CHALLENGES TO MICROSOFT

Source: BBC

Here is an extract of the article on "How does Microsoft face the growing challenges from open source, asks technology commentator Bill Thompson?".

The announcement that the next version of Windows will be called Vista has singularly failed to set the computing world on fire. Microsoft is facing a much bigger problem than lack of interest in its new OS, a problem that cannot easily be solved by spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a marketing campaign or signing up a well-known band to promote it as the Rolling Stones did with Windows 95.

The problem is GNU/Linux, a beast they cannot destroy and cannot seem to tame, a beast that is encroaching on their markets by offering an alternative to the closed development and licensed software model that has made Microsoft rich.

So what would it mean for Microsoft to try to "embrace and extend" Linux? It might go something like this.The Linux kernel, the GNU environment and tools, and many other free software products are made available under the GNU General Public License.

Anyone can take the source code needed to compile the program, run it, distribute it, and modify it.If they distribute their changed version then it has to be under the same licence, so you cannot improve a program and then keep the improved version unless you only use it internally and privately. But anyone who wants to can "fork" the code by taking a version and beginning their own development path.

What will happen when Microsoft releases its new Linux distribution: Micrix (pronounced mick-rix)? It is everything you want. Somthing everyone want

It is completely cross-compatible with Windows, other versions Linux and the Mac OS. Microsoft indemnifies you against lawsuits from companies like SCO who claim Linux infringes their copyright. Some interesting points to mention are

First Anyone who wants to can take Micrix and distribute it themselves, of course, and Microsoft does accept submissions for the code base from the community and looks carefully at what is happening back in Linux world, although it prefers to make its own fixes rather than just take code from the old world.

Second Crucially, however, it does not listen to what Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman, Eric Raymond and the other leaders of the free and open source software movement are saying.

The author finally concludes " Of course, all of this is a fantasy for the summer holidays. I have absolutely no reason to believe that such a future could come to pass.Nobody at Microsoft tells me anything, I have not heard any rumours and I do not know nothing. I am just indulging in a bit of imaginative thinking."

I am looking for such a move from microsoft, where they could really tap the potential open source market with their stable products ,hence help serve the open source community apart from running their own properitory Windows.

Category: Microsoft,Open Source