Microsoft plus Linux: Micrix?
p2pnet.net News View:- The announcement that the next version of Windows will be called ‘Vista’ has signally failed to set the computing world on fire. Despite the fact that well over half of us are likely to be running it by the end of next year, only diehard technology freaks seem to be interested in ‘the operating system formerly known as Longhorn’.
But Microsoft is facing a much bigger problem than lack of interest in its new OS, a problem that cannot easily be solved by spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a marketing campaign or signing up a well-known band to promote it as the Rolling Stones did with Windows ‘95
The problem is GNU/Linux, a beast they can’t destroy and can’t seem to tame, a beast that is encroaching on their markets by offering an alternative to the closed development and licensed software model that has made Microsoft rich.
One benefit of open source tends to be better support for open international standards, a difference that becomes clear when you compare the Firefox browser with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.
In the past Microsoft’s approach to standards was simple, and went by the mantra ‘embrace and extend’.
You tell your customers you are supporting the standard but slip a few extras into your implementation. Once people are using ‘your’ version of the standard they are effectively stuck with you because they have come to rely on the bells and whistles you had so thoughtfully supplied.
So what would it means for Microsoft to try to ‘embrace and extend’ Linux? It might go something like this…
The Linux kernel, the GNU environment and tools, and many other free software products are made available under the GNU General Public License. Anyone can take the source code needed to compile the program, run it, distribute it, and modify it. If they distribute their changed version then it has to be under the same license, so you can’t improve a program and then keep the improved version unless you only use it internally and privately.
But anyone who wants to can ‘fork’ the code by taking a version and beginning their own development path. They are obliged to release any changes they make to versions they distribute but, crucially, they are not obliged to accept any changes they do not want: the code, although not ‘owned’ by them, can be managed by them in whatever ways they desire.
This is the situation with the GNU/Linux distributions from people like Red Hat and Ubuntu. Each takes the code base – kernel, development environment, applications – that it wants and enhances and packages it, before giving it away and, at least for most, selling support contracts to customers.
So what if Microsoft looks around, chooses the most stable, least buggy, most useful set of open source software it can find and takes it all in-house? They allocate a billion dollars worth of programmers to shine and polish it for a year, improving its compatibility with Windows Server technologies, donating parts of the Windows and Office code bases under the GPL and turning it into the world’s best operating system.
It is common to criticise Microsoft’s programmers along with their software, but most of the team working on new versions of Windows or Office are talented, committed and in many cases brilliant. They have to work with a code base and in an environment that makes it hard to do good work, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t capable of it – and a team of Microsoft’s best coders working on a project they all believed in could, I am sure, do great stuff.
What will happen when Microsoft releases its new Linux distribution: Micrix (pronounced mick-rix)? It’s everything you want. It’s completely cross-compatible with Windows, other Linuxes and Mac OS. Microsoft indemnifies you against lawsuits from companies like SCO who claim Linux infringes their copyright. If you are running Microsoft software already then it is supported as part of that license, and even home users get free telephone support.
The 24/7 hotline costs another billion dollars a year, but that’s small change when you’re talking about changing a culture and establishing hegemony. Another two billion goes into ongoing development and donations to any of the third party open source applications that were included in the core distribution, just to ensure that they continue to flourish.
Anyone who wants to can take Micrix and distribute it themselves, of course, and Microsoft does accept submissions for the code base from the community and looks carefully at what’s happening back in Linux world, although it prefers to make its own fixes rather than just take code from the old world.
Crucially, however, it does not listen to what Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman, Eric Raymond and the other leaders of the free and open source software movement are saying. While its code is available for inclusion in ‘old-style’ Linux the many improvements in the Micrix kernel made before it was released make it very hard for Linux to keep up.
Eventually Micrix is simply better for most purposes that Linux, OpenSolaris, FreeBSD or any of the other Unix derivatives. When someone spots Richard Stallman running it on his laptop, the game is over, and the old Linux community gathered around Linus Torvalds falls apart as third party developers move to Micrix as a preferred platform.
Of course, by then few home users even know whether their desktop is running on Windows or Micrix, and even fewer care. The net’s core architecture moves over too, with Micrix on the DNS root servers, and even Google migrates the Googleplex’s servers, simply because the support environment is better and patches are rolled out more efficiently and with fewer errors. Even Apple aficionados are dumping Mac OS for Micrix on their Powerbooks.
Microsoft isn’t an open source company, even at this stage: at the application level Microsoft Office is still proprietary, but it runs seamlessly on Micrix as well as Windows. OpenOffice, the open source alternative, is still out there but its largely volunteer developers find it hard to keep up with Microsoft and many Micrix users, now getting their operating system for free, don’t mind paying out for a word processor.
