Microsoft "Brand X" Linux

[El_Cu_Guy]

Before any of you jump to conclusions, this has absolutely nothing to do with the mslinux.org website.

Ok now that we have that out the way. Let's get to the real meat of this thread.

I was reading a very nice article or at Groklaw which included pedictions from Chris Gulker in IT Managers Journal (Read: And the future? (http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20040101231039539) at Groklaw) . He predicts that because the rest of the world is embracing OSS/FSF that Microsoft will pretty much have to bite the bullet. His prediction centers around Microsoft releasing their own GNU/Linux distribution.

Personally, I don't think Microsoft would ever go that far. My guess is that they will likely start open sourcing some of their products (starting small like Calculator :D ) and then moving to bigger better products and services. Maybe eventually placing portions of their OS under an open source (yet quite restrictive) license. As to the acceptance of thgat license and whether MS will have to ease up I can only speculate.

Oh, and just for you conspiracy theorists:

Lycoris was formerly known as RedmondLinux
lhas a very similar look to XP
some Lycoris bigwigs are former MS employees

[bsm2001]

Never hapen to much money to loose.

[hard candy]

They have started in the server side already, making their products compatible with unix.
But what would they do about DirectX? What would the gaming industry do if they changed DirectX that much (to run on a unix/linux platform)? If it happened we are talking about the next decade at least. They still have Longhorn coming out in 2006.

[El_Cu_Guy]

Actually I probably should have left out the first poll entry.

They did in fact have a small patheitc attempt with the Shared Source Initiative. They did after all update it to more than a "look but don't touch or we'll kill your children" license. Oh well.

[EnigmaOne]

I think I saw that article last night???
I think his take was along the BSD-lines, which sounds very 'microsoftish' to me. I can't disagree with his conclusions in any major way, though I wonder how they'd try to pull-off the spin of Open Source being a microsoft 'innovation.'

Originally posted by hard candy
They have started in the server side already, making their products compatible with unix.
IIRC, the intent is the same as their Netware and Mac interoperability--You are supposed to MIGRATE those offending machines into the M$ NT/XP licensing fold...ASAP.
Originally posted by hard candy
They still have Longhorn coming out in 2006.
The way it's beginning to look, 2010 is probably more like it.

[stiles]

Originally posted by EnigmaOne
IIRC, the intent is the same as their Netware and Mac interoperability--You are supposed to MIGRATE those offending machines into the M$ NT/XP licensing fold...ASAP.

I just have to quote the MS blurb about their Windows Services for Unix (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/sfu/productinfo/overview/default.asp):

Windows Services for UNIX 3.0 provides a full range of cross-platform services that help you integrate Windows into your existing UNIX environments. And now that the Interix subsystem technology is built in, Windows Services for UNIX 3.0 provides platform interoperability and application migration components in one fully integrated and supported product from Microsoft.

[keyshawn]

Originally posted by El_Cu_Guy
............................... He predicts that because the rest of the world is embrassing OSS/FSF that Microsoft will pretty much have to bite the bullet............................................ .


do you mean embracing or embarrassing ???
[im guessing embracing...]

anyways, I dont think M.S. will ever get to that point [of releasing a linux distro]
MS has a better chance of going out of the O.S. sector than creating a linux one. [neither will happen, probably]

The most I see ms bending towards linux is integrating the .sxw [open office doc extension] into ms word.
Or releasing their OWN version of WINE. [provided its 90 dollars and closed-source]

[bwkaz]

Originally posted by El_Cu_Guy
Before any of you jump to conclusions, this has absolutely nothing to do with the mslinux.org website. GOOD!

That was actually the first thing I was thinking... I should really have known better, considering who was posting. ;)

My guess is that they will likely start open sourcing some of their products (starting small like Calculator :D ) and then moving to bigger better products and services. Maybe eventually placing portions of their OS under an open source (yet quite restrictive) license. Yeah. Shared Source -- "you can see it, and you can change it, but you can't redistribute the changes". Kind of makes making changes pointless, now, doesn't it... ;)

[El_Cu_Guy]

do you mean embracing or embarrassing ???
[im guessing embracing...]

Yeah I did. New Years Eve/Day really took its toll on me :D Too much partying not nearly enough sleep.

The most I see ms bending towards linux is integrating the .sxw [open office doc extension] into ms word.

You don't see them copying Apple and utilizing a BSD, then pulling off a PR campaign to make people forget Apple, and convince them MS was the first?

Yeah. Shared Source -- "you can see it, and you can change it, but you can't redistribute the changes". Kind of makes making changes pointless, now, doesn't it...

