HackFUD

The above diagram, originally made available to Mary Jo Foley on her blog , appears to be what Microsoft has in mind as a strategy to overcome its personal monster, otherwise known as Linux.

Microsoft wants to have all the Free and Open Source Software goodness for itself, wrapped up in its Closed Source, Proprietary “candy”, and in so doing, hopes to starve GNU/Linux of the oxygen of FOSS.

It’s mistaken if it believes that strategy will succeed in usurping Linux as the base from which FOSS grows, and the reason is this : GNU/Linux’s candy - the flavour of Freedom, tastes sweeter than Microsoft’s proprietary and expensive “Stack”. It’s a combination of philosophy, perception, and server back-end suitability in which GNU/Linux will win all the way.

This strategy is typical Microsoft “embrace, extend, extinguish”. It’s an old, worn-out strategy which people are by now wise to (finally, after decades of being taken in by this), and it’s a sad, desperate move by an old dinosaur which is now slowly realising that its reign and power over the IT industry is coming to an end - slowly, but surely.

I’d write a much longer and more detailed article, but frankly, I’m not that concerned.

(Oh and sorry for not having more articles since the last one - I’ve been extremely busy for the last month or so.)

In what amounts to a pretty big 180 degree turnaround for Microsoft, the company has announced that it is getting rid of the Reduced Functionality Mode it built into Vista. Reduced Functionality Mode is what happens if Vista thinks it isn’t a “Genuine” (read : doesn’t have a valid registration code) copy of itself running on someone’s computer system. Basically what happens in this mode is this, from Microsoft’s own white paper on the subject : “The default Web browser will be started and the user will be presented with an option to purchase a new product key. There is no start menu, no desktop icons, and the desktop background is changed to black. [...] After one hour, the system will log the user out without warning“. All very well and good, but the problem with that function was two-fold:

1) Microsoft is treating every one of its customers as potential thieves. See the reactions from consumers on MSDN’s own blogs.

2) Most importantly, a lot of users of Vista (and XP) who were using “Genuine” copies of it found themselves facing a computer which was either in Reduced Functionality Mode in the case of Vista, or Windows Genuine Advantage was flagging their XP installations as being invalid.

Microsoft has faced a lot of criticism from many different directions because of this. So what they’ve announced now is that with the upcoming Service Pack 1 for Vista (due sometime in the first quarter of 2008), they’re going to remove Reduced Functionality Mode altogether, replacing it with “nag screens” which will, apparently, constantly let a user know if Vista thinks the copy running on a computer isn’t “Genuine”.

End of story? Well, not really, in my opinion. Microsoft are trying to spin this as a “change of tactics” in its war against piracy of its operating systems. From a report on the subject on the BBC News web site;

It said efforts to tackle piracy had seen numbers of fake copies of Vista at half the level of XP, the previous Windows operating system.

This says to me personally something other than the first impression you would gain (that levels of Vista piracy are half that of XP because of the anti-piracy measures in Vista). It says to me that Microsoft, seeing slower than expected uptake of Vista, is beginning to worry. And it’s beginning to worry an awful lot, and what better way to increase the number of copies of Vista running on a PC than to make it “less hostile” to piracy?

You may think what I’m saying is counter-intuitive - what benefit is there for Microsoft if there are tens of thousands or more of non-paid-for copies of Vista running on PC’s? You’re thinking in the short-term. There is a long-term benefit for Microsoft in that the more generations of people who grow up seeing only Microsoft software running on computers, the more Microsoft gets ingrained into people’s heads that “computing = Microsoft”.

So, I say Microsoft, in removing Reduced Functionality Mode from Vista, have suddenly realised that they’ve gone too far and that they’re getting desperate to see Vista succeed - that they’ve realised that they’ve made a big error in their long-term game plan, and they’re now making moves to correct that error. Whether or not this will succeed is another question, though. Apparently the upcoming Service Pack 3 for Windows XP speeds up XP such that the people testing beta versions of SP3 say that XP seems to be faster than Vista. Coupled with that is that people genuinely (heh) seem to be quite happy to stick with XP, as Vista introduces problems when running a lot of older software. And not to forget that Linux also appears to making good headway into the desktop too.

Microsoft getting desperate? In my opinion it is.

