[plug] [link] Halloween VII: it just won't die

[Leon Brooks]

    http://opensource.org/halloween/halloween7.php

<quote>
Halloween VII: Survey Says

The document reproduced below was presented at a Microsoft internal Linux 
Strategic Review held at the Microsoft offices in Berlin during Sept. 2002. I 
received it on 5 November 2002.

What We Can Learn

Here's a summary of the tactical advice for open-source advocates that I think 
we can glean from this memo:

 * /The messages and tactics the open-source community has developed
   over the last five years are working well./ Our memes about
   security, TCO, and competitive impact have achieved deep
   penetration in Microsoft's survey population. Abstract arguments
   about intellectual property rights, on the other hand, have served
   Microsoft just as poorly as they have served us.

 * /Microsoft's FUD attacks on open source have not only failed, they
   have backfired strongly enough to show up in Microsoft's own market
   research as a problem./ This means we don't need to put a lot of
   energy into anti-FUD defending the open-source way of doing things.
   Indications are we've won that battle; effort should now go
   elsewhere.

 * /We need to keep Microsoft's feet to the fire on the TCO issue./
   Their figures indicate that we're winning that battle (no surprise,
   especially not after the XP licensing changes). If the memo
   recommendations are followed, Microsoft will attempt to reverse this
   with all the money and marketing clout it can muster.

 * /Familiarity with open source makes respondents less vulnerable to
   Microsoft's 'shared source' scam./ The higher respondents scored on
   familiarity with open source, the less likely they were to judge
   that shared source offers the same benefits. We need to keep
   hammering on the difference between source that you can see only
   after signing a Microsoft NDA or non-competition agreement and
   source that anyone can examine, modify, and redistribute.
   Emphasizing the poison-pill problem is indicated.

 * /Internationally, a distaste for being dependent on U.S. technology
   companies in general (and Microsoft in particular) is exploitable./
   Microsoft perceives serious problems with this, as well it should.

 * /High approval has not yet translated into wide deployments. More
   managers like Linux in theory than routinely use it in practice. This
   suggests that many are either waiting to see results from large
   path-breaker deployments by others or are hampered by organizational
   inertia.

 * /The risk that Microsoft will go on a patent-lawsuit rampage, designed
   more to scare potential open-source users than to actually shut down
   developers, is substantial./ The language about "concrete actions" in
   relation to IPR has the same ominous feel that the talk of
   "de-commoditizing protocols" did in Halloween I and II.

 * /The term 'free software' isn't mentioned once, not even as an
   exploitable weakness./ This contrasts strongly with the original
   Halloween Memoranda. I'm not sure what this means, but one strong
   possibility is that the term has simply fallen out of use both at
   Microsoft and in their survey population.

The overall tone of the memorandum is very defensive. Not quite panicky, but 
the researchers are not able to name any argument with the open-source 
community that their own figures show them to be winning.

In fact, their figures indicate that we are winning. It looks like all we have 
to do is stay the course.
</quote>

A glossary and the memo itself follow in the article.

Cheers; Leon