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Ballmer: Microsoft to go after Linux strongholds (ZDNet)
ZDNet covers
comments by Microsoft's Steve Ballmer at a recent Gartner Symposium.
"I think we have four big opportunities to take business from Linux and we will. And again, why would we take it. Because people will take a look at the tools and the technologies we put in the marketplace and decide that they deliver better results at a lower cost. What's the first? High performance clustering. High performance clusters is a thing that has been a Linux stronghold. It's about 20 percent of all Linux systems. We're coming out with a compute cluster edition of Windows Server."
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Ballmer: Microsoft to go after Linux strongholds (ZDNet) Posted Oct 20, 2005 17:45 UTC (Thu) by clugstj (subscriber, #4020) [Link] Clustering? With Windows? I just about fell of my chair laughing at that one!
Ballmer: Microsoft to go after Linux strongholds (ZDNet) Posted Oct 20, 2005 17:55 UTC (Thu) by einstein (subscriber, #2052) [Link] LOL, cluster-fsck is more like it!
Windows doesn't have fsck Posted Oct 20, 2005 19:49 UTC (Thu) by dark (subscriber, #8483) [Link] It would be a cluster-chkdsk.
Get with the times! Posted Oct 21, 2005 4:57 UTC (Fri) by leonbrooks (guest, #1494) [Link] That's a cluster-scandisk these days.
Get with the times! Posted Oct 21, 2005 7:27 UTC (Fri) by rqosa (guest, #24136) [Link] Actually it's chkdsk. Unless I'm mistaken, Windows NT and its successors have always used chkdsk, whereas scandisk first showed up in MSDOS 6 (or maybe 5), and hasn't been used since Windows Millenium Edition (the last non-NT Windows).
Get with the times! Posted Oct 21, 2005 13:37 UTC (Fri) by arcticwolf (guest, #8341) [Link] scandisk was first available in MS-DOS 6.2, IIRC.
Get with the times! Posted Oct 22, 2005 18:45 UTC (Sat) by jengelh (subscriber, #33263) [Link] That would be a cluster-scandskw
Ballmer: Microsoft to go after Linux strongholds (ZDNet) Posted Oct 20, 2005 19:03 UTC (Thu) by smitty_one_each (subscriber, #28989) [Link] >20 percent of all Linux systems.CSOTD: Crack-tacular Statistic of the Day
Ballmer: Microsoft to go after Linux strongholds (ZDNet) Posted Oct 20, 2005 19:25 UTC (Thu) by jstAusr (guest, #27224) [Link] Sounds to me like: We'll caught up to GNU/Linux some day, if they will just wait for a second.
Ballmer: Microsoft to go after Linux strongholds (ZDNet) Posted Oct 20, 2005 19:35 UTC (Thu) by ewan (subscriber, #5533) [Link] This could have interesting fallout - most compute heavy, clusterablesoftware is written for Unix type systems. If MS don't come up with something like Wine but going the other way there won't be much to actually run on this version of Windows.
Ballmer: Microsoft to go after Linux strongholds (ZDNet) Posted Oct 20, 2005 21:28 UTC (Thu) by oseemann (subscriber, #6687) [Link] Check this: mpi in windows.Many parallel programs are written using MPI. So in the best case they just have to be re-compiled for windows with a bit of porting effort.
Ballmer: Microsoft to go after Linux strongholds (ZDNet) Posted Oct 20, 2005 19:39 UTC (Thu) by jwb (subscriber, #15467) [Link] If MS issues a free version of Windows for use on cluster nodes, they could take some share from Linux in that role. Cluster management tools and the ability to migrate a running program between machines in an installation can make the underlying operating system unimportant, as long as it supports all the necessary concepts. But then again, why would anyone choose Windows when everybody knows Linux works great in clusters? They would probably need to bribe the customers.
They will not be able to make progress in web hosting until you can cheaply and easily virtualize it. Some hosting outfits are running thousands of nodes on a single computer, with zero additional licensing cost. Windows can't touch this until they make their OS cheaply virtualizable, and free.
Ballmer: Microsoft to go after Linux strongholds (ZDNet) Posted Oct 20, 2005 20:20 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] A while before this they were talking about the 'new' clustering technology that Windows was going to bring to the table.
The idea was was that businesses are going to want to have big easy-to-use clusters for various business applications. Big databases or accounting calculations, or something like that. They figured that you could use clustering with Microsoft's programming tools and .NET-based managed code so that businesses can produce HPC code easier and cheaper then with Linux. I wasn't sure that they are aiming at but they figure they could leaverage company's familarity with windows to open up completely new markets outside the very high end computing clusters that Linux dominates in.
The trouble is though that Microsoft has been trying to do HPC clustering for years. Years and years and years. This isn't something new for them. And still nobody cared. Thru working with Cornell university they've always have had a NT-based cluster in the top500 since the late 90's.
