Microsoft Loves Linux, and Open Source. We know this because the press is telling us this almost every day.
The TechRights Blog, and writer Dr. Roy Schestowitz, explains that this is part of the Microsoft master plan. Just when you thought Embrace, Extend, Extinguish was going away, the article explains the multi-prong attack that Microsoft is quietly working in the background. And they are relying heavily on their friends in the press. Microsoft has always had its share of shills in the press, but, with the focus on Google Android and Apple its quietly become less of a Journalist career killer to be openly Pro Microsoft. Schestowitz explains the attack as killing Linux Softly with APIs and the lock-ins they bring as more Microsoft packages and services are ported to Linux, and by getting appointments to key Linux Foundation subcommittees, by slinging dollars and software contributions.
By becoming financially dependent on Microsoft partners like Nokia and Intel (Wintel) the Linux Foundation lost its ability to antagonize rivals and it might not be long before the Linux Foundation silently tells Torvalds not to denounce Microsoft because of his new senior colleagues from there and because “Microsoft loves Linux”, according to Microsoft. As we have shown before, several Linux Foundation sub-committees are having heads appointed to them from Microsoft (Neela, Ramji and more). It is like a coup in slow motion as we are gradually witnesses more of its impact.
In the area of cloud services, for storage, virtual machine platforms, communications - skype and email, Microsoft is moving slowly but steadily into the Linux world.
And of course we've already discussed Microsoft's Trojan Horse attack on Android via their $70 Million dollar investment in Cyanogen.
The press seems to be lapping it up, because Google has now become the company to hate, and many of the Journalist starting out today don't remember the never ending supply of dirty tricks used in the past.
I recommend you read the long-ish article, or at least scan its major points. It may explain why you will be seeing more and more stories about a company you had come to believe was irrelevant. [Corrected at 17:54 UTC]
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Google's biggest competitor in the smartphone arena isn't Apple's iOS, which commands less than 15% of the global market. Google's certified OHA version of Android still leads with 65%, but Open Source versions of Android are at 20% and growing faster than any other mobile OS.
Now, according the The Wall Street Journal, Microsoft is joining other parties to invest around $70 million in the celebrated Open Source Android vendor Cyanogen. Kirt McMaster, Cyanogen’s chief executive said in an interview last week “We’re going to take Android away from Google”, and it appears that Microsoft is determined to help with the separation.
Why Microsoft would choose to invest in Android is unclear, but they have little to lose in the mobile phone market, with WP8.1 less than 2% of the market and falling last year.
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/01/29/microsoft-to-invest-in-rogue-android-startup-cyanogen/
Ars Technica also has coverage.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Marneus68 on Monday February 23 2015, @03:13PM
Yeah, nice PR indeed, they love Linux as long as their customers don't plan to move to it too seriously.
SecureBoot doesn't sound like a love letter to me.
I know this isn't exactly on point, but that's something I am faced with as a customer buying new machines.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 23 2015, @03:44PM
I will believe they 'love' linux when I see SQL Server and Office offered for a debian/redhat install.
Until then at least they are open sourcing decent portions of their stack?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 24 2015, @02:25PM
But isn't that exactly what this article is talking about? Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.
First port MS SQL Server to Linux. Then let Poettering do what he does best. The next version of Redhat and Ubuntu will be running the new version of systemd, which requires a MS-SQL Server Enterprise version.
See who you'll be paying for Client Access Licenses for your Ubuntu servers then.
(Score: 4, Funny) by c0lo on Monday February 23 2015, @09:11PM
How politely put. Let me try to get blunt:
Microsoft loves Linux the same way a pedo loves kids
(normal people doesn't call it love but grooming)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 23 2015, @03:17PM
02.21.15
Microsoft AstroTurfing War on GNU/Linux is Still Going On, But Hidden Better, Uses API as Instrument of Lock-in
Posted in Deception, Free/Libre Software, GNU/Linux, Microsoft at 12:18 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 23 2015, @03:19PM
Weird... I clicked the same link twice, got an error page the first time and the article the second time.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Monday February 23 2015, @03:20PM
(Score: 4, Interesting) by ikanreed on Monday February 23 2015, @03:18PM
Rather than the skepticism towards the claim that Microsoft is making here, I'm going to guess they're sincere, because they have very little idea what's appropriate in today's ecosystem.
The server world has been eaten(and continues to be eaten) by Linux. If they want to target server environments, and keep their existing corporate developer base, they need their platforms to work there.
They lost the mobile world to Apple and Google. That demands that they work with those environments for their big user applications. And the only reason people still work on desktops is the keyboard(and gaming). That's a tough sell.
