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Microsoft Acknowledges Open Source As a Bigger Threat Than Google

Posted by Soulskill on from the i've-been-waiting-for-you-obi-wan dept.

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."

84 of 376 comments (clear)

  1. In Other Words.... by PC+and+Sony+Fanboy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So, microsoft says "Free software might lead to lesser sales" and "Paid Alternatives not as attractive as Free ones!"

    I'd say they're right.. but I'm also surprised that anyone has to say anything at all...

    AND, well, Google isn't distributing alternative OSes, and the FOSS community IS ... and what would be a bigger threat to Microsoft - Alternative OS or ... adsense. Hmmm...

    1. Re:In Other Words.... by Flamora · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Agreed, this does feel like a bit of stating the obvious. I think what they miss about FOSS is that at least some of the developers in the community do it as a hobby or for practice (or even resume padding so they can get a paid development job); compensation isn't that much of a sticking point for them.

    2. Re:In Other Words.... by Gewalt · · Score: 2, Informative

      ...Google isn't distributing alternative OSes... Yes they are. Ever hear of a little thing called Android?
      --
      Modding Trolls +1 inciteful since 1999
    3. Re:In Other Words.... by RiotingPacifist · · Score: 2, Interesting

      compensation isn't that much of a sticking point for them. And that's not even mentioning the software they get.
      1. try & do something on your computer
      2. find you can't
      3. write software to do it
      4. use it
      5. profit
      --
      IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
    4. Re:In Other Words.... by xanalogical · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And some FOSS developers do it because they fervently want Microsoft and similar companies to suffer economically, as payback for the pain they have caused, the crimes they continue to commit and the freedom they attempt to take away. For those people, no amount of money could replace the pleasure of driving Microsoft et. al. into the ground, salting the earth and sticking a sign there saying, "so shall it be to all such tyrants".

    5. Re:In Other Words.... by nuzak · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yes, and most of those people don't actually write a single line of code.

      --
      Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
    6. Re:In Other Words.... by RobDude · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The problem is with #3, #4 and #5.

      #3 costs a lot of time. And time is money. If you make 60k a year; an 'hour' of your time is worth $30 dollars an hour. Writing/testing/documenting an application is not a trivial task.

      So, you start a project and work on it for six months...it's very reasonable to assume you'd have invested $20,000 dollars into the project.

      When it's finished, you get to #4. You get to use the software. You've spent $20,0000 dollars of your time and effort building the application! But yes - you get to use it.

      #5 - Profit? That's a bit of a joke.

      The traditional/old school software model would be that a company or individual fronts the development cost - the $20,000 dollars, and the hundreds/thousands of users each pay $40 dollars to use their copy.

      Let's say this fictional software will be used heavily by 2,000 users.

      With a traditional sales model - each user pays $40 dollars and gets to use the software. The guy who wrote it fronted $20k to develop it, and would earn back $80k. Of course, there'd be a lot of overhead, packaging, shipping, advertising, etc, etc - but the developer would walk away a nice chunk of change in the bank. Each user would pay $40 dollars for a quality product.

      In OSS - one guy fronts all the time and effort - $20,000 worth. Then 2,000 people download it and use it for free.

      It's a GREAT deal for the end-users; but not a great deal for the developer. And there are a lot more users than developers; and if Linux continues to become more user friendly, more and more of the Linux users are NOT going to be developers. They won't know how/won't care/won't want to learn how to write the software they want.

    7. Re:In Other Words.... by Admiral+Ag · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I think Ozzie is being slightly deceptive here (who'd a thunk it?). OSS is not the direct threat to Microsoft's business model. The threat to Microsoft's business model is "standards Microsoft doesn't control".

      For example, Microsoft really wanted to control the formats of online music sales, but Apple beat them and so the future of online music is open formats without DRM (except poor old Apple, who some of the labels won't let go DRM free). Imagine the horror if Microsoft had succeeded in making WMA the replacement standard for mp3.

      Open standards might lead to lesser sales for Microsoft, but that doesn't mean it will lead to lesser sales for anyone else or a worse deal for consumers. Ozzie can't tell the truth here, which is that open standards in many of the areas Microsoft has a virtual monopoly on would be better for everyone except Microsoft's vampiric monopoly. How are we supposed to believe him, when OSS is designed to kill companies like his. At least Ballmer was honest.

      --
      "by that I mean people who don't sit on slashdot all day wondering why everyone else isn't building robots" DECS
    8. Re:In Other Words.... by GeffDE · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I hear the "Time is Money" argument a lot and in most cases it is complete BS. Your analysis assumes that said hobbyist programmer is working on their project instead of working for pay (i.e. only 40 hours a week is worked on both work and the software project). The math is $60000/yr / (40 hrs/wk * 52 wks/yr) = $28/hr. However, even though I work 40 hours a week, that leaves 128 hours of that week left unfilled. Assuming 8 hours of sleep a night, that is 78 hours of awake time that I am not working. That is a lot of time. In fact, it is almost twice another full 40-hour work week. So a six month OSS project, worked on only in spare "hobby" time costs...$0.

      Time is not money. The work week is (nominally) 40 hours because if you start to work more than that regularly, there are many ill effects (increased stress, poor health, INSANITY). In the scenario outlined in the GP, the OSS project is a hobby: it is something that a person can do in their spare time, when they feel like it etc. It doesn't cut into their yearly income because they would not be making more money if they were not doing it; it does not cost $20,000 unless you assign some sort of billable rate to that person. Using that reasoning and the fact that the average billing rate for lawyers is roughly $350, a nice fancy 2-hour dinner for a lawyer costs $700 plus whatever the restaurant charges.

      Free software is still a great deal for a hobbyist developer because they are doing it for fun and they derive satisfaction and joy out of doing it. For professional OSS devs, it is still a great deal because they already tend to be paid by big companies. That entire post is how any big-ass-backwards blue chip company sees OSS: those companies don't get open source and obviously neither do you.

      --
      It has been a nervous year, with people beginning to feel like Christian Scientists with appendicitis.
    9. Re:In Other Words.... by RobDude · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I won't get into the specifics (like how your $28 dollar an hour figure is crap; or how horrible the lawyer analogy is...lawyers don't get paid to eat dinner, but programmers get paid to write code) but....

      Basically, your argument is that anything you enjoy doesn't have worth. Really, that is what you are saying. If I enjoy writing code and if my 'fair market' value for an hour spent writing code is $30 dollars....you think that the actual value of my work is $0, since it's fun and I enjoy it.

      To me, that is completely insane. I'm not going to walk up to my boss and say, 'Boss, I enjoy my job - please, stop paying me'. I'm not going to say, 'Hey, I know I said I'd do this contract project for you at a rate of $75 an hour; but the truth is - I enjoy this project so much....I'm gonna do it for free'

      And I'm not going to sit down and say, I enjoy writing software so much, I'm going to produce this awesome piece of software for free.

      Because every hour I could spend in front of my computer writing code HAS A VALUE.

      My time spent eating dinner doesn't have that same value. Nobody, ever, has paid me to eat dinner. That doesn't make sense. Nobody pays a lawyer to eat dinner either. But my time spent at a computer, writing code *DOES* have a value. That value, for a guy making $60k is going to be, roughly, $30 dollars. Actually a bit more when you consider paid-time-off, 401k, health benefits, etc. And any decent programmer can find 'side-work' that he can do in his or her spare time, and make money doing it...normally at a wage much higher (like > 2x) of their actual salary.

