On dealing with Microsoft

On dealing with Microsoft

Posted Jun 24, 2004 6:12 UTC (Thu) by Xman (subscriber, #10620)
Parent article: On dealing with Microsoft

I do think that sometimes Eric seems to want to use open source to bludgeon specific companies that strike out against the open source movement (Microsoft and Sun come to mind), and to the extent that he does so is a disservice to the movement. It is a distration, and Microsoft has slain many an opponent simply by getting them to pay more attention to Microsoft than to their customers.

At the same time, I have to disagree with the statement the "production of more, better code" is all that is needed to ensure the success of open source. There has been open source software longer than there has been proprietary software, and folks have been writing tons of high quality open source code for long before "open source" existed as an expression. Eric's great contribution has been to focus on the customer (and I by this I mean anyone who is a potential software user), and to hone his message, and the energies open source movement as a whole on the what appeals to the customer. This is a big deal, because the open source world has a natural tendancy towards navel gazing.

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