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We Are The Borg. You Will Be Assimilated.
These are witchy times for Microsoft. Windows Vista, which was years in development, is an underwhelming, ridiculously expensive, resource-hogging, bug-ridden, crash-prone lump of crap. Internet Explorer is still losing market share to Mozilla. Ubuntu, the current star of the Linux universe, is getting rave reviews, and will soon be available pre-installed on new Dell PC’s. Hell, A-List library bloggers are even making videos to guide laymen through Ubuntu installs and conversions.
So, faced with all this evidence of widespread consumer discontent, one would think that the Redmond Politburo would take this opportunity to do some soul-searching, listen to their users, and make major changes to the way they develop and market their software, right?
Nah, who am I kidding? This is Microsoft we’re talking about. They’re just going to try and sue the free software industry out of existence.
But now there’s a shadow hanging over Linux and other free software, and it’s being cast by Microsoft.The Redmond behemoth asserts that one reason free software is of such high quality is that it violates more than 200 of Microsoft’s patents. And as a mature company facing unfavorable market trends and fearsome competitors like Google, Microsoft is pulling no punches: It wants royalties. If the company gets its way, free software won’t be free anymore.
As time goes by, it’s getting harder and harder to reconcile the sense of pride and accomplishment I feel for my time at the Gates Foundation Library Program with my profound loathing for the company that funded it. I keep telling myself that we did something good and worthwhile, and reminding myself of the millions of people nationwide who, through our efforts, have access to computers and the internet through their local library. Does the fact that our good works were funded by a ruthless, monopolistic, innovation-killing corporate juggernaut cheapen the accomplishment?
Damned if I know.
