Ballmer Calls Linux "A Cancer"

davidebsmith writes: "In an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer says that Linux and the open source movement is "good competition" because it will "force [Microsoft] to be innovative," but calls Linux "a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches." He also says that the inclusion of IE in Windows has been "great ... for innovation in the software industry" (except for Netscape) and that MS's new copy protections are just "bumps in the road" to "help customers understand when they are crossing the line . . . so they can't do the wrong thing." And he says a few more amusing things, also."

Comments

Re:Damn...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're kidding right?

There's plenty that's "free" about the GPL just not what some people want to be free (i.e. free to exploit).

You are free to read the source code.

You are free to wall-paper your house with the source code.

You are free to recite the source code.

You are free to compile the source code.

You are free to copy to source code to another media.

You are free to give a copy of the source code as a Christmas present.

You are free to modify the source code.

You are free to learn from the source code.

You are free to tinker with the source code.

You are free to charge a fee for transfering the source code. Now this of course does not mean that you are free to do these things in anyway whatsoever. (i.e. you may not be allowed to recite the source code over an illegal FM transmitter. Nor are you violate the terms of the GPL). Nonetheless, only a shabby miscrosoft-like absence of logic would allow the conclusion that there is nothing free about the GPL'ed software.

What's funny is that the napster-kid mentality and the anti-GPL mentality seem to be essentially the same. "I deserve to be able to profit from someone else's work."

Let's not jump to hasty conclusions

[alewando]

Chances are, it's a quote taken out of context or a wholesale fabrication by a reporter. Microsoft didn't get where it is today by putting its collective foot in its mouth like that, so when you hear a quote as absurd as "Linux is a Cancer" (which Microsoft itself knows to be a falsehood), take it with a grain of salt.

FUD is your enemy, but don't compound the problem by restorting tooFUD yourself. Microsoft still deserves the benefit of the doubt, and we should always take a careful investigatory approach whenever we wish to report news that may be damaging to the reputation of either party. That's the approach Microsoft has historically used (see mindcraft and others), and it's the least we can do too.

Re:Let's not jump to hasty conclusions

[mikej]

Q: Do you view Linux and the open-source movement as a threat to Microsoft?

A: Yeah. It's good competition. It will force us to be innovative. It will force us to justify the prices and value that we deliver. And that's only healthy. The only thing we have a problem with is when the government funds open-source work. Government funding should be for work that is available to everybody. Open source is not available to commercial companies. The way the license is written, if you use any open-source software, you have to make the rest of your software open source. If the government wants to put something in the public domain, it should. Linux is not in the public domain. Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches. That's the way that the license works.


I gave him the benefit of the doubt as well, and was rewarded with this :) He's saying that any company that uses open source software must give away all of their software, which is true only as long as "use" means "incorporate source code from". He's implying that anybody using linux to run a print server or somesuch is going to be forced to give away every line of code they've ever written. It's very well worded, extremely effective, and completely dishonest.

Re:Let's not jump to hasty conclusions

[MillMan]

A: Yeah. It's good competition. It will force us to be innovative. It will force us to justify the prices and value that we deliver. And that's only healthy. The only thing we have a problem with is when the government funds open-source work. Government funding should be for work that is available to everybody. Open source is not available to commercial companies. The way the license is written, if you use any open-source software, you have to make the rest of your software open source. If the government wants to put something in the public domain, it should. Linux is not in the public domain. Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches. That's the way that the license works.

It doesn't look that way. He's referring to how the GPL works, so in Microsoft's view he's correct. If you think open source is a good thing, however, his argument doesn't really hold.

I don't know where this "government funded research" thing comes from...maybe unix back in the 60's? That's an incredibly arrogant statement coming from an executive at a big corporation anyway. Look at how much nearly free research companies get by giving a few bucks (relatively speaking) to Universities. The public doesn't see any of the return on that money....is that fair?

You know, normally I don't get worked up by whatever crap Microsoft exec's are currently spewing out, but this really bugs me from a philosophical standpoint. For me they are really starting to represent everything that can go wrong with capitalism in the information age.

Maybe they really ARE that terrified of linux, even on the desktop where it isn't currently much of a threat. No one to sue, buy, or threaten. Thats tough for a modern day corporation to deal with.

Re:From the interview

[Nugget]

If you accept the incorrect usage of "open source" to mean "GPL'd code" then this statement makes perfect sense.

I presume that what Ballmer meant to say was "The only thing we have a problem with is when the government funds GPL'd work. Government funding should be for work that is available to everybody."

This is an understandable viewpoint. GPL'd code is not accessable to everybody. It is only accessable to developers who are willing to release their code under the GPL license which excludes large portions of the community. Government-funded GPL code is inaccessable to the Apache Foundation, it's inaccessable to the OpenBSD developers, and it's inaccessable to any commercial developers who are working on closed-source products.

