Don't feed the troll [LWN.net]

Don't feed the troll

Posted Feb 18, 2008 10:09 UTC (Mon) by danielhedblom (guest, #47307)
In reply to: Don't feed the troll by sbergman27
Parent article: SCO to continue the fight?

"And as long as the OSS community thinks that kind of innuendo is enough to achieve victory
Microsoft has nothing to worry about."

Most of us base our predictions based on history and past experiences. The only thing
Microsoft worries about is Linux surviving and possibly forcing more standards through. The
minute they loose their grip on the market both Microsoft will be in for a real ride when
people can start producing things that compete with them. You know the market is broken when
its hard to compete even if you give your product away for free.

"If we are going to try to fight the battle on that front... we are going to need to do a lot
better than that."

The "battle" is utterly one-sided and consists to 100% of Microsoft trying to keep Linux away
from the market by any means possible. The community is not in any way in battle with anyone,
just defending itself.

"And honestly, how satisfying would it be to win that way, in any case?"

Win what? There is no war, just MS trying to make that pesky Linux go away.

"Better to provide superior functionality and value. MS used to define us as a cancer. But
now they talk about value. People, in the final analysis, don't really care about what is
right or wrong. They care about what they can get and how much, or little, it will cost
them."

Superior functionality and value means nothing and vendor lockin everything. Thats why most of
the effort lies in getting open standards more used. Something that would benefit the whole
market and not just Linux. Linux could be five hundred times better and still not making it in
some places where all the bets are placed in locked in technology.

"Microsoft figured that out, and the sooner we do, the better."

There is nothing from Microsoft that Linux needs. Why would one want to mimic them instead of
just buying their products if that is what you want?

""Where's Waldo" is irrelevant, ineffectual, and counterproductive."

Its a game albeit one with a serious undertone. If someone manages to identify a smoking gun
it would seriously put a real stop to Microsofts work on getting linux go away by various
proxies who do the dirty work. This is not about the Linux community trying to kill MS by
courts, its about stopping Microsoft from gaming the system in their effort of keeping the
free market anything but free.

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Don't feed the troll

Posted Feb 18, 2008 15:49 UTC (Mon) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

You know the market is broken when its hard to compete even if you give your product away for free.

Stores sell bottled water, even when the tap is there (almost) for free. Would you say the market for water is broken?

It would be nice if we stopped lamenting ourselves and started thinking about why Windows is keeping its own against free alternatives. IMHO all we have to do is to convince people that Linux is not only for geeks. The rest will come on its own (as long as Linux continues to get better all the time).

Don't feed the troll

Posted Feb 18, 2008 18:49 UTC (Mon) by sbergman27 (subscriber, #10767) [Link]

"""
It would be nice if we stopped lamenting ourselves and started thinking about why Windows is
keeping its own against free alternatives.
"""

It would be more than nice.  It would be *constructive*.  Spreading innuendo regarding
Microsoft does not improve our credibility.  It is an indicator that we do not have confidence
in our own product.  Monopolies which are not natural monopolies have a natural life-cycle.
Oh, the time scales can be excruciatingly glacial in nature.  But nature takes its course,
eventually.

Like any corporation, they feel a need to expand their revenues.  And yet they already have
most of the market.  So they have no choice but to try to extract more money from their
existing client base.  Microsoft will bring its own downfall upon itself.  IMO, we worry way
too much about hastening that event.  Might as well push on a glacier.

What we want to be is the greenery which strings up and takes over once the glacier has
retreated.  We would do best to improve ourselves, rather than wasting effort trying to push
the glacier.

Not the best analogy, perhaps.  But I think it might help get my point across.  We need to be
worrying about our own business, not someone else's.  And the rest will follow.  Unless we
want to go through all of this only to have Microsoft replaced by another proprietary, closed
source player.