At which point Microsoft makes the biggest decision of its existence: which OS does it cancel? Windows or Micrix…
[It should be pointed out that this is a fantasy for the summer holidays, and I have absolutely no reason to believe that such a future could come to pass. Nobody at Microsoft tells me anything, I haven’t heard any rumours and I don’t know nothing. Just indulging in a ‘gedanken experiment’ as recommended by Einstein].
Bill Thompson – andfinally.com
[Thompson is a UK-based writer and broadcaster.]
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August 6th, 2005 at 4:19 pm
If Mac is the 9 pound chimp, and Microsoft is the 900 pound gorilla, then GNU/Linux is the 9 tonne big foot.
Now, why is that?!
It may not seem all that obvious at first. Let me give a little anecdote first. Someone my age did NOT grow up with computers (and yes I know the abacus and the ‘punch card’ machine are considered “early forms” of computers — but for practical modern relevance, it’s a different lifeform).
People older than me are especially ‘frighten’ by the “box.” Other older people, in the 40s, 50s, 60s, … 90s view the ‘box’ with less apprehension. They see the computer as a mysterious “oracle” (not to be mistaken with the RDBM company) that has ‘all’ of the answers.
But, children, especially young children have an amazing tenacity to learn. the pick up the computer with NATURAL ease, without the need for formal instruction. Take my 3 year old niece, she uses constantly (yes, by herself)… don’t ask me what she does. She has some games she plays and then some…
And so that is the situation we are in now. The speed of adoption of the NEXT GENERATION is what matters most. Because, that my friend, will determine how the Internet / OS will evolve. And at the forefront of this new revolution is GNU/Linux. GNU/Linux is EVERYWHERE… in appliances… in networks …. in convergence devices … in cars …. in servers … in personal media …. and even in PCs.
You may be right to point out that MS still occupy a near monopoly. But, like the anecdote of my 3 year old neice, it is the “young” adopters that matter most.
And “young” here refers to BOTH (1) age, and (2) market. And that is what we are witnessing here, with emerging countries (with massive populations) adopting GNU/Linux with a frenzy!
And that my friend, is why GNU/Linux is the 9 tonne big foot!
August 6th, 2005 at 6:28 pm
The beast to destroy is the Windows desktop oligopoly,
i. e. the major computer OEMs that refuse to sell anything NON-Microsoft to home users.
The major computer OEMs such as Dell, HP, and
Gateway are refusing to offer CONSUMERS a
non-Microsoft choice.
These OEMs are anti-competitve and
anti-consumer-choice.
They continue to maintain Microsoft’s desktop
monopoly.
I suggest not doing business with these companies until they offer a serious non-Microsoft choice to CONSUMERS.
Here are some companies THAT DO offer a choice.
http://www.systemax.com/divisions.htm [systemax.com]
http://www.microtelpc.com/ [microtelpc.com]
http://www.linuxcertified.com/ [linuxcertified.com]
http://www.outpost.com/ (search for linspire)
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/catalog.gsp?cat=395 1&path=0%3A3944%3A3951 [walmart.com]
http://www.sub300.com/Skins/greyTech/greyTech_inde x.aspx [sub300.com]
http://www.linare.com/ [linare.com]
http://www.linspire.com/featured_partner/featured_ partner.php [linspire.com]
http://www.us.debian.org/distrib/pre-installed [debian.org]
http://www.linux.org/vendor/system/index.html [linux.org]
August 6th, 2005 at 8:05 pm
Actually, the Rolling Stones did not sign up it’s “Start me up” song with Microsoft for the release of Windows 95 and it’s new “Start” button thinking. Microsoft used the song without permission and was subsequently sued by the Stones shortly after the campaign started.
August 6th, 2005 at 9:00 pm
“companies like SCO”? last I looked they were the only one.
August 6th, 2005 at 9:05 pm
No, there is no choice.
Could you tell me vendor (online or with a “physical” shop) where I can buy a new “entry-level” LAPTOP computer in the UK?
In the US, maybe.
In Eastern Europe and India too, and they are quite inexpensive.
But do a google search for: ACER NLC notebook linux
and see where these machines are available.
Not in the UK! Not even if I’m prepared to pay MORE than for the windows model.
If anyone knows of ANY source of new laptops available here (or in France, Spain or Germany at a push!) please let me know, I’ve just wasted two days searching.
