What Should Microsoft's Open Source Strategy Be? 1010
JWinterboy asks: "I'm guessing that everyone here has a valid criticism of Microsoft's attacks on, and approach towards the Open Source model. To me, that begs the question of what we think would be an "appropriate" reaction from Microsoft towards the Open Source model. It doesn't have a service arm, so IBM's approach isn't really viable. At the same time, non-service related business models haven't fared very well.
What would we like to see Microsoft do? How can it work with the Open Source community, leverage its resources, and still make a buck?"
They Can't Respond (and make a profit) (Score:2, Interesting)
Facing GPL'ed competition that they can't buy and assimilate - and not being able to GPL their own software without loosing their revenue stream - they are stuck.
If I was in charge of Microsoft - I'd attempt to subvert the legal/patent system in order to kill the GPL.
one thing (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Microsoft Linux (Score:1, Interesting)
No scientific proof for this, no flashy stats, just my own experiance.
API's and documentation and consultation (Score:5, Interesting)
a) Document API's thoroughly, and keep the docs up to date
b) Standards: Microsoft is frequently the first one to implement a standard or to make it mainstream. As an example, XSLT comes to mind. AFAIK, IE was the first browser to support XSLT. As the first big boys there, they usually claim the right to make modifications to a standard or to fill in details in the standard. They could win a lot of goodwill merely by consult other companies and open source developers before as they implement the standard. This will greatly reduce (though probably not eliminate) the feeling of railroading that we all feel when MS' software doesn't follow standards, and we all have to deal with it.
c) Document and admit mistakes and bugs. One of the most infuriating things about Microsoft software, is that it either doesn't do what it says, as in undocumented behavior and bugs, or cryptic error messages saying things don't work unless the OS is configured right (which is true ipso facto, but somewhat accusatory, and certainly not helpful). I think this happens mostly because they can get away with it, and writing thorough documentation for your programs is not nearly as satisfying or financially rewarding as designing and writing the code itself. They could again improve goodwill if they were responsive to outside developer's questions about these bugs and behaviors, rather than being dismissive.
I'm sure there are more, but these sure would make it easier for an outsider to like Microsoft.
Re:MS and Open Source? (Score:3, Interesting)
Like Apple?
Besides, Microsoft has already made clear that the GPL is a threat to capitalism; hence, their desire to have nothing to do with it.
Well, it is. Now, whethor or not a threat to capitalism is a good or bad thing is left to the reader to determine. The bottom line is, there is still no proven way for coders to make money off of GPL's software. Red Hat makes money, true, but little of that money makes it to the major contributers of Linux. Capitalism is about making money. The GPL is about programming for fun and community innovation. They are logical opposites.
Closed Source, Open API's (Score:3, Interesting)
They continue to write their closed source, proprietary software, but they adopt open protocols, without trying to co-opt them with hidden API's. They stop adding Feature Bloat, and get serious about security, and the overall quality of their products.
Embrace, extend, and extinguish (Score:3, Interesting)
If a Microsoft-branded, Microsoft-supported version of Linux was out there, I imagine a lot of companies skittishly making the move from closed-source to open-source might jump at the chance to have Microsoft hold their hand through the process. The old no-one-ever-got-fired-for-choosing-Microsoft line still resonates.
Microsoft could use FUD to scare corporate Linux adopters away from Red Hat ("Only Microsoft knows how to make Linux and Windows play nice together", etc.) and steal away enough support contracts to impact Red Hat's bottom line.
Meanwhile, Microsoft reps would use the old bait-and-switch, offering Microsoft Linux as the "cheap" way to run your business, then "sell up" by pointing out all the newly-developed exclusive bugs -- I mean, features Microsoft would have tagged onto Windows, and asking why the purchasing agent wants the *cheap* solution instead of the *best* solution.
Microsoft could even add certain pecularities to their file structure and other aspects of their Linux distro to make it difficult or expensive to port Microsoft Linux apps to other flavors of Linux.
Embrace and extend worked in the past, and it could still work. Microsoft would be a dangerous competitor in the Linux market.
Re:one thing (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course they make money on them - otherwise they wouldn't make the product. IE is designed to garner market share, to force people to use IE gives ms alot of 'pull' when it comes to the web - in particular designing proprietary protocols that only work with MS products like
A more realistic approach would be for microsoft to realase 'old' code - stuff like MS-dos 5.0, or maybe 6.0. Windows 3.1 - products they no longer support. It would be interesting to see what would come of this.
It can be done (Score:1, Interesting)
Which begs the question: What are they waiting for?
