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Blazing the trail for Longhorn | |
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| Time: 09:55 EST/14:55 GMT | News Source: ZDNet | Posted By: Brian Kvalheim | ||
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The success of Microsoft's Windows operating system is inextricably tied to its strong developer division. Since its founding, Microsoft has supplied programmers with the tools to build applications for Windows, the company's crown jewels. S. "Soma" Somasegar has lived on both sides of the Windows developer fence. After working 15 years at the group responsible for building Windows, he became vice president of Microsoft's developer division earlier this year. There's a close technical kinship between Windows and Microsoft's .Net development platform--particularly as the company continues to heap more and more software "plumbing," such as Web services connectivity software, into Windows. And developers are instrumental to getting advanced features such as better search capabilities into commercial applications. | ||
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| #1 By 21203 (208.252.96.195) at 7/20/2004 7:39:14 PM |
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If someone doesn't know how to build a business, then they really don't have any room to blame an established company. Seriously.
Look at IBM. They have patents, operating systems, hardware, software, middleware, high end, low end, consulting, etc .... easily an order of magnitude on a larger scale than Microsoft. And that's just one company. Should Linux not even exist because IBM might absorb them? Is there no way to make money there? Clearly not. Novell has prospered because of Linux, as well as a lot of others. (I keep bringing up Linux because it's a relative newbie in the OS world). Microsoft makes APIs for their OS to enable developers to use. Developers do that. There really is no hidden agenda there... and even if it were, that's the nature of business itself. Why should I write an instant messenger? Would MSN/Windows messenger gobble up the feature set and render my messenger non-appealing? Should I blame them for this? Microsoft is one company, following millions of other companies doing the same thing for hundreds of years. Just look around at the market and wonder who started the trend of selling "low carb" lettuce wrapped burgers for pete's sake. Imitation is a constant business practice. Anti-microsoft people call it "embrace and extend". It's business. |
| #2 By 21203 (208.252.96.195) at 7/20/2004 8:36:17 PM |
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I'm not much of a coder but it's pretty simple, to me.
With the programming tools available, it's very easy to go from total newbie to a "hello, world" program that actually has graphical widgets within a few minutes. That's leaps and bounds over text-based programming, or trying to program on non-standard APIs (like trying to code a graphics program in Gnome or XWindows). Now I'm not an XWindows expert, but I know they've got some stuff going on there. I'm just making a basic comparison between the toolsets and the ease of getting solutions developed that utilize a GUI easier in the Windows API set. |
| #3 By 21203 (4.5.32.137) at 7/20/2004 10:26:11 PM |
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Its hard to compare OSS to closed source when you say "job" because that implies "income".
I won't deny that there aren't open source jobs out there. I'm just saying that for every 99 closed source jobs out there, you probably have 1 open source, real, actual, paying job (bear in mind that this "job" would be giving away code to the community freely) -- and I'd bet that it's probably a part time job at that.. :) That's not an economy, that's not going to be a full time company, it's not a "market", it doesn't even register. It doesn't pay the bills, but hey, nothing to file for taxes. Bear in mind as I've said before that most of the "open source jobs" truly mean a bastardization of open source into closed source. Meaning, snag someone else's code, recode it internally for private use. That becomes -- and is very important to note -- closed source. It is not even the 1 in my 100 above. I think I'm being generous with that number anyway. But what does it matter? Add it all together and you have no jobs market, which doesn't compel people to work in that area, which doesn't drive the economy, which in turn doesn't bring the tools quickly, or make standarization any smoother. But hey, you have bazillions of people working on something in their spare time. That's called a hobby not a job. If I could collect comic books for a living too, like I did when I was a kid, I would have never gone to college. Funny thing is, I have bills to pay. I coded for RBBS way back when (quickbasic! ha!) and learned very quickly that the most that "open" source will provide is a resume entry for a real job. What longhorn provides is an easy path to develop rich applications. So what if they get gobbled? There's a history of good companies that have not been gobbled by Microsoft despite copying technology or outright licensing the same technology and offering it free as an add-on to Windows (IE. ZIP, Backup...) I would venture to believe that most companies that folded, seriously, due to Microsoft competition were not due to any degree of bullying, they just simply did not want to compete. |
| #4 By 21203 (4.5.32.137) at 7/21/2004 1:18:23 AM |
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I guess we don't agree then. OSS is a beggars world. You can use the free tools to make money on stuff that has absolutely nothing to do for OSS... well except for bragging rights. ("I wrote this application in perl on unix! I'm leet!")