August 6th, 2005 at 9:08 pm
I have the idea first, so no fair copying. I will open my own support company at lower fee than MS. I’m smart enough to know how to download MS Linux from microsoft.com and in fact have it bookmarked in Mozilla.
August 6th, 2005 at 9:18 pm
I can say with certainty that Microsucks has done us no favors when it comes to the computing public.
It all starts out with this, “You can click here” to get the computer to do something. It ends with you wishing you could do this or that but the software won’t allow it. Since it is propritority software, you aren’t allow to make the changes. So If I don’t want Internet Explorer, the courts have said I don’t have to have it, same with media player. I can chose another and have the ability to uninstall that item. If I don’t like the file browser, I am not so lucky as there has been no method setup to disable it or remove it. A shame actually that there isn’t. If you could replace the file browser with a sutitable substitute then there would be far less security issues with the Windoze line.
Fortunately you have that choice with linux. Not only do you have a choice, you have a choice of flavors. Red Hat, Suse, Ubuntu, are all different flavors of linux with different file structures when it comes to names and the like. That in itself goes a long way toward preventing a virus writer from attaching his pet to your computer.
When win95 came out, there were all sorts of companines offering memory management, compression, utilities, and many other programs that worked with the Windoze OS. Now those companies for the most part are gone and the services they offered are gone with them. Microsucks swallowed the most of them. Incorporating less than the very best that the competive companies offered in program utilities.
There are still several of the old timer names around. They have been engulfed in mergers and takeovers and the result is name only without solid product support. Norton is a good example of a product, once the genuis of software in fixing problems that has depended on its name to get it through. The percentages of those that say it is a great product have dropped over the years. It is but a shell of its former self in the sense that what it delivers as product no longer exceeds the users expectations, rather it barely meets them.
Should Microsucks engulf the Linux line in the same way, you will face some poor choices. It certainly won’t be good for the consumer. Legally running Windoze costs you an arm and a leg for the software and protections necessary to secure the OS. Running Linux isn’t in the same catagory. It was one of the drivers that directed me towards Linux in the end. Free firewall, free anti-virus, free rootkit; imagine all of them without charge or spyware. I can’t say I have really needed the protection, some how spyware just doesn’t take to Linux. Isn’t that nice? No spyware worries.
Many countries are seeing the same things. They are comparing expenses it takes to run Microsucks products on an annual basis for their government and as a results are switching to less expensive alternatives. Microsucks has tried to put the best face on it, claiming that the hidden costs and stability in Linux have become an issue. Governments are seeking alternative ways to the expensive ways of the Windoze product line.
August 6th, 2005 at 9:44 pm
Who would have guessed Microsoft would act in breach of somebody else’s copyright!
August 6th, 2005 at 11:26 pm
“I can say with certainty that Microsucks has done us no favors when it comes to the computing public.”
They actually did do the world one favor. By creating Windows, they made PC’s both friendlier and easier to use. This is a big part of why there is now a PC in nearly every home.
I’ve tried to get to know Linux a few times, and would love to switch to it permanently some day. My most recent foray was with Ubuntu which I thought was well put together. I’m a fan of installs that only give the basic tools needed and not a ton of useless extra junk. The two main problems with Linux that will forever keep it from ever being as mainstream as Windows though is it’s usability, and available software. Want to play games? Have to stick with Windows. Plus Linux has a habit of making the simplest things in Windows really hard to do. You should never have to use a command line for anything, and everything should just work. Otherwise what is the point of a GUI? Sure, for geeks it’s not an issue, but for you average joe consumer it’s a big one. No one wants to be frustrated all the time just trying to do simple tasks, like install graphic drivers.
August 6th, 2005 at 11:46 pm
You sound like you need to buy a Mac. At least now there’s a command line if you WANT to use it.
August 7th, 2005 at 2:34 am
Funny, I remember Windows 3.1. It is when I first met Windows. I remember if I wanted to run a game, I had to learn DOS to configure the memory and other apps to run properly. 3.1 couldn’t do that on its own. Then 95 came along and spyware and viruses started getting serious as a concern. Legion are the people who will tell you of the BSOD. XP came along and you found a certain stablity in the sense of crashes but it was a trade off in a bewildering amount of people trying to get that particular .dll file out of the OS that was continually loading spyware in.
What windows did was allow the average Joe to run a computer. It didn’t teach him or allow him to learn what it took to deal with the problems. After all this time of dealing with the OS I have finally learned that it is trash when it comes to dealing with malware. There is always another new one just around the corner. No matter how knowledgable you are with the OS, it is something you will deal with as long as you run windows.
