In response to statements delivered by Craig Mundie, Senior VP of Microsoft, to the Stern School of Business students at New York University, Alan Cox, one of the main developers of the Linux kernel, issued the following statement . . .

This is How Free Software Works

In the The Commercial Software Model Craig Mundie makes some interesting cases for the proprietary software model. In doing so he mysteriously forgot to include some rather important but inconvenient facts.

There are many things I directly agree with him on. That companies need to focus on sustainable business models for example. No doubt Microsoft would like to imply Free Software is not a sustainable business model. I would like to make sure people at least consider the possibility that proprietary software is the non-sustainable model.

Craig also refers to the importance of 'intellectual property rights'. In maintaining that these are the key to business success he overlooks a very large number of examples.

Firstly most of the great leaps of the computer age have happened despite rather than because of IPR. In fact before the Internet the proprietary network protocols divided customers, locked them into providers and forced them to exchange much of their data by tape . . .”

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