01.28.09
Microsoft Fractures Eclipse — Claim
Invade and divide?
Microsoft wants to use Eclipse in order to spread more Silver Lies and to break the Web with its proprietary, DRM-laden replacements [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. The price is very low (slush funds really), though the damage to this rival of Microsoft is high. There is not much trust there and we explained in more details what Microsoft had done and why. For more details, here is a new article which heralds the predictable and has elements in it that are reminiscent of what Microsoft did to OLPC in order to discourage participation.
The Eclipse Foundation is looking for opportunities to work more closely with Microsoft, says Mike Milinkovich, its executive director. Meanwhile, one observer is skeptical about whether a close Microsoft-Eclipse partnership would truly be a win-win scenario.
[...]
Tony Wasserman, a professor of software management practice and executive director at the Center for Open Source Investigation at Carnegie Mellon Silicon Valley, said, “In thinking about possible relationships between Microsoft and the Eclipse Foundation, it would make sense for the two groups to collaborate in those areas where benefits would accrue to their respective users.”
A Microsoft-Eclipse partnership must work on a business, technical and personal level if it is likely to succeed, Wasserman said. He added that while the “win” for Microsoft is clear, he is less sure on what the “win” is for the Eclipse Foundation, other than having Microsoft join as a strategic member and contributing up to US$500,000 per year.
[...]
Eclipse developers paid by their employers to work on an Eclipse-related project would not have much of a reaction one way or the other, said Wasserman. However, the reception from unpaid volunteers might be cooler, he noted. “A typical unpaid volunteer contributor to an Eclipse project might be less likely to work on the project if he (or she) felt that his or her work was going to benefit a large for-profit business such as Microsoft.”
Microsoft describes "Open Source Software" (OSS) as a rival. Why do some people fall for posturing? We gave answers before. █
“GPL is the licensing model. We think it’s very bad for — on an education, telling the world why we think it’s bad. We don’t think it’s the same as public domain. Somebody wants to put in a free DSB, we don’t have a problem with that, at least on licensing. But GPL, we think it’s very bad basically for the world, but especially for the United States.”
Eclipse: Don’t let the dark side in (SilverDark)
mpz said,
January 28, 2009 at 4:36 pm
Makes no sense – MS is competing directly with java, and that’s what eclipse is all about.
I don’t think volunteers care about ‘large for-profit companies’ much – eclipse is an IBM thing after all. They do care about abusive monopolies and criminal behaviour though – at least sometimes. Comments like that just perpetuate the myth that software volunteers are anti-business and anti-money.
The Mad Hatter said,
January 28, 2009 at 10:52 pm
A lot of the volunteers may have a philosophical objection to Microsoft, so this partnership may not take off.