If tax dollars are funding a project, then the results of that development should be available to everyone and not just people who use one particular license. This is the rationale behind the laws which prevent the government from enjoying a copyright on the data it produces.

Government code should be public domain, not placed under a restrictive license like the GPL.

Only a slight twist on the truth...

[Mr. Flibble]

The only thing we have a problem with is when the government funds open-source work. Government funding should be for work that is available to everybody. Open source is not available to commercial companies. The way the license is written, if you use any open-source software, you have to make the rest of your software open source. If the government wants to put something in the public domain, it should. Linux is not in the public domain. Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches. That's the way that the license works

Open source is not available to commercial companies. Hmm. Linux is Open Source right? I use Linux here at work - for a commercial company.

The way the license is written, if you use any open-source software, you have to make the rest of your software open source. Maybe I read the GPL incorrectly, but, um... Isn't that the point? (On another note, our company uses Linux, but releases closed-source binarys of our primary product. No problems with that!)

Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches. Again, thats rather the point, but it does not "attach" itself to everything it touches, Q3A is not GPL'ed but it runs on Linux just fine.

But then who am I kidding right? This is Slashdot. We all know this (Apart from the newbies and trolls). I am just preaching to the Choir. What I am interested in is the exact gist of these comments. What is Balmer trying to accomplish here?

We know he mentions competition (to keep the Justice Dept. off of his back) and Microsoft is consistantly trying to poison the GPL, but not Linux... I think MS is more afraid of the GPL than anything else, if they can disparage the GPL, they can (they believe) damage the free software movement. I don't think that they will be sucessful, but they will through this strategy keep Linux off of the desktop (but not servers) for some time to come. (At this stage, IMO Linux is not ready for the mainstream desktop user, and maybe it never will be, thats not a bad thing though.)

Anyone else have a take on what they think Microsoft is up to?

Re:Only a slight twist on the truth...

[DarkProphet]

I think Microsoft is setting the stage for a real grandiose event.

M$ has been on the warpath about the GPL lately (and spreading Open Source == GPL fallacies), and this is to fool the public. Why would the public care, you ask?

They don't, and M$ knows this. (And really, is living proof that people don't read licenses, or M$ would go belly-up real quick, but I digress) What I think M$ is doing is harping about the GPL, because sooner or later, the GPL is gonna have to be tested in court. Guess who is going to be doing the testing? M$. They will try to show that the GPL is counterproductive to the software industry, and its mere existance is stifling the software industry's ability to make comparable products at a competitive price. They will argue that Open Source software stunts thier IP rights via "infection". This is not the first time that M$ lackeys have referred to Open Source/Free Software/Linux as some type of incurable virus that permeates anything it comes in contact with.

Though, M$ has made a mistake which may prove to be quite crippling to them in a few years. They are fighting on _WAY_ too many fronts. They have *XP, they have .NET, they have xBox, and they are fighting Open Source. Any battle fought wrongly by M$ stands to bite them in the ass later. Its possible that an action they take on one front will affect them negatively in another. The consumer will be affected as well. Its getting to the point where even Joe Sixpack is becoming aware that they have alternatives to having a BSOD everyday. (I thought W2K was supposed to cure that... it doesn't on my box at least).

M$ is fighting the GPL, because it offers a strong alternative to the masses. The general public can't quite grasp what GPL (or other Open Source) software means to them, because its still a bitch to get an alternative OS installed, much less use it for daily work.

In the case of Linux anyway, we've made good progress in this department, but any Linux distro I've used (RH, Debian, Mandrake) are all still a pain in the ass to install and get set up. Don't expect the general public to really warm up to anything besides M$ until you can simplify things. Apple is very aware of this, and thats how come OS X exists. The problem with Open Source software is that we don't fucking need 15 different text editors. I think development energies could be focused in more productive ways. Don't get me wrong, its nice that there is so much choice, but it might be a better idea to concentrate on the OS that that software will run on first instead.

From the consumer prospective, Windows came first, and beget windows software later. In the case of Linux, it looks more like the software is a higher priority than the OS. Thats cool, but dammit, Linux needs a SIMPLE installer, and a stable standard GUI (or two). Tell me why it is that Mandrake 8.0 (or RH 7.x)_CRASHES_ for no apparent reason! Not just X, but the whole damned system. Maybe its the 2.4.x kernel. RH 6.1 was a helluva lot more stable for me.

Don't get me wrong, its just that I consider myself to be good with computers, and even I have a helluva time. Do you expect Joe Sixpack to put up with it? No sir. Meanwhile, M$ is going to try to destroy the GPL/Open Source so that the day Joe Sixpack can say "Hey, this Open Source stuff really works well" never comes.

