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Why Microsoft cozied up to open source at OSCON
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CommentsLast month at O'Reilly's Open Source Convention (OSCON), it seemed like Microsoft was everywhere you looked, avouching its interest in open source. Thanks to the company's history -- including some very recent history -- a great many in the open source community viewed the company's presence with mistrust, suspicious of Redmond's motives and apprehensive of what would follow. Surely Microsoft must want something, so what is it?
Monday, Microsoft sponsored the Participate 08 panel. Wednesday, Hank Janssen presented a session about Microsoft's Open Source Software Lab. Thursday, John Lam spoke about IronRuby, and Sam Ramji made an appearance at the SourceForge.net Community Choice Awards. Friday, Sara Ford gave a talk about the open source "ecosystem," and Sam Ramji delivered one of the morning keynotes, decked out in a crisp, stylish Firefox T-shirt.
And that was in addition to the assorted advertising and paraphernalia that comes with anteing up as an event sponsor.
Microsoft repeated loud and clear its "we like open source" message. Its speakers touted company projects like IronRuby and Windows Installer XML, the company's open source project portal CodePlex, and Friday's announcement that the company was joining the Apache Foundation.
Suspicion
I'm no mind reader, but the reception of the audiences at the events I was able to attend in person -- in particular the Participate 08 panel and the Ramji keynote -- tell me that many in the OSCON crowd weren't taking Microsoft's story at face value. That skepticism stems from two roots. First, it is far removed from the company's historical views of open source as a "cancer" and "anti-American." Second, the company has a history of "embracing and extending" competing technologies in a manner that crushes them.
Microsoft clearly has not changed its opinion of open source without a reason, and whatever that reason is, the change must be one that Microsoft's management has decided is advantageous. So what is the play? What does the company hope to gain?
Conspiracy theorists will say that Redmond's goal is to destroy open source, either by poisoning it from the inside or by co-opting it. There is a subtle difference between those scenarios, hidden in the terminology itself. Understanding that is the key to figuring out what Microsoft is really after.
Send in the nouns
The issue is that "destroying open source by poisoning it from the inside" and "destroying open source by co-opting it" muddle what the term open source means. "Open source" could mean the open source community, the open source development model, or the stack of open source software that competes head-to-head with Microsoft's.
The only one that Microsoft cares anything about is the third. The open source development model doesn't compete with Microsoft directly, but the open source stack does: Linux, Apache, Postgres, and OpenOffice.org, to name a few competitive products. The open source community is important to Redmond only in that it develops the platform that competes against Windows, Internet Explorer, Internet Information Server, SQL Server, and Microsoft Office.
For me, the most telling comment from Microsoft at OSCON came from Bryan Kirschner at Monday's Participate 08 panel. Microsoft sees its platform losing mindshare with up-and-coming developers who find the open source platform more appealing.
The company wants to lure those developers back. Its open source play is aimed squarely at them, and at independent software vendors (ISV). They mean potential sales, and Microsoft has embraced the open source development model in order to tempt them away from the open source platform and over to the Windows platform.
Kirschner's sentiment is reinforced by what Microsoft's project hosting site and portal site are all about: development tools, such as integrated development environments, installers, and build tools.
So yes, Microsoft is definitely out to get something by showing off its love of "open source" -- it is out to get developers. By leaving off the nouns whenever it mentions "open source" it may sound like Redmond has decided to be friends with the open source community, but don't be fooled. It is interested in the open source development model because ISVs and other potential customers like it, and it still views the open source stack as the major competitor and threat to its own product platform.
Will this play work? Running the initiative does not cost the company much money (see, open source development does mean low TCO!) and it is sure to attract some developers; how many depends on how well the company executes, and how well the open source community executes at the same time.
I am not convinced by the logic of any of the conspiracy theories about Microsoft sidling up to the open source community in order to subvert and destroy it; they are too convoluted when straightforward attacks are much simpler. Its words and actions at OSCON 2008 are all candid, direct attempts to lure ISVs and developer talent to Microsoft's own product line. Given that, it hardly makes a difference whether Redmond's imprecise use of the words "open source" is intended to blur the distinction between the development model, the community, and the software stack.
Comments
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Re: Why Microsoft cozied up to open source at OSCON
Posted by: Anonymous [ip: 71.185.53.185] on August 04, 2008 09:55 PMThey don't want to see *GPL'd* OpenSource. They have had no problems using BSD source.
