Meet Microsoft's Linux Lab Head Bill Hilf 191
morcego writes "Yahoo News has a very interesting interview with Bill Hilf, Microsoft's director of Microsoft's platform technology strategy group, who in turn works for Martin Taylor, Microsoft's general manager of platform strategy and Linux point man. From the interview: '"I am a non-Microsoft guy working at Microsoft," Hilf said.'"
Nothing to see? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Nothing to see? (Score:2, Interesting)
In the olden days, not everyone hit refresh on Slashdot's front page. Instead they wrote up scripts to catch the posting of a new story on the main page and it would follow the strict guidelines of posting a
Good to know (Score:3, Interesting)
TFA sucks. big-time. (Score:2, Interesting)
# When will Microsoft open source X (Microsoft commercial product)?
# Why don't you build X (Microsoft commercial product) so it runs on Linux?
# Microsoft is all-about closed source.
# Microsoft is anti-open source.
# Microsoft is always less secure than every open-source product on every front."
what the hell is this shit?
wow, that's a great article. let's ha
Re:TFA sucks. big-time. (Score:2, Insightful)
stop using some half-assed closed crap (active-x), add support for opendocument, document native msoffic formats, smb etc - but that would make you compete on real benefits, not lock-in. oh no, we can't afford that.
Re:Good to know (Score:2)
I assume you mean: ship us off to the Gulag [google.ca], a Stalinist prison camp for dissidents. The Galapagos [galapagos.org] islands were made famous by Darwin and are a hotbed of evolutionary development. Sending us off to the Galapagos would hasten our evolution.
Re:Good to know (Score:2, Funny)
surely this is true, but in order to facilitate the
destroy[ing] us all with a ray gun.
he'll want to ship
us off to the Galapacos[sic] Islands
to increase the odds of running across the required sharks with laser beams
Now if only they'd do similar for Longhorn (Score:1)
Of course, perhaps they *are* doing so, and Longhorn will be so good they won't need to try to reverse engineer Linux anymore, and this Lab can switch over to start looking into MacOS.
Re:Now if only they'd do similar for Longhorn (Score:2)
they won't need to try to reverse engineer Linux anymore, and this Lab can switch over to start looking into MacOS
Since when...
1) Do you have to reverse-engineer something that is already open-source? and
2) Since when has Microsoft not been "studying" the new featurews of each new Apple/MacOS product release?
Re:Good to know (Score:5, Insightful)
The marketing stuff that you see from them is written by a small subset of the company, and it's generally written with one goal in mind -- to benefit Microsoft. They aren't worried about giving the alternatives a fair treatment, unless they think that that will benefit them somehow.
Overall, Microsoft may be the `enemy', but the individual employees certainly aren't. They're just average working people like those working at any other software company.
Re:Good to know (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Good to know (Score:1)
Re:Good to know (Score:3, Funny)
My sincere condolences.
Re:Good to know (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Good to know (Score:2)
Re:Good to know (Score:4, Insightful)
But most of the `true Linux experts' out there still have mouths to feed and like their sports cars and such, and if Microsoft were to offer them enough money, at least some of them would work for Microsoft. I would if they offered enough money, though I'm somewhere between L++ and L+++ in my geek code block so I probably don't count.
And I can easily see how a `Linux expert' might even justify working for Microsoft -- he might see it as a way to infiltrate Microsoft from within, perhaps influence their corporate culture, help make them a better company. (Yes, I think this is unlikely, but he might justify it like that anyways.) And while I'm certainly a OSS advocate, I still think that any improvements in Microsoft software will benefit the computing community as a whole, and if a Linux expert can help improve their software, I think this would be a good thing for him to do.
There may be a few people there like that, but I certainly do believe that most people there are just normal, every day people who do their job so they will get paid. And if they can do something to improve the world, that's a nice bonus, but mostly they're just there to get paid, just like the rest of the world.And I don't think that Microsoft is so much more evil than any other software company, it's just that they are in a position where their actions have a lot more effect on things, so people watch them more closely.
Are you referring to this incident? [theregister.co.uk] If so, that's a long stretch from what you said. Yes, Microsoft's reaction was extreme, but it's not quite what you suggested. He certainly did more than mention that Microsoft uses Macs.Re:Good to know (Score:1)
I sometimes wonder what will happen to the economy if MS ceased trading altogether. The fall-out from the vendor lock-in alone could cripple a vast swath of the global economy.
