[ Thanks to hey
for this link. ]
“This week, speaking at a Gartner conference in Orlando,
Florida, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said some fascinating things
about Linux and about Open Source software in general. And thanks
to those remarks and the blinding realization they caused for me, I
finally understand exactly why Microsoft doesn’t understand Open
Source…“At the core of Ballmer’s remarks is a fundamental
misunderstanding not only of Open Source, but of software
development as an art rather than as a business. Cutting to the
bone of his remarks, he is saying that Microsoft developers, since
they are employees, are more skilled and dedicated than Open Source
developers. They are better, Ballmer suggests, because Microsoft
developers have their rears (presumably their jobs) on the line.
All those lines and all those rears are part of a road map, he
says, and because of that road map the $30 billion plus Microsoft
gets each year isn’t too much for us to pay, so the model works
pretty well…”