Microsoft Memo Examines Linux Threat
Instead of trying to discredit open source software as a viable alternative to Microsoft’s proprietary software, Microsoft should emphasize the costs involved in maintaining open-source software systems, the document said. Saying that open source software has reached “commercial quality,” free software “poses a direct, short-term revenue and platform threat to Microsoft, particularly in the server space,” according to the document posted on the Open Source Initiative Web site (http://www.opensource.org/).
Does the author really mean that Linux et al are as good as MSFT’s offerings or they just willing to say it to steer the argument to this “costs of open source software” argument? Only by comparing equivalent offerings can you compare costs. So what are the costs? If you want to run Linux or FreeBSD unmodified, you need someone to run the various installers and handle administration of the systems: UNIX system administration is pretty well-documented and finding the right mix of seasoning and expertise is not too hard. Same goes for the Leading Brand, up to a point: the skillset is a moving target, in some ways.
If you want to modify or customize your infrastructure, having programmer/hackers on staff becomes a necessity. There are costs associated with that but there are also benefits, in that you can make modifications if you need to. It’s pretty well understood that a UN*X box wil deliver better performance than the Leading Brand, so there’s a hidden savings that you won’t be hearing about. The savings comes partly from the efficiency of the code base over 30 years of work, but also stems from the fine-grained control you get with these systems. You can control individual services in ways other OSes don’t offer, and with very little overhead (read: no GUI). I suppose the “hidden costs” will include some FUD about intellectual property and the risks of using GPL code, but IBM seems to be able to work with it just fine.
And if it really becomes an issue, there’s always the BSD license or just dropping any copyright references altogether.
More from this article This isn’t the first time that Microsoft has included code from the open-source arena. Some programmers have said that a technology, called the GS flag, which the software giant added to its newest compiler to prevent a common programming error, actually uses code from the open-source StackGuard project. “It is debatable that Microsoft copied the StackGuard functionality,” Crispin Cowan, chief scientist at server software firm Wirex Communications and the creator of StackGuard, wrote in a February e-mail to CNET News.com. “It is not debatable that the GS functionality is identical to…StackGuard.” Evidence uncovered last summer points to the Windows operating system borrowing some networking utilities and possibly parts of the TCP/IP stack, the core software that allows networking and Internet connectivity, from the open-source Unix variant FreeBSD. Theo de Raadt, a founder and project leader for another open-source Unix variant, OpenBSD, stressed that no conclusive proof exists, however. “I have asked repeatedly and never gotten proof,” he said. Microsoft has never denied that it would use open-source software, just that its programmers are prohibited from using code based on the GNU General Public License, which could force the company to publish its own source code. “The issue at hand is choice; companies and individuals should be able to choose either model, and we support this right,” Craig Mundie, senior vice president of Microsoft, said last May. “(There) is a real problem in the licensing model that many open-source software products employ: the General Public License.”
See this for more details on GPL FUD.
The zlib compression library doesn’t use the GPL, however. For the library, the only license requirement is that a copyright notice be included in the program source-code, if released. Microsoft, which rarely releases source code, didn’t need to include the string in the company’s programs, but zlib creator Gailly wishes the giant gave credit. “It bothers me that they removed the zlib copyright string from some binary versions,” he said. In the future, he added, new versions of the library may include such a requirement. Someone went to the trouble to remove that: why? Noted in passing: the CUPS printing software is released under the GPL, but the copyright holder has granted an exception to Apple and developers who follow specific guidelines, noted here. So once more, it’s not that for-profit companies can’t work with GPL code, just that some choose not to for their own reasons.