Anytime, man, it was fun! :)

Cheers,

Dan Oliver
editor, .net magazine

Thanks for clarifying the Open Source issue. My apologies if I somehow insinuated that the .net pod cast some how insisted that MS open its code base up.

They broke Java because they saw it as a threat, only now 12 years later do they have a viable alternative. As much as Microsoft make good products, I don’t like their bully-boy tactics. Think of any recent Microsoft product, and then think if they had the idea, of did they think “ohh that market looks promising, lets ram raid in” ..Xbox, PocketPC, .NET, Vista, Live.com, Silverlight, Windows Media player. I won’t go back as far as Windows and Mac OS.

They are a company that takes ideas, and in many cases improves on them, and also gets them wrong. Original ideas , not MS. Maybe office is the one exception, and why they make all their money from it.

The Open Source issue is this: Microsoft is trying to kill off open source software by making open source projects pay royalties for infringing upon software patents that it owns. There is nothing wrong with proprietary software but there is everything wrong with what Microsoft is doing here.

I don’t know where you got the idea that we want Microsoft to share its codebase. Personally, I’d be happy if it kept its code to itself. What we don’t want is for Microsoft to attack the open source community by spreading FUD and demanding payment for software patents it claims it owns.

On the issue on not having software patentable, I think this has merit. Now for the Open Source issue, it would be nice to have just a pod cast on this topic. I must admit my open source knowledge is not what it should be. But what is the problem with proprietary software? I find the open source communities problem with Microsoft in certain areas as ludicrous, the same argument could be applied to Boeing and Airbus for example. As a perceived view of how I think some in the open source community think, it would be that Boeing for example needs to make all of its plans on the 787 airplne available to everyone, but why would Boeing want Airbus to have plans of its new 787 airplane? Could this same argument be made for software, why would MS want to share all of its code base?

I don’t think the idea behind these podcasts is to present a “balanced” story on any given subject but to get a group of developers, etc., together and talk about events of the day. “Balanced”, like “objective” is a very loaded word in any case. Remember, Fox News is apparently “fair and balanced”. “Honest” is a far better word to describe things and I believe that the .net podcast was an honest, unscripted conversation and nothing more.

I think it says something that the sentiment in general was negative regarding Microsoft. Personally, I don’t see how it could be any different given the aggressive posture Microsoft has against the open source community. They’re not doing themselves any favors. Couple that with the ridiculous level of DRM in Vista and I don’t see how anyone who doesn’t actually receive a paycheck from Microsoft (directly or indirectly) could think anything positive about them.

When I think Microsoft, I think Steve Ballmer. If you need to personify the company as a whole, you can’t go far wrong by looking at the character of its CEO. And I don’t like what I see one bit.

As I mentioned in the podcast, Microsoft is an empire in decline and they are going to go down with guns blazing. They’re huge, it won’t happen overnight but Microsoft will lose its dominance in the consumer software field within the next decade. I know I won’t be shedding too many tears.