Ballmer: Microsoft to go after Linux strongholds (ZDNet) Posted Oct 20, 2005 20:27 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] They're in trouble then: most accounting calculations parallelize really, really badly: they tend to have huge accumulations at their core, and, well, those depend on everything, so parallelizing them is pointless.There's a reason businesses tend to like mainframes for their accounting stuff --- and, for that matter, there's a reason mainframes have the performance characteristics they do: massive I/O bandwidth and really quite wimpy CPUs. If businesses needed massive parallelization to do accounting, IBM would already have sold it to them. They don't. (IBM have managed a clever trick here of course and also sell the same machines as massive virtual clusters running Linux under a hypervisor, but those aren't generally used to do accounting-crunching type jobs.)
Actually the opposite is true. Posted Oct 21, 2005 1:37 UTC (Fri) by xoddam (subscriber, #2322) [Link] > most accounting calculations parallelize really, really badly:> they tend to have huge accumulations at their core, and, well, > those depend on *everything*, so parallelizing them is pointless. I don't doubt that most accounting *software* parallelizes really badly. But that's an implementation detail. Commutative and associative operations like addition are easily made massively parallel. Google relies on it: http://labs.google.com/papers/sawzall.html
Actually the opposite is true. Posted Oct 21, 2005 12:34 UTC (Fri) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] Makes sense.
So the questions that remains is:
1. Does it make sense to go to clustering for these applications when cheap muticore computers (4-8 cores) are getting cheaper, and 16+ cpu computers are more effective then they ever been before.
Mainframes I know are very good for certain types of data. Big 32+ cpu computers are better for others. Clusters are good for number crunching but are lousy for other things big iron and mainframes are good for, that's why IBM and sun still is able to sell million dollar boxes.
and if clustering for regular business makes sense, then..
2. Does it make more sense to rewrite all their applications to run on Linux or Windows? Since legacy windows apps won't work well on clusters, which platform is more likely to attract new developers/developments?
Peoplesoft/Oracle and the like are liking Linux (or so it seems to me) a lot more lately now that MS wants to compete with their own products. It's tough to fight a competing software vendor who owns the platform your software has to run on.
There still is a lot of noise about 'grid computing' and Linux is at the center of that. Whatever the hell 'grid computing' is suppose to mean.
But I won't dismiss the million billion dollars (just a rough estimate) MS is willing to throw at the problem.
Actually the opposite is true. Posted Oct 27, 2005 16:15 UTC (Thu) by jschrod (subscriber, #1646) [Link] The problem is not: "Does it makes sense?" but "Can it be financed?"
The last bank that I worked for had 40,000 mainframe programs alone for the share trading to end-customers (don't know the correct English term, equity management?). Rewriting these programs with the same functionality is just not worth the investment.
Since few specifications are available, rewrite them for new functionality is difficult as well. These programs literally evolved over decades and added all the special cases that must be handled. New software first have to re-discover all these special cases and re-program them anew. And believe me, it's no easy thing to analyse a twenty-year old COBOL program that has been actively changed all this time.
Oh yes, this bank tried that and failed. In the end, they had to write off 500 million Euros for the cancelled project. (And that was hard cash, not stock money.) It is a lesson for all those who think they can rewrite two decades of software assets on a whim.
Concerning compute clusters: These are not relevant for this realm. Most of the time, these programs don't compute, not even addition or multiplication. They just move data from one place to another, or update data. Performance advantages in database technology is the key to get them faster, not parallelization of applications.
Cheers, Joachim
Actually the opposite is true. Posted Oct 29, 2005 15:55 UTC (Sat) by rwmj (subscriber, #5474) [Link] You think for 500 bazillion euros they could have written anemulator with JIT optimizations. That would have allowed them to migrate the applications themselves slowly - or even not at all - but still have them run on newer, cheaper hardware.
I think the problem here is probably the banks themselves, who
Rich.
Ballmer: Microsoft to go after Linux strongholds (ZDNet) Posted Oct 27, 2005 7:48 UTC (Thu) by ekj (subscriber, #1524) [Link] Actually, a massive accumulation parallels trivially and effectively.In the non-parallell case you've got say one CPU adding up a billion numbers, one after another. This translates to a billion add-operations. With two CPUs you could let each add up half a billion items, and then at the end add the two results, so total steps is half a billion + 1 With say 1000 CPUs you could let each add up a million items, and then at the end add up all the results, theoretically that part goes fastest with a tree - that way there's only 10 sequential adds. In practice, due to latency and communication-issued simply adding them up at one node may be faster. So you end up with 1,001 million serial additions. That is really freaking close to the theoretical max speedup, 1,001 million is *fairly* close to 1 million. Now, I don't doubt that much accounting*software* scales badly, but that's a whole different ball of string.
Ballmer: Microsoft to go after Linux strongholds (ZDNet) Posted Oct 20, 2005 20:55 UTC (Thu) by rknop (guest, #66) [Link] They would probably need to bribe the customers. Don't forget there's also extortion. And lawsuits. Any of these three tactics could easily play into yet another Microsoft marketing campaign. -Rob
Ballmer: Microsoft to go after Linux strongholds (ZDNet) Posted Oct 20, 2005 19:40 UTC (Thu) by massimiliano (subscriber, #3048) [Link] IIRC this quote was from Ghandi:First, they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
It seems we are transitioning into the 3rd step :-)
Ballmer: Microsoft to go after Linux strongholds (ZDNet) Posted Oct 20, 2005 21:52 UTC (Thu) by TwoTimeGrime (guest, #11688) [Link] That comments goes both ways. Microsoft ignored Linux, then they laughed at it. Now they are fighting it. Soon will they win?
