WebMink
Simon Phipps's personal commentary

Ending the monoculture

I've been giving radio interviews today on US talk radio, and it seems StarOffice and OpenOffice are the subject of the day (even on Corante) - it's time to end the monoculture if we're to reduce the attackable surface area of our software in the massively-connected world.

One key step to ending the monoculture is to have a reasonable slice of the population jettison Microsoft Office. By combining e-mail and documents with a macro capability and then integrating the browser, Microsoft has created a delicious target for the maladjusted (who also are to blame, no question). The results of things like Blaster and SoBig are a direct consequence of the acts of a monopolist manipulating markets, and it's the rest of us who are being punished for their illegal acts.

It's not (just) the software that needs fixing; it's the behaviour that creates a monoculture (and in the name of "innovation" too!) By encouraging software and platform diversity, we encourage people to become part of the solution rather than part of the problem. Mozilla and OpenOffice.org aren't just good enough - they are now, in places, better.

posted at 5:07 PM (UK) | |