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Microsoft's Chief Exec For Latin America Says 'Open' Means 'Incompetent'
An anonymous reader writes "The President of Microsoft Latin America, in criticizing the Brazilian government for its support of open source software, claimed that declaring something open is how you 'mask incompetence.' That seems especially funny coming from Microsoft, who has used 'closed' to mask incompetence for years. I thought 'open' meant that people could find and fix (or ignore) incompetence, whereas closed meant you were stuck with the incompetence."
Even microsoft will distance themselves from this thesis. They've come too far "embracing" open. My guess, this guy gets cut loose, and if microsoft can make a PR coup of it at the same time, they will.
The way you mask something is to put it out in the open?
Open means Incompetent?
That can't be right. I thought it meant not quite finished and don't expect documentation.
Put the flame throwers down... it's a joke.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Open_XML
Yeah, I know I won't be beloved by slashdot commenters for this. It's true that "open" doesn't necessarily mean incompetent (e.g. Firefox is still better than IE), but there's plenty of cases where open-source is the strategy used when a company doesn't have the money to property develop a product. I sometimes use open-source software not because it's better, but because it's cheaper. I'm under no illusion that it's often not as good as paid, closed software that does the same thing.
The basic truth is when companies are forced to provide superior products instead of costly attempts, citizens win. Neither the government nor it's people are here to compete with you, that's a business game.
Where genius and insanity become confused true wisdom is found
As someone who speaks competent spanish, "Quando você não pode competir, você se declara aberto. Isso mascara a incompetência". Translates to "When you can't compete, you declare it open. It masks the incompetence."
"Going to war without the French is like going deer hunting without your accordion." ~General Norman Schwarzkopf
Yeah because Windows always works right out of the box.
Let's see, did a factory restore of a Dell with Windows XP and it wouldn't boot with the Nvidia card that came with it. Had to take the card out, do the restore, then install the latest drivers and then put the card back in. Considering that everything is made and tested for Windows that's just sad.
Recently did the same with an Acer. Acer drivers wouldn't detect the broadcom wireless, because it has to be initialized by the driver, but the drivers won't install if they don't detect. Had to install the drivers from Dell's site.
So no, the guy doesn't have a point and neither does your anecdote.
You could make the argument that many hardware companies do not support OSS but you can hardly make the argument that OSS is incompetent.
Now if you consider that almost all hardware is specifically designed for proprietary software and it still doesn't work all of the time, one could make the argument that proprietary software is incompetent.
Open doesn't necessarily mean incompetent and closed doesn't necessarily mean competant. But "open" can sometimes be a last refuge for the incompetent. As if no one who has ever banged into a serious, irrefutable FLOSS usability problem has been told "quit whining, learn how to code and fix it yourself. It's open!"
You remember all those PDA's that the Taiwanese/Japanese couldn't sell because they sucked so much and their last ditch strategy was to bill them as open source PDA's and create FLOSS projects around them (e.g. Zaurus)? Open sourcing of Symbian after it got its ass handed to it by iOS? That's the kind of stuff I'm talking about.
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
This was exactly what latin american free software needed. FSF - LA successfully "converted" many Brazilian trade unions to Free Software. Uruguay adopted Linux for OLPC, Argentina was going to adopt Linux but then Ballmer paid a visit to the president and now they use dual-boot. Ubuntu is already more popular than Mac, and Microsoft is the paradigm of "colonialist foreign corporation" that all the leftists despise. (See this article (spanish) from Venezuela: "Free Software vs. Privative Software: freedom vs. slavery")
I recall the last time Stallman visited Argentina, he spent more time with politicians than with programmers. I really hope this is our chance. OLPC is like Gramsci: if the kids learn linux there's no way to bring them to Windows once they grow up.
In soviet russia the government regulates the companies.
That the pot calling the kettle black if ever I've heard it!
Thank God. I don't know what we would have done if you hadn't shown up, Captain Obvious.
If closed-source is so competent, why does every EULA I ever read disclaim any warranty?
by far the largest part are abandoned, half-finished and/or complete garbage.
This seems like a good sign to me. If the project isn't interesting or important enough to warrant being finished, abandon it. You can't really do this if you are writing a commercial product. Usually it just ends up sucking, and clogging up the retail channel with cruddy software. Better to die a deserved early death, then waste people's time and money.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Native brasilian here. Your translation is correct. Unfortunately this doesn't change the fact that what he said is obviously bullshit.
Cosplayers.net - The Cosplayers Network
It sounds like he is being taken out of context.
For example, I've noticed a common theme lately for old, entrenched products. If they start to fall behind and their market share starts to dip too low, they open source their code. This generates lots of good press and a whole new army of free worker bees improving your product. The down side, of course, is you lose complete control, but if you've been screwing it up this whole time that might not be a bad thing.
Probably the biggest example of this is Mozilla, which came as a direct result of the disaster that was Netscape's "upgrade" (they took a fantastic product and killed it with incompetence).
So he's not necessarily saying open source = incompetent, what he is saying is that often the reason companies open source their code is as a way to mask their own incompetence (i.e. not the open source community's incompetence).
It seems plausible.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller