One of the world’s largest IT companies is declaring that the Linux desktop will capture 20% of the market for desktop computers in large enterprises within 5 years. Siemens Business Systems has done some extensive real-world testing with the Ximian desktop and application suite, running on either SuSE or Red Hat Linux and found that it’s ready enough to start taking some real share away from Microsoft Windows and Office.
Hehe. I went to a flamewar, and an article broke out.
“Siemens has no “religious” attachment to a particular distro or desktop environment. Before settling on Ximian, Siemens evaluated plain vanilla Gnome and KDE as well. Siemens found KDE to be more “Windows-like” than Gnome, but that led to problems when non-technical users expected a more Windows-like experience. Gnome, particularly Ximian’s version, was “different enough” to set user expectations that the experience would be less like Windows, which led to fewer adoption problems.”
Note, that “window-like” was a liability, not a help.
Disregarding the blatant trolling by Coral Snake, I think this is great news. To be honest, I think that 20% market share is a little optimistic, but who knows what will happen in four years.
If Windows is considered good enough, Linux certainly is. I had an easier time using Linux than Windows. Let’s hope that this will mean more applications and better commercial support.
Please note that they refer to large enterprises and in my eyes Linux seems very appropriate for those environments because management in such a controlled environment is much easier than on home desktop systems. So a 20% market share sounds pretty nice.
China and India.
Those two countries alone will garner a large precentage of *nix users let alone other nations like Japan, Indonesia, Germany, who will more then likely add to the base. Sure here in the US we may be shackled by MS but other goverments around the world are not tied down to the old ball and chain known as MS.
Some people are going to want/have to work at home and will need access to the very same OS they use at work in their home to get the job done.
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“”China and India.
Those two countries alone will garner a large precentage of *nix users let alone other nations like Japan, Indonesia, Germany, who will more then likely add to the base””
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And the funny thing is, these are the same two countries where US/Canadian Jobs are being outsourced too. I think all you linux admins should be ready to move to india or china and be sure to pack some lube in your suitcase. And be sure to thank your employers too. buhahah
While it would be nice to see non-MS desktops, I’m not convinced that it will happen. The factors cited (ease of use, lower TCO, etc.) have existed on the Mac for ages. You can also make a pretty good case that the same has been true of Linux for at least two or three years.
The Windows platform has a lot of inertia behind it. Does it make sense for IT departments to toss out all of their Windows expertise?
I can see Linux having a big desktop presence in developing nations, but I don’t see it happening in the US or Europe.
While I would rather see Apple double its market share, Linux taking a large chunk of Microsoft’s business would also be a good thing. It will be a tough sell. I just read an interesting article about how IT departments favor Windows because it provides job security. If large entities switched to Macintosh or Linux, the IT staff would have less to do and would be cut back. They choose Windows precisely because it is so flawed and gives them an aura of indispensibility.
I wouldn’t place any bets on the effects of Globalization staying confined to any particular demographic.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0813340241/qid=106117…
Anyway. Remember Linux helps float many boats. Corporate and individual (even the unemployed. Learn skills that formerly were economically out of reach.)
> If Windows is considered good enough, Linux certainly is. I had an
> easier time using Linux than Windows. Let’s hope that this will mean
> more applications and better commercial support.
If that is the case for you (no doubt it is for other users also), it will have skyrocketed a few years down the track. Longhorn is now due in early 2006 so the O.S Desktop Environments essentially will have had 5 years of no Windows compettition. The amount that can be done is huge and this amounts to roughly 10 releases. Apple’s OSX will have passed through 5 versions as well.
Now is a great opportunity to move even further funcionality wise, while Microsoft does their own dramatic face-lift/restructure of the Windows code.
I really doubt that Microsoft will go five years without releasing something Operating System related. Most likely Windows XP 2004 which will basically be a glorified service pack with updates to a few things, and a different looking interface. Then probably one more of those before Longhorn gets released in late 2007 or 2008.
So the real advantage will be that Microsoft will be selling circa 2000 software untill 2007, and that linux companies will be selling newer software in 2004, 2005… etc.
I suspect that Linux can make more headway into the corporate environment simply because of the already exsisting mass of hardware out there that won’t run mac os, but will run linux.
The only thing Microsft would have to do to stop this scenario from becoming true, is to sell a bundle of Longhorn, MS-Office and MS-SQLServer for $49 including 3 years of free 24/7 support.
