Content deleted Content added
further reading |
|||
Line 3:
{{Use mdy dates|date=April 2019}}
<!-- no infobox needed -->
Microsoft, a technology company long known for its opposition to the [[open source software]] paradigm, turned to embrace the approach in the 2010s. From the 1970s through 2000s under CEOs [[Bill Gates]] and [[Steve Ballmer]], Microsoft viewed the community creation and sharing of communal code, later to be known as free and open source software, as a threat to its business, and both executives spoke negatively against it. In the 2010s, as the industry turned towards [[cloud computing|cloud]], [[embedded computing|embedded]], and [[mobile computing]]—technologies powered by open source advances—CEO [[Satya Nadella]] led Microsoft
== History ==
Line 9:
The paradigm of freely sharing computer [[source code]]—a practice known as [[open source]]—traces back to the earliest commercial computers, whose user groups shared code to reduce duplicate work and costs.{{sfn|Radits|2019|pp=13–14}} Following an antitrust suit that forced the unbundling of IBM's hardware and software, a proprietary software industry grew throughout the 1970s, in which companies sought to protect their software products. The technology company [[Microsoft]] was founded in this period and has long been an embodiment of the proprietary paradigm and its tension with open source practices, well before the terms "free software" or "open source" were coined.<!-- also "seen by many as the archfoe of the free and open source movement" p. 32 --> Within a year of founding Microsoft, [[Bill Gates]] wrote an open letter that positioned the hobbyist act of copying software as a form of theft.{{sfn|Radits|2019|pp=17–18}}<!-- also see Weber 2004 here -->
Microsoft successfully expanded in personal computer and enterprise server markets through the 1990s, partially on the strength of the company's marketing strategies.{{sfn|Radits|2019|pp=27–28}} By the late 1990s, Microsoft came to view the growing open source movement as a threat to their revenue and platform. Internal strategy memos from this period, known as the [[Halloween documents]], describe the company's potential approaches to stopping open source momentum. One strategy was "[[embrace-extend-extinguish]]", in which Microsoft would adopt standard technology, add proprietary extensions, and upon establishing a customer base, would lock consumers into the proprietary extension to assert a monopoly of the space. The memos also acknowledged open source as a methodology capable of meeting or exceeding proprietary development methodology. Microsoft downplayed these memos as the opinions of an individual employee and not Microsoft's official position.{{sfn|Radits|2019|p=27}}
While many major companies worked with open source software in the 2000s,{{sfn|Radits|2019|p=30}} the decade was also marked by a "perennial war" between Microsoft and open source in which Microsoft continued to view open source as a scourge on its business{{sfn|Radits|2019|p=31}} and developed a reputation as the archenemy of the free and open source movement.{{sfn|Radits|2019|p=32}} Microsoft CEO [[Steve Ballmer]] likened [[Linux]] to a kind of cancer on intellectual property. Microsoft [[Microsoft vs. Lindows|sued Lindows]], a Linux operating system that could run [[Microsoft Windows]] applications, as a trademark violation. The court rejected the claim and after Microsoft purchased its trademark, the software changed its name to [[Linspire]].{{sfn|Radits|2019|p=31}}
| |||