Microsoft’s charge against open source software may be hypocritical in some respects, but the debate is worth having.
Craig Mundie’s speech yesterday in New York was another broadside, in which he equated the open-source method of software distribution with the dot-com
debacle and — you’ll be shocked, shocked — proclaimed his company’s never-ending fealty to
commercial software.
Mundie suggested that open source isn’t very innovative. He called it a threat to
intellectual property and, by extension, the economy. Giving away software, he said, was like
the dot-com companies giving away Web services and hoping to make money later.
Of course, open source does not necessarily mean non-commercial. Selling service and
support is one way people make money on open-source products.
I’m disturbed by the company’s apparent decision to make this a political fight over the GNU General Public License. Yes, the GPL is aimed at the heart of commercial software. It’s Intended to prevent commercial interests from co-opting free software and turning it into proprietary products, the GPL also acts almost like an intellectual-property virus.
Microsoft and its allies on this issue see a massive threat. But It seems fairly easy to programmers to prevent this from spreading, if that’s what they
want. They can use other publicly available software with a different kind of license. But
many choose otherwise.
Microsoft’s panic — and its apparent plans to get the government involved —
are the rankest kind of hypocrisy from a company that has been fighting for its untrammeled right to rule any market it chooses without government interference. I think the word “choice” gives Microsoft the absolute chills.