What Should Microsoft's Open Source Strategy Be?

JWinterboy asks: "I'm guessing that everyone here has a valid criticism of Microsoft's attacks on, and approach towards the Open Source model. To me, that begs the question of what we think would be an "appropriate" reaction from Microsoft towards the Open Source model. It doesn't have a service arm, so IBM's approach isn't really viable. At the same time, non-service related business models haven't fared very well. What would we like to see Microsoft do? How can it work with the Open Source community, leverage its resources, and still make a buck?"

Comments

No service arm? Wha?

[KFury]

Check it out: Microsoft Consulting Services.

They built GAP.com, among other things. Operations in 30+ countries and all that stuff...

Re:Microsoft Linux

[AndyS]

As opposed to now, where I can install a driver by *gasp* clicking on it and selecting "install"

I'm missing something here..... (apt-get install xserver)

(Note, Linux is not as crippled as you make out, it's just that people don't make the best possible usage of systems such as apt-get and it's "competitors". These are in fact, much nicer - as the driver vendor would have a script (you'd have to come up with some sort of delivery system, but that wouldn't be too complicated - this could add a single line to a resource such as /etc/apt/sources.list - and then your drivers could be upgraded in much the same way as Windows upgrades Messenger and other apps)

How about Apple, as an example?

[2nd Post!]

They have a whole friggin open source OS (Darwin) which they have grafted their own closed source technology (displayPDF, QuickTime, CoreAudio, etc), and are selling for $130, or bundling with their Macs.

They also have an open source Darwin Streaming Server, and a complementary closed source QuickTime Streaming Server. They bundle Apache as their HTTP server, as well.

What can Microsoft do that would be similar?

How about release the DirectX library as open source? However, use their own in house optimization-compilation technology to ensure that their own DX libs are 10% or 15% faster than anything out there... IE, outinnovate the competition, themselves?

Or release their older Office programs as open source? Sell newer, more advanced copies, but allow the general public to self support and modify their older versions? Of course, again, the key is to out innovate yourself to convince people to buy the newest version instead of incrementally updating and fixing the older, free source version.

Or rather, release a Office Core, which allows you to compile a very basic Office devoid of nifty features... though this might backfire, as people don't generally use 80% of the features in Office, do they?