Microsoft Acknowledges Open Source As a Bigger Threat Than Google 376
ruphus13 takes us to ZDNet for an analysis of comments by Microsoft's Chief Software Architect, Ray Ozzie, about how open source is "much more potentially disruptive" to Microsoft's business strategy than Google. Ozzie also spoke about the future of Microsoft's search technology, which will develop with or without Yahoo. There is a related interview at OStatic with several Microsoft employees about how they view and interact with the open source community. The head of Microsoft's global open source and Linux team is quoted saying:
"The other thing I think is missing is implementation of a basic principle of economic fairness. Thousands of developers have put very hard work into building software used by millions of people and companies, yet only a fraction of these developers are rewarded financially. Currently there are perfectly good projects that have been abandoned by their developers despite being used by large corporations. Subsequently the projects fall out of use. This is unnecessary waste that would often be prevented by making it easy for companies to pay the developers directly. I think it's important to solve this so that the sustainability of open source projects is improved."
In Other Words.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd say they're right.. but I'm also surprised that anyone has to say anything at all...
AND, well, Google isn't distributing alternative OSes, and the FOSS community IS
Re:In Other Words.... (Score:5, Insightful)
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1. try & do something on your computer
2. find you can't
3. write software to do it
4. use it
5. profit
Re:In Other Words.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Time is not money. The work week is (nominally) 40 hours because if you start to work more than that regularly, there are many ill effects (increased stress, poor health, INSANITY). In the scenario outlined in the GP, the OSS project is a hobby: it is something that a person can do in their spare time, when they feel like it etc. It doesn't cut into their yearly income because they would not be making more money if they were not doing it; it does not cost $20,000 unless you assign some sort of billable rate to that person. Using that reasoning and the fact that the average billing rate for lawyers is roughly $350, a nice fancy 2-hour dinner for a lawyer costs $700 plus whatever the restaurant charges.
Free software is still a great deal for a hobbyist developer because they are doing it for fun and they derive satisfaction and joy out of doing it. For professional OSS devs, it is still a great deal because they already tend to be paid by big companies. That entire post is how any big-ass-backwards blue chip company sees OSS: those companies don't get open source and obviously neither do you.
Re:In Other Words.... (Score:5, Insightful)
In your previous post, you stated that, even when not working, the concept of billable hours still applies. That is how you derived all of the costs of developing OSS. However, if how much you make per hour to do your job is how much every hour of your day is worth, which is what you are implying, then any two hours of a lawyer's time not spend lawyering costs him $700. That is the equivalent of you saying that "For someone making $X/yr, their time is worth $Y an hour." What is insane is saying that every hour of yours is worth $Y. Only the hours you are doing your job are worth $Y. Any hour in which you would not ordinarily be working is not worth money; there is no conversion. If no one will pay you for what you are doing, then your time spent doing it is not worth any money. I brought up dinner as an example of how ridiculous your idea was; I am glad that you agree that it is ridiculous.
My argument is that anything you do in your free time does not have an inherent monetary worth. If you enjoy writing code and decide to write code for your own purposes, that has no inherent value. If you want to write code for yourself, you cannot be expected to be paid for it. But that is, underneath all the blustering, what you seem to be expecting. I was not calling for you to do your job for free; I was calling for you to expect to do things you do for yourself for free. To rewrite one of your phrases so it has some truth: "Every hour I spend in front of my computer writing code COULD have a value." If you need/want something and you write it for yourself on your own time, it did not cost you anything and it has no inherent monetary value. If you can convince someone to pay you for the fruits of your labors, then it has monetary value.
From my previous analysis, there are roughly 78 waking hours a week that are not spent doing a 40-hour/wk job. That extra time in everybody's day is their own. If you decide to spend that flying a kite, your time is worth the enjoyment you derive from the kite flying. If you decide to write code, your time is worth the satisfaction you derived from coding and any money you could derive from the fair market price of the code you produced. If you spent 15 hours writing a new Notepad, do you think you're entitled to $450? Do you think you will ever see $450? No, not if you're a reasonable person. It is very true that you could have spent the time making more money, but what I was trying to say before is that many people don't want more money than they want more time to do what they want; a corollary to that is that some people find hacking on a software project fun.