      People who do OSS *donate* the cost of their time. (especially the hot-shot ones who earn a lot of money) but that doesn't mean it's free.

    10. Re:In Other Words.... by ozmanjusri · · Score: 4, Insightful
      In OSS - one guy fronts all the time and effort - $20,000 worth. Then 2,000 people download it and use it for free.

      Umm, the vast bulk of contributions to FOSS projects are from companies like IBM, Red Hat, Novell and Sun.

      They've just worked out that it's cheaper to push a few coders into FOSS projects that are non-core but valuable to their business than it is to pay the MS tax for eternity.

      Let's face it, computer users have given Microsoft more than 150 billion dollars in the last decade. If they had co-operated and contributed a small fraction of that to a community project, they'd have saved money and got a lot better tool. Plenty of other businesses are starting to come to the same conclusion.

      --
      "I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
    11. Re:In Other Words.... by kz45 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      "And some FOSS developers do it because they fervently want Microsoft and similar companies to suffer economically, as payback for the pain they have caused, the crimes they continue to commit and the freedom they attempt to take away. For those people, no amount of money could replace the pleasure of driving Microsoft et. al. into the ground, salting the earth and sticking a sign there saying, "so shall it be to all such tyrants"."

      And what "crimes" has microsoft continued to commit? I can find linux and many other operating systems at the store to purchase, so they are no longer a monopoly (a forced one, at least). I can also find at least 4 or 5 different office clones and many other OSS alternatives.

      If OSS was better constructed and built for the average end-user rather than programmers...there would be no tyrants.

      I also find it funny, because the more FOSS developers give away their stuff for free, the less jobs there will be for developers in the future. My company could have hired at least 2 or 3 other developers, but because we can get most of what we need for free, we only have one.

      As OSS apps get better and better, this will continue to happen. What will be left over is code-money jobs that don't require actual engineering..but just the ability to make changes to an existing application. This will mean less salary overall because development jobs will require less skill.

    12. Re:In Other Words.... by GeffDE · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Your unwillingness to entertain the specifics is why you didn't get the lawyer analogy; I am stymied why my calculation (which agrees with your $30/hr calculation) was deemed worthless though. However, I worked my calculation out in full, whereas you seemingly pulled numbers out of thin air. Moving on, I will reiterate why the lawyer analogy was fair and I will again try to show you why your idea of "Billable Hours Applied to Free Time" is just wrong.

      In your previous post, you stated that, even when not working, the concept of billable hours still applies. That is how you derived all of the costs of developing OSS. However, if how much you make per hour to do your job is how much every hour of your day is worth, which is what you are implying, then any two hours of a lawyer's time not spend lawyering costs him $700. That is the equivalent of you saying that "For someone making $X/yr, their time is worth $Y an hour." What is insane is saying that every hour of yours is worth $Y. Only the hours you are doing your job are worth $Y. Any hour in which you would not ordinarily be working is not worth money; there is no conversion. If no one will pay you for what you are doing, then your time spent doing it is not worth any money. I brought up dinner as an example of how ridiculous your idea was; I am glad that you agree that it is ridiculous.

      My argument is that anything you do in your free time does not have an inherent monetary worth. If you enjoy writing code and decide to write code for your own purposes, that has no inherent value. If you want to write code for yourself, you cannot be expected to be paid for it. But that is, underneath all the blustering, what you seem to be expecting. I was not calling for you to do your job for free; I was calling for you to expect to do things you do for yourself for free. To rewrite one of your phrases so it has some truth: "Every hour I spend in front of my computer writing code COULD have a value." If you need/want something and you write it for yourself on your own time, it did not cost you anything and it has no inherent monetary value. If you can convince someone to pay you for the fruits of your labors, then it has monetary value.

      From my previous analysis, there are roughly 78 waking hours a week that are not spent doing a 40-hour/wk job. That extra time in everybody's day is their own. If you decide to spend that flying a kite, your time is worth the enjoyment you derive from the kite flying. If you decide to write code, your time is worth the satisfaction you derived from coding and any money you could derive from the fair market price of the code you produced. If you spent 15 hours writing a new Notepad, do you think you're entitled to $450? Do you think you will ever see $450? No, not if you're a reasonable person. It is very true that you could have spent the time making more money, but what I was trying to say before is that many people don't want more money than they want more time to do what they want; a corollary to that is that some people find hacking on a software project fun.

      People who do OSS *donate* the product of their time and for high quality code, that is not free. For a new Notepad, it is free. The point I tried to make before was that most people who do OSS and don't get paid contribute *for fun* not because they want to donate something. Just because you are a greedy bastard who feels that everything coming from the tips of your fingers is cashmoney does not mean that others are the same. That is also why those people contribute to OSS and you don't.



      Also, seeing how this has tied up some of your precious $30/hour time in front of your computer, you can forward me my bill.

      --
      It has been a nervous year, with people beginning to feel like Christian Scientists with appendicitis.
    13. Re:In Other Words.... by spitzak · · Score: 2, Informative

      Also they completely ignore the open source software that is produced as a paid-for job where the job is *not* to produce the open source software. If you patch the Linux kernel to get your job done, then you have contributed, yet you did exactly the same work you would have even if you had not added to open source.

      That is the obvious example, and probably tiny. What is HUGE (and I know personally having done exactly that) is libraries, typically LGPL, that are produced because they are needed for a commercial project, but are then released as open source, even if the commercial project is not.

    14. Re:In Other Words.... by RobDude · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I'm not talking about 'opportunity cost'. Opportunity cost is saying that for every hour you spend doing X, the opportunity cost is what you COULD have had, had you spent your time doing Y.

      Right - so the opportunity cost of watching TV for 3 hours is whatever you could get paid for 3 hours of work.

      I'm *not* talking about that.

      I'm not saying people shouldn't have free time or do things that don't earn them money.

      What I *am* saying is that, unlike 99% of 'free-time' activities that people do, writing code is something people get paid to do. If you are a developer who can write code well enough to produce a oss application; odds are, you could do that same thing and earn money.

      So, if I enjoy working out, hiking, water skiing, watching movies, and writing code...

      Nobody is going to pay me to work out (unless I'm a pro athlete or bodybuilder)
      Nobody is going to pay me to water ski (unless I'm a pro water-skier)
      Nobody is going to pay me to watch movies (unless I'm a famous critic)

      But, for anyone who can write an application, they can almost certainly be earning money for that activity. Writing code is something with a fairly high 'fair-market' value.

      So, unlike all of those other fun activities; unless you are an amazing, phenomenal, top .01% of the population - you *can't* get money for it. The fair market value for me watching a movie is $0 dollars. But as a developer, the fair market value for my time spent writing code *IS* greater than $0. Whether it's $10 an hour for $50 an hour, people are willing to pay me to write code.

      If I work on an oss, I'm doing virtually the exact same thing for free, as I could do for money. It's the same activity that I get paid to do, but I do it for free and give away the fruits of my labor. That's, basically, the OSS model.

      And like the article said, a lot of serious developers avoid that model because they feel like it isn't 'economically fair'.

      And it isn't.

      I can spend 10 hours working on a commercial product and get paid....or I can work on an oss and get nothing.

      You can argue that my work on the oss project should be more enjoyable and so it doesn't have a 'cost' associated with it. But the fact remains - work on a commercial project for 10 hours and you have $$$. Work on an oss product, and you don't.

      Writing code is enjoyable for me, but that doesn't mean I want to work for free. And when I look for part-time gigs, I *never* see anyone willing to pay me to develop an oss application.