Had I spent as much time learning Linux (instead of learning it at this late a date) I would be far ahead in having solutions to driver installs that go wrong. Instead, I am learning all over again. I am not running a dual boot. It does me little good in the terms of learning if I can run back to the cripple to do something but can not do it where I intend to be. Therefore Linux is all I will run till I learn it and most likely after I learn it. In the meantime I know there will be growing pains as I strive to learn a new OS. The key here is learning it. To do so, I have to use it day in and day out and face and solve those problems that come up as a result of what I wish to do with my computer. It is not a matter of geeks, it is a matter of time invested to learn what it is you wish to learn.
I learned DOS on my own. I learned Word on my own. I have no doubt in the end I will learn Linux on my own. If you throw up your hands and say you can’t do it, then you are right, you can’t. I don’t recognise that I can’t as a limiting factor in what I wish to learn.
August 7th, 2005 at 3:06 am
Why can’t you ask a non-corporate computer vendor to sell you the hardware with what you want installed?
Better yet, buy the machine and install the OS yourself.
Or ask a knowledgeable friend to do it.
Buying “package deals” means you pay for all the crap-ware that company has “special deals” with. You pay for it anyway, so just ask for the version without any OS and pay less.
If they won’t do it shop elsewhere.
Try computer shops that do repair nearby.
They can usually do custom jobs as per your specifications.
August 7th, 2005 at 3:12 am
To play games on linux just install wine:
http://www.winehq.org/
It allows many “windows” applications to work on linux without the MS bullshit.
It’s not perfect and it doesn’t work for everything but it’s under constant improvement.
See what works with wine:
http://appdb.winehq.org/
August 7th, 2005 at 4:20 am
I COMPLETELY AGREE! People say that “learning linux is hard” – nonsense, its the learning that they don’t what to do.. Linux has become so easy to use now-a-days that when I do use a Windows machine, I find it hard to use and less intuitive.. Other folks claim that the GUI is hard to learn, my Windows friends complain to me that everytime they turn around MS is changing stuff around so they always have to rely on “Classic Mode”.. With all the Windows Tweaks, Spyware, Virus, Trojans, etc, etc, by time time you’re “done” (using the term loosely) learning all that, you could have learned to use Linux (or Mac) 10 or 20 times over.
Simply put, people don’t want to be bothered putting a little extra effort into getting out of a bad situation, so they make excuses and chose to deal with the same problems over and over again..
~
Linux Mepis User
August 7th, 2005 at 10:30 am
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.02/microsoft.html
When I first read the title in my GoogleNews alerts I know I had read something similar from Wired. Can’t remember the title quite, so I googled.
The above is a ficticious memo from the future sent by (possible) future MS employee Linus Trovalds asking Bill to get Steve off his back. While he’s trying to develop “WinX”
Lemi4 (http://lemi4.blogdrive.com)
[just to clarify that I'm not an Anonymous Coward]
August 7th, 2005 at 4:40 pm
Linux easy to use – I agree. But Windows?? Less intuitive? you MUST be kidding !
August 7th, 2005 at 8:13 pm
Dont get you – someone asks you where to buy a new *laptop* without windows and you tell them to build their own instead of buying the bundle? Or to “demand” their local retailer removes windows and lowers the price? Maybe if they were buying a couple of dozen the retailer *might* listen, but not to the individual.
Did you read Lincoln Durey’s open letter “Dear laptop vendor” last year? Do a google search. In fact I was lucky – I did actually buy two “windows-free” laptops 18 months ago, from two different places. I checked again yesterday, and now *neither* of them gives the option of a laptop machine without XP.
So while I agree 200% with your original statement of the problem, I don’t get your solution at all.
August 7th, 2005 at 8:40 pm
”
Could you tell me vendor (online or with a “physical” shop) where I can buy a new “entry-level” LAPTOP computer in the UK?
”
Here is a Linspire machine.
http://www.jasp.com/product_info.php/products_id/81?osCsid=2e6f9efdb4d56ba348a1d0d9afd387b3
Keep searching. :^)
August 7th, 2005 at 11:13 pm
really. big corps like M$ SUCK at this kind of thing. They are brilliant in getting their own strategies implemented, but they suck at thinking them up.
Thanks for giving them the idea. Now they can use it against us.
August 8th, 2005 at 5:55 am
”
But Windows?? Less intuitive? you MUST be kidding !
”
I speak English.
Navajo is not intuitive to me.
People that grew up speaking Navajo
might say the same thing about English.
I’ve been using Linux for 11 years.
MS Windows is not as intuitive for me.
