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by bitwize 3027 days ago
Microsoft used open source to kill the Amiga. They acquihired the developer of Bars & Pipes Professional, convinced him to open source it and had him work on DirectMusic instead. The fact that a leading MIDI tool for the Amiga was now open source basically left the Amiga music software industry a smouldering ruins, where it might have hung on for a few more years, forcing developers to look at Windows instead.

Open source destroys value, and Microsoft used that to their advantage.
3 comments
fractallyte 3027 days ago
Actually B&P wasn't open sourced for many years after the Blue Ribbon Soundworks acquisition. During this time, B&P was in limbo: the most powerful MIDI sequencer on the Amiga, locked up by Microsoft. The source code was only released when Microsoft decided it had no value to them.

After this there was a flurry of activity: Alfred Faust took up development, the manuals were scanned, and it all continued from there.

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PhasmaFelis 3026 days ago
Huh? How does open-sourcing a program ruin its industry?

(I'm also skeptical about your thesis that music software was the cornerstone of Amiga's popularity. That was most likely games, and Doom was the most obvious killer there.)

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pmarreck 3026 days ago
> Open source destroys value

Fucking LOL. Tell that to any internet startup since 1995 and prepare to get laughed out of the room

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