Microsoft is moving to a new phase in its competitive attack, arguing that the company is better than IBM and Linux when it comes to connecting different applications.
Microsoft picks new fight with Linux, IBM
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Always good to see them step up to new challenges.
If linux isnt a threat(as MS has said repeatly) then why the smear campaign?
This will fail just like all other Microsoft attempts at trying to discredit Linux. Any person who works in the IT dept. should know this, and if you don’t then you should quit your job right now. Microsoft has never been one to make it easy for other companies/projects to interoperate.
I’ve noticed that Microsoft version of competing usually involves either lawsuits or PR stunts.
maybe it is better now, but the desktop linux movement is also stepping up a gear, m$ are daft if they thing the linux desktop crowd will stand still.
freedesktop, gnome, kde etc are all driving towards standards and interoperability, give it 6 months, and we could make the same annoucement.
At least they don’t launch denial of service attacks on competitors websites.
The desktop linux movement is daft if they think Microsoft is going to stand still. See:
http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=5899
Gates and Ballmer are probably learning of McBride.
At least they don’t launch denial of service attacks on competitors websites.
How do you know that they don’t? And how do you know that it was SCO competitors that launched DDoS attacks against their Web site?
Oh, that’s right, you don’t. You’re trolling, as usual.
For the record, technically speaking the attacks against SCO are coming from Windows machines, since they’re the ones vulnerable. That’s “trustworthy computing” for you…
Seriously though, if you say that, the MS is responsible for allowing the MyDoom thing to happen in the first place. They claim on the installer of EVERY SINGLE COPY of Windows since 95 that it’s more secure than ever. Newer ones go close to claiming invulnerability.
Sure, you may say – that’s marketing. So what’s this MyDoom thing? We don’t even know who wrote this damned virus. Hell, Linux users suffer just as much as the Windows one. People are receiving thousands of emails a day because of it. And the real losers? SCO. They’re the ones without a site for the moment. MS can handle it fine. Heh.
Who knows, could be part of the smear campaign: “look – the community is made of stupid hackers that inconvinience you! but more windows – it’s the safe and trustworthy thing to do!”
By your logic, I should blame the “Windows community” for the tons and tons of spam that ends up daily in my kill folder. After all, it was Windows hackers that wrote the Windows viruses that 0wned the Windows machines that are now relentlessly spamming my inbox.
Bill Sykes, you and the rest of the Windows-using community should be held personally responsible for the 100+ “latest Windows patch!” spam e-mails my poor mail-filter has to deal with every week!
Technically speaking, you could hardly launch a DoS attack of the scale that is being launched at SCO with Linux machines. There aren’t enough.
Perhaps you’re forgetting that servers are machines, and there’s quite a bit of them – about half as many as Windows servers, more than enough to participate in a DDoS…ah, but who needs facts when you’re an anti-Linux troll?
Still, you haven’t argued against the fact that Windows machines are being used for the DDoS. More on that later…
Who else would it be? Bin Laden?
Actually, security experts now think that the virus comes from Russian organized crime, more precisely those involved in spamming and credit card number harvesting. The SCO DDoS was probably just a diversion.
Since Linux is community based, if it is anyone in the Linux community that wrote Mydoom, then the community is responsible.
That’s the stupidest argument I’ve ever heard. No, really.
In any case, the person who wrote Mydoom cannot be part of the community, because the community by and large has condemned the attack. In other words, the community has rejected him – and you can’t be part of a community that rejects you.
The community can’t just claim credit for good things without taking responsibilty for the bad things. At least that is my opinion.
The community doesn’t claim credit or responsibility for anything – it is a collectivity made up of individuals. One can ascertain values and motives to the community only insofar as they are shared by a majority of people in the community. Again, the majority of the people in the Linux community have condemned the attacks, therefore the community condemns the attacks.
If the worm was written on a Windows machine, would that make Microsoft responsible? It certainly was tested on a Windows machine, and it does use Windows machines to perform its attacks – so, following your logic, MS should take responsibility for the attack, now, shouldn’t it?
