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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]
(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.