Microsoft is laughing at Free Software.

English Soapbox
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I’ve been trying LInux and its various flavours since the late 1990’s and with varying degrees of success, I invariably wind up nixing the partitions and with tail between my legs, sneaking back to Windows. It’s a known entity. The lesser of evils and the greatest of evils. But it works and for the most part, at least since WinXP, it’s been reliable.

But, do you know what? I think Microsoft is sitting back and laughing at Free Software. They are laughing so hard, they’re afraid we might hear them and begin to wonder why that is. I started wondering that a long time ago and I do know why. Free Software is divided, fractured into dozens upon dozens of variants and totally without focus and that’s why a guy like me, who although I’ve got 25 years of experience with these infernal machines, cannot install a distro on two machines in a row and get the same result without a crapload of fidgeting around. And that’s fine for some guys, who like doing that for a hobby and to teach themselves about the OS. But at the end of the day, there has to be some order and a means to get some work done and it suddenly becomes apparent that the only way to accomplish that is to use an OS that is engineered and developed, as opposed to cobbled together and maintained on the fly. Those are the critical differences. If the LInux community were to come together under one banner and develop O N E Operating System for the World that everybody could use and the community devoted all their time and efforts to achieving that instead of dividing their efforts amongst a hundred variants with diverging goals, that would be worth something don’t you think? I mean, come on. If they’re giving it away for free, what earthly good is it to the lowly sap who is only trying to shake off the binds a Windows system obliges you to accept as a condition of using their spy-ware? I like the concept of Free Software, but at some point along the way, the notion that something for free should actually have some value, is what you need to advance the project. Right?

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Yeah.
And some people even know how to use line-breaks… >:)

Did Microsoft teach them? Apparently not.

3

Not forum related, moving to Soapbox.

4

Hi
Thread moved and re-opened…

Dunno about fidgeting around, I spend less that an hour on install and configuration… I setup a MacBook (2007 Model) yesterday with an SSD, dual boot have an issue with grub not booting osX via the grub entry, however I just use the option key on startup to overcome this until I investigate further, aside from that osX and Leap are working fine…

Upgraded my Wife’s laptop from SLED 11 SP3 to SLED 12 last week, no issues aside from getting use to the GNOME shell… it just works for her, so she is happy.

A few weeks ago setup tvheadend with Leap on a HP Pavilion 10 TS, setup took a little time, also had to patch the kernel driver for the usb tv device, apart from that I just run updates via ssh, haven’t even touched it since then…it just works.

For me install and setup are just mundane events these days…

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When I install a Windows machine from scratch, I usually wind up with days worth of proper setting up, installing & updating the non-MS software, crawling through the scattered configurations and so forth to get a properly set-up machine! It is days of "apply, boot, apply, boot, install, boot, boot, reboot, apply … backup because next often fails and I might have to come back to this point and try again … apply, boot, boot — oh, darn, restore from backup … )

Well, you get the idea.

With openSUSE? A couple hours at the outside, all set up and running, all apps configured for initial use, no headaches.

Running it?

Well, the neighbours bring their Windows laptops over frequently because they no longer boot. Except, those neighbours who decided to get me to install openSUSE: I rarely see their laptops, because they just keep running. And, though they have no Linux experience, they see little difference in how to use it (… other than much snappier speeds, no constant rebooting, in most cases no freeze-ups at all.).

To me, those are the most important things.

The neighbours I set up with dual-boot? They confess to me that they have not fired up the Windows side in months.

With Windows busy laughing – but, at their users – we just use our machines and get production done.

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On Mon, 21 Dec 2015 17:36:01 +0000, malcolmlewis wrote:

>> But, do you know what? I think Microsoft is sitting back and laughing
>> at Free Software.

My take: I don’t care if they’re laughing or not. They have their way
of doing things, and OSS has its own way of doing things.

Both ways have good and bad parts.

