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A Perspective on Microsoft's Shared Source
Masa writes "ONLamp has an insightful article by Stephen R. Walli about Microsoft Shared Source Initiative and some thoughts, what it would really mean if Microsoft would open-source their operating system.
The article gives a nice perspective on the Shared Source Initiative and what it is meant to be. It also shows that even if it might look that Microsoft doesn't understand the value of open source, there actually are some projects under the OSI-approved licenses, for example the WiX Toolset, which is a good example of a successful open source project by Microsoft."
I love how it mentions WiX. WiX has generated enormously good will for microsoft, at least with me.
I don't ever see them releasing all of windows open source, but just releasing small utilities like that open source for others to toy with is a HUGE step forward. Pretend that microsoft hadn't released WiX, and it stayed as time called it, insignificant. No one would have bothered with it except MCP's and others, and they would have used WinInstall LE or whatever.
But because microsoft released it free and OSS, an enormous buzz has been generated and an enormous amount of good will as well.
Exactly, the outrageous profit margins Microsoft makes will allow it to make outrageous price concessions if a competitor ever does arise on the desktop.
But the problem for Microsoft is that it's basically a house of cards. Every other facet of Microsoft loses money other than Office and Windows. If either of those fail, the entire company would fail with it. That's why it is so desperate to do something different, e.g., Xbox, WebTV, WinCE, search, Windows Media Video 9/HD-DVD, etc. Thus, if Microsoft was forced to lower prices on Office/Windows, they'd have to start dumping all of their money losing areas to stay afloat.
When I look at Microsoft that way, I think of the first Predator movie, with the well armed troops, shooting around at random, and hitting nothing.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Catering to a lower common denominator in minimum system specs would make running the operating system far quicker on truly modern systems, but still usable on "obsolete" systems that are only 5-6 years old that would otherwise end up in a landfill.
I think this is a worthy goal.
I'm a big tall mofo.
When Red Hat earns that kind of profit, then Microsoft might switch.
Well, that will never happen then. The big money in Open Source is always going to be made through services rather than software. If Microsoft open sourced office and windows, they'd have to suddenly completely change their business model.
It would be a stupid idea business idea from anybody's perspective.
Read that as "Open source is currently in, we need some of that".
I can't help thinking that someone considers WiX a casualty of war.
Do you see what I did there?
all this " feel-good-happy-sunshine day " stuff is fine, we can all envision our own utopias and see our children playing in wheat fields and whatnot, but the reality of the situation is that a marked paradigm shift would need to occur before microsoft truly embraces " open source " .
open source is not mutually exclusive to programmers and code . open source is the way of the future in terms of the thinking that it fosters: transparent, goal-oriented ( rather than profit-driven ) teamwork . nothing lasts forever, especially not behemoths the size of microsoft . eventually, a better path will be found .
This is a sticking point that people in the Windows camp don't seem to be able to get around.
1. "Linux" is just the kernel. I think that's what this guy was trying to say when he said that the Windows tree is not the Linux tree.
2. A mainstream "GNU/Linux distribution" like Mandrake, RedHat, Fedora, Novell or Debian is more akin to Microsoft Windows Professional + Microsoft Office + Microsoft Plus Pack + Window Blinds + Norton Internet Security + Roxio + [insert any brand of CD/DVD ripping software here] + Development tools + IIS + Microsoft SQL + Abobe Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro + Outlook. At least for a start.
So, if you are going to compare Microsoft Windows to a mainstream GNU/Linux distribution, you quickly see that the GNU/Linux tree is not the Windows tree as there is a whole lot more source code that does into your average distro and a lot of it is very tightly integrated. This is why it is pretty amazing that all the distros are really good about not just updating the basic "OS" code, but all the bundled apps as well. If Microsoft really released a Windows distribution with all the same functionality as a typical GNU/Linux distro, I have a feeling they'd have an even harder time keeping up security wise. It's interesting to note that the supposed independent studies of Linux vs. Windows always harp on how many more security updates that GNU/Linux distros put out than Microsoft does for Windows. They attack that claiming that there are far more security holes in the OS but still equate Windows as offering the same services with fewer patches needed. However, it quickly becomes obvious that since Windows provides such a small amount of functionality when compared to a GNU/Linux distro, they do not offer the same services. It's highly likely that if they did, their patchlist would rival all GNU/Linux distro's patch lists combined. :)
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o