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Microsoft's Annual Report Reveals OSS Mistakes

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the or-ignorance-possibly-willful dept.

mjasay writes "Microsoft's most recent annual report suggests that the company is increasingly coming to grips with open source, yet also seems determined to perpetuate myths about open source that poorly serve it and its shareholders. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has suggested before that 'free software means no free soda' for Microsoft employees; but this is perhaps the first time that Microsoft has managed to enshrine its ignorance in a public document. In the annual report, Microsoft makes two primary false claims about open source: 1) Open source companies don't invest in research and development and instead largely free-ride on Microsoft's patents and copyrights; and 2) Open source projects don't innovate and instead mimic Microsoft's products. Perhaps Microsoft has forgotten its own 'innovative' past copying of markets and technologies created by Apple and others. But at least Microsoft gets one thing right: 'To the extent open source software gains increasing market acceptance, our sales, revenue and operating margins may decline.'"

10 of 348 comments (clear)

  1. News? by dreamchaser · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Did anyone expect anything other than spin from MS with regards to Open Source Software? Hmmm.

    1. Re:News? by ozphx · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Compared to say Cnet's spin, which suggested that MS didn't spend very much on R&D compared to OSS companies.

      Apparantly half its income - around $7B spent on R&D is "not much".

      --
      3laws: No freebies, no backsies, GTFO.
    2. Re:News? by rtb61 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This report has very little to do with open source, it is all about marketing. The M$ board and executive team is basically treating it's shareholders the same way it treats it's customers. It is feeding them a line of non-committal B$ in order to keep their jobs and maintain a threatened share price.

      So M$'s annual report is starting to bear no resemblance to what most respectable companies would produce or what an executive team with integrity would present to shareholders. It is a empty glossy pump up produced by a marketing team rather than an management and engineering team. No new directions, no new products, no new ideas, just more of ballmer's self involved blather and bull shit.

      Psychologically it is interesting, hmm, we know everything, we make no mistakes, we are the computer industry, when it goes wrong, it is everybody else's fault, they stole it from us, they don't know anything and the customer is stupid when they don't realise this.

      Technically it is quite true that M$ help to create the OSS movement, they were such an unreliable and deceitful supplier of software that they really did do more than anybody else to drive customers to OSS.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    3. Re:News? by symbolset · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Did anyone expect anything other than spin from MS with regards to Open Source Software? Hmmm.

      No.

      Ok, one word posts can get good moderation but I'm willing to expand on this.

      Microsoft's innovation is to sell the ideas of others as organic product. This is not really a new idea. See "Kufu: Expansions on the Art of Building Pyramids." (not cited)

      I'm currently working my way through Cashman & Shelly's "Introduction to Computer Programming IBM/360 Assembler Language" (c)1969, Anaheim Publishing Company.

      Familiar terms there include "DOS", "Work Areas" and "Control Macros"

      I'm willing to bet there are a couple dozen ideas in this book that invalidate Microsoft patents.

      For prior art on the rest of them you need only read Communications of the ACM, origin through 1981.

      --
      Help stamp out iliturcy.
    4. Re:News? by symbolset · · Score: 5, Insightful

      We need a ruling that software patents are void. We're well on the way. Recent Supreme Court rulings are indicative of a climate change in the Court.

      People need to get behind the idea that software patents and copyrights serve to prevent "the progress of science and useful arts."

      Progress is the goal. If the tool no longer serves it, it needs to be abandoned.

      --
      Help stamp out iliturcy.
    5. Re:News? by DaveAtFraud · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Technically it is quite true that M$ help to create the OSS movement, they were such an unreliable and deceitful supplier of software that they really did do more than anybody else to drive customers to OSS.

      Somewhat of an overstatement or at least an over simplification. You need only look at the programs that started out in /usr/contrib from long before M$ was even Billy G's wet dream. Programs like grep and awk easily come to mind.

      That being said, M$ is what made OSS into a viable, enterprise level force in the computer software business. From their buggy programs and operating systems to their use of vaporware to string the market along, M$'s unwillingness to allow any competitor to survive (DR-DOS or OS/2 anyone? How about WordPerfect, Ami Pro, Lotus 1-2-3, etc?) made open source software necessary. Linux and *BSD would still be hobby toys if there was really a competitive commercial software marketplace with real choice.

      Microsoft didn't actually create OSS. Open source software existed long before Microsoft. Microsoft is what made OSS necessary as the only way to offer a competitive, alternative product. One that couldn't be squeezed out of existence through contractual agreements that forbade offering the alternative.

      Cheers,

      Dave

      P.S. I've been using Linux since 1998 and I was an OS/2 user prior to that.

      --
      They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
      Ben
    6. Re:News? by stmok · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This blog at c/net is just an indication that MS is in a more subtle tone, crapping themselves. They have NO effective response to open source. This has been true since their first public strike at Open Source. (Cancer, anyone?)

      The reason? The simple existence of open source is a contradiction to their very own fundamental business model.

      They rely on software licenses as their main source of income. They will do ANYTHING to protect that. We know this from their history. They're about control...Because to them, control is profit. (Examples: Protocols, document formats, de-facto standards, anti-piracy schemes like Activation and "Genuine Advantage", etc are all different aspects of control.)

      But Open Source turns that model upside down. Software licenses become $0. You don't control and "encourage" people to use your products. You let them do things on their own accord. You let your fellow man/woman choose. It puts more pressure on you to improve the technology.

      Companies who are based on this model now focus their resources on tools to give to the community. They let the community innovate while they polish up and improve for their commercially supported variants. (The cycle continues endlessly as they improve and give back).

      The result? Microsoft will find it harder and harder as Open Source improves. Granted, the closed source model gets you the money quicker, and its more polished for mainstream PC users, but you don't have genuine user loyalty.

      The fundamental weakness here is, if you can create an Open Source equivalent (features that are equal or better), closed source companies will be in serious trouble. Why would people pay if they can get it elsewhere for free? (legally).

      This is why they're so scared. They know the day will come. (On that day, be sure to note the share prices and the company's general behaviour).

      They can resort to petty distractions and occasional seasons of being nice to open source, but they know they cannot stop this stone wheel. It may grind slowly, but its coming. Consistent improvement, that's what its all about.

  2. Damn parasites by stox · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Hmm, where did that IP stack come from? Where did they get the idea of tabbed browsing? Where did they get a web browser from? The list goes on and on. I wonder how many "patents" came from ideas inspired by open source?

    The reason Microsoft is failing is that the parasite has become larger than the host.

    --
    "To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
  3. Re:BSD Networking Stack by msuarezalvarez · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What's wrong (or, at least, morally dubious) is that they fail to recognize what they did with the OSS-originated network stack...

  4. HA!!! by josmar52789 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "open source software doesn't innovate"

    Ha! The article directly below this one states that someone has developed an app to graph or diagram SQL statements... Now, that's innovation - and it didn't require any Microsoft products to be harmed during testing or development!

    Oh by the way, the Internet itself is an open source effort and I can't imagine anything more innovative or groundbreaking than the most advanced communications medium ever created!