Skip to main content

Is Microsoft going to kill Free Software?

About 20 years ago I first heard of Richard Stallman and the GNU Movement. At the time Richard and his supporters were promoting free software with an almost evangelical Zeal. They were also trying to develop a free clone of the Unix operating system. I thought they were interesting but nuts. I actually went to the trouble of digging up and reading the original GNU manifesto a major premise of which seemed to be that programmers enjoy writing software so much that they shouldn't expect to be paid for letting other people use it. To be honest I couldn't see how it would work and I figured that the nerdy name they chose (Gnu stands for "Gnu's Not Unix" a kind of geek in-joke) was proof if proof be needed that they would never amount to anything.

Well in some ways I was right. Here we are twenty years later and the GNU movement has still not managed to put together a complete operating system. The wildly successful free operating system Linux borrows many components from GNU but uses a non GNU kernel developed by Linus Torvalds. If you step back and look at the bigger picture though I was wrong to dismiss Richard Stallman and his evangelism for free software, very wrong. Today the world is awash with free software. Some of it provided under the rigidly anti commercial tenets of the GNU public licence, some of it under similar but less restrictive Open Source licences and some of it under closed source licenses. In fact some of the most popular free software is producesd and distributed by commercial companies who hope to make a profit on the back of free software through advertising, promotion or sales of related services.

I adore free software. It has allowed me to do many things with my computer that I could not otherwise afford. Microsoft is not such a big fan it seems. Fortune magazine has an excellent article (available from CNN) suggetsing that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is about to wage war on free software using a library of Microsoft patents as legal ammunition.

It is plausible I guess that some free software applications do contain algorithms that have been patented by Microsoft but I have to wonder what Microsft intend to do about it. The Behemoth of Redmond is hardly going to go sue an army of bedroom programmers for a slice of profits that by definition don't exist. The free software movement has shown itself to be extremely robust and flexible. Where patent infringments are detected the free software community can probably rewrite applications to avoid infringement. If MS ever did manage to shut down one of the truly useful free software tools then they open themselves up to a world of bad publicity and more talk of abusing their market position.

This is sabre rattling and I suspect it is Sabre rattling directed not at bedroom programmers but at corporate IT departments who may be tempted to stray from Microsoft offerings to try some of the free alternatives. By creating an aura of illegality over free software Microsoft may be able to dissuade corporates from putting their toes in the water.

If free software wasn't any good there wouldn't be a problem but a lot of free software is as good as if not better than commercial products. I suspect that the timing of this Microsoft initiative has something to do with the lacklustre launches of Microsoft Vista and Office 2007. The luke warm reception of both of these products coupled with backward compatibility issues has opened a window for customers to experiment with alternatives. Among the most frightening alternatives from a Redmond perspective are the new free online Office service being offered by Google and others .

EDIT: There is a lot of comment about this over on slashdot much of which focusses on the role of IBM. IBM have positioned themselves as champions of Open Source software so if Microsoft pursue this they are likely to come into direct conflict with Big Blue. We live in interesting times methinks.
Labels:

Comments

mbp said…
Lol Zoso - great links.

Nice to welcome another Lotro Blogger.
12:21 pm
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Android Tip 3: Sharing a Folder between multiple users of an Android device

Android has allowed multiple user logins for quite a while now. This is can be very useful for tablets which are shared by family members. Normally Android erects strict Chinese walls between users preventing them from using each others apps and viewing each others files. This is a useful security feature and ensures your kids don't mess up your work spreadsheets when screwing around on the tablet and should also prevent them from buying €1,000 worth of Clash of Candy coins on your account. Sometimes however you really do want to share stuff with other users and this can prove surprisingly difficult. For example on a recent holiday I realised that I wanted to share a folder full of travel documents with my wife. Here are some ways to achieve this. 1. If you have guaranteed internet access  then you can create a shared folder on either Dropbox or Google drive. Either of these has the great advantage of being able to access the files on any device and the great disadvantage of bein
52 comments
Read more

Portal 2 two screen coop on one PC.

I mentioned before that I intended to try Portal 2 in "unofficial split screen co-op mode. Well split screen on a small computer monitor is a recipe for a headache especially when the game defies gravity as much as portal. However a minor bit of extra fiddling allowed us to drive two seperate screens from one PC. The Steam forums describes a complicated method of doing this that I couldn't get working so this simpler method which worked for me might be of use to someone. 1. First I followed the instructions in this post to get split screen multi-player working: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1847904 A minor issue not mentioned is that you need to enable the console from the keyboard/mouse options menu I am using keyboard and one wired Xbox360 controller as suggested. Getting the controller to switch to channel 2 was tricky at first but as Chameleon8 mentions plugging it out and in again during loading works. The trick for me was to do the plug / p
1 comment
Read more

Lotro: The Forgotten Treasury

Throg joined a Kinship group for the Forgotten Treasury instance last night. It was an enjoyable change from the solo questing that the now level 55 dwarf champion has been mostly doing so far in Moria. Some members of the group had tried and failed to clear the Treasury before so we knew it would be challenging but we were lucky enough to have a well balanced group with Guardian, Minstrel, Lore Master, Hunter, Burglar and Champion (Throg). Throg (level 55) and the minstrel (53) were both below the 56ish level of the instance but the others were all higher so it more or less balanced out. [SPOILERs ahead] It is a well designed enjoyable instance set in a circular chamber with balcony around. As you enter, a boss absconds to a locked side chamber with his treasure leaving the fellowship to clear trash ringed around the balcony. Once the trash are cleared you have access to a puzzle which must be solved in order to open the locked door. Clearing the (including six mini bosses) also get
13 comments
Read more