Fear of a Free Planet: Part 1

(In Which Microsoft Acts Directly To Counter The Linux "Threat", With Not Much Success)

First they ignore you,
then they laugh at you,
then they fight you,
then you win.

-- Mahatma Gandhi

It's safe to say that Microsoft is no longer ignoring Linux. Nor are they laughing, anymore, but because I want to present Microsoft's Linux strategy in its entirety, let us return to the halcyon days of 1998, when the tech bubble was still in full swing. At this time, Microsoft was definitely laughing, referring to the Linux community in December 1998 as "Robin Hood and his Merry Men". At the same time, an internal Microsoft memo (the now-infamous "Halloween Document" leaked to Open-Source evangelist Eric S. Raymond) at least privately accknowledges the strengths of the Linux system, and the looming threat it represents.

By January 2001, CEO Steve Ballmer had publically identified Linux as the #1 threat to Windows, and their public statements about Linux started to turn from dismissive ridicule to indignant mudslinging. We can actually witness them shift from step 2 to 3 in Gandhi's list:

• Ballmer himself called Linux "a cancer" in June 2001
  
• Referring to its alleged voracious appetite for intellectual property, founder Bill Gates called the GPL "Pac-man-like" in the same month.
  
• Jim Allchin (Chief of Operating Systems) called Linux "un-American" in August 2001. As we will see in a later chapter, this theme will be updated for the post-9/11 world, when a Microsoft proxy makes the claim that Linux aids terrorists.
  

Unfortunately for Microsoft, by the fall of 2002 it has become clear that none of these FUD tactics have worked. In another memo leaked to Eric S. Raymond, Microsoft privately acknowledges that FUD is all but useless against Linux.

The gist of the memo is that the FUD campaign should be abandoned, and that Microsoft should instead concentrate on a "Total Cost of Ownership" (TCO) argument against Free Software. The mantra will be "Linux is only free if your time is worthless", and the campaign will highlight Microsoft's advantage in ease of use and maintainability.

This is a perfectly respectable way for them to compete in the marketplace. Even if most (all?) of the so-called "independent" research that shows Windows has a lower TCO than Linux was actually funded by Microsoft. That's okay, it all comes out in the free market of ideas known as the internet, and let the best OS win. This could have been a happy ending to the story.

But, alas, alas. Microsoft apparently decided that the reason its FUD backfired was that people are overly suspicious of what a convicted monopolist has to say about its competitors. If only someone else would tell the world how awful Linux (and in particular, the GPL) is! In 2004, two different entities took up the gauntlet of attempting to destroy Linux on Microsoft's behalf. These will be the subject of the next two chapters of this series.

The final chapter will focus on a war that hasn't yet begun, but the storm clouds are indeed gathering. Up until this final battle, we can tell the Microsoft-vs-Linux story with a smug grin on our faces, because Microsoft's efforts (and that of its proxies) have been laughably ineffective so far. However, I will argue that Microsoft is posied to wipe the collective grins off of our faces. Stay tuned.