i don't if this article has been shared with you all yet, but i found this interesting
article at the econmist site. thought some of you may find this of interest.
jennifer
An open and shut case
May 10th 2001
From The Economist print edition
What is behind Microsoft's attack on open-source software?
BEWARE of open-source
software, those nefarious free
computer programs written
online by groups of volunteers.
The licence that comes with
most of this code could turn a
company's intellectual property
into a public good. More
important, it undermines the
livelihood of commercial-software
developers, putting a brake on
innovation. This, in a nutshell,
was the message that Craig
Mundie, Microsoft's chief
software strategist, tried to convey on May 3rd in a
headline-making speech
at New York University.
Open-source disciples were quick to dismiss Mr Mundie's speech as
just
another example of Microsoft's trademark strategy: spreading fear,
uncertainty and doubt to undermine rivals. To Mr Mundie, research
and
development seem to be driven mainly by intellectual-property
rights,
commented Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, a popular free
operating
system, "which is entirely ignoring the fact that pretty much all
of modern
science and technology is founded on very similar ideals to open
source."
Mr Mundie's message played cleverly to the prejudices that are
still held by
many corporate technology officers. Most open-source software is
"viral"—the
licence that comes with Linux, for instance, says all changes made
to the
program must be made freely available. But this does not mean that a
company using Linux is forced to give away any application it
writes for the
operating system or, worse, its business processes. And while it is
true that
open-source software competes with commercial programs, open-source
and
similar online groups have been at least as innovative as software
firms—creating, for example, most of the technology underlying the
Internet.
Yet Mr Mundie's speech and the reaction of the open-sourcers have
some
value, because the exchange has sharpened the debate within the
software
industry over the relative merits of two rival approaches. One way
to write
software, the proprietary approach, is best epitomised by
Microsoft. The firm
hires the most driven programmers, pays them a lot in share
options, works
them hard—and then sells the product in a form that customers can
use, but
not change (because it comes without the "source code", the set of
computer
instructions underlying a program). The other approach is open
source.
Motivated by fame not fortune, volunteers collectively work on the
source
code for a program, which is freely available. Most of these
projects are
overseen by a "benevolent dictator", such as Mr Torvalds.
Although no panacea, open-source software has several advantages
over
proprietary programs, besides being free. Most important, it tends
to be more
robust and secure, because the source code can be scrutinised by
anyone,
which makes it more likely that programming errors and security
holes will be
found. In contrast, hardly a week passes without headlines about a
new
security hole in a Microsoft program. The day before Mr Mundie's
speech, it
was reported that a potentially serious security flaw had been
found in one of
Windows 2000's server programs.
Open source is not so much the ideological cause of anti-Microsoft
hackers
as a profound effect of the Internet, which means that it is here
to stay. The
emergence of free, open-source alternatives to costly proprietary
software will
undoubtedly hurt Microsoft—hence Mr Mundie's speech. In a further
swipe at
open source, Microsoft this week launched a new range of server
software
that, it claimed, offers "superior value" to Linux, by providing
"clarity of
intellectual ownership" and "predictability of the development
process". In
other words, says Microsoft, proprietary software is best because
there is no
doubt which company owns and maintains it—and, of course, charges
for it.
At the same time, Microsoft is also deploying another of its
favoured
strategies, called "embrace and extend". It now grants its largest
customers
access to the source code of Windows 2000, on condition that they
do not
modify the program or reuse the code. Microsoft thus wants to
harness what
it considers to be the benefits of open source, such as improved
debugging.
Mr Mundie said this "balanced" approach would maintain "the
intellectual
property needed to support a strong software business".
To advocates of the open-source approach, this looks very much like
one-way
sharing. Customers can look at the source code of Windows, tell
Microsoft
about bugs and suggest improvements, thus saving the firm a lot of
money—but they still have to pay for the next version.