Its the same tired old game M$ has been playing for years to ensure thier survival. Its the same principle they used when bundling IE with windows to kill off Netscape. You can tell M$ tried hard, because IE works WAY better for me than any version of Netscape/Mozilla does, sorry.

It won't work that way this time around though. Open Source software is the only thing that can provide healthy competition for M$, and if they destroy it, I doubt any other corporation is gonna be able to compete with the demons in Redmond.

Re:Interesting philosophy...

[Pope]

MS liscensed Spyglass Mosaic with the terms that Spyglass get a percentage of the profits of selling IE.
MS gave away IE for free.
Profits to Spyglass? $0.

Well, the CEO is supposed to say things like that

[scotpurl]

Let's take a look around at the other big companies. Oracle has an egomaniac for a CEO. Apple, yeah, ditto for their CEO (or whaver Jobs' title is these days), whom it's apparently not safe to be with in an elevator.

The companies that have the biggest following of loyalist fans also have these sort of banana-republic dictator personalities running the company. In order to gain new territory, you sometimes have to rally the troops (employees) and your allies (investors) by making bold, outrageous statements. Usually it's limited to something like, "we're going to make a lot of money this year," or "our new product is The Next Big Thing."

CEO's are really politicians. And like everyone in power, they know a little secret: the masses don't want to hear the truth. People enjoy being lied to, and deluded, and misled. There's so much evil, selfishness, and contempt in the world that the masses don't want to hear it. An investor doesn't want to hear that another stock they own is going to tank. They want to hear that their stocks have all gone bullish. Customers don't want to know that they've purchased another mediocre product. They want to beleive that it will actually work as advertised, and cure the common cold.

Repeat after me. It's propoganda. It's not the truth.

Linux shifts the economy from product-based to service based (since the product is free + your time). IBM sells services, and they like Linux. Microsoft sells products, and feels their bottom line is being threatened. They have a right to make a product, and people have a right to buy, or not to buy, their product.

heh

[GoNINzo]

Just remind him what Denis Leary said...

No cure for cancer.

--
Gonzo Granzeau

Since when are 9x and NT forks?

[throx]

Win95, Win98, WinNT, Win2000, WinXP are forks? I don't think so. This is pretty much the same as saying:

FreeBSD 3.0, FreeBSD 4.0, Linux 2.0, Linux 2.2 and Linux 2.4 are forks. If you are going to respond to him then you could at least get YOUR facts straight!!

Win9x has never been a fork on the NT project. While the FreeBSD analogy above is a little out, Win9x is really a version of Win3.0 with a whole stack of 32 bit junk tacked in wherever possible. You'd be much closer calling Warp and NT forks of each other, or even OpenVMS and NT forks. Hell, even Linux+Wine is probably closer to NT/2000/XP than Win9x is!!!

Interesting philosophy...

[miguelitof]

...that corporations have some type of right to modify someone else's software and then sell the results. I still don't understand the argument. "Well, I want to be able to use your code, but then sell what I've created." Why not just start from scratch?

One part I like

[rograndom]

It's hard to find a computer that doesn't run a Microsoft product, particularly in Chicago. Microsoft's Chicago-based Midwest district office, which covers Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin...

Then, a little later the interviewer uses this statement in a question:

in Chicago we do seem to have an inferiority complex about our place in the tech world. Rankings frequently put us toward the bottom among major cities in terms of our tech presence.

draw your own conclusions. :-)

--
andy j.

Doublespeak! Doublespeak! FUD!

[Junior J. Junior III]

My favorite quote has got to be:

The only thing we have a problem with is when the government funds open-source work. Government funding should be for work that is available to everybody.

Ballmer justifies this belief by saying that "open source software is not available to companies." The hell it isn't! They can look at the source (and even use it!) just like anyone else can! They just can't take GPL'd code and add their own stuff to it without sharing those additions.

What a bunch of bull.

Honorable fights only work when...

[Mtgman]

Both parties are honorable. I remember reading a story not long ago in Brill's Content(even though it's an old story) about Microsoft's PR group and the tricks they pulled on IBM when they were their "main threat" because of OS/2. Here is a little excerpt.

The evangelists were charged with proselytizing as many independent software developers as possible to write for Windows, not OS/2. IBM had a corporate policy at the time that barred any IBM employee from disparaging a competitor's product. Microsoft had no such restriction and exploited the situation masterfully. "We took maximum advantage of it," says Rick Segal, who led a 15-member evangelical team. As his group lobbied the developers and the forums, IBM had no idea of the strategic importance of these groups, he says, and the behemoth was vulnerable to the evangelists' attacks. "The issue that mattered most to me was how to make sure OS/2 never got a foothold to take over our operating system, our franchise."

