{"id":24,"date":"2005-06-15T21:27:38","date_gmt":"2005-06-15T11:27:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gedda.info\/?p=24"},"modified":"2014-03-29T13:33:07","modified_gmt":"2014-03-29T03:33:07","slug":"robbins-at-microsoft-a-new-conspiracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gedda.info\/?p=24","title":{"rendered":"Robbins at Microsoft: a new conspiracy?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By now most people within the Linux and open source communities would have heard the news that Gentoo Linux\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s founding father Daniel Robbins was adopted by Microsoft to advise the company on community-based open source projects. Daniel started on May 23 and the announcement was made via the Gentoo Web site<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As an avid Gentoo user for over three years now I feel compelled to pipe up on his appointment and what it might mean for everyone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s favourite software monolith.<\/p>\n

For those unfamiliar with the definition of a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153community\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Linux distribution, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the term given to Linux-based operating systems developed by a number of individuals rather than a corporation. Think of the development models this way: the community distros take the open source ethos from the base software level and apply it to the holistic operating system level, whereas the commercial distros take the open source software and put it through a commercial R&D wringer. Developers from both sides of the fence contribute back to the base software in addition to releasing their own innovations to the open source world.<\/p>\n

Debian GNU\/Linux<\/a> (used to host gedda.info) and Gentoo are the most popular community distros, and Red Hat<\/a> and Novell\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s SuSE<\/a> are the two big commercials. In my experience, Community distros strive for more of a meritocracy than their commercial counterparts which strive for quality assurance, but there are pros and cons to each development model.<\/p>\n

So as you can imagine, the announcement of Daniel\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s appointment at Microsoft was interpreted by some in the open source community to be akin to Anakin Skywalker\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s wholehearted submission to Senator Palpatine in RoTS. Timely, ain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t it!<\/p>\n

But I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see it that way.<\/p>\n

Gentoo is WAY off the radar for most consumers and business to be a measurable threat to Windows. Gentoo\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s strength lies with its software management capabilities. As the project’s documentation indicates, support for different software can be decided when you install it. Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want your installation of Mozilla to support Java? That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s only one command away.<\/p>\n

Daniel\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s post at Microsoft could herald a new beginning for the company. Much to Novell and Red Hat\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s loss, the man who engineered a new way to install and configure the plethora of open source software to create a unified user experience on top of Linux now has the opportunity to do the same for Windows.<\/p>\n

Remember the farce that was SP2? Windows users around the world endured the multitude of problems associated with a monolithic (what, 80MB?) operating system upgrade. Complaints of system breakage were rampant.<\/p>\n

What does this have to do with Daniel? Well, he holds as much knowledge as anyone on how to remotely update an operating system\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s software in a piecemeal fashion, and to the nth degree of customisation. Microsoft wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t send out source code of course, but binary updates of its software stack could be performed more regularly, much like Mac OS X.<\/p>\n

Not deep enough for you? You know Microsoft\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Services for Unix<\/a> offering, the one which required a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153licence\u00e2\u20ac\u009d from The SCO Group? SFU could easily be transformed by Daniel into a Unix ports collection for Windows. Much like Cygwin<\/a> but controlled by the host. All the Unix software you would ever need running on Windows. Hell, Unix did everything to improve the geek value of another operating system<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And if that isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t enough for you, Daniel was hired to spearhead Microsoft\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Unix-based successor to Longhorn. Already a devout Unix user<\/a>, Microsoft has finally swallowed its pride and realised the power and flexibility of the Unix architecture is superior to that of Windows. An operating system with a Unix brain and Windows face would be a godsend. Perhaps the platform strategists, in an effort to learn more about Unix\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s beginnings, came across Henry Spencer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 1987 Usenet signature:<\/p>\n

Those who don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t understand Unix are doomed to reinvent it, poorly.<\/i><\/p>\n

And this is exactly what happened with Windows NT when Microsoft hired many a DEC engineer with the intention of beating Unix at its own game. The rest is\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6.<\/p>\n

There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nothing like a good conspiracy (or three) to excite the industry. Whatever the outcome, I wish Daniel all the best with his new endeavour. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure it will be a positive experience and he will meet a lot of talented people in Redmond. I just hope doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get the shock of his life when he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s forced to use Windows. Today I had to reboot my computer within five minutes of an unexpected \u00e2\u20ac\u0153automatic update\u00e2\u20ac\u009d message appearing on the screen.<\/p>\n

*sigh* :-(\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Rodney<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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