Microsoft&#39;s Ballmer questions open source
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Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has again argued the case that open source is not necessarily cheaper, nor more secure than its proprietary counterpart.
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The Story: What?s in a name? Back in the days of the Gingrich revolution, the nastiest label you could pin on a politician was ?liberal.? And now that open source has become an essential technology, the quickest way to get a rise out of an open source executive (and to get flamed on dozens of blogs) is to say his or her company is ?commercial.?[ Slideshow: 2007's top underreported tech stories ]                                                    No matter what you call them, open source companies have been steadily integrating parts of the hated commercial software subscription model into their business. First it was support, and now it is software access. Say it ain?t so, Linus.MySQL, for example, will charge users of its enterprise edition to use the code, not just for support as has been the traditional open source business model. ?We are looking for ways to extend our offerings in a way that can be monetized,? bluntly says Kaj Arno, the company?s VP for community.Chander Kant, founder of the open source storage software company Zmanda, is likewise frank about the need to drive revenue. Speaking of the open source community as a whole, he says, ?We are not a charity. We need to monetize.?Recognizing that charging to use open source software flies in the face of the original open source premise of freely sharable code open to everyone, Arno is quick to note that the paid version of Workbench has code and features not found in the free version ? and that the free version ?is not crippled.? Arno calls the move an experiment, and acknowledges that MySQL needs to move carefully to avoid upsetting the often quick-tempered open source community.Is this a trend? Red Monk analyst Stephen O?Grady says it is: ?Ultimately when you look at a high-profile firm like MySQL embracing it, it?s difficult to conclude anything else.?InfoWorld blogger (and IBM employee) Savio Rodrigues notes another example. In a recent blog post, he looked at changes to JBoss since it was purchased by Red Hat Software and concluded: ?The Fedora/JBoss subscription is just like the software subscription business model that commercial software vendors have been using for decades.?Does that mean a company that adopts the usage-based pricing model isn?t really open-source? That?s an interesting point, since as Zmanda?s Kant acknowledges, ?the litmus test of open source is control of the code.? Open source software delivered through appliances keeps the access ? and thus control ? away from users, he notes. But code binaries distributed as software remain open to their users ? for now, at least.The Bottom Line: Have MySQL and Red Hat run away from the principles of open source? Who cares. The real point is that the open source business model is evolving away from the ?free? model and toward an alternative development approach for commercial software. If you adopted open source due to its cost, you may not save as much as you thought. If you adopted open source for the access to source code or the community-supported development approach that is supposed to result in better software, it?s not yet clear if the greater commercialization will enhance those aspects or drive away the true believers and make open source no different than the old-fashioned commercial offerings.Complete list of 2007 underreported stories: 1.? Java is becoming the new Cobol 2.? Sun Microsystems is back in the game 3.? Hackers take aim at Mac OS X 4.? There are some threats you can worry less about 5.? Companies may have found a way around H-1B visa limits 6.? Open source?s new commercial strategy 7.? End-to-end Ethernet finally arrives 8.? Blade servers arrive for the masses 9.? BI is dead; long live BI 10. Balance of power shifts to software buyers
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InfoWorld - In the face of growing competition from Linux, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer delivered a four-page memo to customers on Wednesday outlining the economic and security advantages Windows has over Linux, the potential dangers of open source involving indemnification, and the intent to aggressively convince Unix shops to migrate to Windows.
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Can a new Seattle-based open source start-up become &quot;the Dell of the software industry&quot;? That&#39;s the question being asked by analysts commenting on the sudden publicity being given this week to SourceLabs, a
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Microsoft&#39;s CEO argues that Windows is cheaper and more secure than its open-source rival. Do the facts support him? By John Foley.
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Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer unveiled a beta version of the company's new mashup tool, and criticized SaaS efforts by Google and others in a keynote at the Web 2.0 Summit today.
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Microsoft chief executive officer, Steve Ballmer, has acknowledged Linux as the &quot;only game in town&quot; when it comes to competing with the proprietary software heavyweight&#39;s offerings, Australia&#39;s peak open source body claims.
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SafeTinspector writes &quot;ComputerWorld has a story regarding the sudden departure of Chris Stone, a respected open source advocate and the man often sited as the architect behind Novell&#39;s acquisistion of Ximian and SUSE as well as the recent open source
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Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer took the company&#39;s anti-Linux campaign to its IT executive e-mail list on Wednesday afternoon, with a 2,600-word message that restated Microsoft&#39;s well-worn case against open source software.
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Microsoft this month is moving forward with the developer implementation of its anti-spam Sender ID framework, but open-source advocates and mail vendors doubt whether the software giant&#39;s new proposed license meets open-source requirements.
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When it comes to Microsoft, IT pros still want to hear more about security, Linux and product futures. CEO Steve Ballmer did his best to accommodate them Wednesday morning in a keynote speech at the Gartner Symposium ITXpo in Orlando, Fla.
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OPEN SOURCE champion Microsoft is expanding its programme to give government organisations some of its source code. In a communique from the lair of the Vole, in Redmond, spinsters have said that Microsoft
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Microsoft is not the realÂ patent threatÂ Linux and open source developers should be worried about, said Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth. In fact, the software giant will itself be fighting against the software patents system within a few years, Shuttleworth predicted.
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Some are questioning the fit between the two companies from the perspective of open-source tools and APIs.
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One of the guys behind Microsoft's "Halloween memo" regarding Linux is now working on open-source media software.
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sl0wp0is0n writes &quot;Computerworld has published an interview with Microsoft&#39;s chief Linux strategist, Martin Taylor. It&#39;s interesting to find out that Microsoft thinks and predicts Novell (SuSE) will be the
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InfoWorld - The Story: What???s in a name? Back in the days of the Gingrich revolution, the nastiest label you could pin on a politician was ???liberal.??? And now that open source has become an essential technology, the quickest way to get a rise out of an open source executive (and to get flamed on dozens of blogs) is to say his or her company is ???commercial.???