The companies hanging off its coat tails are in the umptybillions too....
Just a [probably unoriginal] thought.
Re:Good to know (Score:2)
Thank you for reminding me that I forgot the phrase most of in the sentence of mine that you quoted. Obviously Microsoft has a few `bad' (or at least somewhat unethical, dishonest or something) employees -- most every company does.
Re:Good to know (Score:2)
Microsoft obviously has. They took the most vile shit from their employees and adopted it as official policy. So you get open source "communists", "cancer", "virus", etc. You also get convictions in federal court
Re:Good to know (Score:2)
Nice. Godwin [wikipedia.org] the thread ...
Seriously though, there's a huge difference. Do you really think that working in a concentration camp is remotely close to slaving away in a cubical trying to find out why Microsoft Excel crashes when somebody clicks on a specific cell, but only on SMP P4 boxes?
I certainly do believe that most of the German soldiers in WWI and WWII were just average guys, trying to make it through the war in one piece.
Bill, you are not alone (Score:3, Funny)
Funny, that statement could also apply to Laura DiDio.
Re:Bill, you are not alone (Score:1)
Re:Bill, you are not alone (Score:3, Funny)
It sounds a lot like the position of "Human rights monitor and peaceful resolution mediator" for the Bush administration.
Re:Bill, you are not alone (Score:2)
We need more everyday irony:
"Mello Yellow, there's nothing mellow about it".
WTF?
You can tell that Microsaur realizes they have credibility-gap when they feel they must disavow associating with themselves.
yawn.. (Score:1)
Re:yawn.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:yawn.. (Score:3, Funny)
We use Fedora Core for work, games, everything computer based. We use windows for looking out.
Re:Indeed... (Score:2)
I've never seen GNU appended to anything. I've seen GNU prepended to something, however.
But then, I've never seen an obsession even to prepend GNU to everything. I've never seen GNU/Windows, GNU/Solaris, GNU/Outlook Express, GNU/Internet explorer, GNU/Slashdot, GNU/Google, GNU/Amazon, GNU/DRM, GNU/DMCA, GNU/Patriot Act, GNU/Government, GNU/CIA, GNU/FBI, GNU/Bush,
Useless article! (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me summarize for you:
Bill Hilf works for Microsoft, reporting on the progress and direction of the open source projects and the OSS community in general.
There, now you can go do something more important than read this article.
Re:Useless article! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Useless article! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Useless article! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Useless article! (Score:1)
I don't believe that the article was written with Slashdot users in mind, but rather for corporations who have vested interest in either (or both) Microsoft and Linux, but are as yet uninformed.
For them, this article is encouraging because it shows that Microsoft has formal
Nice quote, though (Score:2, Interesting)
I read this to mean that Microsoft's competitive advantage against other proprietary software vendors like Apple is that Microsoft uses Linux internally.
Interesting! Makes you wonder exactly how this is their Linux use becomes their competitive advantage, though - is it through "borrowing" features (hope not code, though, because of the GPL) - or is it through running their enterprise systems on L
Re:Useless article! (Score:2)
but the whole article has the feel of that episode of the simpsons where bart keeps doing the human interest stories...
"Bill Hilf is a non-microsoft guy working at microsoft. Some call him crazy, some call him courageous..." *suddenly Mr Hilf comes running out of his office chucking plush linux penguins at the reporter*
More Transparent? (Score:1, Interesting)
Hmm... I guess this means he's trying to eliminate the competition between linux and windows. Is it just me, or does this seem to not be working?
World's Worst Occupations redux? (Score:2)
Traitor! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Traitor! (Score:3, Funny)
Re: Traitor! (Score:2)
Re:Traitor! (Score:2)
iron maiden [imdb.com]
'nuff said
Re:Traitor! (Score:5, Funny)
Lets tar and feather him!
Proper custom asks for him to be tarred and bzip2ed.
Re:Traitor! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Traitor! (Score:2)
One of these days, I'm going to have to name a compression program 'feather' :P
$ tar -cf bill-hilf | feather > bill-hilf-the-traitor.tar.feather
$ _
OK boss, now what? Shall we cat him to /dev/null straight away, or let /dev/urandom loose on him first?
