Seven Reasons Microsoft Loves Open Source

tlockney writes "Next week at Microsoft's MIX, whurley will be leading a discussion on 'Open Source, the Web, Interoperability, and Microsoft'. To kick off a bit of pre-session discussion and enlist the help of others in putting Microsoft on the spot, whurley, king of all things open source at BMC has written an article entitled 'Seven Reasons Microsoft Loves Open Source'."

Comments

Reason zero

[cyberianpan]

They can read it & re-engineer it as paid for product !

I can see microsoft doing what apple did

[majortom1981]

Everybody keps saying that linux would put Microsoft out of business. No it won't . I honestly think microsoft would do what apple did. Linux would be the main part of windows and microsoft would make the user interface the standard windows one. Sorry I didnt describe it right. I can see microsoft doing that.

Re:I can see microsoft doing what apple did

[cyborg_zx]

It doesn't work like that - if MS is forced to use a UNIX based OS derivative in order to survive they may not go out of business but it is endgame as far as dominance is concerned. That is a lose situation for MS, not a win.

Re:I can see microsoft doing what apple did

[FudRucker]

Linux wont put Microsoft out of business. Microsoft will put themselves out of business that is if they don't learn to adjust the the market. proprietary products are painting themselves in to a corner & a niche. as OSs & software becomes more of a commodity. maybe sooner than most people think...

Re:I can see microsoft doing what apple did

[Grishnakh]

I think there's a bit of a difference there. The "BSD backed" is really a custom microkernel (Darwin), with BSD userspace tools. But this really isn't important, because the thing that Apple provides that's really different and proprietary is the system libraries: Cocoa, Carbon, etc. These are the APIs that application writers code to for the Mac platform. Because of this, you can't just compile Darwin for your Intel machine and run Mac apps; the APIs are closed-source. Trying to clone that would be an effort on the order of the WINE project; as we've seen with WINE, it doesn't really matter what kernel you're using, within reason, it's the system APIs that matter for running applications.

If Windows ever used a Linux kernel (hah!), there'd really be very little difference from the current status quo. They'd probably have to fix up the NTFS driver a lot (or use a different filesystem--most users wouldn't notice or care), they'd certainly benefit from all the built-in drivers, but the graphics subsystem would probably be a big showstopper since they'd either have to use X and change a lot of things, or make their own subsystem built into the kernel which they seem to like to do. Other than that, they'd certainly keep their whole system libraries proprietary and secret, which would make it non-trivial for people to run Windows applications on free software. Yes, they could use WINE, but that's still trying to hit a moving target and is developed slowly because of the need for reverse-engineering. Personally, I don't see why MS would ever bother using a Linux kernel; it doesn't provide them much technical benefit.

Re:I can see microsoft doing what apple did

[_Sprocket_]

Everybody keps saying that linux would put Microsoft out of business.

I'm not sure who "everybody" is... but such claims ignore history. It ignores the very impressive turn-on-a-dime business strategy Microsoft pulled off after they initially failed to realize the importance of the Internet. And it ignores a historical precedence in the changing of IBM's desktop hardware market when it shifted from a proprietary to commodity platform.

Micorosoft is not going to simply curl up and die. They've proven to be agile enough to react to threats / lost opportunities. And they have the momentum and resources to deal with a suddenly difficult market.

If we're lucky, Microsoft will become the software / OS equivalent of IBM. Sure - they're still powerhouses in the Industry... but they no longer control it. They have influence but have to compete with every other market player for that influence to pay off and drive the market in their desired direction.

Re:I can see microsoft doing what apple did

[Penguinisto]

Personally, I don't see why MS would ever bother using a Linux kernel; it doesn't provide them much technical benefit.

Then again, the NT microkernel seems a bit overstressed for what it's being pushed to do in Vista, and it's starting to show... badly. Two versions from now, they're going to have to replace it with something... 'cause what they got now simply isn't going to cut the mustard (well, unless they up the minimum HW requirements to an 8-core box + 16GB of RAM + four SLI-chained vidcards...)

That said, I do agree that it prolly won't be Linux - MSFT will most likely snag the latest *BSD kernel (one that has no GPL encumbrance) and lock it down good and hard. Then they'll build the world's ugliest set of wrappers and APIs for it, then call the results "innovation".