That all means to me that when Microsoft flails around and makes big promises, it's because they're hoping for any strategy that will result in non-falling user bases.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by janrinok on Monday February 23 2015, @03:26PM
Or perhaps they hope that in the future they can start some kind of legal battle which will drag Linux down, and they can then regain lost ground? (I confess that I keep my tinfoil hat fairly tightly on my head - but you cannot blame me for that.)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ikanreed on Monday February 23 2015, @03:41PM
Legal battle with whom?
The legal aspects of the kernel are well taken care of. The core repository is well managed, and submitted patches are reviewed for who originated(and thus owns) them, and that those people have agreed to abide the GPL.
Releasing code to work with Linux doesn't mandate that anyone use it. You can allege a conspiracy all you want, but you have some obligation to suggest how the hell it would work.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Monday February 23 2015, @03:51PM
I know for a FACT that the SCO/Caldera fiasco was covertly funded and supported through interesting arrangements - like investment in 3rd companies - by Microsoft.
I can name names. But won't do so here.
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday February 23 2015, @07:12PM
Do So Here. Please.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Monday February 23 2015, @08:45PM
I've met these people's children. Not going that way. For them or for mine. ;-)
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by VLM on Monday February 23 2015, @04:09PM
systemd is replacing the OS, basically, and using product tying to require exclusive use of only its components and elimination of all competition.
So, there's this patent MS owns on .... which is done in some component of systemd, which is basically a open source reimplementation of the monolithic windows architecture so I'd be surprised if there is no infringement.
Now in the past, you sue redhat, and worst case is everyone moves to gentoo / debian / whatever. Now you sue systemd and as whats engineered to be a single point of failure incompatible by design with everything that isn't itself (basically a cancer), then a judge awards ownership of all systemd project IP to MS because they don't really have any other resources, and all the linux distros are simultaneously dead.
Its a likely strategy. Think in MS's shoes. Your competitor insists on making an inflexible brittle deeply interconnected system? Well, if you insist, I'll crack one tiny part making the whole thing shatter like glass.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 23 2015, @05:39PM
This actually sounds like an excellent idea.
1. Have Lennart Poettering dragged in front of a court for infringement of Micro$haft patents
2. Have infringing systemd pulled completely from GNU/Linux
3. Reimplement freedom of init system choice to all.
4. ...
5. Profit?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 24 2015, @02:30PM
Agreed, that wouldn't work.
Now, try the other way around. Microsoft embraces Linux, ports SQL Server to Linux. Lennart then adds a hard dependency for MS SQL Server to systemd.
Now who will you be paying for Client Access Licenses for your Linux servers?
Gentoo and Slackware? Who cares, only irrational systemd hating geeks use those.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by VLM on Monday February 23 2015, @04:03PM
One interesting "not entirely disagree" perspective I have is Microsoft never does anything, they just buy, ride for awhile. and resell it to everyone.
So they rode the slightly superior clone of CP/M horse for 15 years or so, then hopped onto the "VMS with a GUI" horse for the last 20 years, more or less.
Well, its 2015, and the old horse is getting tired and beat down, beaten into a grease stain on the pavement in mobile and server, in fact. And their closest competitor jumped on the "BSD with a GUI" horse a decade ago and seem to be doing excellently.
Maybe its time to change horses?
So you got linux which is ready to ship, and its getting turned into a clone of windows architecture anyway with systemd etc, making all the non-tablet non-desktop devs (aka almost everyone) flee to the BSDs.
I could see something like redhat being shipped as windows 2017 or whatever. As long as they get those profitable OEM install contracts... Sure our source code is all open, but our app store and drivers will only run on our trusted computing kernel which happens to be linux 4.something based with systemd as the OS. Its like getting the source code to your microwave oven, OK now what?
Meanwhile MS gets a technically superior OS, R+D costs were virtually free, much more secure, blah blah.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Monday February 23 2015, @10:47PM
Oh no, they don't: it's because of a tablet doesn't have room for a wheel [theonion.com].
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 5, Insightful) by kaszz on Monday February 23 2015, @03:49PM
Whenever Microsoft does something it's in order to takeover and crush. They can't be trusted - Period!
Remove all dependencies on their domain(s) and hobble them if the opportunity arises. All promoters of Microsoft must be consider zombies of that power sphere.
Other companies usually have a symbiotic relationship.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 23 2015, @04:13PM
I have the same suspicions of Microsoft as most of the rest of the people here do, although I'm also suspicious of Google, Apple, and just about every other top tier player in the business. Yes, MS was evil monopolists back in the day and they played dirty. That's what the DOJ antitrust lawsuit was about. But that monopoly is now a shell of what it once was, mostly because of the relative decline in importance of desktop software.
Ballmer and Gates are gone, along with most of their lieutenants, and the new guy was given license by Microsoft's board to move the company in different directions.
By becoming financially dependent on Microsoft partners like Nokia and Intel (Wintel) the Linux Foundation lost its ability to antagonise rivals and it might not be long before the Linux Foundation silently tells Torvalds not to denounce Microsoft
Yeah, I'm sure Mr. Torvalds would hang his head and meekly comply with that because he wouldn't risk rocking the boat, right?