Just look at how well it connects vbscript and outlook express..
I could make a very good case for blaming the Windows Community for the tons and tons of spam. They are also the ONLY target IF you took aim at Linux systems at the moment with some “KILLER” spam virus you would hit VERY LITTLE.
(unfortunately)
If you believe “Joe Homeowner” with his Windows XP Home system cares what is discussed here, on Slashdot, or any of the other techie sites; you got another thing coming. Most have never heard of “other” operating systems, and don’t care to investigate “other” solutions. (unfortunately)
Somewhere along the line “other” operating systems WILL fit into the the picture, but for most users those days are years away. (regretably)
Of course Microsoft can make programs interact better!
… as long as all the programs are made by them, it’s a
piece of cake… anyone could do it..
So msn messenger can interact with Oulook address books?
AMAZING!
So you can copy a table in Internet Explorer and paste
it respecting rows and columns in Excel?
STUNNING!
Then again, if you are the only one making all the programs….. The KDE project can (and IS doing) exactly
the same thing with their new PIM suite.. a lot of
little programs (address book, e-mail, calendar) interacting closely into one big application..
@ Bill Sykes
> At least that is my opinion.
And such a valuable opinion it is too.
Back on-topic, let’s all hope MS don’t just pull out the IP gun as soon as Linux gets all popular on the desktop. They might say it’s up to Linux developers to ensure inter-operability but I bet their lawyers say something entirely different when it actually makes the difference!
“By your logic, I should blame the “Windows community” for the tons and tons of spam that ends up daily in my kill folder.”
Who are you quoting when you say “Windows community”? I feel there is no Windows community. No more than there is a Ford community, or Sony community, or Intel community. Windows is a product. Linux is not a product. Linux is a community project bordering on a way of life.
“Bill Sykes, you and the rest of the Windows-using community…”
I am my own community, thank you.
Hi
Linux is a also a product. you can get retail boxes of many distros. if thats not a product what is?
“Actually, security experts now think that the virus comes from Russian organized crime, more precisely those involved in spamming and credit card number harvesting. The SCO DDoS was probably just a diversion.”
Actually there is more revenue to be made extorting money out of online gambling sites, by threatening thier bandwidth. Right around the Super Bowl is the best time.
“In any case, the person who wrote Mydoom cannot be part of the community, because the community by and large has condemned the attack. In other words, the community has rejected him – and you can’t be part of a community that rejects you.”
Do you speak for the community, or is there a official statement somewhere?
“The community doesn’t claim credit or responsibility for anything – it is a collectivity made up of individuals. One can ascertain values and motives to the community only insofar as they are shared by a majority of people in the community.”
Well unless some one took a community vote, I guess we just can’t be sure what the community really thinks about the Mydoom virus.
Nothing but trash out of redmond.it does not matter how big micro$oft is now, companies come and go and BIG BLUE will always be there..just check wall street..IBM is more than just office and broken windows..that’s a fact.now add leaders such as Novell , Redhat,SUN and others to the blue camp and you will hear more trash out of REDMOND.
Microsoft isn’t interested in interoperating with some Linux technology. Reiterating a point he made at the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo in January, Taylor said it’s the open-source community’s responsibility to make sure Linux can share files properly with Windows systems.
This is interesting because it MS’s market is based around its proprietary formats. Everyone knows you need to interoperate with at least some of them (Word, Excel and Samba are prime examples which coincidently change pretty regularly)
Linux of course isn’t trying to interoperate with windows so much as make a suite of standard formats for everyone (even MS) to use.
If MS succeeds with the Longhorn generation they will probably severely damage the success of open formats for several years.
So the whole thrust of this campaign is “Those pesky FOSS boys are trying lure you away from us (with lower TOC and open formats), but we already have you on a tight leash (with our proprietary closed formats), so you can’t escape us.”
I also like how reliability and security are the next phases. This is the Ministry of “Truth” from 1984.
Oh really. So Windows evangalists are a figment of my imagination? And those Windows fan sites with wallpaper and tips and whatnot are also mere fantasies? Windows has a community too. The Windows community is composed of just users, rather than users and developers, but its still a community.
