Microsoft: Open source 'not reliable or dependable'

A senior Microsoft executive told a BBC documentary that people should use commercial software if they're looking for stability.

"I don't think (open source) is anti-Microsoft in the sense that it's giving people choices in the technologies that they use," Jonathan Murray, the vice president and chief technology officer of Microsoft Europe, told BBC World in the first part of the documentary "The Code Breakers," which aired this week.

Jonathan Murray

"Some people want to use community-based software, and they get value out of sharing with other people in the community. Other people want the reliability and the dependability that comes from a commercial software model. And again, at the end of the day, you make the choice based on what has the highest value to you," Murray continued.

It isn't clear from Murray's statement which category he believes commercial open-source companies such as Red Hat and MySQL fit into.

Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of the One Laptop Per Child project, was also interviewed in the documentary, and he disagreed with Microsoft's claim that open source is inferior.

"We've chosen free and open software because it's better, and because it means the children can participate in making the software better over time," Negroponte said.

Kenneth Cukier, a technology correspondent for The Economist, weighed in halfway between the two by claiming that open source offers similar functionality to proprietary software.

"One can consider open-source software a lot like generic drugs. The analogy fits," Cukier said in the documentary. "Open-source software...is essentially the same product--it does the same thing on a computer--but it costs less," Cukier told BBC World.

The documentary also included footage of Richard Stallman, the founder of the Free Software Foundation, giving a speech, and interviews with people working on open-source projects in developing countries, such as the SchoolNet Namibia project and the Digital Doorway project in South Africa.

Part 2 of "The Code Breakers" is due to be screened next week on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. Program times can be found on the BBC World Web site.

Currently, the documentary is only available on BBC World, which isn't broadcast in the United Kingdom.

Ingrid Marson of ZDNet UK reported from London.

[groyal]

What planet is this guy on ?!!

Two words, Apache Foundation.

[dagwud]

Four Words

Blue Screen Of Death.

The commercial model does not guarantee dependability and reliability. Mr. Murray's been drinking the kool-aid.

[G.Nuisance]

Yeah, RIGHT!

5 Letters.. MySQL

3 more.. PHP

5 More Linux

Hmm..

All of these blow MS out of the water, ASP Stinks, MS's, SQL DB Stinks, Its all super expensive and has to have hardware out the wazoo..

I believe what this dude is trying to say is there's no money in it, At least not enough to satisfy them.

[katamari]

The Apache "Foundation"

The "foundation" (note the quotes) amounts to pretty much nothing more than this these days:

@resolv WORKSFORME

Ken Coar is excluded from this generality, because he's responsible, respectable, and does things the Right Way(tm). This is more than I can say for some developers like this one: http://www.arctic.org/~dean/legal

I'm presently in the process of trying to debug Apache (literally as I write this). What? You want a coredump from SIGFPE like your kernel and libc enables by default? SORRY YOU CAN'T HAVE IT.

Apache is quickly being superceded by things like thttpd, lighttpd, and fhttpd. Oh, and let's not forget Zeus (a commercial solution that's incredible).

[aabcdefghij987654321]

Headline is a lie

The headline of this story is not supported by the quote. Whoever put that headline up there should be ashamed.

[freemarket--2008]

Really?

"Other people want the reliability and the dependability that comes from a commercial software model."

Obviously he (Microsoft VP) is implying that non-commercial software is NOT reliable and dependable.

For once, the headline is more or less accurate, though hardly news-worthy.

[Philips]

True

This guy is right. Anyone of the FLOSS developers and users can assure you: open source is not reliable nor dependable.

Better term would be "addictive" ;-)

M$Wind0ze might have larger applications pool available. But I still find it hard justifying $200/$100/$50/$35 spent on license, since I still need to spend another $200-$400 on software which is missing from the M$ Windows.

Free (as in "free beer") Debian of Gentoo or FreeBSD look all not that bad when real cost of M$ Windows is put forward.

I find it very frustrating when people who have paid $200 for OS still have to spend another $400 to make their computer secure and useable for everyday routine use. And I'm not counting the costs of M$ Office. OEMs may sweeten the deal - but it is still too expensive for what it does. Even Mac OS X - with functionality on par - is cheaper. And Apple's OEM deal is better than any Wintel PC OEM deal you could possibly get.

Once one had become part of FLOSS community - as user or developer - it's the addiction one can hardly cure with MS Windows.

[umbrae]

Windows is Stable?

You have got to be kidding me. I have to reboot my windows machine every day to keep it running reliably. My Linux boxes have each run for well over 3 years without a crash or a restart.

Guess you can say anything if you never actaully "used" the competition.

[theosux]

Hi Pot

I suggest you get some help in configuring your Windows environment, because the days of having to reboot your machine ended with Windows 98 disappearing.

Everyone I know that runs either 2000/XP/2003 has their workstations, personal computers, servers, etc. running for as long as they like, the only necessary reboots are for system maintenance and/or update installations.