Re:Traitor! (Score:1)
Or even an iron midden
Re:Traitor! (Score:2)
Re:Traitor! (Score:3, Funny)
new distro (Score:2, Funny)
Re:new distro (Score:2)
Espionage Eh (Score:1, Funny)
Admirable.
So why no interoperability (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:So why no interoperability (Score:1)
Re:So why no interoperability (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:So why no interoperability (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft's interoperability problems tend to stem not from outright sabotage of protocols, but from just not giving a shit.
Hopefully not too off topic (Score:3, Interesting)
So let me get the right... (Score:2)
Yet they feel the need to get a linux guy to set up a lab to watch linux evolving along with the numerous paid shill/fud articles about the TCO of linux v windows.
MICROSOFT is SCARED of linux !
go Linux.
Re:So let me get the right... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So let me get the right... (Score:1, Insightful)
So next time I buy a mosquito repellant it means I don't get sleep over the horros of insect invasions.
Hilf? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hilf? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Hilf? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Hilf? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Hilf? (Score:2)
Not built here attitudes (Score:2)
Not to start a flamewar, but I'm told by someone knowledgable [wikipedia.org] that IBM's not-built-here mindset is legendary, and second only to the US government.
testing details? (Score:2, Offtopic)
Re:testing details? (Score:2)
I do not think this is the article that you think it is.
Re:testing details? (Score:1)
Re:testing details? (Score:2)
It is in this lab that Microsoft does a lot of its internal benchmarking, comparing Windows Server to Linux; ASP.Net to PHP; and Microsoft Office to OpenOffice. But a lot of the lab's testing involves interoperability, too, Hilf said.
Microsoft is smart (Score:2)
They should ideally also keep him around to (1) constantly criticize MS from within (2) keep a testbench of MS-OSS projects they could sell in the future.
he added.... (Score:5, Funny)
"Once we figure a way to for other products to interoperate with Microsoft, my job is to modify our product so the other products won't work," he added. "It's helps a great deal when I get to look at our competitors code, but they can't see ours."
At this point, he chuckled a bit to himself while twisting his pencil-thin mustache with his fingers.
Re:he added.... (Score:2)
etoys (Score:2)
Re:etoys doesnt appear dead yet (Score:2)
Re:FYI (Score:2)
Two videos on Channel 9 (Score:2)
Interesting stuff...
For those who are interested in the MS Linux Lab (Score:5, Informative)
Re:For those who are interested in the MS Linux La (Score:2)
http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=6535 5 [msdn.com]
Re:For those who are interested in the MS Linux La (Score:2)
Great. Like I needed to hear this shit. Now I know where all the little ricer wannabe's come from... *grin*
New! Managerial staff, now 100% content-free! (Score:2)
Why not interview someone more rank and file who actually does the work of pounding out OSS install and m
Re:New! Managerial staff, now 100% content-free! (Score:1)
Just when I needed mod points.....
Most people don't know how true this is.
Duality of intent (Score:2, Interesting)
"We get to find out lots of interesting things -- like how to authenticate against Active Directory, how to run non-Microsoft mail clients with Exchange," and the like, he said.
This isn't thanks to Microsoft. Microsoft routinely writes their stuff with incompatibilities in mind while stealing the protocols, and likely chunks of open source.
But fortunately as a percentage of the world Microsoft's dominance is decaying as many new countries are opting out of the blind following of Microsoft. I think TC
Re:Duality of intent (Score:2)
Microsoft. Where do you want to go today? (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, though, I think it's funny that Microsoft needs to have a position like this. Maybe they'd be better off letting all employees spend 20% of their paid time reading about Linux and the most popular F/OSS programs out there. They might learn a thing or two (probably two) about how to code software that actually works. And then Microsoft wouldn't be throwing their money away.
Re:Microsoft. Where do you want to go today? (Score:1)
Re:Microsoft. Where do you want to go today? (Score:1)
The only problem with that idea is all the employees would probably quit their jobs to work for Red Hat.
Is that because Red Hat need the help more than Microsoft?
