[plug] Are we at 'war' with Microsoft?

[Craig Ringer]

> Using Linux and having a dislike for Microsoft seem to go hand-in-hand

Not always. I hate all operating systems and most software companies... 
though to different extents. I reseve a special loathing for MacOS 9, 
and Quark.

> but has this perspective got Microsoft into the defencive?

Yup. Maybe they'll remember that they're supposed to be making 
interesting, useful new software that's useful to customers. They might 
even price it sanely. I'm not holding my breath.

> A recent article (yeah I lost the link but I'm sure you all know the
> one) said what makes most Open Source better is the fact that it isn't
> released until it's finished 

News to me. Mozilla is a great example of a perpetually not-quite-done 
project. I also don't think OO.o 1.0 was "finished" by any stretch, and 
1.1 is closer but still not really polished. One of the few projects 
I've ever sat down and used and thought "this beats the pants off 
anything I've ever used, free or not" was Apache. Python also impresses 
me a lot. Most projects are either (IMHO) buggy or incomplete, though 
despite that they're generally very useful.

> But if open source developers are now trying to compete with Microsoft
> competing with us and trying to beat or reach Microsoft's deadlines then
> isn't is possible that the quality of open source software could suffer?

Hopefully not. Everything I'm seeing indicates that most major OSS 
projects are being done much more professionally these days. 
Freedesktop.org and the projects involved in/working with it are great 
examples. OO.o is mighty impressive too.

> Worse, could we lose out innovation and just be trying to quickly
> implement in open source every new thing that Microsoft brings along
> examples:
>  .net, exchange 2003, WinFS, palladium

Can we please ban that word, "innovation"? It's thrown about with less 
and less meaning now. Most OSS seems to perform functions that are far 
from new and shiny - they may sometimes be better implementations, but 
there isn't much "innovation" on the OSS _or_ commercial sides of the 
fence IMHO. I'm tired of it - the interesting, genuinedly new 
developments seem to come from small groups, university development 
projects, small companies, and talented individuals, irespecitve of how 
they license what they produce.

> I also think that Microsoft in this race is kind of forgetting what
> their own customers want. None of my customers are every going to use
> Msh (Microsoft Shell) more likely it will be a new way for virus writers
> to target them with malicious scripts.

A script is just another executable. I don't much care if it's compiled 
code, a DOS batch file, or "WSH" script - it shouldn't be getting run 
anyway.

Personally I like the fact that they're adding a shell (though I wish 
they'd at least add a POSIX-like compat layer for *nix users). Many 
admin tasks are much harder than they need to be on windows because of 
the lack of a decent shell.

> Competition is seen as healthy but in this market MS it used to having a
> monopoly then they problem expect that the next big operating system
> will also have a monopoly which is what they are scared of. 
> I'd like to see homogeneous environments of Windows, *BSD, Unix, Linux,
> Apple, Java based OS's and BeoS as well as every other OS that I missed
> out.

Hetrogenous?

Also ... the /option/ is nice, but admin work on such environments would 
be screaming hell. Perhaps in a world of perfect standards compliance 
and security. Otherwise, it's "pick as few as possible and run with that."

Craig Ringer

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