Yessirree Bob (who’s Bob anyway – we’ve got a Bob on our doorstep, perhaps it should be yessiree George, seeing as this is about a US article), Linux is making waves. It’s now appearing more and more in the business press, as Open Source companies start to eat into the proprietary pie. However, the core concept still hasn’t penetrated. In an analysis by Theodore F. di Stefano entitled Open Source Software: Microsoft’s Biggest Threat, the author recognises that there is a threat to Microsoft. However, he completely misunderstands the nature of the threat.
An enterprising software genius named Linus Torvalds founded a company called Linux.
Perhaps anticipating my post, later in the article he wrotes:
I am not naive, and I realize that open-source systems are free and are run by non-profit companies (note that Linux’s Web site ends in dot-org, not dot-com).
What’s key is that the challenges are mostly coming from outside the strict confines of a company. Look at Wikipedia challenging the encyclopedia companies. Linux (for those not in the know, is not a company. Besides being an Operating System kernel, it’s actually a trademark 🙂 ) challenging Microsoft. It’s the focus on the quality of the technology, or of the content, as opposed to the focus on profits, that allows this challenge to happen. 40 or so years ago Robert Pirsig wrote Zen and Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, about a strange concept called quality. What comes with quality is awareness. Not knowing any better than Windows 98, sure, it seems great. And restarting twice a day is just the way it is, right? That’s exactly why Linux first gained popularity in the tech community – they knew better. Food sprayed full of pesticides is fine, right? Genetically modified food is there to save Africa, right? High-level nuclear waste is being safely stored, right?
Before I go off on too much of a tangent, what’s key in Open Source is that the quality of the tech is usually the primary goal. Making money is secondary. Sufficient money can be made in pursuing quality, not sacrificing it for greater profits. Many of us become uncomfortable when a single company controls too much of the process; Sun and Java being a good example, or proprietary addons with certain Linux distributions, or the classic Linux and Bitkeeper.
As the author continues:
I believe in capitalism and free enterprise. What has made this country so strong is capitalism’s ability to adapt to all sorts of challenges…
Challenges can be good for us — they can make us stronger. Hopefully, Microsoft will rise to this challenge and come out a stronger, more effective company. With the genius of Bill Gates backing the company, I don’t doubt that Microsoft will prevail.
Well Microsoft (and the US too, seeing as the author brought it up 🙂 ), are certainly facing challenges right now, and in both cases these are more complex than many perceive. At least the leadership of Microsoft, I’m sure, has a better understanding of the challenges facing it!