Microsoft throws $1m open-source party Industry organizations and foundations are like parties - it's who you don't invite and who shows up that's really important. IBM and Microsoft once tried to usurp Sun Microsystems' role over in web services by launching the Web Services Interoperability (WS-I) organization pointedly without the Java daddy. Humiliated, Sun had …
I assume it is also hard for a reporter "to achieve credibly" when he can't proof read an article.
This article is too negative. You're basically saying that because of the past MS mustn't be allowed to promote open source. However c# is a really good language, and codeplex in its current state is a pretty good platform. I don't see why MS should be flamed for trying to provide a platform. I would prefer it if they would simply open up their existing codeplex to be more open, but this is all good news that there's movement here.
I suppose the open source zealots will be crying out that Sun (now Oracle) or IBM (famed for their love of their customers) are so much more dedicated to the cause, but it's just not true. I for one welcome our new open source overlords and wish them well in their conquests.
After reading the first couple of paragraphs I though to myself "I can't see this as being of any interest whatsoever to anyone but .NET guys and maybe Miguel de icuaza."
Sure enough, I keep reading and discover Miguel is sitting on the board amongst a whole bunch of Microsoft employees.
What a shock.
Well, to me this looks like MS is recognizing the market sector of open-source software and the ability to charge for support thereof. Other companies are doing so with open source.
So if MS can get people to contribute applications to their open source platform, in the future maybe even roll their own Linux-based OS distro, then MS can be the company who has "their" open-source distro and software deployed into corporations, competing with the likes of Novell, RedHat etc. And while the software is free, there is also paid support, which equals more pieces of the pie and both a wider grasp by MS and additional income.
If they do this right and proper, they probably figure they may have both Windows Server and Linux-based Server OS's.
It´s hard to see that as anything but an effort to please MS own existing fanbuoy base (more and more of which is beginning to feel that they´re missing out on all the fun linked to that ¨open source¨ thinggy everyone´s talking about). So, as far as parties go, it´s more like MS trying to pretend it´s been invited by the kewl kids -though it hasn´t. This ¨foundation¨ strikes me as a pure PR move aiming to convince hardcore MS geeks that they are no IT outcasts. ¨Hey, Your MCSE badge is l33t now: we do open source, see?¨
"because of the past MS mustn't be allowed to promote open source."
Do you know what MS is? Do you know what FOSS is? Do you see the problem yet?
"However c# is a really good language"
No, it is not. It is a bastardization of a bastardized language. At best.
"and codeplex in its current state is a pretty good platform."
"Pretty good" for what? I don't do "pretty good" for production work.
"I don't see why MS should be flamed for trying to provide a platform."
You think that was a FLAME? You need to get out of Microsoft's private cosmos and join the rest of us, in the real world, before it's too late.
>"people will need to take Microsoft on trust, and that's not something Microsoft enjoys a great deal of in open source."
There's no reason why anyone in the closed-source world should trust them a single inch further than they can throw them either. This foundation sounds completely superfluous to any real or perceived need, and it is therefore reasonable to assume that Microsoft must have a covert motivation in setting it up. Needless to say, that is likely to be something that operates in Microsoft's interests, and is largely inimical to everyone else's ...
"people will need to take Microsoft on trust, and that's not something Microsoft enjoys a great deal of in open source"
Oh, you noticed. I wonder why that is?
I thought one of the most popular Free Software licences, the GPL, was "like communism" and "a cancer", according to a certain Mr Balmer
Since when have M$ been fair to anyone else. Note that the licence defaults to BSD - if you understand the implications. It is surely a covert move on open source.
The leopard has not changed its spots, c/f this article concerning i4i from which it appears that M$ have not only 'stolen' i4i's code for Word after partnering with i4i, but are also attempting to 'steal' i4i's established medical records business using the'stolen' code. i4i faces extinction if it looses to the appeal.
Partner with M$ at your peril as the long list of precedents of the victims to 'M$ policy of Embrace, Extend, Extinguish' demonstrates. Bear in mind that M$ have a very large legal department and that their own champion of Open Source is leaving their company.
Might is right and all that.
... Microsoft will never get.
I timed this and it is the measure of how much time I wasted contemplating the value of Microsoft's "promises" of changing its total war with anyone other than themselves for anything on this Earth.
The Jolly Roger, Microsoft flag of its intentions.
About one minute.
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