Is Onlive Pirating Windows and Will It Cost Them? 225
An anonymous reader writes "When Onlive, the network gaming company, started offering not just Microsoft Windows but Microsoft Office for free on the iPad, and now on Android, it certainly seemed too good to be true. Speculation abounded on what type of license they could be using to accomplish this magical feat. From sifting through Microsoft's licenses and speaking with sources very familiar with them, the ugly truth may be that they can't."
They applied for a site license (Score:5, Funny)
Is it their fault that Microsoft didn't think they were literal when they wrote the planet Earth in as their location?
Re:They applied for a site license (Score:5, Informative)
Re:They applied for a site license (Score:5, Insightful)
I can see by your UID that you're new around here but, for fucks sake, don't come off like that much of a chump at the same time too. At any given time about half the articles on Slashdot are based on speculation.
Re:They applied for a site license (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:They applied for a site license (Score:5, Informative)
As an SPLA provider I can confirm there IS a win7 license available under SPLA.
Huh, maybe you should let Joe Matz, VP of Worldwide Licensing and Pricing at Microsoft know, since he says, "However, it is important to note that SPLA does not support delivery of Windows 7 as a hosted client. [technet.com]"
He also mentions, "We are actively engaged with OnLive with the hope of bringing them into a properly licensed scenario, and we are committed to seeing this issue is resolved," which implies that OnLive is not currently properly licensed.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
But at least it seems to indicate that MS is not that unhappy with them. Which makes sense, as they'll have to compete with Apple's iWork soon. More and more people are going to use that if the Microsoft alternative is not available. So here are these nice guys from Onlive keeping people in the Microsoft ecosystem, temporarily for free, until they can be switched to paying versions. Win-win, right?
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
when you started reading slashdot.
Service Provider License Agreement (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
There is no SPLA for Windows 7.
Re:Service Provider License Agreement (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Service Provider License Agreement (Score:5, Interesting)
MS will let you farm out 2k8 RDS sessions, with essentially all the trimmings that Win7 would be capable of over RDP, for the right money; but they simply Will Not Sell an SPLA to perform the (with contemporary virtualization and deduplicated storage backends) virtually identical act of farming out Win7 VMs.
I honestly find it rather puzzling. If they didn't offer 'desktopish' SPLAs at all, that'd be unpleasant of them; but would be a coherent 'no way are we letting thin clients take over' strategy. If they followed a 'we don't care how you do it, we just want to get paid per month, per seat' approach, that'd be similarly coherent.
As it is, though, there just doesn't seem to be a coherent logic behind the licensing terms.
Re:Service Provider License Agreement (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
That's a common problem. Ask three of their sales reps for details on the licensing required for a certain situation and you'll get three completely different proposals.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Service Provider License Agreement (Score:5, Informative)
* Remote Desktop SAL (6WC-00002) @ 3.45 a month
* Office Standard (021-08183) @ $10.30 a month
That is $13.75 a month per user they need to pay Microsoft + all the other costs for hardware, support, etc.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Service Provider License Agreement (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Service Provider License Agreement (Score:5, Informative)
From what I recall, SPLA is not concurrent usage, it's "per account per month".
That's pretty much it. You count up the number of users that used the product over the month and tell Microsoft.
Re: (Score:2)
No. That is per user. (Read the linked article).
Re: (Score:3)
$13.75/mo is chump change...let me tell you how much 250 engineers sat in down town Palo Alto costs per month...SGP is many things, but a fool is not one of them. ~$100M in and a $1.2B paper valuation means your lawyers spend a lot of time thinking thinks out before you act.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It is not chump change if that's what you pay per person to offer a service for free to everyone on the Internet.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Service Provider License Agreement (Score:5, Insightful)
Speculating about the terms is useless. There is no requirement that this customer uses a standard license or terms. Like Nokia they may have a special deal where Microsoft pays THEM per activated user, and now Microsoft is saying "er, wait. This isn't going how we thought so let's draw your attention to Paragraph 752, subparagraph 17 which reads 'offer void under the following conditions' and under codicil 3 of the 4th amendment was added the text 'if we say so'." We don't, and won't know the terms so there's no point in talking about it.
OnLive should have known better. Nothing good comes of bargaining with the devil.
Re:Service Provider License Agreement (Score:5, Interesting)
Like Nokia they may have a special deal where Microsoft pays THEM per activated user
Funny story about that.