Then *they* win? Posted Oct 20, 2005 22:07 UTC (Thu) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link] What are you saying?
Then *they* win? Posted Oct 20, 2005 22:33 UTC (Thu) by TwoTimeGrime (guest, #11688) [Link] What I'm saying is that little Gandhi quote doesn't really mean anything. Believing in it and thinking that "We must be close to winning now" means nothing. You can swap the parties that you are talking about in that quote and it's just as valid either way.
Then *they* win? Posted Oct 20, 2005 23:55 UTC (Thu) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] No, the ones laughing and the ones doing all the fighting are those who lose. The other side is presumably too busy being better to care.
Then *they* win? Posted Oct 21, 2005 2:17 UTC (Fri) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link] True. Still, he's right that usually it does go the other way. Otherwise Gandhi's pronouncement wouldn't have seemed so surprising, or quoteable. Tell somebody from any place that was crushed and then ground to powder by Stalin about Gandhi, and see if you get a chuckle. Likewise, any province of China. Or England. Or even India. Late British rule in India was an historical aberration; moreso perhaps only in Malaysia.U.S. politicians are remarkably cheap, and if MS needs to buy a few dozen (e.g. by proxy, as is their way, through MPAA and RIAA) to (in effect) outlaw Linux, they'll count it money well spent.
Then *they* win? Posted Oct 21, 2005 2:25 UTC (Fri) by TwoTimeGrime (guest, #11688) [Link] I find it hard to believe that would be true in all cases. I still assert that the quote is meaningless. And it's still annoying. It means nothing.
Then *they* win? Posted Oct 21, 2005 5:42 UTC (Fri) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] Well, I think the meaning of the quote lies more in the first three phases: you do not fight something which you ignore, or something laughable. It seems people who are recalling it are saying that Linux is well known and not laughable any more, but a force to reckon with.The last phrase then you win seems more motivational in nature (as rev has said below) and is probably meaningless (as shown in ncm's examples).
What it means... Posted Oct 21, 2005 6:43 UTC (Fri) by Tashlan (guest, #17277) [Link] This quote does mean something. It means that fighting undermines your objectives. You fight because you are afraid and when you fight, you shift your focus away from your ambitions and onto your fears instead.By focussing on their fears, Microsoft has helped to create the reality that Linux is today. They are manifesting their fears with the energy they expend in their "defense". Their actions have lead credence to the idea that Linux is worth evaluating. People that otherwise wouldn't have known about Linux were clued in and began to see what Microsoft was so concerned was about.
Use your opponents energy against them; your own is much too valuable to squander fighting.
Then *they* win? Posted Oct 27, 2005 7:53 UTC (Thu) by ekj (subscriber, #1524) [Link] No you can't.For you to swap the roles, it would require that the Linux-community first ignored, then laughed at and then started figthing the MS-emperium, which quite obviously is simply not true. Now, it *is* true that comercial unix-vendors for far too long ignored and laughed at the ridicolous (by their standards) MS-DOS. When they started figthing it, it was too late: Microsoft won the desktop almost by walkover, pushed by the generic hardware of IBM. Certainly, the fact that someone which used to ignore or laugh at you now actively figths you is no proof you'll win. It *is* however a pretty strong indication that you're making progress in a direction they don't like. It's a long time since Gates claimed: "I've never had a customer mention Linux to me." which sounds a lot like the "ignore" phase to me.
Please, TwoTimeGrime, do get a life, will ya? Posted Oct 21, 2005 5:06 UTC (Fri) by rev (guest, #15082) [Link] Nobody claims the Ghandi quote has the status of a law of nature or a mathematical theorem. Ans sensible people don't read it that way.
Ya know, the quote gave the Ghandi movement fighting the governing powers emotional strength and belief in its cause.
Likewise. Posted Oct 21, 2005 22:57 UTC (Fri) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link] And, ver, his name is *still* Gandhi, not Ghandi.
It's clear Gandhi meant the last line as a puckish joke. People who repeat the quote piously, without irony, are engaging in self-deception and wishful thinking. People in leadership roles who think that way end in failure, rout, and disaster. There are lots of ways to fail, even when everything seems to be on your side. Getting distracted by Microsoft's closet monsters, and letting them decide how well we are doing and what we do next, would be another. To forget why we started down this road (freedom, remember?) is the surest.
Such dismissive comments are dangerous. Posted Oct 20, 2005 19:57 UTC (Thu) by utoddl (subscriber, #1232) [Link] These comments are a little disturbing. Reminds me of Ghandi's saying: First they ignore you, Sounds like we've moved to step two. I don't seriously think Microsoft poses any threat (other than political) to Linux because there's nothing for them to kill off. Linux is just there; use it or don't, it won't go away. But to discard Microsoft's moves toward these areas so flippantly borders on irresponsibility. Microsoft may do some interesting things in this area. There are likely some Windows shops that are good candidates for clustering that haven't gone there because they only have Windows expertise in house. These sites are prime "win" candidates for Microsoft. If you want to ignore them because they don't want to switch to our clearly superior technology, then go back to watching your betamax and wait for the world to get a clue. Just be prepared to wait a long time...