If Windows is forced to become open source I'm betting that there is a good chance MS will dump it in favor of BSD or Linux. More likely BSD since they could grab a copy just like Apple and start making their apps run under it. Then they can undermine Linux by saying BSD is better and just let the flamers burn each other out. It would, in essence, destroy everything from within and MS could just sit on the sidelines and say we were right - Unix is better than Windows. You see? They no longer are the evil people - we are.
Quite simple (Score:2, Interesting)
open and closed (Score:3, Interesting)
Personally I don't think they could do it. See the movie Revolution OS, which has ESR, RMS, Linus T, and Bruce P. They actually dealt with Billy gates back in teh 70's about this issue. Billy said "Open Source is a bad business model" back then. How can anyone make money off of it. It is a good movie to see if you want a better understanding of where they all were coming from.
Re:Microsoft Linux (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, it will have to be a lot better than windows, or else there have to be other compelling reasons to switch, like the cost of hardware vs the MS Tax.
Which MS is desperately trying to avoid as a fate.
Re:MS should follow Apple. (Score:2, Interesting)
Note that when Intel tried to write software to help them sell more MMX functions, MS told them to stop, because it would be construed as competition.
Microsoft's best response. (Score:2, Interesting)
Microsoft's best response is to allow their code to be user patchable. I have been thinking about this possibility for some time now and I hope Microsoft is too greedy to think about it. Here is a response that, I believe, we in the Open Source Camp will find very hard to meet.
If Microsoft does this, it will have the benefits of the open source philosophy and still make money selling the base products.
An open sourced strategy for businesses (Score:2, Interesting)
So, that said, you need an open-sourced strategy which will both adhere to some of the ideal behind the Open Sourced and Free Software movements, but also give the company a reasonable expectation to make money. So here's my proposal:
1. Companies should release all software under a modified version of the GNU GPL...call it the PGNU GPL license for Proprietary GNU GPL license. This license would be identical to the GNU GPL except it would state that redistribution may only occur to current owners of the software. That is, you could only redistribute the entire source to current owners of the software, who paid the company for it. A simple verification system could be used; i.e., requires you to enter a number to prove you actually own it, like your credit card numbr, w/c ppl wouldn't want to spread throughout the web to allow others to access it also.
2. Release some important critical parts under the pure GNU GPL.
3. Piecemeal, release the rest of the software under the GNU GPl.
This isn't flamebait, but you must wonder.... (Score:2, Interesting)
If people don't like Microsoft and their products, why are they in business?
I believe totally and completely in free markets and that the consumer wins in such situations. If you agree with this line of thinking, Microsoft must be doing something correctly in order to stay in business. They must be providing something of significant worth to the consumer otherwise people would fail to purchase their product and thus put them out of business. It's this simple. You can confuse the subject to make things look better from an anti-microsoft view, but that's not the issue. The issue is that if MS didn't provide something people want, they would cease to exist.
I think that we all, myself included, fail to realize some times that MS is providing what most people want, most of the time.
-JAB
BTW: I don't user Windows for much of anything and hate it with a passion. This is just food for thought.
what I'd have 'em do (Score:2, Interesting)
Kinda vaguely what Apple's doing with OS X, making Aqua closed, but the rest kinda open.
MS cannot follow Apple. They *can* follow Sony. (Score:2, Interesting)
Microsoft, on the other hand, sells only sofware and is thus dependant on controlling the distribution of their milkco^Wsoftware packages.
There is, of course, on exception to this, the X-Box. And Sony has taken the lead by Open Sourcing their Playstation APIs under their Linux for Playstation program. Now that's a path where the Open Source hardware icing could make sense.
Re:MS and Open Source? (Score:3, Interesting)
besides, who says that making money and having fun is mutually exclusive?
Guess what. Redhat, Mandrake, SuSe, and a host of others WANT to make money. They may have started as a fun project, and they may make innovations along the way: are they bad?
Re:No service arm? Wha? (Score:1, Interesting)
We're not disagreeing (Score:1, Interesting)
In short, we agree: the market rules. I think the market will rule against MS.
Hmm (Score:2, Interesting)
Isn't that a bit pre-judgemental? How can you complain about something if you haven't used it?
Re:Microsoft Linux (Score:2, Interesting)
Does their massive FUD machine count?
Hell Microsoft hasn't INVENTED anything, no one is going to argue THAT point with you.
Quite frankly I have almost NO problem with their software now.
Now I had SERIOUS problems with their software even 4-5 years ago, and MAJOR problems with it 6 or 7 years ago, but now days, hell, it works, its stable. Yes it is huge as fuck, but that is partialy the fault of marketing who demands that features go over function (lets add frilly blue curvy window boarders and who cares if it takes up an extra 500Megabytes compared to our last release!).
My main complaints with Microsoft at this point in time revolve around their business policies. Namely how much they seek to steamroll the consumer into buying MS products by using FUD and steamroll the competition by yelling out FUD about the competitions products.
If they just stopped bullshitting around all the time I think that MS would find that they ended up with A LOT less enemies.
Somebody should tell them that monopolies are LEGAL if gained through LEGAL means. . . . .
Re:MS should follow Apple. (Score:3, Interesting)
In fact, I bet Apple would love to see a modest investment, say $6 Bln - a fraction of MS' current warchest, estimated at >$30Bln - into Darwin. An investment into an OSS platform might be part of a settlement that would satisfy the 9 states. Maybe not, but it's worth a try.
A solid OSS OS like Darwin, with support from Apple and MS, available for X86 and PPC would be a considerable competitor to Linux. A lot of corporate types would feel comfortable about using this where they currently feel unsure about Linux. MS could sweeten it a lot by offering their Office Suite on this OS, but insist that they'll never offer it on Linux. This would backup Bill's contention that there's a healthy ecology between OSS and proprietary that the GPL breaks.
MS could, at some point, come out with their own Darwin-based OS with proprietary kernel enhancements integrated into it. They already have a start with the CLR ported to FreeBSD. This new OS could use a Windows GUI, but be mostly Darwin underneath. The corporations that want to have the benefits of running OSS would snap up such a Darwin based offering from MS. It would represent the best of both worlds. The advantages of community development and the testing and deep pockets of MS behind it.
This new OS might be more appropriate for Net appliances, web servers, and a number of things where *BSD is showing to be superior. Heck, it might compete head-to-head with Windows, but they wouldn't really have to position it that way at first.
MS could move all the people in their development groups who might be sympathetic to Open Source over to these projects, energizing the Windows people to compete.
Now, it seems that the MS culture is one where they don't feel they have to compete on engineering as MS can depend on their power to intimidate and eliminate competitors. This fosters a sick culture of non-competition.
I think companies that are afraid of internal competition don't recognize that it's better to compete internally than to leave the opportunities up to your external competitors.
I doubt that MS would ever do any of this, however.
Re:Microsoft Linux (Score:2, Interesting)
The point is, installing software, regardless of the OS, is not a cheery "click me a couple of times and you're done" feat in all cases. I sold a computer to a coworker. He brought it back to me THREE times because he had screwed up windows by installing then uninstalling demo after demo.
If you use windows and haven't had any problems, consider yourself lucky. But, I totally consider rpm to be up to par with windows. There may be drawbacks to each, but each have their strong points also.
IMO, unless you're compiling from source, Redhat can give windows a run for its money on software installation. I'm sure debian users would say the same about apt-get.
Microsoft=Bad news (Score:2, Interesting)
No one should be that powerfull.
And thats my opinion.
Actually, Microsoft could follow Apple's model (Score:4, Interesting)
Darwin runs on x86 as well.
The interesting thing about Apple is that MacOS X is *not* open source, although the Darwin kernel component is. The Quartz graphics engine, the Aqua gui layer, and all of the traditional MacOS apis, are not open source.
Microsoft has a product called Interix, which consists of a Unix subsystem that plugs into the Windows 2000/XP kernel, plus a large set of Unix utilities. Microsoft has open sourced their versions of gcc, gdb, etc, because they have to, but they haven't open sourced the BSD based utilities that come with Interix, even though they'd lose little by doing so.
If Microsoft open sourced the entire Interix product (utilities and subsystem), then their operating system would be like Apple's, with an open source Unix component, and a larger proprietary component containing all of the APIs that are special to Windows.
Doug Moen
Re:Microsoft Linux (Score:2, Interesting)
That's pretty funny, since none of those three packages are licensed under the GPL. Each has its own custom license, actually.
Isn't this moot? (Score:5, Interesting)
Embrace and extend. What else? Or were you wondering what their strategy should be if they did NOT want to dominate the whole freaking world? That's kind of academic.
In fact, the strategy they have is a damned good one. It'll be even better if nobody clues to it in time, which is why I particularly delight in outing it here. This is my interpretation, and they may possibly phrase it differently- or not. Maybe in the NEXT antitrust fiasco this will come to light.
MICROSOFT'S OPEN SOURCE STRATEGY
This. Is. What. They. Are. Doing.
Note that it plays to their strengths, including the strengths they've learned in the antitrust trial, of barratrous lawsuits and dragging things out endlessly, and note the brilliance of embracing and extending, not the openness of collaboration, but the concept of a viral license. This is brilliant conceptual work on their part, it really is.
But it does not have to succeed- because they really need people who are KNOWN to have agreed to their license. They can't really go around suing everyone who writes open source and dragging them into court and saying, "You DID agree to the Shared Source license, didn't you? Everybody does! You had to have!". That won't fly- people who can legitimately say they've never agreed to that license are in a position of strength.
However, people who have in fact agreed to their viral Shared Source license, EVER, are fucked. And can never be allowed to participate in open source or free software development- because of the legal exposure.
Given this state of affairs, why would Microsoft ever need to find another open source strategy? This is unquestionably the best one for their goals. Yes, it's evil. And your point is?
Re:Simple (Score:2, Interesting)
And with regard to Linux file systems, I think XFS [sgi.com] is a good cool punk rock solid journaling FS. Though their website seems to be down now.
Re:Simple (Score:2, Interesting)
The Linux community needs to decide what they want....to keep their toy the way it is, or to seriously make some changes and try to take the market.
If people dont want to make the changes, thats fine with me, but no one can then go and complain that MS has the desktop market in its pocket. Windows is poor in a huge manner of respects, but one thing that everyone seems to miss out on is the people its designed for. It is designed for the average user. The average computer user is the kind of person who think a cd rom drive is a built in cup holder (you people in tech support know what im talking about). A person like that will not be comfortable or use Linux in its present state.....period.
Things that we take for granted as being over simple and easy or out of reach for most avaerage users. Those people are the market, you want to win the desktop war, you have to win those people.
Another aspect for winning the desktop war is games....Loki's gone, what now? The PC has quickly become the most common gaming platform and is no longer seen as a work tool, its your new entertainment center. Until Linux gets a decent library of games and new games, not just old converts of windows games, Linux winning the desktop war wont happen.
---------
As for the actual topic of the thread, whats the big deal about open source and why does everyone hate Microsoft? I hear Linux fans praising Mac all the time, they arent open source. This seems very hypocritical to me. The key to for a future business model in this arena in my opinion is open spec. Why not? If a company's entire lively hood depends on their code base and they want to protect it, whats wrong with that? What do you or I care if we see the code, if its open spec, we can still work with it, talk to it and everything can play nice together. Thats what matters in the end, from what i hear, thats the root of most beefs people have with microsoft products, not being able to work with it correctly. Before you bash microsoft for being close source, think about how you were talking about how cool the G4 is just 10 minutes ago and for just a moment, try and side step your own hypocricsy.
--this is a general argument, not aimed at any one person.
Re:Microsoft Linux (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:play fair (Score:2, Interesting)
ext2fs vs. whatever.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe this is one of those "then you don't use it right" things. So what am I doing wrong?
Bob-
Re:Answer the question?!? (Score:4, Interesting)
No it's not too late at all.
Right now I prefer mozilla to IE on my windows box. It loads faster, it renders faster, it has more features then IE and it crashes less. No I am not kidding it's true. I honestly don't know how people get along without tabs and gestures they simply don't know what they are missing. Not only that but Moz does not cram advertising down my throat whenever I make a typo in the URL bar, it does not have crypic and misleading "options" like "enable profile assistant" and "show friendly HTTP messages". In other words it does not lie to me and try and fool me into giving up my privacy.
All we have to do is to make this knowledge widespread. Tell everybody you know that mozilla is better, faster and safer then IE because it's the truth. IE and Mozilla are designed for different things. Mozilla is designed to deliver the best web browsing experience possible IE is designed to deliver advertising to people who use windows, to increase hit counts at MSN, to get people to sign up for hotmail, to get people to sign up for passport. Different products for different purposes.
If you want to browse the web use mozilla if you want to receive adversing and help Bill Gates make more money use IE.
If I were Microsoft (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Microsoft Linux (Score:2, Interesting)
Thank you for the post.
I do a lot of support for people on Windows and Mac machines but mostly Windows. And the biggest thing they all want to do with installing any hardware is plug it up and at the most answer a few questions. On Dos, Win 3.1, 3.11, 95, and occasionally 98 I would have them open up a file and pray that they can edit it properly and have things go ok. And they always asked the same question, "Do I have to do all this and is it really necessary?" In the end I usually had to go to there machines and do it myself.
That's what has gotten good with most drivers from major companies that these people buy from is that they can insert a disk or download a file from a site and just double click and blindly click yes to everything that doesn't involve registration and have the driver installed.
Is it the cleanest install? No. But it does the job. Which is all they want. (It's generally not good to accept the mediocre but computers is not a huge part of their lives so it is mediocre to them.) I've explanied things to a few people but most has said right from the start they don't want to know all the detail they just want it to work.