I recently bought a cheap Android China phone, supposedly based on the a MediaTek SoC. When it arrived, it had a slightly modified version of ICS, felt solid and well-made and ran very nicely, much more responsive than I expected from the specs. I decided to reflash the firmware to get a clean English-language install, but couldn't get it to load a new ROM.
To cut a long story short, I dismantled it and found a nice Snapdragon CPU and lots of HTC branding. Turns out it was one of the HTC HD7 Windows phones that nobody would buy, re-purposed as an Android phone. They're selling like hotcakes in Asia.
It'll be worth keeping your eyes open in a few months - there's likely to be a whole bunch of cheap Microsoft-subsidised reflashed Nokias showing up on the grey markets as well. They'd be good machines with a decent OS running on them.
from TFA (Score:5, Informative)
(i know, i know.. i will punish myself later)
i read this as being: onlive is not presently legit but microsoft is playing nice (i.e. squeezing them for every last nickel without involving more than a few lawyers) for now -- until they lose patience (or feel threatened by being beating to market by an upstart.. not once but twice) and bring the sledgehammer down on onlive's entire business model -- windows and office desktop and gaming platform (xbox and windows games, at least)
Re: (Score:2)
Sooooo OnLive will be moving to LibreOffice shortly?
Re: (Score:2)
And you know they're a thief because...? Someone already showed how they could be properly licensed.
Re: (Score:2)
And, um, how is that exactly? They can't offer Windows 7 or XP the way they are (VDI licenses can't be rented to the public. SPLA licenses are designed for this, but Windows 7 on a SPLA is a no-go). They could offer Terminal Services connections to Windows Server, but Windows Server doesn't support the full DirectX platform and most games will refuse to install on it anyway (that and an Office license costs a bloody fortune for Terminal Servers).
Near as anyone I know can tell, there's no way to legitimat
real ugly truth (Score:4, Insightful)
, the ugly truth may be that they can't.
Well, no, not in your crappy backwater country, and not with some locked down hardware like an ipad. But in more sensible and advanced societies like, er, China, these kinds of things are readily available, and cheaper too.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
China, these kinds of things are readily available, and cheaper too.
Despite your trolling, you're right.
You can get Windows easier and cheaper in China even if it's streaming.
It's a lot easier to do things when you ignore patents and licenses.
Re: (Score:2)
Would that be the advanced society where Nobel Laureat Liu Xiaobo is still detained without charges, and his wife remains under house arrest?
Or where you can be held for 2 years, legally, with no charges filed?
Re:real ugly truth (Score:4, Insightful)
False dichotomy.
Re: (Score:2)
Strawman.
The GP isn't making the claim that his country's and China's are the only two systems under which it is possible to exist. The GP merely indicates a preference for one over the other.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
As messed up as our copyright and patent laws are
Stop. End of line. Thanks.
In China, human beings are largely regarded as disposable cattle
The United States was booted off the UN human rights committee and replaced by China out of its unwillingness to address fundamental problems like having the highest incarceration rate of any UN member nation, no journalist shield laws, carrying out a forced sterilization program on its citizens, and for numerous actions that are against the Geneva convention such as the torture of political prisoners and secret courts where people are indefinately detained or even executed.
I'll much happier put up with my government instituting silly policies like not allowing ripping of a DVD,
Under c
Re:real ugly truth (Score:5, Informative)
Source? According to the Human Rights Council's website [ohchr.org], the US and China are both current members.
Also, although the US has no federal shield laws for journalists, most states do (and I really doubt China has any).
Clearly the US government has committed human-rights abuses, but are you seriously arguing that China has a better record on human rights than the US?
Re: (Score:2)
Um, we dont have a forced sterilization program here. We also dont have the government declaring that you may not have more than 1 child, lest you be fined (or worse).
and for numerous actions that are against the Geneva convention such as the torture of political prisoners and secret courts where people are indefinately detained or even executed.
And obviously China does none of this. Are you aware how many [amnestyusa.org] human rights issues there are in China?
Lets give you some perspective. If you were a chinese citizen and became a Christian, you could be arrested if you talked to anyone about it outside of a state church. If your friends tweeted about your arrest, they would likely be detained
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Um, we dont have a forced sterilization program here.
You did until about the start of the eighties. The US was actually one of the first countries to adopt forced sterilization programs and kind of kick-started the whole eugenics movement. (Also, you know who else was in favour of eugenics and forced sterilization? Winston Churchill.)
Re: (Score:3)
There are still many women alive today in the US who were forcibly sterilized as part of these programs.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
They come out with a lot of ingenuity by cloning the tech from others, re-branding it, and selling it in the internal marketplace.
