3. Microsoft and Open Source
Frenemies since: At least the mid-to-late 1990s, when Linux evolved from Linus Torvalds’ hobbyist project, took off, attracted lots of users who never liked anything that ever emerged from Redmond in the first place, and established itself as a serious rival to Windows (especially on the server side of things). But really, the very ideas of open-source software and Microsoft software were on a collision course from the get-go.
Acts of friendship: In 2006, longtime enemies Novell and Microsoft signed a pact that involved millions of dollars of money exchanging hands in both directions, protection for Novell customers against any violations of Microsoft patents in its open-source products, and collaboration on file formats, virtualization, and other technical issues. (The press conference announcing the agreement included the amazing sight of Steve Ballmer expressing enthusiasm for Linux. Very, very mild enthusiasm.) Microsoft followed up with similar deals with Linux vendors Linspire and Xandros. And it’s been involved in some open-source projects of its own when it’s seen fit, such as its Office Open XML file formats.
Acts of enmity: Most of the rest of the Linux community is as disgruntled as ever with Microsoft and Windows–Red Hat and Ubuntu refused get in bed with them. Which leaves open the possibility that Microsoft could sue those Linux vendors over the 235 patents it controls which it says are violated by open-source and free software. Let’s not even bring Richard Stallman’s Free Software Foundation into this.
Current state of the frenemyship: Let’s be real–the Microsoft/Linux deals are at best marriages of convenience, and they’re not even that convenient. People who are passionate about open source have plenty of opinions about Microsoft; almost none of them are kindly.
(Photo of Novell CEO Ron Hovsepian with Steve Ballmer from Microsoft)
December 11th, 2008 at 6:05 am
Great list, I enjoyed that, thanks. ;-)
December 11th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
Great job on this, Harry. Many of us have lived through the stuff you’ve written about here, but were we really paying attention? On some levels, yes, but we all tend to be revisionist historians to a certain degree. With this article you’ve put a stake in the ground. Would love to see you do a periodic update on the same 12 — maybe adding or deleting as new frenemies develop or others lose pertinence.
December 15th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
What about nVidia and AMD? It seems like that’s a big one.
December 17th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
Great article!
December 18th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Frenemies—- are they not just competitors? OR two persons/entities that have a mutual love hate relationship that shift from one end of teh spectrum to another….
December 23rd, 2008 at 1:03 am
Wow. Microsoft has many enemies.
December 30th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
Not to be a grammar policeman, but it seems you spelled “enmity” wrong.
Oh, well. Pretty awesome article. That there are six pages containing Microsoft relationships says something….
May 4th, 2009 at 9:41 pm
Wow, I immensely enjoyed this list. Microsoft leads the ranks with enemies on almost both ends of the list.
I’m missing the iFruad producers vs Apple on the list though. :P
http://kixtrix.com
May 8th, 2009 at 8:11 pm
Microsoft and Nintendo! While it may not be cpu-based, nintendo helped microsoft get going with the xbox, which then completely left nintendo to branch out their own and is now nintendo’s biggest opponent (sorry sony). Not to mention how nintendo is so bitchy about making sure that nobody but themselves and add programs and games to their consoles, so there isn’t a nintendo game on the xbox and vise versa. And, Gates has famously said quote, “”There’s room for innovation (on the wii), but moving that controller around — it’s something that’s not mainstream for most games.” Who knows? Maybe Gates will give in to 114,000,000 dollars a year of motion-sensitivity and make a motion-sensitive Halo. YES.
June 15th, 2009 at 10:01 am
You forgot Google and Mozilla, google has always been a big but quiet supporter of firefox, and then they release Chrome…
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November 4th, 2009 at 10:40 am
Great article!I enjoyed that, thanks. ;-)