People who do OSS *donate* the product of their time and for high quality code, that is not free. For a new Notepad, it is free. The point I tried to make before was that most people who do OSS and don't get paid contribute *for fun* not because they want to donate something. Just because you are a greedy bastard who feels that everything coming from the tips of your fingers is cashmoney does not mean that others are the same. That is also why those people contribute to OSS and you don't.
Also, seeing how this has tied up some of your precious $30/hour time in front of your computer, you can forward me my bill.
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If the income opportunity is not there, then I'm not losing anything. Or maybe you would say that I'm still losing $20,000? If I'm losing $20,000 whether I program or not, I may as well program.
Re:In Other Words.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Umm, the vast bulk of contributions to FOSS projects are from companies like IBM, Red Hat, Novell and Sun.
They've just worked out that it's cheaper to push a few coders into FOSS projects that are non-core but valuable to their business than it is to pay the MS tax for eternity.
Let's face it, computer users have given Microsoft more than 150 billion dollars in the last decade. If they had co-operated and contributed a small fraction of that to a community project, they'd have saved money and got a lot better tool. Plenty of other businesses are starting to come to the same conclusion.
Re:In Other Words.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:In Other Words.... (Score:5, Insightful)
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And what "crimes" has microsoft continued to commit? I can find linux and m
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That is the obvious example, and probably tiny. What is HUGE (and I know personally having done exactly that) is libraries, typically LGPL, that are produced because they are needed for a commerc
Utility v. Profitability: The Pace Car (Score:4, Informative)
Sure lots of F/OSS projects die for MANY reasons, and they may not may not be picked up by someone in the future, but compared to what? BeOS was a project many companies got invested in and that project died and CAN'T be picked up by anyone else. Microsoft has had many projects they bought, and then never further developed because it wasn't in their best financial interests. With proprietary software it has to be within the financial interests of the rights holder to develop the project further. In the F/OSS world ANYONE with the need, desire, and ability can improve on any project be it going strong or a decade abandoned.
Much more importantly, can we agree at least that sometimes writing code takes a little more effort than sitting at the computer punching out your ideas? Sometimes it really takes the collaboration of great minds to develop great software. Google has the power to buy just about anyone it wants. I've heard they are about the only company that can buy developers away from Microsoft. The point is that some software, or even any invention, is only useful as something to sell. How many retail stores likely survive not because it they sell anything worth a darn, but has things that make "good" gifts? Look at the whole teddy bear and gift basket industry. Cards have a utilitarian value, but look at all the things that can only be sold around Christmas because the products are worthless to the buyer. Personally, I see a lot of this "economic development" suffering from the Broken Window Fallacy. I go into Fry's all the time and the walls are just lined with crapware with scare tactics to get people to buy them.
So here is the contrast:
There is no way to succeed financially from developing Linux crapware. OH NO! What ever will we do?!? Some business secrets need to be held closely, and at other times tools for doing business create competitiveness that drives your markets growth. As with any market, its growth can make or break any business.
Take Avid Technology as an example: They sell sound equipment and software. Their advertising campaign tries to tell people about all the things they can do with their stuff. Mostly musicians. But what if all that was open source? A community of all kinds of artists could educate people on the many applications of sound equipment for home or industrial use. Their software? They have the industries best! What would they have to gain from open-sourcing their software? Well, Red Hat isn't doing too bad. Avid is already leading the industry and has a well respected name. Official support to clients and most timely updates. Up and rising artists/programmers could improve on the best software in the world! They also lead in fabricating specialized equipment... and this would be hurt how by expanding the market into an even larger community? Some will pay to have everything just work and delivered in a professional way, while others with less money will buy essential equipment and hack out the rest. Avid is ahead because it continues to hire the best in industry and researching its game. Are they done innovating and just surviving on being ahead of everyone else, or are they really leading the industry in strong ways that people will continue to respect?
