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"So, Mr. ESR, what do you think of this? "

that linux needs crappy Microsoft software in order to survive.

More correct. He would say: "Linux needs Microsoft codecs in order to play WMV10 files."

I don't believe anybody thinks the WMV10 container is a crappy format.

Sure there is somebody.
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q1.07/5F0C866C-6DDF-4A9A-...

You pretty much summed it up, pity I can't mod you up even more

Surely, the Linux kernel developers can take a class lawsuit against Microsoft for false comments that are seeking to infringe upon the DOJ settlement agreement? We all know that Microsoft owns the US politicians though...

Dave

This is exactly what they want. They want to piss off, and split up the community. Divide and conquer. In my opinion, if we want to beat whatever MS is trying to do, then everyone needs to continue as normal, and completely ignore the stupid Sh*t MS is doing

"This is exactly what they want. They want to piss off, and split up the community. Divide and conquer."

I couldn't agree more. Microsoft is nothing if not an expert manipulator of FUD. They're going after the Linux community's uneasy cohesiveness by targeting the contentious "free & open only" purists versus those who are willing to use closed, proprietary binary blobs. Purists will abhor any and all affiliation with Microsoft while those who want to use their computers for proprietary content (i.e., MS codecs, drivers, etc) will embrace these patent protection / licensing schemes. Personally, I don't want anything to do with Microsoft. They're a bunch of shady crooks! If Microsoft believes they have valid claims, then they need to show the evidence or shut up! Linux companies who are inking these deals are simply trying to play both sides of the fence and the OSS community should avoid their offerings like the plague! Too bad Corporate buyers won't.

Edited 2007-06-14 17:49

I don't think I will ever use a Linux distribution that has an agreement signed with Microsoft. I hope that Canonical does not sign an agreement with Microsoft or I will switch (probably to Debian).

What's the fuss with MSN? I recall using a webcam with aMsn in PCLinuxOS, and seeing people who used MSN. Did the protocols change?

yeah webcam is working with amsn (or kopete), but audio is another story, i don't know why.

Maybe that's why they paid for audio MSN ?

Well, I'll have to check. Audio problems are not uncommon in Linux
But MS keeps changing its protocols and introducing new "features". Text is enough for me.

I think we should go the Beryl way: Make an AWESOME messenger with an open protocol, and make people say "WOW, I'll drop boring MSN right now!!"

That will only work if all of their friends drop too.

"Although, at this point, they might as well release Office for Linux"

In order to release Office for Linux, MS has to A) see that they will get a decent ROI (porting Office to Linux would cost millions in R&D/implementation/production/support costs) which will be tough to do since Linux is built around the idea of free software. Would the majority of Linux users actually pay for MS Office? And more importantly, are there even enough Linux users to offset the cost of porting Office? Would Office be profitable on the Linux platform?

If Linux wants Office, they need to prove to MS that they're worth it.

It does want Office, just not MS Office.

it HAS the Office, just not MS Office

it HAS the Office, just not MS Office

No, no, what it has is not THE Office

Do the majority of Windows users actually pay for MS Office? I suspect a considerable portion don't, otherwise we wouldn't see the extreme measures used for validation.

The only truly viable market for linux right now is commercial/enterprise, and that's the segment that would be most likely to pay for their software, and also the only segment in which MS is truly vulnerable to any extent since those customers use different criteria for purchasing considerations than consumers do. But since Office has been used as a tool to keep Windows dominant in the enterprise space by providing a major obstacle to alternative OS adoption, that's not a road they're even going to explore as anything other than a desperation attempt.

Frankly, if OSX had serious enterprise traction or potential, you would never have seen MS Office for Mac, either.

"Do the majority of Windows users actually pay for MS Office? I suspect a considerable portion don't, otherwise we wouldn't see the extreme measures used for validation. "

I'm not sure what you're saying here. It could be that the "extreme measures for validation" actually increase the number of users that do pay for Office.

Incidentally, Office 2007 Student & Home Edition has been #1 at Amazon.com until today (it's #2 right now, behind Leopard pre-orders), so *somebody's* buying it. (And the Student/Home Edition's "validation" measures aren't that extreme as it allows for installation on 3 computers. That's not that harsh for $120.)

Edited 2007-06-14 18:59

Students need cash to EAT, never mind wasting by giving to Microsoft.

Nonsense. Microsoft could simply reuse the OS X code base to port the software. Sure, it's not as simple as a recompile, but I don't think it would be nearly as difficult as you suggest.