Such dismissive comments are dangerous. Posted Oct 20, 2005 20:24 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] Can nobody in the whole wide world spell Gandhi's name correctly? Two comments from two different people with the same damned spelling error in quick succession, argh!*cough* (sorry, pet peeve)
Such dismissive comments are dangerous. Posted Oct 21, 2005 12:23 UTC (Fri) by hppnq (guest, #14462) [Link] Apparently it's not a coincidence. ;-)
Ballmer: Microsoft to go after Linux strongholds (ZDNet) Posted Oct 20, 2005 20:30 UTC (Thu) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link] " Because people will take a look at the tools and the technologies we put in the marketplace and decide that they deliver better results at a lower cost. What's the first? High performance clustering. "
That seems laughable at least (bahhh hihihi hahaha !?## puf! hahaha...), and taking in consideration that MS took 5 years to transition from XP to a not so much different design, how many years will take a transition to a much more radical change ??...
By that time tipical web services could be in full steam ahead, to in a ugly espression, to be completly "X"ed or "NX"ed( http://freenx.berlios.de/ ); that is, clients by them, on thin clients or PCs, acess applications servers by something like a combination of NX server with LTSP server, running those applications intirely from the server... what could be more safer and versatile for service providers and clients than this ??... Take that Microsoft!
It could be even more laughable since by that time Linux/OSS could have turned the tipical LAN node into a "big" cluster by the means of PVM ( http://www.csm.ornl.gov/pvm/pvm_home.html ), in which MS can't have any gain due to licence issues!... take that again Microsoft!
It could make "us" stop laughing by Microsoft locking of hardware platform by means of a DRM based approach NGSCB or "treacherous computing" http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html , which MS will try to push into the world silently!... we have troule Linux community!! ( unless we could attrack hardware industry to our camp with a safe, isolated and hardened environment for them like http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/Research/SRG/netos/papers/2004-oa... )
***I belive it is good to have a lot of prespectives. So why cant "we" have a lot of views, without been hipe or dreams, of how and why can "Linux" be so much better than Microsoft products. A good topic for a site like LWN i belive***
IMO 2 topics can bring some hipe back into Linux camp:
1)Desktop/graphics: A *SUPERIOR* FULL 3D DESKTOP. What a wonderfull opportunity is the caming of Xara, with their superior graphics engine for features and specialy *speed*; since the tests claim it has about at least the double performance of GDI+
2)ITS ABOUT TIME TO DELIVER PLATFORMS,ARGUALBLY, COMPLETLY FREE OF VIRUS AND CRACKERS: a good opportunity complementing XEN Safe hardware mentioned above, and since i belive the large majority of desktops, including Linux laptops, will have Xen, is a FULL CAPABILITY SYSTEM. I'll try to explain. The Xen *kernel* could be replaced and integrated into the main Linux tree, by an equivalent Linux exoKernel. XEN will have its VMM and business intact. Exokernel are tiny structures, excelents for multiplexing and securely managing, in a full *capability* fashion if desire, the acess of applications and other processes(aka domains) like a library OS or LibOSes. So this structure integrated into the Linux tree, could turn Xen Safe Harware Enviroment into a real-time LibOS and the rest of LINUX into another LibOS without that many changes involved in the process(search for exokernel) since Linux already have some sort of *capabilitys* in it. And "diamond" or "metal" Hard Real Time is possible because an Exokernel fatalitly brings with it the possibilities of Nested OS + Dua Core/ Dual OS + Migration between OS, which are well explained in here; http://lwn.net/Articles/143323/.
Guess Ballmer could easly start to lose his sleep, and no jumping arround would help.
Ballmer: Microsoft to go after Linux strongholds (ZDNet) Posted Oct 21, 2005 6:25 UTC (Fri) by beoba (guest, #16942) [Link] Is english your first language?
Ballmer: Microsoft to go after Linux strongholds (ZDNet)
Ballmer: Microsoft to go after Linux strongholds (ZDNet) Posted Oct 22, 2005 1:00 UTC (Sat) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link] ... but don't blame Portugal.
mmarq, please take the time to condense your thoughts into the most concise, clear and relevant text you can post. Otherwise, thousands of people must each do the same work to try to extract your meaning. Many (myself included, I admit) tend to just skip past your postings; if you didn't care enough to condense and clarify your thoughts before posting, why should any of us care enough to do it for you?
That goes for everybody else, too. Yes, you. :-)
Style and form Posted Oct 22, 2005 14:25 UTC (Sat) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] While we are at it: mmarq, please stop adding emphasis on one of every two phrases LIKE THIS or *like this* or even ***like this***. It makes for a very distracting reading. If you really have to stress the occasional word, make use of HTML resources like italics.Good writers only emphasize individual words, as a grammatical resource (to display focus); it should be used sparingly. Stress should not be there to attract interest -- if your words alone do not deserve attention, do not write them.