EC2 (Score:3)
If Amazon EC2 can license Windows, surely OnLive can. Microsoft won't turn down an opportunity to make more money.
Re:EC2 (Score:4, Informative)
I agree with you except the issue is Windows 7.. MS offers licences for things like EC2 and SPLA for Server OS and software - but not for Windows 7 desktop OS.. the fact that Onlive provides a Windows 7 interface over a 2008R2 is what is odd and likely to cause them problems.
Cyber Cafe (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
the pc's are licensed and it's local. They are not renting out a VM feed over the web.
Re:Cyber Cafe (Score:4, Interesting)
Windows desktop operating system and Microsoft Office system licenses do not permit renting, leasing, or outsourcing the software to a third party. As a result, many organizations that rent, lease, or outsource desktop PCs to third parties (such as Internet cafés, hotel and airport kiosks, business service centers, and office equipment leasing companies) are not in compliance with Microsoft license requirements. Rental Rights are a simple way for organizations to get a waiver of these licensing restrictions through a one-time license transaction valid for the term of the underlying software license or life of the PC.
Nevermind I looked it up at https://partner.microsoft.com/40104043 [microsoft.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
How is Amazon doing it then? (Score:3)
TFA:
> The Windows 7 desktop just plain can’t be rented
I guess it's not precisely Windows 7, but I seem to be able to rent full Windows instances from EC2 for .12 / hour.
Onlive still works ? (Score:4, Insightful)
I still don't quite understand OnLive's business model, or why anyone would go for it. I know how it works, they render everything server-side and send you compressed video - fine. The roundtrip latency is probably not all that bad, as long as you have a short route to the server. I'm fine with the technical aspects, but what about the money ? It seems to me like the only way they can make a buck is via mass pirating.
Those servers can't be cheap, each one is basically a mid-range gaming rig with a hardware video encoder, and can only serve one user at a time. Each needs a copy of the OS and games. You're basically renting access to a $1000+ gaming rig, plus bandwidth. Sure, the benefit is that just about any internet-connected device can now "play" PC games, but how does OnLive turn a profit ? Do they pool the game licenses so they only need as many paid keys as there are simultaneous players ? Or is this like all those ridiculous startups from the dot-com bust, where they spend fucktons of VC money and die a horribly quick death ?
Don't get me wrong, I like the technical merits of OnLive. Even as we said "this will never work", well surprise: it works amazingly well for many people. I just can't see how they can deliver this without charging fucktons of money for the privilege.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Umm, because the free access is offered "as available", which basically means that it's a loss-leader, get people to start using it, as the use goes up, the availability of the free sessions become less, then the people who really want this (and I personally know a few) will start paying for it, and "viola!", you've got a business model.
It doesn't seem all THAT mysterious to me, but maybe I'm missing something.
-AC
Where is onlive hosting? (Score:3, Insightful)
Most of the "you are not allowed to rent some software" licenses are invalid in many countries. So if they are hosting outside of US, it may be just okay.
Speaking as an ex-OnLive employee (Score:3)
Disclaimer: I worked there for two years, though I haven't been with OnLive since early 2010 (before the OnLive Desktop). I do not hold any OnLive or Microsoft stock at this time, and therefore don't have a horse in this race. It's just amusing to watch.
Something to consider. Steve Perlman, their CEO, was also the CEO of WebTV, which was sold to Microsoft. He knows the Microsoft execs at the highest level, and has a good business relationship with them. He also isn't stupid. I know that it's trendy to be cynical and hipster-esque about these things, and that it generates page views (and revenue from advertising, hence the motivation for TFA to appear as it did) to make this sort of speculation, but common sense dictates that no company of OnLive's size would do something as blatant and as public as wholesale commercial piracy. There is far too much to lose and very little to gain. In fact, one of OnLive's messages to software publishers is "software installed on OnLive cannot be pirated, because there is no external access to the binaries". Short of a hack that allows access to the back-end servers, you can no more pirate an app from OnLive than you can pirate AutoCAD by taking a photograph of the box. In that context, does any of TFA make sense?
In fact, the entire article seems to come down to "I, random bloggy guy with zero personal access to what's actually happening, am not aware of a licensing program that fits, therefore such a licensing program does NOT exist, and CANNOT exist. I'm not smart enough or educated enough or informed enough know how it works, therefore it cannot work." Pretty thin, if you ask me.