In the end, Microsoft is seeing that Linux is important - take the recent
announcement that the Linux Foundation’s LFCA certification is required
as part of Microsoft’s “Linux on Azure” certification. I live 15 minutes
from the Microsoft main campus in Redmond, and have many friends and
colleagues who either currently work there or have worked there.

Microsoft under Nadella understands that Linux - and OSS in general - is
important. Part of the reason for that is that sysadmins - really good
ones - know that they need to be able to write scripts and code to better
manage their systems. Sysadmins sharing scripts and code with each other
helps Microsoft.

Microsoft has come a long way from Steve Ballmer’s “Linux is a Cancer”
speech in 2001.

Jim

Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C

7

… but, I do agree with the original point that the Linux world is too fractured.

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I’d say that windows is perceived as “easy” just because it comes pre-installed in most machines sold today. Last time I wanted to install windows in a laptop it did require a “crapload of fidgeting around”, to find drivers, go through numerous reboots, dealing with a blank screen (video freq out of range) after a couple weeks although no change was made to the driver, etc.

And that’s not to mention all the reports on the internet about borked windows 10 updates, driver issues, etc.

TBF, when it works windows 7+ has some facilities that are nice, but that IMO does not compensate for the considerable limits MS imposes on me as a user. Of course I could learn powershell and other IT management stuff, but I don’t really need to with openSUSE - not that much.

One thing that makes a big difference for me are the repos, in contrast to the search the net/download from hopefully a safe site/run installer as admin/pray the shareware or whatever isn’t load with virus, etc. This is perhaps what is more disturbing when installing windows.

Ah, also the privacy issues. Even discounting the probably scary exaggerations, I’m wary of the amount of control MS can exert on my machine with w10, forced updates, remote disabling, etc. After all, it’s mine, not theirs. But then I don’t even like what facebook does, so I’m probably in a very small minority.

I’ll go back to my cave now…

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Quite right. That’s why I stick with linux instead of that cobbled together Windows thingy.

If the LInux community were to come together under one banner and develop O N E Operating System for the World that everybody could use and the community devoted all their time and efforts to achieving that instead of dividing their efforts amongst a hundred variants with diverging goals, that would be worth something don’t you think?

But then we would all be stuck with some god forsaken desktop such as Ubunty unity.

Viva diversity.

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Basically, with Linux YOU have to tweak the OS to your HW, because with a market share around 1.6% of Desktops scattered over a dozen distros no OEM is wasting time doing the work for you.
(See e.g. http://www.statista.com/statistics/218089/global-market-share-of-windows-7/ )
I think M$ is not even laughing, Linux on the Desktop is simply irrelevant to them…
What they are not laughing at are e.g. Samsung phones (that BTW have a custom Linux kernel under their hood…).

That said, in my experience major distros backed by a corporate sponsor (SUSE, Canonical, RH…) usually work out of the box on plain all-Intel boxes, like Leap on my 2007 Vista-class test laptop.
Sure, if I had to use fingerprint, TPM, accelerometer… I would have to go out of my way, but I just don’t miss those at the moment.
On my fancier main laptop, once I had straightened out (almost) all HW kinks on Tumbleweed taking notes of needed tweaks, installing Leap took some 40 min for the standard install, plus maybe half an hour for nvidia-bumblebee, performing updates, copying some config files from my TW backup and installing a few “oddities” from Packman.
That’s much less than the Win10 upgrade took on a similar machine, not to mention the time it takes to find out and disable all the useless stuff that goes with it.
AH… and I’m still on Gnome 3.16 since I knew from beta testing that Plasma5 was not yet ripe… for a reliable workhorse.

In my view, if you are distro-jumping you never come to understand where the weak points are and which workarounds really work; sticking to HW and a distro you know (or are going to learn) is the best way to enjoy Linux.
But the OP is right in calling for better focusing of efforts, since we all know that fancy peripherals or specialized HW add-ons will never be supported under Linux as long as its market share is below 2% and scattered over incompatible distros, or that chronic understaffing of some projects mean that as soon as a release is finally useable, it is abandoned to stalk for “the next big thing”…
(fill-in the blanks as you like with KDE4, Plasma5, Wayland…)

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On Tue, 22 Dec 2015 01:16:01 +0000, Fraser Bell wrote:

> … but, I -do- agree with the original point that the Linux world is
> -too- fractured.