This reminds me of the Tortoise and the Hare. Slow and steady can win the race, but was there any reason why the Hare could not have had some kind of work ethic to win the race also? Microsoft is an old, blind, and senile rabbit that knows nothing better about how to win a race than laying bear traps, land mines, and talking smack about the tortoise. In any given race, the rabbit should be able to win with hard work. To relate more closely to F/OSS, F/OSS is a pace car that lets anyone jump into the race at any time. There are just two options, and they can be tough to pick from depending on what you want your software to do. Is your software the secret, or just something that helps your business that can be improved on? BSD/MIT and
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For example, Microsoft really wanted to control the formats of online music sales, but Apple beat them and so the future of online music is open formats without DRM (except poor old Apple, who some of the labels won't let go DRM free). Imagine the horror if Microsoft had succeeded in making WMA the re
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Giving away something for free != holding the gift as valueless. I have rarely seen someone miss a concept as thoroughly as you have.
FUD FUD FUD FUD. FUDDITY FUD. FUDDITY FUD. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:FUD FUD FUD FUD. FUDDITY FUD. FUDDITY FUD. (Score:5, Insightful)
Have Microsoft still not discovered the intartubes yet? OmniHyperMegaCorp can't email dev@eloper.com and ask if he'd like some money in return for continuing development? Because most FOSS devs that I know (not all, but most) of would spit out their cheetos with joy at being offered bankable appreciation for their time and effort. We're not all smelly hippies who hate money and wear hand knitted nettle underpants.
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Re:FUD FUD FUD FUD. FUDDITY FUD. FUDDITY FUD. (Score:5, Informative)
-Ellie
Re:FUD FUD FUD FUD. FUDDITY FUD. FUDDITY FUD. (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed I've come across plenty of projects on Sourceforge that look promising but haven't been maintained for years, and others that could do with an additional boost.
OTOH, while I don't know of statistics, it seems to me certain projects are getting support as long as they make donations easy, for example I recall Tobi Oetiker's (RRDTool and MRTG) "thanks to" list being quite long.
If you want to slam the guy for this statement, compare with proprietary software from a company that goes under. If your vendor disappears you are completely out of luck, whereas with OSS you can at least hire a consultant to help you out.
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Either the people doing it lose interest (and no-one else can be bothered to take it over)
Or the people doing it cannot get it to work
Both these happen in Commercial software as well it's just that we either don't see the results or we have to live with the results
How many of these are "another text editor" or similar
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Therefore, every developer that contributes has already decided that open source is "worth it". Before doing the work. Their reasons may vary, but if they hadn't already made that decision, they wouldn't be working on it, would they? This is common sense. Again, nobody is employing coercion here.
Pot calling the kettle black (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:FUD FUD FUD FUD. FUDDITY FUD. FUDDITY FUD. (Score:5, Interesting)
Reliance on proprietary MS stuff has hurt some companies in the past. Others don't want the added expense.
Others want the freedom from onerous licensing headaches. MS attacked its own customers with licensing audits years ago. Many shops they audited were compliant (or mostly compliant), but MS raked them over the coals anyway. How much IT time do you want to devote to tracking licensing?
How are you going to handle virtualization as part of your IT roadmap (if it's not already, it probably will be soon). You'd better be able to solve the problem of licensing your OS and apps (many with diverging licensing schemes; per user, per concurrent user, per physical chassis, per cpu socket, per core
Re:FUD FUD FUD FUD. FUDDITY FUD. FUDDITY FUD. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:MS fails to deliver (Score:4, Insightful)
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So it's now a bloated monstrosity that's impossible to manage and has recurrent security issues? 'As good as Apache' hasn't really been a selling point for a while.
In features, it's on par. It feels faster running on the same hardware. I haven't seen any significant security issues for it yet, either.
I've not used Exchange for a while, but perhaps you could let me know what it does that SOGo [opengroupware.org] doesn't? And if this really justifies the cost.
Works well on Windows, without changing users' workflow. SOGo is not a drop-in replacement for Exchange, and for that alone it fails because Exchange is, whether you like it or not, the best bet at a shop using Windows desktops due to the easy integration.
You could be right there. As I understand it, Sharepoint's key selling point is integration, which is typically something that the 'small tools doing one job well' model that is popular in the Free Software world does poorly on.
