"Rjack" <[email protected]> wrote in message
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Rjack wrote:
From the findings of fact in US v. Microsoft (1998)
http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f3800/msjudgex.htm
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Open-Source Applications Development
51. Since application developers working under an open-source model are
not looking to recoup their investment and make a profit by selling copies
of their finished products, they are free from the imperative that compels
proprietary developers to concentrate their efforts on Windows. In theory,
then, open-source developers are at least as likely to develop
applications for a non-Microsoft operating system as they are to write
Windows-compatible applications. In fact, they may be disposed
ideologically to focus their efforts on open-source platforms like Linux.
Fortunately for Microsoft, however, there are only so many developers in
the world willing to devote their talents to writing, testing, and
debugging software pro bono publico. A small corps may be willing to
concentrate its efforts on popular applications, such as browsers and
office productivity applications, that are of value to most users. It is
unlikely, though, that a sufficient number of open-source developers will
commit to developing and continually updating the large variety of
applications that an operating system would need to attract in order to
present a significant number of users with a viable alternative to
Windows. In practice, then, the open- source model of applications
development may increase the base of applications that run on non-
Microsoft PC operating systems, but it cannot dissolve the barrier that
prevents such operating systems from challenging Windows.
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Note the prophetic finding of Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson:
"In practice, then, the open- source model of applications development may
increase the base of applications that run on non- Microsoft PC operating
systems, but it cannot dissolve the barrier that prevents such operating
systems from challenging Windows."
So what has changed? A gain of maybe 2% (exclude proprietary Apple) in
market share of non-MS operating systems in the past ten years?
Seems to me that the open source business models are an abject failure
compared to proprietary models.
It is not really an issue as to whether or not Microsoft has effective
market power in the desktop OS market. That was a dispute ten years ago and
is largely settled that it does. What is more important is how that limits
Microsoft's conduct and what to do about any violations. Microsoft has
been under some specific orders and has submitted to specific scrutiny of
its operations by two watchdog committees staffed with anti-Microsoft
personnel and charged with the task of making sure that there is nothing
goin on that violates the court mandates and any other antitrust regulation.
There has been no action brought in the past 7 or 8 years that has resulted
in anything new.
Open source business models are kind of silly if you ask me. Consider the
real impact that they have had. What are the significant products in the
open source universe? Linux itself and the rest of the LAMP group, Apache,
MySql, and PHP certainly. Open Office, too. A bunch of utilities that have
been around since Grant was a cadet in terms of the GNU utilities used by
the Linux advocates. Anything else that you can think of that challenges
the commercial world? The major activities in the LAMP and OO world seem to
be tail-chasing Microsoft developments. Sun has glomed onto MySQL and is
trying to turn it into a money maker on its own. I don't see where a whole
lot of openness is really a factor with it. The rest of the products are
really in the "who cares?" category. No one wants to get into the web
server business with IIS and Apache both being free of cost, you can be a
web developer and use ASP.NET or ASP or PHP as you like, no one cares except
the web developers and they all run on Windows anyway.
Windows is popular because the market for PC software had to pick a standard
just like video tape had to pick VHC or Beta or High Def DVD had to pick
Blue-ray or the other one. In the early days of computers, the industry
picked MS-DOS and clones because it had to have a standard and in the 1990s
the industry picked Windows over OS/2 for the same reason. It isn't a
classic monopoly formed by getting a corner on the market through
acquisition.
It is doubtful that Microsoft can be much of a target anymore. Linux cannot
make much of a dent even for free and neither can the rest of the OSS
lineup.
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