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Ask HN: what does Microsoft sell that you can't get for free?

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Re: Ask HN: what does Microsoft sell that you can't get for free?

#101

Post by xiongchiamiov »

trezor wrote: post #42
byoung2 wrote: post #3

I'd be worried if I was Microsoft. I'd be worried too: Windows Mobile - Android IIS - Apache .NET - PHP, Java, Python, Ruby, etc SQL Server - MySQL, PostgreSQL, etc

While Windows Mobile is in a sorry state, I'm not really too convinced by the rest of your list. IIS is believe it or not a very good webserver, fewer exploits than Apache and just as extensible. And you can extend it with .NET-code. No need for that icky C to do that. .NET is a very good development platform with lots of stuff happening. PHP? Really? Of all things horrible, you mentioned PHP? Microsoft at least had…

> Python and Ruby? You mean those languages which also runs on .NET?

Aside from the fact that IronPython, at least, is a second-class citizen (I don't know much about the state of IronRuby), the OP was asking why one would choose Microsoft rather than some open-source solution. Stating that Windows also runs popular scripting languages is not an argument against that. What you should be addressing is whether or not PHP/Java/Ruby/Python can replace the oft-used .NET languages, as well as whether Mono is a suitable replacement for the CLR.

Re: Ask HN: what does Microsoft sell that you can't get for free?

#102

Post by xiongchiamiov »

usaar333 wrote: post #61
pacak wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Never used both of them, can't say here 2) Actually you can play most of them, at least those without copy protection. http://winehq.com 3) That's because Dell made drivers for win and didn't for linux. They can't hire one full day linux programmer? Maybe they do not want my money? 4) Works for me.

2) Wow, I had no idea so many were gold rated. Now if only they could get office working, I'd never have to use windows again on my desktop. :) 3) Are there any laptops with such features that work very well with Linux? 4) What distro to you use? Both of my computers have issues where the full screen window appears behind the browser (and switching back to windowed mode fails) - I'm on kubuntu 10.04.

You'd be surprised sometimes at how poorly apps rated Gold or Silver actually run.

Re: Ask HN: what does Microsoft sell that you can't get for free?

#103

Post by trustfundbaby »

trezor wrote: post #42
byoung2 wrote: post #3

I'd be worried if I was Microsoft. I'd be worried too: Windows Mobile - Android IIS - Apache .NET - PHP, Java, Python, Ruby, etc SQL Server - MySQL, PostgreSQL, etc

While Windows Mobile is in a sorry state, I'm not really too convinced by the rest of your list. IIS is believe it or not a very good webserver, fewer exploits than Apache and just as extensible. And you can extend it with .NET-code. No need for that icky C to do that. .NET is a very good development platform with lots of stuff happening. PHP? Really? Of all things horrible, you mentioned PHP? Microsoft at least had…

> IIS is believe it or not a very good webserver, fewer exploits than Apache and just as extensible. And you can extend it with .NET-code. No need for that icky C to do that.

Which is why its the most popular web server on the interwebs right? Oh wait .. http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2010/08/11/august-2010-web... What about the fact that you need to pay a pretty penny for the operating system you want to run IIS on?

IIS can also not run Django or Ruby On Rails (2 major programming frameworks) reliably last I checked, While Apache can handle pretty much anything and even .NET using mono. Simply put IIS isn't at the forefront of any innovation when it comes to web development, which is pretty much the hot thing right now.

> .NET is a very good development platform with lots of stuff happening.

I guess that's why they came out with ASP.NET MVC which unabashedly copies Ruby on Rails/Django right? PHP is maturing and while people might cast aspersions on it, It go out on a limb and say its still a vastly more popular web programming language than anything we've seen from Microsoft. Throw in a couple of really good development frameworks like CakePHP, CodeIgniter, Zend etc, and I'm not sure who should be laughing at who here (Visual Basic .NET anyone?).

> You mean those languages which also runs on .NET

Did you hear about the IronRuby debacle? http://blog.jimmy.schementi.com/2010/08/start-spreading-news... And how many serious Python/Ruby programmers run .NET to program in their favorite languages.

> plus it has tooling support which makes using PostgreSQL seem like the dark ages.

This has been addressed ... but just take a look at the MS SQL server price list http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/pricing.aspx, and tell me if 'tooling support' is worth that much. To most startups and developers out there, the answer is no.

> Microsoft does really have a lot of good stuff on the table.

Sure. but thats not the point. The point is that, there are several strong alternatives to Microsoft products everywhere you look, and as time goes along, Microsoft stuff will become more and more marginalized.

