Microsoft claims heart beats in open source If Microsoft has a beating heart then the senior director of Microsoft platform strategy Sam Ramji reckons he's found it. Where's that heart? Inside Microsoft's open source activities. Ramji believes Microsoft's recruitment of doers from the world of open source and their placement inside its Open Source Software Lab means …
Never has a company been so anti Open Source while bullshitting the public (not their zombie MacTards) into believing they weren't. Apple is the ULTIMATE in a Closed OS and Hardware house. Despite that they appear to use PC standard hardware, actually little off the shelf stuff is compatible because of CLOSED DOOR driver compatibility - like most Optical Drives, USB cameras (where's all the FW cameras??), Video Cards, I/O Cards, etc.
No Apple and Stevie God's Heart is right there in their WALLET and the Apple "Premium" prices.
They can actually make money by working with Open Source groups... Who'd have thought that!?!
Here's a tip for MS... They could even make money if they opened the source for Windows. They'd probably also boost sales and profits by lowering the retail prices and making the licensing process simpler too, but let's not get crazy.
Look, I'm linux fan through and through and I won't bash MS unless they do something really nasty, each to their own I say and if what you use works well, great you stick to that, but somehow I get very, very uneasy feeling when I hear the big MS blabbing about commitment open-source. It just smacks too much of a wolf in sheep's clothing for my liking.
I guess I see too much, of the O/S 2 debacle all over again. It's worrying, we can't knock it down, so we'll buddy up and then slowly eat it from the inside, then leave it for dead.
Microsoft's got to make up its mind sooner or later, and the sooner the better ... are MS Windows and MS Office infrastructure aka a platform, or a product? Ditto for MS Visual Studio ...
If they're a product, then it doesn't matter.
If they're infrastructure aka a platform, then the more open the better, and they don't need to make money off them as though they were products. Instead, they can make money off the people who make money off them. (Anyone remember The Space Family Stone, by Heinlein? Who makes the money in a gold rush? The miners? Or the pub-owners?)
If they're infrastructure aka a platform, then it would make sense for Microsoft to open their source code - and in keeping with keeping the leaf turned, releasing their source trees under the GPL version 3, with its anti-software patent language.
Just my 0.02c, of course ... VAT/GST/whatever, not included. ;)
MS is supposedly working on a hosted version of Windows and is also embracing open source.
Given that linux works so well under a virtulised environment and is used on a great majority of web servers could it be that Microsoft is going to create a Linux-like kernel for Windows Skinny* and these staff acquisitions are to acquire the relevant knowledge to further this aim?
*As it is essentially going to be a thin client as most of it will run 'in the cloud' rather than on the local machine in the bloated format we're used to this seems like an apt name, after all, they are calling the Vista successor '7' which is rather uninspiring so thought I'd throw this into the melting pot.
Can we have a Bill or Ballmer icon with Borg implants please because resistance is futile when MS opens its large cheque book.
Evil Bill will have to do for now.
Moodle is a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), not a Content Management System, although it can perform many of the functions of a CMS as well.
Interestingly, when you query the OU's Moodle server (labspace.open.ac.uk), you get the following result :
Linux Apache/2.0.52 Red Hat
So it would seem that MS didn't manage to persuade them to run Moodle on windows, even if they haven't lost other OU business yet.
...but I know this: To have MS Paint as the only "graphics package" included in Windows is ridiculous. The open source Paint.NET should be bundled* in with Windows' as the default image prog (Vista SP2?). It might not be platform agnostic, but it's a darned sight mor user friendly than the ridiculously/hamstrung-ingly named GIMP.
And it's one of the few sticking points in me plumping for a Linux flavour Acer Aspire One.
*(bundled, but not intrinsically woven in, like IE, mind)
Is a linux distro with a windows interface (I know, Linspire or Lindows or whatever)
If Microsoft could be trusted not to screw around with the OS and just concentrate on producing a desktop that looks and behaves like XP (or even Vista which runs a treat on my home PC with some nice looking features) then they would be on to a winner IMHO
>a linux distro with a windows interface (I know, Linspire or Lindows or whatever)
Try Ubuntu, then add any desktop theme you want.
The XP theme can be found here :
http://www.beryl-themes.org/content/show.php/WinXP+Theme?content=68882
Compare the eyecandy of the Beryl desktop and Aero here :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC5uEe5OzNQ
Then think about the fact that Vista cost billions of dollars (when the US dollar still had value) to create and costs serious money to buy (if not provided for 'free' with a new PC), while most of Linux was developed by volunteers and costs exactly 0.00 (in any currency).
>If Microsoft could be trusted not to screw around with the OS and just concentrate >on producing a desktop that looks and behaves like XP (or even Vista which runs >a treat on my home PC with some nice looking features) then they would be on to >a winner IMHO
And if they could also make it secure, stable, fast and not so bloated and adaptable the way the user would like it (not as MS thinks the user wants it), they'd have recreated Linux.
"Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly." - Henry Spencer
I do run Ubuntu and it works well on my fairly old Tosh laptop. I had a couple of issues straight after install which were quite easy to resolve but the standard desktop that came with it didn’t look or feel enough like Windows to make me fall into using it easily (OK it doesn’t take a genius to work it out, just play around a little)
My point was simply that if Microsoft could produce something "like" Ubuntu but looking and feeling EXACTLY the same as Windows (XP or Vista, take your choice) then it would be much easier to get people to migrate.
Even Ubuntu, with it's ease of installation / use still sometimes needs users to drop into a shell, perform some obscure editing of strange files in a file system structure that isn’t familiar to "most" people (those without beards, white socks and sandals)
Remember. Most windows users are LAZY they continue to use windows because they know how to use it. If Microsoft could come up with a Linux distro that looked, felt and installed as though it were windows then people wouldn’t even notice.
The Linux crowd is made up of to nice people.
Instead of driving Ramji out of town, if necessary by carrying his head on a stick, the are nice and polite and listen to him. Some might even believe him. This will be the ones who will regret it to no end in a few years.
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