In any case, a community is defined by the bonds that connect it. “A nun, he moos” hit it right on the head. Subverting Windows by writing viruses is not one of the bonds that ties the Linux community together. If someone chooses to act in such a manner, he defies these bonds, and is not a part of the community.
Beyond that, this is all a speculative accusation! I can make those all day. I can say that it was indeed somebody in the George Bush Whitehouse that conducted the attack. What’s good for SCO is good for Microsoft, and the Whitehouse cares very highly about the interests of major contributers to the RNC. Of course, I can’t prove any of this. But you can’t disprove it, can you! Ah-ha!
Linux scares you?
Microsoft must absolutely terrify you then.
No Gnu/linux distro will ever knock Microsoft off its perch, the company have been doing this far too long and have far too much money to have some little upstart company de-throne them.
M$ will use whatever tactic, legal or otherwise, moral or otherwise to stop Linux from ever getting more than a 5 or 10% share in the Desktop market.
Remember, Its not just about using an M$ operating system, there are thousands of companies and businesses that rely on people using Windows. Think Symantic, think Norton – every game developer on the planet, think about the zillions of ‘learn excel’ ‘learn office’ courses available. This list could go on and on.
Microsoft is a Juggernaut that has built a huge infrastructure of businesses around itself, do you have any idea what the collapse of Microsoft would do to the stock exchange?
I would say that Microsoft has some of the best lawyers in the world, one of the best marketing and PR departments ever seen, and are far smarter than most people in the open source community give them credit for.
That one company has so much power in our society scares the daylights out of me.
The fact that there may be no way of reducing that power concerns me.
Once Palladium is implemented, there simply will be no turning back, M$ effectively limiting my Freedom of Choice to what o/s i can run on given hardware – The operating system you are trying to install has not been digitally signed by microsoft, we are sure you dont want to continue.
Hit any key to reboot.
“Windows evangalists are a figment of my imagination? And those Windows fan sites with wallpaper and tips and whatnot are also mere fantasies? Windows has a community too. The Windows community is composed of just users, rather than users and developers, but its still a community.”
Anyone who gets religous about software, in my opinon, needs a life. But if you are saying that some one who has site with wallpapers and tips is some sort of “Windows evangalists” you need to self examine. Last I checked Windows has developers too. There are Windows applications. Most people who use and develop for Windows though have balanced lives outside of computers and software. We live in real communities called cites, towns and neighborhoods.
“Subverting Windows by writing viruses is not one of the bonds that ties the Linux community together. If someone chooses to act in such a manner, he defies these bonds, and is not a part of the community.”
And who are you to decide who belongs to the Linux community? It is your opinion that if someone writes a virus they are not part of the Linux community. That a opinion is no more valid than the person who writes the virus opinion that he is part of the community.
You and I both know that there are plenty of people within the Linux community that are glad to see SCO have to jump through hoops to keep thier web site up. These same people would be equally glad to Microsofts site taken down. The anti Microsoft rhetoric on this site stand as evidence to this.
to see every progression linux has made from a MS point of view
I trust open source linux and the open source developers. Some of that trust rubs off on IBM because they are basing some of their product line on the Linux platform. I have zero trust of Microsoft until they make a product line that can be used with the Linux platform. I’m not against using MS products if I can keep my platform. I wouldn’t want to be completely locked into ANY vendor product.
Actually there is more revenue to be made extorting money out of online gambling sites, by threatening thier bandwidth. Right around the Super Bowl is the best time.
Your point being? What does this have to do with what we were talking about? Oh, I see, you were stumped so you subtly changed subjects.
I’ll trust security experts before an anti-Linux troll, thank you very much.
Do you speak for the community, or is there a official statement somewhere?
Actually, all the community leaders have spoken out against the attack. On the message boards I’ve perused, the majority of Linux advocates condemn the attack. I’ve only seen a handful of so-called Linux advocates supporting the attack. So, extrapolating from this varied sample, one can conclude that the majority of the community is indeed against the attack.
