“In this interview, OSBC director Matt Asay contends that Microsoft has been missing out on a huge opportunity with open source, but it is beginning to wake up. Whether Microsoft can become one of the guys remains to be seen, but if Asay is correct about OSS being on the cusp of core enterprise adoption, it will be an interesting year for open source.”
A lot of nothing gets said in the interview.
Microsoft doing more with open source interoperability? Yeah sure, in the same way they achieved market dominance earlier.
People have been fired from Microsoft before for suggesting MS should open source certain elements.
No. They’re never going to buy into it, never going to allow open source software of any kind to threaten them and they just simply don’t understand it.
The open source stuff around .Net is a case in point. People have been using tools like NUnit, NDoc, CruiseControl.Net and others quite happily. Microsoft thinks “Hey, we’ve missed a trick there”, and instead of supporting these open source projects more fully in Visual Studio like other companies would do they come up with ‘Team System’ which is a poor imitation of the tools people already have, except with ridiculous licensing.
but if Asay is correct about OSS being on the cusp of core enterprise adoption
It’s always been on the cusp of enterprise adoption, and it has already been adopted by enterprises. It depends what you mean by open source.
It is not enough to say you don’t intend to close off bits and just charge for support. Paying for support is a very weak business model, and I can’t point to any company that has been able to build a scalable business on it.
That’s the most sensible thing in the whole argument.
How about OSS guys stop worrying about every little thing Microsoft does. I hope they realize that Microsoft isn’t the only closed source or proprietary company. Expand out, get a whole fleet of closed source or proprietary people to join you efforts. Singleing out just Microsoft is just bad practice.
I read the article a few times. I’m really not sure I understand where the article was coming from. Most of the more popular open source software is available for Microsoft, and they now want Microsoft to embrace it? Not the best article.
It’s used everywhere I’ve been working in Banking IT. And the younger people here are bringing in even more stuff because that’s what they’ve worked with at Uni.
Also, people don’t feel less and less unconfortable about advising to use open source solutions when available.
What MS makes of it I don’t care. But the WallStreet firms are wasting no time.
TatarSalad:
So essentially what you’re is saying here is that Microsoft really produces no software, just milks others?
Really I never intended to switch to Linux, I was always into IBM OS/2, although I never owned Windows until I was forced with XP 3 years ago. The main reason I switched to Linux is that it supports OS apps and Windows doesn’t. I almost didn’t have a choice for me as a developer.
Example: My OS maker provides an up to date database of all open source apps and configures them specifically to my system, with mild support for free, which MS doesn’t.
Plus I wanted to use KDE because it was OSS. What’s next KDE on Widndows. They are trying but Nah.
It seems MS is being consolidated on their Live.com site which is only a competition to other OSS projects because it’s near impossible to write non-OSS projects online because of the DRM thing which is really a bad business model that can alienate customers.=
Edited 2006-01-31 16:13
So essentially what you’re is saying here is that Microsoft really produces no software, just milks others?
No. Thats not what I’m saying or implied such a drastic statement.
OK, Sorry about that
My stance is if MS is supposed to ‘adopt’ an OSS business model then it really can’t fly unless they make their main software a part of it. To me a companies contracting sheme should not get in the way of sales or be too complicated.
You’re asking a guy with a bucket on his head how’s the weather. His ability to forecast anything anywhere other than under the bucket is very, very limited.
Can Theo De Raat (of OpenBSD fame) say that windows is more secure than OpenBSD? NO!
Why? Because it will never happen
No, because the OSS will never ever be willing to embrace Microsoft, even if Microsoft truly did want to be a part of the community with no motive.
> No, because the OSS will never ever be willing to embrace Microsoft, even if
> Microsoft truly did want to be a part of the community with no motive.
If MS ever says to do so without a motive, they are either lying directly by saying this or indirectly by cheating their shareholders, because the one and only motive they have to follow is to please the shareholders (and yes, this has higher priority than abiding the law, depending on the potential damage. Welcome to the corporate world!)
But then, many OSS folks would not even consider teaming up with them if it was beneficial for both sides.
– Morin
“But then, many OSS folks would not even consider teaming up with them if it was beneficial for both sides.”
Yeah, that’s the point I was trying to make.
MS has talked to the Open Source Inititive last summer denoting that they would submit their new Shared Source licensing scheme to them sometime.
OSI has embraced the new sheme comparing it to some BSD and Moszilla licenses and said they would accept the proposal. As far as MS actually using these licenses for any significant work of thiers remains to be seen.
Apple works a lot with Open source and has reaped much by open-soucing Darwin, but MSFT will NOT follow their lead. It is totally against their corporate culture.
Did anyone notice this tripe:
“It is not enough to say you don’t intend to close off bits and just charge for support. Paying for support is a very weak business model, and I can’t point to any company that has been able to build a scalable business on it. “
I am going to put it right out there and say that the Asay is talking out of his arse. But anyway i’ll point him in the right direction if he can’t name a business that has built a scalable business on support services. How about IBM Global Services? It’s only the fastest growing division in IBM. Sorry to be so cynical about this but people making moronic statements like this when clearly they have not got a clue kind makes me that way.