netbuzz writes "The director of Microsoft's Open Source Lab, Bill Hilf, has added a new duty — general manager of Windows server marketing — to his already established role of shepherding the company's efforts to have open source software peacefully coexist with Microsoft technologies. What the company calls a 'natural evolution' of Hilf's job description may not be considered quite so natural among segments of the open source community that eye every Microsoft move with suspicion if not hostility." Bill Hilf answered Slashdot's questions two years back and sounded quite friendly to OSS; yet at other times he has come off like a hardcore Microsoftie.
It may be beyond me to answer your question about 'HILF's', but this is where I ended up upon completion of cleaning my Logitech TrackMan Marble mouse ball...Grhhh! I feel somewhat cheated that my mouse only has one ball, but so do I, so we get along well.
Since I'm here tho'- I LUV MILF's! I even married the MILF I met! Where else can you get a one-balled BJ without going to a scary pr0n site? HILF's....mmmm, maybe 'Heterosexuals I'd Lovfe To Fsck?
But never would '* like to fsck' and Windows would come up in
there are people who still think that Bill Hilf was hired to educate Microsoft on how to work with GNU/Linux and open source software and they are fools. He was hired to educate Microsoft on how to market Microsoft Windows and Microsoft software over GNU/Linux and OSS. He built a lab running all kinds of OSS project and they evaluated what was good, bad, ugly and how Microsoft software could be marketed against that which they learned. Bill Hilf's roll as marketing guy for Windows Server was always the plan and makes complete sense given his initial role.
So stop kidding yourselves into thinking Microsoft wants to work with GNU/Linux and OSS. They want it gone and they want everyone using only Microsoft software. There is not half way. There is no interoperability. Those are marketing lies as they continue to find ways to keep customers on their software.
And Bill Hilf is no friend of any OSS by virtue of who he accepted a job from and what that job is. IMO.
I think that you are mostly correct about his role, but MS does try to attract people to develop OSS for windows. They arent stupid, they know that its important to have all the applications available for windows that are also available for other OSes. Bill Hilf has said this a number of times. I guess there is the possiblity that he is lieing and he doesnt want people developing software for windows. But does that really make any sense? They do compete with some of those applications. (and yes, they hav
yup, they are not dumb. Having WAMP, and the like, gives them plenty of space to keep GNU/Linux out of the picture at Windows shops looking at LAMP. WAMP keeps them on Windows and allows Microsofts marketing to move them piece by piece off of WAMP and probably push MS.Net stacks. Microsoft is getting a fight on the server with GNU/Linux and so they've got to do anything they can to keep Windows on the hardware and as soon as they loose Windows on the hardware, they've lost everything else on those PC's sinc
That is the reality. M$ knows an open source operating system will win, it is inevitable, it makes simple economic sense over the long term as the amount of change required in an OS has become simple refinements and driver upgrades.
If M$ can not make the transition to an a open source operating system, they will wither and die on the vine. The two reasons of course, no transition to an open source operating system and M$ office has no place to go and the other reason MSN just bleeds money
> "Bill Hilf, has added a new duty -- general manager of Windows server marketing -- to his already established role of shepherding the company's efforts to have open source software peacefully coexist with Microsoft technologies"
So, let's analyse this. Hilf failed at getting open source software to "peacefully coexist" with Microsoft shite. His "reward" is to take on Windows server marketing - an area where open source beats Microsoft in terms of quality, TCO, initial price, and performance.
neither punished or rewarded, just that he's the best person for the job because of the reasons you stated. He knows the OSS they are fighting against and therefore, he knows how the Windows Server marketing should be spun to leverage what they have. You know, integration with MS Office, nice point-click GUI's and that kind of stuff. Hilf didn't fill his MS Linux Lab with all kinds of OSS just because he likes Linux and OSS. It was to find their weaknesses and how to spin that into Microsofts strengths. As h
That Microsoft had to resort to Hilf shows how lacking in insight they are.