Sharepoint does a lot of interesting things and does them considerably better than FOSS apps even where such are av
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No all we need... (Score:5, Interesting)
They already have modified distroes running internally, so it wouldn't be too far-fetched, though I don't think it'd happen anytime soon, if at all.
Re:No all we need... (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:No all we need... (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, and they do [google.com].
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http://www.thinkgos.com/ [thinkgos.com]
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Gee, I'm touched ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm touched by this new warmer, fuzzier Microsoft! Now that it's "helped" the commercial software industry, creating a level playing field by bulldozing everybody else's buildings, it can turn its attention to "helping" the struggling open-source world. Welcome, new open-source overlords! May the innovations continue!
One reason compensation is not important (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:One reason compensation is not important (Score:5, Interesting)
When I needed a GUI applet for my wife to monitor ink levels and run cleaning cycles on our Epson Stylus printer and none of the existing applications out there did the trick just right, I wrote Stylus Toolbox. Big surprise. I don't care if I ever get a dime in compensation, because I've already been compensated -- by the satisfaction obtained from the joy of software development and by the actual application itself, which I needed and still use today.
Not that I wouldn't gladly accept monetary donations -- but I'd rather get donations of equipment (mainly printers) for development and testing of Stylus Toolbox and/or escputil. Also, developers who would like to help me update the alignment procedure for newer Stylus CXX and Stylus Photo printers would be appreciated. Thanks.
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Soap: Oh you assume do ya? And what do they say about assumption being the other of all fuck-ups?
Tom: It's the mother of all fuck-ups, stupid...
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And the BJs, don't forgot those.
Re:One reason compensation is not important (Score:4, Insightful)
Open source to make makes the most sense anywhere a company benefits from having a specific product available enough to spend development effort on it, but where they are unable or unwilling to bring it to market as a commercial offering.
Sun gets a lot out of having OpenOffice exist, but they have no chance of having it be a real commercial competitor to Office.
Apache is a similar situation - a whole bunch of people want a stable webserver, but building one from the ground up is expensive and difficult, and selling it afterwards is even harder. So by making something open source you get other people to help you develop it at no cost to you.
To a corporation, it seems like much more of a super-improved version of an in-house solution competing with commercial solutions. The volunteer aspect of open source is amazing, it's great, it's wonderful - but a lot of the big development comes from people being paid to improve part of it because their company thought that improving the common solution would be a lot better than writing their own. Which largely invalidates MS's argument.
Oh? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, Ray, I don't see this is as a problem. You are seeing problems where none exist. If a lot of people use an open source project, someone will step in and maintain it, sooner or later.
Re:Oh? (Score:5, Insightful)
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(Yes, Ray Ozzie, I'm lookin' at YOU!!!!)
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If you're a large corporation using OSS code that's been abandoned, you're in a much better situation than if you were using someone else's proprietary code that's abandoned.
You hit the nail squarely on the head. Most software vendors do not have the resources or lifespan to maintain old titles or even previous revisions of current titles, so the customer is screwed when their vendor inevitably drops a product and moves on or becomes a nonentity or property of another company that has no interest in maintaining the product.
Open source software tends to fall into two categories - hobbyist projects and commercially viable projects. Hobbyist projects tend to fall out of develo
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Whatever happened to this on? Lots of potential. It's got industry backing and the audience is high end users with plenty of money. Last release in 2001.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/hbaprovider/ [sourceforge.net]
And excuse me the heresy, but for a noob Python developer it was a major drag to get started with SOAP, mainly because all the projects appeared to be in various state
They don't get it (Score:2, Insightful)
Bzzt (Score:2)
MS is a business first and last. ...
Bzzzt. Thanks for playing. That was in the early 80's
Since then they've moved to being an company which hires good marketing companies. Then a company which hires good lobbying firms. Then a full-blown political movement/sect [groklaw.net].
Notice Ozzie's playing by the by the rules in the link above. No technical comparisons allowed, just FUD, disinformation, misinformation and name calling. That's so 1990's.
