Two ways Microsoft sabotages Linux desktop adoption (SearchOpenSource) [LWN.net]

Two ways Microsoft sabotages Linux desktop adoption (SearchOpenSource)

Posted Feb 9, 2006 19:33 UTC (Thu) by tajyrink (subscriber, #2750) [Link]

Preinstalled Linux is what counts in bigger scale desktop adoptions. And OOo / AbiWord / KWord eventually outdo the other point. I think the main problem is the battle for media content in various proprietary formats - Windows has WMV, Mac has Quicktime, Linux has nothing or maybe RealPlayer which is against the free software theme (though perhaps okay for pre-installed computers' manufacturers and Real of course is not entirely evil with its Helix etc.). RealPlayer is also available for Win/Mac, but is currently probably less popular on each platform than their "own" media content formats (MS & Apple can affect a lot on their behalfs to lure customers to their formats). On the audio side, MP3, DRM or not, is not out-of-the-box playable on Linux, though Fluendo's plugin probably semi-solves the playback problem for the Linux-from-the-supermarket customers and related distributions (like Ubuntu with some closed source additions by the computer manufacturer).

Ogg (Theora) is of course the way to go, but it has a lot to do win something, even more so than Vorbis or FLAC which are gaining some (deserved!) momentum on the audio/music side. Theora development is apparently finally getting true development resources behind it now and we'll most probably see advancement and 1.0 final this year (even though it's perfectly usable for any use already, "alpha" or "beta scare people away), but still even technically Theora is not as great when compared to competing formats as Vorbis is to its competitors. Of course, Theora is quite good but being at the very top wouldn't hurt either.

Theora and Dirac are great...

Posted Feb 10, 2006 15:31 UTC (Fri) by hummassa (subscriber, #307) [Link]

And, in my job, I am using Speex right now.
And I use Vorbis/FLAC in my personal music files.
So yes, if we can popularize those (iPod linux anyone? :-)...

Two ways Microsoft sabotages Linux desktop adoption (SearchOpenSource)

Posted Feb 11, 2006 12:05 UTC (Sat) by sylware (subscriber, #35259) [Link]

Don't forget that there are dirac and snow video codecs which use wavelets.
Speaking sabotage: I'm a gnome user, and mono/.net is a kind of trojan horse. You can clearly see the will to make gnome depend on mono/.net uselessware. For instance, we had a very good seed for a "more than usefull" picture manager, gthumb, but their is a strong will to let this project die in order to promote f-spot (the bloated mono one). The XGL demos pushes f-spot forward.
Moreover you can see some strange opinion switch over, like Havoc Penington who was *really* against inclusion of this "strategically M$ driven framework", and now he is almost recommending to include it.
Something is happening. I feel the shadow of M$ behind Novell.
Additionally, it's a commercial handicap: on a project here what I got from the boss: "Want to write a mono app? Why? M$ is the leader of .net, better go with them. And .net 2.0 is about to come, mono is obsolete, I'm sorry my friend, but mono=.net--"! Commercially speaking, adopting mono/.net is sabotage.

Two ways Microsoft sabotages Linux desktop adoption (SearchOpenSource)

Posted Feb 12, 2006 4:31 UTC (Sun) by hp (subscriber, #5220) [Link]

I don't know what you mean about me changing my opinion, I haven't really said anything one way or the other in a long time (that I remember at least).

Two ways Microsoft sabotages Linux desktop adoption (SearchOpenSource)

Posted Feb 16, 2006 11:51 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

Stop disrupting a nice conspiracy theory with your blasted 'facts'. ;)

Two ways Microsoft sabotages Linux desktop adoption (SearchOpenSource)

Posted Feb 10, 2006 0:23 UTC (Fri) by dmarti (subscriber, #11625) [Link]

If you get invited to a MSFT Live Meeting session and use Firefox under Linux along with Sun's Java to connect, you get this...

