“Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said that the software giant would have to withdraw the Windows operating system from the market if a federal court approves sanctions being sought by nine states in its antitrust case, according to depositions released Monday.” Read the rest of the report at News.com. Our Take: A non-development or withdraw of Windows and its support can hurt an immense number of companies, which can have a huge impact to the economy in many countries. I still can’t get it. They are fighting Microsoft for the browser case, instead for its dirty business practices. It’s comically tragic.
Steve Ballmer: Sanctions Would Destroy Windows
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
your take just sound like the thing MS and other companies want to tell the user. If you don’t upgrade to the newest Version your company will be hurt so buy every fucking upgrade we release 😉
Why not use Win NT until the hardware breaks down ? Do you really need all the new features XP has to do your office job ? Do you really need all the new features Office XP has ? I still use Ofiice97 on Win NT and I’m happy with it , why upgrade ? A lot of companys will only upgrade from NT because MS will stop support and not because it’s not possible to do the job with it !!!!
Thoems
IIRC isnt the browser case a case of dirty business practices. Also, Withdrawing windows wont hurt business, it will help it. Imagine how much money businesses could save if they didnt have to pay microsoft half of their IT budget.
Why would segmenting Windows help fight the Microsoft monopoly? All that will do is segment a product. Microsoft will still have the upper hand on this. The intention of the settlement should not be to hobble the functionality of Windows as much as hobble the monopolistic tendancies of Microsoft. They should have pursued the business practices of Microsoft.
The settlement I was always hoping for was splitting Micrsoft into two corporations. The first corporation would be an operating system vendor. The second corporation would be an application developer. The development environments would go over to the application side.
I think Steve Ballmer’s comments are complete hyperbole however. If Microsoft withdrew Windows from the market, then 80% of their non-OS software sales would vaporize, along with 100% of their operating system sales. There is no way they would ever commit corporate suicide just to spite a bunch of complaining citizens. In that one fell swoop Ballmer and Gates would go from being the richest people on earth, to being mere millionares…which seem to be a dime a dozen anymore.
Windows withdraw? Ok we have loads of free software, opensource and non MS commercial software.
simply start using it.
Apart from their illegal doings like the Bootloader issues and countless other anti-competitive actions in their past, I believe their claim of their inability to untie IE from Windows as just another sign of why they need proper punishment.
A well designed Operating System is modular and scalable. Tying multimedia and internet technologies to the core operating system offers no real technological advantages.
When there is a global OS monopoly I believe clone companies should be offered the option to purshase only the parts they want or need. If they want to leave Mozilla out in favour of the Opera browser that should have to be possible. The same option should have to be available for most other programs like document viewers, multimedia players and all similar 3rd party programs.
I do believe packages should be allowed to be offered by a monopolist as well, but there should have to be a rational price distinction between full packages and a bare bones version of the operating system. Other companies should have to be able to offer their own packages with the monopolist OS core as well. The current monopolist tries to tie every technology thinkable to its operating system and (also) therefor abuses its position to kill competition.
This anti-competitive behaviour is extremely bad for innovation in my opinion. Microsoft have made billions because of their illegal and anti-competitive behaviour/attitude, they need to receive a bigger punishment than they gained from their actions.
If you fine a criminal for 1000 dollars while the criminal gained 2000 dollars from the illegal activities, the criminal still made a 1000 dollar profit and he most likely repeat the illegal activities in the future.
>IIRC isnt the browser case a case of dirty business practices.
It is. But http://www.byte.com/documents/s=1115/byt20010824s0001/0827_hacker.h… is even more important than the browser case IMHO.
That’s funny.
…the death penality? Why not?
ciao
yc
Yes, it’s hyperbole. It’s also blackmail. “Leave us alone, or we’ll pull our OS and your companies will flounder.” Throw in some psychotic laughter and you have a James Bond film. I believe blackmail is also illegal in the US.
> Also, Withdrawing windows wont hurt business, it will help it.
I believe in the short term such an action would confuse and hurt the entire x86 PC industry. Similar to as if in the x86 market there would only be one graphic chipset provider, and withdrawing its product from the market.
However in the long run people would see lots of companies taking the oppertunity to offer alternatives. Apple hardware and software sales would probably sky rocket, Linux interest would sky rocket even more, many new desktop targetted Linux distributions would see the day of light, companies would try to buy BeOS from Palm as it is suddenly worth a whole lot. And due the many different solutions becoming available in the market supporting proper standards would be a must. (Unlike the current monopolist, which invents its own standards to its own advantage). Platform independent standards like <a href=”http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=743“>intent and Java would become much more important for Desktop usage, as a common compatibility layer.
Although I believe this to be just wishful thinking though, Microsoft would most likely never not take such an action.
They day, they take Windows off of the market because of complaints,is the day you can buy a new mac for under $1000 USD.
> The intention of the settlement
> should not be to hobble the
> functionality of Windows as
> much as hobble the monopolistic
> tendancies of Microsoft.
am all for hobbling anti-competitive behaviour as much as possible. However, Microsft is an ambitious company, and they didn’t grab the desktop by being stupid. You don’t get to build a microsoft by just violating the rules. If it were that easy, there would be 1 million microsofts out there.
