Beware Romans bearing gifts...
November 16, 2016 9:39 AM Subscribe
Hell Freezes Over: Microsoft Joins Linux Foundation as a Platinum Member. In another twist that 2016 has to offer, the closed-source software giant has allied with the foundation, 15 years after former CEO Ballmer called it "cancer".
All this means is that Microsoft thinks it has found a way to profit from cancer.
*still nursing a grudge from Win95*
posted by darkstar at 9:47 AM on November 16, 2016 [20 favorites]
*still nursing a grudge from Win95*
posted by darkstar at 9:47 AM on November 16, 2016 [20 favorites]
I'll save my head exploding for when they start shipping Microsoft machines running Linux natively.
posted by Sys Rq at 9:50 AM on November 16, 2016
posted by Sys Rq at 9:50 AM on November 16, 2016
I'll save my head exploding for when they start shipping Microsoft machines running Linux natively.
I'm typing this on a Surface Book that's running a BASH shell in an Ubuntu userspace natively right now. I can apt-get and everything, it's pretty great. Turns out you can have apt-get and modern hardware that works right at the same time now.
posted by mhoye at 9:53 AM on November 16, 2016 [19 favorites]
I'm typing this on a Surface Book that's running a BASH shell in an Ubuntu userspace natively right now. I can apt-get and everything, it's pretty great. Turns out you can have apt-get and modern hardware that works right at the same time now.
posted by mhoye at 9:53 AM on November 16, 2016 [19 favorites]
2016 means literally nothing insane is impossible
posted by knownassociate at 9:53 AM on November 16, 2016 [36 favorites]
posted by knownassociate at 9:53 AM on November 16, 2016 [36 favorites]
* Still nursing a grudge from Windows 2.1/386 *
posted by cstross at 9:54 AM on November 16, 2016 [12 favorites]
posted by cstross at 9:54 AM on November 16, 2016 [12 favorites]
I'm typing this on a Surface Book that's running a BASH shell in an Ubuntu userspace natively right now. I can apt-get and everything, it's pretty great. Turns out you can have apt-get and modern hardware that works right at the same time now.
The size of the attack surface would presumably be the Windows 10 attack surface multiplied by the Linux attack surface.
I imagine that the numerous impedance mismatches between the Windows and Linux layers will lead to some mindbendingly baroque exploits. I wouldn't want to be in charge of defending something running on a Linux-enabled Windows.
posted by acb at 10:01 AM on November 16, 2016 [8 favorites]
The size of the attack surface would presumably be the Windows 10 attack surface multiplied by the Linux attack surface.
I imagine that the numerous impedance mismatches between the Windows and Linux layers will lead to some mindbendingly baroque exploits. I wouldn't want to be in charge of defending something running on a Linux-enabled Windows.
posted by acb at 10:01 AM on November 16, 2016 [8 favorites]
How to install and use the linux BASH shell on Windows 10
posted by mcstayinskool at 10:02 AM on November 16, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by mcstayinskool at 10:02 AM on November 16, 2016 [7 favorites]
Also, Google is getting more involved with .NET. Probably just to make sure they can run it on their cloud platform under Linux.
(disclosure: I work for Google and am uninvolved in any of this except I miss C# so one-day-maybe-yay)
posted by rouftop at 10:06 AM on November 16, 2016 [4 favorites]
(disclosure: I work for Google and am uninvolved in any of this except I miss C# so one-day-maybe-yay)
posted by rouftop at 10:06 AM on November 16, 2016 [4 favorites]
Nice try, mhoye, but my head is still intact. I did say shipping, i.e. with a Linux OS out of the box instead of Windows. Was that not clear? I am well aware that Linux can run natively on PCs, thanks.
posted by Sys Rq at 10:10 AM on November 16, 2016
posted by Sys Rq at 10:10 AM on November 16, 2016
rouftop: "Also, Google is getting more involved with .NET. Probably just to make sure they can run it on their cloud platform under Linux."
