Microsoft Acknowledges Open Source As a Bigger Threat Than Google

ruphus13 takes us to ZDNet for an analysis of comments by Microsoft's Chief Software Architect, Ray Ozzie, about how open source is "much more potentially disruptive" to Microsoft's business strategy than Google. Ozzie also spoke about the future of Microsoft's search technology, which will develop with or without Yahoo. There is a related interview at OStatic with several Microsoft employees about how they view and interact with the open source community. The head of Microsoft's global open source and Linux team is quoted saying: "The other thing I think is missing is implementation of a basic principle of economic fairness. Thousands of developers have put very hard work into building software used by millions of people and companies, yet only a fraction of these developers are rewarded financially. Currently there are perfectly good projects that have been abandoned by their developers despite being used by large corporations. Subsequently the projects fall out of use. This is unnecessary waste that would often be prevented by making it easy for companies to pay the developers directly. I think it's important to solve this so that the sustainability of open source projects is improved."

Comments

No all we need...

[HappySmileMan]

Is for Google to release a Linux distro for desktops... Then Microsoft would be truly pissed off

They already have modified distroes running internally, so it wouldn't be too far-fetched, though I don't think it'd happen anytime soon, if at all.

Re:One reason compensation is not important

[morgan_greywolf]

bacause most developers do it because of their personal interest.

Correct. Every open source project I've ever started or written is a result of a need -- an "itch" as ESR puts it in Homesteading the Noosphere. Necessity is the other of invention.

When I needed a GUI applet for my wife to monitor ink levels and run cleaning cycles on our Epson Stylus printer and none of the existing applications out there did the trick just right, I wrote Stylus Toolbox. Big surprise. I don't care if I ever get a dime in compensation, because I've already been compensated -- by the satisfaction obtained from the joy of software development and by the actual application itself, which I needed and still use today.

Not that I wouldn't gladly accept monetary donations -- but I'd rather get donations of equipment (mainly printers) for development and testing of Stylus Toolbox and/or escputil. Also, developers who would like to help me update the alignment procedure for newer Stylus CXX and Stylus Photo printers would be appreciated. Thanks.

Re:FUD FUD FUD FUD. FUDDITY FUD. FUDDITY FUD.

[NotBornYesterday]

Yes, but why SHOULDN'T a company just pay M$ to take care of 95% of their IT needs? Many do. For many others, MS products simply don't do what's required, or can't replace what's already there, whether it is proprietary or open.

Reliance on proprietary MS stuff has hurt some companies in the past. Others don't want the added expense.

Others want the freedom from onerous licensing headaches. MS attacked its own customers with licensing audits years ago. Many shops they audited were compliant (or mostly compliant), but MS raked them over the coals anyway. How much IT time do you want to devote to tracking licensing?

How are you going to handle virtualization as part of your IT roadmap (if it's not already, it probably will be soon). You'd better be able to solve the problem of licensing your OS and apps (many with diverging licensing schemes; per user, per concurrent user, per physical chassis, per cpu socket, per core ... ) across multiple physical and virtual machines. If I clone a MS OS in VMware on one box, how many times do I pay for that OS? What if I clone it onto a different physical box? What if I clone it on a different box and shut down the original, so I only have one concurrent instance? If I have to worry about licensing when I move or create a virtual server, how is that affecting my agility as an IT organization? How is it affecting my bottom line as a company?

Not trolling, just asking the FLOSS freaks if they can come up with something better than "Microsoft is bad, mkaay?" The first 2 words of that sentence offer a sharp contrast to the rest of it, AC.

Re:FUD FUD FUD FUD. FUDDITY FUD. FUDDITY FUD.

[DeadTOm]

Unfortunately I work for a corporation that is nearly 100% Microsoft. There is a very blatant fear of open-source around here mostly due to a lack of knowledge or even curiosity about what OSS is or how it works. People are familiar with Microsoft even though it's buggy, with constant problems that cannot be solved or require 3rd party work arounds because it's not like we can just ask Microsoft for a specific feature or pay a guy to open up the source code and fix this one issue for us. They're content to stick with it and hope the next auto-update will fix it because it's what they know and it's what's main stream. OSS, GNU/Linux is something that they don't know all that much about but Microsoft says it's "a cancer" as Bill Gates him self once put it and we trust Bill Gates so it must be true. I've been pushing various open-source solutions to big problems we've had for almost 6 years to no avail and it's made me a bit of a joke to some people here. I look at it as a perfect example of Microsoft FUD at work. This is exactly the type of environment they are trying to cultivate and they're doing a good job. In light of this and the very long and diverse history of stealing, bullying and deception that Microsoft has engaged in since day one of it's existence, I find it very difficult to believe that anything they do is for the benefit of any community but their own. If someone from Microsoft is suddenly all concerned for the financial well-being of OSS developers that makes me concerned. To me all that means is they've changed tactics and I'm glad FOSS attorneys are keeping their eyes open.