Microsoft's May Day manifesto
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In the speech, given May 3 at New York University's Stern School ofBusiness, Mundie attacked open source in a whole bunch of ways whileadvancing the vision of a kinder and gentler Microsoft, and its "SharedSource Philosophy."
In explaining the philosophy, Mundie tried to show that Redmondunderstands the benefits of building a community around access to sourcecode, while putting such strict limits on the code that the access is ofextremely limited value.
Before speaking to the newspaper, I went directly to Microsoft'sWeb site to reread the speech. After thinking about it, I had onlythree words to offer my newspaper-bound colleague: "Same old crud."
I've read Mundie's words over a few times and still can't think of abetter description. Oh, sure, if you want to read reaction from within theopen-source community, you'll have Then, of course, there were the seemingly mandatory descriptions of a I can't see why everyone's getting tied up in knots. Mundie's comments area simple and logical extension of Microsoft's "embrace and extend"position on open source--a position that existed even before the Besides the introduction of the term "Shared Source," the only new contentI found in the speech was Mundie's use of the point that countless others, myselfincluded, have understood for years--that the use of open sourcerequires innovative business models, and that Microsoft's model ofcharging for software won't work when applied to open source. That was nosurprise. But I can't believe that anyone really cares about Microsoft'sanalysis of the open-source business model. Do you trust Ford to tell youhow good Chevrolet is? No, this is indeed the same old you-know-what. What did strike me as interesting about the speech, however, was its tone.It wasn't a calm, dispassionate dismissal of open source. Instead, thespeech came across as an attack, as if Microsoft feels the desperate needto discount what people see around them--that open-source software isdoing real and solid computing work for an ever-growing number of computerusers, big and small. In the current climate, Mundie's message is more difficult than ever toget across. Microsoft's credibility has taken a severe beating, thanks tothe antitrust trial. Companies such IBM and SGI that have been looking for Microsoftalternatives have found one in Linux. Microsoft simply can'tdeny what people and vendors can see for themselves. But amid all the posturing, it was the futility of Mundie's message thatwas most interesting. While Microsoft won't need to panic any time soon,Mundie's speech exhibited more fear than it spread. In some of therebuttals from the Linux faithful, one could almost sense they weresmelling blood--that Linux is still something Microsoft doesn't get, andthus Linux fans will continue to gain ground. While I agree with sentiments that Given the timing of Mundie's speech, one might be tempted to link it tothe May Day holiday practiced in some socialist countries and But on reflection, I wonder if it's more appropriate, all thingsconsidered, to associate this speech with the nauticaldefinition of mayday instead. Do you think Linux developers have anything to fear from Microsoft'snew initiatives? Let me know in the TalkBack below or in the ZDNet Linux Forum. Evan Leibovitch is a Toronto-based Unix and Linux consultant who helpedfound the Linux Standard Base.
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