Microsoft is launching an all-out attack on open-source software even as it pretends to open up its own kimono. See Craig Mundie’s speech today in New York. (See also Misunderstanding ends up sparking good `open source’ debate, my column from February in which I talked to Jim Allchin about his open-source-is-anti-American comments that launched this entire debate.)
Now read Eric Raymond’s rebuttal to Microsoft’s brazen hypocrisy, as well as this comment from the Software & Information Industry Association.
Mundie is only the latest Microsoft executive to strike at open source in general and the GNU General Public License in particular. Steve Ballmer told me a couple of months ago that he considered the GPL “a cancer” — and I can understand why he hates it.
Mundie’s claims are, in some ways circular. The proprietary model certainly works best for Microsoft. But as we’ve seen in the way this company has brutalized competitors and the process of innovation, this isn’t necessarily best for anyone except Microsoft.