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LNUX = Linux???

Dion writes:

The news stated this morning that Steve Ballmer reported the future at MSFT is uncertain. They are having trouble luring programmers away from Linux.

And the Business news casters follow this by saying Linux is up 60% already.

Even the Business idiots who cover the stock market still think LNUX = Linux.

MORONS!!!

The part of this that is most true and that makes me most happy is that Microsoft are having trouble getting programmers away from Linux. Having plenty of independent software developers (ISVs) has always been their strength, but Linux scales up better, for a few reasons. (Heh, considering the degree of lock in they have, "dependent software vendors" would be a more accurate term. :-)

Being strong in Universities gets lots of bright programmers used to working on Linux. I'm sure MS will try (even harder) to counter by getting educational discounts and partial source access out into unis, but really they can't beat free and they can't beat full access.

Getting an ego blowjob from a Microsoft recruiter at a career fair is pretty powerful, but being at uni and getting your patches accepted by Linus (or httpd-dev, or core-team, or whatever) is a greater boost.

I remember realizing when I was in final year that if they achieved their 100% marketshare goal then the only place to do interesting work would be at Microsoft. Everybody else would just be building hokey Access databases and rebooting Exchange servers; heaps of no fun. Perhaps if they could afford to hire every good programmer then this would be alright, but they just can't. There will be people left over who want to program cool stuff but can't do it on MS's terms; Linux is now the most interesting place for those people to work.

Up until a few years ago the Microsoft platform was perhaps a better bet for people who wanted to make heaps of money, but I think that too is switching the other way. With Delphi/Kylix on Linux and good web development tools there are comfortable migration paths for proprietary or in-house developers. And ISVs are (finally!) starting to realize that Microsoft is your best friend only long enough to fatten you up for the slaughter. The best outcome is you sell out: good for your pocket, but perhaps not so satisfying. The worst, and more likely, is bitterness and death as channel partners lock you out, APIs are closed off, and your product is shipped for free in Windows.

posted Fri 6 Jun 2003 in /issues/microsoft | link

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