Microsoft Talks Tough About Open Source
Posted by malebolgia on 25 May 2004 - 20:06 · 29 comments & 2458 views
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(2 replies)
#1 Posted by markjensen on 25 May 2004 - 20:21
- From the article:
With open source, a company is in effect giving away its intellectual property, he said, adding that this prevents a software company from getting back benefits from its IP. "If you are compelled to give back to the community, then you don't have the opportunity to benefit from that knowledge [you have created]," he stressed.
Chris Sharp knows better, having worked for RedHat. The GPL does not require you to share out any internal changes you make to your Linux install. Only things that you try to re-distribute under the GPL.
If a company wants to create propriatiary apps for Linux, they are free to do so, and keep their code secret. Just use a non-GPL license.
Sounds like he is coloring the facts quite a bit to present things a very specific (and incorrect) way. -
#1.1 Posted by g33kb0y on 26 May 2004 - 00:04
- It would seem Sharp is referring to open source in general, whether it be Windows, Linux, Unix, Mac, etc. Id Est: "Sharp...said building open source software is a 'waste of money.'" I'm not arguing with anything you said, just pointing this out.
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#1.2 Posted by markjensen on 26 May 2004 - 01:06
- I understand your point. However, Chris knows the different types of "Open Source". He is deliberately muddying the waters and painting the dirtiest picture possible with falsehoods in there. No one is ever required, under any Open Source model I know of, to post all of their code for competitors to see.
I guess every man has a price to sell out their values. Seems that Chris got a good salary.
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(9 replies)
#2 Posted by JrDZ13 on 25 May 2004 - 22:07
- microsoft will never win this ethical or intellectual war with linux... ever.
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#2.1 Posted by markjensen on 26 May 2004 - 01:08
- You really shouldn't underestimate Microsoft.
They have an enormous amount of resources.
They have a HUGE established user base.
They control a large percentage of computer information.
They have a well-staffed corporation of very talented people.
Microsoft may seem like a clumsy dragon, but they are a dragon none-the-less. -
#2.2 Posted by Colonel_Angus on 26 May 2004 - 02:42
- I know, just look how they beat down Sony in the console market.
And how they beat down Google in the search engine market.
And how they beat down Apache in the webserver market
And how they beat down Palm in the handheld computer market.
And how they beat down Apple in the digital music sales market.
Everyone who competes against Microsoft gets crushed! When will CEO's get a clue!
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#2.3 Posted by werejag on 26 May 2004 - 08:47
QUOTE (#1.1) You really shouldn't underestimate Microsoft.
They have an enormous amount of resources.
They have a HUGE established user base.
They control a large percentage of computer information.
They have a well-staffed corporation of very talented people.
Microsoft may seem like a clumsy dragon, but they are a dragon none-the-less.
yet they are losing so many of the battles in non os fields. makes you think why does microsoft even try-
#2.4 Posted by samriley on 26 May 2004 - 10:08
- "And how they beat down Palm in the handheld computer market."
not a good point, they actaully have, palm sales are decreasing and pocket pc sales are increasing. -
#2.5 Posted by JaggedFlame on 26 May 2004 - 12:41
QUOTE I know, just look how they beat down Sony in the console market.
Oh, yeah. I mean, no one cares that it went from nothing to #2 in the market and beat out Gamecube in its first year or two, right?
QUOTE And how they beat down Apache in the webserver market
Right. That must be why the majority of Fortune 1000 companies use IIS.
QUOTE And how they beat down Apple in the digital music sales market.
Funny, I don't recall Microsoft having a digital music sales service.
What were you saying, werejag?-
#2.6 Posted by Colonel_Angus on 26 May 2004 - 16:05
QUOTE Oh, yeah. I mean, no one cares that it went from nothing to #2 in the market and beat out Gamecube in its first year or two, right?
Current console market shares:
1. GBA (Nintendo) 39% marketshare
2. PS2 (Sony) 38% marketshare
3. tied: GCN (Nintendo) and Xbox (MS) 12% marketshare each
Microsoft is in last place in the consol market. Even if you can successfully argue that the Xbox has beat the gamecube, Nintendo is still beating Microsoft.
