Microsoft Compares Windows And Linux

Halcyon-X writes "Microsoft is hosting a discussion on Windows and Linux between its two top Linux consultants. Martin Taylor and Bill Hilf talk about the various OSS licenses, focus on the open source development model, competing implementations of administration tools, TCO, and risk assessment. Also available in offline formats, doc (which looks fine in OpenOffice.org) and wma as well."

Re:Same old, same old...

[savagedome]

Windows is open source. Its unbelievable but true [slashdot.org]

Microsoft compares Windows and GNU/Linux

[PtrToNull]

Please use the correct title, RMS is rolling in his grave right now.

Oh wait.. he's not dead yet.



-- this sig is a speck of your imagination, enjoy it.

Reminds me...

[djupedal]

,,,of when my GF compared herself to the x-wife. I knew the outcome from the beginning...who wouldn't?

Gotta love 'em...

[mogrify]

.../2/d/4/2d4d387b-97af-4923-897d-320fe070e864/...

...friendly URLs.

Whew

[mrpuffypants]

Finally, an impartial review of Windows vs. Linux. I have no doubt that at the end of this article the Microsoft engineers will recommend the clearly superior Linux OS over Windows Server 2003.

/me goes to RTFM and weep in the corner.

Hey its Bill And Marty from KBBL

[fireman sam]

After reading that I couldn't get the image of Bill and Marty from KBBL out of my head.

Marty: Hey, thanks Bill. Yes having access to the source code or the "building instructions" is evil. And we at Microsoft will keep you save from all the evil stuff.

Bill: That's right Marty. And the next person who rings in will win a months supply of IE updates.

Marty: Watch out Bill, that slashdot crowd is trying to take us off the air.

Bill: That's ok Marty, we have the latest IIS, we are as safe as... NO CARRIER

Unbiased

[Stiletto]

This should be as unbiased as "Slashdot hosts a discussion between the RIAA and the MPAA".

Hi. I'm Troy McClure

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi. I'm Troy McClure. You might remember me from hosting videos of other impartial Microsoft seminars as "Apple: A Scourge or a Mere Annoyance?" and "*BSD: If It is Not Dead It Should Be"

Re:I didn't RTFA but ...

[Mjlner]

"I didn't RTFA but ... I can guess their conclusion: Windows is better than Linux."

MOD PARENT UP +1 Psychic!

Spoiler Warning!

[Anonymous Coward]

They found Window's was better.

Re:Reminds me...

[savagedome]

x-wife

X-wife?? I bow to your geekhood. You truly are a geek Sir. And I mean it in a good way.

Makes About As Much Sense As...

[JohnPerkins]

Herr Goebbels investigating issues of journalistic integrity in 1940s Germany.

Misunderstanding

[Decaff]

It's obvious that Microsoft still does not 'get' key aspects of open source:

"I always ask the question of customers and yes, there's always a free version, there's Debian, there's Gentoo, there's different distributions that they can pull down and use in a different environment, but when you really want to deploy it in a mission-critical way, when you really want to have something that's broader from an infrastructure perspective, they want something that has support"

The freeness of the version has nothing whatever to do with the support. I use a server that is Debian but has commercial support.

I also found the following comment very amusing:

"in Windows Server particularly, some of the things that struck me as innovative were some of the server management tools. The ability to take a Windows server and literally dynamically change it from a DHCP infrastructure server to a streaming media server, or more importantly, taking a file/print server and adding a variety of other services, maybe make it a domain controller, maybe also make it a Web server."

Wow! How 'innovative'! Maybe he should look at a tool like 'dselect' under Debian. I can also 'literally dynamically' add and remove services from my server. Anyway, the idea of having a single machine that is nothing more than a DHCP infrastructure server suggests Windows is not the most powerful system.

Re:Reminds me...

[SpongeBobLinuxPants]

x-wife

What is this x-wife program that you speak of? Does it work with Gnome?

Please...

[b166er_zeroone]

This is like listening to two Microsoft employees bashing Linux... Oh wait...

Re:Makes About As Much Sense As...

[uradu]

Reminds me of the comfy fireside chats between Hitler and Mussolini regarding the relative merits of representative democracy and genocidal totalitarianism. Ah, those good old Telefunken sets made you think you were right there next to them...

Re:Reminds me...

[djupedal]

Actually, she was more of what I recall as being the 'Y' wife....why did I marry you - why don't you wash the car - why don't you shut up - why don't you drop dead - why don't you go to hell - why don't you get lost - why don't you get a life...that sort of thing :)

Re:Same old, same old...

[deaddrunk]

We know the only way we win with customers is by having a much better solution to offer our customers.

Hahahahahahahahaha

Re:Misunderstanding

[Rakishi]

Maybe it's "innovative" to them since their previous versions needed a reboot.

I guess Microsoft doesn't accept something as existing unless they do it themselves so everything they do is "innovative" to them.