As far as support costs go...what support? You don't get any kind of support when you buy the Windows/OS X version of Office, why would it be any different for the Linux version?



Would the majority of Windows user pay for Office? This has to be the single most pirated productivity app out there (with the possible exception of Photoshop).

I know I probably buy a copy, depending on the quality and price of the port.



Since Linux has roughly the same market share as OS X, and MS did put out an OS X version, I believe the answer is yes.



I don't see it wouldn't.



I hope you realize how condescending that sounds.

"As far as support costs go...what support? You don't get any kind of support when you buy the Windows/OS X version of Office, why would it be any different for the Linux version?"

Depending on the version you buy, you get a set amount of free calls to MS for issues. Not to mention that MS has to also train their entire Office support staff not only on Office, but on Linux basics as well...no small feat.

"Since Linux has roughly the same market share as OS X, and MS did put out an OS X version, I believe the answer is yes."

Perhaps, but are those same number of users willing to shell out hundreds of dollars for Office? Mac users are, but they come from a different mindset than Linux users.

"I hope you realize how condescending that sounds."

I meant Linux as a platform needs to prove to MS that a port would be profitable.

Really? For MS Office? How many calls do you get, for which version? What about the OS X version?

It seems to me that many pro-MS posters here are so negative in their views of Linux that they are unwilling to compromise - and yet a Linux port of MS Office would do wonder to repair some of the burnt bridges between Microsoft and the Linux community!

No, MS has to be convinced that their is money to be made in porting Office to Linux. Linux as a platform has, and cannot have anything to prove. Seeing that MS is a public company that has to show it's shareholders a profit, all there needs to be is a business case, and MS doesn't see that.

Porting Office to Linux is not an impossible task. Choosing which distros to support is the tough problem. That's what I think MS is doing right now, separating the ones that will play ball to the ones that won't.

"Nonsense. Microsoft could simply reuse the OS X code base to port the software. Sure, it's not as simple as a recompile, but I don't think it would be nearly as difficult as you suggest. "

Um, no.
Mac Office is a Mac app, not a unix app. Meaning, it is built against of the two Mac apis (i.e. Carbon & Cocoa; Office uses Carbon), not POSIX or the like. And it's likely that Microsoft doesn't have enough programmers with Linux experience, so they'd have to hire new staff. Then they have to decide if they use Gnome, KDE, or whatever... We're talking about a huge undertaking here, with very low prospects of ROI.


"Would the majority of Windows user pay for Office? This has to be the single most pirated productivity app out there (with the possible exception of Photoshop)."

It doesn't matter whether the "majority" of Windows users pay for Office, all that matters is that enough do that there is ROI.

Linux users:
a. Hate to pay for software.
b. Hate to run closed-source software.
c. Hate Microsoft.

You're telling me that enough Linux users would pay for closed-source software from a company that they hate, to deliver a profit against the huge expense it would take to port MS Office to Linux?

Note that Mac users only fit (c) of the above "hates" (and the silent majority of them don't even even fit (c)). So Mac Office delivers ROI. Linux users, on the other hand, fit a, b, and c, so it's a lot harder there.

Edited 2007-06-14 18:59

I disagree with a), inasmuch as it singles out Linux users. *All* computer users hate paying for software (which is why piracy is so rampant in the Windows and OSX worlds). There's *no* reason to believe that Linux users are *more* averse to pay for software than other types of users. In any case, has someone has already pointed out, the prime target of a Linux version of MS Office would be businesses, who *do* pay for software.

I consider myself a pretty average Linux user, and I would pay for MS Office. In fact, I already use my bought copy with Crossover, which I also paid for.

The fact that Crossover is a successful product invalidates a) all by itself.

As for b), I also don't think that is true. Some closed-source programs for Linux are quite successful (Google Earth and the Nvidia/ATI drivers come to mind). The vast majority of Linux users are pragmatic. They are not *against* closed-source software, even if they will prefer open-source alternatives if they are good enough. This isn't limited to Linux, by the way: it's also true for Windows and OS X (see rebuttal to point a, above).

As for point c), one of the reason Linux users distrust Microsoft is that they figure that the software giant wants to destroy their OS of choice. Publishing a Linux version of MS Office would go a *long* way into restoring some sort of trust for Linux users - and in the long run, that might be worth a lot more than the profit made from Office sales. ROI isn't everything.

In any case, as you pointed out, most Mac users are as vocal in their criticism of MS as Linux users, and yet they still buy Office. Heck, even Windows users bitch about MS all the time...