I have a feeling that nothing government does is going to help much. Unless there is a viable alternative to the windows desktop, all of this legal stuff is simply another time-buying tactic for MS. I hope something happens to curb MS, but I am afraid we are already in for a long ride.
“> Also, Withdrawing windows wont hurt business, it will help it.
I believe in the short term such an action would confuse and hurt the entire x86 PC industry. Similar to as if in the x86 market there would only be one graphic chipset provider, and withdrawing its product from the market.”
In the short term, for those of us who have invested 8+ years into Windows, it would absolutely suck
And since the only REAL alternative at the moment on the PC platform is Linux, it would suck even more 🙁
nobody can seriously believe MS would ever make their threat true… come on!
still, it’s surprising to me how openly they take advantage of their monopolistic position (having crushed most of their competitors).
i mean, how would you react if toyota threatens to stop the production of cars? a joke?
basically, they use their monopolistic position in os to threaten the government not to interfere with their intention to monopolize the whole software business…
“A line of questions regarding setting the default for playing audio files within Internet Explorer was followed by 20 blank pages.”
Holy shit! Sounds like the line of questioning on IE got pretty intense. Anyway, this whole “withdraw windows” is just meant to scare people, it’s called FUD (Fear Uncertainty and Doubt).
“…would have to withdraw the Windows operating system from the market if a federal court approves sanctions being sought by nine states in its antitrust case…”
Oh for the love of bog, that is just the usual FUD from Microsoft. It is probably just meant to scare old, conservative judges who think all that is good for Microsoft, is good for business at large. Do you really think they would just give up, instead of making the best of a tough situation?
Why is it that the fact that they are a monopoly, should now even protect them from beeing prosecuted according to the law. Good one: “Uhm, you broke the law, but the way in which you broke it makes it impossible for us to put a judgement on your a**”.
Ballmer is twisting the truth as usual to suit his needs. The article states that his definition of “middleware” is different from the States’ definition, and, of course, his conclusions are based on his definition. How do you reason with people like this?! (Of course, “middleware” is used in a non-standard way, and should either be clearly defined or replaced.)
And his assertion that they would have to create “4000 to 8000” variations of Windows because various components would be optional is ridiculous! By this combinatorial logic, how many millions of versions of Windows are there now?!
Eugenia, I don’t think this is as futile as you do. I believe the States are addressing the business practices also. But there are still viable battlegrounds (e.g. media players) that could still benefit from making various add-ins optional.
Microsoft will never do this, no matter how fantastic it would be. But if they did, do you think we would even be able to blink our eyes before Jobs had OS X for x86 out?
>>They day, they take Windows off of the market because of complaints,is the day you can buy a new mac for under $1000 USD.
<<
They must have already taken Windows of the market… because you can buy a Mac for under a $1000 USD.:)
>>Microsoft will never do this, no matter how fantastic it would be. But if they did, do you think we would even be able to blink our eyes before Jobs had OS X for x86 out?<<
It will never happen!!!
Contrary to what a lot of free software zealots would like to claim, it would be devistating if Microsoft were to take Windows off the market. To say it wouldn’t be is simply living in a dream world.
But at the same time, I think this is just saber rattling on the part of Microsoft. It’s an idle threat towards the states that they will not actually go through with.
Oh no not windows withdraws :-o. Going cold turkey on crack was bad enough. *shudders* What will we ever do? Seriously, I’ve seen successful ITs set up entire networks using only Linux, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD for the servers. The only thing windohs is good for IMHO are desktops, games (yeah I’ll give it that, KDE & X still have a ways to go), and lazy Admins (who care nothing about the security of their clients network). If anything this would be good considering 1) Microsoft can’t do it forever without losing a substantial portion of their valuable market share 2) it will force those ‘lazy Admins’ to take the plunge and actually learn how to use *nix varient(s) in production networks. It’s really not that bad :0) Flames away.
I think the States are missing the point here. It is not the bundled software that is the problem as much as either locking in such applications to the OS and/or even implying license restrictions for OEMs to follow keeping them from selling Dual-Boot systems! The OEMs should be able to bundle extra software as they see fit… browsers, media players and other goodies the consumers like and want!
The OEMs are partly responsible for this whole mess in the first place!!!
> However, Microsft is an ambitious company, and they didn’t grab the desktop by being stupid.
Agreed, the 25,000 dollars or so Microsoft paid to acquire MSDOS, would not have been seen as a good investment to many people at the time. Although they knew IBM was interested in it and in the long run IBM was even dependent on it.
Also their BASIC language was innovative at the time. But MSDOS was originally never designed other than for ultra simple computer terminals, doing only very simple tasks at for instance factories. That they were able to hype and sell their product for home usage, even after the release of the http://www.haage-partner.de/amiga/CommodoreBillboard/AmigaAdCeleb.a… in 1985, shows that they have extremely well developed marketing talents.
In my opinion if anyone is able to sell icecubes to eskimos it must be Microsoft!
They told everyone that you wouldn`t need or ever want more colors, stereo sound, a GUI, pre-emptive multitasking or according to Bill Gates more than 640kb of memory. And guess what a majority of people (even Commodore management) believed them!
