Seven Reasons Microsoft Loves Open Source 154
tlockney writes "Next week at Microsoft's MIX, whurley will be leading a discussion on 'Open Source, the Web, Interoperability, and Microsoft'. To kick off a bit of pre-session discussion and enlist the help of others in putting Microsoft on the spot, whurley, king of all things open source at BMC has written an article entitled 'Seven Reasons Microsoft Loves Open Source'."
Reason zero (Score:5, Insightful)
I can see microsoft doing what apple did (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:I can see microsoft doing what apple did (Score:5, Insightful)
Is this the right talk for him to give? (Score:2, Insightful)
Admitted (Score:2, Insightful)
What's a whurly? (Score:4, Insightful)
This synopsis annoys me because it is written as if we're all just supposed to know what the hell a whurly and a BMC are.
Duh (Score:5, Insightful)
No competition = stagnation (Score:5, Insightful)
Arguably this is not true for all their markets, such as development tools and Office, which historically have not been too contested (not lately at least) and yet have not resulted in the same stagnation.
Many people want open source to succeed, because one of the end results of that is a better Microsoft. I've always included myself in that group.
As for the article, I think it's a good read for all the "LOLOL M$ is TEH AFRAID OF THE GNU/PENGUIN ETC" crowd:
Microsoft fears IBM and Novell and CA. It doesn't "fear" Ubuntu or Gentoo or Torvalds. That's the key issue that RMS managed to miss (or probably chose to ignore for the oomph effect) in his incisive analysis of the "Halloween documents".
Re:No competition = stagnation (Score:2, Insightful)
That is to say that now that OS technology is mature it just doesn't increase in value as much any more. So MS has a problem shifting its new OSes because the old OSes have enough value as they are. Same with Office products. Unfortunately for MS its business model requires that the value of its products does not lower over time - hence they are inevitably required to find ways of artificially increasing the value of their products by forcing upgrades, removing support and so forth.
Re:No competition = stagnation (Score:5, Insightful)
I would have though that reality backs up the opposite: MS doesn't want to open their code or specs.
Right now, they're giving the EU a tough time over specs,
I can't imagine how "They realize open source is their future".
Re:Admitted (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I can see microsoft doing what apple did (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I can see microsoft doing what apple did (Score:5, Insightful)
If Windows ever used a Linux kernel (hah!), there'd really be very little difference from the current status quo. They'd probably have to fix up the NTFS driver a lot (or use a different filesystem--most users wouldn't notice or care), they'd certainly benefit from all the built-in drivers, but the graphics subsystem would probably be a big showstopper since they'd either have to use X and change a lot of things, or make their own subsystem built into the kernel which they seem to like to do. Other than that, they'd certainly keep their whole system libraries proprietary and secret, which would make it non-trivial for people to run Windows applications on free software. Yes, they could use WINE, but that's still trying to hit a moving target and is developed slowly because of the need for reverse-engineering. Personally, I don't see why MS would ever bother using a Linux kernel; it doesn't provide them much technical benefit.
Re:I can see microsoft doing what apple did (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not sure who "everybody" is... but such claims ignore history. It ignores the very impressive turn-on-a-dime business strategy Microsoft pulled off after they initially failed to realize the importance of the Internet. And it ignores a historical precedence in the changing of IBM's desktop hardware market when it shifted from a proprietary to commodity platform.
Micorosoft is not going to simply curl up and die. They've proven to be agile enough to react to threats / lost opportunities. And they have the momentum and resources to deal with a suddenly difficult market.
If we're lucky, Microsoft will become the software / OS equivalent of IBM. Sure - they're still powerhouses in the Industry... but they no longer control it. They have influence but have to compete with every other market player for that influence to pay off and drive the market in their desired direction.
Re:Linux not the threat; the GNU GPL is (Score:2, Insightful)
As far as Apple's use of "a lot of FreeBSD code", no shit, sherlock! The MacOS X roots date back (through NeXT) to the mid-late 80s. Their whole underlying structure has always been BSD.