Actually MS has made changes to the redistribution rights concerning certain products. Most notably WindowsCE.

[psi42]

Originally posted by hard candy
But what would they do about DirectX? What would the gaming industry do if they changed DirectX that much (to run on a unix/linux platform)?

Hmm... I might be missing the point here, but if transgaming can get windows directx games to run on linux, without being able to look at m$ sources, i suppose m$ could manage to get things to run ok. In fact, I'd bet M$ unix will be able to run windows programs smoothly...



Personally, I see MS linux as the last, desperate attempt to regain the desktop market. We'll only see it after the battle is won. :)

But I can see MS adding more and more BSD code to windows, but I don't think they will ever want to acknowledge even the existence of GPL'd software any more than is absolutely necessary.

:)

[voidinit]

Originally posted by psi42
but I don't think they will ever want to acknowledge even the existence of GPL'd software any more than is absolutely necessary.

:)

Of course not! Why, if they put GPL'ed software into one of their subsystems....say...they threw some code from OpenSSL into IIS SSL layers, then wouldn't that force them into making their entire IIS suite open source?

Also, as a side note, I'm constantly hearing about gaming in linux. DirectX is a joke, it has been since OpenGL kicked the sh**t out of it in the days of Half-Life/3dfxGL and DirectX 3. I don't have the skill or knowledge to pull this off, but why isn't there an open source project to bring a hardware accelerating gaming framework into play in the linux/unix environment? It seems all the projects that revolve around gaming are currently working to emulate microsoft and support their DX API's. What's wrong with making a new API that includes support for direct hardware rendering? Other than hardware vendor support that is....

[hard candy]

Hmm... I might be missing the point here, but if transgaming can get windows directx games to run on linux, without being able to look at m$ sources, i suppose m$ could manage to get things to run ok. In fact, I'd bet M$ unix will be able to run windows programs smoothly...

Wouldn't they have to open up DirectX if they incorporated it a linux distro? If it was a proprietary unix (THAT'S where the SCO-Microsoft link is heading, I bet) then they could keep their secrets.

[dboyer]

It wouldn't be impossible for MS to port windows software to run under linux (or any unix-like os) fairly well.

Look at the Wine/Winex projects... look at all the very great work people have done by stumbling around in the dark...

Interesting tidbit i picked up from the groklaw forums... the original wine was bsd licensed... they can take an old version, copy-paste all their functions that they have access to, and i would imagine in a couple weeks they could have a decent subsystem up and running (a compatibility layer, if you will)...

I have heard that they are thinking about adopting a lot of linux-like ideas... at first the CLI was ridiculed by MS for being "80s" technology... and now they realize that it doesnt make any sense for a server to have a gui, but now they are thinking about trying to make their server OS's headless... I can't see them doing that by adopting linux though...

[bwkaz]

Originally posted by El_Cu_Guy
Actually MS has made changes to the redistribution rights concerning certain products. Most notably WindowsCE. Bah. CE sucks though.

:D

Originally posted by voidinit
Of course not! Why, if they put GPL'ed software into one of their subsystems....say...they threw some code from OpenSSL into IIS SSL layers, then wouldn't that force them into making their entire IIS suite open source? If they thought people would figure it out, then they'd have to open-source all of IIS, yes. But the one thing that's always worried me is, how do we know that OpenSSL code isn't already (illegally) in IIS-SSL? There's no way to find out.

why isn't there an open source project to bring a hardware accelerating gaming framework into play in the linux/unix environment? You mean like www.libsdl.org?

It seems all the projects that revolve around gaming are currently working to emulate microsoft and support their DX API's. Not all. See above. That was written by Loki to support their native ports, and it's being used by a bunch of native port companies (Id, Atari with UT2k3, etc.).

What's wrong with making a new API that includes support for direct hardware rendering? Other than hardware vendor support that is.... SDL on top of OpenGL (like DirectX on top of D3D) does exactly that. With vendor support, for most graphics cards. :)

[voidinit]

So I guess what we really need is convice Blizzard, EIDOS, Valve, Westwood, and the rest of the boys to write native ports of thier code every time they make a new game. Well, I'm convinced, let's get started convincing them. :)

[Parcival]

Personally I believe that it would be a crazy project if MS really went for opensource with its core products. It would be best for MS and the world as I believe it has been proven that opensource code is of higher quality, but I can't really see that happen, though, because of MS' ignorance and cash cows. Any discussions leading into this direction are pure speculation, I don't think that at this point a prediction is possible.