      My point is, working on oss is akin to donating to charity...some people do it and it's nice and all; but it mostly helps other people and most people would rather help themselves.

    15. Re:In Other Words.... by plague3106 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Nobody is going to pay me to work out (unless I'm a pro athlete or bodybuilder)
      Nobody is going to pay me to water ski (unless I'm a pro water-skier)
      Nobody is going to pay me to watch movies (unless I'm a famous critic)

      Should the bodybuild ONLY work out when he'll be paid to do so?
      Should the water skier ONLY water ski when he'll be paid to do so?
      Should the critial ONLY watch movies when he'll be paid to do so?

      Or can each of those people do those activties because they enjoy it and no one is willing to pay for that particular work out or movie?

    16. Re:In Other Words.... by el+americano · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Ok, let's say want to work on a media player. I'm a programmer, but I don't have much experience in this area. I want to be my own boss, have completely flexible hours, and collaborate, entirely remotely, with people I can learn from. How am I supposed to get paid for this?

      If the income opportunity is not there, then I'm not losing anything. Or maybe you would say that I'm still losing $20,000? If I'm losing $20,000 whether I program or not, I may as well program.

      --
      Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others. -Groucho Marx
    17. Re:In Other Words.... by GeffDE · · Score: 2, Insightful

      All of that is very true and improvements definitely can be made; however, I am fairly sure that the large company could have found a way to either compensate the students directly or indirectly and I am certain that the business could have found a way to continue maintenance of the project they were using. On the issue of compensation: most if not all open source projects have a contact email and if the business were serious about continuing to use the software, they could have contacted the devs and offered money to continue maintenance. To extend that, the company could have contacted the devs and offered compensation (though money or references before the devs even stopped maintaining the project.

      There are definitely avenues by which even open source devs can be compensated without asking for it. What I wish would improve is overall human consideration. It would have been great for your big company to have just gone out and offered the devs money because they were extracting value from the devs' work. It was possible for that to happen, and if the company had, the project might still be maintained...

      --
      It has been a nervous year, with people beginning to feel like Christian Scientists with appendicitis.
  2. FUD FUD FUD FUD. FUDDITY FUD. FUDDITY FUD. by zifferent · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Nothing is stopping companies from paying the developers. What is this guy's point exactly. And it's not like a company can't add a developer to their payroll to pick up dead OSS projects. Oh wait he's a M$ troll. It's FUD. It says "Please Mr. Company, don't use the OSS product, because it might get dropped, and then where will you be?" And "Please Mr. Developer, don't work on OSS projects, because people are just taking advantage of you." Gagh!

    --
    cat sig > /dev/null
    1. Re:FUD FUD FUD FUD. FUDDITY FUD. FUDDITY FUD. by Rogerborg · · Score: 4, Insightful

      [abandoware] would often be prevented by making it easy for companies to pay the developers directly

      Have Microsoft still not discovered the intartubes yet? OmniHyperMegaCorp can't email dev@eloper.com and ask if he'd like some money in return for continuing development? Because most FOSS devs that I know (not all, but most) of would spit out their cheetos with joy at being offered bankable appreciation for their time and effort. We're not all smelly hippies who hate money and wear hand knitted nettle underpants.

      --
      If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
    2. Re:FUD FUD FUD FUD. FUDDITY FUD. FUDDITY FUD. by upside · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Why is everyone so blinkered they always assume Microsoft employees are evil and anti-OSS? I don't think this guy is being negative, rather he's saying OSS could get an additional boost from extra payments.

      Indeed I've come across plenty of projects on Sourceforge that look promising but haven't been maintained for years, and others that could do with an additional boost.

      OTOH, while I don't know of statistics, it seems to me certain projects are getting support as long as they make donations easy, for example I recall Tobi Oetiker's (RRDTool and MRTG) "thanks to" list being quite long. :)

      If you want to slam the guy for this statement, compare with proprietary software from a company that goes under. If your vendor disappears you are completely out of luck, whereas with OSS you can at least hire a consultant to help you out.

      --
      I'm sorry if I haven't offended anyone
    3. Re:FUD FUD FUD FUD. FUDDITY FUD. FUDDITY FUD. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      More to the point, nobody is forcing. Yet they are doing it. Big time. Some receive direct financial compensation, some don't. But either way, the critical point is that they do it completely, 100% out of free will.

      Therefore, every developer that contributes has already decided that open source is "worth it". Before doing the work. Their reasons may vary, but if they hadn't already made that decision, they wouldn't be working on it, would they? This is common sense. Again, nobody is employing coercion here. Open source arose naturally out of free will, did it not?

      If developers don't feel that they benefit from working on open source projects, they why do they do it?

      So FUD is exactly right. Either this guy is laughably ignorant about open source -- as if he just stumbled upon the concept yesterday -- or he's spreading FUD.

    4. Re:FUD FUD FUD FUD. FUDDITY FUD. FUDDITY FUD. by NotBornYesterday · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.
      --
      I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
    5. Re:FUD FUD FUD FUD. FUDDITY FUD. FUDDITY FUD. by digitig · · Score: 2, Funny

      We're not all smelly hippies who hate money and wear hand knitted nettle underpants. That's true. Some of us are smelly hippies who hate money and don't wear underpants at all.
      --
      Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
    6. Re:FUD FUD FUD FUD. FUDDITY FUD. FUDDITY FUD. by JasterBobaMereel · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Abandoned projects are abandoned for a reason

      Either the people doing it lose interest (and no-one else can be bothered to take it over)
      Or the people doing it cannot get it to work

      Both these happen in Commercial software as well it's just that we either don't see the results or we have to live with the results ...

      How many of these are "another text editor" or similar ... that the people writing it discovered that they were reinventing the wheel ...

      --
      Puteulanus fenestra mortis
    7. Re:FUD FUD FUD FUD. FUDDITY FUD. FUDDITY FUD. by ElizabethGreene · · Score: 5, Informative

      Companies have been "doing for themselves" for decades. They come to realize that something is a critical part of their business and they take ownership of it. They take on the ability or responsibility to maintain the system themselves.
      Therein lies the fundamental difference between open or paid source vs closed source. We have a number of issues with our > $100,000 accounting system that Microsoft simply refuses to fix. If we could buy the source and fix it ourselves, we would. If we could download the source and release patches, we would. Unfortunately, we bought a Microsoft product and to them the "There is a (painful) workaround, so we aren't going to fix it in this version" answer is good enough for _them_. Our opinion on the matter is quite irrelevant.

      -Ellie
    8. Re:FUD FUD FUD FUD. FUDDITY FUD. FUDDITY FUD. by DeadTOm · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

  3. No all we need... by HappySmileMan · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:No all we need... by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 5, Informative

      Well, maybe Google didn't do it, but someone released an OS bery, very similar to 'GoogleOS'. It even includes Google Apps.

      --
      My blog
    2. Re:No all we need... by Mad+Merlin · · Score: 3, Informative

      However, I think they also use Linux in their search appliances that they do sell. If they use Linux in those machines, don't they have to release the source code under the GPL?

      Yes, and they do.

      --
      Game! - Where the stick is mightier than the sword!
  4. Gee, I'm touched ... by yelvington · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Ray Ozzie: "I think it's important to solve this so that the sustainability of open source projects is improved."

