ZDNet: Microsoft’s campaign to help Linux on the desktop

“Sometimes I think that if Microsoft didn’t exist, Linux fans
would have had to invent it. It’s the company everyone in Linux
land loves to hate–very often with good reason, sometimes without
reason, and occasionally just because it feels good. Recently,
Redmond seems to be returning the compliment in kind.”

“People in open source land don’t begrudge Microsoft’s right to
earn income so much as its tactics in doing so. And, at least in
the case of applications, there’s one tactic at the top of just
about every open source advocate’s hit list: the use of
proprietary, undocumented file formats–the code that stores where
text is bolded and margins changed.”

“Had Microsoft not adopted this tactic, most users might still
be using Office 95, but by making file formats of newer versions of
Office unreadable by older versions, Microsoft created a pressing
need to upgrade, even among users who didn’t need any of the newer
features.”

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