Some Honesty from Redmond (Score:2, Troll)
It's the law (Score:5, Informative)
Yes. Now that (effectively) no closed source player are left. Darwinian natural selection has left us the strongest, open source projects. Many precede MS attack on the Internet. Open source is now killing Microsoft [sec.gov]. It's a one-two, knock-out. Even most of the yahoo bid was based on stock not cash, and even some of that which is actual cash looks like it would have to borrowed.
Further, there's no market for MS, not even public-sector corporate welfare. See the mandates:
Source: A5-0264/2001 [europa.eu]
For all new European projects:
Source: European Commission technology strategy [europa.eu].
So rather than listen to nerdy Bill, slobby Ballmer, or their media proxies whine, listen to others: go open source, open standards. You save work, you save time, you increase security and you recession-proof your company.
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If there were any European based closed source solutions that they could recommend (presumably while securing themselves a nice kickback) they would. Sadly there isn't, which leaves Open Source (and primarily Linux) as the 'enemy of my enemy'.
economic fairness? (Score:2, Interesting)
By the way, I'm sure programmers are not against financial reward, but most don't do it for that, so it's not an actual issue. The issue would be ether or not corporation should use software witch aren't certainly maintained for a reasonable time.
Also I wouldn't call a stopped project a wast, since anybody can take the source and re-start it. I wouldn't call the time spend on the stopped project a wast ether, since the programmer was probably doing wh
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Also I wouldn't call a stopped project a wast, since anybody can take the source and re-start it.
Unless it's closed source of course.
I wouldn't call the time spend on the stopped project a wast ether, since the programmer was probably doing what he liked. (or what he needed at the time)
Unless he was just doing it as part of a job of course.
People do that all the time and nobody gets angry about it.
Except Microsoft of course, it really scares the shit out of them
They're just missing the point, completely (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, and note that the guy is speaking "open source" - but there's no word of "free software", that makes up quite a bit of Open Source and explains all the aspects of getting paid very well.
I call FUD.
Re:They're just missing the point, completely (Score:5, Insightful)
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I tend to think that's what it means, and that this is the standard usage of the expression.
Okay, I'm done arguing semantics. I feel a little retarded now.
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OS developers are not idiots - they KNOW that they are working for free (simplification, I know, there are exceptions, but it's not important now) and they wouldn't be if they didn't want to. If they do - that means they're just fine with that.
I think your simplification is both excessive and very important.
The most successful, biggest open source projects (by a LONG way) are those with some sort of commercial/foundation backing them. Even if all that amounts to is "one organisation pays a handful of developers fulltime, everything else is volunteer driven" (cf. Mozilla).
This isn't drastically different from how any commercial software has been developed in the past. What's different is the GPL and related licenses make it much easier for orga
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All coders who gives their time and efforts to different projects, was it then a distribution, Operating System or just single application, they know they do it for free, but they do know that when they do it for free, they actually pay to themself and all other use
Money? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet again they've missed the point. Some of us developers don't develop for money - we develop for fun/to help the community/geek points. I'm not sure I'd actually want to get paid for the software I write - when something's a hobby, it can be enjoyed at whatever pace you like, but if I was getting paid for it, those who were paying me would feel annoyed if I went and watched a film in an evening instead of developing the software they now consider to have paid for. And there are many times I'd like to go out in an evening instead of sitting in front of my laptop watching GDB tell me I've segfaulted
It appears that yet again, Microsoft cannot look past the monetry value of people and software - for those who haven't read it, The Cathedral and the Bazaar by Eric S. Raymond is a good read, and covers this precise point in great depth.
Slashdot summary is misleading... (Score:5, Interesting)
But I love this gem from the actual Ray Ozzie Q&A:
Ozzie noted that if a new operating system were designed today, it wouldn't be a single piece of software that operates a single computer. It would be something that could accommodate multiple devices, with the user at the center.
Oh, you mean like Linux, which runs from embedded systems through desktops up to big-iron servers and supercomputers? Or even MacOS X, which runs at least on Macs and the iPhone?
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To clarify, OS X is based on BSD and the Mach kernel. BSD runs on a lot of different platforms.
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That's the next step in operating system development.
OK Microsoft (Score:5, Funny)
I want your money.
Pay me.