Well unless some one took a community vote, I guess we just can’t be sure what the community really thinks about the Mydoom virus
There are other ways to poll the community’s mindset than “take a community vote.” That’s a pretty weak arguments – like every one of your arguments, incidentally. One can easily get an idea of how the community feels by reading the various statements made by members of that community on the Internet.
Sorry to ruin your FUD, but there’s nothing indicating that this worm came out of the Linux community, nor that the community supports this kind of behavior. In fact, you’d have to be pretty stupid to think that this would have a positive effect for Linux with regards to SCO, which could mean that this is a setup (Reichstag fire, anyone?) or that this is a diversion, as previously mentioned.
Preach on brother! I hope SCO lays the smack down on these religious fanatics once and for all.
You’re the religious fanatic is you believe that SCO have a chance in Hell to win this case. They have no case – however, they are guilty of multiple copyright infringement since they have continued to distribute Linux while contravening to the GPL.
The Linux community certainly doesn’t need Mydoom or any other kind of SCO-like dirty tricks to prevail – the truth will suffice.
I agree that Microsoft products have better connectivity to other Microsoft products; though I think the term ‘interoperability’ has more to do with playing nice with others.
It is Microsoft, more than any other company in the industry, that blocks interoperability. They are the thing, that the rest of the world has to work around.
Mydoom was written by people expert on the Windows OS, it infects windows machines to propagate spam. This is a Windows problem. Why they wish to launch DOS attack against SCO no one currently knows. I can think of all sorts of conspiracy theories as to why it is being secretly setup by MS or SCO themselves. There is no less evidence for such theories, nor are they more or less convincing, than the conspiracy theory that it was set up by Linux fanatics.
As Linus points out the future destruction of MS will be a peripheral byproduct of Linux not an intended consequence.
Linux will not destroy MS, but it will destroy vendor lock in. The Linux platform is the base operating system which no vendor has control over. It’s from this vendor neutral foundation that product lines can compete and customers can choose which product lines to trust.
MS Windows is not a vendor neutral platform, it’s a product.
I’ll have to admit that the new MS office suite looks really cool! Unfortunately in a business with less than 1000 users, the time to setup and establish such connectivity plus the initial cost of all that harware and training are simply out of reach. MS has offically put themselves into IT fairy tale land with this release.
As for realworld connectivity and costs, I’d pit an AS400 with Linux partition against a MS server any day. If your dealing in obscene amounts of money for servers, Wintel doesn’t hold a candle to the ease of use and reliablity of IBM AS400s…Running linux [with standard OSS Apps!] on them puts them in a league of their own…move along MS you ain’t nothing to look at here.
One thing I’d like to see is true connectivity across the line of OSS tools. In particular, getting database tools to speak OpenOffice.org & Mozilla’s brands of XML data formats. From what I’ve seen OSS has all the same tools [and better] of MS at it’s disposal…nobody has make them “neatly packaged” so mere mortals can pull off the integration! I’ve seen individual distros like Redhat and Suse with MS “clones” but not any OSS end-to-end office projects. Something that gathers together the already good OSS tools and lets you move data from: desktop apps – to database servers – to email – to web – gather reactions – and back again to the office! Individual developers do it often, but it doesn’t work between systems cleanly..yet. That little extra 10% of effort is where the MS solutions have the “Gee Wiz” factor.
As others have said, of course they will have their own product line pretty well integrated.
Also, I think that there will always be things that microsoft does better than others, but I’m kind of curious where this strategy will be going.
– They’ve tried to discredit the open source products and didn’t do too good.
– They’ve been attacking the development model and noticed that it didn’t go too well.
– They are now moving away from the TCO focused propaganda into interoperability.
Now it’s not about the merits of each of the applications, but about how well they are integrated? Those are good things, but does that mean they can’t sell on the applications alone? Does that mean open-source has caught up with that too now?
So what’s the strategy? When people stop believing their marketing or when the open-source community are producing better applications, they’ll move on to new areas? In a few years, will it be: The greenest start button?