    I'm touched by this new warmer, fuzzier Microsoft! Now that it's "helped" the commercial software industry, creating a level playing field by bulldozing everybody else's buildings, it can turn its attention to "helping" the struggling open-source world. Welcome, new open-source overlords! May the innovations continue!

  5. One reason compensation is not important by poeidon1 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    bacause most developers do it because of their personal interest. Getting paid is not bad but it means you *generally* loose control over the project sooner or later and project becomes a toy of the company which is paying the developers. Ofocurse, might be proved wrong.

    --
    They called me mad, and I called them mad, and damn them, they outvoted me. -Nathaniel Lee
    1. Re:One reason compensation is not important by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

      --
      My blog
    2. Re:One reason compensation is not important by mdarksbane · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That may be the case for many of the smaller (and undeniably useful) open source projects, but it seems like all of the big names ones started out as a commercial or internal project.

      Open source to make makes the most sense anywhere a company benefits from having a specific product available enough to spend development effort on it, but where they are unable or unwilling to bring it to market as a commercial offering.

      Sun gets a lot out of having OpenOffice exist, but they have no chance of having it be a real commercial competitor to Office.

      Apache is a similar situation - a whole bunch of people want a stable webserver, but building one from the ground up is expensive and difficult, and selling it afterwards is even harder. So by making something open source you get other people to help you develop it at no cost to you.

      To a corporation, it seems like much more of a super-improved version of an in-house solution competing with commercial solutions. The volunteer aspect of open source is amazing, it's great, it's wonderful - but a lot of the big development comes from people being paid to improve part of it because their company thought that improving the common solution would be a lot better than writing their own. Which largely invalidates MS's argument.

  6. Oh? by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Currently there are perfectly good projects that have been abandoned by their developers despite being used by large corporations.
    So, uh, which projects would those be, Mr. Ozzie? Because from where I sit, the major open source projects I've seen in use by businesses tend to be ones with foundations or for-profit companies behind them -- OpenOffice.org, Linux, Mozilla Firefox/Thunderbird/Sunbird, Apache, Samba, MySQL, etc. If any parts of, say, a major Linux distro are 'abandoned' by their developers, I think you'll find that due to their open source nature, someeone else will pick up the reigns. Possibly even a for profit-company such as the distro maker.

    No, Ray, I don't see this is as a problem. You are seeing problems where none exist. If a lot of people use an open source project, someone will step in and maintain it, sooner or later.
    --
    My blog
    1. Re:Oh? by slim · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If any parts of, say, a major Linux distro are 'abandoned' by their developers, I think you'll find that due to their open source nature, someeone else will pick up the reigns. Possibly even a for profit-company such as the distro maker. You buried the most important part deep in your paragraph. If you're a large corporation using OSS code that's been abandoned, you're in a much better situation than if you were using someone else's proprietary code that's abandoned.
    2. Re:Oh? by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Oh, yeah, that was part of my entire point, definitely. I just implied it rather than stating it outright. Imagine how screwed you are if, for instance, your business had invested thousands or millions of dollars in Microsoft Multiplan spreadsheets.

      (Yes, Ray Ozzie, I'm lookin' at YOU!!!!)

      --
      My blog
    3. Re:Oh? by halber_mensch · · Score: 2

      If you're a large corporation using OSS code that's been abandoned, you're in a much better situation than if you were using someone else's proprietary code that's abandoned.

      You hit the nail squarely on the head. Most software vendors do not have the resources or lifespan to maintain old titles or even previous revisions of current titles, so the customer is screwed when their vendor inevitably drops a product and moves on or becomes a nonentity or property of another company that has no interest in maintaining the product.

      Open source software tends to fall into two categories - hobbyist projects and commercially viable projects. Hobbyist projects tend to fall out of development rather quickly, as the author hits a point where his project suits his needs. The commercially viable products have sponsorship from a foundation and/or are driven by corporate sponsored developers and tend to be actively developed and maintain several concurrent versions of the project to support users that cannot or do not want to alter their software configuration. These projects can do this more effectively because end users are able to provide a large chunk of the support and maintenance for legacy code through mailing lists, message boards, IRC, and end user contributed patches. Closed source proprietary titles cannot receive this kind of reciprocation by their very nature, and by doing so limit their ability to service the end user. There's simply no opportunity for the end user to become personally invested in the title, the user is simply dependent on company X to hire quality designers and programmers, maintain quality leadership, and stay alive in an industry plagued by executives that drive stock prices up and sell off their companies for a quick cash out.

      --
      perl -e "eval pack(q{H*},join q{},qw{70 72696e74207061636b28717b482a7d2c717b343 637323635363534323533343430617d293b})"
  7. They don't get it by SandFrog · · Score: 2, Insightful

    MS is a business first and last. They just happen to extort their revenue from software. A thief will look at the Buddha and see only pockets.

    --
    Contentment is the greatest wealth
    - Sukhavagga Dhammapada
    Contentment is the goal behind all goals.
  8. No doubt by csoto · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And as if closed Microsoft products don't "subsequently fall out of use." Look at Vista. We wasted a lot of effort testing this pig. We're skipping it. I'm sure more than one Softie got paid for working on Vista. Blaming disuse on FOSS is bogus.

    --
    There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
    1. Re:No doubt by Anarke_Incarnate · · Score: 2
      I wouldn't agree with that entirely. Vista is a pig in some ways. Maybe they can save it. God knows people buy crap all the time. I knew people with Beta movie players even after VHS had long won the war because they were "cheaper."


      However, Now with Mac coming in and showing "Hey, there are alternatives. You don't HAVE to do what Microsoft says" and the issues with MS MCE not allowing you to control your own viewing/recording habits, people may be ready to at least TRY something different.

      For a long time, people just assumed they needed a full MS office suite, or even a "beginner" package to write letters. Sure, OO.o is not perfect, but for Grandma to write a letter to her bridge club, it is perfectly fine.

      Sure, MS is not crumbling into dust, but now that there are actual viable alternatives their foundation is a bit shakier than it was circa 1996.

  9. economic fairness? by Darfeld · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Since when Microsoft is a reference in economic fairness?

    By the way, I'm sure programmers are not against financial reward, but most don't do it for that, so it's not an actual issue. The issue would be ether or not corporation should use software witch aren't certainly maintained for a reasonable time.

    Also I wouldn't call a stopped project a wast, since anybody can take the source and re-start it. I wouldn't call the time spend on the stopped project a wast ether, since the programmer was probably doing what he liked. (or what he needed at the time) People do that all the time and nobody gets angry about it.

    --
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    (='.'=) copy it in your sig
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    1. Re:economic fairness? by HappySmileMan · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Also I wouldn't call a stopped project a wast, since anybody can take the source and re-start it. Unless it's closed source of course.

      I wouldn't call the time spend on the stopped project a wast ether, since the programmer was probably doing what he liked. (or what he needed at the time) Unless he was just doing it as part of a job of course.

      People do that all the time and nobody gets angry about it. Except Microsoft of course, it really scares the shit out of them
  10. They're just missing the point, completely by Enleth · · Score: 4, Insightful

    OS developers are not idiots - they KNOW that they are working for free (simplification, I know, there are exceptions, but it's not important now) and they wouldn't be if they didn't want to. If they do - that means they're just fine with that.

    Oh, and note that the guy is speaking "open source" - but there's no word of "free software", that makes up quite a bit of Open Source and explains all the aspects of getting paid very well.

    I call FUD.

    --
    This is Slashdot. Common sense is futile. You will be modded down.
    1. Re:They're just missing the point, completely by A+beautiful+mind · · Score: 4, Insightful

      F/OSS developers aren't working for free, unless you think that nothing apart from money has value.

