Goodbye Zend And XandrOS (Open Source Needs Direction)

I happened across an article on Red Herring yesterday and thought I would go ahead and share a link after thinking on it overnight. I mean, there are open source meetings about strategy and coping with Microsoft pretty regularly these days—so why share yet another link to another article on the topic?

Well, it mentions those open source companies who are striking deals with Microsoft in order to protect themselves against potential litigation in the future by the company. That means it mentions a few companies whose products I won’t be using. Well, at least I had intended not to. But there was one particularly disturbing mention in the list of companies.

Zend Technologies, who handles the PHP programming language recently struck a deal with Microsoft as well. It was bad enough seeing Novel, the makers of Suse, and XandrOS making deals with Microsoft instead of joining the rest of the open source community and calling the Redmond company’s bluff. Now, the company behind the scripting language of choice for a lot of people has joined the unholy alliance out to destroy open source.

That is news I did not want to hear. Now, I feel I should begin learning Python and get away from PHP altogether. PHP has come so far—such as its much improved interaction with Oracle products—but this action by Zend is like taking ten steps backwards in the wrong direction.

If it were not for needing to support some blogware and CMS written in PHP, I would burn my PHP books and be headed to the bookstore today for Python books. The problem is that I need to find new platforms for blogs and CMS written in Python that will fill the needs of myself and any clients. I have taken Plone out for a test-spin in the past and its user interface is basically so terrible that I am hesitant to even call the management system a user interface. It is more like an eye-sore.

So, while I will be forced to deal with PHP a bit longer, I will now be looking for an out. Java? That’s the last place I want to look for anything. Python, perhaps. Maybe REBOL.

All I know is that I am jumping ship ASAP. You have disappointed me, Zend. So have you, XandrOS. While I will grapple with a solution for some time, I will no longer recommend either PHP or XandrOS as a solution to anyone. I already had decided against using Suse because of their Microsoft deal, even though I like their products.

Now, I will look elsewhere and likely end up passing the cost of subcontracting out programming requirements in another language to clients. Another gift from Microsoft and those who deal with them to the world.

When will companies find some backbone and take a stand on principles? Microsoft is not open source, does not advocate it nor support it. It preys on it and hopes to insert its corporate claws into Linux and destroy everything about the spirit of it.

That is because Microsoft has no spirit—only the desire to make as much money for the least effort expended.

To those who might believe I am ignoring the realities of the bottom line facing many open source companies, I have the following to say on that matter. There is such a thing as a ‘living return’ that allows a business to succeed without requiring a ‘maximum return’ to survive. Those companies who cannot and will not focus on anything other than the bottom line are anachronisms from another age, and are not where the future of eBusiness nor modern economics lies.

Those who deal with Microsoft will not be doing business with me or with my clients in the future. I can be choosy, and I choose principles over maximum profitability. That means I will also be moving away from the WordPress blogging platform as soon as it is feasible.

What a pain in the ass open source companies can be when they sell out…