More likely, it's a middle finger to Oracle.
Given that Google's internal use of Java is fairly widespread, .NET would be the obvious replacement if Google chooses to abandon Java for new projects.
posted by schmod at 10:11 AM on November 16, 2016 [3 favorites]
More likely, it's a middle finger to Oracle.
Given that Google's internal use of Java is fairly widespread, .NET would be the obvious replacement if Google chooses to abandon Java for new projects.
posted by schmod at 10:11 AM on November 16, 2016 [3 favorites]
whoa, platinum status
does that mean Microsoft gets to see the source code?
posted by indubitable at 10:14 AM on November 16, 2016 [51 favorites]
does that mean Microsoft gets to see the source code?
posted by indubitable at 10:14 AM on November 16, 2016 [51 favorites]
I was pretty surprised when my Xbox One said it can install Chimney.
You know, Chimney. The Linux Music Player Daemon client. That Chimney.
I had tried to use it on Windows 8.1 a long time ago and pretty much forgotten about it, because Cantata is a better mpd client for Windows desktops. But hey, guess Microsoft wasn't bullshitting when they said that Xbox One is going to be an all-powerful living room media-center device.
posted by wwwwolf at 10:20 AM on November 16, 2016
You know, Chimney. The Linux Music Player Daemon client. That Chimney.
I had tried to use it on Windows 8.1 a long time ago and pretty much forgotten about it, because Cantata is a better mpd client for Windows desktops. But hey, guess Microsoft wasn't bullshitting when they said that Xbox One is going to be an all-powerful living room media-center device.
posted by wwwwolf at 10:20 AM on November 16, 2016
I've been doing some testing with SQL Server running on Linux and I have to say the results are REALLY GODDAMN IMPRESSIVE - like running UDF's from our custom CLR assemblies with literally ZERO tweaking needed. Also performance is on par or even slightly better than the same stuff running on a windows instance with identical hardware. (and this isn't with dinky db's either, it's with REALLY REALLY BIG db's...)
posted by capnsue at 10:21 AM on November 16, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by capnsue at 10:21 AM on November 16, 2016 [7 favorites]
Between Bill Gates trying to wipe out malaria and Microsoft never doing things like, oh, blowing up wells and contaminating the Gulf of Mexico, or mistreating workers, I've really lost most of my Microsoft hate.
Still a bit irked about how they hire talent just to sequester it away from the competition, and then those people see their work languish, but even that's gotten better nowadays.
posted by ocschwar at 10:27 AM on November 16, 2016 [17 favorites]
Still a bit irked about how they hire talent just to sequester it away from the competition, and then those people see their work languish, but even that's gotten better nowadays.
posted by ocschwar at 10:27 AM on November 16, 2016 [17 favorites]
Nice try, mhoye, but my head is still intact. I did say shipping, i.e. with a Linux OS out of the box instead of Windows. Was that not clear? I am well aware that Linux can run natively on PCs, thanks.
I assume mhoye is talking about Bash on Ubuntu on Windows, which is the Ubuntu userspace running natively inside Windows. It's even binary-compatible with Linux software. It's still in beta, so it doesn't technically ship with Windows yet, but installing it is one checkbox in Control Panel.
posted by skymt at 10:40 AM on November 16, 2016 [7 favorites]
I assume mhoye is talking about Bash on Ubuntu on Windows, which is the Ubuntu userspace running natively inside Windows. It's even binary-compatible with Linux software. It's still in beta, so it doesn't technically ship with Windows yet, but installing it is one checkbox in Control Panel.
posted by skymt at 10:40 AM on November 16, 2016 [7 favorites]
In related news, ASP.NET Core running on Linux is now the fastest fullstack web framework on the TechEmpower benchmark.
posted by blue_beetle at 10:56 AM on November 16, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by blue_beetle at 10:56 AM on November 16, 2016 [4 favorites]
former [Microsoft] CEO Ballmer called it "cancer"
Pot, meet kettle.