      --
      It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
      Be yourself no matter what they say
    2. Re:They're just missing the point, completely by Flamora · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The problem here is that a lot of people do think that nothing apart from money has value. Most often, they're the ones running the corporations that most of us dislike.

  11. Money? by warlorddagaz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "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."
    Yet again they've missed the point. Some of us developers don't develop for money - we develop for fun/to help the community/geek points. I'm not sure I'd actually want to get paid for the software I write - when something's a hobby, it can be enjoyed at whatever pace you like, but if I was getting paid for it, those who were paying me would feel annoyed if I went and watched a film in an evening instead of developing the software they now consider to have paid for. And there are many times I'd like to go out in an evening instead of sitting in front of my laptop watching GDB tell me I've segfaulted
    It appears that yet again, Microsoft cannot look past the monetry value of people and software - for those who haven't read it, The Cathedral and the Bazaar by Eric S. Raymond is a good read, and covers this precise point in great depth.

  12. Slashdot summary is misleading... by bomanbot · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Well, I RTFA and the summary makes it look a little bit like the quote is from Ray Ozzie. Well, Ozzie is the Chief Software Architect, the quote would actually be from Sam Ramji. Just wanted to clarify before more people started flaming Ozzie when they really should flame Ramji :)

    But I love this gem from the actual Ray Ozzie Q&A:

    Ozzie noted that if a new operating system were designed today, it wouldn't be a single piece of software that operates a single computer. It would be something that could accommodate multiple devices, with the user at the center.

    Oh, you mean like Linux, which runs from embedded systems through desktops up to big-iron servers and supercomputers? Or even MacOS X, which runs at least on Macs and the iPhone?

  13. OK Microsoft by harry666t · · Score: 4, Funny

    """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."""

    I want your money.

    Pay me.

  14. Reward is in the eye of the beholder by analog_line · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Just because Microsoft-employed people don't consider the open source developers as being rewarded fairly, doesn't mean those developers don't consider themselves rewarded fairly. In my humble opinion, no one takes any action (including posting on slashdot) without at least the hope for some kind of return on their investment. You eat because you'd rather not die of starvation, you don't eat because you want/need to lose weight. The Golden Rule is a compensation structure for social actions. Getting money is an important and powerful reward on the scale for just about everyone, but it isn't the overriding one for everyone.

    That doesn't mean the demand for money for effort isn't valid. Personally, I find no morally superior position in using open source software, or in the open source community. I use it for purely financial reasons (it costs me nothing, I won't be sued for using it). I don't care whether the developers got paid for it, because they made their own choices when they did their work on it. If they didn't feel they were being compensated fairly they shouldn't have contributed. If they expected that people would contribute just because they did and no one else did, they have only themselves to blame.

  15. Microsoft needs to PLAY the game, not fight it by erroneus · · Score: 3, Insightful

    They want "software as a service?" How about SERVICE as a service?

    So far, Microsoft has been pretty successful "printing money" by creating license keys (in another state so they don't have to pay taxes in their own state). We've all been following the gradual push for software as a service with dread that, so far, hasn't gained much traction. So not only are they interested in printing money, they want to print money with an expiration date. Meanwhile, for this and many other reasons, people are looking elsewhere for substitute technologies.

    There is plenty of room for Microsoft to earn money, though. The name is still very well known and respected when it comes to information technology... some people even trust the name still. The only reason I can imagine Microsoft may want to abstain from moving more into the services arena is the wrath of all their "partners" out there providing services based on their software. (Though I have yet to see Microsoft being afraid or reluctant to screw 'partners.') But the reality of the OSS threat is that service providers are gradually looking at F/OSS solutions as an alternative to Microsoft's costly licenses. (Their service income remains about the same while the customer spends a LOT less.)

    The MPAA/RIAA may have been rather successful at having laws written in their favor, but then again, there doesn't seem to be an alternative route for people seeking entertainment of similar quality. Software and information technology, on the other hand, has ample alternatives that are growing in interest.

    (Interestingly, it is also being realized that Microsoft's tactics are partly responsible for the extremely slim margins on hardware prices forcing OEMs to sell Microsoft licenses to improve their profitability. Reducing this effect could result in better profits on hardware especially when they realize they can charge a premium for F/OSS supported hardware over 'Requires Windows' hardware.)

    The government pressures from around the globe against Microsoft seem to be paying off to counteract Microsoft's tactics. It seems that perhaps the original remedy, to break Microsoft up in to smaller operational units, might have been healthier for Microsoft since it would have enabled the units to focus on the quality and marketability of their products. Under their current model, their OS and Office products are being used to keep them going while their other involvements are losing money in order to keep potential competition suppressed. Unfortunately for Microsoft, as they slowly fall, the entire operation will fall at once taking everything and everyone with them.

  16. "First they ignore you... by brunoacf · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."

    Gandhi.

  17. Another article. Same subject. Different take. by wellingj · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The quote from the another article is: "Ozzie said that since many open-source programmers aren't beholden to shareholders they potentially represent a more formidable force in the market." So some one at Microsoft's finally said it, and it's believable from my stand point. What kills big successful companies is generally not poor engineering on the part of the engineers, but the fact that the engineers are beholden to marketing and upper management. Seems to correlate with what we know about the innovator's dilemma doesn't it? You may raise the argument that it's marketing and upper management's job to decide what will sell and what won't, but how many engineers do you know that aren't objective enough to judge their own ideas. An engineers job is to judge with his skills the best course of action in order to make the best product possible. I'm not saying that there doesn't need to be leadership, but I think most companies are to salary heavy where there is no value-add to the product.

    --
    Money is the root of all evil?
  18. This doesn't seem realistic. by Awptimus+Prime · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I don't think this Microsoft guy's argument is realistic.

    Imagine if Microsoft held all rights and patents related to proxy software. Now imagine if they said they were no longer going to support or sale it-- but maintain their intellectual property rights. Plenty of businesses would be screwed.

    Imagine if, in this scenario, they said "We aren't going to sell this software for platform _______", then every company depending on that platform would have to go out and find something that is supported.

    I'd imagine, in the real world, if the maintainers of say, Squid, stepped down or pulled any bullshit-- it would be forked or new people would step in immediately to carry on with it.

    But, he works for Microsoft, so when speaking in public, he's got to stick to a certain story regardless of his true feelings. I've got a couple of friends who work for them, and they aren't stupid. They just know not to ever say anything anti-microsoft while the public is listening.

  19. Re:Big Suprise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Surprise has two Rs in it. Did you know that before?

  20. Abandoned projects? by pesc · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Currently there are perfectly good projects that have been abandoned by their developers despite being used by large corporations.

    Like Visual Basic or Windows XP? Too bad those projects aren't "open source" so that said corporations could step in and get support elsewhere.

    --

    )9TSS
    1. Re:Abandoned projects? by MrSteveSD · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Like Visual Basic

      Yes they really shafted their users there. There are plenty of small companies with hundreds of thousands of lines of VB6 code who can't afford to do a rewrite.
  21. "Only a fraction" by Dystopian+Rebel · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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. And those thousands of developers are paid a fraction of what the high-rolling executives are making. The developers' final reward is to see their jobs leave on a flight for an overseas destination.

    Open source is satisfying for developers because they are doing ~what they like~ and ~what interests them~.