Home users don't have to be the ones buying Office for Linux. But lots of business users can for a good price if it means compatibility with documents produced on Windows.

I remember a discussion about MS Office on Linux. MS developers said that there is a problem, because they don't know with whom can they discuss kernel modifications.

Everybody else was confused, wondering what Office has to do with kernel.

It seems that MS Office has to be tied to OS kernel closely. I remember Win98, there was a directory 'MS Office' on disk, even if suite was not installed.

"It seems that MS Office has to be tied to OS kernel closely."

Office was never built to be portable, so why wouldn't they make direct kernel calls if it speeds things up?

Either they're scheming, or they are at such a loss to find a way to fend off Linux that they finally decided that they might as well learn to live with the competition.

You're funny today!

Time will tell...I don't trust them, but I hope I'm wrong.

Let's just hope that by the time any fools^H^H^H^H^H customers who are enticed to {Novell,Xandros,Linspire} by these deals find out, that trusting Microsoft is about as smart as trying to run Mac software on a PC, or trusting a politician, there'll still be a Linux distro around for them to flee to.

In the most basic sense, Microsoft is trying to defend itself against patent suits. Now that Linux has been "shown" to infringe Microsoft patents in the court of public opinion, they have a shield protecting them from small patent holders that distribute or use Linux.

It's not a legal shield, since Microsoft hasn't substantiated its patent claims, and since end-users cannot be held liable for patent infringement in software. It merely rests on the premise that no Linux distributor or user would have the audacity to prosecute patent claims against Microsoft given their very public assertion that all Linux vendors and users are infringing Microsoft patents.

More generally, though, this is Microsoft's special way of introducing the free software community to the unfortunate reality of the software patent landscape. In the software industry, patents are not used as an incentive to innovate. Rather, they are used as bargaining chips in the negotiations that govern the balance of power in the industry.

The free software community assumes that Linux vendors can compete in the industry by offering quality software and services at a reasonable price. But that's not how the game is played. The software industry is like a fraternity, where members with seniority, money, and influence use patents to justify their belief that newcomers must pay homage for the roles they played in the formative era of the industry.

This is hazing for those Linux vendors that have decided to pledge the MS house. The unrestrained partying of rush is over, and it's time to pay dues, go on beer runs, and participate in vaguely homo-erotic rites of passage--until the FSF kicks them off campus for furnishing encumbered software to minors.

Funny, but I rather see the FSF being reassigned to a different, smaller role than before, like a tenured professor that has become senile and batty over the years.

Really, the majority of today's linux users (and perhaps the majority of the OSS devs too) really don't give a damn about the FSF freedoms. People are often "just users" or "just engineers" ahead of activists. I respect this position much more than the power-grabbing Stallmaniacs. If FSF-inspired people spent as much time increasing the quality of their products as they did arguing the legal merits of it, these moves by Microsoft would not matter one whit because Debian or another community distro would be high-quality, easy to use, supportable, and thus the default distro for everyone.

I tend to think the reason we have so many distros has more to do with the fact that many people are escaping Windows because they want to try to do things THEIR way, and Linux lets them do that... thus, you're not going to end up with one default distro until it's all things to all people, and gives all comers all control over what goes into it.

Really, distributions are separated by (at least):
Package Manager
What format (liveCD, live+install, desktop, server, virtualization, embedded, rescue, pendrive, PPC, ARM, Alpha, ...)
How many packages it supports
What packages it contains
What versions it contains
How packages are configured (SELinux?)
Who makes it/philosophy
Community/support/quality of documentation
Cost

You're not going to make all of them go away very easily.

Now, default distro... well, I tend to point people toward Ubuntu. I might be persuaded to point them toward OpenSuSE or PCLinuxOS, but I'm sticking with Ubuntu because that's what I know.

Yes, it'd be nice if the coders could code and the politicians would leave well enough alone... but to a large extent they probably are. I mean, when we hear politics, we hear Eben Moglen, Richard Stallman, Theo de Raalt, Quinn Storm, Andrew Cox, and Linus Torvalds... with the occasional opinions from Mark Shuttleworth, Kevin Carmony, etc. But that's not all that many people. High profile, yes; but that's why they're asked for their opinion. That, and Shuttleworth, Carmony and Moglen are business-types who probably don't do much actual coding.

Well, ok, there's the Gentoo and Debian communities, and that IS a problem... but that's all I can think of.

