[TriLUG] [ISN] Microsoft prepares security assault on Linux

Carlos J. Cela ccela at nc.rr.com
Wed Nov 12 20:07:58 EST 2003


The issue is more profound than what appears at first.

I believe that the debate between the Open Source community and the 
Microsofts and the SCOs of the world
boils down to a moral problem: Microsoft will do whatever it can get by 
with in order to be more profitable.
For them, it just does not matter who is "right", as long as the numbers 
look good.

Open Source developers just do not think in those terms. They try to do 
the "right" thing, moved by the feeling of
belonging to the community, not by the urge to generate more and more $$$.

For Microsoft, the issue is revenue lost because people can get what 
they sell for free, but for the Open
Source guy, the issue is that they keep spreading FUD, and that is 
morally objectionable.

You can expect new stuff like this to surface every single day...I 
apologize about being slighly offtopic; it is just
 that sometimes it feels like we are not addressing the guts of the issue...


Mike Mueller wrote:

>On Wednesday 12 November 2003 14:00, Dan Monjar wrote:
>  
>
>>[Balmer] also questioned the notion that the open source's community
>>approach to fixing problems was superior to Microsoft's. "Why should
>>code submitted randomly by some hacker in China and distributed by
>>some open source project, why is that, by definition, better?"
>>    
>>
>
>For a lot of reasons. But what floors me is that Balmer exposes himself as a 
>xenophobe. What's the matter with Chinese hackers?  I watch the lksctp 
>project.  Nothing gets accepted from random people.  The project participants 
>are well known.  The new people are kept on a short leash. The developer 
>cross-check each other. lksctp is an example of a kernel project with 
>sponsership from IBM.  Anybody in the world is free to look at the code 
>submissions.  Judging from the names of the lkstcp developers, I'd say that 
>people of Chinese decent have contributed to the project. Balmer needs to go 
>to PR refresher classes.  US corporate execs talking like bigots is 
>embarrasing.
>  
>





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