{"id":14712,"date":"2026-11-09T02:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-11-09T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/?p=14712"},"modified":"2026-11-02T11:05:23","modified_gmt":"2026-11-02T16:05:23","slug":"looking-back-at-the-first-halloween-document","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/?p=14712","title":{"rendered":"Looking back at the first Halloween document"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In late October 1998, open source evangelist Eric S. Raymond received a leaked internal Microsoft memo<\/a>, which he published on his website around Halloween that month. Later called the “Halloween document,” the memo highlights how Microsoft recognized Linux and open source as a threat to the proprietary Microsoft model, and provided a roadmap for how Microsoft would respond to that perceived threat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some useful background<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Let’s start by putting things into perspective. Remember that in 1991, Linus Torvalds released an early version of the Linux kernel. It didn’t take long for others to combine the kernel with other Free and open source tools (such as GNU) to create the first “Linux” distributions. I installed SLS Linux in 1993<\/a> and found it to be a very powerful Unix-like system, with all the compilers, tools, editors, and other apps that I would expect to find on “Big Unix.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the mid-1990s, other Linux distributions appeared, including Red Hat Linux (1995) and Debian (1993). In the late 1990s, big corporations like IBM started to support Linux directly, with IBM offering a full Java web server stack that I used to migrate an enterprise application<\/a> from AIX to Linux. By 1998, Microsoft finally realized that this “Linux” and “open source” thing was beginning to look like a viable enterprise solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Microsoft’s analysis<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Microsoft senior vice president Jim Allchin requested an evaluation of “open source” and “Linux.” Vinod Valloppillil, a Microsoft program manager, authored a confidential internal memo, published on August 11, 1998, in which he defined “open source” and summarized its threats to Microsoft’s business model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The document starts with a history of “open source,” highlighting BIND<\/a>, Apache<\/a>, Sendmail<\/a>, GNU Emacs, GNU GCC, and GNU GhostScript as examples where open source just works<\/em>. The author also cites The Cathedral and the Bazaar<\/a> by Eric S. Raymond to iterate several strengths in the open source model, including:<\/p>\n\n\n\n