Please stop with the FUD about "windows is unstable", its getting old. If you decide to install a ton of crapware to make your system unstable, then there's really nothing that Bill & Co. can do to stop you.

[rcrusoe]

YES, Window is stable - and secure

But not unless you click Start, then Shutdown. :)

[richto]

Hardly a surprise, Windows has been outperforming Linux for years

Windows server outperforms Linux is pretty much every way. Just look at pretty much any bench marks.

And people running Linux in internet facing environments are very brave. Linux is far more likely to get hacked than Windows server - just look at defacement / hacking stats and the report on the subject by mi2g.

I guess that is because there are so many many more security vulnerabilities in Linux than Windows server and that it takes longer on average to get them fixed.

[steven.randolph]

What a Laugh

If open source products are not reliable or dependable, then why is Apache still a leader in Web servers -- including a large number of commercial Web sites -- after years of Microsoft bashing anything that comes from open source roots? For that matter, why is there still a Linux in existence, which again is in very wide use on servers, again including many commercial servers, after all those years of Microsoft negative PR against it?

I am really not anti Microsoft per se, but I think it is just ludicrous that they should be making such comments, particularly after Microsoft has had so many reliability problems vis-a-vis security issues with its own line of products. What is that old saying about throwing stones when you live in a glass house? Microsoft should remeber that.

[jackharvest]

That title MADE me come here.

I can't believe it. Microsoft has finally come out and said, "we are reliable". Hahaha - laughter is a cure for anything, but not matter how hard I laugh, it isn't going to cure Microsoft from their unreliability. " Microsoft: Open source 'not reliable or dependable'" - that's a good one too. *looks at top of screen* Yup, Firefox. Using firefox makes it so I recieve less viruses for obvious reasons - which makes my computer more reliable.

Doesn't that make IE less reliable if it has holes that could let spyware sneak in, which in turn makes my computer less reliable?

[rmiecznik]

BIAS Opinion

And that's because the guy works for MS and is paid a lot of money, so of course he will say that, stock brokers do the same thing.

[rmiecznik]

hahahaha

hahahahahaha

that's all I got to say to that one and lay off
those brownies.

[cyber_rigger]

Microsoft depends on Linux

In my opinion Microsoft is being a hypocrite.

These show to be Linux.

http://searchdns.netcraft.com/?host=.microsoft.com &position=limited&lookup=Wait. .


...and these too

video.msn.com
uk.search.msn.com
uk.my.msn.com
toolbar.msn.com
techpreview.search.msn.com
sports.msn.com
site.search.msn.com
search.se.msn.com
search.msn.com
related.msn.com
partners.search.msn.com
msnvideo.msn.com
msnbcmedia.msn.com
media.msnbc.msn.com
lords.msn.com
jp.search.msn.com
ie.search.msn.com
fr.ca.search.msn.com
entimg.msn.com
doonesbury.msn.com
de.search.msn.com
clip.search.msn.com
ca.search.msn.com
beta.entimg.msn.com
auto.search.msn.com


Part of Microsoft's internal network is Linux.

http://tinyurl.com/9a7uh

[JoeF2]

That's just Akamai

Akamai provides front-end service to MS. And Akamai's servers are running Linux, of course.

[qwerty75]

There gateway is linux also.

MS server products can't take the beating of a busy server system. When you first go to any MS site, you go through a linux machine.

[herkamur]

This article made my day

AHAHAHAH

I needed a good laugh today. Thanks c|net. That was a hoot!

[Tanjore]

Microsoft should stop this nonsense

Open source has been found to be reliable as well as dependable. I don't know what makes microsoft think that they are reliable or even dependable!!!

Microsoft executives should work on windows innovations than making this kind of silly statements.

[katamari]

Partial agreement, partial disagreement.

I agree with the following:

* "People should use commercial software if they're looking for stability".

[This is a generalisation (as there are many free things which are stable), but fact is, commercial software helps establish one important thing: responsibility of ownership. The lack-of such is the biggest caveat to open source]

* "I don't think (open source) is anti-Microsoft in the sense that it's giving people choices in the technologies that they use ..."

I agree with this statement as well.

Now for the disagreements / comments:

* I have to assume that Murray, when referring to "commercial software", means Microsoft software. Sorry Murray, but Windows -- as a workstation -- is quite possibly the worst thing for the world right now.

I'll give you an example as to why I disagree here:

There is a long-standing bug in GDI+ when "East Asian Languages" are enabled in the Regional/Languge options. The bug is minor in the sense that it does not cause crashes or induce instability, but it is major because it results in borders of windows being left scattered all over other windows or the desktop whenever you move or resize a window. To me, this is major, because 2D/GDI+ should have been stabilised back in 1995.

The bug itself is probably (speculation) an off-by-one error, where Microsoft isn't refreshing/clearing the window border correctly (i.e. 3 pixels wide results in them only clearing 2 -- but randomly).