Edited 2007-06-15 02:52

I wrote that comment after being pissed off wading through this thread: http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0706.1/2214.html .


Those are actual kernel coders. I know that Alan Cox, Linus, Greg K-H (whom I don't really like for his whole political stance), and Ingo Molnar are pretty serious contributors to the Kernel. They are wasting their time arguing about legalisms, which reduces the time and synergy they can expend on making concrete improvements to the kernel. This is in favor of rather abstract "freedoms," which do not advance the utility of either the users or the kernel devs themselves.

I wish what you say were true, that the coders are not involved too much in politics, but that does not seem to be the case. The three people I respect the most in the OSS movement (Linus, Ingo, and Miguel de Icaza) end up wasting so much of their time dealing with the political concerns of random people who have contributed little if anything. Or of people who have contributed a lot, but are simply not pragmatic in an economic or moral sense. It's just really frustrating, because the moral situation is quite clear with proprietary software and much less time is wasted on infighting.

All around the world today, in a variety of different contexts, those that perceive injustice and disenfranchisement are marginalized and demonized for their opposition to the establishment. Freedom is a personal ideal, but it is undoubtedly rooted in the ability to stand up for what you believe in, whatever that might be.

Confucius said that to know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice, but we've managed to take cowardice to a whole new level. We celebrate ignorance and praise conformity. We take for granted the work of the truly brave and conjure the most pathetic rationalizations when confronted with the reality of our squandered opportunities.

You say that the majority of Linux users don't give a damn about the Four Freedoms, and on this I won't disagree with you. But while you claim that this represents the failure of activism (in its fashionable negative connotation), I see it as the majority of Linux users experiencing first-hand what is right and choosing not to give a damn.

If we take for granted the free software movement and its legal underpinnings, free software will fall victim to precisely the same inequities that pervade the proprietary software industry. We'll defeat Microsoft by becoming Microsoft, yet we'll insist that we've maintained the moral high ground.

I think it's great that we have a choice between free and proprietary software. Not everybody agrees that free software has inherent advantages over proprietary software, and that's fine with me. I can't blame Microsoft for trying to proprietize free software, but I can blame free software vendors for letting it happen.

We created free software, and now anyone can aid in its proprietization by signing on with Microsoft. In a sense, the GPLv3 is too late. The damage is already done. The source code is still available, but the right to distribute it has been disputed, and these allegations have been validated by representatives of our own community.

We have choice. We can either stand up for what we know is right, or we can convince ourselves that a few high-profile glorified figureheads in the free software community need to put their heads down and code instead of being the leaders they need to be. Our community is flush with developers. What we need is more leadership, not less.

It gets yet another mean to build the myth that using Linux for free is potentialy risky... and that if you ae going to pay, then you might just as well pay for windows an have it easier with your apps and hardware.

I think this tactic is particulary targeted to the SMB arena, were migrating to linux is becoming more tempting than ever, feature and budget wise, and were a close end.user-IT.staff relationship easily generates familiarity and good PR for Linux.

Edit:
Of course, MS is probably "convincing" this distributions into signing by showing some "infringed patents", seeing how awfuly those patents are being handed it's quite likely. As for if those patents would stand... I doubt many people is anxious to have a legal battle against MS to find out. And THAT is the ace MS is using now.

Edited 2007-06-14 17:58

Although it has very little to do with Linux, i'm actually happy that it gets all the attention. So if Linux crashes someday, free software will stand tall and clean on other great free operating systems.

... kernels actually

Edited 2007-06-15 09:00

I've got this feeling that most, if not all, claiming here never to use Linspire (again) have never used Linspire, do not use Linspire, and will never use Linspire anyway.

If it were not for this deal I may have once considered thinking about possibly using Linspire sometime in the future... Well no more!

If it were not for this deal I may have once considered thinking about possibly using Linspire sometime in the future... Well no more!

Who cares?

I did. I used 4.5 for a few months after Linspire was doing a promo here on OSNews a few years ago and I tried 5.0 that came on a Wally World POS a friend had purchased for his kid. I also tried Freespire 1.0 when it came out on a test machine just out of interest. However, I currently don't have any Linspire/Freespire products installed.

I am curious to ask, why do people not just dump Linux from their computers and go exclusively BSD?

For one thing, it's not time to jump ship quite yet. For another, no BSD can rival Linux in the amount of hardware support. Thirdly,

I mean the BSD license is so open, anything released under it is basically public domain.

