Microsoft's open source remarks met with skepticism

by Joe Barr

May 18, 2001 —

I promise. This is not going to be another long tirade about Microsoft's latest FUD assault on free software and the GNU General Public License (GPL). There may be a short screech or two, but by the time this column appears, most of us will have gotten past Craig Mundie's May 3 speech in New York and moved on to the next RAT (Really Annoying Thing). The significance of Mundie's remarks is not so much in what he said -- most of that has been completely rebuked in any event -- but in how it was received. FUD, after all, is an attempt to alter reality by changing your perception. Sometimes the FUD she flies, and sometimes she no fly. Mundie's effort was a belly flop.

Alerted to the speech the day before its arrival by Eric Raymond, the free software and open source communities were ready and waiting for Mundie. Their responses came quickly once the text of his remarks became available (see Resources for a link). Linus Torvalds took no prisoners as he lectured on Microsoft's ignorance of the history of science, especially Sir Isaac Newton's famous line, "If I have been able to see further, it was only because I stood on the shoulders of giants." Dan Gillmor, writing in his ejournal for SiliconValley.com, gave Torvalds an opportunity to react to Mundie's speech. The usually polite and mild Torvalds concluded, "I'd rather listen to Newton than to Mundie. He may have been dead for almost three hundred years, but despite that he stinks up the room less."

Richard Stallman, the patron saint of the free software movement, responded as well, pointing out in a Free Software Foundation (FSF) press release that Microsoft voiced its opinions on the GPL without even the most basic understanding of the differences between open source and free software. Professor Eben Moglen, legal counsel for the FSF, said in the same press release, "Taking advice on what the GPL means from Microsoft is like taking Stalin's word on the meaning of the US Constitution."

Alan Cox, Linus Torvalds's right-hand man, also had a few choice words about Mundie's remarks. With unerring accuracy Cox reached in and pulled the beating heart out of Mundie's speech, then held it aloft for inspection by noting that its basic premise was a fallacy of the third kind. Just like close encounters, fallacies of the third kind are right in your face. Cox rebuked Mundie's claims that intellectual property rights are the driving force behind the advancement of technology. Cox said, "Most of the great leaps of the computer age have happened despite rather than because of IPR. In fact before the Internet the proprietary network protocols divided customers, locked them into providers, and forced them to exchange much of their data by tape."

A large chorus of other voices, both individuals and firms involved with open source or free software, joined in denouncing Mundie's remarks. That is just as you would expect, and just as Microsoft expected as well. What may have been a surprise to Redmond was that the tone of the responses didn't change all that much whether they came from companies with vested interests in open source and free software or from the general press. The most consistent message I found in reading analyses of the Microsoft position was that Redmond acted out of fear.

Nothing in all my years of Microsoft watching has ever illustrated Redmond's Achilles heel quite so clearly. The problem is that Bill Gates is basically a one-trick pony. Microsoft is attempting to use against Linux, the GPL, and free software the same weapon that the company has traditionally used against foes like Novell, IBM, DR-DOS, and many others: FUD fueled by sycophantic support from the tres duh press. The world has changed but Microsoft seems unable to do anything other than what it has always done.

Questioning the FUD

Years ago I wrote that in the battle for the desktop, Microsoft's marketing was retail while IBM's was wholesale. Redmond was nimble and glittery and Big Blue staid and stoic. But these days, as Andrew Leonard pointed out in his column on Salon, every time Microsoft tries to beat the drum for Windows and apple pie by launching an attack on free software, the company ends up accomplishing nothing more than energizing those it attacks. Today Microsoft is clinging to the past, to its legacy, and peering into the future like a deer into headlights.

One big change is that the mainstream press has finally begun to develop something resembling a backbone. It even appears to be connected to a brain. Unlike the good old days, Microsoft's motives, assertions, and methods no longer go unchallenged. In the mid-90s, only a few voices dared speak out against the Microsoft message de jour: Nicholas Petreley for one, Dan Gillmor for another. Most writers were sheeplike and compliant, afraid perhaps of losing their livelihood like Will Zachmann did for bucking Redmond once too often. Not that Microsoft doesn't still have its stooges in the trade press, and in the Linux press as well, for that matter. But the odd fifth columnist and the faithful few in the press don't add up to the unconditional acceptance that Microsoft once enjoyed.