Yeah yeah, I know. I might be a troll
“linux is not a product?”
Umm, no, Linux is a project, RHEL WS, SuSE, Libranet, these are all products that happen to include Linux, amongst many other projects.
I agree with all the statements that Microsoft can easily interoperate with its own products based on the sole fact that it develops them all. GNOME integrates fairly well, KDE is one big integration project almost (and I love them for it). Its just smart, but interoperability goes much further then simply allowing your own applications to talk to each other. No corporation will ever favor interoperability, its simply not a good business plan, sure they will claim it, but then why do they hold any IP if they want everything to be standardized?
That’s why Open Source will change this, as it catches on more an more, and there are less and less proprietary only protocols and formats, people will have to compete on different aspects. Most people spend hundreds of dollars just so they can open their word documents, one day people will see that this is not needed, and Microsoft will be forced to actually make it worth what you pay.
I will never understand the TOC arguments made by Microsoft. I can obtain most Linux distributions at no cost. I can buy one box set of a distribution for reasons related to support etc, and use that to supply an entire environment (I know some admins that do this). How can $100 be less cost effective then a payment plan that involves more money on a per-seat basis? Granted Microsoft is familiar to most people, but then, they all learned it at some point. I beg to differ with the statements that say “most people are trained to use Windows already”, being familiar, and knowing how to click icons on the desktop doesn’t constitute being Windows trained. Most of these people wouldn’t even know they aren’t using Windows if you sat them at a KDE box with a Windows-like theme. There arguments are simply not valid, but they will continue to make them, and morons and company executives (uhh, that’s the same thing last I checked..) will continue to eat it all up.
“Now it’s not about the merits of each of the applications, but about how well they are integrated? Those are good things, but does that mean they can’t sell on the applications alone? Does that mean open-source has caught up with that too now?”
I definatly don’t think they can argue the interoperability angle either. Far from it, if they just looked at KParts, they would see KDE apps interoperate far better and easier then Microsoft applications.
It would be nice if Microsoft would at least show some intelligence and evidence of research before releasing such fud.
KDE and GNOME apps can now interoperate resonably well also, although the implementation is still young. QtGTK replaces the event loop in GLib, and uses KDE events instead. This is the beginning of the two seamlessly comming together, and its a good thing. It also puts any shred of truth in Microsofts comments out the Window. GTK apps will now be able to seamlessly be a part of a KDE desktop, complete with file dialogs etc.
Microsoft always seems about 6 months outdated when it tries to put down other software, or is that just me?
if ‘some one who has site with wallpapers and tips’ is not ‘some sort of “Windows evangalists”‘, some one who has made mydoom to attack SCO cannot be some sort of “Linux evangelists”.
How could you conclude the mydoom author is in the Linux cummunity without any evidence? Are you the one who wrote mydoom to attack SCO because you were so angry on them, and you think you are in the Linux community? Then grow up the Linux community doesn’t want you.
Attacking SCO is not good for Linux community. Rather it makes the current situation bad very bad. Therefore, grown people don’t like the idea of attack. let’s say SCO as A, Linux community as B and another community who hate B as C. A & B hate each others but C doesn’t hate A. Now if C want to hurt B, there is a better way to do it. using A. Hurt A by knowing by no one who actually done it. Then people and A would think it is B. Well, sorry for my poor language. But everyone would know such this senario, but Bill Sykes. nah. There is no evidence someone from the Linux community did that (mydoom), and Linux community doesn’t like it.
The anti Microsoft rhetoric on this site stand as evidence to this.
On this site? anti Microsoft rhetoric ? How could that be the evidence? Minded people won’t think of such kiddy pay-back thing like DDOS attack. Maybe you are not minded person can think such that.
“I’d pit an AS400 with Linux partition”
Using an AS400 is darn near the definition of vendor lock in.
I’m reposting this, but without the political statement that caused it to be modded down.
And who are you to decide who belongs to the Linux community?
The community “decides” who belongs, in the sense that someone who shares the same values of a group is part of a group. The values of the Linux community do not include writing worms or viruses. Community leaders have come out strongly against the Mydoom attacks.