I smiled when I read the title of this item in InterOp News, written by Jeff Gould.

There are a number of things I find wrong with this particular article, lets go through it, starting with the title:

Linux needs to try harder if it wants to catch Vista

Nice one! In one fell swoop the title alone makes some assertions:

1) That “Linux” is “behind” Vista.

The implication is that desktop use of Linux distros is behind Vista. How does he know this? Does he have concrete evidence to back this assertion up? Are there comparison figures which have definite Linux distro desktop use and the actual amount of desktops running Vista? I sure can’t find any definite numbers, therefore I am not prepared to make any assertions one way or the other. But I do suspect there is much greater use of Linux on desktop systems than is implied in that title.

2) The connotation in the title is that “Vista is superior to Linux”.

Perhaps I read too much into titles. Perhaps I’m paranoid. Perhaps I am merely suspicious when I see titles like that, but if you’re going to create a certain amount of doubt then your skill and use of language in your article title is important, and this one is very sly because of its wording. If the author meant to write it this way then that was quite clever. Perhaps I’m giving him more credit than he deserves.

Lastly, I was going to make this as point 3 - but it’s really just an amusing observation - well it amused me anyway. The title to me makes Vista look like some of disease to catch. I sure as heck don’t wish the Linux distro I use on my desktop to catch Vista! Sounds positively fatal!

Let’s get to the article itself; Read the rest of this entry »

And it’s back to business for me, after my trials and tribulations getting this site performing the way I want it to. Almost…

This time, here’s Bill Hilf, Microsoft’s…well, let’s let InformationWeek introduce him…

Microsoft’s leading light on open source issues. Since coming to Microsoft from IBM in 2003, Hilf has been inextricably involved with Microsoft’s strategy for dealing with Linux. He’s recently been appointed general manager of Windows Server marketing and platform strategy, which means he’s taking on an expanded role, but open source is still one of his core issues.

One of his core issues. Indeed. InformationWeek asks him:

InformationWeek: Are there any specific areas where you would see Microsoft placing things in an open source development environment as a way to further its own products or to better interoperate with things?

He replies with :

Hilf: When people buy commercial software, really what they’re buying is a guarantee. You’re buying a guarantee that what you have will perform, and has been tested and there’s someone you can call up, and if things go really bad someone’s liable if something doesn’t work. You’re buying this ecosystem of accountability. One of the challenges of open source and really the challenge with the open source business model is: it’s hard to replicate that ecosystem of accountability and that guarantee.

What he seems to be implying here is that if you use FOSS products, there’s no one to phone up and complain to if something with that product goes wrong. There’s no accountability. You can’t hold someone liable for something going wrong. What he’s also saying is that buying commercial (read : proprietary) software, then all these negatives Go Away. Not only that, but with the purchase of the commercial software, you’re getting a “guarantee that what you have will perform, and has been tested”, that you can hold the publishers of that software liable if something doesn’t work.

Oh, really? Yeah. Right.

Let’s deal with the issue of a piece of commercial software having a guarantee it’s going to work/perform, first. Read the rest of this entry »

Over the last few years, with the SCO lawsuits, and also with Microsoft’s spokespersons, there has been an attempt at inserting a catchphrase into business and internet nomenclature;

Intellectual Property

People like Steve Ballmer of Microsoft, Darl McBride of SCO, for example, have been repeatedly pushing this catchphrase at the world for a long time now, usually within the context that there are patents, copyrights, ideas, and innovations which they own, and usually implying that Linux and Open Source programs in general infringe on their “Intellectual Property rights”.

The most recent of these attempts at creating FUD was perpetrated by Steve Ballmer at a company event in the UK last week, in which he states

“People who use Red Hat, at least with respect to our intellectual property, in a sense have an obligation to compensate us”

Other choice quotes from Mr Ballmer;

“There are plenty of other people who may also have intellectual property. And every time an Eolas comes to Microsoft and says, “Pay us,” I suspect they also would like to eventually go to the open source world. So getting what I’ll call an intellectual property interoperability framework between the two worlds I think is important.”

Two mentions of “intellectual property” in that one quote!

So, what does this catchphrase actually mean, and why are these companies pushing it so strongly, with threats of lawsuits, enforcement of their “rights”, and the rest?

Read the rest of this entry »