What I would like to see from Microsoft regarding OSS
philliphaydon.com
philliphaydon.com
[1]http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/openness/licenses.aspx
"The problem isn't just the relationship that Apple has with OSS, but with developers in general. As developer in their "ecosystem" for years, I've come to the conclusion that the majority of the Cupertino management is totally out of touch with the third party developers. Crap like Mac OS X, "round" interfaces, abandonment of APIs, NIH, reinventing the wheel, ignoring requests and feedback, etc, doesn't make it better."
My mindset is that any mainstream, large vendor is going to have these traits.
You can rephrase that using whatever commercial vendor you can think of.
- Disclose the patents they allege Linux infringes.
- Apologize for what they did to ISO.
- Make the ability to add personal keys to secure boot a requirement for having a Windows logo.
Sigh, that's already the requirement.
If I had a cent for every poster that is ignorant about secure boot but rants against it as if they are a guru, I'd be very rich. Why so many tech savvy folks are clueless when it comes to Secure Boot, I will never know. These facts are known from over a year, but the FUDsters have succeeded in fudging the facts and spreading mistruths.
Great, how do I do this on my Windows Surface (ARM) device?
It seems I have an odd sample over my desk. There are 4 ARM-based devices on it, all of them are unlocked.
To add your keys? While some entities have found ways to circumvent the "secure boot" method, I never saw a way to add my own keys to my Dell laptop so I could sign my own bootloader.
http://blog.hansenpartnership.com/owning-your-windows-8-uefi...
http://linuxaria.com/article/the-biggest-failure-in-open-sou...
If any of those were to be made open source, MS would effectively corner the open source office market as well. I'm not holding my breath though.
I'm actually shocked at how quickly the Microsoft stack in my daily work has now gone down in use from where it was only about 5 years ago. With the exception of Office as in above and Windows for Photoshop (almost daily use) and Visual Studio (some projects still need it), the rest is entirely Open Source from OS and on. Currently I'm using Mint and Debian with OpenBSD on the side.
As much as people bash MS for all sorts of (well deserved) things, the bottom line is that they do get a lot of things right. It's not just political wrangling that allow them to stay in business, obviously, since if the products are really lacking too much, they'd be hurting too. I do think the culture in the company is changing, hopefully for the better.
Edit: I think, by and large Windows 8 is a mistake, but not in the way it was designed. The way it was marketed. Win 8 makes sense on mobile/touch devices and no where else. And that's all I have to say about that. Hopefully, they don't plan on keeping the trend into the next version of Windows, but we'll see.
Even though joysticks are arguably a better means of control, there's a reason cars still have steering wheels.
Once you've "corner the open source" market what does that get you?
I assume Red Hat has "corner the open source" Linux server market and the're earnings are nothing compared to MS.
This is a serious question, what do you get when you've cornered any open source market?
Google cornered the Android market until Samsung made billions from Google's efforts.
The ecosystem has only expanded to the extent big corporations are willing to invest money on it.
If IBM, Google and others had not invested into FOSS as a means to help them sell services, most likely the situation would be quite similar to the mid 80's, in what concerns software development tools.
In the markets where you cannot sell services, it is very hard to make a living from FOSS.
The point is, only corporations pay for FOSS in form of SaaS, consulting, support contracts or trainings.
Usually the only way consumers pay for FOSS is when buying hardware with FOSS inside.
However if you plan to create a company developing products that are software based, where the average developer salary would be around € 1500 netto, quite normal in many European countries, it will be very hard to keep the company afloat when targeting markets outside what I mentioned above.
RedHat's market share is much smaller, so it's hardly surprising their earnings are lower.
Fighter jets need to make rapid, abrupt moves, but their movements are nowhere near as precise or well timed as a Formula 1 driver where turning tens of milliseconds too late or a few degrees too tightly can completely ruin your lap if it's in a critical section. Precision flying, while requiring a very high level of coordination, is not nearly as demanding as trying to drive Monaco (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circuit_de_Monaco) at race speeds in traffic.
Windows 8 is a joystick for what should be a wheel.
That way .Net programmers will get a nice cost saving when someone inevitably ports the whole lot over to Mono/Linux.
Seriously guys, this is a day late.
... STOP the SecureBoot madness!
Just turn it off in the UEFI settings and install as much Linux, BSD, or GNU that you want. It really is not a big deal.
It used to be easy to dual-boot, but now that it's a seven-step operation to switch operating systems, that's effectively a monkey-wrench thrown into the widespread adoption of Linux.
And that's exactly what secure boot is designed to accomplish.
Yes, because when you're trying to get your non-technical friends and family to get used to Linux, they will be REALLY keen on going into UEFI to disable-reenable-disable-again etc. to switch between operating systems, whereas it was a simple keystroke up until recently.
Second, how many folks that are able to install and configure Linux are unable to turn a setting off in the UEFI menu?
Third, you need to balance this difficulty against the problem of bootkit malware across the PC ecosystem. Why should the hundreds of millions of technically not savvy not be protected from bootkits by default?
Is there a way to make it less complicated for Linux users while still maintaining the security that Secure Boot provides?
Yes. It's called a PC with Linux preinstalled. Or just a Mac.
The only PC I can think of that isn't just a rebrand or a really poorly designed one is the XPS 13, and that doesn't fit my needs currently (awful 16:9 aspect ratio). So, I bought a MacBook Air instead, and I'm running Linux Mint alongside OS X without any problems.
In fact, the only devices I can currently think of are Windows RT tablets, which nobody is buying anyhow.
If you're talking in general, there are those who blame them: http://www.defectivebydesign.org/ipad
Please, stop the FUD, it just makes people look totally ignorant. Microsoft does not insist that in any shape or form. If you have a reference, please share it. But don't go around spreading falsehood.
Bullshit, they do no such thing. The OEMs are perfectly able and willing to preload other keys. It's the community that is unable to step up to having a signing infrastructure. Why don't you contribute to the effort of a signing mechanism for Linux instead of just spreading anti-Microsoft lies?
Edit: I see that my post is getting downvoted while the factually incorrect parent post is not. This feels like /r/Linux, where facts are not welcome and where FUD gets voted up.
I have a variety of negative responses to this, ranging from the apathetic, to the contradictory, to the ad hominem. I would probably not have had the same reaction had you omitted the "Edit:", although your description of the situation is perhaps oversimplified.
Holding factual accuracy as the highest virtue is the blessing and curse of the tech world, and as such it may be forgivable. How you are choosing to express yourself, on the other hand, would seem to have a great deal to do with how well those comments are received.