For example with command line the [tab][tab] is broken,
“ls” doesn’t work, and where is the synaptic package manager?
The MS Windows’ window manager is fixed and primative.
Where is CUPS for printing?
With Windows you have to dig around for a drivers disk.
August 8th, 2005 at 9:51 am
In your scenario the GPL would mean that Microsoft would need to release any source code that they insert into Linux or other GPL’ed applications. It doesn’t matter that they fork the code base, the license that they have to use the existing code (GPL) requires this. Any other organisation could then release Micrix as well.
All Microsoft would achieve is improving Linux for all… although given MS’s previous design decisions (see Internet Explorer) I would have a good look at what they had done before deciding to use Micrix in anger.
August 8th, 2005 at 2:56 pm
Well, I have to say that it is not. I help many people with their computers. MOst of the computers run XP. First I turn on the computer, wait about 3 minutes for the darned thing to get to the desktop, and just when I think it’s ready to start working with, I open my favorit progam.
It happens at that moment. As I am typeing my document, I look up and find my imput appearing in a text box of the new window that happened to come up when I glanced away from the screen for a moment. No, it is not a spyware popup window in this case, it is one of the many printer, camera, or other hardware control centers. I close out of the latest opoup Window and then begin work again, and BAM!, another control center opens up.
After I spend the next hour of so tweaking Windows to keep all this desktop spam from appearing. Finally, success. The computer is still running very slow, so I run a Lavasoft. Lavasoft goes in and finds a bunch of cookies and I delete them. Now, the computer is still running slowly, but at least I stopped the desktop spam. I reboot the computer, and everything is fine except the computer is only half as fast as a Linux equivilent.
About a week or so later, I have to go back to the same place and redo the adjustments simply because the owner of the computer changed some mode of operation. If I pop in my jump drive into the USB port, I get yet another pop up window. I find the sluggishness, the hardware vendor desktop SPAM and other such things axtremely annoying. I believe that most computer users also do not like it, but they know of no other alternative, so they continue putting up with it because they either have to run some specific Winblows only program that is required for their business, or they keep subscribing to the myth that Linux is hard to use.
Now when I go to someone’s hous that uses Linux (usually to setup new hardawre), I turn on the computer, and about a couple of minutes later KDE is up and running. I can browse the web, pull in pictures from their camera, or even plug in my jump drive and use it with ease. The only thing that happens when I plug in my jumpdrive is that a new icon shows up on the desktop. I can either ignore the icon or I can open it and be taken to the root directory that is stored on the jumpdrive. If I want to retrieve a webpage, all I have to do is open a webbrowser and type in or select an URL. As far as adding a new device, I just download a precompiled driver, or in worst case scenario, I have to download, compile, and intall the driver. Once things are set up, Linux usually does not require much maintenance after that. With Linux, I can watch a Quicktime video without having a Qicktime icon that stays in my system tray. I can open files of many different formats without being indunated with banner screens of programs used to work with those specific file formats. Microsoft, and companies that write Microsoft compatable programs should look to Linux for many examples of ease of use. There is very little desktop spam to deal with, and computing is a pleasure.
In XP, I find that all the popup Windows that supposedly “guides” the user to be distracting and frustrating. Most of my clients find the same thing. When I sit in front of a computer that is running a Microsoft OS, I wonder where I’m being dragged today and do I really want to go there.
August 8th, 2005 at 7:40 pm
Linux isn’t Microsoft’s nightmare, nor is Mac OS/X. It’s Google. The era of software in a box is over. Now it’s the Internet applications what counts.
August 9th, 2005 at 12:35 am
Of course Microsoft fears Linux, as well they should. Take for a minute, the recent stats on Embedded Linux adoption over the course of the past 12 months compared to Microsoft Embedded adoption over the same period of time.
You’re looking at an increase of Linux adoption of 412%, compared with Microsoft at 50%. The only reason that same thing isn’t also happening on the desktop is because of Microsoft’s dirty tricks as they try to keep their monopoly, but it’s quickly breaking apart and will continue to do so.
August 9th, 2005 at 9:36 pm
Good observation.
A few years ago a Linux consortium for embedded and electronic devices was started with 50 or so of the MAJOR (i.e. LARGEST) companies.
We’re started to see that NOW.
HA HA HA ….. MS may have the Desktop territory for now, but they lost the (1) server, (2) embedded, and (3) personal electronics markets!
August 10th, 2005 at 7:29 pm
Spyware and viruses didn’t come along with Windows 95. Even Windows 98’s beginning didn’t see the spyware problems in any significance.