What? Given that Hilf has been running the open source stuff there for awhile, and has been the central point for open source @ MS, he's probably the best person there is to know - really know - where Windows is and isn't strong. That knowledge will both help the short term Windows messaging - advertising, etc. - but given his new position, that will have to have a greater impact on what makes it back to Windows developers as well.
If they really wanted to hear something insightful, they'd get the "enemy camp" in for a truth-fest.
The simple fact is, they don't want to hear the truth, which starts with the average Windows user HATING Microsoft. If you think linux fans are bad, try someone who is forced to use Windows on a daily basis, when they have a Mac at home.
But forget the MacHeads. The average Microsoft customer doesn't use Windows because they like it - they use Windows because it came with their computer. They bought it, they paid for it, they can't return it for a refund, so they're darned well going to use it!
That's the point about unbundling (to bring this back on-topic).
As for Hilf, he doesn't "get" open source. He's the guy who said open source was dead in 2007, because "even Linus is paid to write code" - when in fact, that shows that open source is quite the opposite of dead - its so useful that people are being paid to write code and give it away.
That last scares the sh*t out of Microsoft - that businesses have found it profitable to give away the very stuff that Microsoft charges for.
Hilf doesn't "get" that, so he's not going to be an effective counterweight.
Please read what I wrote - open source has been proven to beat Microsofts' servers in terms of quality, TCO, initial price, and performance.
That Microsoft is able to still push through to SMBs is only because of their vendor lockin and customer inertai. It has zero to do with the points I make, and is entirely due to their ability to get a lock on the market in the first place via bundling.
Windows Server do not at all co-exist with with Linux or any other type of server. Virtually all interoperability of Windows Servers and Linux Clients, or Linux Servers and Windows Clients is done through Reverse engineering of Windows SMB. So that makes Samba absolutely indespensible.
If you have have a Linux Server and a Heterogeneous or even one Windows client, you have no choice but to run Samba because Windows only talks to Windows.
Now before you go hauling off talking about Kerberos Realm mode: That mode is completely useless. With Kerberos Realm mode, you have no Domain functionality, your machine is reverted to Workgroup status. No roaming profiles, no policies, no drive mapping scripts. So repeat after me, "Kerberos Realm Mode is fucking Horrible!" and nobody uses it.
Now. So lets say you go the Samba Domain Controller Route. In fact, lets go ideal and say you have someone who really knows what they are doing. Samba Domain Controller With Kerberos, NT4 SP6 Policy Editor Running under Wine, with LDAP Backend, either with OpenLDAP or Fedora DS.
Well.
Your Linux Clients work just fine. They login, get account data out of LDAP, Authenticate with Kerberos, maybe use AFS or Samba with Kerberos Authentication. (That works only for Linux boxen under Samba 3.0)
Your Windows Clients? See a bizzare Hellscape of situations where it looks like its surrounded on all sides by "Windows NT 4.9" Servers that all claim to be primary domain controllers. The Kerberos mode? They ignore that and fall back to NTLMv2. They can't even tell the Kerberos or LDAP Servers are even there. Still pretty decent interoperability.
lets take the reverse.
Well, Windows Servers will run AD, thats all they will do, thats all they have done.
Windows clients, GPO, all that shit. Linux Clients? Well. You can try the "Services For Unix" method with Kerberos and LDAP trick, but its doubtful that will work. Your best chance again, Samba with Winbind. Linux has too reverse engineer everything. Microsoft policy is very is not Embrace, Extend, Exterminate with Windows Servers. Its just Exterminate. To Microsoft, the only good Linux User is a Dead Linux User.
"If you have have a Linux Server and a Heterogeneous or even one Windows client, you have no choice but to run Samba because Windows only talks to Windows.
"
Not quite true. You can always use the modern equivalent of sneakernet - USB keychains or rewriteable dvds - to move data back and forth. A lot better than actually connecting a Windows box to a local network.
Or you can transfer everything through ftp and http.
Heck, there used to be programs out there that would make an ftp connection look like a
The whole point however is that the days of installing the Client32 Novell Libraries in Windows is over. Nobody wants to do that anymore. People wants Domains. I have a Linux Domain at my house and two Linux Domain controllers. Its just easier if the whole network is interconnected and attempting to Alter the Linux Client Software to talk to anything else is extremely dangerous.