Re(1): Why Microsoft cozied up to open source at OSCON
Posted by: Anonymous [ip: 155.104.37.18] on August 04, 2008 11:02 PMRe: Why Microsoft cozied up to open source at OSCON
Posted by: Anonymous [ip: 84.129.97.31] on August 05, 2008 02:52 PMWe face intense competition. We continue to experience intense competition across all markets for our products and services. Our competitors range in size from Fortune 100 companies to small, specialized single-product businesses and open source community-based projects. Although we believe the breadth of our businesses and product portfolio is a competitive advantage, our competitors that are focused on narrower product lines may be more effective in devoting technical, marketing, and financial resources to compete with us. In addition, barriers to entry in our businesses generally are low and products, once developed, can be distributed broadly and quickly at relatively low cost. Open source software vendors are devoting considerable efforts to developing software that mimics the features and functionality of our products, in some cases on the basis of technical specifications for Microsoft technologies that we make available. In response to competition, we are developing versions of our products with basic functionality that are sold at lower prices than the standard versions. These competitive pressures may result in decreased sales volumes, price reductions, and/or increased operating costs, such as for marketing and sales incentives, resulting in lower revenue, gross margins and operating income.
Why Microsoft cozied up to open source at OSCON
Posted by: Anonymous [ip: 75.80.160.171] on August 05, 2008 12:32 AMThere is nothing I've ever seen from Microsoft which would indicate they just want to compete. When something competes with their only profitable products(MS Windows and MS Office ) they destroy it. Remember them talking about "killing the baby" with regards to Netscape, Balmer saying he'll kill Google, Bill Gates saying "does anyone remember Windows?" when the discussions on what to do with Java got out of hand. They go for the throat every time and this is no different.
Why Microsoft cozied up to open source at OSCON
Posted by: Anonymous [ip: 205.250.159.224] on August 05, 2008 12:37 AMThe same applies to luring ISVs and other developers to their platform. So they profess love for open source while not being quite so enthused about GPL'd software. It's a very round-about-route to attracting developers to their stack, if that indeed is the goal, and not something else.
I'm sure they've noticed that in the wild .NET is being pushed out by PHP, Python, Ruby and a resurgent Perl.
Anyway, why use C# when the real thing is out there and it's called Java?
The problem isn't as much the stack with Microsoft it's that they treat their ISVs and smaller developers who support and enhance Office, for example, the same way they treat their competitors.
Heck, even Microsoft needs C/C++ people to knock some sense into the bloat known as Vista.
Back to developers. Two questions.
If, as has been widely complained of and demonstrated that Microsoft treats devs and ISVs like vicious competitors rather than partners why would you develop for them?
Then, if you can answer that in the affirmative. Why would you want to develop on the sows ear known as Vista?
Didn't thnk so. ;-)
After all, it's not like Microsoft's MO is unknown or flies under the radar. MS can proclaim all the love it wants for FOSS. It has yet to walk the walk, much less crawl the crawl to get to the walk.
Why Microsoft cozied up to open source at OSCON
Posted by: Anonymous [ip: 118.90.74.62] on August 05, 2008 05:21 AMSo my litmus test for Microsoft's acceptability as a member of the Free Open Source Software communities, is its releasing the source trees of certain valuable parts of its stack under the GPL version 3. To wit, various versions of MS Windows, ancient and modern, MS Office, ancient and modern, and MS Visual [PL] Express plus various development tools, ancient and modern.
I think their confusion though, will sink them before they get their courage up.
Microsoft will sneak in its "intellectual property"
Posted by: Anonymous [ip: 80.137.26.64] on August 05, 2008 07:28 AMOnce Microsoft finds someone / some project that trusts them they will contribute to that project or use some chills to contribute to that project to sneak in some of their "intellectual property". And at some point they will play that card and sue the project out of existence. Embrace, extend, extinguish.
And (not "or", "and") they will corrupt projects with money. Making them so dependable on Microsoft money and sponsorship that they at some point can finally dictate the direction of the project. And they will steer such projects into becoming insignificant. Beware of Greeks bearing presents.
And (not "or", "and") they will join FOSS organizations, like the Linux LSB or the Apache Foundation and from the inside they will bring the organization's work to a crawl or halt by using every possible dirty trick they can find. Ask the CORBA people or any standard committee Microsoft joined.
And (not "or", "and") they will use their money to totally corrupt organizations and decision making processes. See how unscrupulous they totally corrupted the ISO (and years before that the ECMA, which they apparently fully "own" these days) for their MS-OOXML standard. Or small states when it came to the OLPC. Microsoft buys complete governments (and half of the US government). Why would they stop short corrupting a few FOSS projects?
And (not "or", "and") they will break every law they don't like in the process. They have broken so many national and international laws, that it is almost an obsessive, compulsive behavior of Microsoft to break laws. Why? Because they have the money to get away with it.