Reward is in the eye of the beholder (Score:4, Interesting)
That doesn't mean the demand for money for effort isn't valid. Personally, I find no morally superior position in using open source software, or in the open source community. I use it for purely financial reasons (it costs me nothing, I won't be sued for using it). I don't care whether the developers got paid for it, because they made their own choices when they did their work on it. If they didn't feel they were being compensated fairly they shouldn't have contributed. If they expected that people would contribute just because they did and no one else did, they have only themselves to blame.
Microsoft needs to PLAY the game, not fight it (Score:4, Insightful)
So far, Microsoft has been pretty successful "printing money" by creating license keys (in another state so they don't have to pay taxes in their own state). We've all been following the gradual push for software as a service with dread that, so far, hasn't gained much traction. So not only are they interested in printing money, they want to print money with an expiration date. Meanwhile, for this and many other reasons, people are looking elsewhere for substitute technologies.
There is plenty of room for Microsoft to earn money, though. The name is still very well known and respected when it comes to information technology... some people even trust the name still. The only reason I can imagine Microsoft may want to abstain from moving more into the services arena is the wrath of all their "partners" out there providing services based on their software. (Though I have yet to see Microsoft being afraid or reluctant to screw 'partners.') But the reality of the OSS threat is that service providers are gradually looking at F/OSS solutions as an alternative to Microsoft's costly licenses. (Their service income remains about the same while the customer spends a LOT less.)
The MPAA/RIAA may have been rather successful at having laws written in their favor, but then again, there doesn't seem to be an alternative route for people seeking entertainment of similar quality. Software and information technology, on the other hand, has ample alternatives that are growing in interest.
(Interestingly, it is also being realized that Microsoft's tactics are partly responsible for the extremely slim margins on hardware prices forcing OEMs to sell Microsoft licenses to improve their profitability. Reducing this effect could result in better profits on hardware especially when they realize they can charge a premium for F/OSS supported hardware over 'Requires Windows' hardware.)
The government pressures from around the globe against Microsoft seem to be paying off to counteract Microsoft's tactics. It seems that perhaps the original remedy, to break Microsoft up in to smaller operational units, might have been healthier for Microsoft since it would have enabled the units to focus on the quality and marketability of their products. Under their current model, their OS and Office products are being used to keep them going while their other involvements are losing money in order to keep potential competition suppressed. Unfortunately for Microsoft, as they slowly fall, the entire operation will fall at once taking everything and everyone with them.
"First they ignore you... (Score:4, Insightful)
Gandhi.
Another article. Same subject. Different take. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Every single one of them.
Gods save us from engineers that think they're perfect.
This doesn't seem realistic. (Score:3, Interesting)
Imagine if Microsoft held all rights and patents related to proxy software. Now imagine if they said they were no longer going to support or sale it-- but maintain their intellectual property rights. Plenty of businesses would be screwed.
Imagine if, in this scenario, they said "We aren't going to sell this software for platform _______", then every company depending on that platform would have to go out and find something that is supported.
I'd imagine, in the real world, if the maintainers of say, Squid, stepped down or pulled any bullshit-- it would be forked or new people would step in immediately to carry on with it.
But, he works for Microsoft, so when speaking in public, he's got to stick to a certain story regardless of his true feelings. I've got a couple of friends who work for them, and they aren't stupid. They just know not to ever say anything anti-microsoft while the public is listening.
Abandoned projects? (Score:5, Insightful)
Like Visual Basic or Windows XP? Too bad those projects aren't "open source" so that said corporations could step in and get support elsewhere.
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Yes they really shafted their users there. There are plenty of small companies with hundreds of thousands of lines of VB6 code who can't afford to do a rewrite.
"Only a fraction" (Score:5, Insightful)
Open source is satisfying for developers because they are doing ~what they like~ and ~what interests them~.
In contrast with fixing bugs for 10 years in a cubicle while listening to feudal management aristocrats squabble, periodically announce their delusional plans for market conquest, and garner obscene bonuses as a reward for their ineffectual nonsense.
Microsaur is unhappy watching a faster, more agile creature eat its eggs.
Big hole in his argument, source is available (Score:4, Insightful)
With FOSS you can at least *read* the code (Score:2)
Currently there are perfectly good projects that have been abandoned by their developers despite being used by large corporations. Subsequently the projects fall out of use.