Style and form Posted Oct 22, 2005 20:01 UTC (Sat) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link] Likewise for exclamation marks! Save them for the genuinely surprising, or genuinely funny. If the sentence doesn't read right without the exclamation mark, chances are it's better left unsaid: not surprising enough, or funny enough, to be worth the reading.On the subject of focus, consider (from the soap opera actress, in John Sayles's movie "Passion Fish", pondering how to play one of her assigned lines, presumably post-UFO-abduction): I didn't ask for the anal probe. [must have been somebody else]
Style and form Posted Oct 22, 2005 22:35 UTC (Sat) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link] Thank you for the good intentioned remarks. I honestly try do to better next time. Never the less, its a pitty there isn't none related to the issues i brought above namely:
NX (for distrib. computing)http://freenx.berlios.de/
and last but the most important, new model for a completely free of virus and crackers platform, which is achievable with a exokernel benneth traditional Linux, since exokernels are perfect and natural structures for full capability systems and some hard real time configurations;
http://www.skyhunter.com/marcs/capabilityIntro/index.html
Sometimes it may seem that i'm doing it on purpose. But the fact is that some very good and future seeking issues, brought into this forum by many people, are invariably left untouched. It seems that there is fear of departing from the official views. Me thinks the contrary! LWN is a perfect site for people discuss new prespectives not code or writing style, and as i type as i go from the simple LWN editor, without italics or other formating tools (dont need), i invariably find myself abusing the marks, to only get remarks of how bad my writing looks... pitty!
Style and form Posted Oct 24, 2005 0:29 UTC (Mon) by njhurst (guest, #6022) [Link] I think it is a dangerous plan to re-implement everything from scratch on the premise that the new design will be more robust or secure. Security comes as much from years of harsh real-world testing as it does from special models. We can probably achieve all that is suggested here by putting the same amount of work into fixing up the existing kernel interfaces and designing tools for detecting bad code patterns.
Auditing also helps, and everytime we build from scratch we lose all the previous auditing work. I say this having spent considerable time working on a security from the ground up system using capabilities (the real ones, not the fake capes that linux has). Time heals many security holes.
I think the general consensus is that we like your posts, but they are a struggle to read. If you wish, I am happy to read your posts before you post and correct the language. (Nevertheless, one word)
I don't think that we have a serious problem with group think here, several times people have corrected popular pro-linux myths and brough us back to reality. If anything I think lwn is one of the least biased linux related sources around. things like newsforge are just full of drivel, slashdot suffers from groupthink to a larger extent and most commercial rags are too heavily dependant on advertising dollars to stay NPOV.
Style and form Posted Oct 24, 2005 17:28 UTC (Mon) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link] "" I think it is a dangerous plan to re-implement everything from scratch on the premise that the new design will be more robust or secure ""
I belive the "Grand Beauty" of putting an exokernel beneath the present Linux kernel, is doing it without having to re-invent the wheel.It could go even to a Single Adress Space design with the Linux synchronization mechanisms, locks, semaphores, because the adress space is mandatory handled by a dynamic library in an exokernel design... as in XOK/ExOS(could be XOK/Linux)
Full *POSIX* support can be achieved in this type of designs as in Meshix and Angel http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/cache/papers/cs/294/ftp:zSzzS...
"" Security comes as much from years of harsh real-world testing as it does from special models.""
No. I belive its simply proved, so simply that it hurts, that the present model is inherently *INSECURE*, no matter what. http://www.skyhunter.com/marcs/capabilityIntro/index.html
"" We can probably achieve all that is suggested here by putting the same amount of work into fixing up the existing kernel interfaces and designing tools for detecting bad code patterns. ""
Not likely. Building good interfaces and detecting bad code patterns also has to be applyed, but in less extense and without "crazy hacks", to an exokernel/Linux design with capabilities, or better, to an exokernel/Linux with the actual Unix file acess list protection design on top of capabilities, beying it a SASOS or not.
That is an exokernel/Linux design could be full POSIX, have the Unix file acess list protection style available and yet the ensemble behave like a monolithic Single Adress Sapce Kernel... only much much more secure, to the point a * virus and crackers prove* LABEL can be arguably applyed.
"" Auditing also helps, and everytime we build from scratch we lose all the previous auditing work.""
I belive auditing would also be necessary, and even more because in a exokernel design, you could have as exemple the Apache server having its own virtual memory and file system directly on top of the exokernel (achieving perhaps more than 1 order of magnitude more performance) , and so everything from the OS and every application and service as to be audit to *guaranty* safety. Many of Previous work, and followed disasters, *could* be an example of where and why stating secure a system that is *inherently INSECURE* is a bad policy.
Sincerely thanks for the offer, but one of beautys of posting is learning how to write properly and not get lazy.
I also belive group thinking could be much more enhanced then today, by people losing fear of posting more radical ideas.
Ballmer: Microsoft to go after Linux strongholds (ZDNet) Posted Oct 22, 2005 21:59 UTC (Sat) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link] Thank you for the good intentioned remarks. I honestly try to do betternext time.