Here are the Linux Foundation sponsors [linuxfoundation.org] arranged in order of importance. Intel is on the top tier, but they're not part of "WinTel" anymore... they make at least as much money selling Linux servers now, and they also have the Mac OS X business. Nokia is on the third tier, they're certainly in no position to make demands, and anyway, they're not part of Microsoft. Dr. Roy Schestowitz is about 10 years behind the times here.
Microsoft loves Linux like Eric Holder loves free speech and like Obama loves peace. It’s nonsense (albeit endlessly repeated) of the highest order
Nice display of professional journalism. Dr. Schestowitz has more than a few axes to grind on many different subjects, doesn't he, so why not get some of the other ones in while he's got readers.
This is basically just another noteworthy pattern of the attack on Linux and its backers, pushing the pro-Microsoft line and pushing the anti-Google angle. There are many puff pieces (similar to press releases) like this one about Azure. Slashdot plays a role in it, propping up the narrative of “Microsoft loves Linux” and IDG, in the mean time, characterises PRISM surveillance and lock-in as ‘free’.
Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols once again gives Microsoft a soft treatment because Canonical is helping the Trojan horse in exchange for money.
Can you imagine Dr. Schestowitz scheduling the guillotine for the French Revolution? I can. Basically, everyone he sees who's not 100 percent on board is guilty as hell.
If Microsoft is now an “Open Source company” and a company that “loves Linux” as some of the press wishes us to believe, then how come none of the company’s big products became Open Source?
Well, they just released a good chunk of .NET and C# under the MIT license. Of course, that can be spun as another insidious MS plot to try to control Linux.
What about Google, which very conspicuously escapes Dr. Schestowitz's wrath in this piece? I'd certainly be curious at examining the source code to their search engine. Jeff Dean wrote a paper about Map-Reduce, but then it had to be re-implemented from scratch by Open Source folks.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by kaszz on Monday February 23 2015, @11:22PM
I think .NET and C# is badly designed. Besides that they also ties into the Microsoft ecosystem. As for Google, they might by shady but Microsoft is a known bad that is a slut in regards to certain authorities.
Regarding Linux Foundation sponsors, Intel have a long history with Microsoft.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 24 2015, @04:45PM
The author asked why none of Microsoft's big products were open sourced. I'm sure he, like you, thinks most or all of them are badly designed, and are meant to lock users in, so that's beside the point.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 24 2015, @02:16AM
The Scorpion and the Frog [wikipedia.org]
A scorpion asks a frog to carry him over a river.
The frog is afraid of being stung during the trip, but the scorpion argues that if it stung the frog, both would sink and the scorpion would drown.
The frog agrees and begins carrying the scorpion, but midway across the river the scorpion does indeed sting the frog, dooming them both.
When asked why, the scorpion points out that this is its nature.
Another way to say it is "A leopard cannot change its spots."
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 24 2015, @02:20AM
The fortune at the bottom of the page after I made my comment:
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. --George Santayana
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 24 2015, @12:38PM
"That's what the DOJ antitrust lawsuit was about."
Worth noting that the lawsuit you refer to was dropped immediately after an election where the POTUS was chosen by the SCOTUS, having NOT won the popular vote. Also worth mentioning: the related Diebold fiasco.
Referring to a lawsuit that may have been a causal factor in an a coupe de' tete, is somehow not very convincing as an argument in the defense of poor little old defenseless fascist billion dollar international conglomerates.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Geezer on Monday February 23 2015, @04:36PM
"The press seems to be lapping it up, because Google has now become the company to hate, and many of the Journalist starting out today don't remember the never ending supply of dirty tricks used in the past."
Even if they did remember or learn it, it wouldn't matter if it didn't support the prevailing "narrative".
Narrative is J-school doublespeak for agenda.
Couple that with the pack mentality of the media, and you get the whole dogpile du jour thing.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Monday February 23 2015, @04:57PM
Also add to that the fact that FaceBook was caught funding the spread of anti-Google FUD, and Microsoft has been suspected of it by most.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 23 2015, @04:59PM
I really enjoyed creating quick simple user interfaces for my Windows desktop commandline programs using the "HTA" (HTML Application) markup language originated by Microsoft ---- More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML_Application
Unfortunately this technology was tied into the Internet Explorer runtime engine, not transferable to non-MS systems and is being abandoned in favor of web technologies which resemble the totalitarian bloat of SYSTEMD. Because of this fact, I am trying to replace this simple low-fi programming task with something more free and universal. I am currently researching a solution based on the Perl programming langauage and some HTML rendering engine.
Does anybody here have some more info or tips for me? The great thing about the "HTA" technology was the simplicity of it all; you just needed a little knowledge in editing basic HTML docs and basic JS functions and quickly make a popup interactive GUI frontend for a console program.
