ZDNet has an article from May 19, 2006 in which the FUD is flying thick and fast, starting with the title: Microsoft: Open source ‘not reliable or dependable’. From there things really begin to go downhill.
“Some people want to use community-based software, and they get value out of sharing with other people in the community. Other people want the reliability and the dependability that comes from a commercial software model. And again, at the end of the day you make the choice based on what has the highest value to you…”
– Jonathan Murray, the vice-president and chief technology officer of Microsoft Europe
Not to be outdone, Nicholas Negroponte, speaking of the� One Laptop Per Child project fired back with:
We’ve chosen free and open software because it’s better, and because it means the children can participate in making the software better over time.
Sure, all the little kiddies all over the third world are just dying to hack kernel modules…
Even the “moderate” voice in the article, Kenneth Cukier, a technology correspondent for The Economist, is way off base:
One can consider open source software a lot like generic drugs. The analogy fits, Open source software… is essentially the same product � it does the same thing on a computer � but it costs less…”
The analogy is not bad as a target for where Open Source software� in general would like to be, but it really overstates the position at the moment. So there you have it, FUD breeds more FUD, and never has William James been more right that
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
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