I have several systems at home set up from Windows 2000, XP, to Red Hat 7.1 as a PDS, and FreeBSD to implement some new programs I'm developing. When asked what to recommend to people if it involves more than just email, web browsing, digital cameras, and the occasional letter I recommend a Windows or Mac machine. If they want more non application specific things I will recommend Linux or FreeBSD.
Recently one person asked me to explain to him Open Source software and it's advantages. He didn't care about price in his decisions so as long as it worked for him and his family. He chose to go with Windows mostly because if needed to install something and I wasn't available he could just point and click to get it installed.
The biggest deterent to Windows and Mac alternatives is the amount of knowledge of the OS that it takes to get something like a display driver working. Modifying something like a display card is a nightmare to an household user on a Linux system configured to use something else. I'm very grateful that Windows will almost always boot in to a basic mode that is not hardware dependent on systems for the past 3 years so configuration of a point and click nature can be done.
Why not just go crazy and open source everything? (Score:3, Interesting)
1. Windows and MS's major OSs are pretty unique, but at the same time are'nt nearly as advanced at the core as other major OSs, meaning a) nobody would want to steal it, and b) if somebody did, it would probably be easy to catch anyone if they did.
2. All the software outside of the base OS really does'nt provide MS with income. Media player, IE, directx, et. al. are ad-ons MS uses to get market share in those realms. If open, the worst that could happen is somebody makes it better and MS steals the ideas.
3. With thousands of programmers pouring over source code, security issues could be identified much quicker, allowing MS to (eventually) shed one of it's major banes
4. Somebody might actually figure out a way to make windows stable. MS buys the rights to include this in their Windows.. wow, they have improvements at a very marginal cost.
5. MS actually does something that makes geeks happy.
Re:Answer the question?!? (Score:3, Interesting)
ARRRRRRRGH!
I've heard this argument so many times, and I can't really understand while people continue to believe it.
Yes, Netscape has been inferior to IE for many years now, but to say that IE gained dominant market share because of that is to ignore history and to reverse cause and effect. Netscape didn't lose because it is inferior; Netscape is inferior because M$ forced it out of competition -- illegally, as the poster admits --, drying up its revenues ("cutting off Netscape's air supply", in M$'s own words), making it nearly impossible to invest in improvements of its product.
Recall that the first versions of IE (versions 1 & 2) were abonimably bad, universally regarded as far worse than Netscape. Version 3 was good enough to work with, but still the clear consensus was that Netscape's version 3 was far better. And yet it was around this time that M$ entered into all the exclusive deals and illegal shenanigans that impeded or closed off Netscape's means of distribution. IE's market share increased rapidly not because of its quality, but simply due to its easy availability. At the time, Netscape was trying to make money from its browser, and needed the revenue to finance further development, but as market share fell, they started to lose money and lay off employees.
It wasn't until version 4 of the two browsers that IE was widely regarded as fairly equal in quality with Netscape (not better, but just about the same). But by this time, IE was bundled with every copy of Windows, impossible to remove, and OEM's and ISP's were contractually forbidden to give Netscape equal availability. Netscape never had a chance to recover.
This where many Slashdotters answer with an argument that assumes that all the world's a geek. So IE was the default setting, they say. So the icon was on the desktop, and you might have to go download Netscape, they say. Then couldn't people use Netscape after all, if it was so good and that's what they wanted? Surely you can change your default settings! Surely you can, and a geek does it all the time, but it is an empirically well-established fact that most users don't. That's not to assert that they're dumb or lazy; for whatever reason, most users never change their defaults, even if there are superior alternatives, and to believe otherwise is to display vast ignorance of the facts about software consumers. And so whoever has the power to control the defaults has significant power to determine which products get used. M$ knows it, and that's why they did everything they could, illegal if necessary, to use that power.
What I miss in many M$ apologists is the recognition of lost opportunity -- how much better software could be in today's world if there were a real opportunity for competition. Yes, a lot of the alternatives really and truly suck, but don't just think about the way the world is; think about how the world could be if the creators of innovative, quality software had a genuine chance to compete.
Re:Microsoft Linux (Score:3, Interesting)
When I have an issue with a driver, I blame the manufacturer (Turtle Beach in this case) first, then look to see if I did something wrong, and then blame Microsoft.
I hear this excuse alot, and yes the manufacturer should take the bulk of the blame, but, fact of the matter is for whatever reason Microsoft decided to integrate the GUI with the kernel, so a bad driver could lock up the whole system. Microsoft themselves should also shoulder some of the blame.