Jane's Addiction invades Microsoft
Apparently, only Charlie Babcock at InformationWeek really listened to the music selected for the Open Source Business Conference earlier this week. In an excellent article, Charlie walks through Microsoft's troubled patent claims on open source, and notes its dissonance with the open-source harmony:
There's a lot of open source code running on Windows now, so much that Microsoft wants to forget about those claimed infractions and work more closely with open source developers. Smith said Microsoft believes in the patent system and won't back off its patent portfolio. But at the same time he acknowledged Microsoft has a lot to lose if it doesn't achieve greater harmony with open source communities....
[But at OSBC]...[i]f you listened carefully, you could hear this refrain on the public address system above the pre-keynote hubbub, "When we want something, We don't want to pay for it." The name of the song: "Been Caught Stealing" by the rock & rollers, Jane's Addiction.
Every song I play at OSBC has a purpose. I'm one of those people that really does listen to the lyrics. I'm glad Charlie was paying attention. Was Microsoft?
Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mjasay. 
