Ximian’s Volunteer Army

Ximian’s Volunteer ‘Army’ Fights Microsoft on Open Source Code: During the half-hour conference, which took place earlier this year, he [de Icaza] ran though this math with Fox: At a retail price of $209 for Windows and $440 for Office, it could cost the country as much as $3.25 billion just for license fees. “Our country needs that money for many other things,” de Icaza said he told Fox. He said Fox seemed to be surprised by the cost analysis, but he made no promises. I’d imagine Microsoft would give a discount for 58 million licenses, but you can bet those licenses would probably still cost Mexico $1 billion. De Icaza’s target of relatively poor, developing nations as a new stronghold for Open Source is a good plan. The more people that use it and improve it, the better it gets… and then the wealthier nations and businesses won’t be able to afford to ignore it.

It’s also interesting to note that Microsoft may be losing a big ally in Compaq. HP, between HP/UX and Linux initiatives, has more Unix in its history and may not prove to be such a solid ally for Microsoft.