Meet Martin Taylor Of Microsoft's Open Source Test Lab

securitas writes "Martin Taylor was recently appointed as Microsoft's open source and Linux strategist and is responsible for Microsoft's open source and Linux test lab, mentioned on Slashdot last week. Taylor says his goal is to change Microsoft's competitive strategy by pursuing a fact-based approach instead of continuing the previous discredit-and-undermine strategy that was characterized by calling open source and Linux software 'a cancer, un-American and bankrupt' among other things. Taylor says he plans to focus on (and fund) studies that 'will highlight Microsoft's advantages in areas such as security, feature-completeness and total cost of ownership.'"

Comments

Submitter should RTFA

[kylef]

If you read the article, Open Source Initiative President Eric Raymond was the one who said that Microsoft's previous strategy was claiming Linux was a "cancer." Taylor never used those words and never suggested that was Microsoft's previous strategy, as the headline suggests.

All Taylor admits is that previously Microsoft had defaulted to an "emotional" argument, and that now they are switching to a "fact-based" one, whatever that means.

The only reason I'm correcting the submitter here is that it makes no sense to put words in people's mouth, even if you hate them. It is counter-productive to legitimate debate and argument.

Re:Submitter should RTFA

[Vainglorious Coward]

Taylor may not have used the word "cancer", but Steve Ballmer certainly did, in an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times, June 2001. Unfortunately, I can't find the otiginal article on the CS-T website, but a quick google for "Ballmer Linux cancer" yields more than 200 hits, of which this is a typical sample.

Ballmer said, "Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches."

What was that you were saying about legitimate debate and argument?

Re:What the heck *is* FUD anyway?

[red floyd]

coined by some guy I can't remember

Gene Amdahl.