Di Maio argued that while open-source disciples have arranged themselves on a front encircling Microsoft and its widely used operating systems, they should instead be pitching their battle in the application arena.
In Australia, Democrat senators have introduced legislation to promote use of open source in government before both the South Australian and Commonwealth parliament. In each case Microsoft has been the main target of the party's criticism of proprietary software.
Also, Sun Microsystems has persistently attempted to undermine Microsoft's dominance of the government desktop market by highlighting potential licence cost savings available through its alternative desktop software, Sun Java Desktop and StarOffice.
However Di Maio, who today advised government representatives on how to assess the value of public spending on IT, said that debate focusing on Microsoft licensing alone was inadequate.
According to Di Maio, governments could save far more by using openly-developed enterprise level applications than they would buying fewer Microsoft operating system licenses. His comments touching on controversial total cost of ownership studies comparing Microsoft and Linux software were picked over by both sides of the debate.
Both IDC and Gartner have published reports attempting to address the question of which operating system is cheaper to run, but neither has produced definitive answers. Both analyst groups say that it can only be addressed on a case-by-case basis.
While Di Maio believes that the open-source debate had become displaced he conceded it was good for "keeping Microsoft under pressure".
Di Maio said if nothing else, the Linux-Microsoft face-off had given organisations a useful negotiating tool.
Talkback
Sometimes it is not "Good To Talk".
One would preferr if Di Maio would speak about how Open Source application developers will be guaranteed protectection from the monopolistic practices of a company that is known to implement strategies that, on a software level, guarantee its application dominance on its own platforms -lockin + lockout.
If Di Maio had to spend years in small rooms writing code for an application, knowing that the application could suddenly stop communicating with the Operating System, will he be so quick to speak about the misplaced focus of Open Source Advocates?
In addition, it would be best if he told us, how much freedom, in relation to the various Open Source Licences that exist, MIcrosoft platforms guarantee. Can I plant GPL roots in to Microsoft's deliveries, cutting through the Operating System layers as I do so?
Wow, he misses by a mile.
It sure seems like every time those folks from Gartner open their mouths lately, they say something stupid.
My advice to Gartner "analysts": shut your mouths for a while and take some time to re-educate yourselves on this topic as well as basic economics, because you are establishing a record of igorance for yourselves that will be hard to escape down the line.
This is completely unrealistic. An application
needs an OS to run on, and everyone who
tries to compete with MS in the application
space one windows loses horribly. Borland?
Corel? Netscape Basically the only ISVs who can survive on windows are the ones in niches that Microsoft doesn't want (yet... see their planned competition for Macromedia).
Competing with MS in applications while
Windows accounts for over 90% of the
desktop market would be futile. At best an
application might gain share until the next
release of windows, at which point either the
MS counterpart would be bundled with OS, or
the application iteself would cease to work.
Rubbish! To surrender the OS battleground is to grant Microsoft a *permanent and overwhelming advantage* in the application market! Only Microsoft has unfettered access to the complete Windows API, making an Open Source OS the only true level playing field there is.
And lets not forget the lesson of Netscape, whose application threatened Microsoft so much that Microsoft drove them out of business through the illegal use of Monopoly Power. (Thanks for nothing, DOJ.)
Sometimes I despair of Gartner. Such cluelessness is truly terrifying.
Whenever an analyst talks about "religion" or "disciples... encircling Microsoft", he/she is probably doing the Redmond sock-puppet thing (again).
I agree with other commentators, it is obviously in Microsoft's interest to encourage FLOSS Developers to "focus on enterprise level applications", providing them with time to implement a new filesystem in Longhorn to "lock-in" the data of their customers/victims far deeper than it is "locked in" today.
And of course, Microsoft doesn't even offer competitive products in many of the "enterprise level applications". The companies whose license revenue would likley be threatened by such products (Siebel, Oracle, IBM) are Microsoft's competitors, and Microsoft would love to keep its Windows revenue stream and have the FLOSS software Development threat diverted to other companies.
And finally, either the Author or this analyst ignored the obvious fact that many FLOSS implementations have been justified by the key advantage of FREEDOM from "lock-in", not by cost considerations.
Mr Di Maio seems confused.
He says that the "battle between open-source and proprietary software should be fought in the application arena". He then seems to go on a dismiss the attempts of the Australian Democrats to introduce competition back into the application space.
You can't have your cake and eat it to.
The Democrats - and I'm not a Democrat, but I support this bill - are trying to restore some competition in the application space, instead of further ceding control to proprietary application developers like Microsoft. That Microsoft is seens as that target may just reflect the fact that Microsoft is the main offender, and that shedding a reliance on Microsoft alone might result in dramatic savings for government and business.
In short, the Democrat's bill is all about the applications.