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<HTML><HEAD> <TITLE>BBS水木清华站∶精华区</TITLE></HEAD><BODY><CENTER><H1>BBS水木清华站∶精华区</H1></CENTER>发信人: saka (机器猫), 信区: Linux <BR>标 题: The Mindcraft fiasco <BR>发信站: BBS 水木清华站 (Sat Apr 24 09:51:25 1999) WWW-POST <BR> <BR>Date: Fri, 23 Apr 1999 03:45:36 -0400
<BR>From: "Eric S. Raymond" <<A HREF="mailto:esr@thyrsus.com>
">esr@thyrsus.com>
</A> <BR>To: <A HREF="mailto:lwn@lwn.net,">lwn@lwn.net,</A> <A HREF="mailto:editors@linuxtoday.com,">editors@linuxtoday.com,</A> <A HREF="mailto:malda@slashdot.org
">malda@slashdot.org
</A> <BR>Subject: The Mindcraft fiasco
<BR>
<BR>Microsoft's latest FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) tactic may be <BR>backfiring.
<BR>
<BR>A 21 April ITWeb story [1] reported results by a benchmarking shop
<BR>called Mindcraft that supposedly showed NT to be faster than Linux at
<BR>SMB and Web service. The story also claimed that technical support
<BR>for tuning the Linux system had been impossible to find.
<BR>
<BR>Previous independent benchmarks (such as [2]) have found Linux and
<BR>other Unixes to be dramatically faster and more efficient than NT, and
<BR>independent observers (beginning with a celebrated InfoWorld article in
<BR>1998 [3]) have lauded the Linux community's responsiveness to support
<BR>problems. Linux fans smelled a rat somewhere (uttering responses
<BR>typfied by [4]), and amidst the ensuing storm of protest some
<BR>interesting facts came to light.
<BR>
<BR>1. The benchmark had been paid for by Microsoft. The Mindcraft press
<BR>release failed to mention this fact.
<BR>
<BR>2. Mindcraft did in fact get a useful answer [5] to its request for
<BR>help tuning the Linux system. But they did not answer the request for
<BR>more information, neither did they follow the tuning suggestions given
<BR>Also, they forged the reply email address to conceal themselves --
<BR>the connection was made after the fact by a Usenetter who noticed that
<BR>the unusual machine configuration described in the request exactly matched
<BR>that of the test system in the Mindcraft results.
<BR>
<BR>3. Red Hat, the Linux distributor Mindcraft says it asked for help,
<BR>reports that it got one phone call from them on the installation-help
<BR>line, which isn't supposed to answer post-installation questions about
<BR>things like advanced server tuning. Evidently Mindcraft's efforts to
<BR>get help tuning the system were feeble -- at best incompetent, at
<BR>worst cynical gestures.
<BR>
<BR>4. An entertainingly-written article [6] by the head of the
<BR>development team for Samba (one of the key pieces of Linux software
<BR>involved in the benchmark) described how Mindcraft could have done a
<BR>better job of tuning. The article revealed that one of Mindcraft's
<BR>Samba tweaks had the effect of slowing their Linux down quite drastically.
<BR>
<BR>5. Another Usenet article [7] independently pointed out that Mindcraft had
<BR>deliberately chosen a logging format that imposed a lot of overhead on
<BR>Apache (the web sever used for the Linux tests).
<BR>
<BR>So far, so sordid -- a fairly standard tale of Microsoft paying to get
<BR>exactly the FUD it wants from a nominally independent third party.
<BR>But the story took a strange turn today (22 Mar) when Microsoft
<BR>spokesperson Ian Hatton effectively admitted [8] that the test had
<BR>been rigged! "A very highly-tuned NT server" Mr. Hatton said "was
<BR>pitted against a very poorly tuned Linux server".
<BR>
<BR>He then attempted to spin the whole episode around by complaining that
<BR>Microsoft and its PR company had received "malicious and obscene"
<BR>email from Linux fans and slamming this supposed "unprofessionalism".
<BR>One wonders if Hatton believes it would be "unprofessional" to address
<BR>strong language to a burglar caught in the act of nipping the family
<BR>silver.
<BR>
<BR>In any case, Microsoft's underhanded tactics seem (as with its clumsy
<BR>"astroturf" campaign against the DOJ lawsuit) likely to come back to
<BR>haunt it. The trade press had largely greeted the Mindcraft results with
<BR>yawns and skepticism even before Hatton's admission. And it's hard to
<BR>see how Microsoft will be able to credibly quote anti-Linux benchmarks
<BR>in the future after this fiasco.
<BR>
<BR>[1] "Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 out performs Linux"
<BR><A HREF="http://www.itweb.co.za/sections/computing/1999/9904211045.asp
">http://www.itweb.co.za/sections/computing/1999/9904211045.asp
</A> <BR>
<BR>[2] "Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 versus UNIX"
<BR><<A HREF="http://www.kirch.net/unix-nt.html>
">http://www.kirch.net/unix-nt.html>
</A> <BR>
<BR>[3] "1997 Product of the Year"
<BR><<A HREF="http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayTC.pl?/97poy.supp.htm>
">http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayTC.pl?/97poy.supp.htm>
</A> <BR>
<BR>[4] "Mindcraft Reality Check"
<BR><A HREF="http://www.linux-hw.com/~eric/mindcraft.html
">http://www.linux-hw.com/~eric/mindcraft.html
</A> <BR>
<BR>[5] "Re: Need help with performance"
<BR><<A HREF="http://x14.dejanews.com/[ST_rn=ps]/getdoc.xp?AN=453900037&CONTEXT=924792680.3">http://x14.dejanews.com/[ST_rn=ps]/getdoc.xp?AN=453900037&CONTEXT=924792680.3</A> <BR>12147973&hitnum=7>
<BR>
<BR>[6] "Trust no one: How Mindcraft could have made a better Linux file server"
<BR><<A HREF="http://www.linuxworld.com/linuxworld/lw-1999-04/lw-04-mindcraft.html>
">http://www.linuxworld.com/linuxworld/lw-1999-04/lw-04-mindcraft.html>
</A> <BR>
<BR>[7] "It's the old DNS logging trick, Re: Is NT really 3.7 times faster than <BR>Linux ?"
<BR><<A HREF="http://x13.dejanews.com/[ST_rn=qs]/getdoc.xp?AN=469420638&CONTEXT=924804285.1">http://x13.dejanews.com/[ST_rn=qs]/getdoc.xp?AN=469420638&CONTEXT=924804285.1</A> <BR>636696091&hitnum=6>
<BR>
<BR>[8] "Outrage at Microsoft's independent, yet sponsored NT 4.0/Linux <BR>research"
<BR><<A HREF="http://www.itweb.co.za/sections/enterprise/1999/9904221410.asp>
">http://www.itweb.co.za/sections/enterprise/1999/9904221410.asp>
</A> <BR>
<BR>
<BR>
<BR>--
<BR> <a href="<A HREF="http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr">Eric">http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr">Eric</A> S. Raymond</a>
<BR>
<BR>I don't like the idea that the police department seems bent on keeping
<BR>a pool of unarmed victims available for the predations of the criminal
<BR>class.
<BR> -- David Mohler, 1989, on being denied a carry permit in NYC <BR> <BR>-- <BR>※ 来源:·BBS 水木清华站 bbs.net.tsinghua.edu.cn·[FROM: 202.118.66.88] <BR><CENTER><H1>BBS水木清华站∶精华区</H1></CENTER></BODY></HTML>⌨️ 快捷键说明
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