I noticed after I posted.
Wish when threads were merged it would note what posts come from another thread.
And Microsoft is supporting linux.
I saw that coming, when MS announced Linux Bash Shell and Ubuntu binaries support, in Windows 10 Anniversary Update.
Microsoft has actually been sacrificing patent license fees to OEM's AND Office 365 license fees to make advancements on Android, as MS-Office on PC is not in good shape.
When they first dumped Outlook onto Android as a super rush job, they actually weren't capable of doing that themselves, so they paid a company that made an Outlook-client-as-a-service for Android, but they couldn't agree on buying the entire company because stuff. That stuff made that it was leaked very quickly that all email was routed over insecure servers, and administrations and companies blocked the Outlook app. Microsoft needed serious help with the Outlook app because it was their only final thread to survive with Outlook in the business market, where Outlook with AD is an appreciated solution because of the efficiency of AD in mobile applications, that didn't exist for the biggest mobile platform on earth... so Microsoft started asking Linux software companies for help. That cost a nice penny, and Microsoft figured out that this open source software thingy was so huge and successful because people were actually not paying for it, but sharing development and code resources... so Microsoft finally figured it out and decided they wanted a piece of that... so they joined the Linux Foundation as platinum member to avoid having to go through the embarrassment of having their board candidates not getting voted in because Microsoft... again this cost a pretty penny, but Microsoft has to do that, the y have to move to open source, or they don't really have that much future... and that's looking at it from a present where companies want AD, but they're managing and running it on SuSE servers lol... because Microsoft...
I actually think that it's good news that Microsoft decided to enter the 21st Cdntury... they're late to the party so it costs them a premium, but that benefits the others and it's not like they have the kind of customer base that objects to paying for something that others get for free lol
3 Likes
I thought VxWorks is older than the Linux Kernel..Like 1980s or sth...
Steve Ballmer called it cancer spreading. So yeah :p
And Bill first letter fighting it XD
its i think only awkward for both sides.....
1 Like
Yeah could well be. Not into that kind of software, wouldn't know. What I do know is that for instance the Mars Rovers were at first running Debian, but then Nasa decided not to let the people of the world (contrary to the Space Treaty, that states that all space exploration should be for the benefit of mankind) receive the pictures of the Mars probes any more. So to make sure they made Intel resurface their VxWorks, which at that point was a cover for a new "custom" version of Debian by Intel and Nasa. Possibly they took an old name to avoid license trouble with the Linux Foundation, although I'm pretty sure that the Linux Foundation and Linus in particular fare pretty well by the financial support of government and military...
2 Likes
I find it hard to believe that any good will come of this.
Considering the general direction that MS has taken in the last few years, I'd call Gates and Ballmer choir boys whereas Nadella is Beelzebup himself.
The_Cable just pointed out what the choir boys thought of Linux, so it stands to reason that the new plan is truly evil.
1 Like
Its Azure, M$ needs Azure to succeed.
Trying to get containers working properly on their platform...
Time to get all of our resources toghther and get Gnu Hurd working...
So they took their version of Debian and re-branded it as VxWorks? I guess we cannot know for sure (unless some code is leaked) but i can easily see that happening.
Microsoft are having a mid life crisis.
Apple have all but abandoned the PC market. They make machines the unwashed masses can use and be happy with. Professionals and gamers well there in the minority and as such unprofitable.
Linux has taken over servers. Will more than likely take over business in the coming years. So Microsoft is moving into the cloud as much as it can while trying to keep hold of what is has for as long as possible before it falls away.
I would never let those cock suckers in. but I guess money doesn't stink no matter who offers it to you.
If MS made a linux distro for desktop this is how it would work.
1 Like
MS is no better or worst that any other big cooperate member in the foundation. Non are fully trustworthy. Not much of a change in that respect. MS is focusing a lot in their hardware devision. This is probably a consequence of that. Even though I really do not like them as much as any other guy around here...This feels like a positive thing. As @Zoltan said...welcome to the club...