Now the question: how is this bug GDI+'s fault? Simple: because Microsoft added hackish code into GDI+ when double-byte characters (and font gylphs) are used. This is necessary code, but they *stuck it in the GDI library* rather than elsewhere.

Has Microsoft acknowledged this bug? No. Has it been reported? A couple times on Usenet, where it has gone ignored by Microsoft support every time. End-users end up blame video drivers for the problem, but it's actually a bug in GDI+.

With that said, how do **I** go about solving this bug? I can't. I do not have the choice of using reliable, OS and UI-level debugging tools. I would be forced to write Win32 code, and "inject" a hook/handler in front of GDI calls, just to monitor what's going on.

I don't have the source to the GDI library. I don't have the source -- or even any idea -- what that mysteriously ambiguous "East Asian Languages" checkbox does (and it DOES NOT just install IME + fonts! It does some magical DLL and registry garbage behind the scenes).

Therefore, as an ultimatum, my hands are tied. I have NO CHOICES available to me in this situation. I cannot go looking through the source, I cannot help the authors/developers test solutions, I cannot submit a patch, and I *can't even work around the problem by picking an alternative UI engine*.

Oh, and I have one final comment for Murray directly:

If you think Microsoft software is reliable, I'd like you to go look up the following switch/flag you can pass to IIS:

/REBOOTONERROR

That pretty much sums up Microsoft stability for you right there.

Have a nice day.

[rmiecznik]

Responsibility

Quote

[This is a generalisation (as there are many free things which are stable), but fact is, commercial software helps establish one important thing: responsibility of ownership. The lack-of such is the biggest caveat to open source]

Not so true. When the not so recent Viruses came about, and people lost all their work and had to re-install, MS didn't take up responsibility at all.

When the First X Box power supply started to catch on fire and short-circuit, MS didn't take responsibility, instead they sent everyone a new power cable, which basically just tripped the circuit when your power supply short circuited, so that your house didn't catch on fire, but what they should have done, was replaced the power supply.

This means crap to me. At least the Open source community can see all the CODE and critizie it inside out and I can't never see any code from private companies.

Private companies I am all fine with, but this is totaly crap to say they are responsible.

Dependable?

Yes, Microsoft is the epitome of dependability [snicker]. Not only in software performance, but you can depend on them releasing their new products on time, like Vista! What a joke.

[shanehughes]

Need MORE Open Source

Microsoft dishes out their proprietary formats such as the
inferior WMP formats, and passes them off as standard. There
are far superior open standards such as the H.264 MPEG-4
format, which practically solves all high-bandwidth video
problems. Even more disturbing is that the uninformed masses
assume that if it's from Microsoft, then it's a standard they
should use. If we want to see the future, then we need to bypass
Microsoft.

[unixroot]

Not reliable or dependable?

This is a bit like President Bush accusing Alcatraz of having insecure borders...

[ppgreat]

Methinks...

...he doth protest too much. This is such an old argument and
continues to demonstrate no matter how much spin MS puts on
topics and how much Ray Ozzie wants to talk about the Net
initiatives that MS just does not get it! Even Apple, with its own
proprietary OS, allows for more openness than the Redmond
dinosaur.

[rcsteiner]

Apache? Firefox? FreeBSD?

How about the BSD network stack that Microsoft used in its own products for a while?

Some open source is reliable, some it not, just like any other software. One simple needs to perform responsible research in order to determine which products or projects are worth using.

[Heebee Jeebies]

I am not going to...

Bash Microsoft. There are too many idiots that post to these things that do that. They apparently need a day job. The same for all of the Pro-Apple people.

I think Microsoft is wrong. I think open source is pretty good. I don't think it matches the quality of commercial software. It is somewhat close, but I find most open source programs lacking some important features.

However, what I do see and the big weak point of open source is that they have so many people in the program pie that it takes far too long for updates. Open source software should need a year or more for a major upgrade. In fact without all of the marketing bull that companies like Adobe, Microsoft, etc. has to deal with Open source should manage at least a half major release a year some thing like 1.5, 2.5, etc. This is at the very least. But, they don't and can't because they have too many people doing too many things and can't get them organized well. Shame, if they could I think open source could be as good or better than commerical products of the same type.

I do wish them luck and I say to Microsoft "Stop stretching the truth, intelligent people don't by it."

Robert

[Jeff Putz]

Junior can hack the kernel?

Here's the thing about open source fans that doesn't align well with reality... They always take the position that you can make it better, as if everyone is qualified to do that. Don't like the way Linux or Open Office works? Make it better. I write software for a living, and I hate having to mess with other people's code and try to understand how it works.

Yeah, I develop on Microsoft's platform, but I'm not an open source hater. In the Web area of .NET, they've released pieces of the framework itself and there are a ton of open source projects out there. I write and give away a forum app too. But the reality is that this is stuff ideally suited to code monkeys and geeks. It's not stuff the general public is well suited to use.

That doesn't make open source better or worse... it's just the way it is. If people would put aside the religion for a moment they'd see that.