Is open source for Windows worthwhile?

Over at Seeking Alpha, uber-schmoozer Joe Panettieri (left), now running Nine Lives Media, has one of those pieces that makes me go "waah?"

Short version: open source is Microsoft's secret weapon.

This is not another paeon to Firefox or OpenOffice. Panettieri is talking about Microsoft's Windows Server business, its true crown jewel, and the effort to make sure open source projects work on it.

Specifically he's talking about working with Spikesource, whom I wrote about earlier today, in certifying programs to work with Windows Server.

Open source, he says, is how Windows will kill Linux.

That's the "waah" bit. It's breathtaking in that, by conflating the operating system competition between Windows and Linux with the business operations battle between Microsoft and open source, he's both making and missing an important point.

The made point is that Microsoft probably looks at the world in just this way. Both its business model and its business are under threat, so accepting the work of one to win the other is all part of the same war.

The missed point is these are not the same war. Microsoft is competing with Linux in the operating system arena based on features and value, not values. Enterprises can make a rational choice there without making a moral choice.

The choice between open source and closed source is something quite different. Open source is a business model, not a communist plot. But it's a business model which requires adoption of some key values.

Microsoft could, if it chose, become an open source company, and in some of its recent actions it has chosen to do just that, giving more visibility to some of its code and enabling interoperability with open source projects.

There remains, however, this philosophical difference. Microsoft competes to control customers, and those who've bought-into its products are controlled, their barrier to conversion rising every day.

Open source companies can't act the way Microsoft does. They can't isolate themselves from the communities they serve. They can't keep aces in the hole or up their sleeves, because all the cards -- the code -- in open source is on the table.

This difference exists regardless of how much Microsoft seeks to cooperate with open source projects, and have its software interoperate with them. It abides.

It's a divide which cannot be bridged. It's not a business battle which can be won.