Posted on 11/23/2005 4:35:13 AM PST by StoneGiant
Opinion: New Linux study suggests fundamental Microsoft credibility problems
Nov. 17, 2005
Another day, another lame attempt by Microsoft to show that Windows is better than Linux.
This time around, Microsoft commissioned a study to show that Windows does a better job of serving e-commerce applications than Linux.
Of course, in the study, they didn't use the same e-commerce or back-engine DBMSs.
OK, right there, without saying another word, anyone who really knows anything about benchmarking knows that the study is fundamentally flawed. You're not comparing apples to apples; you're comparing apples and oranges.
It would be a different story, if you were trying to compare the transaction speed and reliability of e-commerce packages, but that's not the case here. Microsoft was trying to prove that Windows was better than Linux.
To do this "study," Microsoft hired Security Innovations Inc.. Paul Thurrott, a Windows journalist, describes the company as "highly regarded."
I prefer to use Security Innovations's own description of its relationship with Microsoft: "Security Innovation is a certified Microsoft partner for security services. We have both the Microsoft SWI and ACE certifications as an authorized professional services provider for Microsoft technologies."
What kind of idiots does Microsoft think we are, anyway?
In the, cough, study, which compared Windows Server System and Novell Inc.'s SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES), they simulated both the aforementioned e-commerce applications and an upgrade from Windows 2000 to Server 2003, and SLES 8 to SLES 9, and a year's worth of running, from July 1, 2004 to June 30, 2005.
What did Micros... oh I mean Security Innovations, find out?
Well, first, that by Microsoft's own admission the sample size of administrators was too small to provide conclusive statistical comparisons!
Is this amazing, or what? In the executive summary, Microsoft admits that they don't have real data!
So what conclusions did they reach?
They found that with Linux you could solve problems in a variety of ways, instead of one true, Microsoft way. OK, that's true enough. But, this, this is a problem?
Sorry, Microsoft, I don't buy that paying your prices for your integrated innovation solutions is any kind of real business win.
Go call me a capitalist, but I prefer open-source's competitive product approach to Microsoft's "our way or the highway" communism.
The study also found that Windows was dramatically more reliable.
Really?!
That's not the Windows I know. Server 2003 is a lot better than W2K, but in my experience, and with the companies I know, SLES still stays up longer than Server 2003.
You know, I also recall a few potential Windows security show-stoppers over that year. There was the SMB (Server Message Block) over TCP/IP exploit, and a whole slew of holes in TCP/IP -- and those are only a few of the ones that Microsoft has fixed.
Despite that, the study also found that the patch rate on Linux wasn't quite five times higher than Windows. The testers found that SuSE had 187 while Windows only had 39.
Hey, they finally got one right!
Yes, Novell, like any serious Linux vendor, fixes all its problems as fast as possible. Microsoft doesn't. Even when a problem is a potential system killer, sometimes the boys from Redmond drag their feet.
Oh, and funny this, but the SuSE patches tend to work, unlike some Microsoft patches like two recent critical Internet Explorer patches, or the infamous Windows 2000 patch that blew up ASP (Active Server Pages) pages that were running ISS (Internet Information Services).
Microsoft also claimed that Linux patches took twice as long to apply and broke applications.
What nonsense!
In my office lab, I run a W2K server, two Server 2003 servers, and a pair of SLES servers. As it happens I also, during this last year, updated a W2K server to Server 2003 and one of the SLES servers from 8 to 9.
On those systems, I've also installed a variety of server applications including SQL Server and MySQL.
You know what? First, the Linux patches always, always installed faster. And the only breakage I ever saw from either the Windows or the Linux systems was when I was working on W2K.
Do you know why I support Linux over Windows? Because I don't just write about operating systems. I actually use them, and Linux works better than Windows does.
Lest you think I'm only saying that because I know Linux better than Server 2003, think again.
I literally wrote several hundred pages on Server 2003 in an online reference guide to the operating system. You can see the most recent edition of that over at InformIT.
