Microsoft today responded to the governments of Japan, China, and South Korea who plan to develop an open source Unix-based Windows replacement.
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Japan, the world's second largest economy, made a proposal at an Asian economic summit this week to build an inexpensive and trustworthy open-source operating system that would be based on a system such as Linux, which can be copied and modified freely.
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"You would have to look at what a government does, whether it's a protectionist issue," Robertson said, "As with any trade-related issue, Microsoft would look to its peers and colleagues in the Information Technology community for guidance."
Someone on the yahoo news message boards pointed out:
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Open Source software Can't be an International Trade issue because it is not traded, bought or sold !!! It is made freely available, for free !!! This of course threatens to turn the Number One Software Monopoly into a steaming pile of number two !!!
I wonder how Microsoft will twist it around so that it does somehow become a trade issue. The only trade-related issue I see here is that nobody will soon want to trade Microsoft products, and that's a great thing. Let's just hope that Bush & Co. don't try to interfere.
And another interesting quote from the Yahoo News forum:
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How ironic is it that someone from MIcroShaft would ever utter the words "software would raise concerns over fair competition" .... unbelievable.
[ September 05, 2003: Message edited by: GS620 ]