>>Although they knew IBM was interested in it and in the long run IBM was even dependent on it.<<
Actually IBM was more interested in CPM/86, but somehow Digital Research screwed the deal up and Microsoft jumped on the wagon to create the greatest business deal in history!
Think about it. It would start something like French Revolution. After Windoze death there can be only better life
I mean in a long run. Just after that .. nothing happens. Companies will work on os which they have. At the same time other OS’ will try to make apps compatible with M$ specific files. Than, one after another, companies will start using other OS’.
At last there will be freedom.
As for now: few days ago i had to (my boss wanted it) install windozeXP. I hate this os. Really, really hate it. It’s peace of crap. It’s much slower than win98se, some apps have problems with it. I can’t install another OS, mainly because of problems with files from m$ apps
I can’t get back to win98se because of network problems. I HATE M$.
…
“The only thing windohs is good for IMHO are desktops, games (yeah I’ll give it that, KDE & X still have a ways to go), and lazy Admins (who care nothing about the security of their clients network).”
Um… Hello? Desktops woud be majorly affected if Windows was pulled. Corporate workstations would also be majorly affected. Servers are not the issue here. Sure Windows as a server could be gone and it wouldn’t devistate businesses (it would be a major annoyance and also very expensive though). But if Windows on the workstation were do disappear, it would be devistating.
“and lazy Admins (who care nothing about the security of their clients network).”
The people who make such blanket statements obviously don’t have much real world knowledge of network security. In many ways, Windows 200 is more secure than UNIX. File sharing is a good example. NFS is very insecure. As far as centralized administration, give me NT domains over NIS for security any day.
“Ballmer emphasized that he saw no way to remove pieces without degrading performance or potentially breaking Windows. He estimated that Microsoft would have to create “4,000 (to) 8,000 unique versions of Windows” to fully comply with the litigating states’ proposed sanctions.”
By removing all the “integrated” crap, they would actually be able to make Windows faster, more stable and it would probably crash a whole lot less. Yes, they have tied everything but your grandmother into their OS, but just like a drawer, if something is put in, it can be taken out.
I could name some network gurus who would beg to differ!
>>Corporate workstations would also be majorly affected.<<
Office productivity, maybe! Missions Critical, definitely not!!
” Do you really need all the new features XP has to do your office job ? ”
Yes. Three words: FAT32 & stable DirectX8.
“Do you really need all the new features Office XP has ?”
Nope. Will stick to Office 2K.
As you said yourself, it depend. Some people can still use DOS, other really need XP. It’s not because you don’t need that nobody need.
I’m going to sue MS personally. I have invested a lot of my time and talents in many superior technologies that they have come along and squashed. This has adversly effected my ability to stay employed and I want them to pay for it!
“IIRC isnt the browser case a case of dirty business practices. Also, Withdrawing windows wont hurt business, it will help it. Imagine how much money businesses could save if they didnt have to pay microsoft half of their IT budget.
”
Wow. I found someone that know less than me regarding economy (just kidding
Following your example, why not remove all the TVs from the society, imagine all the money could save every families ! And remove all cars, no more fuel expenses ! etc etc etc
This is totally regressing. Do you know how many simples people lives depends on something “as evil as Windows”, millions and millions. All little companies that make products for Windows. They barely survive, but they survive and help economy to roll and roll. Remove Windows, you kill millions jobs, and generate a huge world economic issue.
Yes, the human kind live in a dependant system, dependant on cars, TVs, airplanes, and … Windows.
At least until an OS emerge being as good than Windows on the Desktop…
“Windows withdraw? Ok we have loads of free software, opensource and non MS commercial software.
simply start using it.”
Dropping in productivity ? Taking a full year off the business just to remade all our in-house tools ?
No thanks. 🙂
>>The only thing windohs is good for IMHO are … lazy Admins (who care nothing about the security of their clients network).<<
Like there are no lazy Admins who use *nix. Bet I could get a root kit on your *nix server before you could gain administrative privleges on my 2k server.
Not to beat a dead horse, but a *good* Windows NT/2K Administrator is probably more skilled at security than your average *nix Admin. Why? Becuase we have to be. Because of narrowminded morons who think a thirty year old monolithic kernel OS (with quite a few security flaws) is the best thing since sliced bread. It ain’t. It is useful, but it’s not the be-all and end-all of NOS’es.
I am not going to defend what Ballmer has said, because I think he’s an idiot who just shot their case in the foot. However, I do agree with his sentiments.
I said a long time ago that I would have said f*** you to everyone, revoked all the licenses for windows, dissolved the company, and sued anyone for using windows for the remainder of it’s usefull life.
Then I would have taken a million dollars out of the bank, went back to my palatial estate, stripped naked, and rolled around in the dough shouting yipee yipee, while the dwarfs I hired to dress up like oompa-loompas looked on in complete disgust.
I agree MS did some pretty crappy things as far as OEM contracts go, and they MUST be punished for that – they’ve killed not just one, but my two favorite OSes. However the integration of the browser into the shell was a GOOD IDEA, imho (Seems the KDE folks thought so too). Im not so sure about integrating the multimedia stuff into the kernel, though. Guess I’ll have to ask a former Be engineer about that.
