Are Widespread 'Microsoft-alike' Replacements Feasible? 37
Dr.Dubious DDQ asks: "With all the recent Microsoft(r) news, I see a lot of the usual complaining about Microsoft's unfair 'embrace and extend' practices. I do my own fair share of this, but I'd much rather actually *do* something about it.At the risk of prompting cries of 'No! That will only make them stronger!', I find myself asking: How possible is it to 'transparently' replace Microsoft-brand services with other (preferably, but not necessarily, Open Source) services (rather than flatly demanding migration away from all things MS)? Or put the other way around, what tweaks would have to be made to existing, standard services to make them 'bug-for-bug compatible' with MS versions, particularly OUTSIDE of the context of SMB/Samba, which is an already-obvious example?" While there are definite reasons why such an effort may be worthwhile, it is also possible that Microsoft could attempt to make legal attacks at such projects...even though they are designed with software interoperability in mind. Precedents in support of this idea do exist, such as: ReactOS and even standard Open Source openings like Gnumeric.
"I've got two goals in mind here:
- Ability to placate MS-platform applications that demand MS-brand services to connect to while ALSO allowing non-MS clients as close to 'full' functionality as possible with the same services
- Naturally, ability to replace an MS-branded package would personally appeal to me as well for both technical and - yes, I'll admit it - philosophical reasons.
For example:
- Is it possible (and feasible) to get OpenLDAP+Kerberos5 to fool Windows systems into believing they're talking to a "real" ActiveDirectory(r) server (without necessarily also having the entire Samba stack)?
- Can client programs that demand MS-SQL server generally use MySQL in MS SQL Compatibility mode instead, if MySQL is set to respond on the MS-SQL port (either directly or via ODBC?)
- How hard would it be to make a 'mod_dav_sharepoint type of module that spoofs Microsoft's special Sharepoint WebDAV behavior (which evidently also uses a 'special' non-standard SQL-like search mechanism - am I going to be kicked out of the club for thinking this looks, at least on the surface, like it might be a useful feature if usable by non-MS clients and implementable by non-MS servers)?
- Similarly, how feasible would it be to get non-MS DAV clients to be able to use Microsoft Sharepoint (or the hypothetical MS-alike drop-in replacement?)
- How good are the 'drop-in replacements' for MS Exchange?
- Are there issues with MS's implementation of IPP (are there any problems dropping Microsoft Printer Sharing entirely and using CUPS instead? It SEEMS that MS Windows 2000+ should support IPP directly, without resorting to Samba middleware - is this true?)
- Possibly risking heaps of derision for suggesting such an unlikely-sounding thing, but how about using mod_dav/Apache (as what Microsoft USED to refer to as 'Web Folders') as a replacement for SMB file sharing? Aside from possible performance issues, is this feasible, or are there too many incompatibilities in MS's DAV support for it to work?
- Are there any registry hacks or other tweaks that can be applied to Microsoft Windows-based systems to make them behave in more standards-compliant ways?
- ...etc?...
obvious? (Score:1)
most of the windows apps are already in *nix
unless you want games, that is
Re:obvious? (Score:2, Informative)
I'm not sure about the legality of it thou
Re:obvious? (Score:4, Interesting)
Or the ability to run that custom app you use for that one situation...
Or floating tables, or word count, or SECTIONS.
OOo is good, but it's a LONG ways away from "feature for feature" compatability with MS office, much less "bug for bug." (Thankfully, it's got a few cool features of its own which make up for the problem.)
Re:obvious? (Score:2)
Are floating tables like a table inside a frame? Sections, what the fubar are those? But wrt word-count, what's wrong with the one under File>Properties:Statistics ?
What do you use floating tables and sections for, how do they convey information that can't be conveyed by OOo? Remember this is a word processor.
This all sounds a bit zealous, but I'm just curious - I often recommend OOo and it would be good to say "oh but it can
Re:obvious? (Score:3, Informative)
Yes. And when I tell a table to "float" in MS Word and then open it in OOo, the table is wrapped in a text box ("frame"), which works rather well. But it's nowhere near as easy to get a table in OOo inside a text box.
