Microsoft now says "It Loves Open Source"

[PhilT]

This is an interesting read - at least, I thought so.

The trouble is, I'm so jaded in my views about M$S that I tend to be suspicious of such reports about change of heart. But, maybe, just maybe, the slow decline in M$S position is forcing a change of perspective at Redmond? But somehow, I can't bring myself to believe that Steve Balmer has had an epiphany.

I wonder what more knowledgeable folks feel? Has Oracle now become the enemy?

http://www.networkworld.com/news/201...ce.html?page=1

[GreyGeek]

Re: Microsoft now says "It Loves Open Source"

They are playing with words and misconceptions in an attempt to redefine "Open Source".

"We love open source," says Jean Paoli of Microsoft in a recent interview with Network World. "We have worked with open source for a long time now."

The mistake of equating all open source technology with Linux was "really very early on," Paoli says. "That was really a long time ago," he says. "We understand our mistake."

Paoli is the general manager of Microsoft's interoperability strategy team, which touches on some open source issues. A Microsoft veteran of 14 years, Paoli is also the co-creator of the XML specification.

While Microsoft may "love" ITS version of "Open Source" it still hates Linux. And, as the article points out, it is still using it monetary and legal clout to EXTORT license payments from financially weaker users of GPL software. Novell gave Microsoft the idea for having FOSS vendors and users paying Royalties to Microsoft for using Linux and GPL apps when it agreed to pay Microsoft a ROYALTY for every copy of SUSE Enterprise Linux Server that it sold:

Under the patent cooperation agreement, both companies will make upfront payments in exchange for a release from any potential liability for use of each other's patented intellectual property, with a net balancing payment from Microsoft to Novell reflecting the larger applicable volume of Microsoft’s product shipments. Novell will also make running royalty payments based on a percentage of its revenues from open source products.

For signing the deal Microsoft gave Novell $348 MILLION upfront, which kept it afloat. Microsoft "buys coupons" from Novell on a regular basis to keep Novell afloat, just the way it bought "additional" Unix licenses from SCO, even though it had purchased a FULL Unix license for perpetuity a few years earlier. These "coupons" are given to Microsoft clients who also happen to run RedHat and other Linux servers in their networks so they can replace RH with a free copy of SELS. Why is that important to Microsoft? Because, unlike RH servers, SELS servers are configured never to be "Preferred Master Browsers" or network controller servers, so an SELS server can be brought down and replaced with a Microsoft server with little trouble.

By the way, the agreement is for Novell to pay a ROYALTY to Microsoft for revenues from OPEN SOURCE PRODUCTS. The implication is that Microsoft OWNS ALL Open Source products. Why the FSF, or RH or any other FOSS based business hasn't challenged that in court, or the FEDs haven't investigated that claim is a mystery that supports the notion that our legal system is totally broken. You write code and put it under the GPL. Novell puts that code into SELS and sells a copy. They pay Microsoft a royalty for code you wrote, which implies that Microsoft now owns it. How does that get by? Simply because the big pockets own the courts and the law in this country, even to the point that they instruct law officers in how when and what to do. Apple tells the police what to do, BP tells the Coast Guard what to do and controls access to the Gulf like it is their personal property. Not even the FEDs defy BP in that regard.

Microsoft embraces "mixed IT."

But Paoli says Microsoft recognizes that its customers use a mix of proprietary and open source technologies.

Microsoft has released some technology under its own open source license (the "Microsoft Public License"), such as IronRuby, which integrates .Net code with the Ruby programming language.

Here is how Microsoft embraces "mixed IT" in the European Union.

They released "IronPython" under their MPL too, but few Python coders took the bait and Microsoft recently canceled IronPython. I predict that FOSS Ruby programmers will not put their foot into Microsoft FOSS trap either, and IronRuby will be canceled as well. Now, just consider how many people and organizations moved to IronPython and have invested considerable time and code into using it. Now they will have to repeat their expenditure of time, money and code in another tool. That was, IMO, the entire purpose of IronPython. IronRuby users from the FOSS tradition would do well to keep IronPython in mind.

Microsoft's attitude and actions toward Linux and FOSS has not changed on bit. This is just a PR piece to spread disinformation.

Oracle? It has ALWAYS been Ellison's vehicle for acquiring mansions, yachts and jet fighters. His hook is the fact that so many Oracle users, especially state and federal agencies, have now got so much of their data tied up in and dependent on Oracle's db and PL\SQL syntax that it is financially impossible for them to move to a FOSS database like PostgreSQL. The moral there is to adopt PostgreSQL from the start of your next db project. The last I heard, IIRC, the agency I was working for paid $30,000 per CPU per year for their Oracle DB and "support". All total, about $250K/year. That was just one agency out of more than a dozen. That was 5 years ago. The State could be paying as much as $3 Million/year in Oracle licenses, and we are now $700M in tax shortfalls. It's like California, too broke to pay its teachers but it pays $576 M for a new high school with a front entrance that looks like that Taj Mahal's.

[MoonRise]

Re: Microsoft now says "It Loves Open Source"

Thanks GG! Nice read.