The reason it do not work with MAcs is because your are tide to proprietary hardware. Reason why it will work for PC’s running Linux is because both hardware and software are NOT PROPRIETARY. Hell the reason why PC’s took off had to do with it’s open ended nature in terms to hardware. FAce it the very nature of proprietary anything has a bad habit of locking people in and stunting growth. PC’s were lucky that they were built from off the shelf parts and also lucky that they kept that concept alive. This is the reason why Mac is a niche market and why even Linux will out pace it in terms of users.
The thing is people aren’t stupid. Sure you’ll get some short sighted thinkers to bite early on, yet there will be a lot of long range thinkers who won’t bite. Thoses who will realize that once MS secures itself from this new foe that prices and licenses will come back to bite them in the arse ! That’s the very nature of MS’s monopoly that has grown to be very transparent to most people when MS starts offering stuff for a cheap price. Most people know that whatever they get for cheap today off MS will eventually end up costing them a lot more down the road when MS hits them up with it’s upgrade cycles and licensing schemes/scams.
LoL – Go back to mexico ! MS is opening up a huge campus in New Delhi so it ain’t just Linux moving jobs overseas. Jobs moving overseas is nothing new and will continue despite Linux. When is the last time you bought a American made and assembled motherboard, tv, vcr, etc… ?
that microsoft would wait until 2006 while their competition will have multiple releases in between. They must do something or they will look very silly compared to Gnome3/KDE 4 and OS X 12 (numbers plucked from thin air). Perhaps they are looking at other markets such as tablet PC’s which will be around the corner?
LoL – Go back to mexico !
And your point is you are racist?
ROFLMAO ! – Look out here comes the PITA PC patrol someone call Al Sharpton so he can join in the fun !
last time i checked Linux had like a 7 % market share. I am betting with the new 2.6 kernel things are bound to change. I read somewhere that 2.6 should be frozen around september. People are testing it like crazy. I, in all honesty don’t believe MAC will ever get a big share as Linux is getting. Simply because the OS it self can’t handle as many clients as a Linux based box would. Of course, if you install Linux on a mac, it will be able to handle it and do more. Windows server domination, IMHO keeps declining slowly simply because of price and the security issues that daunt it. of course no OS is security free. Especially start-ups who have to deal with licensing issues , it pretty expensive to get licenses for some 1000 machines. It is great that linux will dominate 20 %, but i foresee it to be more. Simply because it is being widely deployed in the server market..(7 %) is good. We run red hat servers and i know of other companies.. i.e. apple who use oracle as there database on Nix boxes. That was like 5 months ago when i called for tech support on an ibook and there db was down. Anyway, I hope we gain more market simply because Linux is great alternative to windows. As other *nixes and of course OS X. Yet, lets wait and see what panther has in store for the server market.
0% in 2008?
No one knows for sure what will happen in 5 years. 5 years ago we were talking about Windows 98 and Linux for Alpha geeks. 5 years is many generations in software. I agree currently Linux has some momentum and community support. How Linux or OS X will evolve in the future is hard to know. Linux has the potential to become the de facto standard in business in the medium term. On the otherhand Linux is quickly moving from a geek OS to commodity OS. At this point Linux is playing catch up with Windows and the Mac as far as features and hardware support. The killer apps aren’t coming out on Linux first. Mac OSX has some advantages going for it in competing in the desktop market. Apple bundles a lot of cool software on there machines, stuff others try and copy later, iPhoto, and iTunes, etc. Second Mac OSX is built on open source FreeBSD, with a nice twist called a micro kernel. Linus Torvalds hates the idea and has gone the monolithic kernel route. But the micro kernel is more user friendly on the upgrade cycle. New OS services and hardware support don’t require a new linking and recompiling. Users download the update, install with a couple of clicks and reboot. Some upgrades don’t even need the reboot because dynamic linking is supported. Apple’s Darwin flavor of FreeBSD might give Linux some friendly competition even on Intel based hardware. As for this open verses closed hardware stuff, yes Apple makes some custom hardware components like their motherboards, but they also support many open hardware standards like HUD for USB, OpenGl for graphic cards, regular and serial ATA hard drives, their Firewire was submitted as an industry standard, they use DDR RAM, PCI, PCI-X, etc. The days of proprietary ports and add-on cards for Apple died when George senior was President. They have more open source and less proprietary stuff overall than Wintel machines, remember Windows code is totally closed.
