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What Should Microsoft's Open Source Strategy Be?
JWinterboy asks: "I'm guessing that everyone here has a valid criticism of Microsoft's attacks on, and approach towards the Open Source model. To me, that begs the question of what we think would be an "appropriate" reaction from Microsoft towards the Open Source model. It doesn't have a service arm, so IBM's approach isn't really viable. At the same time, non-service related business models haven't fared very well.
What would we like to see Microsoft do? How can it work with the Open Source community, leverage its resources, and still make a buck?"
Check it out: Microsoft Consulting Services.
They built GAP.com, among other things. Operations in 30+ countries and all that stuff...
Kevin Fox
As opposed to now, where I can install a driver by *gasp* clicking on it and selecting "install"
/etc/apt/sources.list - and then your drivers could be upgraded in much the same way as Windows upgrades Messenger and other apps)
I'm missing something here..... (apt-get install xserver)
(Note, Linux is not as crippled as you make out, it's just that people don't make the best possible usage of systems such as apt-get and it's "competitors". These are in fact, much nicer - as the driver vendor would have a script (you'd have to come up with some sort of delivery system, but that wouldn't be too complicated - this could add a single line to a resource such as
They have a whole friggin open source OS (Darwin) which they have grafted their own closed source technology (displayPDF, QuickTime, CoreAudio, etc), and are selling for $130, or bundling with their Macs.
They also have an open source Darwin Streaming Server, and a complementary closed source QuickTime Streaming Server. They bundle Apache as their HTTP server, as well.
What can Microsoft do that would be similar?
How about release the DirectX library as open source? However, use their own in house optimization-compilation technology to ensure that their own DX libs are 10% or 15% faster than anything out there... IE, outinnovate the competition, themselves?
Or release their older Office programs as open source? Sell newer, more advanced copies, but allow the general public to self support and modify their older versions? Of course, again, the key is to out innovate yourself to convince people to buy the newest version instead of incrementally updating and fixing the older, free source version.
Or rather, release a Office Core, which allows you to compile a very basic Office devoid of nifty features... though this might backfire, as people don't generally use 80% of the features in Office, do they?
GPL Deconstructed
How can it work with the Open Source community, leverage its resources, and still make a buck?
The answer? It can't. The reason? Because M$ knows that open source is the only real threat to it's monopoly. The second M$ does anything to help out the open source community, it is weakening it's control. That is why we will NEVER see IE for Linux. MS Office documents will never be in an open standard that Linux can open easily with no problems. I don't know much about Samba, but I am waiting for the day that MS changes something so that Samba doesn't work for file sharing. Open Source is MS's biggest enemy and competitor. Asking this question is like saying "how can coke help out pepsi". It's not going to happen.
just my $.02.
I'm a FreeBSD user myself, but UFS+S does not equal ext2fs in speed, let alone "blow it out of the water"
Maybe your usage is non typical, but I never found
one single application where UFS+S outperformed ext2fs.
this is an old troll...i've read this at least 3 times.
Who is this Anonymous Coward character, how does he post so much, and why is he always such a whore?
I've seen this exact message before.
To answer your question, "Should they be penalized for succeeding?" No, they should not be penalized for succeeding. However, they should be penalized for using their success in one area to squash competitors in other markets through dubious means. Things like Microsoft tying Windows and Internet Explorer together was absurd. As of the time IE4 came out, it appeared Internet Explorer would've destroyed Netscape by itself, as Netscape got further and further behind. However, it seems MS couldn't wait for this to happen and had to resort to less appropriate measures to finalize their success. They used a similar tactic with IIS and some rewording in the NT licensing to kill Netscape's web server. Effectively, these two actions cut off all of Netscape's revenue. Who would buy Netscape's server to run on NT when IIS is free? Who would buy Netscape Navigator when IE was free? No one, it seemed.
I don't have anything against the fact that Windows or MS Office became standard products. With the exception of a small incident between DR-DOS and Windows 3.x, they all achieved their position because people wanted them. My problem is with these new areas that Microsoft insists on piggybacking their offerings on MS Windows to inflate their installed base -- things like Windows Messenger (formerly MSN Messenger), Windows Media Player 7.x, MS Remote Desktop (and licensing that prevents you from using any other product), and so on. Offering these products as free downloads (competitive with the price of other vendors offerings) would be one thing, but leveraging their OS to get an inflated installed base is something completely different. Take Windows Media Player, for example. Lets assume you're someone who wants to publish digital media to the internet. Would you be more likely to use Quicktime, (which is only available on macs, and some PCs that may have installed it) RealPlayer, (which also requires the end user to download and install) or Windows Media Player, which is standard on Windows-based computers? I think you'd be stupid to choose anything other than WMP unless there was a very specific reason why you couldn't. As a competitor, how can you possibily compete against something like that?
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
Thankfuly (sadly?) formatting and reinstalling on either Linux OR Windows is a lot easier then fixing most major screwups. :)
Of course when the data is important. . . . bleh. I typicaly tend to be the poor SOB stuck fixing things, LOL!
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
True story:
I have a Sony Cybershot 3Mpixel digicam. It has a USB port to connect to the computer. So, my computer was on, and i plugged it in to windows XP. When i do, as i scramble from the back of my computer, i hear the hard disk whizzing. By the time i get to the top and can see the monitor, there is a dialog which says:
"What would you like to do with the pictures? Print? E-mail? Open windows explorer?"
And the best thing is... there are no pictures in the root folder of the drive it made for my camera, they are buried 2 folders deep.
Quite honestly, that was fantastic. I didnt have to do ANYTHING.
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