Just another manic Mundie
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On one side, we have Microsoft Senior VP Craig Mundie, now clearly thecompany's anti-open-source poster child. It seems everyone has alreadyforgotten about Douglas Miller, group product manager for the Windows ServerGroup, who seemed like Redmond's Linux-basher-in-chief On the other side we have comments from many high-profile Linux advocates.Last week we saw a clever and somewhat astounding publicity stunt by BrucePerens, the author of the But rather than feel buoyed by this show of strength, I feel sorry thatsuch a meeting of minds was wasted on a defensive reaction to Microsoft.There's something unsettling about allowing Redmond to control the agendaof open source advocates. The joint letter is generally dismissive of Mundie's complaints, almostsmugly so. Nothing new there. However, if you want the specifics on what'swrong with his arguments, I recommend the straightforward, point-by-pointrebuttal of Mundie at the ironically named site Not to be outdone, Mundie is back with a And this week, Red Hat CTO Michael Tiemann weighed in with his rebuttal to Mundie's rebuttal. Time out--let's step back a bit and take a breath or two. For the last few days, I've been having a lively e-mail debate with TonyStanco, who has In our e-mail exchange, Stanco expressed concern that Microsoft's message,left unchallenged, will have lasting consequences. He believes thatRedmond's current public attack is aimed not at conventional IT developersor end users, but at U.S. legislators and financial analysts. Stanco seesthe Mundie message trying to attract sympathy from Washington, in order toblunt existing anti-Microsoft activities and possibly even get someanti-open-source legislation. At the same time, Stanco thinks Mundie aimsto keep the financial community skittish about open-source companies,inhibiting the birth rate of new companies that may indeed solve thepuzzle of how to combine open source and profitability. While I don't see any chance of anyone pushing through laws to strengthenMicrosoft's monopoly, I can see some prospect of success in the financialmessage. After all, given such situations as Microsoft is probably right when it says that the rise of open source willmean a smaller IT economy. It's possible that no Linux-based company willever become as big as Microsoft, but I think that most Linux entrepreneursare comfortable with lower targets. As for Stanco's belief that politicians and financiers are only hearingthe Microsoft side, I don't agree. While they may not care for what LinusTorvalds or Eric Raymond has to say about Microsoft's attacks, they maypay more attention to articles such as It's also extremely telling to see Microsoft standing alone in itscorporate condemnation of open source. It wasn't too long ago thatMicrosoft would send its messages through corporate partners and through friendsin analyst and media circles. Such surrogates are notably absent in this currentdebate. Still, enough is enough. In its approach to the situation, the Economistwelcomed the Mundie-induced volleys as "sharpening" the debate. OK. It's sharp. Time to move on. Has the Mundie-Linux debate dragged on too long? Tell me in the TalkBack below or in the ZDNetLinux Forum. Or write to Evan directly at
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