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08.11.09

Did Microsoft Also Poison Yahoo’s Free Software?

Posted in Free/Libre Software, Microsoft at 1:50 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

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Summary: Microsoft’s agitation of Yahoo! since February 2008 takes its toll on more Free software-oriented staff

When Yahoo! became a zombie to Microsoft it was apparent that Free software would suffer as a result. Yahoo! is — after all — the home of some Free software projects, systems administrators, and developers. The founder of Delicious has just gone on the record saying that he regrets selling to Yahoo! and The Register says that the founder of Hadoop is leaving too.

Yahoo! is losing the founder of Hadoop, that increasingly popular open source grid platform based on Google’s proprietary software infrastructure.

There is at least one GNU/Linux distribution which is based on Hadoop and some Free software-based ‘clouds’ depend on this project too. Other prominent losses include Jeremy Zawodny, who is now writing occasionally for Linux Magazine. Zimbra too felt the wrath of Microsoft due to uncertainty that has been cast onto it. So, we’re inclined to believe that Microsoft’s damage to Yahoo! is also an attack on Free software. We are already concerned about VMware buying SpringSource because VMware is headed by former Microsoft employees right now [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. █

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2 Comments

  1. David Gerard said,

    August 11, 2009 at 3:43 pm

    Gravatar

    Yep. Told you Zimbra was a target. Outlook/Exchange is why businesses don’t leave MS Office en masse and go to OpenOffice.org. MS know this. Competitors must be killed by any means necessary. Blowing some billions on Yahoo! is just a small amount of money to maintain the monopoly.

    To beat Outlook/Exchange, you’d need something that was a complete plug-in clone of Outlook (in looks and talking to Exchange) and something that was a complete plug-in clone of Exchange (in talking to Outlook). Outlook is a terrible email client and Exchange is a terrible email server, but as a meeting arranger they’re adequate for business use and won’t be replaced without great trepidation.

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