If you don’t like Windows, or you hate Microsoft, then don’t use it or any of their products. And quit bitching about them. If you knew HOW to use Windows NT/2K properly, it would NEVER crash on you. Sure you might have to reboot it for a service pack – but that’s about it. With the exception of Service packs and updates, my 2K machines have been up and running without incident for over 2 years – 25 months to be exact (since the day they were installed). Match that if you are foolish enough to run X on *nix.
If you think that all the Administration of a windows server can be done through GUI tools, then you are an idiot. You are a complete and total moron who should have your right to use a computer taken away, and you should be publicly flogged. A good Windows Administrator knows when the GUI tools are not enough, and when to use the command line tools. Too bad you don’t.
And, just for the record, my absolute favorite OS is the BeOS, which integrates flawlessly into my Windows network, courtesy of WON and it’s excellent use of CIFS. I just hope that OpenBeOS will actually materialize into something as great.
“By removing all the “integrated” crap, they would actually be able to make Windows faster, more stable and it would probably crash a whole lot less. ”
What are you talking about ? As a desktop Windows is a lot *faster* and *stable* than any Linux distro. Crashing ? XP ? That may happen. But god damn it’s rare. Hey man, we are no more in the Win95 era when removing a floppy disk at the wrong time generated a blue screen …
This is totally regressing. Do you know how many simples people lives depends on something “as evil as Windows”, millions and millions. All little companies that make products for Windows. They barely survive, but they survive and help economy to roll and roll. Remove Windows, you kill millions jobs, and generate a huge world economic issue.
Heh, such action would be bad for the economy at first, but not as bad as you have put it. It is not like Microsoft or anyone else would be able to remove Windows from all platforms already using Windows. Such action would mainly effect newly sold PCs, also pirating Windows would be on the uprise.
Yet again this action by Microsoft will never happen, although I would like it to happen personally, as it opens up alot of oppertunities for the future…
While it is a bad idea for MSFT to pull their OS from the market, it may reflect a larger, more integrated strategy-anyone see the report that they folks at Redmond may take hardware production inhouse, like APPLE? Maybe the XBOX is a test run for a larger strategy?
It’s a simple, elegant, and ruthless strategy. All OEMS would be out of the loop, should they pull the OS and only ship it on Microsoft hardware. All end users would be forced to go to Microsoft for hardware and software, and the money that goes to DELL, Compaq, etc., would end up in REDMOND.
And the “herd” would be captive as well, since Microsoft, for good or ill, is the defacto business, gaming, and internet standard.
I can’t imagine Dell trying to educate their users in Linux, can you? BSD?
Time to buy APPLE stock if you ask me.
>>It’s a simple, elegant, and ruthless strategy. All OEMS would be out of the loop, should they pull the OS and only ship it on Microsoft hardware. All end users would be forced to go to Microsoft for hardware and software, and the money that goes to DELL, Compaq, etc., would end up in REDMOND.<<
Maybe Bill Gates and Michael Dell could have an affair and Dell meets Microsoft for a Apple like strategy and say the helk to the rest of the pack. It wouldn’t be a bad decision, of course Steve Jobs will then have something else to complain about, though I don’t think it would affect Apple and it might open more doors of opportunity for Apple, maybe not?!
What are you talking about ? As a desktop Windows is a lot *faster* and *stable* than any Linux distro.
None Linux distribution currently available is technicly impressive from a multimedia desktop OS perspective IMO. One reason why people look at Linux as a desktop replacement is because Windows is far too slow and bloated. (Yes Linux distributions are this too, but if Windows would be leaner and performed better, less people would come up with this idea).
I mean for an OS running on Ghz computers it’s damn slow. Even http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=604“>under multimedia multitasking is more impressive as compared to Windows! AmigaOS is extremely modular, and of course the movie player Action is not in any way tied to the underlying operating system, however you should try viewing 10 AVI movies simultaniously while using the movie player under Amithlon. Now imagine what a native AmigaOS implementation could mean while running on modern day hardware.
I admit it, I am a lazy Admin. I don’t want to keep fixing damn networks every day, I want an easy life so I can get other projects running.
Novell had a good product but screwed us up by pricing themselves out of the frame. Windoze 2000 is only as secure as you make it. By default it’s wide open to abuse like most systems.
>my 2K machines have been up and running without incident
>for over 2 years – 25 months to be exact (since the day
>they were installed). Match that if you are foolish enough
>to run X on *nix.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
‘cuse me while I pick myself up from the floor
MS withdraw from the market? Yeah, right. Please do and make my day.
Ah, when pigs sprout wings and begin to fly….
Steve Ballmer acting childish again. No surprise.
Well, if I was king and heard Balmer making such a statement, it would initiate a take-no-prisoners-ton-of-bricks-on-his-head responce!
a) Microsoft would be forced to immediately withdraw as a company from the corporate arena.
b) A heavy penalty would be imposed of at least 2B US dollars.
c) A small division of Microsoft would be forced to stay in operation for a period of two years providing support for the existing Windows users.
d) A goverment coordinated scholarship-type competition would be initiated offering a $1Billion reward to any three companies in US soil that will be able to produce a viable OS solution within a two year period.
