Former Microsoft programmer says free software will kill Microsoft

An ex-programmer who worked for Microsoft for 11 years has come forward with a book titled "After the Software Wars." In the book, he explains why the Redmond way will fail. Keith Curtis did programming work in Windows and Office until late 2004, when he quit. While he confessed to never actually using Linux before he left Microsoft, in the years since leaving the software giant Curtis become a Linux fanatic. He is convinced that open-source software is technically superior to proprietary solutions.

Curtis argues that the free software community has been able to produce a better product through an open-development model. Indeed, he points to the problems and bugs in Windows Vista as evidence of the limitations inherent to proprietary software.

So what would happen should Microsoft decide to go the open source way, and release the source code for Internet Explorer, for example? No one will be interested, Curtis thinks, given that alternatives, such as Firefox, are already considered by web developers to be superior to IE.

Curtis noted that even Bill Gates wrote, "It's easier for our software to compete with Linux when there's piracy than when there's not." Of course, I would think that Bill Gates meant it from the perspective of market penetration, and not quite the way Curtis makes it out to be. Still, the book might make an interesting read.

For more on this story:
- check out this article at Network World

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