You might be suprised that I’m writing this, after all, I’m the official MSFT guy that’s on this podcast/blog, but I think its important to note both what the argument is here and its ramifications on the war between Open Source and Commercial Software, especially Microsoft.
The article ‘The List’: Open Source Advocates Unleash Fury at Microsoft drives the point home that the Open Source Software (OSS) communitiy is tired of being called ‘criminals’ by one of the most aggressive corporations in the world. While MSFT has been both pardoned and convicted of crimes, no one argues with the fact they’ve been aggressive in what ever their pursuits are. This time, they may have been pushing too hard and too long on the “open source software is stealing from the world economy” shtick.
I for one, am glad that the OSS community is finding a way to fight back, using the very core of what has made the OSS community strong, by using their collective voice to say we would love to get into fight and prove your (MSFT) assumptions wrong.
MSFT may have deep pockets, but they’re going to have a hard time fighting what they’ve chose not too enforce on other vendors, if their claims are true. They’re going to have to “put up or shut up” as they say. Well, there’s always a clever PR / marketing move that could get them out of this. And, honestly, that’s exactly what they’re going to do. They won’t risk being proven wrong to prove a point to the OSS community. They’ll lay low until it all blows over and pick some other minor fight to start with the OSS folks.
–Chris
Resident MSFT guy
http://www.labrat.com (sorely out of date)
