If Microsoft Went Open Source

From an Anonymous Reader: "The BBC's Bill Thompson has written a speculative article about the possibility of Microsoft attempting to secure their place in the future of operating systems by creating an open operating system. From the article: 'They allocate a billion dollars worth of programmers to shine and polish [The new OS] for a year, improving its compatibility with Windows Server technologies, donating parts of the Windows and Office code bases under the GPL and turning it into the world's best operating system.' Could this ever happen?

Comments

Not a chance

[jlrowe]

Microsoft is based not on software, but on *control*.

Control of suppliers, control of customers, control of employees, control of what competitors are left.

To go OSS would be a complete 180 in personality, and that is just not going to happen.

Re:Not a chance

[siphoncolder]

Oh don't be so dramatic.

It's based on money. Control ensures money - that's the bottom line. Literally.

Re:Not a chance

[suitepotato]

Microsoft IS most definitely based on software, they know it and work it, and do it very well. Why are so many on /. unwilling to give them credit where it is due? Through acquisition of skilled individuals and small outfits with good IP and talented people, and leveraging of everything they've put together, they've managed to kick the royal sh*t out of IBM, Oracle, Novell, Netscape, and a long laundry list of other would-be Micrsoft-killers.

OSS has zip to do with nobility or anything else associated with good. It's rapidly being brought low to the same level as drug abuse due to peer pressure. Better go open source or you'll be seen in the same light as Microsoft. Open source to be cool and hip and accepted.

Horsesh*t. Microsoft spent real money, invested real resources, why should they not keep their source closed if they so choose? It's their right to do, as it is theirs. You want to open source your stuff, do what you want with your stuff. You want to close source it, who cares, its yours.

I am so sick of this tinfoil hat FUD about Microsoft. Their chief crimes are simple: they sold unfinished, alpha, and beta software as finished product and downplayed the results despite voluminous documention by support professionals and by virtue of the sheer number of patches needed to stabilize it afterwards; their second crime is to abuse the patent system while claiming to desire an end to the same behavior. Lastly, they tend to get overprotective of their market and cross the line in proper and ethical sales and marketing practices.

But enough is enough with the "MS is teh enemy" nonsense. Windows XP isn't remotely the mess that Windows 3.11 and DOS 6.22, Windows 95 first release or Windows ME were. You want to go after them for what they really do? Fine, document it, prove it, make the case. Don't have one? Drop it until you do people. If MS continues to be villified for being something they aren't and doing things they haven't, sooner or later they will and though it may soothe the hearts of a lot of pathetic geeks to see them become guilty after the fact, it won't help anyone. Not the market, not the industry, not the customers, not the world.

So let's think before we paint them so darkly automatically.

Re:Not a chance

[NickFortune]

Microsoft IS most definitely based on software, they know it and work it, and do it very well. Why are so many on /. unwilling to give them credit where it is due?

That's an interesting question, really. There's no doubt that MS made a policy of hiring the very best, and we can reasonably assume that they have some quality coding going on in house.

And yet there is considerable perceived suckage in the Microsoft codebase. Ans so a lot of people ask "if so many people dislike this product, why does it remain dominant?"

Good marketing seems a plausible answer. Certainly, Microsoft are extremely good at marketing. Arguably their marketing skills are superior to their coding skills, notwithstading their having a shipload of talent available in the coding department.

And this in turn leads many to characterise MS main business as marketing. It seems to be what they do best. Of course, to describe them as a marking company is an oversimplification, but it is still a useful analysis in terms of the insight it yeilds into the software giant's behaviour.

To consider their behavior in terms of control, while perhaps harder to defend, is similarly interesting. Certain MS activities make no sense in terms of providing what thewir customers want, but make perfect sense if you consider them as control freaks. Their determination to inflict DRM upon their userbase springs to mind here for some reason.

OSS has zip to do with nobility or anything else associated with good. It's rapidly being brought low to the same level as drug abuse due to peer pressure. Better go open source or you'll be seen in the same light as Microsoft. Open source to be cool and hip and accepted.

