Has Microsoft (and Oracle, of course) ever stopped to
consider how their
position on this makes them look?
We could understand they would not be
concerned about
public opinion in general. For ordinary citizens, the issue
of
copyrightability of APIs would be so esoteric this entire
episode would blow
right by them. However, Microsoft is all
about "Developers, developers,
developers" and there would
few developers that are unaware of this polemic
about APIs.
I would suspect that the vast majority of developers
would see this for what it is, an attempt to fence them by
driven by pure
corporate greed. They would all be aware that
Microsoft would like nothing
better than to say "All your
API are belong to us!".
Microsoft has
shown that they are sensitive to public
opinion by the fact that they spend
millions of dollars in
an attempt to shape public opinion. One of the biggest
challenges for them is to counteract a legacy negative
perception they earned
from decades of blatant anti-
competitive behaviour. (Though their
anticompetitive
behavior continues, it is less blatant and more subtle these
days.)
At this time in their corporate life where they are in
danger
of being sidelined by technology that is evolving
faster than they can, can
they be so cavalier about their
image in the eyes of developers?
At
time when it is critical they attract developers for
the Windows RT Metro
ecology where they hope to make 30% off
of everything the developers write,
does it make sense for
them to risk further alienating developers?
The
fact that they show such reckless lack of concern
shows how out of touch with
reality they are, and is
consistent with the radical changes they made to
Windows 8
that is also alienating not only developers, but the general
public
as well.
If you have money invested with this company as a
shareholder,
or you are a business that depends on
Microsoft, this would be a big concern to
be dependent on a
company that is so out of touch with reality. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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