/P

Re:I can see microsoft doing what apple did

[cyborg_zx]

Your retrospective goggles seem to be compressing time. I suggest you try fixing them.

Re:I can see microsoft doing what apple did

[daybot]

Are you really trying to argue that NT provides some useful sort of compatibility for Unix apps? Citing the Wikipedia as a source does not do much to create credibility for your conjecture.

And citing roughlydrafted is better? Sorry, couldn't resist.

Re:I can see microsoft doing what apple did

[Lorkki]

It is a microkernel design with isolated loadable plugin subsystems.

No, it's not. Microsoft themselves refer to it as a "hybrid kernel"; practically, it means it's a monolithic kernel that sort of looks somewhat like a microkernel if you squint and turn your head a little, but it still misses out on most of the relevant advantages of a real microkernel architecture. Most modern operating systems have kernels that support pluggable binary format and other kernel service modules, but the amount of marketing spin has more variety.

Is this the right talk for him to give?

[NaCh0]

I think he'd be better qualified to speak on why BMC loves MSIE.

Admitted

[Awksjaw]

FTA: "Open source is not the threat; Linux is."

Re:Admitted

[parvenu74]

That makes no sense. Microsoft primarily makes their money from Windows and Office; with Linux making progress toward a usable desktop and OpenOffice.org already at the state where it can replace MS Office for most tasks, what can Microsoft use to lock people onto their platform? IIS? There's Apache. MSSQL? There are MySQL and PostgeSQL. .NET? There is Mono and Java. There are two reasons why MS still exists: the huge amount of legacy code and applications that cannot run on any other systems, and the lack of corporate hand-holding for customers considering the jump to Linux (though this is rapidly changing). For companies that don't rely on legacy business applications, the ability to roll out Linux desktops to the bulk of their users can be done today. As the state of Linux apps business progress, there will be ever less reason for customers to play Microsoft's game.

What's a whurly?

[spun]

Is it like a swirly? Oh, it's William Hurley. Of course. That non-famous guy I've never heard of before.

This synopsis annoys me because it is written as if we're all just supposed to know what the hell a whurly and a BMC are.

Duh

[derEikopf]

Free R&D.

No competition = stagnation

[dedazo]

Microsoft needs open source because established companies cannot compete with them in the "normal" market outside of the web (Google and Yahoo) where Microsoft has historically played catch-up. Open source levels the field, and so you have things like Firefox. Firefox forced Microsoft to come out of their "it's good enough and no one has a choice anyway" stagnation. The inevitable comparisons between Apache and IIS5 ended up resulting in IIS6. When Microsoft feels the pressure, they are a better company with better products.

Arguably this is not true for all their markets, such as development tools and Office, which historically have not been too contested (not lately at least) and yet have not resulted in the same stagnation.

Many people want open source to succeed, because one of the end results of that is a better Microsoft. I've always included myself in that group.

As for the article, I think it's a good read for all the "LOLOL M$ is TEH AFRAID OF THE GNU/PENGUIN ETC" crowd:

Microsoft doesn't fear open source; it fears what the competition can do with it.

Microsoft fears IBM and Novell and CA. It doesn't "fear" Ubuntu or Gentoo or Torvalds. That's the key issue that RMS managed to miss (or probably chose to ignore for the oomph effect) in his incisive analysis of the "Halloween documents".

Re:No competition = stagnation

[cyborg_zx]

Actually if there's anything to fear it's that mature product genres inevitably have lower value over time.

That is to say that now that OS technology is mature it just doesn't increase in value as much any more. So MS has a problem shifting its new OSes because the old OSes have enough value as they are. Same with Office products. Unfortunately for MS its business model requires that the value of its products does not lower over time - hence they are inevitably required to find ways of artificially increasing the value of their products by forcing upgrades, removing support and so forth.

Re:No competition = stagnation

[TubeSteak]

They realize open source is their future.
Sure, Microsoft sometimes makes it easy for us to hate them, but aren't as disconnected from the pulse of the open source community as you may think. Linux is causing issues for them in the market, and they're working hard to keep up. They didn't build their empire by not planning ahead--even the most closed-minded executive in Redmond realizes open source is in their future.

Notice how author of TFA doesn't bother to back up his assertion?

