Microsoft: Open source could harm us. The software heavyweight warns that the success of the open-source movement could hurt its sales, potentially forcing the company to cut prices and sacrifice revenue and profit. By Ian Fried, Staff Writer, CNET News.com. [Source: CNET News.com]
Woe is Microsoft! These are truly crocodile tears from the company that's cried wolf one too many times when it comes to the dangers of open source software. Let's state this plainly, there are far more innovations going on in the open source world than Microsoft could ever in is past and future history ever come up with. If others want to profit from open source, and the open source license allows commercial use at no cost, that certainly allows Microsoft to benefit. They pay no copyright license fees when open source allows commercial use at no expense. So where's the harm, except to Microsoft? Microsoft does not and never has defined the stability of the United States or the global economy. In fact, isn't a good part of the world that's using open source products, particularly in Europe, attempting to ignore Microsoft products? Therefore, shouldn't Microsoft itself be funding open source as a good corporate citizen? Maybe they already are and the executives are too ashamed to admit it.
