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Microsoft JQuery adoption is an open source tipping point

By | September 29, 2008, 6:59am PDT

Summary: This does not mean Microsoft, or Nokia (which has also adopted JQuery), are going away. In the present business environment their cash hordes and market positions are stronger than ever. But on the other side of the crisis it’s an open source world.

old JQuery logoThe decision by Microsoft to add JQuery to its Visual Studio may seem like no big deal, but it strikes me as evidence we are on the other side of an important tipping point in tech history.

The war between business models is over. Open source has won.

We are now negotiating terms of the peace treaty. Microsoft believes JQuery enhances the basic Visual Studio product. That’s why they’re using it.

At The Universal Desktop, Ryan Stewart says this move, and support for ADO.Net, makes it much easier for Javascript developers to include the Microsoft Data Services stack. That’s what is in this for Microsoft.

When Microsoft needs open source software, and open source developers, to retain market share that’s a very big deal. Someone just got embraced and extended, and I think it was Microsoft.

This does not mean Microsoft, or Nokia (which has also adopted JQuery), are going away. In the present business environment their cash hordes and market positions are stronger than ever.

But on the other side of the crisis it’s an open source world.

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Microsoft Corp., Microsoft JQuery Adoption, Open Source, Dana Blankenhorn

Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for 30 years, a tech freelancer since 1983.

Disclosure

Dana Blankenhorn

Dana Blankenhorn has been a journalist, writer and part-time futurist for over 30 years.

At the present moment I run only a personal blog in addition to my ZDNet open source blog.

DanaBlankenhorn.Com has the subtitle The War Against Oil. In the past I have used it to write about political history, e-commerce, personal matters, some ideas related to open source, and The World of Always On, which is the idea of using sensors, motes and RFID to turn WiFi links into platforms for applications which live in the air.

My IRA account at Schwab holds a few tech shares, most notably some Intel and Applied Materials, but there are no open source companies in it. I don’t even own any CBS stock.

Biography

Dana Blankenhorn

Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for nearly 25 years and has covered the online world professionally since 1985. He founded the Interactive Age Daily for CMP Media, and has written for the Chicago Tribune, Advertising Age's "NetMarketing" supplement, and dozens of other publications over the years.

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RE: Microsoft JQuery adoption is an open source tipping point
gaberdiye03 Updated - 21st Jun
@edward polling You also contradicted youreself when you observed first that "FOSS licenses can be more profitable pembe maske energy balance oyna oyunu moliva orjin krem tutune son nanomatik complex 41 new fx15than any other", but then that, "It is not a business model that delivers the greatest profit, true."

That's a disadvantage, especially in a situation like that of the software industry now, when the participants are largely reduced to a few large corporations and some smaller outfits waiting to be purchased.

But the owners of open source companies can make a substantial profit for an individual from selling the software developed under his aegis. So open source can be effective capitalism.


People are adaptable. They can make money from any demand. Including that for open source. What was originally intended to be hostile to capitalism (a system addressing production, not use) can be and has been turned to capitalist purposes. That's a situation with which even Microsoft can be comfortable
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Optimist
Anton Philidor 29th Sep 2008
Another way to express your contention is that Microsoft has decided open source is so insignificant a threat that it can be used when convenient without any danger of lost revenues and profits. As a business model open source has peaked and the issue now is only how long it can continue before contributors lose interest.

The way to decide between these alternative assertions is whether Microsoft has decided to forego present and future profits and acknowledge an open source victory. So far, Mr. Ballmer appears to be sanguine about the future prospects of the company which employs him.

I suppose the decision in the contest will be officially declared only when Microsoft removes the line about open source representing a distant potential threat from the company's federal filing. And that will come only when Microsoft's - and capitalism's - antagonists give up complaining about the non-adoption of open source as a lost cause.
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There is no sign that open source is peaking. On the contrary, as adoption
DonnieBoy 29th Sep 2008
increases, interest only increases. The use of open source software in general is going nowhere but up.
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Open source is not antagonistic to capitalism
DanaBlankenhorn 29th Sep 2008
I wish Microsoft's defenders would stop repeating this
FUD that open source is some form of communism.

It is not. FOSS may seem antagonistic, based on the
rhetoric used by people like Richard Stallman, but it
turns out FOSS licenses can be more profitable than
any other.

Open source is a business model. It is not a business
model that delivers the greatest profit, true. But it
works. Business models that work for customers are
more valid than those which work just for vendors.

That's called capitalism.
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Contradiction
Anton Philidor 29th Sep 2008
I observed that some antagonists of capitalism were supportive of open source. You disagreed at first, but then commented, "FOSS may seem antagonistic, based on the rhetoric used by people like Richard Stallman..." That to me is sufficient agreement.

Yes, there are ways that open source can be used to make a profit because it's a form of development which reduces expenses. (I leave out a number of other situations, such as applications which run on open source and proprietary. These are not open-source-specific.)