Ballmer: Microsoft to go after Linux strongholds (ZDNet) Posted Oct 20, 2005 21:16 UTC (Thu) by jerrysiebe (guest, #33230) [Link] I think it's interesting that Microsoft believes it has now found a way to fight Linux. They haven't been able to effectivly fight Linux up to now. Sure, they're running a staggering FUD campaign, but that's all they have. Now they declair thay have a winning strategy: divide and conqueror. It's more than that though, they are defining the battle.
"Because people will take a look at the tools and the technologies we put in the marketplace and decide that they deliver better results at a lower cost."
They want to focus in on aspects of Linux they can fight against, seperate from the whole, from the FOSS ideology and the benefits therein, and define it in terms they can compete against. Microsoft wants this battle to be about performance and cost. Of course they do, they can fight those. But Linux/FOSS isn't just performance and cost, and that's why they haven't been able to compete. What Ballmer is trying to do here is define the battle, to be in control.
If Microsoft wants to fight this battle, I think the Linux/FOSS community should take this oppertunity to make known to everyone all the battle lines that must be overcome to win this war. Microsoft's best chance is to be in control. I say we don't let them.
Ballmer: Microsoft to go after Linux strongholds (ZDNet) Posted Oct 20, 2005 22:25 UTC (Thu) by njhurst (guest, #6022) [Link] If I had mod-points I'd mod this up! :)
You are right, a standard tactic in a losing debate is to change the goalposts. We must remember that freedom is the core reason for free software. I realised this when a large proportion of my department switched from linux to MacOSX - most people used linux because they hated microsoft, not because they loved freedom. Put enough shiny trinkets in front of someone and they'll forget their ideals in a snap!
Ballmer: Microsoft to go after Linux strongholds (ZDNet) Posted Oct 21, 2005 0:19 UTC (Fri) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link] " most people used linux because they hated microsoft, not because they loved freedom. Put enough shiny trinkets in front of someone and they'll forget their ideals in a snap! "
True.
But ideals can translate in better paradigmas. *They should translate in better paradigmas, always, or the ideal has no use*
So why cant Linux be better than OSX, or some future OSX, beying the same applied to MS products ? Intuitive Full 3D Desktops ?... i belive Linux/OSS has the necessary parts now (only at early stages) to win here as well.
When an ideal has translation into measurable items(we live in a very pragmatic world) like better performance, security, usability and features, then and only then has an ideal as a paradigma gained irresistibility, and people will associate both.
M$ will always try to shit on the numbers of the measures, and when not sticking will try to diverte into ambiguity values.
Belive Linux/OSS has too much of potencial, if community and specialy development came togheter with that intention on every aspects of computing, for MS or Apple to stand a chance.
Ballmer: Microsoft to go after Linux strongholds (ZDNet) Posted Oct 24, 2005 0:18 UTC (Mon) by njhurst (guest, #6022) [Link] "So why cant Linux be better than OSX, or some future OSX, beying the same applied to MS products ? Intuitive Full 3D Desktops ?... i belive Linux/OSS has the necessary parts now (only at early stages) to win here as well."
Because free software in general is a poor innovator. Innovation requires an idea, people to implement it, and people to use it. Ideas are common enough, implementations are rarer and nobody wants to use experimental software (I say this through experience). So we copy what people have already seen.
Ballmer: Microsoft to go after Linux strongholds (ZDNet) Posted Oct 21, 2005 1:47 UTC (Fri) by pyellman (guest, #4997) [Link] Maybe when he made the speech Ballmer was getting some of his old confidence back, convinced that Microsoft's standard tactics like this http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/051020/microsoft_antitrust.html may now once again be entirely acceptable.
Peter Yellman
Ballmer: Microsoft to go after Linux strongholds (ZDNet) Posted Oct 20, 2005 21:51 UTC (Thu) by nurhussein (guest, #16226) [Link] After discussing server clustering, Web hosting, and server appliances, Ballmer was cut off by the interviewees before he could identify the fourth.We'll never know his evil plans now. Come on, tell us! WE NEED CLOSURE!
Ballmer: Microsoft to go after Linux strongholds (ZDNet) Posted Oct 21, 2005 1:11 UTC (Fri) by smitty_one_each (subscriber, #28989) [Link] Recover his off-cut Ballmers, likely.
Ballmer: Microsoft to go after Linux strongholds (ZDNet) Posted Oct 21, 2005 15:51 UTC (Fri) by zblaxell (subscriber, #26385) [Link] Ballmer was cut off by the intervieweesInterviewees? So Ballmer was interviewing the journalists? Wow, the conceit...
Frankly I Don't See Either Side As the Future... Posted Oct 21, 2005 1:26 UTC (Fri) by emkey (guest, #144) [Link] What OS does the worlds fastest super computer run? (BlueGene/L) Hint, its not Linux or Microsoft Windows. Yes, some portion of the system does in fact run a Linux, but the actual computations is done on a very stripped down proprietary microkernel. And that in my opinion is the future.
Large complex operating systems have far to much overhead and complexity to scale well to the huge CPU counts that we're moving towards. Why you ask? Here's one example...
