[Am-info] query about MS "Innovations"

[Felmon Davis]

On Tuesday 02 April 2002 08:39 am, madodel@ptdprolog.net wrote:
> In <0204020236101F.04038@punzel>, on 04/02/02 at 02:36 AM,
>
>[...]
>
> Felmon,
>
> And another major downside of Microsoft doing this and establishing
> a monopoly in office apps, is the software mono-culture that has
> led to the spread of word/excel/vbs viruses. Would this be as
> devastating if they had a lesser market share and some real
> application competition?   So did their marketing innovation in
> fact spawn the rampant spread of the computer virus?
>
> I don't run windoze here at all so I'm not familiar on how all
> these worms and viruses work. So of what real value is there in
> making proprietary, undocumented, file formats universally accepted
> for data exchange?  If this is the problem, could the same downside
> apply if everyone used open source formats for data exchange?
>
>
> Mark

Perhaps your last question was overlooked? It's a worrisome thought: 
why exactly wouldn't 'open source' _also_ produce a 'mono-culture'?

If X produces an improved antiviral, X releases it to others who 
incorporate it into their software. If everyone does this in tandem, 
then we have a 'mono-culture'.

Or X produces an improvement and Y produces a _different_ 
improvement; now we have 'diversity'.  But mightn't this potentially 
reintroduce incompatibilities?

Must be late-afternoon Friday haze, not thinking clearly: does 'open 
source' address the 'monoculture' problem?

F.