just announced an initiative called the Shared Source Philosophy.
The key component is a significant expansion in the company’s policy of making the source code of the Windows operating system available to customers for the purpose of developing and debugging applications. However – equally key -- customers will not be allowed to tinker with this code; Windows will remain a single platform, constant for all users, and firmly owned by Microsoft.
The documents surrounding the announcement challenge the corporate backers of the Open Source movement (as in ), saying, in essence: “Your underlying philosophy is mistaken and your business model is wrong.” Images of swords at dawn flash to mind.
To understand the essence of the duel, strip out any illusions about Open Source. Somewhere, a programmer may be starving in a garret so he can spend all his time improving Linux, but if you find one you better stuff him as a rarity. Open Source is backed by deep corporate pockets, and their programmers are quite comfortable. It is also backed by a more ideologically oriented, basically anti-property rights, but nonetheless well-funded, academic community.
The companies have joined this alliance for excellent business reasons.
· They would rather not be overly dependent on Microsoft.
· Sophisticated applications developers regard it as a serious pain in the neck if they cannot access the source code of an operating system.
To maintain the alliance with each other and with the academics, the Open Source backers must give up something: property rights. All work on Linux is conducted under the , which says that any code written for the system and distributed beyond the developer must be made available to all at no cost. Further, any other code that gets attached to code subject to this GPL must also be put under the license. (This last feature is referred to as “viral.”)
Microsoft calculates that:
· · Revealing Windows source code will satisfy large customers and reduce their incentive to embrace Linux.
· · The money generated by intellectual property is the only way to provide the resources necessary to support a stable operating system environment within which applications can be written, and such an environment is far more important to developers than any right to tinker with the operating source code. Without such a cash flow, Open Source software is certain to splinter into non-conforming systems. Nor will it ever develop customer support mechanisms adequate for non-nerds.
· · Most of the smart people in the commercial world will prefer a model that embraces rather than rejects intellectual property rights. Only IP can provide a mechanism by which the smart people can make money for themselves, and the smart people know this. Given the choice, they will eschew the risks presented by the viral aspect of the GPL and embrace Windows, where the licenses allow them to keep property rights to the applications they develop.
Thus Microsoft is betting on those old standbys, property rights and individual incentives.
Those who believe in the free market are betting that it is right. (See ; )
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