This is probably true. But then, the situation with closed source is incredibly worse.
With open source, you should always be able to get your hands in code. Compare that to, unsupported & long forgotten, closed sourced binary objects necessary for a large organizations to work.
A professor I took classes from at The University of Sao Paulo, in Brazil, mentioned that the university had at some point all student grades and academic history in this proprietary program that no one knew how to use (excep
Wiping the tears from my eyes (Score:2)
"...a basic principle of economic fairness."
Oh, that's beautiful. The world's largest and most powerful software company is complaining that the competitive force it fears the most uses a system that is unfair.
How 'bout some cheese with that whine?
Looked at TFA (Score:5, Insightful)
Redmond's Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie.
- when you see a title like this, you know that the person hasn't done any development in years and the most he is doing now is Visio (this is MS) and Powerpoint.
"Microsoft has built up a culture of crisis," Ozzie told conference attendees.
- that is one of the problems with many companies, not just MS of-course. I hate this culture of 'crisis'. It's always brought upon yourself. It's in everything. Example: OMG, WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE UNLESS WE DELIVER THIS CRAZY PIECE OF WORK BY 2 DAYS FROM NOW. It always happens before weekend, you know, and it was always preventable. It is a management problem but it always ends up being developers' problem. Shortsightedness, that's another name for 'culture of crisis'.
He noted that, unlike Google, many open-source programmers aren't beholden to shareholders.
- many aren't and it's great.
Ozzie said that competing with open source "made Microsoft a much stronger company."
- I doubt it. Taking open source (like parts of BSD, TCP/IP stack etc.) made MS stronger. Being forced to compete with FOSS is tearing MS apart.
Ozzie noted that if a new operating system were designed today, it wouldn't be a single piece of software that operates a single computer. It would be something that could accommodate multiple devices, with the user at the center. That sounds like Live Mesh -- but perhaps he was also hinting about Microsoft's post-Windows, distributed operating system I keep hearing rumors about...
- just what I would expect from an 'arm-chair architect'. Coming up with gimmicks rather than looking at the simplest existing solutions. When ALL devices will have the same instruction set, the same processing speeds, the same amount of memory etc., yeah, then one OS would make sense for those devices. Until that moment each device will have its own simplest OS and to connect devices then all that is necessary is standard approach to networking protocols.
Yahoo was not a strategy unto itself," he said. "It was an accelerator to the ad platform.
,
"We are very, very serious about the online space,"
- of-course you are. Until 1995 MS didn't bother much with the 'internets', Borg's view of it was that there was no money there. MS is a crisis driven company, remember? When there is a crisis (like all of a sudden MS is not within a market where new technology is developing, because they didn't see money in it) then it starts moving it's collective ass. So after looking at Google's success with making money on text-ads delivered within the context of a search query, MS decided it wants to be there too. It's like all those little sushi restaurants that crowd together. I have noticed it, in the area where we live there was very little happening until about 5 years ago, one sushi restaurant opened up. Then within a year 3 more appeared within 50 METERS of each other. That's what MS is - trying to get a cut of that sushi money.
Programming tools that work across a variety of devices. At the very end of his remarks, Ozzie made a passing reference to the need for not just programming tools and services that can accommodate multi-core/many-core systems, but also tools that can work across a variety of devices. He noted that there's a need for development tools for building software that works across multiple devices. A reference to the Live Mesh Software Development Kit (SDK), expected to debut at Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference in late October? Perhaps....
- my god. I mostly work with Java, sometimes I do some stuff with C/C++, whatever. I hate it when a large corp (BEA for example) pushes their gimmick forward as if it was the next best thing right BEFORE the sliced bread. I am tired of it. I prefer tools that work well in their own space, tools that manipulate source in ways that are
Microsoft for "economic fairness"? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is complete bullshit. What is really going on is that free software forces the software market to center around services instead of licensing controls. That might be bad for somebody who wants a global monopoly, but is very nice for those who create and do stuff.
In an open source world, a software engineer may have lost a total monopoly over a work he creates
It is Microsoft who has deprived us of that benefit with their constant licensing fees and constant vendor lock in, not open source.
