Larry,

>I don't see anything to get upset about in this article. The article is small and it diliberately (IMO) uses the quotes (taken out of context) that were designed to eat at people.

Taken out of what context? They are comments made by Allchin several hours before the press conference announcing MS's investment in Corel. What context might there have been? I am not asking to flame...I would like to know more of the context as well, and if you have any ideas on where to look for such info, I would be grateful to hear it.

But even under the strangest of contexts, let's look at the quotes:

"Open source is an intellectual-property destroyer," Allchin said. "I can't imagine something that could be worse than this for the software business and the intellectual-property business."

This is pretty clear. Allchin is saying Open Source destroys intellectual property and that it is the worst thing imaginable for the software business. Unless the context was a reporter saying "Hey Jim, say something outragoues and fictional to piss Linux people off", the statement stands on its own. He believes Open Source is a danger to the software business. As for what it would do to IP, I don't know enough about it. Yes, Open Source can make some intellectual property useless, but isn't that the evolution of IP? Once everyone figures something out, IP related to a certain topic becomes meaningless. Open Source is about creating solutions that everyone can use and advance from. I guess by definition this is a threat to IP, but it is still a Good Thing in my opinion.

Another quote:
"I'm an American, I believe in the American Way," he said. "I worry if the government encourages open source, and I don't think we've done enough education of policy makers to understand the threat."

Again, this pretty much stands on its own. Allchin confirms his American status (thanks, Jim) and then states that he believes in the American Way. He then states his worries about Open Source and gov't policy. Implication: he considers Open Source to be anti-American Way. I have a problem with this. It is absolute FUD and should be called out as such.

And finally:
"We can build a better product than Linux," he said. "There is always something enamoring about thinking you can get something for free."

If MS _can_ build something better, then why don't they? Why spout nonsense about Open Source being detrimental? And of course people are enamored of free software...especially free software that works well (Apache, Linux, Python, Perl, etc, etc.)

>I would like to here the entire "presentation". From this, you can't tell if >JA had compelling reasons or not. You get the conclusions without knowing if >there was something to back them up.

As far as I know, there wasn't a "presentation", there were merely comments made by Allchin in the hours leading up to the Corel press release.

What compelling reasons could there have been for Allchin to have made the comments I enumerate above? I am not attacking here...I would like to find a more reasonable interpretation than my first over-the-top rant, but I cannot think of any. I keep coming back to the fact that Allchin is making completely ridiculous claims and is going so far as to say policy makers need to be aware that Open Source is detrimental to the industry. This alarms me.

>Useless reading, IMO.

In that case, sorry to have bothered you.

JoeK