Microsoft's execs have no expertise in the subject of the departments they direct (except maybe legal or marketing). They are expert in being executives. I once met for a long time with the MS "Chief Security Officer", in my capacity advising the NYC City Council (legislature). He knew nothing about security, not even the recent history of MS (in)security under his predecessor. And I've watched how MS shuffles its execs.
All that the person in the job needs to know is their marching orders from where the only real MS strategy comes from: the mutual work of the (real) geniuses in legal and marketing. That's all MS is good at, and all it needs to be good at. They need to know how to talk to the other execs in their job, and the inevitable lawyers from other companies and the government, and marketers from everywhere.
So he's a "server marketer". It means nothing that he's also an "open source exec". All that means is that he's going to meetings about "open source" and "servers", which we already know since MS has a major strategic alliance with Novell over Linux, and Novell just won proof that Unix belongs to Novell, and *nix runs the only competition to MS servers. But I wouldn't expect this guy to know that until he takes the job.
Wow, what vitirol. It is hard to imagine that a city council would take your seriously talking like that. Of course most execs wont be familiar with every detail of every patch that went out years before they took a project over. This isnt just microsoft, this is any company.
This isnt necessarily a bad thing. Microsoft has had several VPs that were criticized for being too technical and not business/leadership oriented enough. James Allchin comes to mind, brilliant engineer in charge of Vista, look how b
Vitriol? It's the truth. And that's what the City Council, like the rest of my serious clients over many years, have me around for. For years, since I helped them become a full committee, with a budget and oversight of NYC's huge IT department. What do you know of MS execs? Have you ever even met one directly? I bet not. I have, more than one, and this guy was the Chief Security Officer for the entire MS corporation. What about NYC? Have you ever even been here? Been in a City Council committee meeting, whet
Calm down, I am not trying to troll you. Yes, I have met MS executives before. They were all technically oriented ones. (I have probably never met the marketing types that you have) No I have not met anyone on the new york city council before. No, I do not work in marketing, I am an engineer. No, I do not work for Microsoft. But really, why should what I do matter? Your entire post is based on speculation about what I do, as though that is actually relevant to the issue at hand here.
its already evident what they are trying to do. they are trying to push ms stuff over seemingly open source channels. just HOW many signs and moves you people need to get it ?
In case we might have forgotten, this is from an earlier Slashdot post of 01 June 2001:
"In an interview [linux.org] with the Chicago Sun-Times, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer says that Linux and the open source movement is "good competition" because it will "force [Microsoft] to be innovative," but calls Linux "a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches." He also says that the inclusion of IE in Windows has been "great... for innovation in the software industry" (except for N
Bill Hilf comes from around from a rack of servers, "Hi there, I'm Bill Hilf, General Manager of Server Marketing here at Microsoft, and Linux 'Good Guy'."
"We here at Microsoft are taking the cold Linux air out of data rooms by employing more than double the Servers running Windows, to make things warm - and quite pretty I might add - with all these blinking lights. Not just those pale green lights you see on Linux servers, but also the bright red and yellow flashing indicators and those reassuring alarms that let you know you are important and not lazy."
Walking over to the rack he turns back to the camera, "Why use Linux and run everything on a single box and worry about having it fail when you can have the same stuff run on eight computers, like this..."
Motioning to the rack full of blades, "One for the Files, one for the Microsoft license validation and tracking, this one here is for serving web pages, this is half the email service, the other one is to handle the other half, spam and viruses for the first, over here is the one for user authentication, Muti-media on this one... my, what big wires! And this one was provided by the federal government to ensure your security, I'm not quite sure what it does, but it is included free with every installation!"
"Now all that 'technology' looks a whole lot more 'professional' than that one box over there, just think of that big data center with that one box, think of your job with just one box, pretty terrifying isn't it... I bet now you are getting the picture...", Hilf smiles as a toll free number appears on the bottom, "Call us today and our sales rep will tell your boss the 'truth'", winks, "... about Linux and how Microsoft keeps YOU 'competitive'."
