[ale] pigs do fly

[Michael B. Trausch]

On Tue, 21 Jul 2009, Richard Bronosky wrote:

> On Mon, Jul 20, 2009 at 10:59 PM, Michael B. Trausch
> <mbt at zest.trausch.us> wrote:
>> That said, the code is GPL, and it can be openly audited.  As with
>> anything, it should be looked at on its own merit, not the author's
>> merit.   It does not matter if a contributor is well-known or
>> well-liked, when it comes to favorably-license code; it only
>> matters whether or not the code stands up on its own merits.
>
> I completely disagree. I would never hire the roofing contractor who
> mistreated my in-laws this year. I will never again by tires from
> the guy who told me all sales are final when I discovered my tires
> were out of round. I could give more examples but I think my point
> is clear.

Certainly, it is.  I don't quite see what relevance it has, though;
you're not going to be using this code if you aren't already using
Windows on the server.  To make it real short, what this does is:

  * Potentially increases the prevalence of heterogeneous environments
    where they are presently only homogeneous,

  * Increases the efficiency of companies already running in these
    heterogeneous environments (Linux already ran on Microsoft's
    hypervisor; yesterday's code drop merely made it run better),

  * and shows some very interesting things about what Microsoft is
    thinking, by way of their actions.

So, what this code drop does is effectively *promote* choice, not
hinder it.  It clears a path for people to now suggest running
services that run on Linux by way of Microsoft's virtualization
technology, helps people like me get small businesses' feet wet with
Linux-based solutions, so to speak.  From there, where can you go?
Stay, or make a full migration, quite likely.

Further, now that Microsoft has dropped this code, other operating
systems that they did not directly write the code for can benefit;
other GPL'd systems (Hurd, ReactOS), or BSD or CDDL-licensed systems
with a clean-room reimplementation (Free/Net/OpenBSD, Darwin,
OpenSolaris) are such examples.

It certainly carries with it the strong possibility that as people run
Linux services under Hyper-V, they'll start to find that maybe being a
homogenous shop wouldn't be a bad idea and migrate completely to Linux
servers.  Certainly, it provides a way to get Linux's foot in the door
in places where it otherwise might never be.

Now, I won't be using the code; I run exactly zero Windows machines on
hardware.  (I have an XP install in a VM, stored in LVM, that I boot
once a year, for TurboTax.)  I don't run it or any of Microsoft's
other software because there is not a single Microsoft application or
system that I can think of that is worth (to me) the time and money
involved in acquisition, learning, support, or dealing with the fact
that their systems are black boxes.  I also don't run any of the code
that is presently in the kernel for Xen- or KVM-specific virtual
device support, which is analgous to what this code drop is from
Microsoft.

> What is different is that only one company has wrong me and those I
> care about in such a way that it is clear that they want to destroy
> everything I hold dear. The goals of Microsoft are in direct
> opposition to the goals of Open Source.

The goal of Microsoft is to ensure that the shareholders receive a
return on their investment in the company.  Whether or not that aligns
with the goals of free software depends on many factors (most of MS'
products are open source if you have enough money).

The simple fact is that Microsoft is not in a position to---and can
not be in the position to---destroy the things which we hold dear in
free software.  They are, however slowly, beginning to realize that
free software, generically, and Linux, specifically, aren't going away
any time soon.  While it would have been laughable to say that
Microsoft would ever produce or release truly free software in 1995,
that statement isn't so laughable today; there are many projects on
CodePlex that are free software and heavily contributed to by
Microsoft.  There are are other open source but not free software
licenses that Microsoft uses as well, such as the license which is
part of the Singularity project (which, while very fascinating to me,
is not something I'll even look at due to the licensing terms; the
paper on it was a good read, though).

> This whole thing calls to mind:
>
> "Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do
> righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can
> light have with darkness?"
> http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=54&chapter=6&verse=14&version=31&context=verse

A useful thought, though it does not apply here, really.

> (now I must digress momentarily, but I think you will be glad if you
> continue reading) Taken out of context, that has been used to mean
> "don't have friendships or be accepting of people who don't share
> your beliefs."  That is not what is said there at all. It says "do
> not be yoked". A yoke http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/yoke#Noun is the
> thing you use to attach two oxen together so that they are unable to
> stray from each other. They are force to follow the same path,
> perform the same task, and arrive at the same destination. Two oxen
> eating grass together in a pasture, playing 'bovine games', or
> breeding are not yolked. They have a relationship but are free
> follow their individual paths to reach their destinations.

