Neowin.net - Microsoft: Open Source is the devil

Microsoft: Open Source is the devil

Posted by Brad Wardell on 10 February 2005 - 05:26 · 76 comments & 5423 views

Well not precisely. A new IDC study points out that Microsoft's indemnification of its end users over most types of intellectual property claims is much more protection than one is likely to see any time soon from vendors providing open source solutions.

Microsoft, armed with this study has been this part of its "Get the facts" campaign in an effort to thwart the growing popularity of the open source operating system, Linux.

IDC, however, notes that there is no conclusive evidence that indemnification is a major issue for most customers. The long term affect of SCO, who claimed that Linux uses some of its code illegally and therefore all Linux shops may be liable has not, so far, had a measurable impact it seems.

News source: More on this at News.com

"So i happened to look over my finances this past weekend and i realized something: i'm broke. which is odd, because i had a bunch of liquid capital in my checking account last time i checked, and now all of a sudden i have nothing.

i realized the root problem was that google's relocation process requires the employee to pay all the expenses up front and then get reimbursed for them later. that means you have to cover an apartment hunting trip, your final relocation, lease termination fees and temporary housing expenses all in advance. not to mention that they don't pay out your signing bonus and relocation money until your first paycheck (which i haven't received yet). finally, add in the fact that i had to put down two months rent as a deposit for my new lease, and i'm flat broke.

on the plus side, this first paycheck is going to be huge... (which unfortunately means i'll probably end up getting taxed huge on it. doh!)

which led me to thinking about the "benefits" package at google. as i thought about it, i realized that most of the "benefits" actually seem to be thinly veiled timesavers to keep you at work. take for example: free lunch and dinner. now this one is an awesome value proposition for google; i'm not exactly sure why other companies don't also recognize the value and join in. consider this: it probably costs google a maximum of $3 per employee for lunch and $5 per employee for dinner. so that's only $8 per day, but if you think about the fact that the employee now probably only takes a half hour lunch break and also stays late working, the company actually realizes far more than an $8 gain in employee output. not to mention that most people think this is a great "benefit" and google gets a ton of positive press on it. in short, this "benefit" is designed benefit the company, not the employee.

then look at all these other fringe "benefits": on-site doctor, on-site dentist, on-site car washes... the list goes on and on with one similarity: every "benefit" is on-site so you never leave work. i'm not going to say this isn't convenient for us employees, but between all these devices designed to make us stay at work, they might as well just have dorms on campus that all employees are required to live in.

next, let's look at the health care benefit provided. arguably, this is the biggest benefit companies pay out for their employees. google definitely has a program that is on par with other companies in the industry; but since when does a company like google settle for being on par? microsoft's health care benefits shame google's relatively meager offering. for those of you who don't know, microsoft pays 100% of employees' premiums for a world-class PPO. everything you can possibly imagine is covered. the program has no co-pays on anything (including prescription drugs); you can self-refer to any doctor in the blue cross blue shield network, which pretty much means any licensed professional; and you can even get up to 24 hour-long massage sessions per year.

lastly, google demands employees that are 90th percentile material, so what's with the 50th percentile compensation? the packages would've been decent when the company was pre-IPO, but let's be honest here... a stock option with a strike price of $188 just doesn't have the same value as the ones of yesteryear. even microsoft adjusted their base salaries to 66th percentile years ago when it was clear that their stock options weren't as much a part of the total compensation package as it used to be. for a post-IPO company like google, it only seems fair that they adjust things accordingly.

all in all, despite these rants, i still chose to come to google. the work environment, projects and risk/reward equation were all more enticing than up in redmond. but just like when you look for apartments in SF, no option is ever perfect. " (from here, mirrored at Bloglines)

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#1 Posted by brianshapiro on 10 Feb 2005 - 05:40: OS Community: closed source is the devil

(4 replies) #2 Posted by Sn1p3t on 10 Feb 2005 - 05:40: The title seemed like something Slashdot would post .

I have a question. Using AIM, MSN, ICQ, or Yahoo's messenger protocol without getting permission from them is illigal, right? My roommate just installed the latest build of Fedora, and it included Multi-Protocol Messaging client, which allows you to use any of these services from their application. Is that program illigal? If so, wouldn't any business that installs this software also be doing something illigal?

#3 Posted by threedaysdwn on 10 Feb 2005 - 05:52: Erm, I think you mean "effect." Not "affect."