[zlow]

Re: Microsoft now says "It Loves Open Source"

This is an interesting read - at least, I thought so.

The trouble is, I'm so jaded in my views about M$S that I tend to be suspicious of such reports about change of heart. But, maybe, just maybe, the slow decline in M$S position is forcing a change of perspective at Redmond? But somehow, I can't bring myself to believe that Steve Balmer has had an epiphany.

I wonder what more knowledgeable folks feel? Has Oracle now become the enemy?

http://www.networkworld.com/news/201...ce.html?page=1

I think that 9 years is a long time to hold a grudge, and we need to be the grown ups here and accept that they may be willing to work with the open source community. They have done a lot to show that they are willing to work with and in some cases even partner with open source projects.

Remember, "Linux" isn't the definition for open source, it is just the project with the most visibility today. Tomorrow it could be a completely different open source project. Linux distributions are also competition for Microsoft, and while I wouldn't go so far as to say that they (Microsoft) no longer do anything that anyone would consider "evil", I think that it would be a mistake to immediately dismiss what at face value appears to be a desire to become a good corporate citizen.

[MoonRise]

Re: Microsoft now says "It Loves Open Source"

Time will tell!

[GreyGeek]

Re: Microsoft now says "It Loves Open Source"

Yup. This is one area where zlow and I agree to disagree.

When I think of Linux and Microsoft the parable of the Frog and the Scorpion comes to mind. Doing everything they can to destroy their competition, as the "Technical Evangelist" revelations by James Plamondon so aptly show, is in their corporate DNA. Nothing they have said or done to date has even suggested or hinted that they have had a mutational change. The content of the OP demonstrates that when it tries to widen the gulf between "Open Source" and Linux, as if the two were mutually exclusive. It is the same approach they used with their Novell agreement in which they separated FOSS from the GPL by creating a dichotomy in it which didn't exist: anyone who contributes GPL code to SUSE that ends up in SELS is given immunity from a potential MS IP lawsuit (because Novell pays a royalty to MS for it), but those whose contributions to SUSE do not end up in SELS are under threat of a lawsuit. The GPL does not make such a distinction. MS has also threatened OpenOffice with lawsuits.

All MS has to do to convenience me that they are sincere in their new love of Open Source is to renounce forever their threats against FOSS/GPL coders whose code doesn't end up in SELS, and their threats against OpenOffice. Another nice place to start would be to renounce their CLAIM that 235 of their unnamed patents are violated by Linux.

[blobfish]

Re: Microsoft now says "It Loves Open Source"

http://www.networkworld.com/news/201...ce.html?page=2

It submitted driver source code for inclusion in the Linux kernel, with the intention of providing "the hooks for any distribution of Linux to run on Windows Server 2008 and its Hyper-V hypervisor technology,"

Are there experienced admins that would do this? setup linux to run as a guest operating system on a microsoft virtual machine host? I can hear it now....."we tried linux but it was real buggy and always crashed, so we just went with an all microsoft stack."

[GreyGeek]

Re: Microsoft now says "It Loves Open Source"

Which would you consider safer: Running Windows in a VM on Linux, or running Linux in a VM on Windows?

Yesterday one of the people I support (who is running Mandriva 2008 and hasn't needed called me since it was installed two years ago) called and said his Mandriva had been hacked and it was behaving weird.
"No it hasn't", I replied. "You're running Windows aren't you!".
Long silence.
"Yes". He was using Windows as a guest OS to run a Windows centric chat service.
"It's your Windows VM that is behaving weirdly, isn't it!"
"Yes".
"How do you know your Windows was hacked?"
"Because RoadRunner sent me an email that said my computer was sending out spam and they've suspended my account for 24 hours. They recommended that I completely reinstall Windows. I only use Windows to chat and spend most of my time in Linux, so I assumed it was Linux that was hacked".
"Bring your laptop over and I'll check it out."
"Ok"


When I fired up his Mandriva I found that it was reporting bad blocks, which I fixed. The boot counter had been turned off so no checking was being done. I turned it on. The next boot was fine and he said "Mandriva has not booted up that fast in months!" I went into the Mandriva Control Center to see if anything needed upgrading, just to be sure he had the latest security updates, and found that the 2008 repository was no longer functional. I watched the ports with netstat for a while and saw nothing unusual so, I downloaded an RKHunter RPM from a secured source and installed it. It found nothing.

I logged into the Windows XP VM. About 6-8 minutes later I had a "working" desktop. Immediately unusually high network activity began. I dropped the network connection and began a cursory exploration. The AVG av app was old and no longer updated with the latest DAT files. There were several svhost.exe files in unusual places. But, I didn't want to waste time cleaning a Windows system. I closed it down and got back to Mandriva.

"It's obvious that you do not have the skill or persistence to keep your Windows guest OS from being infected, which is why you had me install Linux on your laptop in the first place. Mandriva as a distro is in trouble and I suggest you switch to one that will be around for a while."

"What are you running?"

"I run Kubuntu 10.4 with the KDE 4.5 desktop. It will be supported for 3 years."

"Ok, let's install that".

