Lem Bingley

Rather than ponder the large fine that Microsoft earned itself last week, I thought I'd look at news from a week earlier, when the firm announced that it had amassed a million source code licensees.

Microsoft evidently feels it is succeeding in offering some of the benefits of open source while retaining the profitability that allows it to absorb a $500m punishment like a parking ticket. But it seems that Microsoft is missing part of the point of open source.

Many of today's most ardent open-source fans make full use of source code access, but they will always be in the minority. Most organisations don't care about source code, and most certainly wouldn't want to examine Windows' innards.

Open source is actually attractive to the average IT manager for reasons that Microsoft is doing rather less well at emulating. And I'm not just talking about cost. Or even about reliability.

Consider, for a moment, the terms covering Microsoft's upcoming Virtual Server 2005 - software to allow Windows Server 2003 to host a number of other operating systems as guests, each able to run its own applications.

"Each copy of a Microsoft Windows operating system that is installed on a computer must be separately licensed," Microsoft asserts. "For example, if you are setting up Virtual Server to run one instance of Windows 2000 Server and three instances of Windows NT Server, you need one Windows Server and three Windows NT Server licences... In addition, each device or user accessing any operating system on the virtual machine system requires a Windows Client Access Licence (CAL) that matches the version of the most current operating system running on the system (or later)... You should also be aware that operating system server licences obtained through the OEM channel are not transferable; that is, the server licences are tied to the hardware on which the operating system is first installed. In other words, if you are consolidating older servers that shipped with OEM server operating system licences, you need to obtain new server operating system licences."

In short it's a dog's dinner - fit to dissuade anyone from trying a taste of Virtual Server.

Open source licensing, by contrast, is a breeze. You install the software and use it. No-one shops you to the Federation Against Software Theft if you miscount the user base, no-one batters at the door asking to audit your installation, and no-one threatens to fine you or put you in prison.

Of course Microsoft would point to its volume licensing schemes, such as Software Assurance, to counter claims that paying for its products can be a career in itself. But the existing schemes offer poor value unless you normally upgrade every three years.

Few IT managers dispute that commercial software ought to be properly paid for. But equally, licence compliance should not be a minefield. Small wonder that the NHS has used its considerable purchasing clout to negotiate simplified terms for itself. Smaller customers can only watch with envy.

Microsoft should look again at how its volume licensing could be altered - not to further stuff its coffers, as Software Assurance has done, but to genuinely make life easier for its business customers.

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