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http://news.com.com/2100-1001-275155.html
This is a Mark Shuttleworth quote about MS:
MS have done some wonderful things for the world. They made software cheap, which is great. They made it standard. They have produced some excellent software and some not-so-excellent software. I think, now that we have the internet, that the free software process is a fundamentally better way of producing software, though.
I think that free software platforms will innovate faster than proprietary ones. So at a deep level, I think its them that should feel threatened. That said, history shows that a big organisation that can't change fast enough to adapt to changes in its environment and ALWAYS tries to lock the environment down.
Look at the RIAA, the members there cannot see a way forward that preserves their profitability, so they are suing their own customers to try to preserve a 70's era analog business model. I think MS is prepared, if worst comes to worst, to sue their own customers in order to protect an 80's era business model, of software licensing. That's dangerous.
They are of course also trying to innovate out of the corner, Windows Live is interesting, so is the X-Box, and the Zune. They are all attempts to shift to subscription-based revenues, relationship-based revenues. If they can be successful there, they are less likely to go nuclear, but if not... That's why we can't legitimise their IP dogma now. Why the Novell deal is so treacherous.
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