Interview with Linus Torvalds about the infringement of patents of the OS, the inevitable problems of development of complex closed -

Historically, the main lesson of Microsoft, which they themselves seem to have forgotten, is: “Give your customers what they want.”

It seems to me that the reason for the huge success of Microsoft is that they have filled a certain niche of the underlying technology (in this case I am referring to their BASIC language - thanks to him they received a big boost in development), and they were selling technology made by “good enough “level at a low price. While they do not play games with their customers.

Of course, since much seems changed. The last few years, they play with their users: seven versions of Vista and rigidly imposed by DRM is obviously not something everyone wants.

The company Microsoft has always led a policy of good sales. Their strong position in the market also contributed standardization Vindouz as a platform. By and large, it’s good for the user. Now they are moving away from the old achievements, for example, they are promoting a new Vista on the market and provide technology for Direct X only for her. I think the success of their historic merit.

What do you think of the agreement Novel and Microsoft? With this alliance will bring in the future? And what can you say about the events in Redhet?

I do not care about all this. You ask all these questions about the companies and marketing, but I have nothing to do with this. I absolutely zainteresnovan this. All that I am interested in this technology and work with people.

In the era of Web 2.0 we are very sympathetic to the development model of open source software, the Linux model. I think the company adobe, in part by Microsoft and Sun, too. In your opinion, what is on open source software now?

I think that the question of the acceptance of models of open-source software is that nobody really can not design a complex system. It is simply contrary to the natural course of things: people are not as smart, not a single person. The model is open-source software can not design things, and allows them to evolve, passing through the barriers of the consumer market. Thus, the end result is constantly improving.

And do it in the open, allowing anyone to interact with each other, share ideas, without restricting the progress of non-disclosure agreements - this is the best way.

I can compare it with science and sorcery or alchemy. Science can spend a few hundred years then, to understand how the world works, but will eventually reach the result, because people can share their knowledge, can develop the theory of other generations and their knowledge is evolving over time. Instead, witchcraft or alchemy can do really smart people, but their knowledge is nowhere to accumulate. They, of course, can impart knowledge to his disciples, but the concealment of data usually does not lead to improvement of the results, which has a specific person.

21 July 2007 | , , , consumer, development, development, interview, microsoft, technology

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