Sections, what the fubar are those?
Many of the functions of sections--denoting page number styles and columns throughout a document--are done rather well and in some cases better with OOo's "page style" feature. However, there's no way to
Re:obvious? (Score:2)
I don't know if you've noticed, but the multi-tabbed dialogues in OOo remember which tab they displayed last. So if you don't switch between tabs, the next time you want a word count, you only need to do File, Properties.
I agree it's annoying that you can't get a word count for just part of the document. I often want to do this, so that I can tell how much I've written in the last day or week or however l
Re:obvious? (Score:2)
Re:obvious? (Score:1)
How about TeX? Its the standard in book publishing, papers, professional journals. And its not hard either. Once you try LaTeX you will never go back to something as weak as a WYSIWYG word processor. Seriously, just try it - even if to prove me wrong.
\section{Uhuh, section name}
Re:obvious? (Score:2)
Show me a TeX editor that does word count, spelling check, can fix my common typoes as I write, save as PDF and DOC, track my additions/deletions and count the new words, insert automatic references to headings and tables within the document, and has easy st
Huh? (Score:1, Funny)
At least you didn't ask it on a Monday morning though...
I hope so! (Score:3, Interesting)
I eventually want to be able to make a customized Knoppix-like CD with all my apps, coupled with the ability to securely access my files at home (we have DSL). But more than that - I want to be able to forget all the masses of stuff I've had to learn about Windows over the years, but I'm sort of the go-to guy for computer help amongst my social circle (I don't hang out with geeks...) so ideally I want to be able to offer a Windows alternative to nontechnical types - a Linspire-like setup that looks and works almost exactly like WinXP. "My computer is screwed up, can you come over and fix it?" "Take this CD instead, you'll have no more problems..."
Mozilla is a great browser and I've switched a few people over to it, but you do still have to put up with more than a few 'issues' - websites that look and work fine in IE but don't appear correctly in Mozilla, or misconfigured servers which don't send the MIME-type of
Maybe I can learn enough about Mozilla to reconfigure it to work around such things (I understand why it's more important to the Mozilla people to be standards-compliant, but the kinds of people I'm hoping to help here Just Want It To Work...) and maybe I can learn enough about Linux to work around a number of similar issues, but at the least I know that *I'm* gonna be happier once I'm able to ditch Windows. I just hope I can switch everyone else too!
What?? (Score:2)
As for asking if you can replace Microsoft SQL Server with MySQL using ODBC, how about looking up ODBC... http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/O/ODBC.html
do some research dude.
Re:What?? (Score:2)
I didn't ask people "not to recommend SAMBA" - the point is, SAMBA is an already obvious example of one such replacement. It does not cover every Microsoft service, however. I just didn't think it'd be helpful for anyone to see 500+ posts that say "Dude, do some research, SAMBA [samba.org] already does this". What I'm asking is, how feasible is it to do something similar for the rest of MS's services?
The MS-SQL example wasn't just a question of whether or not it's possible to use ODBC. Yes, I know what ODBC is. A
Re:What?? (Score:2)
You are asking something application specific, and it sounds like the compaitbilty mode isn't good enough.
From http://dev.mysq
Hmmm (Score:1)
"question." Could you *please* (preferably by
rewriting) FIX (rather than the formatting) your
question (as opposed the reply-posting to my post.)
Re:Hmmm (Score:2)
Yeah, yeah, I've got a bad case of parentheses poisoning...
I tried to go back to clarify what I was wondering about and ended up inserting a bunch of extra material. Here it is in shorter form:
"Hey, has anyone found out anything interesting while researching or actually trying to insert a non-Microsoft server in places where the clients expect or demand Microsoft-brand servers, or getting non Microsoft-branded clients to work with Microsoft-branded servers where the server was, as usual, designed only f
Re:Hmmm (Score:1)
Re:Hmmm (Score:2)
s'okay - if the posts in the "GPS and Portability" Ask Slashdot are any indication, I think people have been conditioned to assume that Ask Slashdot is a tech-support hotline - and both my question here and the asker in the GPS thread are LOUSILY worded if they had been intended as tech support type questions...
