Comments on: Microsoft's dilemma: The importance of the downstream

Microsoft may want to play nice with open source, but it can't until it drops its downstream-unfriendly position on open source.

[chustar]

Open source is the enemy in Microsoft's eyes. If they were to become open source, do you realize how much money they'd lose? As a profit seeking company, if they were to go open source, the fall in their profits would probably destroy any confidence anyone had in them. They would lose a lot of their staff (what's the point of all those troublesome engineers if you have the community developing? Basically, I think what holding them back is the people who are making a lot of money off Microsoft.
What I'm trying to say is that their profits would fall, and their shareholders don't want that.

[jbATuberpulse.com]

Open source is still communism for Microsoft (see the link to my post below). And no, it's not caricature. It's what MSFT thinks deep inside: http://www.uberpulse.com/us/2008/03/osbc_open_source_is_stealing.php

[amisuggests]

Open source rocks but i can understand people's suspicion of open source software, speaking strictly as a novice of course.

The worry is the further downline you get from the originator of the software, there is the perception of an increased possibility of inclusion of spyware and other viruses in the product.

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[The_Decider]

Within the next 5 to 10 years software patents will be invalidated and banned which will fix the problem.

What I think is ludicrious is the idea that companies that sue users of a product that might violate patents. If I buy a car from Honda and later it is determined that some patent of Toyota was violated, would Toyota threaten me? Of course not, but in the software world this happens.

It is not surprising since the software industry and so far been able to avoid any and all responsibility for its products, but that is another issue for another day.