"Does Microsoft have an open-source strategy - beyond finding new ways to thwart Linux and other non-proprietary wares? Sam Ramji, Microsoft's Director of Platform Technology Strategy and the company's Open Source Software Lab, says it does. I met with Ramji last week when he was passing through New York on his way to Europe, and had a chance to ask him to provide a succinct definition of what Microsoft means when it refers to its own 'open-source strategy'."
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Member since:2006-02-05
There are examples of that (the DLR, the AJAX community toolkit, the huge array of starter kits), but what I was referring to was more their efforts at community building. Stuff like codeplex, or how they are hiring high profile open source guys like Rob Conory, or the way they are working with novell to put out moonlight. They have no interest in helping out the UNIX world (obviously, as they are in direct competition), however it is really a fantastic time to be a microsoft developer.
Edited 2008-02-02 14:09 UTC
Member since:2005-07-06
DLR is a great example of what I was suggesting above. It is an example of microsoft building a community around a spec that in the end allows them to sell more visual studio, and windows servers running .net.
Codeplex. Come on. Codeplex is just a project hosting site. Once again what technology has microsoft opened up to the community?
The AJAX Control Toolkit is another example of the same thing. It is built on extended ASP technologies, which are not open source.
All of these are just open source hooks to sell or encourage purchasing more Microsoft software. They are nothing but open source crumbs.
Member since:2005-07-06
The point of the article was about Microsoft 'open source' community. I'm not saying that microsoft doesn't do a good job of building communities around their proprietary software, but that is very different then building an open source community.
Member since:
2005-07-06
Give me a few examples where Microsoft is open sourcing their technologies to the community.
Edited 2008-02-02 09:11 UTC