It is your opinion that if someone writes a virus they are not part of the Linux community.
It is the opinion of someone who belongs to this community, as it is mine. I think we know this community better than you.
That a opinion is no more valid than the person who writes the virus opinion that he is part of the community.
The fact is that when someone does something that runs afoul of a community’s values, when by his actions he consciously threatens the well-being of that community, then he cannot be said to be part of that community.
You and I both know that there are plenty of people within the Linux community that are glad to see SCO have to jump through hoops to keep thier web site up.
Jump through hoops? Come on, they just put up a new address. That takes, like, 30 seconds. On the other hand, they did wait a while before taking http://www.sco.com out of the DNS. As Netcraft has indicated, they should have done this a lot sooner, especially since they knew they were going to be attacked – it would have saved a lot of wasted bandwidth.
These same people would be equally glad to Microsofts site taken down. The anti Microsoft rhetoric on this site stand as evidence to this.
Okay, I’m going to let you in on a little secret: am I sad that SCO’s site is down? No, I’m not. That doesn’t mean that I condone the worm attack. In fact, I’m really, really angry at those who created the worm – as are all Linux users I’ve talked to, by the way – because of the bad press this gets Linux (although it seems that no one took Darl’s not-so-subtle fingerpointing too seriously, as mainstream news story now unanimously link the virus to Russian organized crime). The Linux community is better than that, and it angers me to think that someone tried to make us a scapegoat. The end doesn’t justify the means.
Yep, Thats what it is. If you want to run Linux on your desktop go for it. If you want to ssh / SMB/ FTP/ HTTP or whatever to linux from Windows fine…if you wanna swing both ways its “dual”-ble, if you want to swing both ways at the same time you can use Cygwin.
The OS wars are stupid. If M$ thinks they are better than providing “application connectivity” OK….they’ve lied before.
nX
But if you are saying that some one who has site with wallpapers and tips is some sort of “Windows evangalists” you need to self examine.
——
Learn to read properly. I said nothing of the sort. The first two sentences were seperate.
Most people who use and develop for Windows though have balanced lives outside of computers and software.
——-
And people who develop for Linux do not?
We live in real communities called cites, towns and neighborhoods.
——-
How the hell is a developer community any less of a real community? If you’re an engineer, you’re usually a member of something like AIAA (aerospace) or IEEE (electrical/electronic). Are these communities any less “real” than a bunch of guys that get together every once in a while to play poker? Communities are defined by the bonds that connect them. The Linux community consists of people who benefit from, and want to benefit Linux. These bonds are no less real, and probably much more significant, than something as trivial as living in the same city.
And who are you to decide who belongs to the Linux community?
——-
The community decides who belongs to the Linux community. I’m a part of that community. I have a very strong feeling that most other members of the community agree with me. Our “leadership,” certainly, isn’t encouraging the MyDoom author (Note Bruce Peren’s remarks). A lot of us think that this is very comical, and laugh at it in the same sense we laugh at people getting in the Darwin awards. But would we as a whole support doing it ourselves? No!
You and I both know that there are plenty of people within the Linux community that are glad to see SCO have to jump through hoops to keep thier web site up. These same people would be equally glad to Microsofts site taken down. The anti Microsoft rhetoric on this site stand as evidence to this.
——–
Being happy for something is not the same thing as doing it. Being happy for someone writing a virus is not illegal. Writing one is. And anti-Microsoft rhetoric has nothing to do with this. If Microsoft were systematically disassembled tomorrow by the DOJ, I’d be ecstatic. That’s because Microsoft is an unethical company that has been proven by the court system to have repeatedly used illegal practices to maintain their monopoly. If anything, members of the Windows community implicitly support illegal activity — the breaking of our countries anti-trust laws!
If you got your copy of windows the same way most geeks did. Just wait till the Anti-Piracy Campaign steps up some more. Think that long CD key and Activation were bad? Wait till the new slew of DRM motherboards come out that only allow you to install microsoft Approved software. eek.