I do not have firsthand knowledge of this, but I know the people involved, at least on the OnLive side. They're not PirateBay; they are thoughtful people who are aware of the consequences of their actions and who want good business relationships with software publishers (including Microsoft). I think it is very likely that there is a deal in place which might not be a boilerplate license. It is also possible that such a license is part of a larger framework.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
Ah, so you're a Fedora man then!
Re: (Score:2)
who really shives a git about Microsoft?
Most of the business work. The PC gaming world.
A lot of people.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
If they don't know it's dead, it isn't dead.
Re:Who shives a git!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyone who needs to run Windows-exclusive apps.
In other words, most businesses and their employees.
I would argue quite the opposite, most business and employees actually only need a small subset of the features that Microsoft's products have, and most of these features have been replicated or improved upon by free software.
Especially where Office is concerned.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Who shives a git!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
No open source software that I've seen handles docx halfway as well as Word 2007 and Word 2010. "Good enough", as in "this wordprocessing software is good enough for almost all needs" is a given, but that's not really the question. You're talking about sixteen or seventeen years of Office dominance here, coupled with Exchange. Do you understand the manpower that would be required to convert a large company from Office-Exchange to something else (assuming that something else was in fact an improvement in any real sense).
I'll concede right now that I loath Exchange. I hate it. I hate everything about. I hate how brittle aspects of it are, the bizarre dependencies with other systems like IIS which means if .NET/ASP takes a nosedive, your clients suddenly find out they've lost a whole lot of functionality. Believe me, I've had many sleepless nights over Windows because it's seemingly easy configurations are filled with pitfalls. I love the *nix world where you can got "cp worldsmostimportant.conf worldsmostimportant.conf.bak" and muck around to my hearts content with the config, knowing I can pretty much wipe out any changes by inverting the command and restarting the daemon. At heart, I'm a *nix man and have been for over two decades. I fit *nix and open source solutions in wherever I can.
But at the end of the day, my boss and my coworkers are expecting to walk in, log on to their Windows workstation, start up Outlook, work on their budget in Excel and read the latest business requirements documentation in Word. I hand them Zimbra and LibreOffice, and it's going to be nasty. Eventually I might calm the waters, but then someone is inevitably going to get some Word 2010 document with wild formatting and it's going to open up in LibreOffice like the dog just puked on the screen, and then I'm going to get demands for solutions, and the only solution is going to be "I guess we should have Word on there."
In the long term, Microsoft's dominance even in the business world will begin to wane, no doubt about it. As more tablets and smartphones make their way in, and the requirements of more open document standards and protocols become clear, things will change. But until then, and as ugly as it sometimes is, in the big world, Exchange-Office are still way ahead.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Who shives a git!!! (Score:4, Informative)
Linux printing is easy and has been for some time. Ditto scanning. There are a few unsupported printers, but they're the real cheap pieces of shit.
Re:Who shives a git!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
Though MM may in fact use *nix solutions as stated, I find the opening line of that post is disingenuous as worded, so I've edited it here to make it more obvious what is being said:
No open source software that I've seen handles the Microsoft proprietary format docx halfway as well as the Microsoft native applications for the format, Word 2007 and Word 2010.
Bolding mine, to point out the obvious deficiencies of that argument.
User eldorel is right, even if the pro-MS crowd doesn't like to admit it.
most business and employees actually only need a small subset of the features that Microsoft's products have, and most of these features have been replicated or improved upon by free software.
Especially where Office is concerned.
It has been widely touted that Office 07 and 10 both have support for ODF, though from what I've read in articles I understand it to be better implemented in 10. As a true cross-platform, cross-app standard, perhaps a "professional" IT person relied upon by otherwise unknowing end users might suggest that their company begin using *that* as the way in which to author and save their documents. Doing so just might create a result better than "the dog just puked on the screen" when a document happens to be opened by someone using a different brand of the same type of application. That's the whole point of the thing, really, isn't it? So why should we not support that, for the sake of our end users? In order to promote/prop up the MS hegemony? Not a good idea, from where I sit.
Re:Who shives a git!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Though MM may in fact use *nix solutions as stated, I find the opening line of that post is disingenuous as worded, so I've edited it here to make it more obvious what is being said:
No open source software that I've seen handles the Microsoft proprietary format docx halfway as well as the Microsoft native applications for the format, Word 2007 and Word 2010.
Bolding mine, to point out the obvious deficiencies of that argument.
I agree that your alteration makes his point clearer (although I'm unsure it was really necessary), but I'm not sure it's as much to the argument's detriment as you think. I'm probably going to come off as a Microsoft fanboy here, but so be it.