(6 replies) #4 Posted by CaKeY on 10 Feb 2005 - 06:01: I wonder how much trouble microsoft would be in if they were forced to open up their code for the world to see.

"Get the facts"?
Get the source!

(7 replies) #5 Posted by Neb Okla on 10 Feb 2005 - 07:13: I wish I could block all posts from Tom Warren and Brad Wardell. Every time I see a post from either of them lately, it's some sensationalist anti-MS drivel.

I stopped reading ActiveWin because every other story was just a rehash of some piece of crap Register article. Please tell me that NeoWin hasn't befallen the same fate.

It's as if the admins said "What we need around here are more flamebait articles!". I guess that's the kind of stuff you resort to when there aren't any interesting news stories.

(10 replies) #6 Posted by tylerk on 10 Feb 2005 - 07:26: The simple fact is that linux has no future, it's pointless and stupid. The users that use it think they are being a hardcore rebel and going against microsoft.... it's just like vegetarians, they are both equally as dumb as each other and their "cause" is entirely stupid.

#7 Posted by Jugalator on 10 Feb 2005 - 08:12: Gee, what's up with the exaggerated titles lately

Microsoft: Open Source is the devil
Blogger Fired, Sparks Online Fiasco
A Browser Exploit That Doesn't Affect IE - Shocks The World

You can only joke with the titles that many times before it gets old.

(5 replies) #8 Posted by nicedreams on 10 Feb 2005 - 08:30: I don't understand Microsoft's strategy of trashing open source software and Linux. For one, MS software is so screwed up because they have a limited staff that makes and breaks these apps and they all have their limits. Open source can be fixed by anyone in the world which means less limits of what people can do and faster catches of bugs and fixes for the community.

But all in all with any user that uses any major distro (debian is the best IMO) realizes that Linux doesn't mess up as much as Windows once you have Linux at a stable stage (depending on how you use your sytem, I use unstable versions all the time) and since I can put my /home in it's own partition, I can reformat / and change distro's when ever I want and never loose a setting and I can go right back to work. Oh yea...most of the file systems for Linux don't fragment like FAT and NTFS do. I've never heard of defraging an EXT3 partition. LOL

And another thing. Who the hell runs their system all the time as Administrator. That's another problem with windows. The basic user has full admin rights and so do all the viruses and crap they get.

Linux gets a virus and it can't do anything because the virus has regular user rights and can't screw system files or the system for that matter as long as your not root happy.

GO DEBIAN and UBUNTU (my new favorite) APT IS GOD

#9 Posted by James_T on 10 Feb 2005 - 08:35: Hail Satan !

(7 replies) #10 Posted by shichiroji4 on 10 Feb 2005 - 08:41: LOLLOLLLOL!!!!!!!!!

This must be the joke of the millenium. M$ is ****ting its pants so badly that they are resorting to whatever study they can find to discredit open source.

Bill, get this into your thick skull: M$ is history, go sell your shares while they are still worth a few pennies.

#11 Posted by xpgeek on 10 Feb 2005 - 09:16: I do have to say, this was not the name of the article as it appeared on Cnet, and it clearly shows the opinions of the reposter here at neowin. "Microsoft: Open Source is the devil", thats just a bit sensational no?

(1 reply) #12 Posted by sloppycode on 10 Feb 2005 - 10:38

QUOTE

that has to be the mostly poorly worded sentence i've seen for a while. It's basically saying, because MS owns the copyright, they can guarantee that nobody will sue you unlike open source where you might be sued for using a program where they own the IP? maybe i should rtfa

#12.1 Posted by sloppycode on 10 Feb 2005 - 10:41: the article says:

Microsoft is touting a new study that points out that the software maker offers customers more legal protection against intellectual property claims than that given by open-source rivals.

sums it up a lot more effectively, my answer given

#13 Posted by scoobydoobie on 10 Feb 2005 - 11:42

QUOTE

I wish I could block all posts from Tom Warren and Brad Wardell. Every time I see a post from either of them lately, it's some sensationalist anti-MS drivel.

QUOTE

Gee, what's up with the exaggerated titles lately

QUOTE

I do have to say, this was not the name of the article as it appeared on Cnet, and it clearly shows the opinions of the reposter here at neowin. "Microsoft: Open Source is the devil", thats just a bit sensational no?

