Re: An EXCELLENT Microsoft Confidential document on Open Source
The following message is a courtesy copy of an article
that has been posted to comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy as well.
>>>>> "F" == F Potorti <Francesco> writes:
>>>>> "Martin" == martin@internet-treff.uni-koeln.de (Martin Bialasinski) writes:
Martin> M$ had confirmed, that this document is a M$ memo. See
Martin> slashdot for the pointer.
F> Well, for me, that's enough for not believing it. If it were
F> confidential and really important to them, they would have said
F> it was a fake.
Obviously this document alone is not "really important to them".
They probably have more analysts writing more papers on competitors in
general and Linux/open source in particular.
You should also see that the document contains enough factual mistakes
and poor analysis (especially the "Halloween II" document) that it is
made without a thorough understanding of or experience with Linux.
You can bet Microsoft has other people more skilled that are also
looking at it.
As for the biography of the author, Vinod Valloppillil, he lives in
Redmond, Washington, and has a background working on HTTP-related
protocols, and indeed he is a Microsoft employee. Whether these
documents were some sinister strategic marketing from Microsoft
"leaked" only to tell technically savvy audiences about the
MS-perceived deficiencies of Linux, UNIX, Apache et al, is another
question. I would not be too surprised if that was the case.
However, there seems little or no doubt anymore that these documents
indeed originate from within Microsoft, by Mr. Valloppillil.
After all, admitting that they are 'de-commoditizing' protocols as a
strategy to lock out competitors is hardly that fatal to them as this
is not at all news to most people (they did that with DNS/WINS,
HTTP/DHTTP, SMB, 'NT domains', etc etc). It could be that they put
that in there in order to make the document seem more genuine before
"leaking" it.
(Eric Raymond would of course know more, given that he probably knows
his source a little more than we do).
F> And this document, for those who believe it is true, it is no
F> worse than what they already believe. Those who like MS
F> wouldn't trust it, so it causes non more damage than good,
F> because of the monopoly trial.
The first part of this paragraph is probably true for most of us: We
have had first-hand experience for years with this particular MS
policy of 'de-commodizing' protocols, document formats,
specifications, system calls, 'java.*' system calls, etc etc.
For instance, the concept of "Windows NT Domains", and the name
itself, as well as proprietary DNS additions and WINS lookups, have
little or no purpose but to confuse consumers and to rule through
obscurity. The Windows API programming buzzword de jour keeps
changing with "insider information" only given to visitors to MS Tech
Ed, members of the Microsoft Developer Network etc. Corba becomes
COM/DCOM with no additions, just a name change and standards change.
Java becomes nothing but 'the newest, prefered way of writing
applications for MS Windows and and sales for MSVJ++'.
As far as I am concerned, it is kindof irrelevant what MS does, or
what MS advocates think. By now it is not only possible, but quite
comfortable living with Linux (or for that matter, Solaris, FreeBSD,
other UNIXen) alone. You simply do not need Windows for anything
anymore - unless you have very special needs.
-tor
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