You also contradicted youreself when you observed first that "FOSS licenses can be more profitable than any other", but then that, "It is not a business model that delivers the greatest profit, true."

That's a disadvantage, especially in a situation like that of the software industry now, when the participants are largely reduced to a few large corporations and some smaller outfits waiting to be purchased.

But the owners of open source companies can make a substantial profit for an individual from selling the software developed under his aegis. So open source can be effective capitalism.


People are adaptable. They can make money from any demand. Including that for open source. What was originally intended to be hostile to capitalism (a system addressing production, not use) can be and has been turned to capitalist purposes. That's a situation with which even Microsoft can be comfortable.
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RE: Microsoft JQuery adoption is an open source tipping point
edward polling Updated - 3rd Jul
Open Source is a license model in which the sourcecode of a program is delivered when you either download it(free) or buy it and ipad bag blog sutudeg education news and pclos hwdb download it (commercial software). k l
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RE: Microsoft JQuery adoption is an open source tipping point
gaberdiye03 Updated - 21st Jun
@edward polling You also contradicted youreself when you observed first that "FOSS licenses can be more profitable pembe maske energy balance oyna oyunu moliva orjin krem tutune son nanomatik complex 41 new fx15than any other", but then that, "It is not a business model that delivers the greatest profit, true."

That's a disadvantage, especially in a situation like that of the software industry now, when the participants are largely reduced to a few large corporations and some smaller outfits waiting to be purchased.

But the owners of open source companies can make a substantial profit for an individual from selling the software developed under his aegis. So open source can be effective capitalism.


People are adaptable. They can make money from any demand. Including that for open source. What was originally intended to be hostile to capitalism (a system addressing production, not use) can be and has been turned to capitalist purposes. That's a situation with which even Microsoft can be comfortable
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That is quite a stretch
GuidingLight 29th Sep 2008
The war between business models is over. Open source has won.

Actually, Microsoft has won.

Open source was/is about destroying Microsoft and other proprietary software companies, and as you have mentioned right here, companies like Microsoft's position in the market is as strong as ever.

Look at the various OpenSource foundations and companies that while not placing Microsoft's name directlly into their EULA, pretty much every press conference calls them out by name.

Who is actually winning here if the Open Source cards are tipped in a certain direction and Microsoft still manages to sell billions of dollars worth of products?
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FOSS are still fools dancing on the string
LBiege 29th Sep 2008
held by IBM, Google and so on. Now M$ finds the string trick interesting and wants to play it, too. They may adopt some open source ideas but won't open up their money making software's source code to let the outside to contribute to it, which is text book closed-source and proprietary practice.
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Do not confuse
Ole Man 30th Sep 2008
generosity with stupidity.

Microsoft has used and abused Open Source all along.

http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/01/06/27/010627hnmsfree.html

Microsoft uses open source, despite critical stance

By Matt Berger
June 27, 2001 12:10 pm PT

DESPITE MICROSOFT'S AGGRESSIVE criticism of the open-source movement -- most notably one of its flagship software licences, the GNU General Public License -- the company has quietly been publishing source code under that license for one of its own products for the past two years.

Now Microsoft can see the inevitable, and will stop at nothing to disparage the competition, which moves forward with no effort.

Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Now you, Blindlight, Antwon, and company, can fiddle while Redmond burns.
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Nice analogy
TedKraan 3rd Oct 2008
Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Now you, Blindlight, Antwon, and company, can fiddle while Redmond burns.

Very stylish noted
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RE: Microsoft JQuery adoption is an open source tipping point
DanaBlankenhorn 29th Sep 2008
I can understand why you feel that way. But Microsoft
has been gradually adding open source to its products
in order to remain relevant. To me that says they are
losing -- they can no longer resist open source.

To you it may mean that they're absorbing open source
into their existing model, and over the short term I
do expect Microsoft to do well, relative to other
companies.

But the tipping point in my mind has been passed.
Microsoft is no longer fighting open source, but
applying it.
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Open Source a business model???
TedKraan 3rd Oct 2008
business model is a model to make money.

Open Source is a license model in which the sourcecode of a program is delivered when you either download it(free) or buy it and download it (commercial software).

What is this Open Source business model everybody seems to mention?

Or is this the aftermath of the dot com hype crowd delusions that seems to wail around?

When every "captain" which couldn't even operate a compass were jumping onto the boat?
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RE: Microsoft JQuery adoption is an open source tipping point
twaynesdomain 1st Oct 2008
I don't see the "crisis" mentioned. Nor do I see anything new or unusual there.
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RE: Microsoft JQuery adoption is an open source tipping point
zakkiromi Updated - 10th May 2011
When Microsoft needs open source software, and open source developers, to retain market share thats a very big deal. Someone just got embraced and extended, and I think it was Microsoft. k

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