Re: [LUG] Microsoft and open source, was: Re: OT: MS security whitewash

[Philip Hudson <phil.hudson@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 9 December 2013 19:33, Martijn Grooten <dcglug@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Note that 'Microsoft' is nothing but a legal entity whose purpose is to make profit for its shareholders.

Well, that's the theory, of course, but we all know different. Corporations do all kinds of anti-profitable stuff that is not only stupid but very very obviously stupid, stuff that has been called out by management gurus for decades, sometimes generations. Why? Culture. Corporate culture. Work culture. Business culture. Market culture. Adam Smith's insight about rational greed was momentous, but it does not amount to a scientific law. That's a mistake that the whole profession of economics seems unable to relinquish. *Nobody* is totally *or even mainly* rational in the Smith sense. Everybody knows it, but economists still pretend not to.

Microsoft, as I endlessly point out, is *not* like other corporations. It truly is evil to the core. That is Microsoft's culture. They will climb a tree to enslave you, the customer, or destroy you, the innovator, rather than stand on the grand and do a mutually beneficial deal. Money is not their motivator, it's a marker. Monopoly and the non-market power it gives to Microsoft's *management*, not its shareholders, is the motive. MSFT shareholders' rights begin and end with choosing whether they stand up or not to applaud.

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Phil Hudson                  http://hudson-it.no-ip.biz
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