Neowin..the new Slashdot

(2 replies) #14 Posted by Aaryn Kasra on 10 Feb 2005 - 15:05: Comparing Neowin to Slashdot?
If Neowin was Slashdot, 90% of the posts made would be read by no one because they would be moderated 1. The grammar in news posts would also be "different" And if you don't know what I mean by that then you *definitely* can't compare the two.

#15 Posted by tcool93 on 10 Feb 2005 - 17:46: While I don't use Linux yet (its still not compatible with enough stuff), if anyone is the Devil, its Microsoft and their overpriced software.

PS: The webmaster here needs to fix this website, the login does NOT work on the comments page. Its been this way for months.

(2 replies) #16 Posted by machorro on 10 Feb 2005 - 18:01: and here we go again... another "study" from microsoft and guess what, it makes microsoft looks good and competition looks bad

this is getting boring from all sides, microsoft say this, OS comunity say's that

if microsoft is doing this study's well it's b/c its scared, either you ppl wanna believe it or not, i mean why on earth would you go doing this studies if you are not afraid even a little...

btw im not a fanboy, im just writting what I see

#17 Posted by SunnyB on 10 Feb 2005 - 19:50: End result:
If it ain't MS
it ain't shlt.

There's a quote that everyone can live with.
It works on either side of the fence.

#18 Posted by SlakeT on 10 Feb 2005 - 20:05: The title should be changed to linux users are evil. All the big busts have the same result...a room filled with linux boxes and one windows machine to test the virus and spyware.

#19 Posted by tiwaris on 10 Feb 2005 - 22:46: Title itself is provocative. Just by reading the title, I was sure what this thread is going to be.

Neowin is an excellent example of unmoderated (but monitored) public forums. /. still remains the best. (I like this smiley too).

(4 replies) #20 Posted by jubber2002 on 11 Feb 2005 - 02:35: Anyone remember when microsofts IE had illigal java platform. how they stole that code.

(1 reply) #21 Posted by cylonite on 11 Feb 2005 - 14:26

bit off-topic but still

QUOTE

Even with the relatively large number of bulletins we released this week, we compare favorably," he said. "Year-to-date for 2005, Microsoft has fixed 15 vulnerabilities affecting Windows Server 2003. In the same time period, for just this year, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 users have had to patch 34 vulnerabilities and SuSE Enterprise Linux 9 users have had to patch over 78 vulnerabilities."

Source: http://www.informationweek.com/story/showA...icleID=60300220
Microsoft just has to patch less holes and therefore become secure. i really like this guys logic

to be fair he does say that patches alonr dont mean anything, but still too funny for words.

QUOTE

Nash also said that the number of patches shouldn't be the only criteria users apply to tell if Microsoft's doing its job. "Note that this is just one measure, and doesn't take into consideration all of the other progress we're making, with security guidance for customers, improving security manageability and introducing innovative security solutions and technologies," he said.

Last edited by 46615 on 11 Feb 2005 - 14:35

#21.1 Posted by markjensen on 11 Feb 2005 - 14:39: Yeah, that is a bit off-topic, but a link to that news article would make a good thread in Back Page News, if there isn't one there already (I didn't check).

Microsoft has a habit of trying to apply a 1 to 1 comparison of patches and pointing out the disparity without factoring in that the Linux distros they compare to have more than one Web Server, more than one FTP server, and pretty much more than one of everything that Microsoft just includes the one version of. Plus there are so many 'extras' that come with a Red Hat or Novell/SUSE setup, that just looking at the sum of patches for a year is pretty much irrelevant.

(2 replies) #22 Posted by jivemastert on 11 Feb 2005 - 14:48: proudly browsing NeoWin with Linux

#23 Posted by IntelliMoo on 12 Feb 2005 - 06:50: "Open Source is real, I know... MS built its cage."

#24 Posted by Magallanes on 14 Feb 2005 - 02:07: Open source can be good or bad. For example BSD is a excelent sample of good use of open source. Linux is a mixed bags, is good for the speed in their evolution but is bad for the chaotics behind it, for example to have a lot of distros for i686 that made the same job plus they can be quite incompatible (to compile the source code for run a program is unthinkable for casual users).

#25 Posted by King Rilian on 15 Feb 2005 - 15:14: *LOLs at news title*
*Shakes head at Microsoft*

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