January 5th, 2009
Should open source boycott Microsoft?
I don’t think so, but then I read headlines like this, from the Manila Bulletin in the Philippines, and I wonder if such a boycott does not already exist.
(Search Google images under “unholy Microsoft” and this is the first image that you get. From Vishal Sharma.)
Pinoy open source firm, MS ink unholy alliance.
Unholy, Sparky? Really? The story describes a deal between Winston Demarillo’s Exist Global and Microsoft to “enable the creation of more interoperable programs.”
The story adds that Microsoft is building two, not one but two, software labs in the country — in Quezon City and at the University of the Philippines.
Still, I couldn’t get that word out of my head. Unholy. Is open source really a holy business model, a holy contract? Is any company standing against it unclean, to be shunned?
Personally I just think they’re on the losing end, thanks to Moore’s Second Law. Software complexity increases exponentially with computing power. The only way to bring costs within reason, over time, is to share them.
So how do you feel when someone you know and respect in the open source movement announces they are doing business with Microsoft?
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Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for 30 years, a tech freelancer since 1983. You can follow Dana on Twitter. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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