Microsoft's Sam Ramji explains how open source influenced Windows Server 2008. "Overall, we've learned and continue to learn from open source development principles. These are making their way into the mindset, development practices, and ultimately into the products we bring to market."
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Member since:2006-01-02
What about the antagonism of important parts of the Linux crowd towards MS? (cf. the racorous OSI discussion about accepting two of Microsoft's licenses as Open Source when they clearly met the bar and had a significant amount of code behind them.) Think about it from a human perspective: why would a Microsoft exec want to be too friendly toward a community of people that harbors a large contingent that would like to see Microsoft gone?
Member since:2005-07-24
Large corporations are made up of people, but they are not even remotely human. They don't get hurt feelings. They live, think, breathe, and are motivated entirely by... money.
To the extent that MS cares at all about what some members in the FOSS community think of them, they would care about how having that group actively against them affects their bottom line, and their legal situation.
I agree with you that the evaluation of their licenses was a bit ugly. But IIRC, they *were* approved by the OSI, which is really what counts. One of them had to undergo a name change. But the name change really was for the better for everyone, I think.
Member since:2006-12-28
That's a very good point and I have to say that I never even considered it.
I could go down that road and start talking about who started it, but frankly, that's not only childish but also leads to the sort of situation where one side will not enter into discussions with the other, due to them having started it, and vice versa. Being Irish, I've seen to much of a similar ilk and believe that situation like that don't help anybody.
So thanks for pointing it out.
That said, I agree with sbergman27's assessment of the situation. Corporations are not actually human. But then again, neither is a community of software developers (i.e. GNU/Linux). I do think that things could have been handled better, on both sides. Then again, we tend to hear the rabid supporters of either camp more so than the vast majority who tend to be more center ground.
For me, I'd just be happy if MS can lay off the FUD and not give the mouth foamers more ammo than is strictly necessary. The day they start doing that, I'll join in shouting down the nuts. Until that day, I'm gonna stand back and watch the crowed demand blood.
Member since:2005-07-06
Because the same community also harbors another, more pragmatic, contingnet that MS hopes to swing over to their side. If they can get even a few prominent OSS figures to look at Windows 2008 server and say "hey this isn't too bad a system" it would be huge PR win.
Member since:
2006-12-28
I can't agree more. Although I find it great that MS is learning from FLOSS and no longer just EEEing useful tech, I still think they have missed the point about the opensource model. Still, as time goes on, who knows? They might actually figure out that operating systems and, to a lesser extent, office software suits are becoming free commodities and change their business and development practices to reflect that.
I hope MS really does start delivering on it's interoperability promises as I do believe we should all start playing nice and actually try to get along. If by learning from the FLOSS model MS can open up the internals of their operating systems, actual low level internal working being more transparent, then surely MS can also learn about collaborating with others as we so often see in the FLOSS world.
Sadly, I have to say that I'll believe it when I see it. After all these years of watching the extreme antagonism of MS towards Linux and the GNU world, I find a level of sceptesism is in order.