BTW: It saddens me to see this Sam Ramji guy wearing a firefox T-shirt. He should be denied to do so. Firefox is the grandchild of Netscape. Netscape, for those wiper snappers who entertain to trust Microsoft, was the browser company that was systematically destroyed by Microsoft. Its offsprings only very narrowly escaped into the FOSS world. This Sam Ramji guy wearing a firefox T-shirt is like he is pissing on the grave of Netscape. For that alone, and of course all the lies he was singing at OSCON he should have been the target of a thousand rotten tomatoes.
Why Microsoft cozied up to open source at OSCON
Posted by: Anonymous [ip: 192.58.229.21] on August 05, 2008 08:31 AMThere HAS to exist one, but I fail to remember...
Re: Why Microsoft cozied up to open source at OSCON
Posted by: Anonymous [ip: 62.242.207.130] on August 05, 2008 09:49 AMOK, nope, can't think of any that got away without a sore bum either.
Why Microsoft cozied up to open source at OSCON
Posted by: Anonymous [ip: 217.111.50.179] on August 05, 2008 12:00 PMWhich OTOH means that the Linux ecosystems should also look at better integration and more standardized access to infastructure elements as LDAP, Kerberos, SQL, mail, calendaring etc.
If you want to beat Microsoft here, you should all promote Open Standards for such access. Only with open standards (see http://www.digistan.org for a good definition) you create a level playing field, freed from vendor lock-in.
Jan
Why Microsoft cozied up to open source at OSCON
Posted by: Anonymous [ip: 98.193.176.7] on August 05, 2008 02:41 PMWhy Microsoft cozied up to open source at OSCON
Posted by: Anonymous [ip: 192.35.35.34] on August 05, 2008 02:59 PMWhy Microsoft cozied up to open source at OSCON
Posted by: Anonymous [ip: 24.84.196.212] on August 05, 2008 05:23 PMWhy Microsoft cozied up to open source at OSCON
Posted by: Anonymous [ip: 221.128.202.98] on August 05, 2008 10:07 PMThat's from a few days ago. Need I say more? I rest my case!
Why Microsoft cozied up to open source at OSCON
Posted by: Anonymous [ip: 24.8.140.36] on August 06, 2008 03:40 PMNo way would I trust them just yet, but don't dismiss them out of hand...
Why Microsoft cozied up to open source at OSCON
Posted by: Anonymous [ip: 24.8.140.36] on August 06, 2008 03:50 PMRe: Why Microsoft cozied up to open source at OSCON
Posted by: Anonymous [ip: 221.128.201.76] on August 07, 2008 10:00 AMThat is insignificant at best. It's very difficult to change organizational mindset. Don't get me wrong, things change, I am not saying they don't, case and point IBM. However to claim that MS has changed or is changing because most of it's developers look at OSS favorably is a folly. OSS is a commitment and that comes from top-down in an organization and it happens when an organization as a whole commits to OSS. Wearing Firefox T-shirts doesn't automatically mean "we support OSS".
MS still views OSS as the No 1 threat to itself and Linux (, the poster boy of OSS) as the single biggest threat it's front line product, the Windows OS. No, MS will never open-source it's front-line products. Don't ever expect MS Office to be open-sourced, that just ain't gonna happen. MS commits billions to RnD and small projects like IronRuby and CodePlex are just token gestures, minuscule, no nanoscule at best. If people are fooled into believing that MS is slowly adopting open-source, then that's what they are.... fools.
A Stillborn Effort to Court Developers
Posted by: Anonymous [ip: 70.61.233.130] on August 07, 2008 07:39 PMDo you think they'll drink the Koolaid for a lousy T-shirt? Do you think they care how often or how loud Ballmer chants "Developers, developers?" 'Cause I sure don't.
Maybe if he'd shut that flapper for even a minute, he'd hear the developers chanting, "Fix your software, fix your software."
Why Microsoft cozied up to open source at OSCON
Posted by: Anonymous [ip: 81.98.145.217] on August 11, 2008 05:21 AMIf MS actually listened to what the community is saying as a whole, then maybe, just maybe, will they get the knack of this OS lark.
MS, you're crap and going down boy!!! The future's bright, it's just just not orange yet! :-)
Why Microsoft cozied up to open source at OSCON
Posted by: Anonymous [ip: 79.77.125.14] on August 04, 2008 09:38 PMIt is not that MS don't like/want to see open source. It is you not using *their* stack and development tools that they don't like. Mono/Moonlight keep you on the Microsoft stack, because they are ultimately using MS-based technologies. Microsoft wants new developers to learn C#/.NET as this means that there are less of the new generation that know/understand C/C++ and who can thus work on GNU/Linux-based open source projects.
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