[Pc_Support] Windows Vista for free? Three pronged attack on open source

[Justin M. Keyes]

On 9/19/05, Damien McKenna <dmckenna at thelimucompany.com> wrote:
> Someone put in writing a concern I've had since I discovered there would
> be seven different versions of Vista:
> http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=11913
> 
> My personal belief is that Microsoft will gave away the Vista Starter
> edition, possibly also Microsoft Works which I could see being renamed
> to Vista Works.  Their rationale for doing this will be an attempt to
> capture the "free OS" market.
> 
> I also believe this to be part of a larger effort to supplant the open
> source movement.  I believe they see three obstacles in OSS: price, code
> sharing, data ownership.  They're taking care of (i.e. marketing) data
> ownership through their upcoming XML formats for Office 12; the code
> sharing is being covered by both their continued and now more publicized
> use of OSS internally and the creation of new OSS projects; the former
> is being covered by things like the Express editions of the Visual
> Studio tools and, as I'm fairly certain, a free version of Windows.

I don't think is cause for worry. Offering better value is a good
thing. Open source is about better value, not killing Microsoft. If
FOSS forces Microsoft to offer better value, that's good for everyone.
If FOSS kills Microsoft, another company will replace Microsoft.

These moves aren't going to kill open source, they will secure its
future: once Microsoft offers open source, and people see the benefit,
they'll demand it thereafter, and they will be open to trying other
open source solutions. If Microsoft follows open standards with XML,
that makes other software better able to compete with MS Office by
exporting/importing Office formats.

As for offering castrated versions of MS software free of charge--this
isn't going to change anything. They've been giving away Home edition
for years in OEM PCs. And as a .NET developer, I can tell you that the
Visual Studio express editions aren't very useful--they don't have the
benefits of the full version of Visual Studio, which makes other
options more attractive. There are competing open source solutions
(such as http://www.icsharpcode.net/OpenSource/SD/ ) for developing
.NET on windows.

.NET is an ECMA standard, and a pretty good one too.

Maybe Microsoft will move to a service-oriented profit model one day...
-- 
Justin Keyes