Microsoft warns of open source threat

Microsoft has warned of a growing threat to its business model from open source software.

In its annual report the company has said that it was facing increasing pressure from open source vendors, who Microsoft claims are stealing its ideas and benefiting from its intellectual property.

“A number of commercial firms compete with us using an open source business model by modifying and then distributing open source software to end users at nominal cost and earning revenue on complementary services and products,” it said.

“These firms do not bear the full costs of research and development for the software. Some of these firms may build upon Microsoft ideas that we provide to them free or at low royalties in connection with our interoperability initiatives.”

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Linux developers push for open drivers

A group of 140 Linux developers has called on hardware vendors to open up their driver code.

Backed by the Linux Foundation, the developers signed an open letter addressed to all hardware vendors which have yet to release Linux drivers as open source software.

"We have repeatedly found them to be detrimental to Linux users, businesses and the greater Linux ecosystem," reads the letter.

"Such modules negate the openness, stability, flexibility and maintainability of the Linux development model, and shut their users off from the expertise of the Linux community."

The Linux Foundation said in a statement that closed source drivers ultimately harm the Linux community, which has long prided itself on the open source model in which the source code for a piece of software is open to the public.

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The empty debate over open source security

Last week, Fortify published a study on adoption of security best-practices within the Open Source community. Given mounting risk posed by extensive use of Open Source technologies within business and government IT, we were gratified to see the passionate discussions that followed.

Unfortunately, much of that debate was simply a rehash of tired old themes that we must move beyond to make substantive progress in assuring security of Open Source software. These debates reveal the underlying problem: a lack of understanding and collaboration between developers and security experts – today each are talking past each other when it comes to security.

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