That seems to be the opinion of most of the respondents to a recent ZDNet poll which asked whether Microsoft, despite its denials, would eventually move into open source. Almost 15 percent of respondents were convinced that Microsoft would move to open source, or it would eventually receive a Linux-led pummelling. But more than three quarters of respondents--85.22 percent--felt that Microsoft would never grant access to its crown jewels - the Windows source code.
In response to the results of the poll in which nearly 750 technology users participated, Peter Moore, director of the .NET Solutions and Developer Group for Microsoft Australia, said it was difficult to comment.
"We could read the response to be an indication of people's awareness or lack-of awareness of our recent announcement of our shared source philosophy," explained Moore. "Similarly, we could read the result as an acknowledgement that people recognise our shared source philosophy and acknowledge that we will not move to an open source software (OSS) model."
Moore claims that Microsoft has examined the OSS model and listened to its customers regarding this very issue. "We see both the benefits and drawbacks to OSS and believe that shared source capitalises on those benefits while protecting the commercial software model," said Moore.
Because of the shared source program, Moore believes that Microsoft no longer has a closed source approach. "There are some good things to OSS, such as peer review and strong feedback loops," admits Moore. "There are also some problems with the model, such as the strong potential for negative forking, compatibility problems, licensing terms, and the lack of a viable business model."
"Our first priority is to contribute to our partners' and customers' success and ensure that our customers are able to count on the integrity an compatibility of the Windows platform," said Moore.
Nevertheless, some feel that this is a move by Microsoft to improve its bottom line, particularly when market share is being taken away by less expensive alternatives such as Linux and other open-source options.
According to Con Zymaris, CEO of IT services firm Cybersource, part of the problem Microsoft will face in the future is its attempts to maintain current revenue streams. "The one issue that Microsoft will struggle with is cost," explained Zymaris. "Even now, many users are not upgrading to newer versions of Microsoft OSes and applications... A great majority of users are still using versions of MS Office which are 2 to 3 years old."
Another problem that will cause problems for Microsoft is its upcoming licensing scheme, according to Zymaris. "Microsoft, in mild panic about dwindling revenue streams, is invoking what will become a drastically unpopular new licensing and product activation scheme," he said. This, combined with the increasing popularity of Linux, will put major pressure on Microsoft to perhaps make a move into the open source arena.
"Linux, in its most recent guise, is finally a contender for the sophisticated desktop market," claimed Zymaris. "Further, and more importantly, from an analytical point of view, anyone who woks within the Linux space will tell you that for every single boxed set of Linux server software purchased, there are 10 CDs burned from friend's copies, 10 cable-modem/ADSL downloads and 10 Cheapbyte's CDs purchased for US$1.99... Thus, the overall market for Linux-as-server is far, far larger than can be measured by IDC."
Resulting from Microsoft's controversial pricing schemes and the continued growth (at an unknown rate) of Linux in the server marketplace will be massive pressure on Microsoft's products. "The development cost of adding asymptotically decreasingly useful features is rising," explained Zymaris. "The costs of marketing to try and flog a dead horse are also rising."
Despite all these pressures, Zymaris feels that Microsoft will not move much outside its current, mostly closed-source approach. "The source code of Microsoft's applications has been developed and rendered into existence based on one simple directive: profit," stated Zymaris. "Game theory lends us to understand that the main aim of a closed source software publisher is to produce profit."
"There's nothing wrong with this... But it has substantial bearing on how the source code is designed, constructed, but more importantly, upgraded," outlined Zymaris. "In order to maximise profits, Microsoft would tend to focus on adding more and more exotic features to offer ongoing payable upgrades."
This is different from OSS, explained Zymaris, because its directive force is more about trying to make something work as well as possible (by eliminating bugs) rather than adding features. "The former model leads to substantial code bloat at the expense of robustness, while the latter doesn't," said Zymaris.
And Zymaris doesn't see much benefit from Microsoft's shared source philosophy either. "Shared source has already been seen as a marketing ploy by many," said Zymaris. In fact, Zymaris tends to agree with open-source advocate Eric Raymond's analysis of shared source as a way for Microsoft to get developers to pay to see Windows source code and get them to fix it, only to have no ownership of that work.
