Microsoft Acknowledges Open Source As a Bigger Threat Than Google

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

In Other Words....

[PC and Sony Fanboy (1248258)]

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...

Re:In Other Words....

[Flamora (877499)]

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.

Re:In Other Words....

[xanalogical (808042)]

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".

Re:In Other Words....

[nuzak (959558)]

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

Re:In Other Words....

[GeffDE (712146)]

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.

Re:In Other Words....

[GeffDE (712146)]

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.

Re:In Other Words....

[ozmanjusri (601766)]

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.

Utility v. Profitability: The Pace Car

[thtrgremlin (1158085)]

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

FUD FUD FUD FUD. FUDDITY FUD. FUDDITY FUD.

[zifferent (656342)]

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!

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

[Rogerborg (306625)]

[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 [e-mail] 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.

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

[ElizabethGreene (1185405)]

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

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

[upside (574799)]

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.

Pot calling the kettle black

[g2devi (898503)]

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

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

[NotBornYesterday (1093817)]

Yes, but why SHOULDN'T a company just pay M$ to take care of 95% of their IT needs?

Many do. For many others, MS products simply don't do what's required, or can't replace what's already there, whether it is proprietary or open.

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

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

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

Not trolling, just asking the FLOSS freaks if they can come up with something better than "Microsoft is bad, mkaay?"

The first 2 words of that sentence offer a sharp contrast to the rest of it, AC.

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

[DeadTOm (671865)]

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.

Re:MS fails to deliver

[TheRaven64 (641858)]

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 [opengroupware.org] 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.

No all we need...

[HappySmileMan (1088123)]

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

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

Re:No all we need...

[morgan_greywolf (835522)]

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

Re:No all we need...

[Mad Merlin (837387)]

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 [google.com].

Gee, I'm touched ...

[yelvington (8169)]

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!

One reason compensation is not important

[poeidon1 (767457)]

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.

Re:One reason compensation is not important

[morgan_greywolf (835522)]

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 [catb.org]. Necessity is the other of invention.

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

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

Re:One reason compensation is not important

[mdarksbane (587589)]

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.

Oh?

[morgan_greywolf (835522)]

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.

Re:Oh?

[slim (1652)]

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.

Re:

[morgan_greywolf (835522)]

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 [wikipedia.org] spreadsheets.

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

They're just missing the point, completely

[Enleth (947766)]

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.

Re:They're just missing the point, completely

[A beautiful mind (821714)]

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

Re:

[Flamora (877499)]

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.

Money?

[warlorddagaz (1242518)]

"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.

Slashdot summary is misleading...

[bomanbot (980297)]

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?

OK Microsoft

[harry666t (1062422)]

"""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.

Reward is in the eye of the beholder

[analog_line (465182)]

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.

Microsoft needs to PLAY the game, not fight it

[erroneus (253617)]

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.

"First they ignore you...

[brunoacf (1186539)]

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

Gandhi.

Another article. Same subject. Different take.

[wellingj (1030460)]

The quote from the another article [cnet.com] 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 [wikipedia.org] 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.

This doesn't seem realistic.

[Awptimus Prime (695459)]

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.

Abandoned projects?

[pesc (147035)]

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.

"Only a fraction"

[Dystopian Rebel (714995)]

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.

Big hole in his argument, source is available

[Dan667 (564390)]

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?

Looked at TFA

[roman_mir (125474)]

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

Microsoft for "economic fairness"?

[argoff (142580)]

>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.

Microsoft's biggest threat is ..... Microsoft

[Luscious868 (679143)]

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.

No doubt

[csoto (220540)]

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.

Re:Blind capitalism

[bberens (965711)]

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.

Re:

[slim (1652)]

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)

Re:

[HappySmileMan (1088123)]

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

Re:Big Suprise

[by Anonymous Coward]

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

It's the law

[SgtChaireBourne (457691)]

... 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 [sec.gov]. 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 [europa.eu]

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 [europa.eu].

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.

Re:False Dichotomy

[citog (206365)]

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