So when is Asus coming out with a retail new G5 motherboard ? Oh wait you can’t get one of the shelf like PC’s because Apple won’t allow it !
The day I can purchase a cheap but fast Mac built by Dell/HP/Gateway/etc or when I can build one for less then the price of what Apple has on their site is the day you can say that Apple hardware is not proprietary. Untill then you just sound like a Mac fanboy.
Linux may have 20% desktop market share worldwide, but in the U.S. it won’t have but the tiny fraction of that for a long time to come.
How big of a slice Novell would have out of that 20 % ?
After years and years, you guys still don’t get it. The reason that MS comes out on top year after year despite viable competition from the Mac and Linux … It’s all about applications. Right or wrong, people just wanna to run Microsoft Office and their favorite games. They don’t want to earn a CS degree to use their operating system. Command line? You’re kidding me! On top of that, most people will use whatever they’re using in the office. Which is … you guessed it … Windows.
Apple has been trying to crack this market for years. Some of you have suggested that Apple’s proprietary hardware and higher costs are the reasons why they’ve met with little success. That’s partially true–but doesn’t completely explain why. Microsoft started out with — and kept — its platform advantage starting with DOS to Win3.1 to Win95 to WinXP. It isn’t about cost. It’s about applications. People can buy WinXP from Dell for $99 with a new machine. That $99 isn’t the determining factor in whether people choose Windows.
Linux will not see much growth in the desktop space. It will, however, continue to eat commercial Unix’s lunch — and will eventually kill off all but the very high end Unixes.
Funny. In all that I didn’t see data lock-in, or the per-processor tax, or any of the other shenanigans. Ladies and Gentlemen, I bring you the new and improved historical record. You all can throw away your old copies.
I think Microsoft are a household name because of Marketing and software Piracy (you copy MS Office from work, use it at home illegally …)
so XP Product Activation is a Good Thing coupled with the unprecedented amount of Good Press that Linux has been getting the last couple of years. When Joe Sixpack can no longer easily copy software, and nor can the Pirates … why not just use GNU/Linux/OpenOfficeOrg.
Even Microsoft’s (failing) XBox straregy shows that it wants to ween gamers off the PC platform onto it’s own proprietry platform (Mandrake remarks aside!). So to avoid lock-in gamers can switch to Linux also. There is growing commercial support for gaming on Linux for sure.
As for Apple only having 3% or so of the overall Desktop market – well, for comparison’s sake, Intel only has 2% market share of the overall semiconductor market. Yes, 2%. The leader there is, I think, NEC.
I think common standards are a Good Thing. It could be argued that Windows is a common standard, except most standards are open and well documented.
“While it would be nice to see non-MS desktops, I’m not convinced that it will happen. The factors cited (ease of use, lower TCO, etc.) have existed on the Mac for ages. You can also make a pretty good case that the same has been true of Linux for at least two or three years.”
Linux is cheaper than Microsoft. Mac is more expensive. Big difference, especially when the products are imported.
TCO calculations look different where wages are lower and purchase costs much higher.
If application superiority were the primary factor, we’d all be using Mac’s instead of Windows-based products. The two fundemental apps of the office suite (Word and Excel) were initially released on the Mac platform in 1984!
No, the reason we have Windows as the dominant platform is early corporate entrenchment thanks to IBM’s PCs. Even though MS-DOS was absolutely hideous compared offers from the competitors (Apple, Commodore, and Atari), everyone bought into it because of the mindshare developed by “It’s what I use at work. I can copy my apps from there and work at home.”
The fact that cloners eventually got so cut-throat in competition, it just wasn’t possible for the non-standard hardware platforms to compete on price any longer. Due to these rock-bottom prices on hardware, we will not see a shift to anything else unless it also runs on the same Intel/AMD hardware-base.
Now… here’s where you are correct about applications locking the platform. As long as Office only exists for Windows only on the Intel/AMD platform, very limited amounts of the user-space will switch to something else. Microsoft knows this and will hold out porting it’s applications to any other OS until the bitter end.
If Siemens is investing heavily in a Linux desktop, doesn’t it make sense for them to make this statement? How is it any different from MS saying Windows has a lower TCO than Linux. Both have their agendas.
Let’s consider the situation at a typical small business.
You would have PC’s running Windows 98, NT, 2k and Xp mixed togheter.
You can’t upgrade to windows 2k or XP, because the older computers cannot run it. You can’t downgrade to NT, because it’s no longer supported or available. And even it would be possible, it would be very expensive. You’d have to buy new licenses for all PC’s.