You reckon? I don't recognise that characterisation at all. Copyleft software creates a commonwealth that enriches us all. Many contribute simply for that reason. Of course, OSS coders are a diverse bunch and each of us probably has a their own unique set of reasons for contributing. Unlike Microsoft, the closet we come to having a corporate agenda is the GPL. And that, I think you'll grant, is a fairly altruistic document.

There is of course the pressure some people are directing at Sun to release Java to the community. Personally I think that would be a good move for Java, but I will conceed that it is Sun's decision. But even if the rhetoric has gone over the top in the course of that particular debate, it's hardly fair to attempt to characterise the entire community in terms of that one discussion.

Oh, and I can't see the drug use connection at all. I'd love for you to explain that one.

Microsoft spent real money, invested real resources, why should they not keep their source closed if they so choose? It's their right to do, as it is theirs.

Just to be clear, I do not dispute this. In fact I don't think anyone disputes this, although a few people belive MS might be better served by going open source. I belive they are entitled to their opinions, just as MS are entitled to ignore them.

I am so sick of this tinfoil hat FUD about Microsoft. Their chief crimes are simple: they sold unfinished, alpha, and beta software as finished product and downplayed the results despite voluminous documention by support professionals and by virtue of the sheer number of patches needed to stabilize it afterwards; their second crime is to abuse the patent system while claiming to desire an end to the same behavior. Lastly, they tend to get overprotective of their market and cross the line in proper and ethical sales and marketing practices.

Is that all? I thought they'd done something bad! ;)

Seriously, add to the list that they are also rather scathing in denigrating their opponents, and have a vicious line of FUD themselves. Which would not be so bad if their own offerings represented the pinacle of software development depicted in MS ad campaigns.

As it is, you can expect folks to be a bit

Could this ever happen?

[Rick Zeman]

No. Less return to the stockholders (not that they get many dividends anyway....)

In a word, no

[bgfay]

This could not happen. From everything I've read, Bill Gates doesn't work this way and isn't concerned about that kind of immortality.

There is nothing in the history of him or his company to suggest that this is possible.

And, frankly, it's not necessary.

Re:In a word, no

[hungrygrue]

Let's immagine for a second that every executive at microsoft were suddenly hypnotized or something and decided to GPL the Windows operating system. The Wine project would benefit, obviously, which means that legacy Windows applications could run seamlessly on Linux. But what would be the point of trying to improve the Windows operating system itself?? If you tried to implement and inforce good security you would break backwards compatibility. POSIX support could be added, but why bother when you can just run any needed Windows apps under Linux instead? Honestly I don't see that there would be any further use for the Windows operating system itself, at least as a stand alone OS, only the Windows API which would simply be incorporated into Wine. Open sourcing Windows would be the end of Windows as an OS.

Next

[AaronStJ]

Could this ever happen?

No. Next question.

Speculative article != news article

[RootsLINUX]

Honestly, I'm wondering why this is on Slashdot. I come here to read news, not some editorial guesses at what might be news in the future. "News for Nerd. Stuff that matters." ===> and this article doesn't matter...

Best is subjective.

[mOoZik]

MS has 90%+ of the market. Why should they try to do anyting other than what they're doing, which is obviously working? They seem pretty content!

The prupose of a company

[paulius_g]

Microsoft is one of the biggest companies in the world. They have many employees, many products and many shareholders.

So putting on such a big project such as Windows on Open Source would seem ridiculous both for Bill Gate, its executives and all the shareholders out there. It is Microsoft's job to please these shareholders: to wipe the competition apart and to build more and more profit.

Here's another topic that we should "openly" discuss: profits. Where is Microsoft going to get profits? Oh sure, the company has a lot of money in stock, but it cannot continue working in losses instead of profits. They could make money by offering technical support, but they can make even more money by offering their Windows products!

Never the less, I think that this is an interesting vision. And this could happen in the future when another operating system would attempt to take over Windows (Oh please! Someone make this happen). It would sure be very interesting to see how Windows could be improved and what a great product it could become. But until then, Microsoft will continue to offer a closed copy of their products.

Case closed!
(Or maybe not)

Why bother?