The reminder must be made that companies both create a legacy of existing files, and must use files by other companies. If you were to flick a magic switch, today, and have all your users understand a new suite of office applications and religiously save into an open format, you would in no way have solved your problems. Their blissful glee at being able to do what they were already doing but in a slightly different way would last until the moment they tried to open an existing file, or one from an external source, that "doesn't look right". And yes, I know I'm going over the same old points that get made, but I'd argue that 1) they're unfortunately still relevant, and 2) with respect, your own points aren't new either.
One additional aspect that usually gets skipped over is Microsoft Access. Yes yes, toy database, shouldn't be used in business etc etc, but we all know it does. I don't believe, and please correct me if I'm wrong because I haven't checked in a year or two, that any of the open source suites can attempt to open .mdb files. There are now open source Access-like systems to create databases, but again, what do you do about the legacy information? With databases, it's even more likely that these may be currently used, critical files.
As you've said, the starting point is probably to begin using the open document formats in Microsoft products, until all the documents made with older formats are simply not relevant anymore; for my part, our company has only migrated a few users to a version of Office new enough to *have* those formats, so I'm stuck with .doc whether I like it or not. In the end though, it's rather amusing to consider that if, one day, we find ourselves in a situation where the majority of files are created in an open format and switching to an open office suite is easy, it's likely because Microsoft bridged the gap this way.
Re:Who shives a git!!! (Score:4, Interesting)
As far as then having compatibility differences with documents from other companies, that is understandable/not unreasonable to expect. Some sort of educational campaign would come in handy to make this an eventual non-issue; like along the lines of what Firefox did with a full-page ad in the NYT back in '04. I don't know by what metric you could determine how much an effect that ad had in FFox eventually shouldering aside IE, but I am fairly certain that it did help in a major way, if only to shine a very public light for a day on FFox as an alternative to the lack of concern MS evinced with updating their browser. If a campaign of education and information were to come about so that the document compatibility issue became - for a short while at least - a topic of broad discussion, perhaps the cross-x concern would be lessened. I don't see how cross-company, cross-platform, cross-app compatibility could be viewed as a "bad thing" to implement by anyone, especially not when it is as simple as changing a single default setting in your already-existing software. Yes, there will be a transitional period, but there always is, even from
Your last point is a good one, and ironically amusing. Thanks for the civil discourse.
Re: (Score:3)
Saddly it will be a while before we get rid of docx, not because libreoffice writer isn't ready (with odt documents it is) but because docx is the standard format for the majority and whilst the alternatives can't support it, it is basicly imposible to trans
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
You mean like ANY HP printer, which is mostly what is in all offices.
HP laser printers dominate the office. and if the IT department was not ran by morons, the other wierd off brands will have a Postscript option. Like the Xerox copiers you can print to.
Only low end garbage inkjets have problems printing. I can even print to Designjet's on C size paper.
Re:Who shives a git!!! (Score:4, Interesting)
I migrated 80 people from Exchange to Google Apps, Office to LibreOffice, etc. It can be done, you just need support from management.
Outlook? Web-based Google Apps mail. Calendar? Same thing. Office? LibreOffice. The only internal servers we have left are 2 AD servers and a fileserver; I plan on moving that to Box.net/Dropbox/Gdrive at some point.
Re: (Score:2)
In other words your pushing it out on to the cloud, which is fine when the solution is available. It's not in our case due to legal considerations, and beyond that Google Apps has a long ways to go before it's reasonably decent at handling complex documents.
I suspect your requirements are very modest indeed.
Re: (Score:3)
"Legal considerations" as in major contract strictly prohibits using Google, and while .doc support is at a reasonable level, .docx support just plain sucks.
Re: (Score:2)
Ok, so you have a contract with someone who specifically prohibits using Google. Most other businesses are not this short sighted.
Re: (Score:2)
How about a contract that specifically prohibits entrusting all your sensitive information to a third party whos primary business is advertising and owes you nothing?
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, maybe your client may say Google is okay if you asked, but that's gonna make the procedure god damn complicated because the client is also going to ask their lawyers, management, and whomever that needs to be alerted that the data will be shared with somebody else even if it is Google or whomever. The problem isn't that you can't trust Google - it is because adding another party into the contract will increase the complexity of any contract. (e.g., if Google somehow gets screwed and leaks the data, wh
Re: (Score:2)
I'd wager you'd be hard pressed to find a doc LibreOffice can't open that Office 2003/2007/2010 created.
I have. And it really bugs me.