Re:Microsoft. Where do you want to go today? (Score:2)
Videos (Score:2)
How different is Linux from Windows? (Score:3, Interesting)
How true is this? I only ask because I have had some experience with MVS (the operating system which has no concept of "files" or "directories") and Tandem (whose weird features I can't remember enough to describe), and I would describe both of those as "very different" from UNIX or Windows.
When it comes down to it, UNIX and Windows look pretty similair to me. They both support WIMP GUIs. They both have concepts of files and directories. They both have users and groups and permissions. They both have preemptive multitasking and multithreading.
The whole reason that Hilf stated that "Linux is very different from Windows" was part of the justification as to why Microsoft would not build applications for Windows (which was transparent and deceitful). If my belief is correct (that Linux is "similar enough" to Windows), then my opinion of Hilf falls through the floor. Am I correct that Linux is "similar enough" to Windows?
Re:How different is Linux from Windows? (Score:3, Insightful)
These days it isn't terribly important that platforms resemble each other that much. Applications just need some common APIs and little elbow grease to smooth over the things APIs don't cover. Just about every major FOSS app can be run on Windows. To the extent that developers are responsible for interoperability, the FOSS world has done its part.
Another way to take this is that MS must not be very good at making clean code if they're incapable
Re:How different is Linux from Windows? (Score:2)
I suggest you come down out of your ivory tower and take a look around the real world.
Re:How different is Linux from Windows? (Score:2)
Not really, there are some major architectural differences. What you highlight are the superficial similarities. For example, the graphical interface in Windows is a fundamental part of the kernel. In Linux, like Unix, its optional.
Steve
Re:How different is Linux from Windows? (Score:1)
Thats a bad road to go down.
You'll have M$ following in SCO's footsteps claiming there is M$ code in the Linux kernel.
Should keep the legal profession in a job for many years to come.
Re:How different is Linux from Windows? (Score:2)
I'm wondering, maybe MS will get it (Score:5, Interesting)
MS Desktop Environment. An X window manager, and the ONLY way to run MS Office and MS Visual Studio on Linux.
MS GUI for Samba. Runs in MS Desktop Environment. Opensource backend, closed source front end. Heck, if it runs on a proprietary MSDE, it could even be opensourced!
Same for IE. Maybe even an IIS than runs on Linux.
Weird thoughts. Not sure if they make business sense, or the traditionally sociopathic MS could think such thoughts.
I could see them doing it, and somehow managing to maintain a 'detente' with the open-source world. All-in-all, it might be a good thing for the market, and for consumers. You can get Windows (whatever edition), or you can get Linux, and run an interface on top of it that looks and acts like Windows.
Both will cost you $199. Both will run your MS apps. Pick and choose whatever you like.
Feels like an MS strategy to me, and you know what?
I can live with it. Just make sure it still uses some Opensource stuff as backends (CUPS, SANE, SAMBA), and I'll even buy it;
Especially if MS would use its immense market power to force Adobe and other top vendors to release their apps for the MSDE Linux environment.
Re:I'm wondering, maybe MS will get it (Score:2)
However, it always sucked donkey balls. Not because it was binary (after all, oracle on linux works just fine, as do other many other vendors closed source stuff) but because it was poorly designed, crashy, and just all around pile of doggie poo -- rather par for microsoft software really.
MS-only Linux environment (Score:5, Interesting)
To what end?
I discussed and dismissed this possibility years ago. The problems with implementation are these:
My summary of this scenario, posted in 1998, read:
I don't see anything that's changed in 7 years (other than the lines in my face getting clearer....)
The perpetual Borg Joke (Score:2)
Bill Hilf: I am a non-Microsoft guy working at Microso.f.. aaaaarrrrgggghhhhh
microsoft's new attitude (Score:2, Insightful)
so now they have to work with it
makes sense really -- for years they had no serious competition -- they still don't on the desktop
but the mac's recent resurgence on the desktop and the rise of linux and BSD on servers has to be dealt with -- how could microsoft not have an OSS and OS X lab?
I read The Article (Score:2)
I think is really makes sense for them to employ a guy that knows how FOSS works, and I think he knows that and how FOSS is a threath to Microsoft.
From reading the article it looks to me like he is the guy running the department in Microsoft doing the real benchmarks on Microsoft products versus FOSS products. Not the flawed benchmarks we see, but the benchmarks that upper M
Re: (Score:2)