And Microsoft moves closer to Linus Torvald [Archive]

View Full Version : And Microsoft moves closer to Linus Torvald

Ian Curtis

14-06-2005, 16:49

http://www.theage.com.au/news/Breaking/Gentoo-Linux-founder-joins-Microsoft/2005/06/14/1118645786407.html?oneclick=true

According to that article one Daniel Robbins (founder of the Gentoo distribution) is going to Microsoft. Things like this were earily fortold by Wired Magazine last year. Thoughts?

scitobor 617

14-06-2005, 18:20

Well I believe the reason that Robbins is going to Micro$oft is that he is wanted to help Microsoft better "understand" the open source world. I can't but think that Microsoft has more sinister plans of brainwashing amazing opensource developers and sending them back out into the wild. Am I the only one who is thinking of consperice theories?

Seriously though, I'm not quite sure what to make of this. As far as I know all Gentoo related code written by Robbins has ben licensed under opensource licenses so I'm not too upset yet. I'm interested in what it was that made Robbins accept an invitation from Microsoft though.

GhostInTheShell

14-06-2005, 18:50

noooooooooooooooooo!!!! well, gentoo was OK then i went to debian so i hope they don't take their creator too!

evulish

14-06-2005, 19:36

I'm interested in what it was that made Robbins accept an invitation from Microsoft though.

A good position at Microsoft is not the easiest thing to come by. I mean, if you want to talk about job stability.. Microsoft has the largest market share by no small margin in the desktop PC world and the office suite markets. They're not going anywhere. They pay well and have great benefits, too. Many open-source programmers are getting sucked into the likes of Microsoft, Apple, and other huge companies like that. Developing for the worlds most popular OS would be a hard job to turn down.. open source fan or not.

miketwalker

14-06-2005, 19:44

A good position at Microsoft is not the easiest thing to come by. I mean, if you want to talk about job stability.. Microsoft has the largest market share by no small margin in the desktop PC world and the office suite markets. They're not going anywhere. They pay well and have great benefits, too. Many open-source programmers are getting sucked into the likes of Microsoft, Apple, and other huge companies like that. Developing for the worlds most popular OS would be a hard job to turn down.. open source fan or not.

Very well said.

wilshire

15-06-2005, 10:57

I do not think that Microsoft will ever go to open source but are just hiring some new developers as always. Maybe one of the developers said something behind gate's back and now a new developer is needed. Anywho Bill Gate's will own the entire market someday so this really doesn't come of any shock to me.

wk1989

21-06-2005, 13:06

Microsoft has a Linux research lab.

wilshire

21-06-2005, 14:43

of course they would. what are they not researching? seriously

Mike

21-06-2005, 15:33

wk1989

21-06-2005, 15:49

Microsoft makes a great operating system for the end user, has anybody ever tried to use gentoo? It was horribly confusing for me, never mind a user that just got a computer. If *nix ever wants a hold in the OS Wars, they will have to make it more user friendly. Right now the only reason why I have a Knoppix Live CD next to me, is so I can become more knowledgable about *nix systems because they are used in nearly all major servers. Right now, the only thing Linux has over Windows is it's one hell of a server.

Bill Gates is a very good businessman, regardless of all the scandals going around about where he got DOS from. Whether or not his morals are good, is up to debate. "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." - Thomas Watson, founder of IBM. Now there's a desktop in almost every household in America, thanks to Bill Gates.

I use Linux as a desktop, for me it surpasses Windows, I have all the software I need installed, the system is fast and stable, I can play Need For Speed Underground through Cedega, and Enemy Territory which has a native Linux version.

Gentoo is not the best option for starters, there are much easier distros out there like Ubuntu. Ubuntu's installer is actually easier to use than Windows, and its package manager is far more superior. Gentoo is not designed to be user friendly, its designed to give you full control over your system, and allow software to run as fast as possible.

Ryan M.

21-06-2005, 16:01

Microsoft makes a great operating system for the end user, has anybody ever tried to use gentoo?Yep... just tried it for the second time a few days ago. Got to the same stage as the first time (kernel compile) and got the same error. Must be my comp. :rolleyes:

But I agree that Ubuntu is very nice. Actually, that's what I'm on right now. Only thing I really dislike about it is the inablity to login as root (you can sudo into root, but you can't actually login as root) Does anyone know how to reenable root? It does appear, but it just doesn't let you in.

Ian Curtis

21-06-2005, 16:08

If we're going for usability to the end user, Apple would rule the world, seriously. The way Macs work is very logical and much more eye friendly to a first time user, not to mention the hardware itself is much more than a box.

I've never tried Gentoo, but Suse rules my world :].

wk1989

21-06-2005, 20:45

Ian Curtis

21-06-2005, 20:54

Not So! There are cheap emulators which enable you to run OS X. Also eMacs and the Mac Mini are less than 1000 dollars, significantly cheaper actually.

