Ray Ozzie – Microsofts’ new head technologist, says open source is more disruptive to Microsoft’s business than Google:

He’s right about that, but wrong about everything else. It’s shocking that people at Microsoft are still so clueless about the open source economy.

Ray states that open source developers don’t have to answer to share holders like Google employees are. He’s wrong – most open source software is developed by employees of IBM, Red Hat, Novell, etc. – all publicly held companies.

He also impies open-source development is wasteful because there’s no way to pay developers for it. I seem to recall getting a regular paycheck for the last couple of years. BTW, Ray can send me a extra check any time.

These misconceptions are born out of the myth of open-source being done by unpaid geeks in their parents’ basements. The best way to think about open source in business is as co-operation between corporations to share development costs. It’s nothing more, and nothing less.