shared source cluelessness

Rhetoric from an ex-Microsoft employee. I wouldn't normally mention it, but since I made reference to Shared Source here recently, I thought I'd better followup.

Steven makes points along the line of revenue. That's not the main point. Average Joe is going to continue to buy his Windows OS via a shrinkwrap because of the assurances that buying Microsoft gives him. It's the same as Red Hat - take Fedora and package it - that's RHEL. Why do people buy free software? The assurances and the paid support. MS would not lose in this scenario by embracing open-source.

The main issue is modifiability. Being able to modify the code means fixing bugs. That's the major advantage of OSS. Being able to fix problems and guarrentee maintainability long-term.

Why doesn't my JVC video camera not work under Windows XP? It's too old, so the driver no longer ships withe the OS, and JVC don't care. This wouldn't happen with open-source.

| 31 Mar 2005 | #