BOOM, no mercy to threats !
>>d) A goverment coordinated scholarship-type competition would be initiated offering a $1Billion reward to any three companies in US soil that will be able to produce a viable OS solution within a two year period.<<
Well UNIX answered ‘d)’ 30 years ago and still going strong. Apple just built one of the best OSes money can buy, though this still doesn’t help the PC platform any. Maybe Connectix could build a ‘Virtual Mac’ for PCs he he?!
This post was for fun… trollers need not apply 🙂
Nobody here actually believes that crap do they?
Oh pleeeeaaasseeee…more FUD. “the sky is falling!!!”
Break them up into little itty bitty pieces.
Innovate THIS BILL!!
>>The people who make such blanket statements obviously don’t have much real world knowledge of network security. In many ways, Windows 200 is more secure than UNIX. File sharing is a good example. NFS is very insecure. As far as centralized administration, give me NT domains over NIS for security any day.<<
SMB and CIFS are secure? Code Red and Nimba just love SMB shares. Nothing funnier the seeing a Windohs sysadmin crying because he was sure that he had cleaned all the Nimba and Code Red infections off all his machines only to find them infected again the next day he shows up to work.
On CIFS:
http://online.securityfocus.com/library/2071
Check that out :0)
>>Bet I could get a root kit on your *nix server before you could gain administrative privleges on my 2k server.<<
Really?
http://online.securityfocus.com/cgi-bin/vulns.pl
Compare Microsoft, Debian, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD. You and the good users of this forum tell me which OS has less holes.
http://www.cert.org/advisories/
http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/
http://www.cert.org/incident_notes/
http://www.ciac.org/ciac/bulletinsByType/bul_vendor_list.html
In general you’ll find that good Linux distros (I would call a call Debian a good Linux Distro), FreeBSD, and OpenBSD by far have less holes then Windows. Yes if you use Redhat you deserve to be Script Kiddied *L*
>>Because of narrowminded morons who think a thirty year old monolithic kernel OS (with quite a few security flaws) is the best thing since sliced bread. <<
Ok wait just a second. Whos narrow minded here. 30 year old monolithic kernel? You don’t keep up with Linux/BSD kernel development much do you? Don’t like monolithic kernels? Use Herd or QNX *L* I hear Debian will have a stable distro using the Herd kernel out soon.
Everyone should check out the new O(1) scheduler in the new 2.5 source. Nice stuff. A few bugs to work out. Not 30 y/o stuff.
BTW I would take a wager that the monolithic kernels Linux and BSD use are far more stable and resource friendly then the quasi-micro kernel architeture 2000 uses. What? Did I hear that a lot of stuff in Windows 2000 runs in kernel space to improve speed? Doesn’t that destroy the whole idea of using micro kernels in the first place? Stability? *L* What speed? QNX boots up faster the 2000 *L*
Again look at bugtraq, cert, and ciac and tell me which kernel/OS is more stable? Not to mention the base of OpenBSD has been brutally audited for over 2 years for security holes. They still claim that their base installs have no known security issues. Compare this to your base 2000 install where you have to apply a dozen patches before you can even consider hooking it up to the net. Its so secure that I hear the DOD uses it on sensitive installations.
And yes those Open Source variants of *nix are the greatest things since sliced bread.
>>If you don’t like Windows, or you hate Microsoft, then don’t use it or any of their products.
And quit bitching about them. If you knew HOW to use Windows NT/2K properly, it would NEVER crash on you.
Sure you might have to reboot it for a service pack – but that’s about it. With the exception of Service
packs and updates, my 2K machines have been up and running without incident for over 2 years – 25 months
to be exact (since the day they were installed). Match that if you are foolish enough to run X on *nix.<<
How about I hate poor security and lazy vendors.
I’m glad to see that MS is taking a more proactive stance on fixing security problems now tho and not just calling them ‘features’. Still not enough but closer. As for your severs…. Are these production servers? Are they connected to the net? What’s your load and what products do they run? I guess by using your logic I should consider down time to reboot my system after compiling a new kernel legit uptime.
>>If you think that all the Administration of a windows server can be done through GUI tools,
then you are an idiot. You are a complete and total moron who should have your right to use
a computer taken away, and you should be publicly flogged. A good Windows Administrator knows
when the GUI tools are not enough, and when to use the command line tools. Too bad you don’t.<<
I’m a moron? Who’s the idiot using the Command Prompt here. Where the hell is its command line completion
or other goodies comparable to what comes with bash, csh, or zsh? You guys really are sadists. Do you have
a commercial command line shell that you spend money on or do you just enjoy your Capral Tunnel Syndrome?
Do you wear leather pants and a gimp mask to work?
*shudders at the thought*
>>And, just for the record, my absolute favorite OS is the BeOS, which integrates flawlessly into my Windows network, courtesy of WON and it’s excellent use of CIFS. I just hope that OpenBeOS will actually materialize into something as great.<<
Yeah I can agree with you here. I like BeOS as well and I do hope they come out with OpenBeOS some time soon. I think it was a big mistake for Be to stop the development of BeOS.