I would have though that reality backs up the opposite: MS doesn't want to open their code or specs.

Right now, they're giving the EU a tough time over specs,
I can't imagine how "They realize open source is their future".

Re:Linux not the threat; the GNU GPL is

[pnaro]

Ummm, both Microsoft and Apple have a long history with BSD-derived works, even before Linux and GPL was around.

As far as Apple's use of "a lot of FreeBSD code", no shit, sherlock! The MacOS X roots date back (through NeXT) to the mid-late 80s. Their whole underlying structure has always been BSD.

Re:Linux not the threat; the GNU GPL is

[cyborg_zx]

The GPL is great for some things, but if you are giving your code to paying customers, let them do what they want with it.

Hmm... do you take the same stance with the binaries?

I don't know what magic the source code has that means that if you are selling source rather than a binary that you would have to let your customers do whatever they like with it. Would you please explain?

This "defend our freedom" sounds like a bunch of bullshit. Viewing sourcode isn't a freedom.

Ugh. It's not about viewing the source code, it's about controlling what you can do with it. The GPL defends the freedom of the source code by requiring that derivatives are also free in the same manner. It's that simple.

Reason Eight

[kinglink]

Because people spend their time working on open source instead of the product to beat Microsoft. So Steve Jobs the second comes along today. He's going to make an OS that's going to destroy Windows. He looks for his best coder. However coders don't need a Steve Jobs to make software anymore. They can just work on Linux to get their coding fix. They don't need a guy with a vision because they have Linux Torvalds to follow and continue to lead them.

Let's face it, Linux is not going to destroy Windows, there's too many issues with it. People have already seen Linux and made their opinions then. We can change them but it's an uphill battle. The in fighting, the "hard core linux guys" vs. the Red hats vs. the Slackware vs. everyone else has ruined what little chance Linux has. The very fact that if Linux takes over, it won't be one version but every version and it will all create work for the end user means it's going to be problematic for it to even gain market share.

Open source diverts and directs a lot of time for the people who could take on Microsoft's products and that makes Microsoft happy. In theory it COULD make for a better product because everyone can be working towards one goal. But in reality every programmer has an opinion on how best to go about the assault on the big MS and with out true leadership (Torvalds isn't looking to lead the revolution, Stallman is but he's as polarizing as can be, hell Stallman will scare most corporations back to Microsoft's loving arms with his free software talk.) Even the term open source scares businesses and executives. It's a good thing after you understand it but there's a lot of parts of it that Microsoft can whisper in people's ears to scare them into using the Microsoft alternative.

So Microsoft loves the fact open source is here because if anything it's destroyed more genius ideas than they could probably fight on their own in a number of ways.

Re:Linux not the threat; the GNU GPL is

[mandelbr0t]

They certainly don't have to. But if Microsoft insists on keeping their code secret at all costs, there will come a point when there is GPL code available to compete with absolutely everything that Microsoft produces. Heck, we're almost there already: OS, Office suite, Web browser, Mail client, development environment, games (for those that don't need the latest FPS from Megacorp, anyway).

That is the future that Microsoft wants to avoid at all costs; it will make the price of software as a commodity become $0. At some point, Microsoft will need to sell their software at $0 just to compete, which means that the IT industry becomes a service industry rather than manufacturing. That's a good thing for everyone (well, OK, maybe just me). Losses due to piracy become non-existant, since piracy is no longer a useful concept. Talented people will be paid to implement solutions, Microsoft or otherwise.

The best thing Microsoft can do is what Sun Microsystems already did: experiment with Community Source Licensing. No, we won't be able to do whatever we want with Windows source code, but we'll be able to mess around with it in our labs/basements/whatever and understand Windows better. They don't even have to accept changes from the community if they don't want, and they can keep the distribution rights to themselves.

Ultimately, it's a show of faith on Microsoft's part. They may believe they don't need to start playing nice with FSF supporters anytime soon, but I certainly don't think they have quite that luxury. FSF always had and will always have the potential of producing a whole bunch of software that's truly Free and in doing so take those "innovations" away from Microsoft. Microsoft needs to interoperate. The fastest way to do so is to show us their source code.

Worded differently

[Daath]

"Embrace and Extend"

I hate when they do that.