How Microsoft-Yahoo Will Affect Open Source

jammag writes "If the marriage of Microsoft and Yahoo were to be consummated, GNU/Linux would be hindered, argues Roy Schestowitz. Yahoo's funding of open source initiatives would dry up. Yahoo, which acquired Zimbra, would lose its love for the open source competitor of Microsoft Outlook. The list goes on..."

Ok by me

[Hatta]

I'll be over here using Thunderbird/Icedove. Seriously, I can't remember the last time I used any Yahoo service or product. If Yahoo disappeared from the internet forever, I don't think I'd even notice. What does Yahoo even do that people find valuable anymore?

Re:Roy Schestowitz, take with prescribed NaCl

[at_slashdot]

How about commenting the message not the person who brings it forth... does "ad hominem" sound like something you've heard before?

Cathedral and the Bazaar

[tjstork]

So much for the cathedral and the bazaar.

Alas, as Linux has gotten bigger and more complex, it is also requiring more capital to sustain itself as well, and capital means corporate funding. How ironic that the bazaar has grown to becoming a sprawling, flopping, traffic jammed, flea market, and suddenly key parts of the bazaar are suspiciously looking rather cathedral like (FireFox, the kernel).

I predict that within a few years, Linux will grow to the point that its advocates will quietly abandon the collaborative, libertarian rhetoric that drove it early on, and instead turn more towards a quest for government funding along the lines of National Public Radio. It will continually seek corporate sponsorship, even as it decries their existence.

Re:Zimbra Admins

[Dancindan84]

Quote from a Zimbra employee in that thread:

The OSS version of Zimbra is just that, Open Source. Whatever happens there should be no change in that status.

The joy of OSS is that if Microsoft/Yahoo discontinue support of Zimbra, someone else can pick it up. If there's a paid "corporate" version, I'm sure a company picking up would include support to migrate. I know that isn't ideal, but it isn't a reason for mass panic either.

Microsoft 2.0

[writerjosh]

Microsoft's only options are to either open up widely to Open Source, or to crush Google with its proprietary products - which will never happen. This only leaves Microsoft one option: encourage/use Open Source or die. They're simply too far in the hole and their products are rapidly becoming obsolete from the POV of the average-Joe user.

Absorbing Yahoo is going to be a mammoth task simply because of internal cultural differences, but trying to fight the tide of Open Source is a losing battle for Microsoft.

(Off Topic) New Microsoft story icon submission

[Robber Baron]

With the impending departure of Bill Gates, I think a new Microsoft story icon is in order.
For that I don't think we need to go much further than the picture at the top of this story...

http://www.smh.com.au/news/biztech/yahoo-bid-bad-news-for-the-net-says-google/2008/02/04/1201973796947.html [smh.com.au]

Re:zimbra

[neumayr]

Hehe, yeah, Zimbra will definitely have been the decisive argument when MS decided to spend 45x10^9 USD (even taking up a loan, a first for them) on Yahoo.
Talk about delusional..

Re:Ok by me

[jmcbain]

Yahoo finance.
Yahoo sports.
Yahoo news.
Yahoo movies.
Yahoo TV.
Yahoo weather.
Flickr (I don't use it though)
Delicious.
Yahoo Answers.
Yahoo maps.

Funny how these appeal to 500M unique visitors each month but not to you. I think it's because Yahoo targets a specific demographic, normal humans, rather than the the 30-year-old burnt-out techies on /. or the 19-year-old college students on Digg or the who-knows perverts on 4chan.

Re:Cathedral and the Bazaar

[multisync]

Alas, as Linux has gotten bigger and more complex, it is also requiring more capital to sustain itself as well, and capital means corporate funding ... I predict that within a few years, Linux will grow to the point that its advocates will quietly abandon the collaborative, libertarian rhetoric that drove it early on

I think it is great that we have the choice to go with a corporate-backed distro such as Red Hat or Novell if we need the support or enterprise features they offer, while still being able to choose a community-backed, "free" in every sense of the word distro like Debian if that is what suits us. The very existence of choice is the success of free and open source software.

I predict that the bazaar will continue to grow and expand and cater to all kinds of needs and tastes in the future. That really is the benefit of FOSS, isn't it? The freedom to choose (and use) the software that suits our needs, rather than being forced to take what the silo masters are pushing.

Re:Zimbra Admins

[jimicus]

The joy of OSS is that if Microsoft/Yahoo discontinue support of Zimbra, someone else can pick it up. If there's a paid "corporate" version, I'm sure a company picking up would include support to migrate. I know that isn't ideal, but it isn't a reason for mass panic either.

To be fair, I don't know much about Zimbra, but many opensource projects (including some reasonably big ones) are only really well understood at a code level by a relatively small team of people.

If most or all of those people are employed by Yahoo, then even if someone else does pick up the Zimbra project this is a major setback.

This is FUD

[smitth1276]

Slashdotters, if anything, are consistent in their selective usage of the "fud" tag and in the groupthink that its usage reflects.

Re:Cathedral and the Bazaar

[Per Abrahamsen]

How ironic that the bazaar has grown to becoming a sprawling, flopping, traffic jammed, flea market,

You have never been to bazaar, have you?

Re:It gets worse

[hellsDisciple]

The dark horse in this whole affair is Sun, not Apple. Sun has a very solid hardware and software business, and now has MySQL under its belt. It pretty much has zero real presence in the provision of online services. Sun essentially would get a shrink-wrapped business which takes care of itself and has very little redundant services. There is little political baggage with such a purchase either. They also get a platform to market their products virally (powered by Sun).

FreeBSD would probably fare OK in that situation, and might even make it as an offically supported OS on Sun hardware. Zimbra is potentially touchy subject as is PHP. Zimbra is possibly capable of being rebranded in a 'one box' solution, compared to the heavyweight Sun Java Messaging stuff.

Re:It gets worse

[kurokaze]

Holy Mother of Christ... that's some tinfoil hat you've got on there! Sheesh...

Re:Ok by me

[Frosty Piss]

...500M unique visitors each month...

500 million *unique* visitors *every* month? WOW!