    In contrast with fixing bugs for 10 years in a cubicle while listening to feudal management aristocrats squabble, periodically announce their delusional plans for market conquest, and garner obscene bonuses as a reward for their ineffectual nonsense.

    Microsaur is unhappy watching a faster, more agile creature eat its eggs.
    --
    Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
  22. Big hole in his argument, source is available by Dan667 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So some guy who builds a popular open source software program move on the bigger and better and the project dies? Nope. If it is a popular project anyone can pick up where the last developer left off. What happens if a closed source company with a popular product goes out of business? Or what if the company just decides there is no money in the program they develop, but it is mission critical for you? They do not always make a transition or make the source open so where would people be who depend on these?

  23. Re:Blind capitalism by bberens · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think there's some misconceptions in a lot of places about what open source is good at. Open source is good at commoditizing software that 'everyone needs' like: e-mail, web browser, instant messenger, document processor, etc. It's also good in other areas, don't get me wrong, but I feel this is where the open source movement shines. Also, it isn't free. The only part of open source that is free is the part which is an infinite resource (copies of the software/code). Time and support is not free, which is why that costs money. *shrug* Oh well.

    --
    Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
  24. Re:Blind capitalism by slim · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Also, it isn't free. The only part of open source that is free is the part which is an infinite resource (copies of the software/code). Time and support is not free, which is why that costs money. So you're saying that the only part of 'free software' that is free is the software?

    (Do remember that freedom is about more than monetary cost -- yet freedom does have value that could monetized)
  25. It's the law by SgtChaireBourne · · Score: 4, Informative

    ... Open source is killing them.

    Yes. Now that (effectively) no closed source player are left. Darwinian natural selection has left us the strongest, open source projects. Many precede MS attack on the Internet. Open source is now killing Microsoft. It's a one-two, knock-out. Even most of the yahoo bid was based on stock not cash, and even some of that which is actual cash looks like it would have to borrowed.

    Further, there's no market for MS, not even public-sector corporate welfare. See the mandates:

    • develop open source encryption tools
    • use encryption
    • provide training in encryption
    • closed source
    • develop and use open source
    • provide training in open source

    Source: A5-0264/2001

    For all new European projects:

    • open source is the preferred development platform
    • open source is the preferred deployment platform
    • support open, well-documented standards is required

    Source: European Commission technology strategy.

    So rather than listen to nerdy Bill, slobby Ballmer, or their media proxies whine, listen to others: go open source, open standards. You save work, you save time, you increase security and you recession-proof your company.

    --
    Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
    1. Re:It's the law by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Although that's the EU's position I don't think that you should take it as an endorsement of Open Source. Rather I think it's being used as an opportunity for the EU to 'stick it to MS'.

      If there were any European based closed source solutions that they could recommend (presumably while securing themselves a nice kickback) they would. Sadly there isn't, which leaves Open Source (and primarily Linux) as the 'enemy of my enemy'.

  26. Pot calling the kettle black by g2devi · · Score: 4, Insightful

    One counter-example for Microsoft: Windows XP. RIP.

  27. Re:False Dichotomy by citog · · Score: 4, Informative

    No, Google uses Open Source to power their business. Their business model i.e. Google the company is based on proprietary methods and solutions.

  28. Looked at TFA by roman_mir · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Redmond's Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie.

    - when you see a title like this, you know that the person hasn't done any development in years and the most he is doing now is Visio (this is MS) and Powerpoint.

    "Microsoft has built up a culture of crisis," Ozzie told conference attendees.

    - that is one of the problems with many companies, not just MS of-course. I hate this culture of 'crisis'. It's always brought upon yourself. It's in everything. Example: OMG, WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE UNLESS WE DELIVER THIS CRAZY PIECE OF WORK BY 2 DAYS FROM NOW. It always happens before weekend, you know, and it was always preventable. It is a management problem but it always ends up being developers' problem. Shortsightedness, that's another name for 'culture of crisis'.

    He noted that, unlike Google, many open-source programmers aren't beholden to shareholders.

    - many aren't and it's great.

    Ozzie said that competing with open source "made Microsoft a much stronger company."

    - I doubt it. Taking open source (like parts of BSD, TCP/IP stack etc.) made MS stronger. Being forced to compete with FOSS is tearing MS apart.

    Ozzie noted that if a new operating system were designed today, it wouldn't be a single piece of software that operates a single computer. It would be something that could accommodate multiple devices, with the user at the center. That sounds like Live Mesh -- but perhaps he was also hinting about Microsoft's post-Windows, distributed operating system I keep hearing rumors about...

    - just what I would expect from an 'arm-chair architect'. Coming up with gimmicks rather than looking at the simplest existing solutions. When ALL devices will have the same instruction set, the same processing speeds, the same amount of memory etc., yeah, then one OS would make sense for those devices. Until that moment each device will have its own simplest OS and to connect devices then all that is necessary is standard approach to networking protocols.

    Yahoo was not a strategy unto itself," he said. "It was an accelerator to the ad platform.

    ,

    "We are very, very serious about the online space,"

    - of-course you are. Until 1995 MS didn't bother much with the 'internets', Borg's view of it was that there was no money there. MS is a crisis driven company, remember? When there is a crisis (like all of a sudden MS is not within a market where new technology is developing, because they didn't see money in it) then it starts moving it's collective ass. So after looking at Google's success with making money on text-ads delivered within the context of a search query, MS decided it wants to be there too. It's like all those little sushi restaurants that crowd together. I have noticed it, in the area where we live there was very little happening until about 5 years ago, one sushi restaurant opened up. Then within a year 3 more appeared within 50 METERS of each other. That's what MS is - trying to get a cut of that sushi money.

    Programming tools that work across a variety of devices. At the very end of his remarks, Ozzie made a passing reference to the need for not just programming tools and services that can accommodate multi-core/many-core systems, but also tools that can work across a variety of devices. He noted that there's a need for development tools for building software that works across multiple devices. A reference to the Live Mesh Software Development Kit (SDK), expected to debut at Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference in late October? Perhaps....

    - my god. I mostly work with Java, sometimes I do some stuff with C/C++, whatever. I hate it when a large corp (BEA for example) pushes their gimmick forward as if it was the next best thing right BEFORE the sliced bread. I am tired of it. I prefer tools that work well in their own space, tools that manipulate source in ways that are

    --
    You can't handle the truth.
  29. Microsoft for "economic fairness"? by argoff · · Score: 5, Insightful

    >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.

    This is complete bullshit. What is really going on is that free software forces the software market to center around services instead of licensing controls. That might be bad for somebody who wants a global monopoly, but is very nice for those who create and do stuff.

    In an open source world, a software engineer may have lost a total monopoly over a work he creates ... but in return he has gained billions of hours worth of developed software without any financial loss. That increases his productivity drastically and thus the demand for his services and his pay.

    It is Microsoft who has deprived us of that benefit with their constant licensing fees and constant vendor lock in, not open source.

  30. Odd comparison. by jellomizer · · Score: 2

    Open Source Software is more of a threat then Google.

    So a distribution method ideal vs. a Company is more of a threat then a Company vs. a Company. Well duh, in theory Google can be delt with, Purchased, Create a competive products that people like better, Partnerships, etc... Vs. Open Source which you can't Buy out Open Source (a concept), there is no real authority that controls Open Source it is just there. So in that case yes Open Source is more of a threat then Google. However Open Source more of a market force in which microsoft can change to be more open with. vs. Google who is undermining many of microsofts gains by creating a better product that doesn't care what OS you use or just as long as you follow most of the standards.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  31. I don't think OSS is a threat by elrous0 · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I know this is blasphemy here on /., but frankly, I don't have that much faith in open source and don't think MS, by and large, has anything to worry about. With the noteable exception of Firefox, I've found almost all OSS to be buggy, poorly supported, laughably poorly documented, confusing, and haphazard. Even when OSS project show some potential, they inevitably fork over some bullshit tussle between developers. 90% of consumers would never put up with these shortcomings.