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#2.7 Posted by g33kb0y on 26 May 2004 - 18:09
- GBA is a handheld, not a console. It would be more applicable to put the GBA up against the Nokia N-Gage.
Edit: I don't know why I'm arguing this, because it's off-topic and completely moot.
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#2.8 Posted by Colonel_Angus on 26 May 2004 - 18:41
QUOTE video game console - a dedicated electronic device designed to play video games.
source: http://www.wordiq.com/
Sounds like a GBA to me...
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(7 replies)
#3 Posted by aristotle-dude on 25 May 2004 - 22:34
- I love this part:
"...governments that standardize on open source software are hurting their local commercial software vendor communities because these companies are being robbed of opportunities to make money that they need to invest in developing more software products."
That is funny coming from MS considering they killed off most of the competion and many companies don't exist anymore. This raises the question, besides open source projects, what local software is he talking about?
How would standardizing on MS products help the local software community?
What about BSD licensed software? MS would not be on the net if not for the TCP/IP stack which they based off of the BSD stack. -
#3.1 Posted by neufuse on 25 May 2004 - 22:48
- thats funny because I have always said the same thing too about forceing open source into large usage like that...
and as for the stacks they usef from BSD, they could of always written their own, they just chose to use BSD instead of wasteing time writing what already existed -
#3.2 Posted by quanta on 25 May 2004 - 23:25
- Which is the whole point of open source software - saving time and money by reusing existing components instead of wasting them writing your own.
I second aristotle-dude's sentiments, how does buying Microsoft software help the local software communities of China or Brazil or Germany exactly?
I think Peru said it best - open source software makes it much easier to learn how to code. Education by application and example. If they stuck with proprietary software, they would never learn how to sustain their own IT economies. -
#3.3 Posted by aristotle-dude on 26 May 2004 - 03:00
- Who is forcing anyone? Shouldn't governments be allowed to explore all possibilities on how to spend tax dollars? Again, I ask you, how do other nations benefit from buying exclusively from MS? How does this foster local software development?
I'm not some GNU/RMS fanatic. I happen to advocate BSD-like licenses more than GPL because you are not forced to do anything. People in those projects contribute back to the project out of goodwill and a desire to see the code they use move forward.
I used to think that Open source was destroying shareware.... well some of that shareware deserved to die. The authors were charging way too much money for it. I also realized that it was MS that strangled to death other commercial software vendors like Borland, Wordperfect, Lotus, Novell, Corel etc... by the time Open Source started gaining ground, those companies were already mortally wounded.
Open source can re-open the marketplace for other vendors proprietary vendors again. -
#3.4 Posted by JaggedFlame on 26 May 2004 - 03:29
QUOTE Shouldn't governments be allowed to explore all possibilities on how to spend tax dollars?
Then why are you mouthing off telling them what to buy? If an exclusive Microsoft arrangement helps them get their job done, it's not your place to tell them it won't. I know from personal experience in India that Microsoft solutions would help more than open-source solutions.-
#3.5 Posted by aristotle-dude on 26 May 2004 - 04:02
QUOTE (#3.4) hen why are you mouthing off telling them what to buy? If an exclusive Microsoft arrangement helps them get their job done, it's not your place to tell them it won't. I know from personal experience in India that Microsoft solutions would help more than open-source solutions.
I'm not telling anyone what to buy.
I'm just expressing my "opinion". Don't like it? Tough.
If open source solutions help other government which are not benefiting for MS outsourcing work, who are you or MS to tell they cannot or should not?
I'm all for using the right tool for the job but most people are probably wasting money using Excel and Word when they could be using Open Office and they don't use any of the extra "features" MS provides.
I hear that India has been getting a lot of outsourcing jobs from MS and other companies so I can see why you feel the way you do.-
#3.6 Posted by werejag on 26 May 2004 - 08:56
QUOTE (#3.4) ...I know from personal experience in India that Microsoft solutions would help more than open-source solutions.
it has been said, now let it be written in stone. this shall be our our 1 st commandment.
commandment 2 thou shall not ask jaggedflame what he bases his absurd beliefs on
jaggedflame seriously your creditability on what is best for industry, needs major help-
#3.7 Posted by JaggedFlame on 26 May 2004 - 12:45
QUOTE I'm not telling anyone what to buy. I'm just expressing my "opinion". Don't like it? Tough.
