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Sam Ramji: Open source is burgeoning at Microsoft
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Comments (12)
Oh great
So, the fat cats have been lining up and stuffing themselves at our free buffet? Somehow that doesn't give me the warm fuzzies.
Sam is a pretty straight up guy, and he understands what 'collective' we mean when we say open source. He has given good straight forward answers on OSI's license-discuss mailing list, he's one of those people inside MS who actually 'gets it'.
By collective, he means the "microsoft windows only" type of open source applications, though, isn't that right?
yes
the 'collective' was inclusive of us OSS geeks, not the MS crowd. Although I keep forgetting the large amount of people here that firmly believe that you are who your employer is. To which I need to remind you of Linus and the Transmeta days.
I think FOSS is stronger than the old Microsoft guard. The rot comes from the top there, and they can't stop a grassroots groundswell.
Quoting: [Microsoft's interactions with] the Samba and PHP
Microsoft's interaction with SaMBa was forced on them, by the EU courts, the interaction with PHP because they saw an opportunity to make IIS relevent to programming languages other than Microsoft proprietary ones. It's not about the Free software community (that doesn't exist, as far as Microsoft is concerned) it's about leveraging more sales of their server products through the use of Open Source.Software.
Dot Net Nuke is one example of Open Source Software, that is probably not in the least Free Software in spite of the Modified BSD license. It's not Free because it has too many dependencies on Microsoft Proprietary software.
Microsoft's Open Source efforts are about creating a new silo. Free software may well be stronger, but in the meantime a lot of Open Source software written for Windows will still become locked in, in one way or another.
Quoting:I think FOSS is stronger than the old Microsoft guard. The rot comes from the top there, and they can't stop a grassroots groundswell.Agreed!
And yet once again, the typical Good Cop, Bad Cop scenario gets repeatedly played out. For every pro Open Source statement Ramji or his cohorts are claimed to release, there are invariably upheld anti-FOSS statements and actions from others associated with Microsoft, such as these over the last year alone :
- Stephen Shankland's 'Microsoft's open source patent threat still intact', http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/99826 - SFLC's 'Microsoft's Open Specification Promise: No Assurance for GPL', http://www.softwarefreedom.org/resources/2008/osp-gpl.html - Ken Hess's 'Steve Ballmer Loves Linux', http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/112793/ - Mary Jo Foley's 'Microsoft disparages open-source TCO with year-old case study', http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/113195 - Carla Schroder's 'Why Does Microsoft Always Get A Free Pass? Why Does Big Business Reek So Badly?', http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/113220/ - Mark Taylor's eye-opening and MIcrosoft-related 'What vendors really mean by 'open source' ', http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/113941
This also omits the facts and viable conjectures regarding Microsoft's attempts to squash Open Source -- and Linux in particular -- from the current low-end notebook market. Indeed, one can almost sense that soon after the start of calendar-year 2009, some sort of anti-FOSS FUD-like statement will again arise from Ballmer and/or other members of the "old Microsoft guard" on top, and just as soon as the opportunity presents itself.
Quoting:This also omits the facts and viable conjectures regarding Microsoft's attempts to squash Open Source -- and Linux in particular -- from the current low-end notebook market.
You mean the dumping of XP onto the Netbook market? Remember MS saying "XP is no longer, only Vista!"? But then the Eee PC (and then others) came along and were selling like hotcakes with only Linux on them because Vista's hardware requirements are way too high.
But if MS could make it fit on the XO, then every Netbook in existence should be a cakewalk right? Right.
A little poem for the XP "Pros"
XP is dead. XP is not dead.
No more XP licenses. Ok, more XP licenses.
We're really done selling XP. We really mean it.
Until the next time. We need it.
;-)
So what am I supposed to do, throw a party?
Microsoft is being pushed by the market to be slightly less of an obstacle than they used to be.
This is like a Fortune 500 corporation polluting a river, killing all the fish, and cutting off the drinking water for a major city. If some guy working in the mail room suggests that they cut the pollution they dump in the river by 3% do you think everyone will be happy?
MS can just open up all of their proprietary formats, become completely interoperable, stop talking patent nonsense, and the situation is fixed. Until then who cares. It's not as if it would take a lot of effort on their part and it would make their customers happy.
Microsoft is being pushed by the market to be slightly less of an obstacle than they used to be.
This is like a Fortune 500 corporation polluting a river, killing all the fish, and cutting off the drinking water for a major city. If some guy working in the mail room suggests that they cut the pollution they dump in the river by 3% do you think everyone will be happy?
MS can just open up all of their proprietary formats, become completely interoperable, stop talking patent nonsense, and the situation is fixed. Until then who cares. It's not as if it would take a lot of effort on their part and it would make their customers happy.
Untitled
Sam Ramji: [...] Software is fundamentally a legal business: a copyright, patent, trademark and trade secret-based industry. [...]
No. it is not. Software is fundamentally about people solving problems using technology. The legal business is there to prevent people from using technology. This illustrates the difference between free and non free software.
No. it is not. Software is fundamentally about people solving problems using technology. The legal business is there to prevent people from using technology. This illustrates the difference between free and non free software.
chenlevy:
Brevity may be the soul of wit, but if you can flesh that out more, especially vis-a-vis the GPL and various other FOSS licenses, you would have an excellent article for LXer. :-)
Brevity may be the soul of wit, but if you can flesh that out more, especially vis-a-vis the GPL and various other FOSS licenses, you would have an excellent article for LXer. :-)
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