Anyway, we should save the people here the agony of reading our posts and take it to the OS Wars forum.
Steve Ballmer is bluffing… now the DOJ needs to call their bluff and raise them 20 🙂
I don’t think Microsoft would do such a silly thing, but then again I don’t this affecting the computer industry in the long run. There are other viable solutions out there to fill the gaps. I think the only worry would be of what would happen to Microsoft Office and some of their programming languages like Visual C and VB. Though this crazy decision doesn’t affect me since I work in the UNIX world, this might have an affect on those MS savvy IT professionals that will get a rude awakening when applying their DOS skills to UNIX?!
Good post.
One correction;
The micro-kernel the GNU people are working on is Hurd not herd.
“SMB and CIFS are secure?”
They are much more secure than NFS and NIS. Hell, NIS passwords aren’t even sent encrypted.
“>>Bet I could get a root kit on your *nix server before you could gain administrative privleges on my 2k server.<<
Really?”
I’d be willing to bet so too. For several reasons, not the least of which is that out of the box, Windows 2000 is infinitely more secure in a network environment than the typical *nix box. The typical *nix server, out of the box, has ftp, telnet, NFS, fingerd, and any number of evil RPC’s enabled.
“And yes those Open Source variants of *nix are the greatest things since sliced bread.”
If you say so. Give me Solaris over Linux anyday for security, reliability, and scalibility.
As far as security in Linux vs. Windows, If I set up a Windows 2000 box and a Linux box and invite all comers, I will bet that 9 times out of 10 the Linux box will go down before the Windows 2000 box will.
>>Compare this to your base 2000 install where you have to apply a dozen patches before you can even consider hooking it up to the net.<<
Sure, but only if you are a complete idiot. Any Administrator worth his weight can either do a network install that has had all the Service Packs and security updates slipped in to the ditribution share, or do the same and burn a bootable CD. Wow, it installs ready to go. Imagine that.
>>Are these production servers? Are they connected to the net? What’s your load and what products do they run? I guess by using your logic I should consider down time to reboot my system after compiling a new kernel legit uptime.<<
Yes these are production servers. Yes they are connected to the net. 5000 users in AD domain. SQL Enterprise, Exchange Enterprise, Sharepoint, ISA, MOM, IIS (Intranet) and Deerfield’s Web Server (Internet) – all on clustered 2000 Advanced Servers. I consider it to be standard system maintenance – and with a reboot time of less than a minute. Just gotta know how to tune the OS. No it’s not legit uptime for either of us (Plus you admit you need to reboot Linux
)
>>Where the hell is its command line completion
or other goodies comparable to what comes with bash, csh, or zsh?<<
hmm….Heard of ash, bash, or tcsh? Or didya forget that Windows is POSIX compliant, especially with some help from Cygwin?
>>Do you wear leather pants and a gimp mask to work?<<
Yes and No. I do wear Lederhosen on occasion, but generally only after losing a bet. As far as a gimp mask, does my circa 1977 Luke Skywalker costume mask count? I do annoy people with Disco and cheesey 80’s music. Is that sadistic enough?
My bad. Hurd. Thanks for correcting me.
>>They are much more secure than NFS and NIS. Hell, NIS passwords aren’t even sent encrypted. <<
I don’t use NIS/YP. I’ve been using the Cluster Users and Groups and Cluster Software Packages modules with Webmin across all my servers. Works fairly well. Anyone else have experience in this area? What about NIS+? If you REALLY have to have something that replaces NIS you might try setting up Samba with LDAP. I have to give it to microsoft tho and say Active Directory is nice.
As for NFS? Don’t use it. Use Samba with SSL. Tried Coda but that was a mess.
There is always Intermezzo (which is in the current stable Linux kernel) and OpenGFS.
>>As far as security in Linux vs. Windows, If I set up a Windows 2000 box and a Linux box and invite all comers, I will bet that 9 times out of 10 the Linux box will go down before the Windows 2000 box will.<<
Here is proof to the contrary:
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-11-501198.html?legacy=zdnn
>>Here is proof to the contrary:
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-11-501198.html?legacy=zdnn<<
Wow, imagine a Beta Server crashing. And slashdotted to boot.
<sarcasm>
2.5.x Kernels are rock solid stable.
Apache always stays up when slashdotted.
</sarcasm>
Thier basically saying
look let us do as we please or we will not give you our product, and you all need it because we’re a big fat monopoly
THEY ARE USING THE POWER OF THE MONOPOLY TO THREATEN THE JUSTICE SYSTEM!#!!!
when will this insanity end?
successful companies like MS have great marketing talent.
“Sorry Ms Customer, we have taken Windows off the market, but why don’t you try our brand new product, MIcrosoft .NET?”
>>The typical *nix server, out of the box, has ftp, telnet, NFS, fingerd, and any number of evil RPC’s enabled.<<
What version/distro of Linux were you using? Redhat probably. My Debian installs didn’t have telnet, NFS, fingerd, or any of the RPCs enabled on install. It had OpenBSDs ssh, sshd, and after a little work sftp. Does anyone really use telnet anymore? I thought everything was moving towards stelnet and/or ssh.