Same goes for Office. The older versions are no longer available; the newer version won’t run on older hardware.
So, you’re basically stuck with your mixed version setup, meaning that users cannot experience a consistent desktop across the office or take their desktop configuration from one pc to another, because MS’s roaming profiles does not support this.
With Linux, you can upgrade all pc’s to the same version. Even a pentium 150 with 40 megs of RAM will run X with icewm reasonably well.
In an office network however, you can use it as a terminal on one of your newer PC’s and run even the latest Gnome or KDE.
So, within a typical small business you can create a consistent desktop across the office using the hardware that is already present for minimal costs.
There is no problem moving from one PC to another. All your configuration settings go with you as long as your home directory is shared across the different computers.
I think this makes Linux very attractive for small business. I’ve actually talked to customers who would love to go over to Linux, if only their core application (a 3D CAD system) was available for Linux.
So, I’m confident that once more and more applications become available, more and more businesses will switch.
Those software developers that realize this and go for cross-platform development suites like Qt of WxWindows now are the ones that will have a competitive edge once Linux really takes off.
I’m confident that once more and more applications become available, more and more businesses will switch.
I am just curious. Has anyone here ever purchased any Linux software (other than a distro)? If so,
what was it?
how much did it cost?
why did you buy instead of using open source?
The perception is that there is no money in developing Linux software, otherwise it would have at least as much as the Mac.
Without commercial software, Linux will be hard pressed to make significant inroads on the corp. desktop.
If Microsoft was actaully serious about challenging Linux and the Free/Open Source Software community/movement/whatever, they would release the sources of their unsupported and discontinued software under a BSD/MIT license.
That way they would have the same appeal as Linux and the rest of the FOSS community/movement/whathaveyou.
This has the same appeal to Microsoft as a load of fetid dingos’ kidneys to a vegetarian, so I doubt they will try to compete – as usual they will leave the battle without even trying.
I am just curious. Has anyone here ever purchased any Linux software
(other than a distro)? If so, what was it?
Vmware, Crossover Office, developers licenses for Qt and coin.
how much did it cost?
Don’t know.
why did you buy instead of using open source?
No decent alternatives available for vmware.
CrossOver gives you basically an easy to use installer for wine, so it is partially open source.
Qt and Coin are developer products we actually choose _because_ they are open source.
“The perception is that there is no money in developing Linux software,
otherwise it would have at least as much as the Mac.
Without commercial software, Linux will be hard pressed to make
significant inroads on the corp. desktop.”
I personally think there is money to be made in Linux software, only at the moment not as much as for the Mac or Windows, because of the lower market share.
On the other hand, it is a market that is completely open. There are no competitors!
In other words, as a developer you have the chance to grab a large portion of the Linux niche market.
Cross platform tools like Qt or WxWindows give you the chance to build applications for Windows, Unix and Mac from a single source code. I were running a software company I would very seriously consider switching to Qt or WxWindows, because:
1. Cross platform development tools make you as a independent software company independent of OS vendors for your revenue.
2. Developing for more then 1 platform forces you to use libraries and constructs that adhere to standards, which means your software becomes more flexible.
3. You can generate extra revenue from niche markets for low extra costs.
4. You can ride whatever wave comes along.
Now there’s one but. It is not easy to switch from MS’s MFC library to, say, Qt. Microsoft has made it to an art to make everything they produce as incompatible with anyone else as possible. So, the conversion from MFC to cross-platform can be a costly operation.
So, I expect we might actually see young and small start-up companies that do make the decision of going cross-platform from the start going the other way around.
Because they are working cross-platform they can easily penetrate the Linux and Mac markets and make some money there, without facing the fierce competition in the Windows market.
As for my personal situation, I work for a small company making high-tech software for seismic analysis and visualisation. We used to develop on Sun Solaris and release on Solaris and IBM AIX.
When I joined, we decided to start developing on Linux. Since we already developped cross-platform the port to Linux was easy to do.
For our GUI, we use Qt because it is Open Source and cross platform. Due to working cross-platform from the start, I was able to port to Silicon Graphics on customer request in a matter of a few weeks.
We now work internally exclusively on Linux, because the hardware is much cheaper then what we used before. (We develop on Linux and we have some people working day-to-day with our own sofware).