If the only value to OSS is that it merely exists, and that people can use it, I totally concede the argument. Bravo. Freeware has been around for a decade or two, the "model" it's been used is irrelevent on Windows or Linux, it still is basically free, and helps the economy in a not-at-all kind of way. This is not an anecdote: If I write true "open source" software, I can not pay my bills with the returns on that work. I will have to beg for donations. You can brush that off as a quip but that's the harsh reality of one who actually has a wife, 2.3 kids, a mortgage and a desire to make some money. At that point, open source is something they do in their "spare time"... you know, like most hobbies. You have failed to provide any kind of proof yourself so... /shrug. This post was edited by mram on Wednesday, July 21, 2004 at 03:31. |
| #5 By 21203 (4.5.32.137) at 7/21/2004 1:27:39 AM |
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MS was found guilty of abusing their monopoly. You don't remember any of that?
I remember it. The specific statement is that Microsoft was found to have a monopoly position in the OS market. Ironically it does nothing to prove your point today, since the resultant effect of that ruling is that now Microsoft has oversight on every addition that is ever made to the OS to prevent it from abusing it's monopoly position. While your point may have had weight 4 years ago at the trial, it is actually in action today pre-emptively preventing features from appearing in Longhorn that violate monopoly law. Not to mention that all the states settled on this issue (finally) so legally the only real point is that everyone knows Microsoft has monopoly power on the client, but Microsoft is required to divulge every tiny itty bitty addition to its OS to an oversight committee. So I don't see how even bringing up this point has any bearing on a startup company that wants to compete with Microsoft today. It's not like Microsoft can embrace-and-extend that company's widget into XP and whistle innocently... at least not anymore. So what if they did it in the past. IBM did too. Now those rights are protected. Lessons learned, move on... This post was edited by mram on Wednesday, July 21, 2004 at 01:34. |
| #6 By 23275 (68.17.42.38) at 7/21/2004 2:47:01 AM |
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Man. When I read stuff like this I get real bummed. One fundamental question jumps out from behind either side of the debate: does one, or does one not assess that what has been achieved in software is all that will ever be achieved? Essentially, are all of the "original thoughts" exhausted?
I could not assert more ernestly that they are not - that what is to be achieved is so much bigger and more significant than anything that has ever been deployed or even conceived of, that what Microsoft is, or is not, or what OSS is or is not, is meaningless. R&D, tools divisions, integration models [however dynamic], are meaningless against one fundamental element: aspiration. Have we accepted that what is, is all that there is and we are left to fight over scraps - an unending comparison of the efficacy of one model over another? When did we forget what it is to aspire to greatness. I know this, that in a race, one must drive one's own car, or suffer the errors of the guy(s) in front, or behind. It really comes down to dimensions. When will recognize that ASICS are dead? That FPGA's are the next [but by no means last], step. That the software that will allow for hardware "aware" applications and software "aware" hardware will also allow what we regard as a developer to change. That multi-dimensional visual models will be what are used to build each - without hitting a line of code. While we will participate on both sides to build the fuel needed to build these tools, we won't stop until we have achieved our goals - to make things better. |
| #7 By 21203 (4.5.32.137) at 7/21/2004 3:59:06 AM |
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You chose to agree, so I guess you think what I say is good enough.
Nice try. No. Since you edited your original post, I changed mine too. I don't agree with you. Also, OSS has come along nicely so far so there's no reason to believe it will go away. As a business you do not have to worry about the direction of open source. Sure! I can get free software from 3 years ago too, as long as the volunteer web sites and universities haven't purged the data, gone under, or simply had an accident. However, I DO have to worry about the direction. Have you ever managed by committee? Know what that term means? The reason why OSS is worried about indigo, avalon and winfs is because it will take OSS years to even agree on a comparable project, let alone amass significant resources to pull it off. A bet: The first group to compete with any of the new infrastructure items coming out from Redmond will be a commercial entity, like Redhat, making an offering in a commercial product. If you use the OSS tools and make modifications to them and require them in your application you'll release the modifications so that others can use your application. They'll still need to buy your application, so you'll still get your money, but OSS benefits from your improvements. This is one of the largest cases of piracy in the history of computing, and since there is no "loss" (no profit from the source software to detract from) this entire "contract" that would bind one to improve the source material is right out the window. Do you know of any ISP that has modified Sendmail or Apache and not sent back the modifications? I know of lots. I worked for a few... And so what? What did you prove? That hobbyware continues? Great! You know that open source exists for Windows too? It's not purely Linux. "Open Source" is not a pure Unix issue. But it's not profitable in and of itself, that's the point I'm making. People use OSS as a springboard to a real job. However MS plans on releasing Longhorn after the antitrust settlement is scheduled to expire That's reaching and you know it, if you even read the article yourself. To answer: Even if it were true, it would honor the settlement requirements. This post was edited by mram on Wednesday, July 21, 2004 at 04:01. |
| #8 By 455126 (92.38.233.37) at 1/7/2011 8:13:02 AM |
| <a href="http://gc-md.com">gc-md</a> |
| #9 By 455126 (92.38.233.37) at 1/7/2011 8:13:20 AM |
| <a href="http://gc-md.com">gc-md</a> |
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