>>especially with some help from Cygwin?<<
How about a lot of help from Cygwin? *L* Last time I tried to install Cygwin on a Windohs machine it messed up BTW. To much of a hastle. Why not just use the real thing?
One command:
apt-get install ash tcsh [what ever else]
>>Sure, but only if you are a complete idiot. Any Administrator worth his weight can either do a network install that has had all the Service Packs and security updates slipped in to the ditribution share, or do the same and burn a bootable CD. Wow, it installs ready to go. Imagine that.<<
Why bother with even doing that?
Again one line and a network card:
#apt-get update && apt-get upgrade.
Ocassionally:
#buildkernel NEWESTSTABLE
Take a look at apt clone and apt cache.
>>Wow, imagine a Beta Server crashing. And slashdotted to boot.<<
Geez, I thought it was stable and ‘unhackable’. Oh well.
LinuxPPC was a fledgling at the same time.
Remember this:
“Aug 5 1999 part 2 11:36AM CDT:
Server up for a solid two days. windows2000test.com was down three times so far. Sunny and warm with no clouds in sight.”
The Microsoft box had only http enabled. The LinuxPPC had http -and- telnet enabled to make things more intresting.
Seems like there is a difference in what Microsoft and Linux Developers consider a stable system *L*
>>2.5.x Kernels are rock solid stable.<<
A little more work and they will be :0) Try using 2.4 for now.
>>Apache always stays up when slashdotted.<<
If you set it up properly and use the advice supplied here:
http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/Apache-Overview-HOWTO-5.html
It can withstand a slashdotting.
BTW: Slashdot uses Slashcode on top of Debian systems. Slashcode is based on on Apache, mod_perl and MySQL. All Open Source. The firewall for the systems is a BSD box. Probably OpenBSD. If its good enough for Slashdot its good enough for me.
>>If you say so. Give me Solaris over Linux anyday for
security, reliability, and scalibility.<<
Yeah Solaris is pretty nice and a lot of people like their servers. :0) I’m not going to get into a fight over that. After all it’s another *nix. Linux vs. *BSD vs. Solaris will get no where.
>>Just gotta know how to tune the OS.<<
From Mindcraft:
Deerfield’s Web Server (Internet):
Plotted Value No. samples Max Latest
90-day Moving average 292 3.26 2.72
Years huh?
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph?site=http%3A%2F%2Fw…
Slashdot:
Plotted Value No. samples Max Latest
90-day Moving average 694 107.02 106.28
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?mode_u=on&mode_w=on&site=www.s…
Lot of reboots.
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/today/top.avg.html
Intresting to note that most of the top uptimes were achieved with Apache and *BSD varients. Outdated 30 year old monlithic kernel my arse =) Silly windohs user.
Don’t you see what Ballmer is trying to do? Scare the public into supporting Microsoft!
They’re trying to get it into the public mentality that punishing microsoft means they won’t be able to browse the web and play tetris. This strategy just might work with the non-techies, such as your average judge, lawyer, or juror.
Microsoft will never stop squirming.
Yes, and they can(/are threating to) do this because they have a manopoly!
If they didn’t have a monopoly this would be corperate suiside. But their monopoly protects them to make threats such as this. If there were viable alternatives then no one would really care if MS did withdraw windows.
Its just another example of their abuse of the situation
I have to give them credit for the balls it takes to throw this on the justice system itself though. Its one thing to do it on a competiter 1/1000th your size, quite another to do it on the people who could ruin you.
Thats Netcraft actually *L*
Ohh…. hope like R4.5
IT’s LIEk john gotti threatening to leave the garmeNT disstricked, if the feds were allowed to ‘interfere’ in his “business”, or, if ‘competition’ was allowed.
Best of luck to billy’s remaining hostages. They’ll have to pay for all this FraUDuleNT crud, or face disconnection/liesense ?upgrades?.
<a href=http://www.trustworthycomputing.com>IEaaaggghhh.0fInfection</…
I call this direct terrorist act. It`s using terror (not for me because i know it`s FUD) on general public to gain them to you cause. I hope that this is inserted in the case.
The worst thing in all this is the damn stock market. They are the hidden judge. ANY company stock with the problem of microsoft sould go enron or at least nortel on those news, yet the stock don`t go bellow 50$.
This mean that EVERYBODY and is grandmother know that microsoft will exit of this stronger without a cent to pay.
Do you know at what level is the M$ HQ, because next house i build will be at least at that altitude …. because it`s above the law.
The threat made by M$ is bad, but it doesn’t supprised me. I almost dreamt, years back, that M$ would say such a thing. Finally, maybe we’ll get rid of that crappy piece of OS software that DOS has became. Innovation will be seen again and cleaver ideas won’t be purchase and hidden from view.
I say “take Windows” off the shelf. It will hurt companies? Where the hell have all those managers be in their “administration-101” course? “NEVER PUT ALL YOU EGGS IN THE SAME BASKET”, but “we’ll save money if we do (they say), and bla bla bla”. Ok, save you’re money now, ’cause you’re gonna need it.
