Ed Henning

In writing about operating systems last month, and in particular usability concerns, I didn't mention some of the other factors that had pointed me in that direction.

I had experienced a couple of bad crashes myself, and a seriously distressed friend of mine rang to seek assistance.

When she was upgrading her Windows XP laptop system online from Microsoft, something had interrupted her connection.

The result of her crisis was an apparently useless hard disk and the loss of all data since her last back-up. Whenever this sort of thing happens, your back-up is never recent enough, is it?

But it is outrageous that such a thing should be possible. The question is: why does Microsoft allow things like this? The focus of its Windows development seems to be directed far more towards PR and marketing than the quality of code.

The result is that Windows is 'just good enough' to ship, and breaks down frequently enough to infuriate a few people - but not too many of them, and not too often. What a disgrace.

Microsoft's PR and marketing focus explains why it has concentrated so much on usability issues, and rightly so. But, in my opinion, it is not sufficiently stable or reliable to be described as a solid operating system.

Microsoft is aware of these problems and, in 1998, chief executive Steve Ballmer promised to put software quality at the top of the agenda. Some progress has been made, but nowhere near enough.

Of course, the developing threat from Linux was the most likely reason for the priority change, as the most significant benefits to come from the open source movement are high quality code and solid OS stability.

The current threatened legal action against IBM by SCO brings this contrast to the fore once again.

Although I do in fact consider SCO's claims to be bogus, rather than discussing the details of the case I would like simply to point out two general areas of concern that it has highlighted for me.

The first is that this tendency to put PR and marketing before quality of product - a sort of IT equivalent to New Labour's 'style over substance' - is not limited to Microsoft, and is alive and well in the commercial software world.

That world seems driven by a mistaken premise that software has to 'keep up with' and 'fully utilise' the latest high-performance hardware. The logic here is upside down, and the result is bloatware filling so many hard disks.

Modern hardware enables more complex tasks to be performed, with new and useful functionality; think of 3D rendering and the like.

But this does not mean that artificial bloat needs to be added to straightforward software like word processors and operating systems.

It's no wonder that software companies have to resort to a 'keep up with the Joneses' level of marketing to intimidate customers into buying the stuff.

The second point that concerns me is based on the previous legal battle between Microsoft and the US government.

It was clear that the judges had great difficulty understanding many of the issues involved, and how would they understand them without any specific training or experience?

How can judges be expected to understand the subtleties of an action like that being taken by SCO, without a thorough background knowledge of the struggle between open source and commercial software?

SCO is already trying to load the dice in its complaint by referring to open source developers as 'hobbyists'. Surely that might give a judge the impression of spotty kids undermining a respectable commercial organisation?

For those involved in or around the industry, it's easy to see through SCO's complaint.

But the specialised nature of the issues involved means that the skill of the lawyers and the presentations of key witnesses are likely to hold even more sway than normal, as the actual facts of the case will be way over the heads of the judges. God forbid, SCO could win.

Such an outcome would be one of the worst things to happen to the PC industry since it began, and I'm not just referring to the specific damage it would do to the Linux operating system, although that would be bad enough.

After all, considering the majority of users, I am sure that Windows is a better product today than it would have been had Linux never existed, and it is in everybody's interests - particularly Ballmer's - for that competitive pressure to be maintained.

What concerns me more is the potential effect on the open source software movement as a whole.

While I do not expect that one day all software will be open source, hopefully some balance between commercial and open source might eventually be achieved.

Open source has blown a beneficial cool breeze through the world of software development, to the extent that even users who have never used a piece of open source code, or perhaps have never even heard of Linux, have benefited.

Ironically, the threat posed by open source software, and in particular the Linux operating system, has made the likes of Microsoft more focused on the operating needs of their customers (proper stable operating systems anyone?) and that can only be a good thing.

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