Interview with Keith Curtis: 'After the Software Wars' Author

[Sef]

CIO has an interview (http://www.cio.com/article/493224/Ex_Microsoftie_Free_Software_Will_Kill_Redmond?pag e=1) with him. He worked for Microsoft for 11 years. He has book out (http://www.powells.com/s?header=Search+Form&kw=After+the+software+wars) entitled 'After the Software Wars' which is about why microsoft's proprietary model is working well.

Also there was a previous mention of him in the forums here (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1005331&highlight=curtis).

[MikeTheC]

I'll have to look his book up sometime and skim through it. However -- and neither meaning this as an insult to Mr. Curtis nor to pump up my own ego -- Keith isn't saying anything I haven't been saying for years, really.

[anechoic]

just finished reading this book and I have to say the author could have used a good editor to trim, prune, polish, proof-read and fact check.

But the shabby nature of the book is the bane of self-publishing services (and blogs for that matter) like Lulu.com: anyone and everyone can publish a 'book'. But I guess that's no different than listening to most of the stuff on MySpace.

This book is an unfocused mix of anecdote and fact and tends to veer off into the weeds a lot especially towards the end when he starts jabbering on about space travel.

The book rarely sticks to the central focus (which I presume is the conflict in the marketplace of FOSS and commercial software) and he doesn't dig very deeply into the cultural and economic conditions which act as perti dishes for both, and he is especially careful not to step on his old MS bosses toes by discussing the strong-arm tactics that has helped make MS the 300lb gorilla they are today.

Also, the weird libertarian mix of quotes by Ayn Rand, Ann Coulter and RM Stallman is a head-scratching disconnect for me.

My suggestion to Mr Curtis is to go back and do some fact-checking, hire an editor to prune, trim and polish this a bit more and issue a v.2.0 sometime.

[BuffaloX]

I agree with MikeTheC, this has all been said before.
The interesting thing is that it's a Microsoft guy saying it.
But would he be saying it if he still worked for Microsoft?
Well of course he would not be saying it, but would he be thinking it?

FOSS doesn't need to take Microsoft down, what it needs is to be equal with Microsoft, which of course in it self will be a major blow to Microsoft's bottom line.

[monsterstack]

You can grab the pdf version (http://www.lulu.com/content/4964815) from Lulu. I'll have a read through it and see how well his claims stack up. Although if anechoic's review is correct, it might not be all that interesting. Still, we shall have to wait and see!

[jimmyhacker]

hell yeah free software will pwn redmond n00bz they modded c++ and they launched buggiest OS`s ever may osama bin laden bomb redmond yeahhh:guitar::guitar::guitar::guitar::guitar: i want to see billy gates crying

[JDShu]

I read this a couple of days ago and I thought it was pretty interesting. He has some very strong opinions and could incite alot of debate, but for somebody not that familiar with FOSS, it was a good read.

[phrostbyte]

I read parts of his book. It's worth reading. The cover is pretty cool too. :)

The arguments for free software he presents, is not that different from what the FSF has been saying all along. But he presents it from a different perspective (as a Microsoft employee), so it adds a different level of insight into the contrasts of proprietary development.