Hilf Claims Free Software Movement Dead 395
moe1975 writes to mention that Bill Hilf has taken a rather aggressive stance with regard to the status of the Free Software movement. With claims like; "The Free Software movement is dead. Linux doesn't exist in 2007. Even Linus has got a job today" it would certainly seem that the next offensive is going to be sponsored by denial. "For the desktop, Hilf sees a new frontier in terms of rich client programming. With more and more services by Amazon, Google, Yahoo and, of course, Microsoft being run as services rather than as software installed locally, it will be up to the desktop to provide richer functionality."
How did I know this guy works for Microsoft? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Correction: free software development is funded (Score:2, Interesting)
It's almost sad, really. It's like that last emotionally-charged argument made when someone realizes they've lost debate. MS will never go bankrupt, but their days on top are over.
Story Mod (Score:3, Interesting)
Incoherent FUD from Microsoft... (Score:5, Interesting)
So, apparently, "Free Software" only exists if the people making it are unemployed?
Does this even begin to make sense?
Oh, wait, its from the "head of Microsoft's Linux Labs". Microsoft sayibng "Free Software is dead and Linux doesn't exist" isn't news, though I guess the fact that they've changed how they are saying it might be.
Having failed with the "Free Software is unreliable stuff put out by hippie slackers ideologues that have no idea how to make software usable in the real world" line, Microsoft is apparently now trying out a new line of FUD which doesn't even superficially make sense. "Big companies are involved in open source and people are getting paid, so, whatever the licensing terms say, its somehow not really free"?
Huh, strange... (Score:4, Interesting)
Netcraft on bangkokpost.com [netcraft.com]
Even more strange, over 56% of the web [netcraft.com] must not exist either?
Re:Oh man... (Score:5, Interesting)
Software as a Service will never become popular as long as the open source movement exists. This is why Microsoft is trying its hardest to make everyone believe its dead and doing all the sabre rattling with regards to patents.
Proprietary software has its place in the marketplace but trying to force people who are already operating under the licensing model of software to switch to Software as a Service(SaaS) scheme... Even the most financially irresponsible person can see that paying $10-20/mo over the course of your computers lifetime is more than buying a single copy at $100-120 (oh wait sorry for Vista thats like $400 for Ultimate, this in comparison to Server 2003 which is $600).
SaaS has its place as well... I mean look at all the MMO's out there, they are all basically SaaS schemes. They work because they are providing something people want (a forum for interaction with both real people as well as computer AI 'mobs' and a sense of accomplishment). Of course one could argue that the servers the thing runs on is basically a service in which case a MMO truely becomes a Service as a Service scheme where you buy subscriptions (sorta like how Linux server distros sell service contracts to come help fix things if stuff gets broken)
Confrontational corporate rhetoric (Score:2, Interesting)
And implying that "open source developers" have a "dirty little secret" is groundless and unnecessarily emotive.
I read into this that MS are worried. They are starting to see open source software as the serious threat that it has become to them.
Open source software has proven itself in the first years of the 21st century more than able to match closed source in terms of security and quality. Every day I am impressed by the countless free programs I use; Ubuntu, Firefox, VLC, VNC, GAIM, Kate, Krita, Ruby on Rails and yes, Mr Hilf, the LAMP stack.
And I sigh a little everytime I use Redmond's latest offering (which I have to keep on my laptop to use photshop and view youtube) and explorer dies or an IPC service fails, or it simply refuses to shut down, or Outlook crashes, or the sound is marred by pops and crackles because of the new improved audio subsystem.
If Microsoft with billions of dollars and thousands of dedicated programmers cannot improve upon Ubuntu, the product of - to use his words - a "small commercial firm" - I think it's pretty clear which software movement is dead.
It'll take perhaps 10 or 15 years, but the beginning of the end for Microsoft is on the horizon.
But please don't tell them.
Re:Anonymous Coward Claims Hilf is Braindead (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Will someone please clarify "free" for him? (Score:3, Interesting)
Which isn't to say that he doesn't have a frickin clue since the idea of FOSS wasn't to prevent people from making money with it. Or from allowing companies to be formed to make money from it, or even to develop it. But to allow the open source and FOSS to be developed openly and thus "Freely" to allow more innovation and fixed quickly.
He makes statements that seam to indicate that be believes that windows allows people to develop Software and hardware that would be impossible to develop using linux. And his reasoning is because Windows Creates incompatibility? Now I read the article and I had to read that statement twice, and honestly I think this should have been the title. "Windows Creates Incompatibility". But no one would have even read it twice and I have yet to understand why this is good for software or hardware benefits.
Re:omg I should've kept reading (Score:3, Interesting)
So what this really means is that MS has no .... (Score:3, Interesting)
Or maybe they are pretending Linux doesn't exist today so tomorrow when they recognize that it does they can claim all of Linux is infringing their patents... ya know a prior art thing.
Re:omg I should've kept reading (Score:5, Interesting)
Interesting, isn't it?
The FOSS devs are mainly interested in writing software people want to use. To that end they don't really care what platform their stuff runs on, so long as people find it useful.
Microsoft on the other hand approach the problem from the opposite direction. They don't really care whether people find their software particularly useful or not, so long as they can destroy all the alternatives. You could hardly ask for a more succinct summary of the difference between the two camps.
As an aside, wasn't Hilf supposed to be from a FOSS background, back before MS hired him as their Open Source Guy? Seems either he never really understood FOSS, or else he's just been at MS so long that's gone native.
I wonder which is is: "has been" or "never was" :)
What a rube! (Score:1, Interesting)
It's sad that Hilf has to resort to meaningless rhetoric in his attempt to ease his fear about the threat of competition. I would say, in fact, that linux is alive and growing for the very reasons that Hilf claims it's death. That people are making livings using an open model suggests to me that it is indeed a viable alternative to more traditional ways of competing in the industry.
I found a lie pretty easily (Score:2, Interesting)
He lied.
Ever since the early 90s when someone handed me a floppy disk with a document on it and said, "Do you have WordPerfect" [Word, or whatever it was].
"No."
"Well, you have to buy this program if you want to be able to read this document."
"That's stupid."
"You're out of touch, it's the way software works. You need to buy the program to read the documents."
Well, it's still stupid. I can't control my document if all I bought was Office 97 and people are handing me Office 2003 documents. It didn't have to be "odt", MS could have helped develop a better standard, but they chose not too. A private comany's product never has been, and never will be, a good choice for a standard format.
Re:omg I should've kept reading (Score:3, Interesting)
Some developers install MySQL on Windows. Does he really think this is good news for his company? In my shop, we used to pay $11,000 for a license of SQL Server 2000 (the Enterprise version), now we're paying around $2,000 or $3,000 for SQL Server 2005 (it's for the Workgroup version, but the Workgroup version works just as well for us as the Enterprise version did previously). That's a net loss of 8,000 or 9,000 per license for Microsoft, and I know we're not the only ones doing this.
Companies are either switching to the much cheaper alternatives offered by Microsoft, or they're switching to the much cheaper free open source alternatives (that may, or may not, be used on Windows). And no matter what way you look at this, Microsoft is getting squeezed from every which way by Free software. This is good for us, but this can't be good for Microsoft -- surely.
Re:So what this Hilf weirdo is really saying is... (Score:3, Interesting)
* Linux doesn't exist because it's actually everywhere, distributed by gigantic companies which make zillions of dollars off it.
What he's trying to say is that the ideological idea that was "Linux" is being (has been?) lost as it's main supporters are no longer small hobbiests with a grand, altruistic dream. Don't believe me? Slashdot is part of the OSDN. Do you think it's funded by random acts of kindness? There is a reason they print the most controversial stories every week, and add their own spin - it's to get you to come back and put in your 2 cents so their ads make them money. This is not a bad thing though. It's what needs to happen. Commercialization means there's something in it for people (developers) other than the warm fuzzy feeling that they did something nice.
* The Open Source Movement doesn't exist because it's been adopted by companies both large and small, which are all merrily making a profit from it.
This falls in line with my first point. The major players are no longer people who do it just for the love of doing it (though I'm sure some love to do it too) - they're doing it because it pays the bills. The direction of the project is greatly influenced by the people with the money. When you involve large sums of cash, you have to ask yourself - are you in it for the project, or the money? IMO, this makes little difference since monetary incentive helps to speed up and improve development. That's good for us (the consumers) all. It took distros like Ubuntu to realize that Linux wasn't going to make it to the desktop by accident. It's going to require money - lots of it.
* Because Open Source is mostly commercial and very successful, making lots of money for the large and small companies that are involved in it, the only way to "grow the ecosystem" is to switch to the Microsoft products nobody wants to buy anymore.
He didn't say that at all - that would be you putting words in his mouth. When he says "growth of the ecosystem" he means he wants to make sure developers who currently develop under Linux have what they need to make their software work under windows. What developer wouldn't want their work to run on as many platforms as possible? Granted he wants to 'grow the ecosystem' so that Windows doesn't lose out on these projects and have people decide that Windows doesn't meet their needs.
* Linux is only popular because it's the foundation for the LAMP web-development stack, which has been trouncing
Again, you're missing the point. Those are things which gave great popularity to the platform, and rightfully so. They worked better, and more efficiently than their windows counterparts. They were free, giving a (subjectively) low cost barrier for entry. Linux on it's own is just a kernel. An enabler, if you will. It took useful applications to make Linux worth something The parent's spin on the comment is completely asinine.
* Because Open Source Software runs on Windows too, all those Apache guys are probably running Windows.
Lots and lots of servers run windows - for better or worse - something I'm sure people here are loathe to admit. It's not that he's saying people are going to all out dump their Linux platforms. He's trying to say he wants to make sure that these people who are developing web-based products are able to continue to develop for the Windows OS as well. This is not an unreasonable thing. People who build these kinds of products generally want them to run on as many platforms as possible. Understand that switching platforms is not as simple as making the choice - po