Microsoft launches open source foundation - and it isn't April 1

Sam Varghese
Friday, 11 September 2009 07:42

Opinion and Analysis

Zemlin detailed events in his blog thus: "Microsoft assembled a package of patents 'relating to open source' and put them up for sale to patent trolls. Microsoft thought they were selling them to AST, a group that buys patents, offers licenses to its members, and then resells the patents.

"AST calls this their 'catch and release' policy. Microsoft would certainly have known that the likely buyer when AST resold their patents in a few months would be a patent troll that would use the patents to attack (OIN) non-member Linux companies."

And he added: "Thus, by selling patents that target Linux, Microsoft could help generate fear, uncertainty, and doubt about Linux, without needing to attack the Linux community directly in their own name."

When Zemlin points out that deception is Microsoft's middle name, he isn't telling the world something new. The problem is that when people call Microsoft on this, there are lots of open source people, no doubt with dollar signs in their eyes, who try to play down the criticism.

Microsoft loves free and open source software - as long as it is under any licence other than the GPL, which enables the coders at Redmond to take the code, re-use it and lock it away. The company loves FOSS - as long as it runs better on Windows than on any other operating system.

DOS was once Microsoft's money tap. Windows is now the main cash cow at Redmond and the teats are still not dry.

Probably the only bit of FOSS which Microsoft does not love is OpenOffice.org, because it could cut into the sales of its other cash cow, MS Office. But a few tricks with document formats and inoperability have kept OpenOffice.org at bay.

Hence, it is good to bear this in mind: open source foundation or no open source foundation, Microsoft's motives are the same - to marginalise and bad-mouth FOSS. Before the word "monopoly" became a bad word in business circles, Bill Gates was constantly saying that Microsoft wanted to monopolise the software business.

His motives haven't changed.

Veteran tech journalist Robert Cringely put it best when I interviewed him some years ago: "Microsoft is about money, not innovation. They aren't opposed to innovation and like to be seen as innovators, but what really matters to them as a company is the money. Think of it that way and a lot of what they do starts to make sense. When I give speeches... II like to pull out a $US20 note and point out that there is something about that note that bothers Bill Gates - that it is in my pocket. Microsoft really does want all the money and I'm not sure they won't get it."