It's good that you put "opinion" in quotes, because all you really implied was that no one should have a reason for exclusively buying from MS.
That's not true. It does form the minority of the cases, but it still does happen for good reasons.
QUOTE If open source solutions help other government which are not benefiting for MS outsourcing work, who are you or MS to tell they cannot or should not?
Okay, I didn't tell anyone they should or should not do anything, unlike you. All I said was that it's possible that someone would need an all-MS solution. And it most definitely is.
QUOTE I'm all for using the right tool for the job but most people are probably wasting money using Excel and Word when they could be using Open Office and they don't use any of the extra "features" MS provides.
Note the use of the word "probably." It's pretty simple, dude. YOU DON'T KNOW. Unless you work for the government, you have no idea whether or not Excel or Word are a waste in their particular case. How are you making all these assumptions?
QUOTE I hear that India has been getting a lot of outsourcing jobs from MS and other companies so I can see why you feel the way you do.
Good point, but that isn't as important as what I was thinking about. For one thing, just about everyone entering the IT industry in India is learning how to use Microsoft solutions, and there are a lot of experts there. The government isn't going to help local IT by instituting some open source solution. While in a poor country like Peru, you might need open source to help people out, that's not the case in India.
QUOTE jaggedflame seriously your creditability on what is best for industry, needs major help
I used to work there, you dumbass.
Last edited by 820 on 26 May 2004 - 12:50
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#4 Posted by GamblerFEXonlin on 25 May 2004 - 23:08
- Why not post a mafia boss opinion on the society instead?
"yo, all dah poor dealers should have right to social care, yo" "what if some of my favourites go in jail, yo?? ill be out of business, man!"
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#5 Posted by DrunkenMaster on 26 May 2004 - 00:52
- I see a lot of software companies going under. OSS software will eventually make equivalent programs to commericial packages. The money comes from consulting, customizing and improving specificaally for a customer. The Sourceforge developers are doing just that.
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#6 Posted by deviousz on 26 May 2004 - 02:17
- "In one study, he said commercial software offered lower total cost of ownership over open source software, largely due to software management issues. He added that commercial software has also been found to be as reliable as open source software."
Is he kidding? For the most part, aren't open source OS's inherently multi-user systems designed to be accessed remotely? Whereas Windows is based on a single-user system.
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#7 Posted by aristotle-dude on 26 May 2004 - 03:03
- MS destroyed the local software industry here in Canada when they went after Corel. Thank you MS for killing our industry.
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#8 Posted by MikeN on 26 May 2004 - 10:00
- Sounds to me like a corporate heel wearing his new corporate hat.
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#9 Posted by Randall_Lind on 26 May 2004 - 14:25
- Microsoft is all for choice as long as you use Windows!! I think people should be able to use open or close software. Who the hell is Bill Gates some rich idiot that brought other people work or stole then got patents.
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#10 Posted by Nichotin on 26 May 2004 - 14:54
- They claim open source kills the local software vendor. Thats cool, because Microsoft is being investigated in the US and in Europe because of killing competitors.
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#11 Posted by RufioPan on 26 May 2004 - 14:55
- So open-source is a "waste of money"? Waste of money that *could've* been made? Chris Sharp should take his blinders off. The greatest progress in society is made when research is done and ideas shared. That was the philosophy of the old-world thinkers and philosophers, scholars, and academics. It's only corporate culture that dictates that every idea should be a chance to make money.
It shouldn't be so foreign to these people that money is better made by providing services, but ideas should be shared freely for the greater progress of all.
I've got nothing against charging for software, but if the industry is naturally evolving to a balance of proprietary and open-source solutions, then why stop it? It's evolving for a reason. I still say open-source is better for the industry as a whole. Yes, its more important to share ideas than to make money!
Sharp, who used to work for Red Hat before joining Microsoft, said building open source software is a "waste of money." With open source, a company is in effect giving away its intellectual property, he said, adding that this prevents a software company from getting back benefits from its IP. "If you are compelled to give back to the community, then you don't have the opportunity to benefit from that knowledge [you have created]," he stressed.
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