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Microsoft's Reaction to OSS Adoption
inode_buddha writes "Eric S. Raymond has the eighth "Halloween" memo available here. It looks like Microsoft is really beginning to notice the national and corporate movement towards FS/OSS, and is reacting accordingly."
In a recent ZDNet article, ZDNet write/predicts that Linux will this year or perhaps next overtake Apple's OS to become the second most common desktop OS. Microsoft simply seems to be reponding to this increasing pressure, which as the ZDNet article point out, is coming as more government's switch over to Linux.
Lawrence Lessig is my personal hero.
January 2, 2003
From: William Gates III
To: All Employees
The sky is falling!
Thank you,
- Bill
Trolling is a art,
I don't get it.
Is Microsoft actually dumb enough to write memo after memo about something they now have admitted is their biggest threat and allow all of these memos to leak so the opposition can read them?
I was never sure about the first Halloween memo. The more that are "discovered" the more I wonder if these are truly from M$ (they must be released by our old friend, Mr. Source, or Reliable to those that know him well).
More and more it reminds me of P.D.Q. Bach -- the least of all the Bachs. There's no evidence he existed except from Peter Shickele, who keeps finding more and more works composed by this supposed composer.
My question is, if Linux overtakes MacOS on the desktop, can Microsoft continue to justify to it's shareholders the reasons behind not making Office for Linux?
They can't say there isn't a market if they make Office for a *less* popular OS.
(It's not that I actually want nor need Office for Linux.. but it's something I'm curious about)
Who cares any more? Clearly, free software has now risen to the point where competing software makers take it into account in their planning. Eric Raymond periodically gets his hands on some entirely routine memo from Microsoft and spins it into some apocalyptic confrontation between Good and Evil. He needs to lay off the Lord of the Rings, I think.
Actually, the memo is funny in its concern. Basically, it deals with the fact that when some government considers switching a few servers to Linux, or some legislator proposes an open-source-only policy, Slashdot and the rest of the Linux media turn it into "INDIA SWITCHING TO LINUX!" AND "NORWAY SWITCHING TO LINUX!" It's not nearly as much deliberate spin as it is complete journalistic incompetence and the inability to read linked articles, but it's an effective enough fUD technique that Microsoft feels compelled to respond to it. ;-)
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
That in reference to a misspelling in the memo. That's some pretty juicy stuff they found there.
Sex - Find It
... running a normal business. Microsoft is a business that is looking to make money. Goverments and Corporations moving to Linux and Star Office means less money for them. They are trying circumvent that. Can you blame them?
This is an unusual Halloween memorandum in that it's not particularly redolent of evil.
Was this newsworthy? Microsoft definitely does not have a monopoly on servers. Also they are beginning to lose their grasp of a monopoly on the desktop. They realize this, why doesn't everyone else.
"It takes many nails to build a crib, but one screw to fill it."
I don't really see anything that sinister here. It looks like a typical memo defining a procedure for responding with "one voice" to a business challenge that Microsoft faces. Frankly, I'd be surprised if they weren't having these kind of discussions.
Some of the comments seem unecessarily shrill to me. Example:
Name the key contacts within the gov't
{Translation: Who can we suborn?}
Providing a list of people to contact does not imply suborning (from m-w.com "to induce secretly to do an unlawful thing") to me. How is it unlawful to contact a customer who might be going to a competitor and trying to convince them to reconsider?
Don't get me wrong - I'm excited to see governments looking at Linux and Open Source as an alternative. I just don't think it serves anybody's best interest to take a pretty routine memo and try to turn it into the Pentagon Papers.
** The opinions expressed here are my own, and do not reflect those of my employers - past, present, or future**
I'm not fond of 10,000 pound gorillas either, but RMS makes a good point with the quote from Ghandi. When M$ was ignoring Linux, it wasn't a threat. Now they're fighting. They're trying everything they can to take out Linux.
But look at what's happening. They've tried outright FUD. They've tried new licensing (which was stupid and backfired). And now they're trying FUD again.
It really is like the Borg. M$ has been used to just assimilating (buying out) or destroying any competition (either by pricing their products lower until the competition is bankrupt, by leveraging their monopoly to force people to use M$ standards, or by twisting arms in backroom deals). Now they don't know what to do -- instead of facing a big threat with one name, where a well aimed shot, or a massive attack could destroy any threat, they're fighting something all pervasive, like a virus.
And the funny thing is they don't know what to od! It's got them so scared they're beginning to do stupid things and having knee-jerk reactions.
I don't think Windows will end up burried forever, but I think if Linux distros unified and started pushing easy to use desktop systems with OpenOffice.org on them, I think we'd soon find that most companies are not focusing on JUST Word compatability anymore, but on Word and OOo.
Linux is in a good position, and it gets better and better. M$ is fighting Linux -- but that's because it's a real threat and could even (conceivably, but unlikely) bankrupt the company. That's good, because M$ has no idea how to fight a movement. They just don't understand the structure -- by their very nature of being a cold-hearted predatory company, there is no way they ever can understand OSS.
Eric S. Raymond was arrested today by the FBI for being in posession of confidential documents from Microsoft corporation. Microsoft has charged that posession is tantimount to industrial espionage and violates the DMCA.