Today it's the judges, technology managers, and legislators that Microsoft is focusing on. Linux geeks don't "get it" when it comes to legal, or managerial matters. This is a war, make no mistake about it. Microsoft, even if they're smart enough to not out and out say "Linux is a cancer" they most certainly think it and will attempt to persuade others to think that as well. When one person fights and the other just stands there taking punches, well, the person taking punches may be more "honorable" but that doesn't mean they'll win. Like it or not, Ghandi died without accomplishing his goals(even though he did win India's independence from Britan, his real goal was religious tolerance between Hindus and Muslims).

Now, weather or not we should stoop to that level in our own retaliations is another issue. But we can't afford to give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt in everything they do. They have proven, time and again, that they will use any methods they feel will be effective. Up until now they have been very effective, let's not forget that.

Steven

Iocaine powder

[abe ferlman]

Ballmer: Ever hear of Stallman? de Icaza? TORVALDS?

Dread Pirate Roberts: yes.

Ballmer: Morons.

Bryguy
"I've been slowly building up an immunity to proprietary software for the past 5 years"

How about a letter to the Chicago Sun-Times?

[sdo1]

While we're all here preaching to the choir and bitching about what Mr. Ballmer said, how about instead directing some of that energy towards CORRECTING him? I'm sure the Sun-Times would be happy to print a rebuttal. Failure for us to do anything except talk to eachother about it means that Microsoft has won this battle and that those who are not in-the-know will take the statements made in the interview as facts.

http://www.suntimes.com/geninfo/feedback.html and
http://www.suntimes.com/geninfo/email.html have contact info. I couldn't find the contact info for the interviewer or info on snail-mail (always the BEST way to make your comments), but perhaps someone with access to the physical paper rather than the website can post those.

-S

Re:Damn...

[mikethegeek]

"The challenge is that he's right. There's nothing "free" about the GPL if you're a developer that doesn't have the same views as RMS and the rest of the free software movement.
I'd love to see someone on slashdot actually prove his statement wrong."

Why? Do you believe that Microsoft, et all, have some RIGHT to code that they had no part in writing? And have no obligation to allow the original authors the same right to MS code?

The GPL does NOTHING to prevent Microsoft or any other closed-source company from developing anything they want. For that matter, MS if completely free to reverse-engineer and release their own *NIX variant if they so wish.

It's MICROSOFT here who is playing the role of a whiner wanting more and more "handouts", not the GPL backers.

What the GPL DOES do is prevent a closed source company from taking your code, using it for their own purpose, then not allowing YOU to benefit from what they added to your code. It says "here, use what you want, the only catch is you have to give the next guy the same freedom YOU had".

Microsoft fears the GPL because it prevents them from taking code, and extending it in proprietary ways so as to break compatibility, then deny even the original author access to these changes. Had Keberos been GPL instead of BSD, MS coudld never have pulled their "embrace and extend" rape of what was a universal open standard when they used it in `Doze 2000.

True, the BSD license gives you absolute freedom to do with the code as you wish, in any way you wish. In and ideal world, the BSD license would be the best one. However, the GPL is more pragmatic and practical, it FORCES people to behave in an ethical manner, whereas the BSD license relies on morals and ethics of each and every user.

Microsoft fears the GPL because they cannot use GPL code without being assimilated by it. The GPL is merely a sling that is the weapon that allows David to defeat Goliath.

Linux is a cancer

[modernz]

Linux is a cancer that is eating away at M$ profit margins.

Re:Real Life imitates the Internet

[$hotgun]

The answer to bad speech is lots of good speech.

MS was able to dis OS/2 with a smear campaign which IBM chose to ignore. MS is trying to do the same to Linux. We will not ignore them. Every time they lie or mislead, we will cry to truth loudly from every roof top.

MS: The GPL is bad for business.

Linux: Tell them who's business it is bad for!!

MS: The GPL is a cancer that will eat up your IP.

Linux: Only if you distribute a derivative. You are free to take and use a GPL program for your own purposes!!

MS: Linux is not a stable, supported solution for corporate infrastructure.

Linux: Tell that to IBM, Burlington Mills, The Home Depot and others who are using it as a stable, supported solution for corporate infrastructure!!

MS: Linux will fork.

Linux: Win95, Win98, WinNT, Win2000, WinXP...

MS: Linux will require retraining staff.

Linux: Win95, Win98, WinNT, Win2000, WinXP...

Anytime we let them get away with a misleading statement or outright lie, we suffer and our society suffers. If they tell the truth, so be it. But do not let lies stand unchallenged.

That said, our best response is to point out the hypocrisy of thier statements. That is something that resonates. Linux