Microsoft forms open-source subsidiary

[SteveRiley]

Jean Paoli writes...

I am really excited to be able to share with you today that Microsoft has announced a new wholly owned subsidiary known as Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc., to advance the company’s investment in openness – including interoperability, open standards and open source.

My existing Interoperability Strategy team will form the nucleus of this new subsidiary, and I will serve as President of Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc.

More: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/interoperabi...mmunities.aspx

[Ole Juul]

As a result of these efforts, customers will have even greater choice and opportunity to bridge Microsoft and non-Microsoft technologies together in heterogeneous environments.

I am so glad that Microsoft has finally seen the light. Knowing this gives me great confidence and trust. I forgive them for everything that they've done in the past, and regret ever saying anything bad about them. It's been a while since I've purchased a Microsoft product, but now I might even consider upgrading my DOS 6.0 machine to DOS 6.22 which I understand is much better.

[Goeroeboeroe]

@Ole Juul: I hope you mean MS-DOS, and not just any DOS?

Sorry, but I've seen too many lies and manipulation by Microsoft. Maybe this is a good initiative, but for me it will take quite some time to believe them. In the blog SteveRiley links too the Microsoft-guy gives three examples of languages Microsoft has worked on with other people/companies/organizations. One of them is HTML5. Maybe the writer of that blog doesn't know it, but Microsoft has refused time after time to join the working group/mailing list about HTML5. When they finally did, they were really welcomed. But their first contribution was a proposal to remove <nav>, <section>, </article>, etc. from HTML5. Hardly constructive for a first contribution, when you've refused to cooperate while people were developing HTML5.
Today they cooperate much better, but that's not because they like it. They simply were forced to cooperate.
If this man and his team have integer motives, and if Microsoft allows them to act integer, then in future maybe i will start to believe what he's saying.

[Qqmike]

Goeroeboeroe: "If this man and his team have integer motives,..."

I doubt that. I think fractional motives will prove to be more the case ...
:-)

[whatthefunk]

An open sourced subsidiary made by a company that makes all their money from strictly controlled software is not to be trusted...

[dtr]

Agreed. They will have to really prove themselves, before I would start to trust them.

[MoonRise]

Goeroeboeroe: "If this man and his team have integer motives,..."

I doubt that. I think fractional motives will prove to be more the case ...
:arrow:

An open sourced subsidiary made by a company that makes all their money from strictly controlled software is not to be trusted...

+1 and +1 on that!

[GreyGeek]

Microsoft tried a similar ploy in 2006 when it formed the CodePlex Foundation, which later changed its name to the OuterCurve Foundation, which seems a little more revealing. However the part about the license to software written under or contributed to CodePlex hasn't changed:

4.
Licenses.
....
Copyright License. You grant Foundation a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, irrevocable license in the Submission to reproduce, prepare derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform, and distribute the Submission and such derivative works, and to sublicense those rights to third parties.

Note much "open" in that.

It is important to note that Microsoft and our business groups will continue to engage with the open source and standards communities in a variety of ways, including working with many open source foundations such as Outercurve Foundation,

The copyright license for the OuterCurve Foundation can in NO WAY be categorized as "open source". That they use that term shows how far the corruption caused by the OSI ("Open Source Inititative") has spread. The OSI lists almost 5 dozen licenses which it claims are "open source", but there is only ONE GPL, and its four freedoms. As far as I am concerned a license is NOT "open source" if it does not include the four freedoms.

In fact, that CodePlex/OuterCurve license got Microsoft in trouble when they used some FOSS code in Win7 that they "thought" was written as part of CodePlex, but it wasn't, so they couldn't just expropriate it like they thought they could, and like the permissions in the OuterCurve license gives them. Caught with their hand in the cookie jar their only escape was to contribute that 20,000 lines of code relating to Hyper-V to the kernel, or be sued. That the code could be paired down to 7K lines and still cover MORE hardware and technologies than the original code speaks wonders about the skills of Linus and his crew.

As far as 'engaging' with the standardization committees, the memory of their OOXML debacle is still fresh in my mind, as is their subversion of the European Open Source Software Standards report, to name just a couple.

A Tiger does not easily change its stripes because that go all the way to the skin and DNA.

[Qqmike]

I guess no one caught my joke, my play on the quoted typo ... guess I'll go out in the backyard and eat worms ...

[woodsmoke]

I got it mike, just didn't have anything in particular to say and certainly could not "top" it! lol

wait a minute.....the old woodsmoker didn't have anything to say? I think I need to pour a Cuba Libre! lol

woodsmoke

[rms]

I wonder what Steve thinks about these news. Is it history repeating, or something else rolling on the wave?

[SteveRiley]

I don't personally know Jean Paoli, so I won't attempt to impute motives onto his actions.

It's been somewhat satisfying to observe the idependence Microsoft has granted to its Azure (cloud computing) division. Perhaps we'll see the same thing here? I certainly hope so.

But think about this for a moment. Google is losing its charm because of its flagrant violation of "Do no evil." Apple, while popular, is probably at the pinnacle of evilness right now (predatory patent behavior). Amazon remains aloof. Dare I say it -- is Microsoft demonstrating a hint of a whisper of a shadow of becoming cool again, at least in a few places? Something to ponder...

[rms]

I don't personally know Jean Paoli, so I won't attempt to impute motives onto his actions.

It's been somewhat satisfying to observe the idependence Microsoft has granted to its Azure (cloud computing) division. Perhaps we'll see the same thing here? I certainly hope so.

But think about this for a moment. Google is losing its charm because of its flagrant violation of "Do no evil." Apple, while popular, is probably at the pinnacle of evilness right now (predatory patent behavior). Amazon remains aloof. Dare I say it -- is Microsoft demonstrating a hint of a whisper of a shadow of becoming cool again, at least in a few places? Something to ponder...

Although accumulated(alas, bad) experience of other posters cannot be denied, I also feel a slight change of attitude in a good direction. If only Apple-people emerged a bit from their money-making trance, I think, Google would follow. Now, that would be really a nicer world to abide in...

[Goeroeboeroe]

I agree with SteveRiley about Google and Apple. Personally I think Apple is at the moment even worse than Microsoft. And I'm really starting to dislike Google. Even as a search engine I'm starting to distrust it with all those secret clicking algorithms etc.
I don't say it's absolutely impossible Microsoft is starting to behave differently. For a part they just have to, like with html and css. But after all these lousy actions of Microsoft for me it's: show it, and then I will start believing it. If you break into my house for ten times, I'm not opening the door myself the eleventh time I see you.

[SteveRiley]

Dare I say it -- is Microsoft demonstrating a hint of a whisper of a shadow of becoming cool again, at least in a few places? Something to ponder...

BTW, you all remember my origins, correct? You do realize what I'm now beginning to do here. I have begun to sew the seeds of mass KFN conversion... BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!