    Just look at Linux as a prime example. Let's say Joe Sixpack or Joe Business wants to get the MS monkey off their backs and "go Linux." Well, the first thing they are going to find is that there is no "Linux" in the same sense that there is a "Windows." Linux is just a kernal (actually, it's different versions of a kernal, since not all distros use the same one). Choosing Linux means first having to choose from a confusing array of different distros, each with their own cheerleaders, strengths and weaknesses--and ALL much more poorly documented and supported than any version of Windows. And that's just the FIRST step. That doesn't even get into installation issues, driver support, etc.

    With the exception of Firefox, I've never once seen a OSS program that I would compare to its commercial counterpart (again, with the notable exception of Firefox). One trip to just about any OSS website will usually make that clear. How many OSS webpages don't even EXPLAIN WHAT THE PRODUCT IS, much less document it, on their website? Seriously, MS has nothing to fear from software distributors whose websites consist entirely of lists of version bug fixes and forums.

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    1. Re:I don't think OSS is a threat by lafiel · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I'm not sure if you're doing this on purpose, but you seem to expect Open-Source projects to provide the full commercial product experience. This was never the point to open-source, which, as the name suggests, deals with code.

      The compiled product, the marketing materials, the user support... it's all something that has to be picked up by people interested in marketing, in technical documentation, in user support.

      Developers are developers. Expecting them to deliver anything more than code is a poor idea.

      This doesn't mean Microsoft shouldn't be concerned. Research and development is by far the most costly, unpredictable element in delivering software. That this part of a software project is being created for free means that the rest can be filled in at relatively low-cost.

  32. Microsoft's biggest threat is ..... Microsoft by Luscious868 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Microsoft is their own worst enemy. All one has to do is look at Vista to see that. Vista tries to be all things to all people and as a consequence it fails to measure up in just about every category. There is too large a bureaucracy for true innovation to occur at Microsoft and there is clearly too much of a focus on backward compatibility and trying to play catchup to other tech companies (Google, Apple, etc) that are the ones doing the real innovating in the industry.

  33. Re:Companies have no way to hire contractors? by Anarke_Incarnate · · Score: 2, Insightful
    No, I think he is saying that getting somebody to work on a known existing product will be easy to explain to PHBs. However, procurement and support contracts are usually already bid out by executives and harder to get a company to move towards.


    If you wanted to get an admin for a "Red Hat Enterprise Linux" machine, sure, that is easy. The PHBs would be fine with that, more than likely. However, if you wanted to tell them "Our Application "$GOOD_JAVA" doesn't have anybody working on it anymore. We found $DEVELOPER to do it for $55/hr in house" they would possibly balk at the fact that a guy could work on maintaining it. It makes no sense, since if they had "$BIG_INTERNAL_APP" and fired the main developer they would replace him with another guy to maintain it with little to no training.

  34. One account: by GameboyRMH · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I know one Microsoft employee. He is evil and anti-OSS (well he says he has no problem with OSS projects run by "professionals" (which he seems to define as a person who has previously worked at a high-profile, well-recognized company)). He compared "Joe schmoe" OSS projects as he calls them to cars held together with duct tape. Just this morning he did. I try to have a civilized conversation with him but he can't stop dissing me (particularly my age and relative lack of coding experience) and he immediately goes on the offensive when the conversation turns to anything OSS-related.

    You have to put yourself in their shoes though. Imagine you have a high-paying job at a big company working hard to produce quality products (and sometimes failing horribly), and some free apps slapped together by a bunch of young guys who didn't have to claw their way up the corporate ladder are running clean over your work, with code that is sometimes messy, in groups that are sometimes poorly organized. If you were a status-seeking greedhead, that would make your blood boil.

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    "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
  35. Re:MS fails to deliver by TheRaven64 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    IIS7 has gotten excellent; it's on par with Apache So it's now a bloated monstrosity that's impossible to manage and has recurrent security issues? 'As good as Apache' hasn't really been a selling point for a while.

    Exchange blows the doors off anything that OSS has I've not used Exchange for a while, but perhaps you could let me know what it does that SOGo doesn't? And if this really justifies the cost.

    Sharepoint is unparalleled in the OSS world. You could be right there. As I understand it, Sharepoint's key selling point is integration, which is typically something that the 'small tools doing one job well' model that is popular in the Free Software world does poorly on.
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    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  36. Re:MS fails to deliver by FishWithAHammer · · Score: 2, Informative

    So it's now a bloated monstrosity that's impossible to manage and has recurrent security issues? 'As good as Apache' hasn't really been a selling point for a while. In features, it's on par. It feels faster running on the same hardware. I haven't seen any significant security issues for it yet, either.

    I've not used Exchange for a while, but perhaps you could let me know what it does that SOGo [opengroupware.org] doesn't? And if this really justifies the cost. Works well on Windows, without changing users' workflow. SOGo is not a drop-in replacement for Exchange, and for that alone it fails because Exchange is, whether you like it or not, the best bet at a shop using Windows desktops due to the easy integration.

    You could be right there. As I understand it, Sharepoint's key selling point is integration, which is typically something that the 'small tools doing one job well' model that is popular in the Free Software world does poorly on. Sharepoint does a lot of interesting things and does them considerably better than FOSS apps even where such are available (I haven't seen a FOSS alternative to Office Sharepoint Server, for example). Even the free WSS kit kicks a lot of ass in the plug-in-and-go department and is pretty awesome to use from a user standpoint.
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    "You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
  37. Re:False Dichotomy by mc900ftjesus · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Or open in the sense that they've never released the custom version of Linux they run all of their servers on?

  38. Re:Just like conservatives! by Facetious · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Counterexamples: Doctors without borders (doctors), Pro Bono (lawyers), Jesus (carpenters) [sorry, couldn't resist].

    Giving away something for free != holding the gift as valueless. I have rarely seen someone miss a concept as thoroughly as you have.

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    Let us not become the evil that we deplore.
  39. METH by bledri · · Score: 2, Funny

    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.

    Perhaps Ray Ozzie is going to start a new organization to protect developers of free software from themselves.

    METH - Microsoft for the Ethical Treatment of Hobbyists!

    --
    Some privacy policy Slashdot.
  40. Re:MS fails to deliver by FishWithAHammer · · Score: 2, Informative

    So nothing can ever complete with Exchange; that is the result of this arguement. If something comes down the pipe that can function as a drop-in replacement, I can see it getting used. Otherwise? Not likely. Exchange is excellent at what it does.
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    "You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
  41. Lesser of two evils... by boredhacker · · Score: 2

    Choosing to use an open-source application that the developer ultimately abandons seems like a much better option than using a closed-source application of the same fate. ;-)

  42. Corporate war. by Eternal+Annoyance · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Google is an avid supporter of open source software and google uses open source software, google motivates development of open source software.
    Microsoft is all too aware of this, and the big issue they are facing is a well entrenched google. They can't even afford to break google, because than Microsoft would face a severe penalty (monopoly abuse).
    Are you guys in here all blind or something? Just connect the dots and it's all too obvious. There is a corporate war going on, and Microsoft is on the losing side.
    The open source community is just a weapon of everyone opposite to the "Microsoft" camp, as is SCO a weapon on the "Microsoft" camp. But who's more on the side where Microsoft is on?
    And more importantly; who are the good guys, and who are the bad guys?