[Bob_Robertson]

If you'd asked if Microsoft would release their application and development suite as binaries for Linux, for a price, I'd say "Sure! As soon as they realize that the OS is now a commodity they cannot count on for their profit margins any more."

However, Microsoft will not release Windows as Open Source. They cannot, because there is too much stolen code in it. **cough**BSD**cough**

IF Microsoft had released Office for every OS out there, rather than trying to own the entire PC from device drivers to applications to keyboards and mice, they would indeed own the office, likely for the rest of time. But they didn't. They got greedy, they wanted it all, and focused so much effort and time trying to LOCK IN users and LOCK OUT any alternatives that they lost sight of the one thing that they used to do well: Write applications.

They tried. 64-bit Win95 for the Alpha did indeed get sold, but then they abandoned it. This left customers hanging and looking for an alternative, and they were pissed enough at MS to not go back. This is not smart, and it demonstrates the lack of forethought that has created the environment for disaster that Windows Vista forshadows.

Who will upgrade their hardware to relative supercomputers just to pay for an upgrade to software they already have and that already works? The vision of those hardy souls who have never upgraded from Win98 because, face it, Win98 and Office97 are still perfectly good for 99.99% of what everyone does.

So when Office97 documents start failing because Microsoft changed their formats again, don't expect companies to spend $2000/seat to just do what they could do yesterday. OpenOffice is already here.

And when IE7 won't install on anything older than WinXP, don't expect that same $2000/seat upgrade to be spent to, again, just do today what worked fine yesterday. Firefox, Opera, Mozilla &etc are already here.

The F/OSS community already has a head start in making functional apps to do what needs doing regardless of OS, on existing hardware, using commodity protocols. Microsoft can never catch up trying to do that, because they have never been successful at doing that. They CHOSE not to be compatible, not to be frugal, not to play nice with others.

Microsoft as a company believes this is some kind of "race" that they have to "win", but while Microsoft spends bails of money "mobilizing their sales and marketing departments", F/OSS developers will continue to write good code.

Bob-

Re:Why bother?

[Zak3056]

However, Microsoft will not release Windows as Open Source. They cannot, because there is too much stolen code in it. **cough**BSD**cough**

Given that the infamous "running strings on ftp.exe" results in the Berkeley Regents copyright notice, I daresay that this code is NOT stolen, and is being used according to license.

No, the real reason this will never happen is that there isn't anything in it for MS--interoperability weakens their monopoly, and Open Source doesn't offer anything compelling enough (to them) to make that kind of move. However, I think we will see more and more dev and system administration tools end up under some form of F/OSS license. They already have a few projects in the wild (two of them are actually hosted on sourceforge!)

That actually has a real benefit to microsoft--particularly if Balmer was serious when he did his monkey dance and shouted "Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers!" The CPL seems to be what they're currently looking at for that sort of thing, let's see how they progress.

Re:Flawed logic

[Baddas]

I think there's a flaw to your logic: Forks.

Forked projects occasionally, though not always, end up viable alternatives.

Look at X.org, look at the three different BSDs (De Raadt's recoding of things for security) and so forth.

If Microsoft took the traditional route of forking a fairly recent version of the stable codebase, they'd have a decent chance of being able to actually sell something.

Re:Wrong emphasis

[skiflyer]

It's the best thing Microsoft could do right now. Which is why they won't do it. It's like what they say about generals always fighting the last war. Gates and Ballmer got where they are by hewing to a specific ideology. They're not changing their minds in this lifetime or the next, even if its clear that that ideology is antiquated and obsolete.

So you said alot, fine... then you make this massive claim at the end even though you have absolutely no support for it. Where's the clear evidence that this is the best thing for Microsoft like you make it sound? Where in the world are you finding any evidence to claim that their current ideology is antiquated and obselete?

I know this is an OSS friendly place to post messages, but come on. I'm pretty sure MS is still happy with their current business plan, and I'm pretty sure it's still working well for them.... but really, if you think the best thing MS can do is go open source, tell us why, I'm really curious.

