Hey Steve Ballmer, Microsoft has become the cancer

[tek_heretik]

17th largest contributor to the Linux kernel?! Skype for Linux?! Turning the Hyper-V stolen code thing around to make it look like they were being nice to us?! What's next?! Who else gets the feeling MS is trying to worm it's way in and eat our OS from the inside?! Beware of geeks bearing gifts (a little play on "beware of Greeks bearing gifts", lol)

Dancing with the devil never ends well. :mad:

[SteveRiley]

17th largest contributor to the Linux kernel?!

Mostly so that Linux could run as a guest on Hyper-V. It took quite a lot of code, so those published numbers that rank contributions based on lines of code will place Microsoft high. If ranked by reusability, their position would be much lower.

Turning the Hyper-V stolen code thing

That's an interesting assertion. Mind elaborating?

[HalationEffect]

There wasn't any stolen code... there was a GPL violation, however.

http://linux-network-plumber.blogspo...microsoft.html

[tek_heretik]

There wasn't any stolen code... there was a GPL violation, however.

http://linux-network-plumber.blogspo...microsoft.html

Tah-mate-toe, tah-matt-toe, heh

[tek_heretik]

They are still an idea stealing, monopolistic 3rd party competition swallowing 'cancer', regardless of their relationship with Linux, they tried to kill Java and lost.

[SteveRiley]

There wasn't any stolen code... there was a GPL violation, however.

http://linux-network-plumber.blogspo...microsoft.html

The comments in the article reflect some inconsistencies in understanding whether open-source shims can exist between the kernel and closed-source drivers. nVidia and ATI get away with it. But at least Microsoft eventually released the drivers.

Tah-mate-toe, tah-matt-toe, heh

Actually, it's a much greater difference than preferences for how to pronounce the name of a certain kind of plant Your original statement accused Microsoft of using stolen code in Hyper-V, when nothing of the sort happened. Setting aside for the moment Microsoft's usual embrace/extend/exterminate habits, Hyper-V is sufficiently novel to earn some respect. Virtualization is hard -- and I don't mean desktop-style, but server-style -- where the intent is to duplicate isolation zones that are as strong as physically separate computers. Hyper-V's architecture lends itself to this approach very well. One of the early design decisions was not to allow third-party code to run in the hypervisor. So while this shut out the development of a VMware-ish ecosystem around Hyper-V, it does allow the code to remain quite small (about 1 MiB) and thus easy to test for bugs and vulnerabilities. The only real limitation I see with Hyper-V is its performance: it doesn't do network virtualization very well, and it's difficult to push more than a gigabit per second through its vNICs. So Hyper-V won't work too well if you're trying to build out a software-defined network on generic x86_64 boxes.

[SecretCode]

Who else gets the feeling SteveRiley is trying to worm his way in and eat our KFN from the inside?!

Why, whatever gives you that idea?

[GreyGeek]

Why, whatever gives you that idea?

Apparently Tek_heretik edited out his comment about Steve. Wise move. Perhaps he didn't notice Steve's forum badges, which illustrates the fact that Steve donates his time, talents and money to KFN and Linux. IF he is "trying to worm his way in and eat our KFN from the inside", I can only hope that we find dozens more like him because we need that kind of "eating".

I'm also glad to see that Tek_heretik is supporting KFN at the "professional" level.

[SecretCode]

Um, maybe tek_heretik never made such a comment ... :eek:

[SteveRiley]

Who else gets the feeling SteveRiley is trying to worm his way in and eat our KFN from the inside?!

Why, whatever gives you that idea?

SecretCode, did you manufacture that quote from tek_heretik? I don't see it anywhere in the thread!

But to provide some background, to allay anyone's fears of me trying to usurp this place ... I worked at Microsoft from 1998 to 2009, spending most of my time in the Trustworthy Computing Group. I went to Amazon Web Services for a year and half, focusing on cloud security. Now I'm part of the CTO office at Riverbed Technology, directing most of my energies around cloud performance. After leaving Microsoft, I gradually migrated away from Windows, and now run Linux (various *buntu flavors, mostly Kubuntu) exclusively. I'm no shill for Redmond, but I'm also not uniformly criticial: not all of Microsoft is bad, you know.

[SteveRiley]

Um, maybe tek_heretik never made such a comment ... :eek:

Hah. The truth comes out!

[Qqmike]

Post #7 (today is the first day I've logged in for two days):
"Who else gets the feeling SteveRiley is trying to worm his way in and eat our KFN from the inside?!"

I'm sure there's some subtle joking-around going on here, some of which is over my head :-)
Although I once noticed Steve's MS affiliation/credentials, I quickly, long ago, released any suspicion; and furthermore, I feel SR is a true asset to KFN.

[SecretCode]

SteveRiley is indeed an asset to KFN, and a greatly valued one. The joke - which was never very good, but wasn't supposed to be that subtle and definitely not critical - is not on Steve but rather on the stereotypical Linux advocate who refuses to hear anything good about Microsoft, and sometimes seems to assume that anything good said about them must be part of a Linux-bashing campaign probably funded covertly by Microsoft stooges.

(Which probably does happen, because Microsoft are indeed an evil empire, even if some of their output is good.)

[SteveRiley]

Aw, thanks much... you guys are too cool.

Here's a little present for ya.

[GreyGeek]

That episode is the ONLY thing people are remembering about the Surface presentation, besides the look that was on Ballmer's face... warmed over death. I've never seen him look so grim.