What does the "new press" make of Mundie's remarks? The general consensus is that instead of being classic FUD, it was simply fear-based. It backfired. FUD is designed to make the public afraid to use the competitive tool, not to make the public aware of how frightened you are of the competitor. Stephan Somogyi at ZDNet News was all over that aspect of Mundie's speech: "By taking this kind of pot-shot at open source in general, Microsoft leaves itself open to criticisms that it's afraid of competition."

Stacy Cowley and Ed Scannell, writing about Mundie's speech in InfoWorld, quoted an analyst named Chris Le Tocq: "This is really a PR campaign to try to persuade developers and customers not to move in the open source direction." Tocq added, "Microsoft is feeling threatened by the open-source movement and has customers and enterprises that are looking to take advantage of code sharing."

Fear begets confusion, and the trade press picked up on this as well. CNet's Ben Charny wrote: "Microsoft itself seems somewhat torn on how to approach the open-source movement. While Microsoft denounces the move toward free software, it does recognize at least some of the value of open-source development." Charny was not alone. Others picked up on the fact that Microsoft's Shared Source is a muddled strategy with no real value other than attempting to give lip service to open source.

Parting shots

OK, I've held my tongue for as long as I can. Here is my own, my one brief shot at Mundie's speech. Hand me my shotgun and stand back from that rain barrel. The poor man chose a rather unfortunate prop to lend credence to his message when he invoked the image of Bill Gates as the Nostradamus of the Net based on remarks in his book The Road Ahead. Mundie claims that Gates predicted the recent tech sector downturn when he talked about the "Internet Gold Rush."

That's an unfortunate choice for several reasons. For one thing, the original edition was so devoid of any insight into the Internet that a second edition of the book was rushed out the door a year later to beef it up. Pearl Harbor day comes late in the year, and that was when, in 1995, Gates and Microsoft finally started taking the Internet seriously.

For another, when Gates' reference to the gold rush appeared in the first edition it was related to the "Information Highway," not the Internet. In that same edition, Gates predicted that the "Information Highway" (which he said would consist of television, telephone, and wireless networks, as well as the Internet) would not even exist until 2005. And finally, Bill "I don't know what you mean by browser" Gates certainly doesn't have enough credibility left to add lift to the message Mundie worked so hard to get off the ground.

The long and the short of it is this: Microsoft tried set the stage in such a way that it could star in a heroic epic, with Bill Gates and his merry men cast as the heroes of free enterprise, fighting against the perils of free software. But the audience took the production as theater of the absurd. To be effective, FUD requires something Gates and Microsoft no longer have: credibility. Without that key ingredient, it sounds -- and smells -- exactly like what it is. Fear itself.

Resources:

Article by Stephan Somogyi on ZDNet News: http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/01/05/04/010504hnopensource.xml

Article by John Markoff in New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/03/technology/03SOFT.html'searchpv=tech

Article on CNN/Reuters: http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/industry/05/04/microsoft.linux.reut/index.html

Torvalds on speech: http://web.siliconvalley.com/content/sv/2001/05/04/opinion/dgillmor/weblog/index.htm

Andrew Leonard on Mundie: http://www.salon.com/tech/col/leon/2001/05/03/microsoft_gpl/index.html

Free Software Foundation press release: http://www.fsf.org/press/2001-05-04-GPL.html

Alan Cox: http://www2.usermagnet.com/cox/index.html

Mundie's remarks: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/craig/05-03sharedsource.asp

"Microsoft to Expand 'Shared-source' Initiatives," (InfoWorld): http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/01/05/04/010504hnmundup.xml

"Microsoft Raps Open-source Approach," (CNet): http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-5813446.html

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