What's Linux without Microsoft?

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By Matt Berger

(IDG) -- For some in the open source community, the forces of software development have begun to resemble the paradox of yin and yang, which states that light does not exist without dark and there is no good without evil.

Those who subscribe to this philosophy, and who spoke about it last week at the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo, suggest that the mere presence of Microsoft has played a big role in the development of the Linux operating system and other open source projects. Indeed, for some there could be no Linux without Microsoft.

"This balance of action and counteraction is absolutely critical," says Dirk Hohndel, the cocreator of the XFree86 open source project and former chief technology officer at Linux distributor SuSE Linux. "It makes people innovate."

Microsoft looms large

Microsoft has hovered like a thick cloud over the open source community for as long as the loose-knit band of developers has worked on Linux, the flagship open source operating system. Top Microsoft executives have criticized Linux and the software license that governs its free use, portraying it as an enemy of intellectual property. Meanwhile, the software giant has continued to develop products aimed at the same markets Linux plays in, from server software to embedded operating systems.

Some agree that the success of the open source community has depended at least in part on its chief rival being in the picture.

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"It is definitely true that having a common foe does give you something to shoot at," says Eric Allman, cofounder and chief technology officer of Sendmail, which offers a widely used open source e-mail server program. "I'm just hoping that we don't fall into a pattern of simply playing catch-up with Microsoft, which is a danger."

The idea that innovation has emerged through competition with Microsoft has surfaced in several forms. Most recently, a group of programmers launched a project called Mono, intended to provide an open source, Linux-based version of Microsoft's .Net platform for developing Web-based services. The group has promised that Mono will include .Net-compliant components that let developers create .Net applications for Windows, Linux, or any other platform.

Rob Enderle, an analyst with Giga Information Group, portrays the relationship between Microsoft and Linux as a symbiotic one.

"Linux keeps Microsoft working hard in the government and education markets. ... Without Microsoft, they would be a lot more fragmented," Enderle says. "Both of them require the other to be in place."

Keeping the enemy in mind

Microsoft's omnipresence was apparent at the show in statements from executives of open source companies. "Microsoft is the largest software company in the world. They are our competition," says Larry Augustin, chief executive officer of VA Linux Systems. "The day when they're not the competition is when we'll stop talking about them."

Augustin and Hohndel joined other open source leaders in a panel debate at the conference, which turned into a discussion of how open source and proprietary software will coexist in the future. Linux creator Linus Torvalds emerged as the most vocal antagonist to the theory that Microsoft and open source will continue to exist as polar opposites. He argues that the open source development model will someday prevail over Microsoft's focus on closely guarded proprietary code. In 50 years, he says, all software development will be open source.

"People will realize that software is not a product; you use it to build a product," the Finnish programmer says. Based on this prediction, Torvalds says software will become a commodity that vendors will no longer need to control through strict copyrights.

"I don't think [open source] has the slightest chance of getting 100 percent market share," Hohndel counters. "It will be successful for commodities." Specialized software, however, will always depend on companies that build proprietary programs, he says.

Jeremy Allison, cocreator of the open source product Samba, a Windows-compatible file and print server, agrees that Microsoft will not easily be knocked from its perch. The software maker's dominance in the operating system market has tilted the playing field, he said. Because Microsoft has been able to dictate much of what gets shipped on PCs, Linux and other open source software faces an uphill battle.

"You have to break the client monopoly," Allison argued. There is no way to overtake Microsoft in market share "if you can't control what's shipped on the client," he said.

While open source software continues to gain recognition and momentum among enterprise users, one LinuxWorld attendee says Microsoft will always have its hand in the software industry, and that its presence will continue to drive innovation from rivals.

"It always comes back to Microsoft," says the attendee, a San Francisco-based software engineer who requested anonymity. "It's not as much about Microsoft being evil as it is just a force to be reckoned with."