Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 13th Apr 2009 22:11 UTC
At the Linux Collaboration Summit, held last week in San Francisco, an interesting panel discussion took place about Linux' position in the wider operating systems market. Included were Jim Zemlin, Linux Foundation executive director, Ian Murdock, Sun community and developer vice president, and Sam Ramji, Microsoft platform strategy director. Titled "Why Can't We All Just Get Along?", the discussion focussed on Microsoft's somewhat dubious relationship with the open source community.
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Member since:2005-06-29
These executives need to be won over so that there is a top down change in direction and so far Microsoft's open source czar has failed to do so.
Again, you fail to realise just how complicated something like this is. Changing a company the size of Microsoft can't be done in just a few years, by one person. There are various people higher up in the company now that are very friendly towards open source, and their numbers are growing. These people higher up then appoint and hire even more like-minded people, making sure the number of open source friendly folk is growing.
This is a process that can take years. Patience is a virtue. Executives will be replaced sooner or later, and the more open-source friendly people are within the company, the larger the chances one of them gets such a position. It's a snowball effect.
but yes, Ballmer needs to go, but he will, eventually. Put someone like Sinofsky on top of the company, he seems like a much better person to lead the company instead of someone like Ballmer.
Personally, I'd say put Julie Larson-Green up there, but that's for different reasons
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Member since:
2005-07-06
Change doesn't happen with a flick of the wrist. It takes time and dedication, and a gaze towards the future - not the past, not the now. It is perfectly possible to work for Microsoft, with your goal being to change the company's attitudes towards Free/open, but still disagreeing with how the company is operating now - you are the person trying to change that behaviour in the first place, so OF COURSE he distances himself from it.
Unless you have the executives onboard within the company - all the kind words and gestures ultimately will amount to nothing. What the individual people within Microsoft think about open source is ultimately irrelevant because the direction is decided by the executives and how much will they themselves have with pushing these ideas forward. Without their support - you will have no hope of 'reforming' the system over all.
We have seen over the last decade the kind of speeches from Microsoft executives that amount to the kind of trolling that one would expect on USENET with the usual flame wars between comp.os.linux.advocacy and comp.os.windows.advocacy. When I hear executives use the kinds of language such as labelling GPL as cancer, communist and unAmerican, I really have to ask myself whether these people are running a company or whether this is an ideologically driven personal crusade of theirs: Whether their decisions are made on the basis of what is best for the shareholders rather than their own phobia towards alternative business models and software licences.
Executives could have come out a decade ago and said, "we acknowledge that Linux through the various commercial distributors is a rising competitor, however, we believe that at Microsoft that through the control of the whole software stack that we can provide the best value proposition and assurance of stability for our customers for the long term" (interesting enough this is the same argument Apple uses to justify their vertically integrated business model).
Instead of taking the high ground, as said previously, they resorted to school yard style bulling that is unbecoming of the type of people I'd expect running a multibillion dollar organisation. These executives need to be won over so that there is a top down change in direction and so far Microsoft's open source czar has failed to do so. The executives keeping the open source hobby horse around is akin to the political game of funding something - not because it makes sense but because the public feel better that it exists (not that they would ever use it). Its a nice way of certain people relieving themselves of the responsibility of actually having to find a middle way and open dialogue with the open source community and follow up on some of the issues that are raised. Talking without following up is nothing short of wasting a lot of peoples time.
Edited 2009-04-14 10:44 UTC