"And, not reinstall XP as a guest OS."

"Ok"

It turned out that his Toshiba A135 didn't have the ability to boot from a USB stick so I stuck my Kubuntu 10.4 LiveCD into his CDROM. It wouldn't boot. It can play audio CDs and video DVDs but it wouldn't boot a LiveCD. A replacement DVD/CD will cost him between $78-115 and, fortunately, it is easy to replace. Take the cover off of the RAM chips, remove a screw, push the DVD out and plug in the new, reinsert the screw. Put the cover back on. Then install Kubuntu 10.4. and use empathy for Yahoo chats, instead of an XP VM.

Oh, TimeWarner turned his account back on this afternoon.

[MoonRise]

Re: Microsoft now says "It Loves Open Source"

Recently had to clean a person's son's machine. Boy was that thing messed up and it was Vista! Unfortunately his parents had him as Administrator and their account as users. I have my tools to get into a system outside of the main boot process. Found some of the startup viruses and started my manual clean. Not easy, but to me more effective as you remove pieces of a virus it does try to "rebuild" and you can start to track where it is going. It's cleaned. I even installed MS Security Essentials. To me, something is better than nothing. Auto-updates is on as well so hopefully they are better off than they were.

[zlow]

Re: Microsoft now says "It Loves Open Source"

http://www.networkworld.com/news/201...ce.html?page=2

It submitted driver source code for inclusion in the Linux kernel, with the intention of providing "the hooks for any distribution of Linux to run on Windows Server 2008 and its Hyper-V hypervisor technology,"

Are there experienced admins that would do this? setup linux to run as a guest operating system on a microsoft virtual machine host? I can hear it now....."we tried linux but it was real buggy and always crashed, so we just went with an all microsoft stack."

Yes there are, though I wouldn't. There are a few companies out there that are really very Windows centric, and looking at Hyper-V. For those companies, the ability to run a few disparate Linux machines in a VM is very handy.

[zlow]

Re: Microsoft now says "It Loves Open Source"

Which would you consider safer: Running Windows in a VM on Linux, or running Linux in a VM on Windows?

It depends on what you expect the VM to do, and whom is managing it. My preference would be to run Windows and Linux VMs on ESXi (which is no longer Linux based). It all boils down to the question of who is managing the infrastructure? If it is a team of MCSEs with no Linux experience and they bring in an off the shelf appliance VM (sendmail for example) it may make more sense to run it under a Hyper-V VM.

[dibl]

Re: Microsoft now says "It Loves Open Source"

I'm nowhere near as knowledgeable as you guys, on security and virus-chasing, but I've been using a Windows VM on my Linux systems very successfully for 3 or 4 years now, on multiple computers. I never use the VM for e-mail or chat or browsing (except to test a particular web site), and using it that way, I've found it perfectly reliable, with no AV or other anti-malware protection. This goes for both Win XP, and now Win 7.

Once, for amusement, I took a clean new Win XP VM (backed up, of course, but not even updated), and launched Internet Explorer, and googled for a random porn site. I browsed to the first one that came up, and started clicking every link I saw. That Win XP VM lasted about 2.5 minutes, before it was absolutely locked up with malware and IE exploits of who-knows-what kind. Totally trashed it -- couldn't even Ctrl-Alt-Delete to the Task Manager to shut stuff down. It was quite a little demonstration of what would happen to an unprotected Windows OS with reckless browsing.

[Yuri sss]

Re: Microsoft now says "It Loves Open Source"

Just some more MS propaganda. They obviously feel that public opinion about them is getting worse and worse (deservedly so), thus they tried some publicity stunt to improve their image.

Example:

In 2010 Microsoft is trying hard not to be public enemy No. 1 to open source proponents, in some cases by making key contributions to open source code and in other cases by making Microsoft products interoperable with open source software.

Absolutely laughable. The only reason they're starting to give up their lock-in strategies and are making their stuff interoperable is because they are forced to do it by court orders.

[PhilT]

Re: Microsoft now says "It Loves Open Source"

Thanks for all the comments, guys. I have to say, it makes me feel quite inadequate to see how much knowledge you need before you can really understand and make meaningful judgments about articles like the one I referred to in my original post. It's rather sad how easy it seems to be for M$S "evangelists" to make claims which do not really stand up to proper investigation by people who understand the minutiae.

It's a pity though ... one keeps hoping the greedy big corporates could ease off their grasping ways.

That said, it makes all the more sense to stick with Kubuntu. I've been "here" since Breeezy days (when I converted from Mandriva) and I have never had a virus or malware problem. I used to run a virus checker to make sure I never transmitted any viruses to Windows users in email attachments, but I ceased that about 6 months ago. I use XP (VERY occasionally, maybe twice a month) inside VirtualBox - but only for internal use - never for web-browsing; the only problem has been all the crap that creeps in from the MS site when the Windows updater is run. Maybe, for a laugh, I'll run a DIBL random-porn check to see how long it lasts doing that!

I must be an idealist -I just keep hoping things will get better!

[MoonRise]

Re: Microsoft now says "It Loves Open Source"

@Dibl
Interesting test there.