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Why Microsoft Is Being Nicer To Open Source

Posted by timothy on from the in-some-markets-at-least dept.

itwbennett writes "Is open source's growth in emerging markets what is driving Microsoft to say 'we love open source' with an attempt at a straight face? 'The emerging markets (like the BRIC nations) are a huge potential market for Microsoft,' says Brian Proffitt. 'And I believe Redmond is wisely not taking the FUD route on open source software in those markets. Why? Because open source already has some strong roots in the BRIC nations (heck, in Brazil, open source is the whole darn tree), and any attack on open source would be seen as a foreign company attacking local software projects. If Microsoft attacked open source publicly in this environment, a lot of potential customers and developers in those countries could react in a protectionist manner and start giving Microsoft the stink-eye.'"

3 of 231 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Wrong by c0lo · · Score: 0, Troll

    So let's see. Microsoft will do anything that it thinks will boost sales.

    You accurately summarized my paragraph...

    Those bastards! Next thing you know they will have the audacity to start fixing bugs that people complain about, or implement features that are requested, or even make products that they think people will buy! Oh Noes! The horror. The horror!

    ...yet managed to completely miss the point. Maybe you don't want to see the point, but I'll try.

    Speaking about missing the point, he might be in your company, then.
    Because you missed a point in her/his reply as well: Microsoft will not do quite anything to boost the sales, and here are some examples:start fixing bugs, implement features that are requested.
    Not saying that she/he intended the above as a point, but I'm still seeing it as a point even if not intended.

    --
    Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
  2. Re:Wrong by poetmatt · · Score: 0, Troll

    this however, has no actual factual basis. MS has never done anything to show people that they've actually changed in this sense.

    As noted, a leopard can't change its spots, and people are not ignorant to "embrace, extend extinguish". There is no way for microsoft to be truly pro open source until a MS license is made to be fully GPL v3 compatible and not simply declared open source by OSI, and since that will never happen, neither will MS being supportive of open source.

    This is like saying "we support mono", or "we support silverlight" and calling them open source when they really create open source issues.

  3. Re:Wrong by Eggnogium · · Score: 0, Troll

    Microsoft could contribute 3 engineers to every open source project on the internet and /. would still call it a dirty scheme. Face it, there's not a single thing Microsoft could do that wouldn't have 80% of this site's users up in arms.