So, we make heavy use of Linux to cut costs. We only have 2 Sun and 1 SGI machine left for the sole purpose of compiling for releases to our customers and testing integration with 3rd party software (data access).
Microsoft is about making money year-on-year. To make money it either has to keep selling products, or it has to sell maintenance.
Maintenance is what the new software licence agreements have been all about to maintain a constant revenue stream. And, given the complexity of Microsoft software, it’s not surprising that a lot of maintenance is – and will continue to be – required.
Down the other avenue, to keep selling products you have to develop new ones that have the same pull as the old ones or simply “enhance” the old ones.
New products can take the form of capabilities such as .Net which can be used to tie-in corporate customers even more tightly to Microsoft. However, questions are now being raised within companies about whether blindly following this proprietary approach is necessarily a “good thing” when non-proprietary solutions are available with only a small reduction in functionality.
Enhancing old products in Microsoft parlance means creating ever more integrated (for which read “monolithic and difficult to maintain”) software. Microsoft can see that the writing is on the wall for this.
What all this is saying is that Microsoft’s aims are not necessarily in tune with those of its marketplace because of its need to keep making money.
Now look at Unix-type OSs and associated apps. They may not offer all the features of Microsoft products but they are more modular and easier to maintain. They’re open and low cost and there’s no sign that the same commercial drivers are going to affect this marketplace in terms of producing overcomplex overfeatured software requiring significantly more powerful hardware year-on-year.
With just a little more maturity, Unix-type OSs *should* be able suit the needs of corporates, the only issues being overcoming corporate IT’s desire to always have the absolute latest and whizziest software, however buggy it may be – and overcoming the “non-one ever got fired for buying Microsoft” syndrome.
My gut feeling is that Siemens’ claim of 20% in 5 years is wrong. Either it won’t happen at all because Microsoft will be successful in tying down corporates, or the figure will be much more like 60-70%, maybe even more.
5 years is a long time in computer history and my money’s on the 60-70% figure being true because I really can’t see how Microsoft, despite all its marketing skills, will be able to keep corporates paying over the money when they can see a much cheaper alternative for only a small compromise in capability. IMO, Siemens is just being cautious as 20% is a dead easy target to achieve.
“Reason why it will work for PC’s running Linux is becauseboth hardware and software are NOT PROPRIETARY. Hell the reason why PC’s took off had to do with it’s open ended nature in terms to hardware”
With all due respect, you need to re-think your history. Windows captured huge marketshare IN SPITE OF being totally proprietary. Granted, PC HARDWARE has been “non-proprietary” since Compaq reverse-engineering IBM’s BIOS (I am amazed the courts let that one fly!).
Windows is big 1) because Intel hardware started selling in 1981 –running DOS, mind you– three years before the Mac came out. 2) Percieved low cost– if you factor in JUST cost of hardware and IGNORE cost of support 3) MSFT’s predatory practices.
Apple still has “semi-proprietary” hardware (though you shouldn’t say taht to anyone running AIX or LINUX on Mac hardware– they won’t believe you. Nut in terms os Software, The Apple OS Kernel is OPEN SOURCED and based on BSD UNIX. MSFT still hasn’t discovered UNIX, and probably won’t till people start dumping Windows like old slide rules.
To answer the question: Yes, LINUX could be 20% in five years. That leaves 80% for Apple. And the world could be a much happier, more efficient place.
BTW: Cringley last week or this week talks about Windows being the “full employmnet act for IT” http://www.pbs.org/cringley
I don’t always agree with him, but this time he is right-on. You know how much non-Windows users were inconvenienced by the latest Virus? ummm– not at all, thank you!
Here is a simple scenario:
China decides that all students need access to a computer i.e 100 million computers (1 per 3 students).
China insists on cheap, locally designed and manufactured hardware (<US$200 + monitor). Most likely *not* because they want to force locals away from Windows.
The Chinese government hires a few thousand coders to build apps for a linux distro.
India, Brazil, Indonesia (~2.5 billion combined population)do likewise. Say 500 million devices within 5 years. A $100 basic tablet PC is certainly feasible by 2008 esp. if it only requires a very lightweight OS and apps.
Indian Business Machines
James Kane wrote:
If application superiority were the primary factor, we’d all be using Mac’s instead of Windows-based products. The two fundemental apps of the office suite (Word and Excel) were initially released on the Mac platform in 1984!