It’s the nature of the beast. People in OSS are there to scratch an itch

  • and trying to tell them which itch to scratch is kinda like herding
    cats; it ain’t gonna happen. :slight_smile:

Innovation, in my mind, comes from trying things to see what works. To
do that, you have to have people willing to try different things - and
often times, more than one thing works. In closed-source software
development, someone decides which thing that works is the one way things
will be done (at last within a company), because there’s a profit motive.

In open source, there’s no profit motive to force a single choice. That
also means, though, that there’s no monopoly in open source, because
anyone can truly create something that duplicates the functionality of
something else - even borrowing code that works, if needed.

Jim

Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C

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On Tue, 22 Dec 2015 01:46:01 +0000, brunomcl wrote:

> Gecksu;2744229 Wrote:
>> … cannot install a distro on two machines in a row and get the same
>> result without a crapload of fidgeting around.
>
> I’d say that windows is perceived as “easy” just because it comes
> pre-installed in most machines sold today.

Agreed. I also would debate the point of installing a distro on two
machines in the row and having to fidget. I’ve installed a lot of
Windows systems over the years, and a lot of Linux systems.

Over that time period, Linux has gotten better, and Windows has stayed
about the same. Having to download drivers from various manufacturers -
and don’t get me started on finding the correct print drivers on Windows

  • until you’ve had to deploy printer drivers to 10,000 desktops across an
    enterprise with various models of printers available, you’ve not seen how
    difficult it is to set up Windows printing services. Add to that stupid
    restrictions in some drivers that prevent printing over a network (I had
    an inkjet printer that was like that - if the printer was connected
    locally, it was fine - but over a network, the driver was specifically
    broken by HP to prevent network printing - because they wanted customers
    to buy a more expensive printer for network printing, even though the one
    I had was perfectly capable of being used that way - talk about fidgeting
    to get something to work - that took me about a week of work, and in the
    end, I still had to physically connect a Windows machine to the printer
    if I wanted to clean the cartridge).

Jim

Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C

13

Obviously, there’s a diversity of opinion and only one in agreement who like myself believes that the community is too fragmented. Yet, someone commented that the *new Microsoft *appreciates LInux, a surprising 180 that I would interpret as “keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer.” Few things in life are as easy to understand as Crony Capitalists, Monopolists and the spin doctors who paint a friendly face on them and I know something else. No company ever rose to the heights of dominance that Microsoft has reached by being “mister nice guy” at any point along the way and anyone with the stomach for it should read their eula and privacy statements. Those documents and an understanding how they are evolving leaves no doubt that Microsoft is making fundamental changes to their business.

No folks, I am not fooled by this behemoth corporation’s recent demonstration of generosity. Despite their free upgrade to Win10, giving new products away for free like OSS does, is anathema to them. I’ve read all the theories as to why they are doing it and none of them ring true. There is a plan they won’t disclose, they are still monopolists and these recent changes in their corporate personage changes none of that. No, when Microsoft begins to use OSS’s own methods, I think this recent exercise in emulation is really masking something else, the least of which is their contempt for OSS and all that it entails.

So, I wonder what it would take for OSS to become galvanized into something Microsoft wouldn’t laugh at?

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On Tue, 22 Dec 2015 17:56:01 +0000, Gecksu wrote:

> Yet, someone
> commented that the -new Microsoft -appreciates LInux, a surprising 180
> that I would interpret as “keep your friends close, but keep your
> enemies closer.”

That “someone” was me. Anyone who knows me knows I’m no Microsoft
apologist - I worked for Novell for 8 years as an employee (was there
when Novell acquired SUSE), and before that, was a Novell supporter in
IT, and worked with technologies that I felt were both superior to
Microsoft’s and were better for enterprises.