You can run Microsoft Office Live Meeting on your Platform, but some configuration changes could improve your experience. You are using an unsupported Unix (or Unix-like) Operating System. You can try to use Microsoft Office Live Meeting with your Mozilla 1.8 browser, but you may experience problems. For the best experience we recommend using supported versions of Windows or Solaris or Mac OS X.

Which basically translates to, "Please switch to a desktop operating system we already know how to kill."

Inappropriate title re sabotage

Posted Feb 10, 2006 1:39 UTC (Fri) by pjm (subscriber, #2080) [Link]

The article indicates some limitations of OpenOffice (it wasn't quite clear whether these were problems of importing MS Word files or problems in creating pure OOo files); and mentions reduced availability of drivers for Linux compared to Windows; but AFAICT the article doesn't include any evidence of “sabotage” by Microsoft.

The article does link to some other pages (requiring registration) that may present such evidence. An LWN article entitled “... Microsoft sabotages ...” should link directly to an article that actually shows “ways that Microsoft sabotages”, not merely problems with OOo and Linux; or else the LWN article should be retitled according to the actual story presented.

Please let's be diligent in keeping LWN a credible voice: a strong claim such as “sabotage” should link directly to the evidence supporting the claim.

I think that's the article author's fault

Posted Feb 10, 2006 3:14 UTC (Fri) by leonbrooks (guest, #1494) [Link]

Also, there is nothing Microsoft-specific in there at all. These are exactly the same kind of challenges faced by any innovator against any incumbent.

Inappropriate title re sabotage

Posted Feb 10, 2006 22:37 UTC (Fri) by sepreece (subscriber, #19270) [Link]

And, while "sabotage" was the quoted author's word, our usually capable editor has to take the blame for saying that the article explores "Microsoft's strategies", when the article says nothing at all about Microsoft doing anything, aside from one unsupported quote that claims they coerce hardware manufacturers.

Plain as the nose on one's face

Posted Feb 10, 2006 10:48 UTC (Fri) by AnswerGuy (subscriber, #1256) [Link]

Ho hum! Another link to another article that sensationally unveils the
author's latest discovery or theory of what's holding up Linux
adoption.

The obvious answer is: there's an entrenched and relatively diversified
monopoly who devotes considerable financial and personnel resources to a
variety of lock-in strategies.

MS Outlook is a big one. Contracts with hardware manufacturers at various
levels (component and VAR) to ensure that their OS is shipped with every
new system (or almost every one) are another key. A sales staff that
lavishes attention (and money) on the key purchasing staff of major
corporations, and agencies across the board. New "initiatives" (like
"Sharepoint") which aren't any significant technological feat --- just
a bundling of features and marketing (IE meets PowerPoint meets Outlook
... voila! Sharepoint). A persistent "generic term" branding strategy
that makes them the final "Word" in word processing, and helps them
"Excel" in cellular/tabular spreadsheets; and allows them to conflate
other terms so that CLI (command line interface) can no longer be used
without explicitly say that it's not .NET CLI (common language interface?)
et cetera, ad nauseum. Astroturfing and cyber-astro-turfing (in public
wikis, BBs, blogs, and message fora of all sorts). Funded "independent
studies" and essays are yet others.

For Microsoft all of these little bits are just part of the cost of doing
business. Lawsuits and anti-trust activity are treated as just another
operating expenditure.

Perhaps LWN should just keep a catalog of all the known lock-in strategies
and we can just reference them by number. Like the cons in the joke about
the prison joke book: we can link to an article as: 42! And all of us
"lifers" can get a chuckle without bothering to follow the link.

JimD

Plain as the nose on one's face

Posted Feb 10, 2006 22:35 UTC (Fri) by zotz (guest, #26117) [Link]

"Perhaps LWN should just keep a catalog of all the known lock-in strategies
and we can just reference them by number. Like the cons in the joke about
the prison joke book: we can link to an article as: 42! And all of us
"lifers" can get a chuckle without bothering to follow the link."

Hey, I like that joke, and 42! is more than just a joke as we all know, wink, wink, & etc.

all the best,

drew