I didn’t get to read all these reply’s but this sounds more like a threat from Microsoft than anything else.
Let’s just hope that Ballmer is right.
Destroy Windows for good!!!
Wondering what you will use when Windows is gone?
Mac OS, Linux, *NIX, *BSD, BeOS/OpenBeOS/BlueOS…
The world wont suffer a bit.
“What version/distro of Linux were you using? Redhat probably. My Debian installs didn’t have telnet, NFS, fingerd, or any of the RPCs enabled on install. It had OpenBSDs ssh, sshd, and after a little work sftp. Does anyone really use telnet anymore? I thought everything was moving towards stelnet and/or ssh.”
I wasn’t refering specifically to Linux. I was refering to unix in general. Linux is better than most commercial versions of unix when it comes to not leaving blatent security holes wide open in a default install. Solaris for example, has almost all network services enabled by default out of the box. The first thing I always do after a Solaris install is go through inetd.conf and comment out almost every line. Newer versions of Linux have gotten a lot better at this. And some of them even ask you during the install which services you want enabled by default.
“Wondering what you will use when Windows is gone?
Mac OS, Linux, *NIX, *BSD, BeOS/OpenBeOS/BlueOS… ”
If Windows were to disappear, I’m guessing it would be Mac OS X, which would be pretty easy to backport to x86. After all, not only was the original code x86 based (FreeBSD and Mach), but Darwin is already running on x86. So the core of OS X is already ported.
Just imagine – Microsoft pull the Windows XP and 2000 off the market.
And the only copies left are bootlegged ones. Some users start using illegal copies of Windows but they are hunted down by MS comandos ( former .NET developers after corporate re-training). Owners of outdated versions (Win98, Win 95, Win 3.1) suddenly came out from underground with happy i-told-you smiles.
The wolrd returns to Netbeui protocol and suddenly your big disks really look like bottomless.
Computer viruses cannot infect systems any more.
3M stock price is skyrocketing (as the only remaining producer of floppy disks).
And your almost forgotten skill to whistle 2400 baud is in so high demand that users easily forgive when you cough in between packets – “static” they call it.
“crappy piece of OS software that DOS has became”
LOL … no wonder your mail doesn’t make any sense, you have no idea what you are talking about. WindowsXP from DOS ? re-LOL 🙂
“Innovation will be seen again”
What? I imagine Windows dying, letting Linux the #1 OS. Then I see myself in 40 years, talking to my grand-son:
“Pappy, how was the OS when you were young ?”
“Well, nothing really changed since the dead of Windows…”
Face it, Microsoft *DO* make desktop computing evolutate. Not often with their own ideas, but integrating best ideas here and there. Until there’s no alternative to Windows regarding desktop OS, I want my Windows. Gimme something better and I’ll say “Die Microsoft” like everyone at slashdot.
(Anyway that’s just FUD, this discution is just for the sake of… arguing 🙂
Easy as pie solution:
Take away Windows (all versions) from Microsoft and plunge it into the public domain.
Problem Solved.
You do not threaten the legal system with retaliation after they have just judged you to be a ciminal guilty of the kind of conduct you are threatening more of. Your threat compounds your image of being a criminal that cannot be rehabilitated.
JUDGE: Smitty Penkleton, for your crime of murder, you are hereby sentenced to 40 years hard time.
SMITTY: If you don’t let me go free I will kill you, judge.
JUDGE: Mr. Penkleton, due to your illegal act of threatening murder, you are now sentenced to 100 years hard time.
SMITTY: That’s it, I am going to kill you, judge!
JUDGE: Mr. Penkleton, you are now sentenced to death.
SMITTY: I don’t get it? I’m a tough guy! I threatened you! You should be doing what I say! Whaaaah!
JUDGE: Take him away… Next case, please….
You are all so egar to see Microsoft go under. Why? have you thought about all the existing Windows customers? I am not talking about support, because anyone with any knowlage about how the windows environment fuctins will propably never need to call Microsoft for support. I am refering to people who must still activate windows. If Microsoft went out of bussinus, How could you activate Windows XP? Thier 1888 number would be shut off, and the server for activation would be shutdown as well. The only fesable way to activate windows would be to download and install a crack. but with at least 1000 different cracks available on the internet today, how would the user find the right one for thier version of XP? half of the cracks do not even work, so those ones I will discount. That takes the available cracks to 500 webwide. around 75% of these cracks do work, but they come with virii in them, so I will discount these too. This takes the remaining cracks down to the tremendous number of 125 that actually work, and 80% of them are for XP Pro. this would leave only 25 cracks that actually work for Windows XP Home Edition. How the hell would a person find one of the 25 working cracks for XP Home Edition? the task would be virtually impossible with over 100,000,000 pages on the internet. So before you rush to hang microsoft from the nearest tree, think of the customers!
“I wasn’t refering specifically to Linux. I was refering to unix in general. Linux is better than most commercial versions of unix when it comes to not leaving blatent security holes wide open in a default install.”
Any one who uses a “commercial version of unix” is smart enough to know that security is an ongoing process. There is _no_ such thing as a completely secure box. (Windows or otherwise)