Odd comparison. (Score:3)
So a distribution method ideal vs. a Company is more of a threat then a Company vs. a Company. Well duh, in theory Google can be delt with, Purchased, Create a competive products that people like better, Partnerships, etc... Vs. Open Source which you can't Buy out Open Source (a concept), there is no real authority that controls Open Source it is just there. So in that case yes Open Source is more of a threat then Google. However Open Source more of a market force in which microsoft can change to be more open with. vs. Google who is undermining many of microsofts gains by creating a better product that doesn't care what OS you use or just as long as you follow most of the standards.
I don't think OSS is a threat (Score:3, Interesting)
Just look at Linux as a prime example. Let's say Joe Sixpack or Joe Business wants to get the MS monkey off their backs and "go Linux." Well, the first thing they are going to find is that there is no "Linux" in the same sense that there is a "Windows." Linux is just a kernal (actually, it's different versions of a kernal, since not all distros use the same one). Choosing Linux means first having to choose from a confusing array of different distros, each with their own cheerleaders, strengths and weaknesses--and ALL much more poorly documented and supported than any version of Windows. And that's just the FIRST step. That doesn't even get into installation issues, driver support, etc.
With the exception of Firefox, I've never once seen a OSS program that I would compare to its commercial counterpart (again, with the notable exception of Firefox). One trip to just about any OSS website will usually make that clear. How many OSS webpages don't even EXPLAIN WHAT THE PRODUCT IS, much less document it, on their website? Seriously, MS has nothing to fear from software distributors whose websites consist entirely of lists of version bug fixes and forums.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not sure if you're doing this on purpose, but you seem to expect Open-Source projects to provide the full commercial product experience. This was never the point to open-source, which, as the name suggests, deals with code.
The compiled product, the marketing materials, the user support... it's all something that has to be picked up by people interested in marketing, in technical documentation, in user support.
Developers are developers. Expecting them to deliver anything more than code is a poor idea.
Lots of not true here (Score:3, Interesting)
Let me introduce you to Symantec [symantec.com]. They make an application called "Ghostcast server", which is used to clone PCs in bulk. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to find out which product they offer contains this application, how much it costs and how it works. Give it a shot. It's like Where's Waldo for geeks.
Because you don't get it (Score:3, Insightful)
OSS isn't Sourceforge, it isn't Linux, nor Firefox, nor Gimp nor any singular piece of software. It isn't documentation or lack of documentation, bugginess or non-bugginess is also not OSS. After all, any attribute you want to assign to OSS projects/software is equally assignable to non-OSS. Windows is easy to use and well documented? My Arse. If that were true why the multi-billion dollar Windows training industry? Why the multibillion dollar book ind
What is fair (Score:2)
How many closed, commercial projects met an early death when the manufacturer decided to drop the software? How many users were left stranded, without a way to open files, complete projects or enjoy their previous investments? Their only choice was to PAY again for a different product to do the same thing they were doing two years ago.
The warped business model of Micros
Microsoft's biggest threat is ..... Microsoft (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm touched... (Score:2)
It really touches me that Microsoft is concerned about the well being of the people who develop the products that are its greatest competition! A more cynical
if he wants developers to be paid... (Score:2)
No doubt (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Blind capitalism (Score:5, Insightful)
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(Do remember that freedom is about more than monetary cost -- yet freedom does have value that could monetized)
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The second part is basically a restating of the old rule that hobbyist developers will scratch THEIR itch, not that of others. SO we have a bunch of very good FOSS coding tools and server software, but usability for non-developers is still lacking, if they even try.
I don't see any of this as a problem. The particular hobbyists you're referring to aren't aiming to write an app for non-developers, and hence don't write one. I don't see how that's not prefectly fine.
There *are* people writing Open Source end-user apps (Firefox, OpenOffice leap to mind). Some of them are hobbyists, some of them do it for a living. The apps end up existing either way.
The economics of OSS are a lot more complicated than 'programmer writes code; programmer gets paid'. Satisfaction, kudos, s
Re:Big Suprise (Score:5, Funny)
Re:False Dichotomy (Score:5, Informative)