Re:Great marketing - Set phasers on "ignore"

[zarr]

In my opinion his opinion is fact.

Article breakdown

[scorp1us]

#include //indemnification, etc

#include

#include

#include

#include

#include

#include // Note: I did agree with them in that nearly all migrations will require not just an admin, but probably several developers. They did correctly state that this is not what people want to do (pay developers and have to maintain something). I think this is a valid migration cost, and a good point. However, once enough migrations are done, and the developed migration tools realeased, the impact should be nil.

#include // An obvious lie, because it happens everyday in Linux. Fact: MS can never have the QA testing that linux has, bu virtue of their development models. It was stupid for MS to pick a fight here.

If this discussion was so open, why not invite some outside people in?

Here ya go

[FunWithHeadlines]

"I'm all for "reading the article", but this is far too long and I have a bit of work to do. Can anyone post a brief synopsis of what they're saying?"

Sure:

FUD
Corporate-speak FUD
Slick FUD
Unbelievably clumsy and obvious FUD
Laughable FUD
Bone to the FOSS community
FUD
Conclusion: FUD

Re:Great marketing - Set phasers on "ignore"

[RangerRick98]

In my opinion your opinion that his opinion is fact is fact.

Besides, opinions that are backed by facts make a pretty strong argument. :)

Re:Gotta love 'em...

[jkubecki]

.../2/d/4/2d4d387b-97af-4923-897d-320fe070e864/. ..

...friendly URLs.

Yeah, really! Why can't they do friendly URL's like Slashdot?

(Posted to Slashdot article at http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/28/234 1214&from=rss [slashdot.org])

Re:Microsoft compares Windows and GNU/Linux

[HedonismBot]

Netcraft can fix that.

http://www.getthefacts/

[tetrode]

They cannot even get this intarweb thingy correct.

Losers...

Re:Here ya go

[hawkeyeMI]

Something a little more informative (but not much) than the previous comment. Hope you know (pseudo) Perl:

foreach ($potential_problem) (@linux){
print "Linux is okay but it has this $potential_problem\n";
print "Yes, and I think you can see that Microsoft addresses this $potential_problem to the benefit of our customers!\n";
}

Re:Great marketing - Set phasers on "ignore"

[DA-MAN]

Is that a fact?

Re:Reminds me...

[c]

I dunno, marriage isn't really compatible with the whole geek persona...

Hmmm... Honey, do you think we should buy your mom the RAM upgrade or the flannel sheet set? Well, yes, she does _need_ more RAM, but the flannel looks nicer under the tree...

c.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Reminds me...

[markandrew]

you should try the new xorg-wife; not as radical as Y but it tidies up some loose ends with the X version, and the pre-nup ain't half as bad!

Windows is worth the money !

[sunsrin]

It lets anyone install anything on your machine and connect to anyone on the Internet so that your bandwidth and disk space is utilized to the limit.

Windows improves US Tech Industry and hence US economy by creating opportunities for every other software company - one keeps on finding vulnerabilites (Security Companies), one protecting it (Symantec , etc)and the other one exploiting it (all those script kiddies making u visit porn sites).

Now, Can you beat that?

Re:Same old, same old...

[nathanh]

Windows even goes so far as to call it's program Shared Source, which means you can look, but you cannot touch.

Look, but don't touch.

Touch, but don't taste.

Taste, but don't swallow.

Hrm, if Bill Gates is the devil, as I have now undoubtedly proven, does that mean Ballmer is the person who gets spread-eagled naked in front of me to tempt me into a life of sin.

Oh my god, I've just gone blind, and I think I threw up a little, help, help...

Re:Reminds me...

[Wordsmith]

The marketing department called.

She's now your eXtreme-Wife! (TM)

Re:Since when does Linux compete?

[BranMan]

Well said - perhaps it can be summed up thus:

Linux is Windows' competition.

Linux has no competition.

The "if Linux was as popular as Windows" thing...

[Admiral Burrito]

Sort of like how every major Internet virus disaster, spyware infestation, and countless other sorts of electronic calamity occurs as a direct result of using Microsoft software. You can't spin that.

Yes I can. :P Most of the world uses Microsoft software, and therefore most calamitous attacks are directed at it. The same will occur if/when Linux rises to sizeable popularity, but that's a debate for another day.

So you agree that Linux is more secure for the foreseeable future... Or are you making the bold prediction that Linux is on the verge of displacing Windows as the dominant OS?

Myself, I predict that by the time Linux is "targeted more because it's so popular" like Windows supposedly is now, we'll all have flying cars, and they'll run Linux, and they'll get hacked and start falling out of the sky. It'll be quite horrible. But then we'll just send a cyborg back in time to kill Linus Torvalds before he creates Linux and it'll all work out in the end because after the change in the timeline we'll all be running OpenBSD.