Open source is un-American? “Stop, you’re killing me!”
Mar 1, 2001 — by Rick Lehrbaum — from the LinuxDevices Archive — 4 viewseWEEK's Jeff Moad wrote this amusing commentary about Microsoft's recent attack on the open source movement. Moad writes . . .
“I've been writing about the information technology business for a long time. Often — about every 45 minutes or so — I ask myself why. After all, there are plenty of other interesting things one could learn and write about. History. Food. Sports. (OK, I tried sports. Not that interesting.)”
“Earlier this week, however, it became crystal clear why this business has managed to sustain my divided attention for so long: It's hilarious. Laugh-out-loud funny. Not every minute of every day, of course. But often enough, when you least expect it, someone important will do or say something that just kills me.”
“The latest jokester? Microsoft's operating system guru Jim Allchin. This guy should quit his day job as soon as possible and go straight into stand-up comedy.”
“Take his latest public comments on the open-source software movement. Please. A week ago he was quoted as saying that open source is a profound threat to innovation and intellectual property rights. Open source — which is epitomized by the Linux OS — is a threat to the software industry and, said Allchin, fundamentally un-American.”
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