Also OS X is cheaper than Windows XP although Linux is cheaper than both of them.

t3ch

02-07-2005, 03:31

As long as we're talking about Gentoo, I'd just like to bring up the fact that Gentoo is one of the most versatile flavors of linux out there. Being that it is great for systems like amd64, sparc, ppc, etc... it can fit on just about any configuration. Another thing that I like about it is the fact that there is no GUI installer out there for it. Though, yes, one is being developed. I, personally, prefer the stage1 install. There's nothing more challanging than configuring everything by yourself. Along with that, the Gentoo Handbook has to be one of the most well-written handbooks I have ever seen, It is incredibly descriptive, and even the most basic user can do a pretty simple stage3 install with genkernel. I learned more with my first install of Gentoo than anything previous to that. And in terms of the 'OSX' look, a friend of mine made a fluxbox theme that basically shared the same look as OSX. It was very nice. Linux has to be, by far, the most versatile OS out of OSX, and Windows. Though I still use Windows, rarely, to play games.

http://www.gentoo.org/news/20050613-drobbins.xml <<<--that is the original article. And in terms of Microsoft, they will probably never be Open Source, and with these stupid software patents (BTW which Microsoft supports, and just recently was found guilty of infringing) the Open Source community may not look good in the near future. So get all you can from Sourceforge before it's too late!

Heh, and btw, in terms of Microsoft having a linux research lab, I believe it is Unix, not necisarilly Linux. But it's still *nix. But that's just my 2 cents.

tux

02-07-2005, 15:14

> Microsoft makes a great operating system for the end user, has anybody ever tried to use gentoo?

I can never understand why people suggest windows for end users. Just the spyware problem alone is more than most savvy users can handle. Regular people have a miserable time of it.

One other really nice thing about linux is the ease of updating.

Go and update every part of your microsoft system. Sure, the base system (and maybe office) have an update mechanism, but with a linux system, every installed package can be updated with a few commands.

In gentoo, I do ...
esync
emerge -uD world

and my system is completely updated.

Of course with gentoo it may take a while since everything is compiled from source. I just start it in the evening and let it go.

evulish

03-07-2005, 00:50

I fear more end-users are more worried about getting pictures easily from their digital cameras and printing them with their photo printer. Or playing their favorite game. Or syncing their palm. I don't think most people care if they're using the latest x.x.x release of all their software. Linux just doesn't quite offer the ease-of-use of Windows. I just don't think Linux is ready for mainstream (or any time soon.) While Linux offers many choices to users who care, the regular users probably don't want to have to choose between KDE, Gnome, CDE, XFCE, E or Alsa and OSS or Cups, LPR, LPRng or any of the hundreds of Linux distros out there. OS X is really the only Unix-based OS ready for the general public.. I think a large part of that is because they don't offer tons and tons of choices just to have the system running.

Adam Y.

06-07-2005, 22:59

In gentoo, I do ...
esync
emerge -uD world

and my system is completely updated.

Of course with gentoo it may take a while since everything is compiled from source. I just start it in the evening and let it go... That really sounds simple. The common computer user is not even going to understand a single one of those statements.

This discussion reminds me of a presentation someone from Microsoft gave on robotics and their research department.
Man from Microsoft:"You can see our the differnt curriculms that universities use on our website."
Man in audience:"What's the catch?"
Man from Microsoft:"No catch. It's free."
I also learned that Microsoft persuaded First in using something other than the system we use now. Obviously it had to be some type of embedded Microsoft system.

MikeDubreuil

07-07-2005, 00:15

I don't really think the comparison between Gentoo and Windows as being comparable solutions for end users is valid.

Gentoo was never designed for end-users. My grandmother will never tweak her GCC settings or know what the heck fomit-frame-pointer means. I don't think I'll see my 9 year old sister compiling Open Office for a 2% speed increase. Configuring Gentoo takes a much more technically savvy person than one who can assemble their computer from components. It's an apples to oranges comparison.

A good comparison would be to compare one of the easier to use distributions such as Red Hat or SuSe to MS Windows.

tux

07-07-2005, 17:33

>> my system is completely updated.

> That really sounds simple. The common computer user is not even going to understand a single one of those statements.

Reads like English to me. Not sure what the trouble is.

> Gentoo was never designed for end-users. My grandmother will never tweak her GCC settings or know what the heck fomit-frame-pointer means. I don't think I'll see my 9 year old sister compiling Open Office [...]

Well... in this particular forum, I hope I am speaking to technically capable people who are not so ossified in their ways that they might be interested in trying something _better_.

Sure, Gentoo is a "meta-distribution", but for me that just means that it is perfectly optimized for my needs. That said, my "make.conf" is pretty vanilla. I am not very interested in tweaks, just ease of use.

It seems to me that people out there building their own robots might be interested in leading-edge technology. It is a bit scary to me how few FIRST participants seem to be interested in alternative operating systems.

How much FIRST programmer time has been wasted on battling spyware, viruses and junk? Too much, if you ask me.

It scares me when people scan the monitors in our linux lab, fail to find the little blue "e" and ask "Hey! Where's the internet?"

I guess for most people, windows is "good enough", but not for me.