Discussion 5: Microsoft's Take on Opensource.

Alright - so you guys are probably sick of discussing the opensource community. But the main attraction to Linux, is the opensource nature of it. As I have stated before, the opensource community is Gene Roddenberry's Utopia. We are developers working towards a better platform. We want to take someone elses idea and improve it; we want to see our ideas improved upon. We're not in it for the money, we're in it to have our ego's stroked, we're in it for the glory.

Microsoft has a different take, which I have no problem with, they are, afterall, a profitable corporation with global dependency. Bill Gates is a genious, and when he talks, people listen.

Here's an article covering Bill Gate's lecture at the Institute of Systems Biology where he touched upon the effectiveness of the opensource community in improving software, and not surprisingly, here's his opinion on opensource software from 1976.

But, they are trying to figure what this entire opensource-thing is about, they've introduced Codeplex (the faq:http://codeplex.codeplex.com) - but it's on their terms, see:http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10058421-16.html

So, I'd like to know your thoughts on a couple things.

A) Do you think software can be improved through opensource? Or are nominal developers just trying to get their egos stroked - I mean, if they were *real* developers, why are they dealing in opensource?

B) We know Microsoft wants to make money, they are a company, is there a way to make opensource software profitable?

BTW - if anyone's interested, heres a link to a video Bill Gates discussing Microsoft and the Opensource Community @ UC Berkeley.