[svlug] What's the Business Case for Microsoft and Open Source?

[Akbar Ahmed]

--- Jeremy Zawodny <Jeremy at Zawodny.com> wrote:
> How can the Open Source
> community help
> Microsoft? 

The Open Source community could help Microsoft by
becoming a competitive weapon against itself.
Microsoft could gain, in multiple ways, by funding
development and promotion of FreeBSD. Helping FreeBSD
become a more visible, not viable, competitor to Linux
would allow Microsoft to further segment the Open
Source OS market in the eyes of corporate America. 

2nd, helping FreeBSD would also help provide Microsoft
with code that can be integrated into Windows (like
their TCP/IP implementation).

3rd, promoting FreeBSD would provide Microsoft with a
competitive weapon to attack the Linux investments of
IBM, Intel, etc.

I think the FreeBSD angle is essentially a divide and
conquer strategy, that could prove a useful weapon
against the Linux threat.

I don't see a compeling reason to promote GPL code
from Microsoft's perspective. This is why I chose
FreeBSD as an example above.

I'm not a FreeBSD advocate, but I think it's the way
to go if Microsoft gets into the Open Source arena.

-Akbar


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