deep enough pockets, they probably couldn't function as MS does. Steve Jobs is the most ruthless businessman out there, if you don't think so as any Apple Manager.
Heres a few tidbits to think about
> iphone = lock-in = Buy expensive apps from Apple/ATT. (even though the iPhone is cracked now, selling 3rd party apps is illegal - they released the details about web apps (over their crappy non-3g-conection) at the last moment even though they knew it months ago)
> Lying about performance figures. Apple has consistently lied about PowerPC performance figures (http://lowendmac.com/hodges/06/0817.html)
> Lying about Product Features. (http://blogs.business2.com/apple/2007/05/behind_
> Apple routinely marks up retail prices of *all* their hardware products to maximize profit. Often much much higher than products with similar components (Note: They do *not* use any higher quality components (yes, anyone can get that silvery apple finish, i'm sure apple would just sue other companies if they did) than other manufactures. Besides manufacturing all their h/w products in China.)
> iTunes + iPod + Fairplay(or no Fairplay) = vendor lock-in?
> OSX lock-in w/ the Mac H/W (intel) . I payed for the OS, I have compatible hardware, I should be able to do whatever I want with it.
I could fill entire pages but anyway heres some to get you clued in.
why? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Gates is the Chief of Grief. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is called "pointless forking" and "not invented here syndrome" in the open source world. Feh, big deal.
The whole world is our beta tester
Google does this. Apple does this. Every open source project ever released does this.
We can release sloppy, sloppy code because we have a virtual monopoly
The open source version of this is "you have no right to complain because you got it for free" and "you got the source code so fix it yourself". Also, Microsoft doesn't have a monopoly on anything at this point in time. Also, there are plenty of other non-monopolists who release poorly-made products.
Security vulnerabilities make us money...
This is just FUD. Show me any proof that this is how Microsoft reasons. Furthermore, it's pathetic to blame Microsoft because people are stupid. Oblig. car analogy: For years, Mercedes cars have had problems with premature body rust. Would you consider this a scheme to get people to buy new cars more often?
When you partner with Microsoft, you are partnering with someone who will be partly an enemy if that makes more money.
This is mostly true for all companies. It's about making money, not being cozy friends with everybody.