One reason that IPP (Internet Printing Protocol, which appears to be "HTTP for submitting print jobs") and WebDAV came to my mind was that I was wondering about getting file and printer sharing remo
Re:Hmmm (Score:1)
That is the problem to which there is no currently no answer. Slashdot may be a soapbox for OSS and linux fanatics, but the plain fact is that windows owns the corporate and home desktop and that is not going to change anytime soon. No amount of smartypants posts is going to change that. When you ask hard questions, you get few answers. When you ask why do you still use windows [slashdot.org] you get 3200 posts.
I use linux 99% of the time
Re:Hmmm (Score:2)
All true, of course. The only real solution I can see to either uselessly demanding everyone dump all-things-Microsoft (which, I have to admit, would give me pleasure, but just plain isn't going to happen in the real world like that)...or to carefully and quietly migrate away, piece by piece, until it's all been replaced and nobody's noticed (except perhaps they may wonder why they've been getting fewer viruses and crashes lately).
Here's an example that I'm actively plotting to try - I want to get a "Wind
It's a moving target. (Score:4, Insightful)
Just make the existing stuff better, don't worry about immitating microsoft, be innovative in your own right, and slowly migrate all your stuff away from windows.
Re:It's a moving target. (Score:2)
Actually, I agree for the most part. Everywhere that I have COMPLETE control of the network environment -e.g. my own home - Microsoft have been long since entirely-migrated-from.
It seems a majority of people don't have this option, realistically, at their jobs, or perhaps at their schools. Wholesale ripping-out-and-replacing Microsoft-brand clients and servers isn't normally feasible, so the choice is either just sit and put up with it, or - my preference - find ways to replace the Microsoft-brand stuff
Re:It's a moving target. (Score:2)
Jeremy White [slashdot.org] seems to disagree. And if it wasn't for Wine [winehq.com] and Codeweavers [codeweavers.com], I would still be damning OOo for every freaking glitch in their not-so-flawless MS Office in/export filters.
When you live in the corporate world, you can't "slowly migrate away from windows", as you put it. You just have to blend in with the Windows-using lot. And hope they don't spot you, too -- because I have had a number of clueless sysadmins telling me that
Database choice (Score:3, Informative)
While MySQL is an okay database, it's not a drop-in replacement for MS*SQL.
If you want to go for a closer one, try PostgreSQL. It's much more feature rich and stable than MySQL.
Of course, the best bet is Oracle [oracle.com] which runs great on Linux.
Re:Database choice (Score:2)
In regards to the database, I wasn't wondering specifically in the context of developing my own applications, necessarily, where I can choose whatever database backed I want, though. Oracle is obviously(?) not, literally, a drop-in replacement for MS-SQL either, since it uses a different interface entirely as far as I can tell (although many MS-SQL-using software systems have the ability to choose to use Oracle INSTEAD, but it has to be specifically configured differently for it). Good point though - wher
Re:Database choice (Score:2)
One other thing to cons
BeOS tried and got squashed (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem with immitating Microsoft is it can result in a Microsoft-oriented world without Microsoft. Look at Mozilla's XPI installer. It's not much safer than ActiveX because the amount of power it has. And no one wants to sign XPI packages. Even if they did, signatures could be spoofed. The more you try to immitate Microsoft, the more likely you are to make the same mistakes they've made.
Re:BeOS tried and got squashed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:BeOS tried and got squashed (Score:2)
As far as Boies representing SCO, I'm wondering if it had to do with President Bush opposing the anti-trust trial. I think it would be interesting to see what the President's view on open source is (assuming he has one). It's possible that Boies changed sides when the Presidency changed parties.
Microsoft Services for Linux (Score:2)
Re:Microsoft Services for Linux (Score:1)
For MS Office users switch to Crossover (Score:1)
MacOSX/XServe (Score:2)
Yes you will spend some money, but far less than what ulcer medication and counceling sessions you will need after dealing with various unwanted lifeforms that invad