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:14 AM on November 16, 2016 [1 favorite]
Pot, meet kettle.
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:14 AM on November 16, 2016 [1 favorite]
I think some people might be missing a little context about Azure. Azure is Microsoft's cloud platform, like AWS or Google cloud. Some elements of Azure, notably the switching layer, are built directly on a Linux kernel. Linux is super important for running datacenters in this giant hyperscale computing paradigm that all the big guys seem to be converging on.
Besides just running Azure, Microsoft customers are themselves running Linux VM's and Linux containers at extremely large scale, which was the whole point to begin with. As people build more and more distributed systems, the number of Linux kernels running on the platform grows exponentially. I would estimate (purely speculatively) that by now there are probably on the order of 100's of millions (who knows, maybe billions), of instances of the Linux kernel running on Microsoft systems. Microsoft is deeply interested in ensuring that these run smoothly, and the best way to do that is if you contribute.
So, yeah yeah yeah it's funny. But in real life it actually super makes sense for Microsoft to be interested in the well being of Linux. When you work on any website of appreciable scale, it quickly becomes apparent that most of the internet is janky as fuck. We've all got to get along if this shit is going to work.
posted by tracert at 12:08 PM on November 16, 2016 [24 favorites]
Besides just running Azure, Microsoft customers are themselves running Linux VM's and Linux containers at extremely large scale, which was the whole point to begin with. As people build more and more distributed systems, the number of Linux kernels running on the platform grows exponentially. I would estimate (purely speculatively) that by now there are probably on the order of 100's of millions (who knows, maybe billions), of instances of the Linux kernel running on Microsoft systems. Microsoft is deeply interested in ensuring that these run smoothly, and the best way to do that is if you contribute.
So, yeah yeah yeah it's funny. But in real life it actually super makes sense for Microsoft to be interested in the well being of Linux. When you work on any website of appreciable scale, it quickly becomes apparent that most of the internet is janky as fuck. We've all got to get along if this shit is going to work.
posted by tracert at 12:08 PM on November 16, 2016 [24 favorites]
> ASP.NET Core running on Linux is now the fastest...
You misread; it's "a top performer" and "among the fastest", but there are 9 places above it. (I was looking for a Windows comparison, but I guess this benchmark is Linux-only).
posted by sourcejedi at 12:08 PM on November 16, 2016
You misread; it's "a top performer" and "among the fastest", but there are 9 places above it. (I was looking for a Windows comparison, but I guess this benchmark is Linux-only).
posted by sourcejedi at 12:08 PM on November 16, 2016
Given that Google's internal use of Java is fairly widespread, .NET would be the obvious replacement if Google chooses to abandon Java for new projects.
Heh. I can't even work up a big HA HA HA laugh because, heh, no. Just no.
posted by GuyZero at 12:28 PM on November 16, 2016 [1 favorite]
Heh. I can't even work up a big HA HA HA laugh because, heh, no. Just no.
posted by GuyZero at 12:28 PM on November 16, 2016 [1 favorite]
I remain extremely skeptical -- Microsoft currently has so many knives out against large FOSS projects that I'll wait and see how they behave. (See: GNU/Linux patent claims, SCO litigation funding, licensing refusals for Mono, etc. We'd be here all day.)
posted by introp at 12:33 PM on November 16, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by introp at 12:33 PM on November 16, 2016 [3 favorites]
See: GNU/Linux patent claims, SCO litigation funding, licensing refusals for Mono, etc. We'd be here all day.)
Microsoft is also generating millions-to-billions of dollars from hosting Linux VMs on Azure, so pretty sure they love Linux in at least one division.
Besides, that was all Ballmer or gates, this is Nadella. It's a whole new world.
posted by GuyZero at 12:35 PM on November 16, 2016 [3 favorites]
Microsoft is also generating millions-to-billions of dollars from hosting Linux VMs on Azure, so pretty sure they love Linux in at least one division.