I use LO where possible for my business stuff, which is to say almost all of it. Occasionally, I receive a contract as a word doc with auto-numbering which LO doesn't open properly (the numbering is wrong). So, keep a VM around just for a rarely used copy of word.
I keep meaning to send a minimal example in as a bug report.
Re: (Score:2)
Don't confuse needless complexity with complexity. I'd wager you'd be hard pressed to find a doc LibreOffice can't open that Office 2003/2007/2010 created
^Any docx (default office 2010, 2007 format) document with images (all in the wrong place) in it or that uses complex styles.
I would note that 90% of the time LibreOffice can open odt documents saved in office correctly though.
I know how I use office, and (Score:2)
I know what a PITA my most fav program is
here's a quote I found in about 4 seconds via google and site:libreoffice.org
"Opening MS Publisher files: Probably will never be implemented - not even other products by MS can open them. "
Re: (Score:2)
(not trolling, legitimately curious)
Re: (Score:2)
I find Google Docs to be no where near as good as LibreOffice. I can show employees LibreOffice, and almost all are up and running as if it was Office same day. Google Docs simply lacks a large amount of functionality in comparison to Office and LibreOffice.
You'd think Google would've spent more time refining Docs to be a more worthy Office competitor.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm honestly curious as to what experiences you've had with Zimbra not working well as an Exchange replacement. The OSS edition is fine as a web-based mail client, but the Enterprise edition with all the Outlook connectors and seamless integration with IOS/Android is mightily impressive.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Damn, my moderator points expired yesterday. Spot on, and true.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, looking at all the software I have installed at work, 100% of it either has shitty or no open source and/or Linux equivalent (exempting Windows itself from this assertion).
Re: (Score:2)
Very true. Most of our staff of 80 people get by with Chrome and LibreOffice. This excludes developers (Visual Studio) and Production folk (Adobe Creative Suite). The developers are all using Visual Studio through Win2k8 Remote Desktop services on their Macbooks, and we're working towards having them develop completely in browser-based IDEs. We eventually plan on having only Windows on the server side (SQL server, CruiseControl CI autobuild environment).
Yeah, you're going to be able to phase Microsoft out o
Re:Who shives a git!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
The developers are all using Visual Studio through Win2k8 Remote Desktop services on their Macbooks, and we're working towards having them develop completely in browser-based IDEs. We eventually plan on having only Windows on the server side (SQL server, CruiseControl CI autobuild environment).
Mind explaining why? Serious question... because it sounds like you're deliberately setting yourselves up to ensure that you have the worst of all possible worlds. Buying employees MacBooks so they can access Windows-only software through Remote Desktop, just by itself, sounds like madness. And yet if you really don't want to have a Windows-centric environment, one would think the servers would be the first thing to go off Windows. Is there anything in your whole environment that you haven't managed to kluge, hobble, or overspend on?
Re:Who shives a git!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously with Ubuntu Linux finally showing some decent polish and usability (yes yes I am referring to Unity which I have gotten used to) and OSX also available who really shives a git about Microsoft?
Anyone who needs to run Windows-exclusive apps.
In other words, most businesses and their employees.
Don't forget anyone who wants to play recent video games.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
.... You don't care about being able to use the CLI.... You have Windows and Apple's OS.
Er... Apple's OS has a very nice CLI, actually, it's called Bash. Windows shell is a bit weak, but there are pretty popular work-arounds (cygwin).
Re:Who shives a git!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Powershell runs circles around bash.
Please provide detailed examples of various problem sets that support this claim. I am genuinely intrigued, and would be delighted to analyze your response and potentially provide counterexamples. Please keep in mind the Unix philosophy of breaking tasks into smaller units (with strong integration of inputs and outputs from other units), as opposed to the typical Microsoft mentality of attempting to do everything in one place or very few places.
I've got some buddies who were once quite active in the shell d
Re: (Score:3)
Powershell runs circles around bash.
I love this: a bald statement of opinion offering no insight whatsoever gets modded to +4 insightful.
PS and BASH are different. They share some common ground. The objects in PS make it more robust in a number of ways, but that comes at the expense of having to deal with the objects properly. What people often forget in these comparisons is that the shells are also a user interface, not just a scripting system.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Great! I'm sure Microsoft would be pleased to have another user!
They once said if someone pirates software, they want it to be their software that is pirated. You're just furthering their control.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Are you sucking my frosty piss (Score:5, Funny)
and will you swallow? YES and YES!
Not sure why parent was modded down... that's straight from a MS EULA.