The rise of the free software movement that gave us the Linux operating system might seem like unalloyed good news. Not so if you're Microsoft Corp. The free software community is abuzz over a top Microsoft executive's recent comments that depict free software as a threat to the entire industry.
Jim Allchin, the Microsoft vice president in charge of the Windows operating system business, sparked the furor last month when he told Bloomberg News that free or ``open source'' software ``is an intellectual property destroyer,'' adding, ``I can't imagine something that could be worse than this for the software business and the intellectual property business.''
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