Besides, that was all Ballmer or gates, this is Nadella. It's a whole new world.
posted by GuyZero at 12:35 PM on November 16, 2016 [3 favorites]
Nadella really has seemed to have changed the culture at MS for the better. It really makes you wonder where they would be now without the Ballmer years of treading water.
We have a bunch of legacy .Net apps at my job which are finally getting updates. We're taking a long look at .Net Core.
posted by Eddie Mars at 12:39 PM on November 16, 2016 [3 favorites]
We have a bunch of legacy .Net apps at my job which are finally getting updates. We're taking a long look at .Net Core.
posted by Eddie Mars at 12:39 PM on November 16, 2016 [3 favorites]
I suppose I see Nadella's appearance as merely a good public face: he looks great by making gestures but is still spending massive amounts of money doing things like pushing for FRAND in the EU as a back-door way of getting software patents (and thus torpedoing the vast majority of FOSS work). The little gestures look nice, sure, but when you look at the big picture the company is still doing what it has always done.
posted by introp at 12:46 PM on November 16, 2016 [8 favorites]
posted by introp at 12:46 PM on November 16, 2016 [8 favorites]
You misread; it's "a top performer" and "among the fastest", but there are 9 places above it. (I was looking for a Windows comparison, but I guess this benchmark is Linux-only).
Yeah that was a "most improved" - it's an extreme improvement and very strong performance overall for sure though. It is however beatable if you're really trying.
posted by atoxyl at 1:03 PM on November 16, 2016 [1 favorite]
Yeah that was a "most improved" - it's an extreme improvement and very strong performance overall for sure though. It is however beatable if you're really trying.
posted by atoxyl at 1:03 PM on November 16, 2016 [1 favorite]
pushing for FRAND in the EU as a back-door way of getting software patents (and thus torpedoing the vast majority of FOSS work)
Software patents have never been used against an open source project (companies that happen to use open source software in their commercial products, yes, but not the underlying software projects).
The software patent apocalypse that open source software advocates have been fretting about for two decades is a mirage. It never made any economic or legal sense, and it makes even less sense today.
posted by jedicus at 1:14 PM on November 16, 2016 [1 favorite]
Software patents have never been used against an open source project (companies that happen to use open source software in their commercial products, yes, but not the underlying software projects).
The software patent apocalypse that open source software advocates have been fretting about for two decades is a mirage. It never made any economic or legal sense, and it makes even less sense today.
posted by jedicus at 1:14 PM on November 16, 2016 [1 favorite]
Fifteen years is a century in IT space.
Case in point: the reason Clinton wanted her own email server was to continue using her Blackberry.
My daughter: "What's a Blackberry?"
posted by MrGuilt at 1:16 PM on November 16, 2016 [9 favorites]
Case in point: the reason Clinton wanted her own email server was to continue using her Blackberry.
My daughter: "What's a Blackberry?"
posted by MrGuilt at 1:16 PM on November 16, 2016 [9 favorites]
atoxyl and sourcejedi, the important part is the "fullstack webdev framework". Yes, you can beat it in a bunch of ways, but the faster entries in the benchmark aren't general purpose fullstack frameworks. They're specialized in function and scope.
posted by blue_beetle at 1:26 PM on November 16, 2016
posted by blue_beetle at 1:26 PM on November 16, 2016
"Besides, that was all Ballmer or gates, this is Nadella. It's a whole new world."
Craig Mundie (craigmu) was a leading MS anti-LINUX evangelist (devangelist?) back in the day.
posted by bz at 1:53 PM on November 16, 2016 [1 favorite]
Craig Mundie (craigmu) was a leading MS anti-LINUX evangelist (devangelist?) back in the day.
posted by bz at 1:53 PM on November 16, 2016 [1 favorite]
MS does seem to have turned a corner. I've been really impressed with all the stuff they've been putting out lately. For instance, Window 10 IoT on a Raspberry Pi is actually super nice. The initial provisioning, in particular, is fantastic.