Imagine you have a problem where every CPU has to complete some bit of work in lockstep. You can't move from one timestep to another until every single CPU has completed its work. In this scenario you are only as fast as your slowest CPU. Got 399 2.5GHz CPU's and one 1GHz CPU as part of your job, congrats, you only get 400x1GHz of performance out of your job.
Now imagine a complex operating system with cron and other daemons running. How many interupts per second does your average Linux system have to deal with? And how close to in sync are hundreds of nodes likely to be, even if all their clocks are syncronized? And what if one of them has a failing hard drive or some other bit of hardware? All these things are going to tend to introduce noise that will reduce performance in hugely parallel computers and codes. As we steadily move to larger CPU counts these issues become more and more of a problem.
The best performance and scalability will be found by way of minimizing the amount of hardware that can go bad and simplifying the OS down to the barest possible minimum to support running codes. Windows is horribly poorly suited to this, and Linux isn't nearly so far ahead as many of us would like to think.
There certainly is an important nitch for Linux in all this. You need a more full featured OS on front end nodes where code compilation and data reduction go on. You need a more powerfull OS to deal with much of the book keeping and similer tasks.
Of course a very scaled down and simplified Linux kernel could be created that would be easily capable of handling this sort of task.
Frankly I Don't See Either Side As the Future... Posted Oct 21, 2005 2:18 UTC (Fri) by Mithrandir (subscriber, #3031) [Link] s/nitch/niche/s/powerfull/powerful/
:)
Frankly I Don't See Either Side As the Future... Posted Oct 21, 2005 6:07 UTC (Fri) by emkey (guest, #144) [Link] Yeah, I should have spell checked before posting but I was in a hurry. I probably should have spent more time on my English homework and less time fooling around with computers when I was young. :-)
Frankly I Don't See Either Side As the Future... Posted Oct 21, 2005 6:26 UTC (Fri) by joib (guest, #8541) [Link] AFAIK the Cray XD1 Linux/Opteron "turnkey cluster" does contain some changes to the scheduler to ensure that parallel processes execute in lockstep. Or actually, it's implemented the other way around, i.e. the non-parallel housekeeping processes get to run at only a few specified time slots. See page 8 on http://www.cray.com/downloads/dhbrown_crayxd1_oct2004.pdf .
Frankly I Don't See Either Side As the Future... Posted Oct 21, 2005 14:29 UTC (Fri) by emkey (guest, #144) [Link] That solution just tends to point out the fundamental flaws in using a complex OS to run highly parallel jobs in my opinion.
There is a real tendancy for clever people to want to solve problems. This isn't always a good thing in that we often come up with "bag on the side" solutions to deal with issues that are really a result of having what is in context a poor design.
I always try to take a step back in these situations and look at the big picture. Often times things appear in a whole new light when I do so and more productive paths forward present themselves.
Frankly I Don't See Either Side As the Future... Posted Oct 24, 2005 4:55 UTC (Mon) by dvdeug (subscriber, #10998) [Link] In what sense are we heading towards huge CPU counts? Intel had a system with 1024 286s out when 286s were the going thing. At a smaller level, my old university replaced a 24 CPU Dynamix machine with a 2 CPU Sun machine some time ago.
Perhaps I'm missing something obvious, but what BlueGene does is esoteric, and I don't see any indications that the world is going to systems where a large number of CPUs have to be kept in tight lock-step. I don't see that most problems are best solved by such low-level parallelism; a lot of parallel problems have a certain minimal chunk that can takes hundreds, thousands or even millions or billions of clock cycles.
Frankly I Don't See Either Side As the Future... Posted Oct 24, 2005 5:39 UTC (Mon) by emkey (guest, #144) [Link] In the world of scientific computing many problems lend themselves well to massive parallelization. And as you add more cpu's you can increase the problem size and/or decrease the scale at which you simulate. More CPU's means new problems can be solved. It is my understanding that scientists could easily make use of a system ten or even twenty times as fast as BlueGene/L.
You do touch on an important issue though. Some problems may take a second or less per clock step. Others might take many times as long. The quicker the clock cycle the more likely a particular application is to benefit from the sort of approach that IBM took with BlueGene/L, as random perturbations are going to have a much larger impact on performance in that scenario.
IBM has announced the sale of additional systems beyond the original sale. I doubt these systems are cheap, so at least some people see value in them.
Ballmer: Microsoft to go after Linux strongholds (ZDNet) Posted Oct 21, 2005 7:47 UTC (Fri) by darthmdh (guest, #8032) [Link] Steve "I'm going to f'ing kill people" Ballmer hasn't been locked up in gaol yet? deliver better results at a lower costI fail to see how a 32-node ia32 system (32 nodes is the maximum Windows supports in a cluster) will achieve better results than any currently existing Linux-based supercomputer (let alone any future system by the time this version of Windows is retailed); considering many of them are 64-bit and contain many thousands of nodes. I call "bullshit" on this one. And at a lower cost? How do you get lower than "free"? Are Microsoft going to give us this software *and* a nice fat cheque as well, plus improve their support significantly so that it is at least equal to that in the open source community? Somehow I doubt it. This is just ZDNet repeating Microsoft FUD and hyping vapourware as they are prone to do.
