The gift of software
p2pnet.net News Feature:- If a commercial company decides to open source its code, does that mean it’s seeing the light – that it’s figured out that giving ultimately means receiving?
Nope, says Charles Fitzgerald, a general manager at Microsoft.
"When commercial software gets open-sourced, it is typically an admission of failure, an exit strategy or a sign that vendors are deluding themselves into thinking they can ‘make it up with volume’."
He’s quoted in a Forbes story here which kicks off with, "BEA Systems, Computer Associates and IBM all recently started releasing the source code, or underlying instructions, for some programs, which amounts to distributing those products free."
However, "These freebie programs don’t have a lot going for them in any case," says Forbes. "Computer Associates opened up its Ingres database program – which is 25 years old and has a 0.4% market share, according to market researcher IDC. IBM open-sourced a database called Cloudscape, which is even less popular."
The story concludes:
"Nobody is declaring victory for Microsoft in Web software, but it’s worth remembering that, in high tech, winners don’t have to share. While rivals resort to giving products away, Microsoft gets paid real money for its efforts."
August 20th, 2004 at 5:46 pm
“While rivals resort to giving products away, Microsoft gets paid real money for its efforts.”
now try saying that with a straight face
August 20th, 2004 at 5:52 pm
In the P2P world, the recent open-sourcing of Shareaza – and Limewire before that – certainly disproves Fitzgerald’s assertion that only losers and has-beens ever get open-sourced. These were already probably the most popular Gnutella P2P clients when they made the leap.
Could M$ possibly be upset and on the attack because they are being made to look like fat, greedy pigs?
August 20th, 2004 at 6:38 pm
Microsoft dominate only because of software piracy. The day nobody pirates Windows I’m sure Linux will be the number 1 in the desktop. So, the reality is that Microsoft has to give it’s software for free to most of the world so it can be the most used. Sorry english language mistakes.
August 20th, 2004 at 9:20 pm
I’m sure when Id Software finally releases the source of the Quake3 engine this year, I guess that game was a failure too hmm?
August 20th, 2004 at 9:47 pm
“in high tech, winners don’t have to share. While rivals resort to giving products away, Microsoft gets paid real money for its efforts.”
Hmm — does anyone recall Microsoft giving away Internet Explorer for free as part of winning the browswer wars over Netscape?
Seems that one way to become a winner is to give away the product for free (as in beer). Now with Linux, the shoe is on the other foot for Microsoft.
I agree with an earlier poster that Microsoft’s global share would be far worse and that of Linux far greater already, except for the fact of software piracy that gets Microsoft’s products into many hands for free or very little.
In fact, as part of joining the WTO, China is required to deal with software piracy and this is another motivation that is now pushing them toward Linux.
Even apart from piracy, the “real money” that Microsoft is paid is rapidly having to be scaled back in order to avoid defections to Linux. Google the phrase “doing a Newham” (in quotes).
Bottom line: Even if “winners don’t have to share”, its also true that “sharers can be winners”.
August 21st, 2004 at 1:45 am
‘Hmm — does anyone recall Microsoft giving away Internet Explorer for free as part of winning the browswer wars over Netscape?”
Don’t forget that the Internet Explorer browser code was ‘licensed’ from Spyglass – a commercial arm for the NCSA Mosaic browser. After Microsoft bought Spyglass they modfied the Mosaic browser. Mosaic’s source code was available under copyright for individual personal use, an academic institution or for internal business use. (Sounds very similar to Open Source to me.) Microsoft bought SpyGlass out in order to squash Netscape – microsofts own “sucess” with IE was based on a company that shared its source code
August 21st, 2004 at 6:17 pm
it was only after being forced to eliminate pirated versions of MS, that many Asian countries started to veer toward Linux, then MS hits right back with a new, affordable “Lite” version of Windows.
MS’s plan all along was to allow piracy initially, get them hooked, then make them pay later.
August 23rd, 2004 at 12:05 am
Yep – Gates: “Although about three million computers get sold every year in China, people don’t pay for the software. Someday they will, though. And as long as they’re going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They’ll get sort of addicted, and then we’ll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade.”
Also have a look here – http://p2pnet.net/story/1819
Cheers!