The BSD licence is so open that any company that wants to can take BSD code without giving back, and put it in their proprietary product never to be seen again. Not exactly a good business proposition if you want to keep control of your code and stop proprietary splintering a la UNIX - although, I admit, wonderful if you want to steal someone else's.

So why not switch to FreeBSD or OpenBSD for a technically superior system, with software that seems to be legally untouchable because of it's license.

As I understand it, the BSD licence is no less vulnerable to patents than GPL2. Only GPL3 has that virtue.

No license will protect you from third-party patent suits; all the GPL3 does is prohibit suits from distributors of GPL software claiming infringment by any user of that software. GPL2 actually had the same protection, though it was implied rather than explicit.

But BSD/GPLx/proprietary etc. are all in the same boat when it comes to patent threats. The problem isn't the licensing, it's the basic patent system itself.

I stand corrected!

The BSD licence is so open that any company that wants to can take BSD code without giving back, and put it in their proprietary product never to be seen again. Not exactly a good business proposition if you want to keep control of your code and stop proprietary splintering a la UNIX - although, I admit, wonderful if you want to steal someone else's.

But you still have your original code and may do whatever you wish with it and have full control on it.

I guess we are lucky that no one of BSD software developers are so greedy about their code like you are. Or maybe you do not code and just like to spread false claims every time anyone mentions BSD?

But you still have your original code and may do whatever you wish with it and have full control on it.

AT&T (or whoever *really* owns UNIX) still has its original UNIX code. NetBSD still has its original BSD code. Did that prevent the splintering of UNIX into AIX, AUX, Solaris, DG-UX, or of BSD into Net-, Free-, Open-, DragonFly-, PC-, Desktop-, Tomorrow-, DayAfter-, and OhNoNotAnotherBSD?

No?

QED.

I guess we are lucky that no one of BSD software developers are so greedy about their code like you are.

Actually, you're unlucky on that point. If it hadn't been for the fundamental splintering of the BSD's, they might have given Linux a run for its money even without being a possible refuge for people scared that Linux will disappear.

Or maybe you do not code and just like to spread false claims every time anyone mentions BSD?

Actually, no. I like to point out that the BSD people, not Linux people, are the *real* idealists. This isn't FUD. It's a fact of life.

"AT&T (or whoever *really* owns UNIX) still has its original UNIX code. NetBSD still has its original BSD code. Did that prevent the splintering of UNIX into AIX, AUX, Solaris, DG-UX, or of BSD into Net-, Free-, Open-, DragonFly-, PC-, Desktop-, Tomorrow-, DayAfter-, and OhNoNotAnotherBSD? "

There are far less BSD derivatives than Linux derivatives, and they all tend to be much more compatible then the differences in say Red Hat and Debian, They all support the ports system and cvsup, and they are all derived from BSD386. Most of the new BSD distros are based on FreeBSD, and most are close enough to FreeBSD to use the FreeBSD ports and package systems directly. Therefore, I see alot less splintering in the BSD world than the Linux world.

"Actually, no. I like to point out that the BSD people, not Linux people, are the *real* idealists. This isn't FUD. It's a fact of life."

I wouldn't call it FUD, but I wouldn't call it a false idealism either. That BSD idealism that you speak of lead to TCP/IP becoming the standard of the internet, because everyone had access to a set of free, high quality networking utilities and stack. The reason that the number of BSD distros are increasing is because that idealism is paying off, as the BSD license allows for a clean, robust OS, as free (I think more free, but that's MHO) as Linux.

"""
Actually, no. I like to point out that the BSD people, not Linux people, are the *real* idealists. This isn't FUD. It's a fact of life.
"""

I think that we all tend to focus too much upon licensing.

Has GPLv2 been responsible for Linux's success? Well, Apache has done better with a very different one. So has perl. And Python, et al.

I like copyleft. But I'm not sure that it actually deserves as much credit as it is given.

And copyleft licenses *are* greedy licenses. By that, I mean that "compatibility" often means that we can take code from you. You can't take code from us? Well, it's still "compatible".

And sharing code is hard. Licensing aside, it's hard. And if the licensing does throw up extra hurdles... well, maybe that can sometimes do more harm than good.

We're a diverse group of fellows who can never seem to agree upon *anything* except that we all somehow seem to agree on *something* except that no one seems to be sure of just what that something is.

Perhaps we should simply accept that we're just a sort of strange amalgum who have somehow accomplished some amazing things, against all odds, and don't really know exactly how, and just give everyone credit for... whatever it is that they have done. ;-)

-Steve

Edited 2007-06-15 03:35