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Halloween Document in Ha'aretz



In yesterday's Ha'aretz (page gimel 16, I think), there's a small article
about the "Halloween Document" mentioned here a few days ago. 
For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, the document is
an internal Microsoft document regarding the threat of Open Source
Software (OSS) and the ways to deal with it.

The 35 page document reached Eric S. Raymond (author of "The Cathedral and
the Bazaar"), who published it with his own annotations:
http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/halloween.html

Ed Muth, Microsoft's group product manager for enterprise marketing,
confirmed the authenticity of the document.

The document is a sinister example of Microsoft's thinking, and I really
recommend reading through it all. Despite some conceptual mistakes, it
gives an interesting analysis of the OSS phenomenon. Moreover - it's good
to know what means MS are going to use to fight the free software
community. We better be ready for the attack.

Other news items referring to the document:
http://www.techweb.com:80/internet/story/TWB19981102S0005
http://www.infoworld.com:80/cgi-bin/displayStory.pl?98112.wcmsopen.htm
http://www.msnbc.com:80/news/210968.asp
(The latter two are particularly interesting due to the distorted coverage
they give. The report about MS's proposed counter-attack is clearly bent
to make it look positive - which it certainly isn't).

You can also read Tim O'Reilly's "Open Letter to Microsoft"  following the
document:
http://www.mactech.com:80/news/98-11/981104TimOReilly.html


Tuvik