Honestly, sir. Your unending, rigidly-biased McCarthy-esque [wikipedia.org] front-page banter is tiresome and uninteresting, and in no way promotes productive discourse.
Instead, it serves only give you the appearance of being callous and bigoted. And while you may, in fact, be callous and bigoted, the front page of Slashdot is no place in which to display such commentary.
Slashdot, at its tenth year, remains the pinnacle of dispersion for all news matters relating to open source technology, and continues to grow broader in scope of audience by the moment as more and more people become interested this very important concept.
Yet, it is as if you seek to squander that fame, and use it as a means to broadcast your own fallacious shallowness. This quite plainly reflects poorly upon Slashdot as a business unit, but also more significantly upon its own readership. It is nothing but detrimental to the idea of open-source software, and indeed is an affront toward its widespread acceptance.
Please, stop. Every time you say something so thoughtless and misguided, as is occurrent of regular frequency, we all lose a little more credibility.
Sidestepping the broader discussion of the value of kdawson's contributions to Slashdot, 'Microsoftie' isn't derogatory. Microsofties call themselves Microsofties all the time. A quick search could show you that.
"The director of Microsoft's Open Source Lab, Bill Hilf, has added a new duty -- general manager of Windows server marketing -- to his already established role of shepherding the company's efforts to have open source software peacefully coexist with Microsoft technologies.
Can Microsoft say conflict of interest?
Because that is exactly what this is. No sane employer would do that kind of mixing.
Active Directory has to be one of the single most important things ever implemented by Microsoft. I can't think of a single coorporation that I have worked for which doesn't use it.
On what basis do you claim that Microsoft Server is a failure? It is certainly true that Windows 2000 Server was not as reliable as it should have been. Microsoft learned and fixed things. Windows Server SP1 is very solid and capable.
Market results don't show that Microsoft server is a failure. You may not like it, but that does not make it a failure. Personally, I prefer BSD to Linux, but Linux has more mindshare in the OSS community.
I have been running betas of LongHorn server for over a year as my no
Although I don't know much about the Server edition MS software does not work well with OSS software. First off, playing of Ogg s are impossible without installing a third party codec (And its not patent-restricted like mp3) Second, Windows doesn't show Linux drives, yet Linux can see FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, ETC. Linux can also play WMAs (provided you installed the codecs) Linux can open up.zip files while Windows can't open.tar files. Linux recognizes many different formats by default, unlike Windows (Window
To implement a Kerberos/ldap/sso system of even a fraction of Active Directory's complexity is prohibitively expensive on Linux, at least in my enterprise experience.
If you're just setting up sso for Linux or Mac clients, it's easy.
Setting up sso for a hetrogenous network including Windows clients can seem complex for a novice, largely because Microsoft broke Kerberos so that while Windows clients can speak both Kerberos and LDAP, they only know how to speak them at the same time when talking to an AD s
Now lets don't make this into a HOWTO article; however, yes it can and indeed has been done, I have an army of redhat boxes joined to the AD as actual domain accounts, and they use KRB auth (and no they don't use Winbindd - that's NOT the same thing.) That being said, you have to extend the AD schema to get the Internix junk working properly (adding the uid fields and default gid) with a NIS/YP domain in reverse. So I'd say they're the ones lacking in bits and pieces. Kudos to them (MS) for giving the NFS
But isn't the FOSS community damned if we do, damned if we don't in this circumstance?
I know there's hundreds of HOWTOs on the web, but if I'd suggested that, I'd have an equal number of replies screaming "Telling people to RTFM is why Linux will never be ready for granny's server farm".
Besides, imagine how much it's costing normal_guy's company in CALs and other licensing fees. In most other professions, people would be sacked for losing their companies so
I actually wouldn't expect that AD would be the de facto choice of anyone in the slashdot crowd:) Scaling up an environment based on AD is silly if your entire audience of users are on linux boxes. You could setup an ldap and a kerberos realm if you wanted to but I am not aware of (doesn't mean anything really, it could still be there) any system that marries the two systems nicely other than the AD.
