Microsoft: Linux may mean price cuts, fewer sales

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Did Microsoft lie to the SEC?

From Microsoft's filing: "We believe that Microsoft's share of
server units grew modestly in fiscal 2004, while Linux
distributions rose slightly faster on an absolute basis," the filing
said."

If you're right, that would make the above an untrue statement.

"And it's worth emphasizing: I don't opposae competition to
Microsoft. I'd like to see it. But it should come from companies
that pay people for the good work they do."

What ever made you think open source developers don't get paid
for the work they do? That model would not be viable at all,
would it? Open source software development is really nothing
new--it's just new, or, more accurately, re-emergent--in the
software industry.

For the sake of comparison, let's look at the area of Human
Resource Management. Professionals in this field are constantly
developing and freely exchanging new ideas. They belong to an
organization, SHRM, which actively promotes this free exchange
of ideas. When someone develops a new approach to a problem,
he or she immediately shares it with the rest of the HR
community. They don't copyright it and conceal it an license it to
others. They give it away. Now, I don't want to scare you or
anything, but this kind of thing has been going on for a long
time in many different areas of business management,
education, science, medicine, government and other human
endeavors, and the people who engage in this activity are, with
the exception of educators, adequately compensated.

There are some people out there who believe that software
should be no different. It's just information. The software one
individual produces is valuable to his or her colleagues working
in similar capacities in other organizations. Why not freely
publish it as professionals in other fields do? It is the idea of
turning software into a product that is the deviant practice. It's
just been going on so long that most people have come to
regard it as the status quo. Fortunately, the problems that result
from this practice are beginning to cause the system that
supports it to come apart at the edges. Eventually it should
collapse under its own weight.

Posted by: Immanuel Tranz-Mischen   Posted on: 09/04/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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