I was definitely one of the MS haters back in the day.
posted by phooky at 2:21 PM on November 16, 2016
I was definitely one of the MS haters back in the day.
posted by phooky at 2:21 PM on November 16, 2016
atoxyl and sourcejedi, the important part is the "fullstack webdev framework". Yes, you can beat it in a bunch of ways, but the faster entries in the benchmark aren't general purpose fullstack frameworks. They're specialized in function and scope.
Well what even is a "full-stack web framework?" I'm serious - how many frameworks really cover the full stack? How much stack do you have to integrate to be a "full-stack framework?" "Roughly as much as Rails" I guess is a reasonable bar?
posted by atoxyl at 2:23 PM on November 16, 2016 [1 favorite]
Well what even is a "full-stack web framework?" I'm serious - how many frameworks really cover the full stack? How much stack do you have to integrate to be a "full-stack framework?" "Roughly as much as Rails" I guess is a reasonable bar?
posted by atoxyl at 2:23 PM on November 16, 2016 [1 favorite]
Ballmer himself has seen the light: "I may have called Linux a cancer but now I love it"
posted by talos at 2:33 PM on November 16, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by talos at 2:33 PM on November 16, 2016 [3 favorites]
Given that Google's internal use of Java is fairly widespread, .NET would be the obvious replacement if Google chooses to abandon Java for new projects.
Heh. I work on part of the iTunes store, and every time one of us new(er) timers ask: "why don't we don't we replace older/terrible X with this newer/better Y", the answer is "100's of dollars per second in revenue, that's why".
I'm sure people inside The GOOG have similar experiences.
posted by sideshow at 2:34 PM on November 16, 2016 [8 favorites]
Heh. I work on part of the iTunes store, and every time one of us new(er) timers ask: "why don't we don't we replace older/terrible X with this newer/better Y", the answer is "100's of dollars per second in revenue, that's why".
I'm sure people inside The GOOG have similar experiences.
posted by sideshow at 2:34 PM on November 16, 2016 [8 favorites]
MS does seem to have turned a corner.
2016 MS is making smarter moves in some important ways than once upon a time. Their pragmatic embrace of useful software from the FOSS sphere is a good call.
Life remains too goddamned short to touch any of their stuff if I've got half a choice in the matter.
posted by brennen at 2:41 PM on November 16, 2016 [6 favorites]
2016 MS is making smarter moves in some important ways than once upon a time. Their pragmatic embrace of useful software from the FOSS sphere is a good call.
Life remains too goddamned short to touch any of their stuff if I've got half a choice in the matter.
posted by brennen at 2:41 PM on November 16, 2016 [6 favorites]
I'll lift my curse AFTER the Codices Leicester & Hammer are free and online IN FULL...the cretin.
posted by lazycomputerkids at 5:07 PM on November 16, 2016
posted by lazycomputerkids at 5:07 PM on November 16, 2016
*still nursing a grudge against MS-BASIC*
posted by benzenedream at 5:52 PM on November 16, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by benzenedream at 5:52 PM on November 16, 2016 [1 favorite]
Software patents have never been used against an open source project (companies that happen to use open source software in their commercial products, yes, but not the underlying software projects).Wait, what? Just because it's never gone to court in a clear-cut case doesn't mean it hasn't been used as a knife to the throat.
The software patent apocalypse that open source software advocates have been fretting about for two decades is a mirage. It never made any economic or legal sense, and it makes even less sense today.
Samba is probably the simplest example: MS dragged its feet obeying a court order for seven years, racking up EUR$860M (over US$1B 2012) in penalties, and Samba's commercial use for that span was crippled due to the FUD. Microsoft knew that it could hold its (bogus, as it turns out) software patent claims over Samba's head and stall its adoption. The revenue gained by locking out the only competitor in the SMB/CIFS space was, by many estimates, far greater than the penalty. Seven years in the computer market is an eternity.