You could setup an ldap and a kerberos realm if you wanted to but I am not aware of (doesn't mean anything really, it could still be there) any system that marries the two systems nicely other than the AD.
yeah, I did know that, I just don't use it so I didn't think of it;) Novell actually has a lot of things that are nicer about it, from the demo's I've seen, but I haven't used it since netware way back.
Of course, Windows Server, in particular the upcoming Windows Server 2008, co-exists better with open source software better than any Windows version to date!
I agree, this business is war, and none of us is safe until the threat MS Represents is neutralized. They are coming for us all, its only a matter of time and preparedness.
acronyms (Score:5, Funny)
Ok, I know what MILF stands for, but HILF? You've lost me.
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Ewwww (Score:2)
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To cut the long story short: I don't think you'd like to fuck him.
So just wave and smile...
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Re:acronyms (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
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Crikes, if they had MILFs to market servers, that's what I'd call a service!
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I feel somewhat cheated that my mouse only has one ball, but so do I, so we get along well.
Since I'm here tho'- I LUV MILF's! I even married the MILF I met! Where else can you get a one-balled BJ without going to a scary pr0n site?
HILF's....mmmm, maybe 'Heterosexuals I'd Lovfe To Fsck?
But never would '* like to fsck' and Windows would come up in
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It makes sense (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)
So stop kidding yourselves into thinking Microsoft wants to work with GNU/Linux and OSS. They want it gone and they want everyone using only Microsoft software. There is not half way. There is no interoperability. Those are marketing lies as they continue to find ways to keep customers on their software.
And Bill Hilf is no friend of any OSS by virtue of who he accepted a job from and what that job is. IMO.
LoB
Parent
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They do compete with some of those applications. (and yes, they hav
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Microsoft is getting a fight on the server with GNU/Linux and so they've got to do anything they can to keep Windows on the hardware and as soon as they loose Windows on the hardware, they've lost everything else on those PC's sinc
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If M$ can not make the transition to an a open source operating system, they will wither and die on the vine. The two reasons of course, no transition to an open source operating system and M$ office has no place to go and the other reason MSN just bleeds money
Consider what o
If at first you don't succeed ... (Score:5, Funny)
> "Bill Hilf, has added a new duty -- general manager of Windows server marketing -- to his already established role of shepherding the company's efforts to have open source software peacefully coexist with Microsoft technologies"
So, let's analyse this. Hilf failed at getting open source software to "peacefully coexist" with Microsoft shite. His "reward" is to take on Windows server marketing - an area where open source beats Microsoft in terms of quality, TCO, initial price, and performance.
So Hilf is being punished, right?
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Hilf didn't fill his MS Linux Lab with all kinds of OSS just because he likes Linux and OSS. It was to find their weaknesses and how to spin that into Microsofts strengths. As h
Lacking in insight? (Score:2)
What? Given that Hilf has been running the open source stuff there for awhile, and has been the central point for open source @ MS, he's probably the best person there is to know - really know - where Windows is and isn't strong. That knowledge will both help the short term Windows messaging - advertising, etc. - but given his new position, that will have to have a greater impact on what makes it back to Windows developers as well.
Re:Lacking in insight? (Score:4, Insightful)
If they really wanted to hear something insightful, they'd get the "enemy camp" in for a truth-fest.
The simple fact is, they don't want to hear the truth, which starts with the average Windows user HATING Microsoft. If you think linux fans are bad, try someone who is forced to use Windows on a daily basis, when they have a Mac at home.
But forget the MacHeads. The average Microsoft customer doesn't use Windows because they like it - they use Windows because it came with their computer. They bought it, they paid for it, they can't return it for a refund, so they're darned well going to use it!
That's the point about unbundling (to bring this back on-topic).
As for Hilf, he doesn't "get" open source. He's the guy who said open source was dead in 2007, because "even Linus is paid to write code" - when in fact, that shows that open source is quite the opposite of dead - its so useful that people are being paid to write code and give it away.
That last scares the sh*t out of Microsoft - that businesses have found it profitable to give away the very stuff that Microsoft charges for.
