I am reading this at the moment.

1)I find it amusing that they say that there is limited device driver support, this is complete BOLLOCKS, I have yet to find decent hardware which isn't supported. What they have neglected to mention is that the stuff which isn't supported is mostly crap!

2)And how much does it cost to employ a MSCE certified tech to run the NT servers which need more care than a *nix box?

3)Numerous install options, yes this is true, each one to meat a certain need, this said there are a core few (debian , dead rat, suse etc..) which are pretty consitant. But how many options are there with Win 2k? At least you don't need to by more software to get the extra few users you want!

4)Lack of availble software, on this one they are right, there is limited stuff for an epos system to use. But for office/desktop and server applications there are loads of pkgs avaible for free!

5)Agreed, with FUD like this what else can we expect.

6)Lack of formal development schedule as apposed to one which is shakey and almost always delayed. Atleast when linux is delayed you can still run the development version if you wish

7)Now this has to be a joke, how many reports have there been in the last month of attacks against IIS? But the best quote is ""Open source" means that anyone can get a copy of the source code. Developers can find security weaknesses very easily with Linux. The same is not true with Microsoft Windows." No you can't gothrough the windows code and spot the bugs thuis they get expploited for months before they are fixed!

8)Increased labour costs? now this one could be fair, but I don't see it as much of a problem, but spending money on lots of licenses for each user will cost more!

9)LIMITED DEVELOPER TOOLS! what bollocks, I have on my machine some of the best tools on the planet with much nicer Ui and better EOU, GCC with Vi and GDB is everything I need and more with out spending a penny. Atleast I don't need to spend out on a new compiler every so often!

10)the jury is still out on this one.

Ok so thats my oppinion on this one, what do others feel?

As for the subject, Microsoft are right on a couple of small points, but it all comes down to how you massage the facts. Anything is provable given enough imagination.

Thanks

D

--- Adam Bower abower@thebowery.co.uk wrote:

Apologies if you have already seen this, but I had to post this link. This could be the document with the worst use of grammer (not that mine is great but then hey I'm not an advertising exec) and the greatest FUD (Fear Uncertainty Doubt) from Microsoft ever.

Its interesting that M$ now appear to be getting very worried about Linux, where a few years ago they only called it a niche market that would never be serious competitor.

http://www.microsoft.com/business/downloads/retail/linux_in_retail_and_hospi...

oh yeah if you run strings against the doc you see these classic lines at the bottom :-)

Our latest anti-linux paper.. timbel@microsoft.com Tim Belvin Microsoft Word Document MSWordDoc Word.Document.8

Adam

This message is Copyleft - all rights reversed Adam

__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/

Adam Bower posted a link to document from Microsoft (in MS word format of course), aimed at the Retail and Hospitality Market.

Well, the first thing that struck me about this article was the title - "Linux in Retail & Hospitality - What Every Retailer Should Know".

What does a retailer or a purveyor of hospitality need to know about operating systems? What a retailer wants is a fast and reliable POS system for modest cost, something that doesn't cost them in lost business because it breaks down.

In order to provide such a system, those people who specialise in providing POS system are likely to choose hardware and software that they think is up to the job.

So why does Microsoft write a document about operating systems to target the end user? For the same reason that Intel advertise the Pentium Processor on the TV - because they want to convince the end users who don't have the technical understanding to specifically ask for the advertised product when that decision is better left with someone who understands the technology.

So, lets now move on to the specific points raised by Microsoft.

1. Limited Device Driver Support.

Linux does have support for a great deal of commodity hardware, most of which is pretty general, common stuff. Whether the kind of devices used in POS situations are supported at the moment I do not know. So, if drivers are missing then someone will have to develop them. I would bet that if a major manufacturer of POS systems was interested in using Linux then they, or the device manufacturer would write the necessary drivers.

2. Support and Maintenance is not Free.

Some support is free (as in free beer) and some is not. That, and flexibility of a support organisation is more about that organisation than about the software they are supporting, though the available of source code for Linux will inevitably make certain types of support cheaper to provide.

3. Numerous Installation Versions.

It is true that there are many distributions, but as someone has pointed out there are but a handful of mainstream ones. It may also be the case that there is no guarantee that software written for one distribution working on another, but there is a very good chance it will provided all the relevant modules have been installed.

Yes, there is more than one GUI toolkit, as it GNOME/KDE, and though applications written for one toolkit are hard to port to the other, each environment can run applications written for the other one by installing the necessary libraries.

4. Lack of available software.

A lot depends on what software you are looking for. I assume that when Microsoft pick lack of database support they mean that MS SQL Server doesn't run on it. Of course they wouldn't mention that Oracle - one of the really big databases runs on Linux (and on 64 Processor Sun Enterprise kit with several Gb of memory).

5. Untested Waters.

Yes, those who use POS systems will pay for the cost of developing them. This is surely true whatever the OS is behind it. The alternative is that other non-POS users subsidise that development (are they saying this is true of windows?).

6. Lack Of Formal Development Schedule, Research, and Standards

Linux gets released when it is ready. Publishing a delivery date and the missing it as Microsoft have done, would not help matters at all.

Linus has no accountability to the retail industry. This is obviously true but Microsoft don't claim to be accountable to the retail industry either, only that they listen to them.

7. Less Secure.

I would want to measure security by the number and ease of break-ins rather than by speculating based on source code availability, but here are some thoughts:

If there are weaknesses in the code then yes, they are there for everyone to see. Lowlifes may exploit them but these are likely to be outnumbered by the honest folk would would probably respond by writing a patch to fix the weakness, or at least telling someone who can and the weakness would be closed before a company like Microsoft would have got round to admitting it was there.

Also, as Windows is the more common platform it is the one at which most of the security breaches are likely to be aimed.

8. Increased Labour Costs

Usability is likely to be much more influenced by application design than by the exact details of the GUI toolkit. Linux GUIs are not that different from Windows anyway.

9. Lack of Developer Tools.

I haven't used Visual Studio recently. There may be more tools available for Windows but there are some excellent tools for Linux. Perhaps someone else could comment on the relative merits.

10. Business Agility in Future.

Microsoft are probably right that they are a stable corporation and will be around for some time to come. So is Linux likely to be around for some time to come. As the code for Linux is all available, the Linux community can cope well with a turnover of people and no-one is truly irreplaceable.

One should also consider that if a POS system manufacturer wanted to deviate from mainstream Linux this would be possible.

Any thoughts on the above? Steve.