See also: Hercules (directly threatened), OpenOffice.org (threatened with vague claims but no details), Linux (same), ClamAV (indirectly threatened), etc.
Saying "no one has ever used it against Ford" doesn't mean anything when, yes, it has, and also you're suing major Ford dealerships just for distributing Fords, oh and also you're lobbying for laws that make Ford unable to distribute their cars because obeying the law would cause them to violate their licenses.
Like it or not, Microsoft has been the one doing most of the threatening (or bankrolling people who do it on their behalf). They're still doing it.
posted by introp at 5:57 PM on November 16, 2016 [14 favorites]
The other side of this story is that the Linux Foundation is increasingly seen as a tool of its corporate masters. Due to things like cutting off funding to the Softwate Freedom Conservancy after they sued its member VMware for GPL license violations.
posted by joeyh at 7:00 PM on November 16, 2016 [10 favorites]
posted by joeyh at 7:00 PM on November 16, 2016 [10 favorites]
Between Bill Gates trying to wipe out malaria and Microsoft never doing things like, oh, blowing up wells and contaminating the Gulf of Mexico, or mistreating workers, I've really lost most of my Microsoft hate.
Run Windows 10 for a while, and you'll get some measure of it back. Earlier today my laptop with 8GB suddenly began lagging during a YouTube video for absolutely no reason. I check Task Manager, and saw "Window Telemetry Client" open about 20 times each using about 300MB of RAM. Also, there's the whole business of forcing machines to reboot regardless of what unsaved files are open just because it's impatient to install fucking updates.
posted by JHarris at 7:45 PM on November 16, 2016 [8 favorites]
Run Windows 10 for a while, and you'll get some measure of it back. Earlier today my laptop with 8GB suddenly began lagging during a YouTube video for absolutely no reason. I check Task Manager, and saw "Window Telemetry Client" open about 20 times each using about 300MB of RAM. Also, there's the whole business of forcing machines to reboot regardless of what unsaved files are open just because it's impatient to install fucking updates.
posted by JHarris at 7:45 PM on November 16, 2016 [8 favorites]
The other side of this story is that the Linux Foundation is increasingly seen as a tool of its corporate masters. Due to things like cutting off funding to the Softwate Freedom Conservancy after they sued its member VMware for GPL license violations.
Relatedly, one of the best jokes about the situation I saw was on LWN: " At last — a Linux Foundation member that cares about license enforcement!"
posted by pwnguin at 8:13 PM on November 16, 2016 [5 favorites]
Relatedly, one of the best jokes about the situation I saw was on LWN: " At last — a Linux Foundation member that cares about license enforcement!"
posted by pwnguin at 8:13 PM on November 16, 2016 [5 favorites]
For anyone else curious, Platinum level costs $500,000.00 per year!
posted by funkiwan at 9:21 PM on November 16, 2016
posted by funkiwan at 9:21 PM on November 16, 2016
*still nurse grudge against Grak, discover fire but not share with mammoth hunter in Year of Poor Nut Harvest*
posted by No-sword at 4:23 AM on November 17, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by No-sword at 4:23 AM on November 17, 2016 [1 favorite]
Which is worse, running a windows emulator on linux or running a linux emulator on windows?
(Does anybody ever use a linux emulator on windows? Does one exist?)
I once had a job where part of it was in a windows emulator. Citrix. My goodness what a piece of crap idea. The idea that your employee's time is so cheap that saving a few bucks on hardware ought to be unthinkable.
posted by bukvich at 5:59 AM on November 17, 2016
(Does anybody ever use a linux emulator on windows? Does one exist?)
I once had a job where part of it was in a windows emulator. Citrix. My goodness what a piece of crap idea. The idea that your employee's time is so cheap that saving a few bucks on hardware ought to be unthinkable.
posted by bukvich at 5:59 AM on November 17, 2016
Heh. I work on part of the iTunes store, and every time one of us new(er) timers ask: "why don't we don't we replace older/terrible X with this newer/better Y", the answer is "100's of dollars per second in revenue, that's why".