Hilf doesn't "get" that, so he's not going to be an effective counterweight.
Parent
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Windows server market grows allot for MS, especially trough their small business server (SBS) offering.
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Please read what I wrote - open source has been proven to beat Microsofts' servers in terms of quality, TCO, initial price, and performance.
That Microsoft is able to still push through to SMBs is only because of their vendor lockin and customer inertai. It has zero to do with the points I make, and is entirely due to their ability to get a lock on the market in the first place via bundling.
Embrace, Extetend, Exterminate (Score:5, Insightful)
If you have have a Linux Server and a Heterogeneous or even one Windows client, you have no choice but to run Samba because Windows only talks to Windows.
Now before you go hauling off talking about Kerberos Realm mode:
That mode is completely useless. With Kerberos Realm mode, you have no Domain functionality, your machine is reverted to Workgroup status. No roaming profiles, no policies, no drive mapping scripts. So repeat after me, "Kerberos Realm Mode is fucking Horrible!" and nobody uses it.
Now. So lets say you go the Samba Domain Controller Route. In fact, lets go ideal and say you have someone who really knows what they are doing. Samba Domain Controller With Kerberos, NT4 SP6 Policy Editor Running under Wine, with LDAP Backend, either with OpenLDAP or Fedora DS.
Well.
Your Linux Clients work just fine. They login, get account data out of LDAP, Authenticate with Kerberos, maybe use AFS or Samba with Kerberos Authentication. (That works only for Linux boxen under Samba 3.0)
Your Windows Clients? See a bizzare Hellscape of situations where it looks like its surrounded on all sides by "Windows NT 4.9" Servers that all claim to be primary domain controllers. The Kerberos mode? They ignore that and fall back to NTLMv2. They can't even tell the Kerberos or LDAP Servers are even there. Still pretty decent interoperability.
lets take the reverse.
Well, Windows Servers will run AD, thats all they will do, thats all they have done.
Windows clients, GPO, all that shit. Linux Clients? Well. You can try the "Services For Unix" method with Kerberos and LDAP trick, but its doubtful that will work. Your best chance again, Samba with Winbind. Linux has too reverse engineer everything. Microsoft policy is very is not Embrace, Extend, Exterminate with Windows Servers. Its just Exterminate. To Microsoft, the only good Linux User is a Dead Linux User.
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"If you have have a Linux Server and a Heterogeneous or even one Windows client, you have no choice but to run Samba because Windows only talks to Windows. "
Not quite true. You can always use the modern equivalent of sneakernet - USB keychains or rewriteable dvds - to move data back and forth. A lot better than actually connecting a Windows box to a local network.
Or you can transfer everything through ftp and http.
Heck, there used to be programs out there that would make an ftp connection look like a
Re:Embrace, Extetend, Exterminate (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Corporate Musical Chairs (Score:4, Insightful)
All that the person in the job needs to know is their marching orders from where the only real MS strategy comes from: the mutual work of the (real) geniuses in legal and marketing. That's all MS is good at, and all it needs to be good at. They need to know how to talk to the other execs in their job, and the inevitable lawyers from other companies and the government, and marketers from everywhere.
So he's a "server marketer". It means nothing that he's also an "open source exec". All that means is that he's going to meetings about "open source" and "servers", which we already know since MS has a major strategic alliance with Novell over Linux, and Novell just won proof that Unix belongs to Novell, and *nix runs the only competition to MS servers. But I wouldn't expect this guy to know that until he takes the job.
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Of course most execs wont be familiar with every detail of every patch that went out years before they took a project over. This isnt just microsoft, this is any company.
This isnt necessarily a bad thing. Microsoft has had several VPs that were criticized for being too technical and not business/leadership oriented enough. James Allchin comes to mind, brilliant engineer in charge of Vista, look how b
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What do you know of MS execs? Have you ever even met one directly? I bet not. I have, more than one, and this guy was the Chief Security Officer for the entire MS corporation. What about NYC? Have you ever even been here? Been in a City Council committee meeting, whet
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Yes, I have met MS executives before. They were all technically oriented ones. (I have probably never met the marketing types that you have) No I have not met anyone on the new york city council before. No, I do not work in marketing, I am an engineer. No, I do not work for Microsoft. But really, why should what I do matter? Your entire post is based on speculation about what I do, as though that is actually relevant to the issue at hand here.