Ballmer: Microsoft to go after Linux strongholds (ZDNet) Posted Oct 21, 2005 15:50 UTC (Fri) by vmole (subscriber, #111) [Link] How do you get lower than "free"? The cost of an complex application running on a cluster has lot more to do with the development costs than the OS license costs. Sufficiently better tools could conceivably provide an overall lower cost. Of course, with Linux et. al. you can modify the tools to suit your needs, instead of being stuck with what the vendor provides.
Ballmer: Microsoft to go after Linux strongholds (ZDNet) Posted Oct 21, 2005 10:51 UTC (Fri) by The_Flatlander (guest, #19245) [Link] I've read many of the comments above, and skimmed through just about all of them, and I have to say I think a number of you are completely blind to the widely proven and very cost effective Windows clusters that are already in use all over the world....
The Bot-Nets? The SPAM-slaves? Remember? Cheap, reliable, proven Windows(tm) Distributed Computing Technology at work. The TCO is virtually nil, because the computers owners are paying for the bandwidth and the power, and the maintenance, (or not), on the computers.
I don't think you'll find any similar demonstrations of such prowess in any Linux systems.
The Flatlander
Ballmer: Microsoft to go after Linux strongholds (ZDNet) Posted Oct 21, 2005 11:26 UTC (Fri) by xtifr (subscriber, #143) [Link] I think the developers of Lindows/Linspire (no user accounts, everything runs as root) may be working on competing with MS in this arena. :)
Apparently it is not quite the same... Posted Oct 22, 2005 17:40 UTC (Sat) by grantingram (subscriber, #18390) [Link] I've never actually used Linspire but they do apparently let you create user accounts at installation. As always Wikipedia provides some useful information. (Linspire Criticisms)
This is good Posted Oct 21, 2005 12:33 UTC (Fri) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] Ballmer has no clue of what is happening. Five years ago Linux was strong in server rooms. Now it's in clusters, web hosting, server appliances. In five years who knows what more it will be. Ballmer doesn't get it. And that is lucky for us, because he is fighting the individual heads and he does not see the hydra that is growing them.
Ballmer: Microsoft to go after Linux strongholds (ZDNet) Posted Oct 21, 2005 12:56 UTC (Fri) by mikec (guest, #30884) [Link] It struck me while scrolling past the (seemingly) millionth report of a terrorist act on cnn.com that terrorism works because we cannot look away. So, we give the terrorists exactly what they want - ATTENTION.
I got so irritated with cnn having become the kidnapping/ransom advertising network that I removed them from my default home page and sent them an email explaining why... Of course, I expected very little in the way of response...
Seems to me blathering from Balmer should be treated the same way...
Instead of spending time telling Balmer which of his messages hit nerves so that he might refine his attacks, the linux community would do better to inform itself and respond by continuing to deliver the techincally superior solution.
There is plenty of healthy bickering within linux (just read lmkl for a bit), no need to add content free sources of contention...
Ballmer: Microsoft to go after Linux strongholds (ZDNet) Posted Oct 21, 2005 16:37 UTC (Fri) by jerrysiebe (guest, #33230) [Link] I agree, bickering with Microsoft PR is pointless and doesn't benefit us. However, I think it would be foolish to ignore it outright. Microsoft does have the attention of the media, and thus, the general population, and people do tend to believe anything if they hear it enough. I think it would be good to keep the propaganda of Microsoft et al in check, but with moderation, of course.
Ballmer: Microsoft to go after Linux strongholds (ZDNet) Posted Oct 21, 2005 22:25 UTC (Fri) by mrons (subscriber, #1751) [Link] Yes we should ignore them.
Maybe we could laugh at them at a bit as well.
Later, if things get out of hand, we could fight them.
Oh, um, wait, er, who wins?
Ballmer: Microsoft to go after Linux strongholds (ZDNet) Posted Oct 27, 2005 16:35 UTC (Thu) by im14u2c (subscriber, #5246) [Link] *chuckle*
Thanks. Great antidote for the tired anecdote.
Ballmer: Microsoft to go after Linux strongholds (ZDNet) Posted Oct 22, 2005 23:25 UTC (Sat) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link] " Instead of spending time telling Balmer which of his messages hit nerves so that he might refine his attacks, the linux community would do better to inform itself and respond by continuing to deliver the techincally superior solution. "
That is absolutely right. Funny how Ballmer employs the same tactics of terrorists!... So we must not get *terrorised* as the fundamental principle. But we must not delude ourselfs about what is superior.
"Beying a little superior, or proudly alone at our little corner, wont do"
Because going against an institutionalized big power, only means that that power will employ every force on their arsenal to topple the opponents... guess terrorism is the new big passion game for sec.XXI and soon will replace sports and art for leasure times... the sport and art of a big blast or Ballmer jumping arround promising to crush the competition!...
Back to topic, LINUX/OSS has to be really and "absolutely superior" to the competition on every aspects of computing, and has to get there steadly and slowly employing only ethical weapons, namely code and freedom, as it has been done... or soon there will also be LINUX/OSS terrorrists!.
"The actual LINUX/OSS paradigma is too short". New prespectives should be discussed about more and different code. More freedom if that is possible. LWN is a perfect site to start that discussion.
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