451 CAOS Theory 
A blog for the enterprise open source community
Can we be too Jaded about Microsoft when it comes to open source?
Martin Schneider, June 27, 2006 @ 4:39 pm ETMatt Asay and Dave Rosenberg’s InfoWorld blog entry regarding Microsoft’s shared source initiative made me think a bit.
What really got me was just how negative the whole entry was on MS and SAP. I mean, yeah, these have been the poster children (along with Oracle) for proprietary software for a long time. But rather than denigrate these companies attempts at opening up, I think we should accept it if not embrace it. What we are seeing en masse is a gradual understanding that open source (in all of its avatars) is simply a better way to create and distribute software. Yes, formerly closed source companies will be hesistant and continue attempts to monetize every facet of their products, but given the push from Wall Street and the idea that old habits die hard, isn’t this to be expected?
I just think we should be more optimistic about software giants making open source concepts more mainstream. In my opinion it is more of an ideological victory for the open source community than an attack on it.
Categories: Software
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[...] Martin Schneider at The 451 Group commented on whether the collective “we” can be too jaded regarding some proprietary vendors’ apparent embrace of open source methods. This was in response to a piece by Dave Rosenberg and Matt Asay about subverting open source for sake of certain marketing purposes. Rosenberg and Asay essentially say that Microsoft and SAP have a well-known history of speaking out against Free and open source software (FOSS) and concepts. [...]
Hi everybody!
Can the open source software movement defeat (or severely cripple) Microsoft in the marketplace? Thank you
Thank you Martin Schneider