From:	 Cammie Noah <cammie@oreilly.com>
To:	 lwn@lwn.net
Subject: Tim O'Reilly Responds to Microsoft
Date:	 Fri, 4 May 2001 14:53:16 -0700 (PDT)

For Immediate Release
May 4, 2001

Media Alert:  Tim O'Reilly Responds to Microsoft "Shared Source" Initiative

Yesterday, in a speech defending Microsoft's business model at the Stern
School of Business at New York University, Craig Mundie, a senior vice
president at Microsoft, suggested that companies embracing open source
software are putting their intellectual property at risk.

Here's Tim O'Reilly's response:

"Microsoft  SVP Craig Mundie is dead right when he says that the next
generation of Internet applications can only come about through
development efforts from a wide-ranging group of companies and
developers. And Microsoft's 'Shared Source Philosophy' is a clear
vindication of open source--they're lining up to embrace and extend the
open source development model.

But Mundie's contention that open source encourages code forking is a
red herring. Windows 95, 98, NT, 2000, and Me provide a more compelling
example of 'unhealthy forking of a code base' than any open source
project.

Further, Mundie's focus on the evils of the GPL is somewhat of a
smokescreen. While he raises legitimate issues, he ignores the
widespread business adoption of other open source technologies like
Apache and Perl that use more flexible, IP-friendly licenses. And
although a significant chunk of any Linux distribution is covered by
the GPL, business use has soared in the past few years with no notable
IP tragedies to date.

The world of computing has changed, and the smart people at Microsoft
are trying hard to figure out how to stay ahead of the pack. They're
doing a lot of things right--they've got a big story in .NET. I invite
Craig Mundie to be my guest at our Open Source Convention in San Diego
this July. If he wants to bring along some colleagues, I'll welcome
them, too. After a few days immersed in the bleeding edge of open
source development, I think he'll have an even bigger story to tell."

----------------------------

If you'd like to talk with Tim about open source technology, contact
cammie@oreilly.com or 800.998.9938 x 437.

We hope you're also planning to attend the Open Source Convention in
San Diego, July 23-27,2001. Press registration is now online at:
http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/os2001/pub/10/press.html

For the text of Mundie's speech:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/craig/05-03sharedsource.asp

For more information on O'Reilly's Open Source Convention:
http://conferences.oreilly.com/oscon/

To see Tim's response online:
http://www.oreillynet.com/weblogs/author/27