Like the creator of Rails says here, http://bigthink.com/ideas/21601 I can go through my day without really thinking about Microsoft now, just a few years ago that was simply not the case (IE, Hotmail, Windows, .NET).

Re: Ask HN: what does Microsoft sell that you can't get for free?

#104

Post by huntero »

patio11 wrote: post #12

A desktop OS my mother can use. Sorry Ubuntu. You've sudo apt-got my-heart but, well, reality isn't coextensive with our aspirations.

I couldn't agree more. I recently started using Fedora and often had to dive into the depths of Linux to get simple things done/working.

This is going to be unpopular, but the majority of open-source software is not near the polish needed for the non-tech public to use.

Re: Ask HN: what does Microsoft sell that you can't get for free?

#106

Post by coned88 »

koeselitz wrote: post #97
lelele wrote: post #74

Have you been blown away by Ubuntu? Wait until its next release and watch your hardware and/or software stop working. If I was Microsoft, I wouldn't be worried that much. GNU/Linux is not a business, thus MS products will keep having a grip on gray suites for a long time. Microsoft has the resources to look after its OS. Startups thrive on free-software, but once the pointy haired bosses outnumber the hackers in them…

Microsoft doesn't have very many resources compared to what Linux (and even Ubuntu) does. There are more people who use Linux than any other operating system in the world, and more developers working on it than on any other software project in the world. It gets more eyes and sees more development. If there's anything for Microsoft to be worried about, it's that: you can't buy that level of active development. The wo…

what are you talking about? On a global scale foss operating systems all sit sub 5% of population usage combined. No way are there more people who use Linux than windows, its not even close.

Re: Ask HN: what does Microsoft sell that you can't get for free?

#108

Post by sandGorgon »

koeselitz wrote: post #95
sandGorgon wrote: post #55

OpenOffice does not even come close to MS Office .. especially for the Excel part. The problem is not that XLS(X) is a better or worse format than OOXML. The problem is that it is defacto - so if I want to be able to communicate with the rest of the business world, I need compatibility. Softmaker comes close, but not good enough. Plus now that OpenOffice's future is tenuous (oracle?), I would rather buy Office or Sof…

Tiny, pretty unimportant clarification: Microsoft xlsx/docx/etcx files are OOXML. When Microsoft decided to emulate OpenOffice and create a XML-based doc format, they called it "Office Open XML" - or OOXML for short. OpenOffice, on the other hand, uses the XML-based Open Document Format (ODF) for its files by default. Confusing, yes, but there you are.

Thanks. My bad - I frequently get confused by that.

Re: Ask HN: what does Microsoft sell that you can't get for free?

#109

Post by GeneralMaximus »

kenjackson wrote: post #36

Can Open Office and/or Google Apps access OLAP datastores as well as Excel can SSAS? Do either versions of their word processor have programmability layers so we can develop workflows directly in our office documents? Across all departments we have probably close to a million lines of VBA, COM, and VSTO code that we use most in Word and Excel. And a little for Outlook. And I just recently, like last week, seen some i…

> Can Open Office and/or Google Apps access OLAP datastores as well as Excel can SSAS? Do either versions of their word processor have programmability layers so we can develop workflows directly in our office documents?

Could you expand on this? What kind of "workflows" are you building? I can understand programming Excel, but how do you program Word and what do you use it for?

Re: Ask HN: what does Microsoft sell that you can't get for free?

#110

Post by NumberFiveAlive »

SecurityMatters wrote: post #67
kenjackson wrote: post #36

Can Open Office and/or Google Apps access OLAP datastores as well as Excel can SSAS? Do either versions of their word processor have programmability layers so we can develop workflows directly in our office documents? Across all departments we have probably close to a million lines of VBA, COM, and VSTO code that we use most in Word and Excel. And a little for Outlook. And I just recently, like last week, seen some i…

I don't know about accessing OLAP databases, but it seems like a bad idea, anyway. The programmability of OpenOffice is quite powerful and workflows can and are automated with it. Visual Studio is not bad for people with little understanding of development. Unfortunately, CS schools turn out many people like that these days. I don't know why people want tools that get in the way and slow you down as much as Visual St…

I also don't get the built in unreliability comment, either. Windows has been pretty darn stable since they went to the NT kernel. Really, all three main desktop OSs are pretty stable these days. I get a BSOD on Windows 7 maybe once every six months or so, and that's with ~8 hours a day in front of a windows box at work. I'd rate my OSX home box just slightly less stable than that, but when you're talking about such infrequent crashes, who really cares? These aren't the halcyon days of Windows 95/OS 7 with half a dozen lockups a day.
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