Yeah. That's why I added the "new projects" caveat.
Google's stuck with Java, but Java also faces an extremely uncertain future, which Google can't possibly be happy about.
posted by schmod at 6:20 AM on November 17, 2016 [1 favorite]
Yeah. That's why I added the "new projects" caveat.
Google's stuck with Java, but Java also faces an extremely uncertain future, which Google can't possibly be happy about.
posted by schmod at 6:20 AM on November 17, 2016 [1 favorite]
Microsoft hearts Linux, Microsoft is the top contributor to open source projects on GitHub, Visual Studio for Mac, this must surely be the end times.
posted by rodlymight at 7:12 AM on November 17, 2016
posted by rodlymight at 7:12 AM on November 17, 2016
Samba is probably the simplest example
That was an antitrust case brought against Microsoft, not a patent case brought by Microsoft against Samba or any company using it. Samba's goal in the case (via FSFE) was to force Microsoft to license its protocols in a way that was compatible with a free software license.
Hercules (directly threatened)
It wasn't the Hercules project that was threatened, it was TurboHercules, a for-profit competitor to IBM in the mainframe market. And in that case, TurboHercules filed a complaint with the European Commission first, and IBM responded with a C&D letter based on some of its software patents. Again, the C&D was aimed at the for-profit company, not the project.
The rest of the examples are even weaker.
It simply does not make economic or legal sense for a company to engage in a multi-million dollar game of whack-a-mole against judgment-proof open source developers around the world, in patent regimes increasingly opposed to patents on computer-implemented inventions. It would be a costly fool's errand and a PR disaster. That's why no one has ever done it—and no one ever will.
To the extent individual software developers have reduced their volunteer efforts out of fear of software patents, they are doing so not because patent owners are threatening them but because the open source software community has convinced themselves the bogeyman exists.
For-profit companies based on open source software are a different matter, but they're also playing a different game.
posted by jedicus at 7:12 AM on November 17, 2016
That was an antitrust case brought against Microsoft, not a patent case brought by Microsoft against Samba or any company using it. Samba's goal in the case (via FSFE) was to force Microsoft to license its protocols in a way that was compatible with a free software license.
Hercules (directly threatened)
It wasn't the Hercules project that was threatened, it was TurboHercules, a for-profit competitor to IBM in the mainframe market. And in that case, TurboHercules filed a complaint with the European Commission first, and IBM responded with a C&D letter based on some of its software patents. Again, the C&D was aimed at the for-profit company, not the project.
The rest of the examples are even weaker.
It simply does not make economic or legal sense for a company to engage in a multi-million dollar game of whack-a-mole against judgment-proof open source developers around the world, in patent regimes increasingly opposed to patents on computer-implemented inventions. It would be a costly fool's errand and a PR disaster. That's why no one has ever done it—and no one ever will.
To the extent individual software developers have reduced their volunteer efforts out of fear of software patents, they are doing so not because patent owners are threatening them but because the open source software community has convinced themselves the bogeyman exists.
For-profit companies based on open source software are a different matter, but they're also playing a different game.
posted by jedicus at 7:12 AM on November 17, 2016
JHarris: "I check Task Manager, and saw "Window Telemetry Client" open about 20 times each using about 300MB of RAM."
You can turn that off.
posted by zinon at 8:42 AM on November 17, 2016 [2 favorites]
You can turn that off.
posted by zinon at 8:42 AM on November 17, 2016 [2 favorites]
(Does anybody ever use a linux emulator on windows? Does one exist?)