It will be hard for Microsoft to lock out linux on their devices when they are a member of the linux foundation.
It might also mean that the glory days of linux are past because the glory days of linux are about to begin... Linus is not a Stallmanite.
It might mean that the days of x86 are numbered... or that the days of Intel are numbered (because of the Wintel alliance) and that AMD is going to be the new standard, without being the new standard...
It may also mean that the Linux Foundation is not going to be the mothership of the real open source linux, but that the future of real open source linux lies in Hamburg or Hong Kong.
It may also mean that BSD is about to become a whole lot more important.
It may also mean that Samsung will be getting a grip on both Intel and Microsoft.
In any scenario, it means that Microsoft is making an all-in move, just at a point in time where there has never been more insecurity for Microsoft about how much grip they have on US politics.
Microsoft has always held a good grip on US society because the Bill Gates Foundation is behind the Common Criteria and the massive Microsoft brainwashing in schools that goes along with that and stuff like that... and Trump wants to kill the CC. All of this at a point where Google has gotten really big with the Chromebooks in schools. Maybe Microsoft also wants to make it more difficult for Google. Maybe Microsoft just wants to turn the Linux Foundation into a committee, in the hope that it will self-destruct... maybe they haven't heard that Debian has been run by a committee for decades and still hasn't self-destructed...
We'll see, in the first place, more money for the Linux Foundation and linux is still GPL... the rest problems for later... it doesn't bring anything to try to solve problems that haven't surfaced yet lol...
1 Like
Sure but he does seem to value the copyleft character on his code. I doubt he will even want to change that.
Is that even possible to change? How many people have the copyright of the kernel at this point? The must be at least about 1000 individual contributors at any given time.
The problem is hardware. Linus is not opposed to proprietary driver code. AMD has shown that it's possible to have proprietary drivers and still have a KMS driver in the GPL Linux kernel. Microsoft XBox is AMD-based... AMD could NEVER have implemented the AMDGPU solution without Microsoft's blessing.
It probably means that performance is going to have to be paid in the future on x86... whether by buying MS-Windows, or by buying MS-Linux. Microsoft has a lot of software patents, but unless the TTIP comes through, those are only of relative importance. Trump does not insist on TTIP, newer batch of right-wing politicians in the European member states, and the directly voted European Union organs, don't like the TTIP, it's only the EU "Crooked Commission" that still wants the TTIP. Microsoft has almost no real hardware patents... Nokia's patents were mostly software patents. Microsoft heavily relies on protocol patents. Sooner or later those will come to an end. At that point, Microsoft wants a solid grip on hardware. nVidia is entirely on Microsoft's side there, Intel mostly is too, AMD has to be to survive if Zen isn't a huge success. Apple is already eliminating all GPL code from OSX, so they're in on it too, they also want to block hardware access for open source, probably because Wintel told them to do so. Only Samsung is pretty untouched by all this: Microsoft drops licenses for Samsung, Samsung is a major contributor in the Linux Foundation, but not for x86, rather for ARM. ARM is not in Anglo-American control any more. Samsung also has it's own fork of pretty big linux-based projects, like SELinux.
Then there is Germany, where the designs of AMD are made, just not under the brand AMD, to keep the IP away from the USA-based AMD entity. In the last years, great efforts were made to hollow out the AMD entity and bring all IP directly to the mothership. Germany is the country in the world with the most intense open source development per capita, home to many major open source projects. Microsoft has been burning money to build a new European HQ near Munich, and has been making huge promises to the Bavarian government with regards to employment guarantees, investment guarantees, and technology-based economics development, just to get rid of one of their biggest eye-sores, namely the very successful Munich linux project, that is going on for over 15 years now. With the socialist mayor of Munich, Microsoft finally found a corrupt attack vector to make Munich abandon the LiMux project, and return to Microsoft, but it doesn't come cheap for Microsoft. So Microsoft - at great price and with great sacrifice - is taking in the South of Germany. They wouldn't have been able to do that if the German software giant SAP wouldn't have been close to bankruptcy because they don't support Linux lol, and they really needed a serious political cop-out... go figure.