No, I know Linux. I know W2K and Server 2003. And the people who wrote this "independent" study of both certainly didn't know Linux well -- and I have my doubts about the Windows side, too.
--Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
You're welcome to try to disprove anything I said, but you'd be better off trying to finally mount some sort of defense of your original claims. So far, you've accomplished neither, LMAO.
BTW watch those split infinitives it should be 'to mount finally'..
Talk about spelling mistakes, doesn't even make sense. Bottom line Red Hat and IBM are giving their work away for free to China, and ChinaThreat needed to know that. I informed him and you wanted to claim Red Hat doesn't significantly contribute to Linux which is bunk, they have hundreds of programmers working on it including more contributions to the kernel than anyone. The rest is you just wasting everyone's time and this site's bandwidth with your whines that you've been exposed, again, like on most every thread.
If you think you could ever grow up past your lunix stooge phase, you'd answer up on the question of how these 1K "red hat" guys should be allowed to threaten the hundreds of thousands of Windows and Unix jobs out there.
We all know you love your free software, and use it for everything, mindlessly glamorizing it constantly. But if everyone else did the same, and no one used anything but freeware we just shot around the world to every other dictator constantly, how in the heck is that good for US software supremacy? Obviously, it isn't, it's actually the best way to attack our supremacy, to standardize us and the world on the exact same thing.
See if you can muster up an answer for that one.
While no one knows for sure how many of their hundreds of programmers work specifically on the kernel,
Funny a few post back you were pretty quick to say there were 'several hundred' kernel developers... now you don't know... Where I come from thats called lying son..
No, it was wrong, as was your punctuation in your rebuttal.
Why would China pay the US for a software project started by a Finnish programmer?
Don't 'son' me punk, or call me a liar. Red Hat has hundreds of programmers, including the top Linux ones that are giving free software advancements to China and other potential threats around the world. You can ignore the fact you are wrong on this point or whine about the way you were exposed trying to cover it up, but they do, and you are, once again and as usual, wrong in defending it.
Why would anyone in the US use a Finnish clone of US products instead of the real thing?
BTW, Sun Solaris has just been named the standard 64-bit environment for Oracle. Expect others to follow that lead.
Proof?
Several somebodies. The early Seagate drives were notorious for stiction.
In many cases the problem would be aggravated by a marginal power supply. Adding a 47uf to the 5 volt lead usually helped the problem machine.
You said several hundred kernel developers, than you said 'nobody knows'...So you did not know when you made the statement... What would you call it a 'Kerry Fact'?
I said nobody knows the exact number. But they have contributed more to the kernel than anyone, even though you attempted to claim they didn't contribute to the kernel design at all. So go ahead and give us the number, if you think you know it, since it will only prove you are wrong anyway.
GE (A time Later): "nodoby knows the exact number
So you dont know how many they have (and have yet to post anything indicating you do) and somehow youre being truthful... Glass house + stone = GE on this thread..
"What to display your iBook screen on a projector? You have to have an Apple adapter"
Big deal 29 bucks or so. If you are too cheap for that then...
What US product are you talking about?
Whaaa? Nuts. My performance is fine (so is my computer's). I have no problem with reliability.
Any version of Unix, including the new Apple. There will soon be several on x86.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=2175
At a past computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated "If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25.00 cars that get 1,000 miles to the gallon."
In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release stating: If General Motors had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:
For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.
Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.
Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull over to the side of the road, close all of the car windows, shut it off, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this.
Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.
Only one person at a time could use the car unless you bought CarPro, but then you would have to buy more seats.
Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive, but would only run on 85 percent of the roads.
The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single "General Protection Fault” warning light.
New seats would force everyone to have the same sized butt.
The airbag system would ask, "are you SURE?" before deploying.
Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.
GM would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of Rand McNally Road maps (now a GM subsidiary), even though they neither need nor want them. Attempting to delete this option would immediately cause the car’s performance to diminish by 50% or more. Moreover, GM would become a target for investigation by the Justice Dept.
Every time GM introduced a new car, car buyers would have to learn to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car. The new model would not run on the old roads
You'd have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.