Too big of a project

[parvenu74]

Allocating a billion dollars to the project wouldn't do it. As it is now, more people are involved in getting a version of Windows to launch-state then it took to put a man on the moon. Simply managing the logisitics of something of that scale is boggling enough... and that's before you even look at the quality of the operating system itself. I am curioous, though, how much money it took Apple, all tolled, to get OS X from dream to reality. Anyone want to venture a guess that the total was well north of a billion dollars?

Re:Wrong emphasis

[croddy]

That's exactly why he's suggesting that they assign their most experienced engineers -- the ones who know best how the applications fit together and how all the little pieces interact -- to oversee the process of approving and applying those patches.

Because exactly as you've pointed out -- it's not the small maintenance and enhancement programming that makes a project good. It's the higher-level decisions by the project managers that can determine whether code changes will be successful.

Not a chance, yes

[lastberserker]

Still you missed it by a mile ;-P The reason Microsoft won't "donate" so much money and dev time is because there is no value to shareholders.

Thanks for playing, and please come back for more +5 "somebody buy Slashdot moderators a clue" Insightful raitings.

Dead projects on Sourceforge

[jesterzog]

Sourceforge is littered with the remains of OSS projects that were fun to code and get working, but that nobody wants to maintain anymore.

What you've said about the administration problems for large projects is true, but I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing that there are lots of unfinished projects lying around places like Sourceforge.

A few months ago, I was looking for a library that would do something, but it just didn't exist. What I did find, though, was someone's Sourceforge effort from five years ago. It wasn't packaged very well, and it only covered about 70% of what I'd ideally want. I was able to contact the original author, and while he's still interested in it, he really doesn't have the time (or to some extent the expertise) to finish it.

Since then, I've decided to try to pick up where the previous developer left off. I've re-packaged the code, and now I'm thinking about extending it to cover what I wanted to do previously. I don't know how successful I'll be in finishing it off, and to be honest I think it's unlikely. But the fact that someone else made their own effort available, and occupying sourceforge, made it much easier for me to get my own effort underway.

Re:Dead projects on Sourceforge

[Reziac]

Your tale illustrates *exactly* why I feel that abandoned, unfinished, half-baked, and other not-yet-working stuff *should* be kept available on Sourceforge, rather than done away with (as I heard SF once discussed doing). Who knows what partly-baked idea might be just the right seed for another project, which DOES get finished??

Re:Wrong emphasis

[sumdumass]

How would that be slave labor? You must have some eronious idea of slavery.

Slaves don't volenteer to work free. They don't get up in the morning and think, I'll go do some free work for the next door neibor. Slaves are property and are forced to do this. There really is no choice in the matter. This is no were close to being slave labor.

At worst it would be a volenteer situation and how is that actually bad? The number of programers microsoft employs would only increase if they "invest their money in more programmers" so it isn't like your job would be replaced. At best, it would Make a better operating system and increase inovation by widening the fields of tallent availible While increasing security and operability. They wouldn't have to except everythign submitted either. It would be a situation of taking the best of the best and improving on the good ideas to make them the best.

Notice that i use slavery in the present tense term. Thats because it still exists today and is actualy legal in a few countries. A person (child) can be born into slaver as well as be sold into slavery in some countries. People are actualy abducted and sold into slavery and people are tricked into slavery in places were it isn't exactly legal. Ask a slave if they choose to be a slave and you might see the difference here.

Red Cap!

[khasim]

So, Microsoft buys out Red Hat for a huge amount of money....

Why would the people who worked at Red Hat still work there after Microsoft buys them?

Why wouldn't that take their huge checks and start a new company, with all the GPL'd code and industry love they've earned and call it something like "Red Cap" and pick up right were they left off.

Except they're all much richer than before.

Microsoft can hire individuals away from Linux-based companies ... but Microsoft cannot do anything to the people who WANT to work on Linux.

And I wouldn't trust Microsoft's lawyers not to have all kinds of provisions in a developer's contract with Microsoft.

I'm sure Bill would happily pay Linus a million or two if he could legally prevent Linus from writing any more code.

Re:Wrong emphasis

[sumdumass]

Growth in this case would be measured in necessity, And how they create that neccesity.

I know that sound wierd or different then what it should mean but if microsoft intends to keep ~90% of all desktops, it needs to create a "need" past a desire or default for thier products. Thier growth would be in servers and services as well a specific tecnoligy that they alone could control.

