The Microsoft of Open Source
Posted by Ian Holsman
In a discussion about a recent proposal to the apache community, someone mentioned that the ASF is becoming the ‘Microsoft of open source’.
I’m sure the point was not made in a positive light, but I’d just like to reflect on this.
In my eyes Microsoft is:
- large and competitive
- known for producing a shitty v1, but slowly and surely making it’s product superior
- known for squashing the competition through extensions and incompatibilites
- known for using it’s dominance in one area to gain dominance in another.
- it’s arrogance at the deal table
- it’s ease of use
- has a grand plan to take over the world (in business speak a corporate strategy where it would like to be in 3-5 years time)
I don’t honestly don’t think the ASF is any of these. if anything the ASF I know is exactly the opposite. It follows standards to a INSANE level of detail, is fanatical about code quality, and sadly to say un-ease of use in most things i’ve tried.
Sure.. when the ‘ASF’ sponsors a project it makes news, and CIO’s have heard of ‘apache’, but a Microsoft?
I just don’t see it.
I see it more as a collection of tribes. most of the time they agree, sometimes one of the tribe might go on a ‘rescue mission/raid’ and implement something already out there, and piss off the people who did it before hand.
I belive this is a healthy thing. You need innovation and competition in the open source world. It creates better products (and more choice) at the end of the day.
What do YOU think? is the ASF the Microsoft of opensource?