nightcats's Journal: Ballmer, Open Source, and the Wind in the Forest

I have a detailed response to a story that has generated some "hell-freezes-over" astonishment at Slashdot. I view the MS LGPL/Apache move in light of Ballmer's recent annual message to the troops, in which he targets Apple and Google:

They [Apple and Google] are entities that can be seen and understood as competitors in the capitalist forest.

Open source, however, is like the wind blowing through that forest -- it cannot be fought or conquered; only channeled (as Swift Boat financier T. Boone Pickens has discovered on a more literal plane, with his $10B investment in Texas wind farms). So Ballmer has made tactical decisions, based on a belated recognition, to turn the forces of his militant marketing and wealth-based product development toward the only things they can reach -- the other big animals in the corporate forest. So should the leaders of the open source movement fear a rearguard action from MS, following upon this seemingly inexplicable peace offering? Or should they wonder if MS is on the point of a great awakening that will bring us open source versions of Vista and MS Office? I think the answer to those questions is clear: MS has made a strategic choice to let the wind blow as it may for now, while it targets the relatively fixed and identifiable adversaries on the only level it can understand -- opposition and conquest.