castanyes blaves
Random ramblings about some random stuff, and things; but more stuff than things -- all in a mesmerizing and kaleidoscopic soapbox-like flow of words.12/04/2006
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.
Archives
200409 200412 200501 200502 200503 200504 200505 200506 200507 200508 200509 200510 200511 200512 200601 200602 200603 200604 200605 200606 200607 200608 200609 200610 200611 200612 200701 200702 200703 200704 200705 200707 200708 200709 200710 200711 200712 200801 200802 200803 200804 200805 200806 200807 200808 200809 200810 200811 200812 200901 200902 200903 200904 200905 200906 200907 200908 200909 200912 201001 201002 201003 201004 201007 201009 201011 201102
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]