This is one of the reasons people are so scared about DRM and trusted computing. It isn't so much that it might lock out other operating systems and possibly other companies programs as much as it is that you would be forced to pay tribute to microsoft in order to experience what you can today. This might not be exactly monetary either. It may be offered free if you have purchased some other product wich actualy makes it cost but people won't look at it that way.

Right now microsoft is were it is because of it's marketing. Good or bad, thier tactics worked sufficiently enough to remove enough of the competition to get were they are. Once the competition is replaced, this marketing will have less of an impact and they will (could) retain thier shares by making it neccesary to use thier "new products" in order to retain the uses your already used to. This might be a lateral move on the surface but has the potential to slap fees well in excess of what we are used to today. I can see a time were you have to suscribe to the OS and pay a yearly or even monthly royalty in some situations. There won't really be a choice unless microsoft continues in thier current path. Growth is the only option for them.

Other wise they might fall to the wayside like apple or IBM when they had a dominant operating system.

Re:Wrong emphasis

[zygote]

That's exactly why he's suggesting that they assign their most experienced engineers -- the ones who know best how the applications fit together and how all the little pieces interact -- to oversee the process of approving and applying those patches.

Even that, apparently, wouldn't help!

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/28/183823 5&tid=201

Re:Wrong emphasis

[skiflyer]

Yeah, an article saying they're not growing fast enough to keep Wall Street happy... BFD! They have a huge market share, and are still growing! So that shows their ideology as antiquated or obselete?! Are you kidding? Linux/*BSD is pecking them to death, are you kidding? Windows 2003 showed their first serious entry into the server market, and who knows what's next, proprietary IS working for them, whatever the benefits of OSS (and for the record, I think they're many) proprietary is working for the MS bottom line even if it's not always working to the benefit of the end users.

Do they keep making money, yes, do they keep growing yes, do they run the risk of being beat in certain segments, possibly... do the answers to those questions necessitate a DRASTIC change in company philosophy... give me a break, your ideology is clearly clouding your views... I'm glad the grass is so green on your side, but you really need to take a more realistic view of the landscape.

So if they're lucky, their stock price stays where it is

So tell me, if they switch to an OSS model, what's the "if they're lucky" and "if they're unlucky" options? Hmmm, perhaps "if they're lucky" they remain relevant and their stock drops 50%, and "if they're unlucky" they lose huge percentages (10-15 is HUGE in this context, 25-30 is uncomphrensible) and their stock becomes worthless.

Seriously, slashdot is full of people who are optimists, and full of people with some phenomenal ideas as alternates to Windows, as competition, as different business models, as great things microsoft should adopt, as a whole lot of things... but the people supporting this article are just being ridiculous, you're putting MS in a funk which doesn't exist, and suggesting a solution which doesn't address the actualy problems and at the same time undercutting the biggest routes of success it has.

Re:Wrong emphasis

[skiflyer]

I hope you're right... I love sourceforge, but the real kicker about it to me is the amount of cruft, for every cool, neat or useful project, I find 4 useless ones... for every 10th wow i won't that project, 1 is dead and not supported, doesn't run, has no support, etc.

I absolutely LOVE the idea behind sourceforge, I wish I had the time and skills to help with projects there... but the one thing I wish they had was a better frontend to the projects... even putting projects without current releases or without active user contact or without whatever it takes to be a success one level behind the projects which just fucking rock would be a big step.... if I type in sourceforge.net I want to see some cool programs right away and in my face, the stuff that's supported actively, is cross platform, and has steam both behind it and in its future... things like GAIM and GIMP and Inkscape.

I know this isn't sourceforge's goal right now, and perhaps it never should be, I just know I'd like such an interface to all those projects.

Anyway, the scenario is kind of stupid.

[hummassa]

If Microsoft *really* wanted to have anything to do with Linux/BSDs, they would simply improve WINE. Hell, they could implement it fully, maintain it on sync with all their Win* APIs and, as there is at least one version of WINE that is BSD/MIT-licensed, they could simply run with it -- even charge a little bit for it.