No, it’s a realization that Linux is no joke - that it’s got a serious
foothold in the IT world, and it isn’t going away. The fact of the
matter is that Microsoft recognizes Linux is a force to be reckoned with,
and isn’t going away - and that the development model makes it so they
can’t use their standard competitive approach.

Again, look at the contributions Microsoft has made and is making to open
source. Look at the things they’re releasing under an MIT license.

Microsoft would /not/ do that if it weren’t in their financial interests
to do so. They realize the market has changed, and if they don’t change
with it, they’ll become obsolete.

> their eula and privacy statements. Those documents and an understanding
> how they are evolving leaves no doubt that Microsoft is making
> fundamental changes to their business.

Those documents are crafted by lawyers looking to deal with an overly
litigious society. They don’t want someone who uses Windows in a
situation where lives are at stake to sue them because the software
failed. It’s fairly standard boilerplate to deal with sue-happy
ambulance chasers and patent trolls who work to the detriment to us ALL.

> So, I wonder what it would take for OSS to become galvanized into
> something Microsoft wouldn’t laugh at?

Bottom line: Who cares if Microsoft laughs at OSS and Linux? The best
way to deal with something you perceive as a threat is to laugh at them
and do what you do best.

You are not going to organize OSS developers or consolidate development

  • and to think anyone could demonstrates a total misunderstanding of
    the open source development model.

Jim

–
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C

15

Very well said, Bruno.

You can count me in on that minority. Facebook? Never joined, never plan to.:wink:

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… only partially in agreement.:wink:

Frankly, I like that there is a choice of Distros and Programs, where we can find something that suits our personal needs. I just think it is a bit too …

So, I wonder what it would take for OSS to become galvanized into something Microsoft wouldn’t laugh at?

I really do not care if they would laugh at it, anyway. Or cry. Or, be indifferent. Whatever.

They can have any emotion they wish towards Linux and OSS.

It will – in the end – make no difference to me. I – and most of us here – will continue to use Linux, particularly openSUSE, as long as it suits us, and Windows when needed.

17

Microsoft is laughing at Free Software.

Well,…If they see this kde5 and the amount of crashes, I bet they are .

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I’m running Leap as a guest in VB and haven’t experienced any issues with KDE whatsoever. I couldn’t say the same about my horrible experiences with Vista… and I wasn’t laughing about it at the time either! In general, I’d rather diagnose and resolve a Linux problem over a closed-source MS one any day.

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I definitely agree with you that Linux community is very fragmented. As it was pointed out and as everything in life it has pluses and minuses. Personally I would like to see one distro to rule them all but it doesn’t look like it’s happening and it would create a huge uproar in the community (look at systemd and pulseaudio, which try to standardize things between distributions and make them all act more or less the same). Having said that this fragmented approach doesn’t look to be failing as you describe. Linux fails on the desktop but look at the servers, look at android and chromebooks. The majority of servers are running pure Linux and I can’t think of any other type of computing that requires more reliability. Look at what networking hardware vendors are doing. All of them (even Cisco) are slowly going away from their own home-brew OSes and turning to this fragmented Linux and it’s not due to the cost but stability and ability to change and fix stuff in the system itself. Android and chromebooks are not running pure Linux some may argue but it’s all based on this fragmented failing Linux as you describe it.

In my opinion Microsoft and Apple have much worse perspective coming into future. Windows phone struggles in the market, iOS and OSX future doesn’t look bright as well in my opinion and people slowly shifting from standard desktops to chromebooks or android based tablets. Look at Valve’s Steam Machine and compare where was gaming on Linux 10 years ago and where it is now. Sure it is still behind Windows :

but miles ahead in progress. Also a giant like Valve investing so much in this says a lot. Do you really think they want to waste their money on something to laugh at ? My take on this is that Valves only concern like any other company is make as much profit as possible. And for some reason they think this investment will bring them profit in the future :slight_smile:

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[QUOTE=deano_ferrari;2744569]I’m running Leap as a guest in VB and haven’t experienced any issues with KDE whatsoever/QUOTE]

That’s what I call a good karma O:)