Read for comprehension, James. I didn’t qualify my statement with “application superiority”. It’s “applications” period. Once users start using applications on a particular platform, they’re locked in, and it’s practically impossible to get them to switch unless (a) you can guarantee compatibility, or (b) the benefits of switching are so overwhelming that they can’t help themselves.
I would argue that the Mac and Linux offer neither advantage. WINE is crap. It will never get to the point of being able to run all Windows applications successfully — especially since MS is reportedly revamping much of their platform in time for the Longhorn release. VMWare is a great product; however, VMWare requires a copy of Windows to run — which essentially nukes any TCO advantage.
The Mac and Linux offer parity with Windows. That ain’t good enough to convince people to switch. What is required is a monumental leap in productivity or functionality. I don’t see that happening anytime soon. Therefore, both OS’s will remain also-rans in the desktop space — despite what many of you people would like to see happen. You’re kidding yourselves if you think differently.
I’m curious, too. Has anyone ever purchased any Microsoft software? How much did it cost? When did you buy it? What’s the ratio of software you paid for vs. stole?
There are far more potential new users than existing customers in the world. The future markets are for ultracheap hardware in developing countries. They have no previous experience and will use whatever is offered up in future.
The future isn’t Mac or Windows it is $200 Chinese tablets and OSS.
It doesn’t matter about existing users because many jobs will be transferring to India anyway…not just IT but engineering, accounting, pharmaceuticals etc. Why get some western highschool dropout when an high quality Indian university graduate costs a 1/4 the price.
India produces 100, 000 *real* (ie equal or better than US grad school level) engineers a year. There are more English speakers in India than in Britain. The Indian educated class is probably as large as that of North America.
India has built its own fighter aircraft, nuclear weapons and missiles. <sarcasm>I think they can probably manage to write some passable OSS </sarcasm>
I see this more of a sign of the death of Microsoft Office than Microsoft Windows. The reason being simply that with 20% of the business world not being able to cleanly read .doc, .xls, .ppt, .mdb files, the industry will be forced to move to some open standard file format that everyone can read. Once this is done, I find it hard for a business to justify $500 a pop for Microsoft Office. Windows shouldn’t be hit too hard, and might even increase its market share. The reason being is that the cost of Windows would be cheaper because now companies will only buy Windows ($300 retail, $200 upgrade, $50 OEM) rather than Windows and Office (= cost of Windows + $500). At this price, Windows would cost about the same as or cheaper than RedHat ($99 / year subscription rate) making the case for migration null. Also, there are many other applications on Windows not available on Linux while the reverse is not really true.
to see a 20% linux share and 20% mac share in about 2008. about time we get a little less monoculture, and a little more competition.
if SCO doesn’t own it…. the Rat Bastards!!!!!
Who Know?
What will happen 5 years from now?
Just to clarify that Crossover Office allows you to install and run Microsoft Office 97/2000/XP and Lotus plus a few other programs.
Ive’ got Office 2000 running happily on SuSe 8.2 Linux. SO if there are mixed office WIndows enviroments and they have purchased an Office product then Linux and Crossover Office gives them an upgrade option without new hardware
Because MS has always been big on Windows and IBM has almost from the start been big on Linux. Siemens on the other hand was one of those large companies that was never big on Linux and did not see any use for it on the corporate desktop until now. That’s way it matters what they say because at one point in time they down played Linux’s role on the enterprise desktop but now they are doing a 360 degree turn and pushing it’s deployment.
<quote>…but now they are doing a 360 degree turn and pushing it’s deployment.</quote>
probably me just being a smartass and bored but I think you mean a 180 degree turn.
Has anybody ever wondered how much open-source/Linux code Microsoft has used in windows?
Since their software code is proprietary and therefore is “secret”, they don’t have to show it to anyone. Microsoft can copy and put in as much open-source code as it would like without anyone questioning the origins of it.
It would be nice for someone to look into this. That would “force” Microsoft to share the Windows with the rest of the open-source community per the GPL.
There is definately BSD code in there… But that’s not a problem, try finding an OS *without* a little BSD in it.
On windows 2000 try typing nslookup at the console.
Then type help, and you will get a page including the line:
“view FILE – sort an ‘ls’ output file and view it with pg”
That’s nice. For some reason, ls and pg don’t work from the windows command line though. Perhaps they are suggesting I install Cygwin?
“Has anybody ever wondered how much open-source/Linux code Microsoft has used in windows?”
Yeah, that would explain why Windows code is so full of security holes.