This code drop from Microsoft does not do this, and in fact, can be
used as a tool to move a company _away_ from Microsoft-based servers
should they decide to do that.  Microsoft has certainly done many
things which do, and I am the last person around that would discount
those actions, not all of which lie in the past, and certainly many of
which are likely to still be in the future yet.  However, Microsoft's
hold grows weaker---and they realize this---as more free options
become available and more people are educated about the existence and
the usage of these free options.

This drop doesn't create vendor lock-in.  In fact, it quite actually
provides a path away from it, for the reasons that I outlined earlier.
At the very least, it provides a chance for organizations to seriously
evaluate Linux with the ability to completely migrate all of their
services eventually, if decided, or even flip the roles and put Linux
on the hardware and Windows in the VM.

Since a company can be neither inherently good nor inherently
evil---just as a human being can be neither (and what is a company
other than a colletion of human beings working together) and free
software is free software, there isn't much of a question here,
logically speaking.

If Microsoft were to release any of its other software as free
software (which they have already done with some of their things), and
it were cross-platform, I'd consider using it---if the merits of the
software made it better than the other options, that is.  But if it is
not free and/or it is inferior to the other options, I still won't.
There'd have to be a lot of improvements made in many of Microsoft's
products before I'd consider their usage, to be sure.

> If Microsoft were contributing drivers to make wireless networking,
> sleep/suspend/power management, video acceleration/DirectX, WINE, or
> even their mice/trackballs and keyboards work better... I'd be cool
> with it.

And perhaps one day, they shall.  Over time, literally anything is
possible.  I, for one, am surprised that they would go ahead and
release GPL code which enhances the performance of the Linux kernel on
their own hypervisor.  This contradicts with many things that they
have done in the past.  What they have done here is a full 180° from
many things they have done historically.  Remember the AARD code?

> But that is not what is happening. They want to (as literally as a
> computer metaphor could possibly be applied) put a yoke Linux. Not
> only that, they give themselves the exclusive rights to be the host
> OS. So, not only do they want to be the oxen your boxen are yoked
> to... They want to be the man cracking the whip as well. You don't
> find this offensive?

I find it to be untrue, actually.

What they are doing here is playing a game of "catch-up", if
anything.  We can already efficiently run Windows inside of a VM on
Linux systems, and have been able to do so for a long time.  The
inverse allegedly becomes possible with this code drop from Microsoft,
and when it lands in the mainline kernel, will be alongside the
existing specialized drivers that already exist for running Linux
under Xen or KVM.  This doesn't say "thou shalt use Hyper-V for your
virtualization if you want it done efficiently," but it does add it as
an option.

It is an option that I see being most useful in pure-Windows shops, as
I've mentioned earlier already.

Each thing that a corporation does, each action that its members take,
is what it is and nothing more.  Just because it is _Microsoft_
contributing GPLv2 code to the kernel makes no difference; it's no
different than Oracle contributing to the Linux kernel.  It's just
more code that is being donated to the Linux kernel from a corporation
who paid to develop it.  It's that simple.

While this code drop does serve their purposes, we can use it to serve
ours, too.  After all, we can efficiently run Windows in KVM (and
we've never had to modify it).  We could never contribute such a thing
to Microsoft.  It makes a fascinating case study for what can truly be
done with free software, contrasted against the proprietary software
that is licensed by the contributor (in this case).  It enables
another set of choice combinations that in some situations may have
previously been quite unreasonable.  This can in no way be a bad
thing, though it won't be as good a thing as it could be if we spend
our time not taking advantage of it.

We must remember that "good" and "evil" are adjectives describing
actions which often fit into grey areas.  Religion aside, there is
very little---if anything---that is inherently one or the other.
After all, every one of us slides around on a spectrum with every
action we take, with every choice we make (and the same goes for
companies).  While we could go into that, that would be starting to be
more on-topic for a group with the specialized topic of philosophy,
though, and not really appropriate to here.

 	--- Mike