Re:Linux not the threat; the GNU GPL is (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't know what magic the source code has that means that if you are selling source rather than a binary that you would have to let your customers do whatever they like with it. Would you please explain? Ugh. It's not about viewing the source code, it's about controlling what you can do with it. The GPL defends the freedom of the source code by requiring that derivatives are also free in the same manner. It's that simple.
Reason Eight (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's face it, Linux is not going to destroy Windows, there's too many issues with it. People have already seen Linux and made their opinions then. We can change them but it's an uphill battle. The in fighting, the "hard core linux guys" vs. the Red hats vs. the Slackware vs. everyone else has ruined what little chance Linux has. The very fact that if Linux takes over, it won't be one version but every version and it will all create work for the end user means it's going to be problematic for it to even gain market share.
Open source diverts and directs a lot of time for the people who could take on Microsoft's products and that makes Microsoft happy. In theory it COULD make for a better product because everyone can be working towards one goal. But in reality every programmer has an opinion on how best to go about the assault on the big MS and with out true leadership (Torvalds isn't looking to lead the revolution, Stallman is but he's as polarizing as can be, hell Stallman will scare most corporations back to Microsoft's loving arms with his free software talk.) Even the term open source scares businesses and executives. It's a good thing after you understand it but there's a lot of parts of it that Microsoft can whisper in people's ears to scare them into using the Microsoft alternative.
So Microsoft loves the fact open source is here because if anything it's destroyed more genius ideas than they could probably fight on their own in a number of ways.
Re:Linux not the threat; the GNU GPL is (Score:3, Insightful)
That is the future that Microsoft wants to avoid at all costs; it will make the price of software as a commodity become $0. At some point, Microsoft will need to sell their software at $0 just to compete, which means that the IT industry becomes a service industry rather than manufacturing. That's a good thing for everyone (well, OK, maybe just me). Losses due to piracy become non-existant, since piracy is no longer a useful concept. Talented people will be paid to implement solutions, Microsoft or otherwise.
The best thing Microsoft can do is what Sun Microsystems already did: experiment with Community Source Licensing. No, we won't be able to do whatever we want with Windows source code, but we'll be able to mess around with it in our labs/basements/whatever and understand Windows better. They don't even have to accept changes from the community if they don't want, and they can keep the distribution rights to themselves.
Ultimately, it's a show of faith on Microsoft's part. They may believe they don't need to start playing nice with FSF supporters anytime soon, but I certainly don't think they have quite that luxury. FSF always had and will always have the potential of producing a whole bunch of software that's truly Free and in doing so take those "innovations" away from Microsoft. Microsoft needs to interoperate. The fastest way to do so is to show us their source code.
Re:I can see microsoft doing what apple did (Score:4, Insightful)
Then again, the NT microkernel seems a bit overstressed for what it's being pushed to do in Vista, and it's starting to show... badly. Two versions from now, they're going to have to replace it with something... 'cause what they got now simply isn't going to cut the mustard (well, unless they up the minimum HW requirements to an 8-core box + 16GB of RAM + four SLI-chained vidcards...)
That said, I do agree that it prolly won't be Linux - MSFT will most likely snag the latest *BSD kernel (one that has no GPL encumbrance) and lock it down good and hard. Then they'll build the world's ugliest set of wrappers and APIs for it, then call the results "innovation".
Re:I can see microsoft doing what apple did (Score:3, Insightful)
Worded differently (Score:5, Insightful)
I hate when they do that.
Re:I can see microsoft doing what apple did (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you really trying to argue that NT provides some useful sort of compatibility for Unix apps? Citing the Wikipedia as a source does not do much to create credibility for your conjecture.
And citing roughlydrafted is better? Sorry, couldn't resist.
Re:I can see microsoft doing what apple did (Score:3, Insightful)
No, it's not. Microsoft themselves refer to it as a "hybrid kernel"; practically, it means it's a monolithic kernel that sort of looks somewhat like a microkernel if you squint and turn your head a little, but it still misses out on most of the relevant advantages of a real microkernel architecture. Most modern operating systems have kernels that support pluggable binary format and other kernel service modules, but the amount of marketing spin has more variety.