  43. Utility v. Profitability: The Pace Car by thtrgremlin · · Score: 3, Informative

    Geez, so many issues to address. One thing at a time...

    Sure lots of F/OSS projects die for MANY reasons, and they may not may not be picked up by someone in the future, but compared to what? BeOS was a project many companies got invested in and that project died and CAN'T be picked up by anyone else. Microsoft has had many projects they bought, and then never further developed because it wasn't in their best financial interests. With proprietary software it has to be within the financial interests of the rights holder to develop the project further. In the F/OSS world ANYONE with the need, desire, and ability can improve on any project be it going strong or a decade abandoned.

    Much more importantly, can we agree at least that sometimes writing code takes a little more effort than sitting at the computer punching out your ideas? Sometimes it really takes the collaboration of great minds to develop great software. Google has the power to buy just about anyone it wants. I've heard they are about the only company that can buy developers away from Microsoft. The point is that some software, or even any invention, is only useful as something to sell. How many retail stores likely survive not because it they sell anything worth a darn, but has things that make "good" gifts? Look at the whole teddy bear and gift basket industry. Cards have a utilitarian value, but look at all the things that can only be sold around Christmas because the products are worthless to the buyer. Personally, I see a lot of this "economic development" suffering from the Broken Window Fallacy. I go into Fry's all the time and the walls are just lined with crapware with scare tactics to get people to buy them.

    So here is the contrast:
    There is no way to succeed financially from developing Linux crapware. OH NO! What ever will we do?!? Some business secrets need to be held closely, and at other times tools for doing business create competitiveness that drives your markets growth. As with any market, its growth can make or break any business.

    Take Avid Technology as an example: They sell sound equipment and software. Their advertising campaign tries to tell people about all the things they can do with their stuff. Mostly musicians. But what if all that was open source? A community of all kinds of artists could educate people on the many applications of sound equipment for home or industrial use. Their software? They have the industries best! What would they have to gain from open-sourcing their software? Well, Red Hat isn't doing too bad. Avid is already leading the industry and has a well respected name. Official support to clients and most timely updates. Up and rising artists/programmers could improve on the best software in the world! They also lead in fabricating specialized equipment... and this would be hurt how by expanding the market into an even larger community? Some will pay to have everything just work and delivered in a professional way, while others with less money will buy essential equipment and hack out the rest. Avid is ahead because it continues to hire the best in industry and researching its game. Are they done innovating and just surviving on being ahead of everyone else, or are they really leading the industry in strong ways that people will continue to respect?

    This reminds me of the Tortoise and the Hare. Slow and steady can win the race, but was there any reason why the Hare could not have had some kind of work ethic to win the race also? Microsoft is an old, blind, and senile rabbit that knows nothing better about how to win a race than laying bear traps, land mines, and talking smack about the tortoise. In any given race, the rabbit should be able to win with hard work. To relate more closely to F/OSS, F/OSS is a pace car that lets anyone jump into the race at any time. There are just two options, and they can be tough to pick from depending on what you want your software to do. Is your software the secret, or just something that helps your business that can be improved on? BSD/MIT and

    --
    Want Big Business out of government? Take away the incentive and start by getting government out of big business!
  44. Lots of not true here by symbolset · · Score: 2, Interesting

    How many OSS webpages don't even EXPLAIN WHAT THE PRODUCT IS, much less document it, on their website?

    Let me introduce you to Symantec. They make an application called "Ghostcast server", which is used to clone PCs in bulk. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to find out which product they offer contains this application, how much it costs and how it works. Give it a shot. It's like Where's Waldo for geeks.

    Even when OSS project show some potential, they inevitably fork over some bullshit tussle between developers.

    Like X? That was over quickly. Imagine what would happen if Microsoft decided to change their windowing environment and its terms, and it was so hated nobody would want it. Wait -- you don't have to pretend.

    --
    Help stamp out iliturcy.
  45. Because you don't get it by Shadowlore · · Score: 2, Insightful

    No offense but you simply do not understand what OSS is.

    OSS isn't Sourceforge, it isn't Linux, nor Firefox, nor Gimp nor any singular piece of software. It isn't documentation or lack of documentation, bugginess or non-bugginess is also not OSS. After all, any attribute you want to assign to OSS projects/software is equally assignable to non-OSS. Windows is easy to use and well documented? My Arse. If that were true why the multi-billion dollar Windows training industry? Why the multibillion dollar book industry? Simple: the claim is bogus. Most software has bugs and almost every piece of software could be better documented. Thus all of your "reasons" about OSS not being a threat are invalid on their face. I've even seen a lot of commercial software not "EXPLAIN WHAT THE PRODUCT IS" on their website. Your vapor anecdotes notwithstanding this is not an aspect of interest either.

    The reason OSS is threat to MS is no market share. It is not mindshare. It is a shift in expectations and beliefs.

    How many people 5-10 years ago thought the Windows==computer? Compare that to now. That expectation is shifting, and that expectation is a core principle of the MS business model. It is a long-term growth threat in the sense that it takes time to build and when it reaches "the crisis stage" it is too late. Another aspect of the threat of OSS to MS is "freedom". Nor GNU freedom per-se but vendor freedom - choice. With the growth of Linux, came a fertile ground for other alternatives such as OpenOffice.org - and yes I am well aware of it's history. This led to the creation of a pressure valve. As MS predictably increased their punishment on those not paying the proper financial respect, the existence of this pressure valve allowed some to take it. As more did so the movement for "open document" standards grew more intense and larger. This triggered more people to even *think* about alternatives.

    It's that thinking about alternatives that is the crucial chink in the MS business model. It is much like Afghanistan was to the USSR. The illusion that you *need* Microsoft has cracked, and chunks are falling off. That is the single largest threat to MS's business model. People will switch to other alternatives - even if they are proprietary ones for someone else.

    The second major aspect of the OSS threat to MS (by way of their business model specifically) is what OSS enables. Consider the use of a supercomputer for something like SETI or protein folding. Now consider the use of distributed computing such as SETI At Home of Folding At Home. OSS enables the tapping of far more developers than can be managed by an organization. It also enables companies to rise quickly and establish dominance. One example is Google. Google would not have happened in a world w/o "a Linux". It would have been cost prohibitive. OSS enables that type of company to shoot up in a relatively few short years to absolute domination. It also enables competitors to work together.

    This working together allows competitors of all sizes converge on a common underlying platform and provide for each of them to establish their specialties or "particular advantages". They share the otherwise unmanageable mass of talented programmers and supplement it with their own developers. OSS enabled OSX. Look at the significant turnaround in Mac usage with OSX - even before the Intel switch. This accelerates the shattering of the "Windows is the Computer" illusion which MS bases it's model on.

    These are (some of) the major aspects of OSS that are the threat to MS. Not the specific products themselves but what affect of these products, their existence, has on the minds of the people using them. It may take a generational changeover but it is inevitable at this point.

    Your problem is you are too busy looking at the bugs on the trees to understand you are looking at a rainforest. The "ecology" of the software and computing world is changing. The way we use the electronic world is changing and it is due to OSS, not MS. Facebook, MySpace, F

    --
    My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.