I use Cygwin every day at work. And have a window open right now. It's trusty and reliable.
posted by lumpenprole at 8:42 AM on November 17, 2016 [1 favorite]
I use Cygwin every day at work. And have a window open right now. It's trusty and reliable.
posted by lumpenprole at 8:42 AM on November 17, 2016 [1 favorite]
Run Windows 10 for a while, and you'll get some measure of it back. Earlier today my laptop with 8GB suddenly began lagging during a YouTube video for absolutely no reason. I check Task Manager, and saw "Window Telemetry Client" open about 20 times each using about 300MB of RAM. Also, there's the whole business of forcing machines to reboot regardless of what unsaved files are open just because it's impatient to install fucking updates.
This is one reason why I use Linux as my OS, and keep a copy of Win7 (because I need to use Excel 2016 for work) running contained inside of a VM.
posted by ethical_caligula at 1:01 PM on November 17, 2016 [1 favorite]
This is one reason why I use Linux as my OS, and keep a copy of Win7 (because I need to use Excel 2016 for work) running contained inside of a VM.
posted by ethical_caligula at 1:01 PM on November 17, 2016 [1 favorite]
That was an antitrust case brought against Microsoft, not a patent case brought by Microsoft against Samba or any company using it. Samba's goal in the case (via FSFE) was to force Microsoft to license its protocols in a way that was compatible with a free software license.It started as an antitrust case; the settlement was about the antitrust case. The execution of the settlement, however, was much about patents:
- As part of the settlement, Samba signed an agreement with Microsoft that Samba would not have a license to any MS patents. They only acquired access to the protocol docs (and the reasonable info required to make interop work). Samba knew they'd have to work around the patents.
- Microsoft refused to provide the protocol docs, arguing that since the docs contained information about how the patents were used, the docs themselves were protected goods. They tried to extend their patent protections to the mere documentation of the patent uses themselves (docs which, we should note, were not patented because they couldn't be).
- Microsoft was so transparent about what they were doing that they didn't even bother to petition the court to assert they were in compliance. After losing their appeal in ~2007, they simply stalled and dragged their feet because every day that passed without a legally-clear SMB/CIFS competitor was a profitable day, even with the massive daily penalties the court imposed.
(Post-settlement I was working in an adjacent business, telecom, and the effects of the case were clearly visible with many of our embedded GNU/Linux customers. At least one large Dow Jones company we worked with was acutely aware of the legal risk under which Samba labored and made their decisions accordingly. If Microsoft succeeded in arguing that their patents protected even interop docs, Samba was dead walking and could never keep up as a viable competitor.)
posted by introp at 3:47 PM on November 17, 2016 [4 favorites]
hate to be that guy but isn't it 'beware of Greeks bearing gifts' or am I missing something
posted by alex4pt at 7:22 PM on November 17, 2016
posted by alex4pt at 7:22 PM on November 17, 2016
In this case, it's beware of Geeks bearing gifts.
posted by jenkinsEar at 5:12 AM on November 18, 2016
posted by jenkinsEar at 5:12 AM on November 18, 2016
* still nursing a grievance from undocumented system variables in MS-DOS. Terminate and stay resident re-entrancy without the InDOS flag? Thanks for nothing, you curs *
posted by Devonian at 5:36 AM on November 18, 2016
posted by Devonian at 5:36 AM on November 18, 2016
capnsue, I'll be surprised if that holds up due to this:
posted by NortonDC at 10:50 PM on November 18, 2016
SQL Server for Linux runs atop a Drawbridge Windows library OS – a user-mode NT kernel – within a secure container called a picoprocess that communicates with the host Linux operating system through the Drawbridge application binary interface.I've relied on SQL Server (2008-2014), Oracle (7.3-12C, plus SuperClusters and Exadata), Sybase (11.x-12.x), various others probably not worth mentioning, and now PostgreSQL (9.3 on up). Postgres has won me over, and I can't imagine what would make me choose SQL Server in a Linux environment.
In other words, Microsoft's SQL Server for Linux is really the Windows SQL Server executable with a small Windows 8 kernel glued underneath, all running in a normal Linux process.
posted by NortonDC at 10:50 PM on November 18, 2016
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posted by caution live frogs at 9:44 AM on November 16, 2016 [26 favorites]