The North of Germany is Google territory. The European Supercomputing Centre is in NRW, close to Maastricht in Holland, where Google has set up shop. In Groningen in the North of Holland, not far from Germany, there is the new server center of Google. Google already has a strong presence in the North of Germany. The North of Germany, especially the coastal cities like Hamburg, are going to become much more important in the near future. Bavaria has had it's golden era, but it's now going away, because the automotive industry is in for serious reform. Volkswagen is the only German car manufacturer from the North, and they have already made a deal for the striking by attrition of about 20000 jobs in Germany and over 10000 more outside of Germany, and the creation of 10000 new high tech jobs in Germany, focusing on software development and high tech engineering in electrics and electronics. The car manufacturers from the South (Audi, Mercedes, BMW, Porsche) have not had any reforms yet, and are still trying to convince the governments of their states (Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg) that a switch to electric cars is not a good idea. BMW has built a special electric car plant in the North-East of Germany, far away from the Munich HQ. Mercedes doesn't do electric, they don't honour customer orders for electric cars period, and the ones they have to deliver to get subsidies, are equipped with a Tesla motor and are not serious cars, especially not by German engineering standards, with exposed poles on the engines and very little safety guarantees and sub-par mechanical construction as such engines come. By 2030, tens of thousands of jobs will disappear in the South of Germany, and the role of motor of the German economy will be taken over by the North, which is highly invested in software development and computer science, and the East, which has the "new technology plants", where new technology and the need for less expensive labour come together.
In that economic transition, Microsoft has invested enormously in settling old scores in the South... so chances are that Germany will soon become a catalyst for a transition, not only in automotive/industrial technology, but also in computer technology in general. It is not a secret that large chip makers in Germany, but also in France and in Scandinavia and Italy, who have been making proprietary silicon for big industries that are losing ground, have been open sourcing their SDK's through limited channels. It is not a secret that there is a lot of technology that is not yet unlocked there because many software patents block the market in the US, and large market deployment hasn't been worth it yet.
Imagine all of this coming together now: performance on x86 becomes a premium that also comes with safety risks, spyware and human rights violations. Non-x86 technology boosts enormously because a lot of non-x86 technology suddenly opens itself up for open source and all-purpose development. The world's most dense open source development area suddenly also becomes the world's most dense economic area. Microsoft and other proprietary companies face devaluation of software patents because of change of world politics, and they have invested hugely in old technologies and regions that are entirely depending on old technology. Add to all of that the threat of war which will cause a rise in demand for open source supported (because safer) technology that uses less power and uses less raw materials... read anything but x86.
8 Likes
That's deeeep man. Basically someone who will create new architecture that is open and not x86 out of necessity. With the same or higher performance than x86 so that we are able to install Libre Firmware/Software on it.
And Micro$oft is trying to stop this from happening. Is that right?
Microsoft wants linux for itself, to make Azure into a success, it just doesn't want freedom for users.
The key is the hardware control.
The problem is that x86 has not been evolving all that much lately, and that most performance benefits are coming from SSD's and GP-GPU's... to a point where even Microsoft itself is offering nVidia ARM technology on Azure from the end of the month.
A point has already been reached whereby most applications can be run more efficiently on ARM than on x86. The reason is SaaS/Containerization/etc. Example: you have an Android phone, and one of those video processing apps. You record a 4K video on your mobile phone, and upload the data through LTE+WiFi (MP-TCP) to the app server, and you can immediately start to edit your video on your poor ARM device, because the app's server is actually a very powerful ARM-array that transcodes very efficiently (much more efficiently than any x86 platform), and uses only just the power required for that, costing much less in power and hardware than any x86 solution. From a user standpoint, your Android phone handles 4K editing infinitely better than that 5000+ USD editing rig with an Intel Extreme edition CPU you bought...
1 Like
MS discovering open source.
4 Likes