Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Thu, 8 Mar 2001 16:29:48 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Thu, 8 Mar 2001 16:29:38 -0500 Received: from rasputin.trustix.com ([195.139.104.66]:25874 "HELO rasputin.trustix.com") by vger.kernel.org with SMTP id ; Thu, 8 Mar 2001 16:29:27 -0500 Message-ID: <3AA7F9F0.40402@trustix.com> Date: Thu, 08 Mar 2001 22:30:24 +0100 From: Lars Gaarden Organization: Trustix AS User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux 2.4.2-ac4 i686; en-US; 0.8) Gecko/20010220 X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Venkatesh Ramamurthy Cc: "'linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org'" Subject: Re: [OT] Microsoft begining to open source Windows 2000? In-Reply-To: <1355693A51C0D211B55A00105ACCFE64E952C7@ATL_MS1> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Venkatesh Ramamurthy wrote: > Enterprise customers are beginning to see the value of having > source available, and MS is doing this as a half-baked > solution to give decition makers one less reason for switching > to Open Source. > > > Microsoft such attempts can be viewed as either > 1. Trying to make it sources open(in the long run) or > 2. As you said a "half - baked solution" > > But the article mentioned about the "earlier success with the pilot > program" , which made me feel that they may have more plans than making the > sources open for a few customers. Don't get me wrong. I think that making the source available is a step in the right direction. But MS' business model is very centered around controlling and protecting their operating system/platform. Ever since they gained an upper hand in the PC platform war, their agenda has been to protect Windows from any competing platforms. Think OS/2, Java, Netscape. There is also the fact that Windows source code has been available for a long time, both to universities and to ISVs that are developing software that requires deep hackery (Citrix, Bristol technology, etc). Which makes me believe that this "source available (under heavy license)" thing is mainly a marketing stunt to make MS look good. Today MS is a platform provider. Open Source is all about making the platform a commodity. A major business plan and culture rewiring has to happen inside MS before they can embrace Open Source, and I don't see that happening yet. I'd be very happy to be proved wrong, though. -- LarsG. - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/