"I find the whole matter deeply disturbing and troubling that this confidential document ended up in the hands of this individual. Obviously, intellectual and ownership rights have no meaning to the 'Linux' crowd and it just goes to show you their true mettle", said Microsoft spokesperson Nyles Forebush in an exclusive interview to Slashdot's Cowboy Neil.
Mr. Raymond is being held without bail at the federal penetentiary in Milan, Michigan.
I don't see how his inline comments add anything to the memo that we wouldn't have gotten from it if he hasn't simply quoted it sans-editorial. In fact, his comments look less like clarification and commentary than simple whining. He should read "Eric Raymond's tips for effective open source advocacy" some time. ;-)
I also am surprised that he acts almost insulted by the memo. What did he expect, Microsoft would support OSS? The phrase "free software" gets the same reaction from Microsoft as the phrase "free cars" would get from Ford. Don't fault the rattlesnake for biting.
Her boss will find it much better that she can't use company time to play "Hoyle Card Games", organise her pictures and manage her finances.
On the other hand, not having to pay for the next Windows and the next Office on your wife's workstation may really call her boss attention.
Nobody is talking about personal machines. Those will follow in some years, with the growing demand by corporate users to have exactly the same tools at home.
Yes, it is true, Microsoft actually did write these memos.
They were written by a group of individuals in the DTPOSF department (Distract Those Pesky Open Source Flunkies) and leaked to Slashdot for the purpose of slowing down progress.
By getting all of us to stop what we're doing, comment on how stupid they are and how much they phear us, they have accomplished exactly what they were organized to do - distract us.
So quit your gawking and get back to coding, we have an empire to destroy...
---
Dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with Windows(tm).
His main claim to popularity comes from writing "The Cathedral and the Bazaar". The problem is that the seminal understandings that sprang from that lightweight volume are now considered common knowledge. ESR was the first to codify into easily-understood form the innate truths about free software development that people had long since suspected.
He's come out with some more good ones (in particular, I like "Homesteading the Noosphere), but he hasn't written any work with more impact than than "Cathedral". He was also the first to publish the original "Halloween Document", which showed that Microsoft was, at last, taking the GNU/Linux threat seriously.
These days, almost everybody in the free-software/OSS development world understands the difference between the Bazaar and Cathedral development methods. They often consciously choose one or the other, or to develop according to Cathedral methodology, and transition to Bazaar after initial successful release. People understand the success of the development of GNU/Linux now, and despite what some will try to say, most really didn't until 1996 and the CaTB publication.
Lately, he's mostly a critic. Fetchmail is very slow on the development side these days, and his efforts to create a new build system for the Linux kernel were not accepted (killer effort, though, and well thought out, just too politically charged and too sweeping of a change for most people's tastes). However, he's still an exceptionally influential self-appointed Linux advocate. His opinions are read by millions of readers in and out of the free software community.
For the bio on the stuff he's done that has had a massive impact on the free/oss software scene, check out his bio: http://tuxedo.org/~esr/resume.html
Regardless, he has many publications in print and does a lot of speaking conventions. Like Bruce Perens, who is also influential in the community, he chose the role of public advocate for GNU/Linux for himself, and has been very successful in that role.
Matthew P. Barnson
I learn what I think when I read what I write
have any of these things really been creditible after the first one? ESR is once again leading everyone around in circles. ESR wants to be king of a new world order, but his problem is that there is no new world order. So he is trying to create a us versus them world, so we will all rally behind him.
====
Crudely Drawn Games
Actually, yes. MSFT has an amazing history of shilling and astroturfing:
I'm sure there's more, that's just all I can scrounge up in a few minutes. I seem to remember another MSFT-funded think-tank ("Indepence Institute"?) white paper, and there was an interesting "Brill's Content" article on how MSFT tracks reporters and what they write about MSFT. Actually, isn't the above enough? 10 items from 9 different sources about all varieties of shilling and astroturfing in forums from small to nation-wide. Yes, I think it's prudent to believe that MSFT employees watch Slashdot and mod-up pro-MSFT articles, or even submit them.
I'd go so far as to say that the average person should be suspicious of any pro-MSFT article or viewpoint posted in a public forum. If you, the reader, are pro-MSFT, I'm sorry: if you lie down with pigs, you can't expect to wake up in the morning smelling like roses.
Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
Facts:
Linux keeps getting better.
Windows keeps getting better. (Technically, not counting the EULAs)
Is the gap closing? I don't think so. There's still way more software and systems being created for Windows.
But Linux is doing something else, for users that don't need any exotic software. Do you need a server? Do you need a simple browsing/e-mail/basic office pack desktop? You got it. Maybe next year I can add a couple more things to that list. Maybe a few more are good enough now already and I don't know about it or agree.
In Windows, you choose between different software with different cost. In Linux, most of the tools people use are free, and there isn't many commercial counterparts. That means that those that *do* use Linux use it because it *already* does what the users want it to do, for free.
That's what spooks Microsoft. It's not that people switch. It's that they don't really have anything to offer to get them back should they decide Linux is "good enough" as it is. Any business would. And should.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings