Dr. Dobb's Journal February 1999
I'd be willing to bet that any number of people would buy tickets to hear a buttoned-down Bill Gates say to a bedraggled Richard Stallman, "Yep pardner, you're right. Free software is sweeter than a stolen kiss behind the revival tent." Of course, the chances of that happening are at least as good as Gates donating tens of millions of dollars to fight childhood diseases or build public libraries.
In all likelihood, the notion of free software, open source, or whatever it's now called has stuck in Gates' craw since DDJ published the first line of Tiny BASIC code nearly 25 years ago. Gates, who had just formed a company called "Micro-Soft" to sell his version of BASIC for $500, couldn't understand why anyone would want to compete with him by giving away better software for free. But then, Gates obviously saw something the rest of us didn't. Witness that, to the best of my knowledge, no past or present member of the DDJ staff is a billionaire.
Over the years, free software/open source continued to be an itch that Gates couldn't scratch. In one of the great ironies of computer history, however, it wasn't until Microsoft had more or less crushed its competition in the system software and tool arenas that free software/open source went from being an irritating bug bite to a full-body rash. When tool options more or less became Microsoft or nothing, developers moved to GNU in two shakes of a lamb's tail. And when Windows became the dominant desktop operating system, Linux stood as one of the few alternatives. In ignoring free software, Microsoft failed to realize (or refused to acknowledge) that "open source" -- broadly defined as the free flow of information -- is absolutely fundamental to scientific advancement. Has been in the past, will be in the future. It isn't that developers want inexpensive tools (Stallman reminds us that it's "free" as in "free speech," not "free beer"), but that they want to control the tools, instead of the other way around.
Putting its Justice Department problems aside, the result of worshipping proprietary protocols to meet short-term financial goals probably means Microsoft will evolve into a new kind of company in the future -- one that embraces the concept of open source in one form or another. This doesn't necessarily mean that Microsoft will, say, release the source to NT or send out the obligatory press announcement stating it is an open-source company. No, embracing the open-source concept involves more than source code. It is a way of thinking, of doing business, of living life.
Demonstrating that it isn't entirely asleep at the switch, Microsoft recognized the need for change and began experimenting with different business schemes a while back. The company's move to subscriptions and similar variations on licensing themes underscore this. In fact, changes in licensing strategies were at the heart of the "Halloween Document" (http://www.opensource.org/halloween1.html), a supposedly internal Microsoft memo that analyzed how the company's business/development models related to the free software/open source movement. By hook or crook, the memo found its way to the Internet in November 1998, and the resulting furor galvanized open-source champions.
For that matter, Microsoft (for all of the wrong reasons and to the consternation of its customers) already adheres to one of the basic tenets of the open-source movement -- release early, release often. The company is infamous for releasing software way before it's ready, then fixing bugs as they're reported and adding features as they're requested.
Underestimating Microsoft's ability to adapt to a business model based on open source is a mistake. If nothing else, Microsoft has proven over and over it is intelligent and resilient, and can learn from both its errors and those of others. Look how quickly it became an "Internet" company.
So, what will this emerging business/development model look like? I don't know, but Tim O'Reilly raises some possibilities in a lengthy essay entitled "The Open-Source Revolution" in Release 1.0 (see http://www.edventure.com/release1/1198.htm).
Although some open-source advocates are more antiMicrosoft than pro anything, the open-source movement isn't just about Microsoft. It is about establishing and adhering to a model for moving forward and realizing the promise of science in general, and computing in particular. In short, what the open-source movement is all about is passion, invention, and innovation. And hey, if you can make a buck at the same time, that's cool, too.
--Jonathan Erickson