The point I am trying
It doesnt need "suspicion" at all ?! (Score:2)
Friendly to OSS? (Score:2)
Slashback: Ballmer calls open source "a cancer" (Score:2)
And now the commercial... (Score:5, Funny)
"We here at Microsoft are taking the cold Linux air out of data rooms by employing more than double the Servers running Windows, to make things warm - and quite pretty I might add - with all these blinking lights. Not just those pale green lights you see on Linux servers, but also the bright red and yellow flashing indicators and those reassuring alarms that let you know you are important and not lazy."
Walking over to the rack he turns back to the camera, "Why use Linux and run everything on a single box and worry about having it fail when you can have the same stuff run on eight computers, like this..."
Motioning to the rack full of blades, "One for the Files, one for the Microsoft license validation and tracking, this one here is for serving web pages, this is half the email service, the other one is to handle the other half, spam and viruses for the first, over here is the one for user authentication, Muti-media on this one... my, what big wires! And this one was provided by the federal government to ensure your security, I'm not quite sure what it does, but it is included free with every installation!"
"Now all that 'technology' looks a whole lot more 'professional' than that one box over there, just think of that big data center with that one box, think of your job with just one box, pretty terrifying isn't it... I bet now you are getting the picture...", Hilf smiles as a toll free number appears on the bottom, "Call us today and our sales rep will tell your boss the 'truth'", winks, "... about Linux and how Microsoft keeps YOU 'competitive'."
Windows has a Server Product? (Score:2)
kdawson is bad for society. (Score:4, Insightful)
Honestly, sir. Your unending, rigidly-biased McCarthy-esque [wikipedia.org] front-page banter is tiresome and uninteresting, and in no way promotes productive discourse.
Instead, it serves only give you the appearance of being callous and bigoted. And while you may, in fact, be callous and bigoted, the front page of Slashdot is no place in which to display such commentary.
Slashdot, at its tenth year, remains the pinnacle of dispersion for all news matters relating to open source technology, and continues to grow broader in scope of audience by the moment as more and more people become interested this very important concept.
Yet, it is as if you seek to squander that fame, and use it as a means to broadcast your own fallacious shallowness. This quite plainly reflects poorly upon Slashdot as a business unit, but also more significantly upon its own readership. It is nothing but detrimental to the idea of open-source software, and indeed is an affront toward its widespread acceptance.
Please, stop. Every time you say something so thoughtless and misguided, as is occurrent of regular frequency, we all lose a little more credibility.
You are doing us all a tremendous disservice.
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Can Microsoft say... (Score:2)
Because that is exactly what this is. No sane employer would do that kind of mixing.
Windows Server a failure? (Score:2, Interesting)
Just stating a point.
Insightful? (Score:2)
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Market results don't show that Microsoft server is a failure. You may not like it, but that does not make it a failure. Personally, I prefer BSD to Linux, but Linux has more mindshare in the OSS community.
I have been running betas of LongHorn server for over a year as my no
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If you're just setting up sso for Linux or Mac clients, it's easy.
Setting up sso for a hetrogenous network including Windows clients can seem complex for a novice, largely because Microsoft broke Kerberos so that while Windows clients can speak both Kerberos and LDAP, they only know how to speak them at the same time when talking to an AD s
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But isn't the FOSS community damned if we do, damned if we don't in this circumstance?
I know there's hundreds of HOWTOs on the web, but if I'd suggested that, I'd have an equal number of replies screaming "Telling people to RTFM is why Linux will never be ready for granny's server farm".
Besides, imagine how much it's costing normal_guy's company in CALs and other licensing fees. In most other professions, people would be sacked for losing their companies so
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Novell's eDirectory [novell.com] does that.
If you're working in the big end of town, it scales a lot better than AD as well.
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What the fuck does this even mean?
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