Free Knowledge Culture Calendar/August 11

[Open Source] is long-term credible ... FUD tactics can not be used to combat it. Today in 1998 Vinod Valloppillil of Microsoft sent an internal memorandum that got leaked as the first of the so-called Halloween documents. They certainly provided proof and dirty detail on how Microsoft ruthlessly fought for its monopoly and dealt with competition, but also revealed their actual understanding of the reality they were trying to deceive the world about. This one is about their analysis that “OSS poses a ... threat to Microsoft”. It acknowledges the viability of the open source software development model, even competitive disadvantage for their traditional model. In contrast to Gates’ rhetorical questions in his Open Letter to Hobbyists of →January 31, 1976, this was the surreptitious admission twenty years later that he was wrong.