14 DAY TRIAL // Controversies, controversies and even more controversies, that seems to be Microsoft's new concern lately. On one hand, their officials make all kind of statements regarding different partnerships with major Linux vendors for a better development of the interoperability of Linux distros and Windows; but on the other hand, other Microsoft officials, particularly Bill Hilf - platform strategy director, cries that Linux is dead and there is no open source movement but more of a mythology of open source spread all over.
"Linux doesn't exist any more in 2007. There is no free software movement. If someone says Linux is about Love, Peace and Harmony, I would tell them to do their research. There is no free software movement any more. There is big commercial [firms] like IBM and there is small commercial [firms] like Ubuntu" he said.
Well, I'm left speechless at this one. I have never heard such a?.I don't even know how to call it?calumny, slander or something. Guess on what grounds did Hilf made that comment. I could not even believe it and it still makes no sense to me. He said that most of the work on maintaining the Linux kernel is done by developers working for distributions like Red Hat, Novell or Mandriva and some are IBM or Oracle employees. Where is the point? I think only Mr. Hilf would know it. And this is only the beginning of a pretty long series of muddy words thrown at Linux.
This other extract of Hilf's statement I'm going to tell about made me laugh. According to him, Linux would somehow stand for Apache, MySQL and PHP. He called this applications-trio the "Visual basic of open source". He also made some comments regarding the interoperability concept, how it was born and what it actually stands for. I found those comments truculent enough to start questioning myself whether or not something just happened or is going to. I don't understand why someone in Microsoft's position would go down making such statements out of the blue, unless there's something (Linux perhaps ?) threatening to jeopardize its position. However, this would be none of my concerns, at least not yet.
I've forgotten to mention that Mr. Hilf had also made some comments regarding the new Windows Vista, not same kind of comments as those related to Linux of course. He said that Vista targets, among others, the market of Adobe Flash too, through its WPE-E (Windows Presentation Format-Extended). Oriented more on services rather than the locally installed applications, on the desktop side, Vista is said to bring totally new exciting functionalities. I think I've heard this one before coming from Red Hat, which intends to develop the Global Desktop concept. I'm curious what Microsoft would say when Red Hat launches it?more patent breaking accusations , now that Red Hat refuses a partnership with them unless it is made according to the open source standards?
I must say I was very disappointed with Bill Hilf's statement. I believe competition is good for motivating one to give the most and the best in him/her, but this doesn't also imply rough comments about the opponent. The previous strategy adopted by Microsoft, of working with the Linux community and not against them, looked more suitable to me. I think they would have had more to gain that way rather than going around making slandering statements. As I've said before, I'm very disappointed to hear such comments and I do hope things will get better soon, as now they've taken a really ugly turn.