Are Corporations Co-opting Open Source?

The recent announcements by Adobe and Microsoft of source code releases under FOSS licenses are attempts to co-opt free software.

Microsoft announced this week that they are releasing source code for Linux drivers that allow it to interact better with Windows, where Windows is the host OS and Linux is running as a guest OS. This is great PR for Microsoft but really does nothing to improve Linux. Now if Microsoft added hooks to their OS that allowed it to better operate as a guest OS in a Linux host, that might be something to report. However, there are rumors that Microsoft has taken exactly the opposite tact. It has been reported that Windows Vista and Windows 7 refuse to run as virtual machines.

On the other hand, Microsoft has not backed down from patent threats against Linux, claiming it contains source code that violates intellectual property rights. Steve Balmer claims that “People who use Red Hat, at least with respect to our intellectual property, in a sense have an obligation to compensate us,” However, Microsoft has never disclosed which source code or applications violate it’s “intellectual property” rights. Many in the Linux community, including me, consider this to be a simple case FUD and attempted extortion. Novell agreed to license Microsoft’s intellectual property in exchange for a patent pledge to users of Novell’s SuSE Linux. In other words, they succumbed to the extortion. Red Hat refused. Many long time Linux users are now boycotting SuSE as a result.

Adobe announced at OSCON two new “Open Source Initiatives”. The products are Text Layer Format and Open Source Media Framework. To quote Dana Blankenhorn “Adobe is delivering an open source project so that open source, as a concept, can live in its world of corporate media.” Text Layer Format is an Action Script layer that adds typographical features to the Adobe Flash Player. Open Source Media Framework is an attempt to inhibit the use of the tag in HMTL-5 and the inclusion of Ogg-Theora open source video player as a part of that specification. By announcing the release of these “Open Source” initiatives, Adobe is attempting to preempt any criticisms against it’s proprietary product Flash, by being able to claim that it too is “open source”.

Microsoft and Adobe are pursuing the same divide and conquer Public Relations strategy. Big splashy announcements about “Open Source” while pursuing a strategy of market dominance with proprietary closed source products. HTML5 and the inclusion of the <video > tag threatens both Microsoft Silverlight and Adobe Flash. Expect to hear more FUD from both in order to prevent the inclusion of truly open standards in HTML5.