[LINK] SOFTWARE / WINDOWS VERSUS LINUX

[Glen Turner]

On Sun, 2007-05-13 at 23:54 +1000, Eleanor Lister wrote:
> "The Free Software movement is dead. Linux doesn't exist in 2007. Even
> Linus has got a job today." Controversial statements from the head of
> Microsoft's Linux Labs, Bill Hilf.
> 
> http://www.bangkokpost.com/090507_Database/09May2007_data05.php


You've got to ask what Bill Hilf is doing in SE Asia and half the reason
is a small group named Open Source Malaysia who are, astonishingly,
well down the track of getting the Malaysian gov't to require gov't
software purchasers to evaluate free software alternatives and to
mandate use of Open Document Format.

Think about that: the world's greatest software company is sending
senior executives to counter the lobbying of a unpaid group of mainly
students. I don't think this implies that the "free software movement
is dead".


Bill is right about it being the applications that are motivating
the use of the Linux operating system. Microsoft thinks that by
cheery-picking the Linux server applications it can limit the
replacement of Windows servers by Linux servers. The problem here
is that Windows is the platform with inferior support -- if you
have trouble with PHP on Windows and you can't reproduce it on
PHP for Linux then the PHP developers simply are not interested.
It's not a bad strategy by Microsoft; but it is also not a good one.

And, of course, he's being hypocritical. You'll notice that Samba,
Apache and BIND isn't on his list of applications, since they compete
directly with Microsoft products.


Note that the EU "negotiations" are not negotiations in the usual
sense. Microsoft are lobbying the EU to limit the penalty for
not complying with a EU directive requiring Microsoft to document
its protocols.


I think Microsoft have lost the plot with their opposition
to ODF. Sure there are elements of Sun and IBM using it for
competitive advantage, but that would be easily fixed with one
Save As option in Word. What Microsoft's opposition has done is
to promote ODF to the extent that it is supported by all non-Microsoft
products. I'd like to thank Microsoft for being able to write
a file in Abiword and read it in OpenOffice. Oddly, it's now
Microsoft that have fragmented document formats: .DOC and .DOCX.
Very odd result.


It wouldn't surprise me that, in the heart of Microsoft's Fortress
of Paranoia, Microsoft suspects IBM of a five year plan to promote
ODF through its long development in OASIS and through ISO; and that
IBM planned all along to have ODF launch just as Microsoft were
needing to promote their own new XML file format. And all those
letters to government and standards bodies just shows IBM's
organisational genius at misleading the masses ;-)

Of course, this *is* paranoia. I'd rather think that sometimes IBM
does the right thing for no great strategic reason and good things
come from that.

The paranoid tone from Hilf and a number of Microsoft executives on
the topic of ODF and on Linux is a interesting thing. In the long
run, Microsoft are going to interwork properly with ODF and Linux --
their customers insist on no less than that. The alternative is
that Microsoft get no sales in some markets -- just as they get
none in graphic arts, film making and high performance computing
today. They almost got to the stage of having no sales in computer
science, but seem to have realised at the last moment how very,
very bad that would be for Microsoft's future and have now dropped
their pants on pricing and are praying CS/IT/engineering students
will come back (I don't think they will).

It's like they fear that any accomodation with ODF and Linux will
dent the Microsoft Myth and that will lead to a crisis of faith
with their investors.

-- 
 Glen Turner