(Score: 2) by GlennC on Monday February 23 2015, @05:00PM
I read the last sentence of the summary a couple of times.
...a company you had come to believe was irreverent.
I don't understand it. I think that there are some that may consider Microsoft to be irrelevant, and some which may consider them criminal, but I'm not sure where the word irreverent applies here. Perhaps it is a typo?
Sorry folks...the world is bigger and more varied than you want it to be. Deal with it.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Monday February 23 2015, @06:18PM
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Tuesday February 24 2015, @10:51AM
you had come to believe
Still not sure why the submitter thinks they know what I believe, though.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 24 2015, @02:34AM
...and when you look at the pie chart for marketshare, you see it has been for years. [patentlyapple.com]
-- gewg_
(Score: 5, Interesting) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Monday February 23 2015, @05:16PM
This plan is so subtle that even MS doesn't realize they're doing it. Wow.
If you really want to know what MS is doing, let me explain in ee threasy steps:
1. Managers want to outsource all hardware and software to "the cloud" so they can fire staff. If you're a SQL Server DBA, you're going to be in the next round of purges. Software development is contracted out. Hardware is contracted out. All companies really do is manage outsourcing. But there's a snag...
2. Local SQL Server installs are stopping this because many, many vendor products use SQL Server, which is the cheap alternative to Oracle and fine for most vertical-market packages. And there are a LOT of vertical-market packages out there. If you haven't looked into this, almost every industry has vertical-market packages which depend on local SQL Server installs. These require DBAs, some of the last people employed by companies who can't be fired. Millions of dollars are wasted each year paying these people which could be paid to managers as bonuses. But MS sees the opportunity, and ...
3. MS is trying to keep those SQL Server licenses selling. They're focusing on "the cloud" because that's where managers want to go. Vertical-market packages could use PostgreSQL. Or even MySQL for most of them. But MS needs the revenues from its cash cow. So they're going to have SQL Server as a Service from their cloud to keep vertical-market packages using it and licenses selling. They want to keep their capitve audience. They don't care where their vertical-market partners run their apps. Run them on Linux - hey, we'll even port .NET to Linux. But they need to keep them using SQL Server, because it's a cash cow they can't afford to lose over the next decade. Imagine you sell a vertical-market package and you can go to your customers and tell them the next version is in "the cloud" and you'll even tune their SQL Server instance for them. Managers will be all over that!
See you later, bye!
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday February 23 2015, @11:32PM
So porting .NET to Linux is a Trojan horse to hook managers into Microsoft SQL server?
If so then Mono [wikipedia.org] could be used to replace .NET? and then unlock the choice of underlying database server? (squashing Microsoft plans..)
Another pot shot would perhaps be a direct translation layer between .NET database API and FOSS database API for win32/64 environment.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by wonkey_monkey on Monday February 23 2015, @06:21PM
...about a company you had come to believe was irrelevant.
Woah, who are you to tell me what I believe? Patronising much?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 23 2015, @07:35PM
The solution is narrow exclusionary licensing that creates opportunistic third party litigation. Something like:
"This product and the software herein, is licensed free of charge to everyone except the following: .... This exclusion applies to derived works, and you hereby defer your right to litigate for licensing fees for any derived work to the following nonprofit foundations: ... and hereby agree to defer all but n% of all winnings from any claims made against excepted companies that result from this license"
Call it GPL-X, as in GPL with eXclusions.
Essentially, it is free to everyone but the abusive players, and the right to litigate for licensing fees is automatically sold to a group of potential litigators for a percentage. And yes, commercial software companies DO use millions of dollars worth of GPL software. It is time they learned to stop defecating where they eat.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday February 23 2015, @11:35PM
I had similar thoughts..
(Score: 2) by SlimmPickens on Monday February 23 2015, @08:38PM
Microsoft is trying to do what they did a decade ago, but it won't work.
This is what Microsoft looks like while being crushed.
(Score: 1) by rliegh on Monday February 23 2015, @09:13PM
...by apple and google, our new and improved monopolistic overlords.
um...yay?
I just tell 'em the truth and they think it's trolling!
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday February 23 2015, @10:52PM
No, by the weight of their vanity, their own weight and cluelessness of their previous CEO.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by rliegh on Tuesday February 24 2015, @02:26AM
...'cos G-D knows that Apple's previous CEO was the epitome of humility and google can stop and turn on a dime...
MS made some fucked decisions, but mostly it was apple and the google guys eating their lunch. And I, for one, do not welcome our new cloud-based overlords.
I just tell 'em the truth and they think it's trolling!
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday February 24 2015, @02:57AM
At least you can't accuse him of cluelessness.
MS had the vanity to consider their lunch incontestable.
So? Don't use them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford