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Microsoft Wants Sit-Down With OSS Advocates
bonch writes "Microsoft is reaching out to the OSS community and wanting a sit-down to discuss how to better to interoperate with them. At a conference sponsored by the Association for Competitive Technology (ACT) in Cambridge, Md., Microsoft's Brad Smith extended an olive branch to its competitors, including the OSS community. 'We're going to have to figure out how to build some bridges between the various parts of our industry,' he said. Eric Raymond responds, saying the first steps Microsoft could do are to open their file formats and support open standards."
didn't he have strategy where he got everybody into one room, then barred the doors and... :)
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
They just want to get all the OSS leaders together in one room, then.....
(oh wait, that was Dr. Who this week. Never mind....)
In a related headline,
Lucy promises to hold football with finger, Charlie Brown to kick.
ITS A TRAP!
Maybe, Just maybe, Microsoft and Linux fans can sit down at the same table and talk about the current computer market scene, but it will take some SERIOUS, serious change in Microsoft's approach (FUD, monopolizing, etc.). It would be a great day, but hopefully Microsoft will at some point open at least some of its software up.
Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.
--sig fault--
What is this? Could this be serious? They did recently acknowledge Linux as an operating system, instead of a cancer (they included support for it in VirtualPC). A very fine move on their part, but perhaps they are onto the final stage (Denial, Bargaining, Anger, Sadness, finally Acceptance?) Though they are not dying, perhaps they see an opportunity to "Accept" the fact that Open Source Software has been around and will be around much longer than anything else.
We must be wary though - could this be a wolf in sheep's clothing? Could this be a false branch? Might they trap the OSS developers at the meeting-place and hold them ransom?!
Who knows...
AccountKiller
And, for my more serious post.... Microsoft has "reached out" before. Seemingly not many remember their big PR campaign when they first released NT circa 1992. One of the big claims, one of the big selling points of their "new technology" (not what NT stands for, btw) was NT's POSIX compliance.... Microsoft purportedly was then about to "join" the open architecture community. They even convinced me to go work for them. But, it turned out they didn't do complete POSIX (only implemented the API, not the User Utilities), and only did the POSIX at all to get government contracts (I know this, I was at an internal presentation where "Margaret" prefaced the presentation with the comments, "We are only doing POSIX as a checkbox, so we can get government contracts..." (I am not making this up.))
"You expect me to talk, OSS?"
"No, Mr. Gates, I expect you to die."
Michael.
Linux : Mac
This is nothing more than a marketing brainwave. Microsoft will never in their right mind help the OSS community, unless the OSS community helps them an exponentially greater amount. MS realises they are fast losing ground to FOSSS, and the lifejackets are out.
Microsoft "working with it's competitors" - that just isn't realistic, it would be kinda like the Goatse man getting a job as a children's TV presenter.
If you are going to sup with the devil, bring a long spoon...
"'We're going to have to figure out how to build some bridges between the various parts of our industry,' he said. Eric Raymond"
Microsoft doesn't have a problem with building bridges... As long as they're toll bridges...
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
Mohandas Gandhi
The more you know, the less you understand.
"Eric Raymond responds, saying the first steps Microsoft could do are to open their file formats and support open standards" Response from Microsoft: Um, we wanted to build bridges that didn't involve contribution on our part.
How about following the RFC's to start. Once M$ adhears to the specs in RFC's devolpers will not longer have to alter RFC compliant code to be M$ compliant.
You only live once, so you might as well have fun before you die.
What a load of baloney!
Microsoft wants to interoperate? Go ahead! Just quit *not* interoperating.
Microsoft wants to reach out to the Open Source community? Uh, they really don't get it, do they. There aren't any leaders to reach out to! There are leaders, but it's not a labor union or a PTA.
We'll judge you by your actions, not by what you say to our leaders.
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
The European Union (EU) is after Microsoft in a big way. The EU wants them to enable operability with other systems. The timing is such that these may be interrelated.
Banjo - The more I know about Windoze, the more I love *nix
Um, yeah. When's that starting again?
Actions always speak louder than words, in both cases.
How this discussion will go...
MSFT: What can we do to better interoperate with OSS?
OSS: How about allowing Office to work with OSS file formats, or use an open standard that other programs can interoperate with.
MSFT: Um, uhh, We'll get back to you on that one. What else?
OSS: How about using standard video file formats such as MPG instead of the perverted version of MPG called WMA that only works with WMP.
MSFT: Uh, ehh, I don't think so! Anything else?
OSS: Well, how about using a file system that is open, publishing your own, or working with OSS file systems.
MSFT: This is crazy! I'm outta here!
Well, I RTFA, and this is one of the most misleading titles I've seen in a long time. Microsoft explicitly states that they think their arsenal of software patents is a fine thing and they aren't willing to give up the right to sue. And if they aren't willing to give that up, what is there to discuss? In addition, there isn't anything that requires discussion. If Microsoft was really interested in wokring with the FOSS community, I'm sure there is somebody in their army of lawyers that could figure out how to write a royalty free non-discriminatory patent license that was compatible with the GPL. There is no need to discuss this with anybody, they can 'just do it'. The fact that they chose instead to have one of their lawyers give a content free, buzzword compliant speech tells us all we need to know about Microsoft's olive branch; the only thing they are interested in using it for is to poke people in the eye with it so they don't notice the sledgehammer they are holding in the other hand.
The typical MS pattern is this: Make it easier to accomplish your goal with our software and the competition dies. Make it easier to just use our browser and netscape dies. Make it easier to use our word processor and Word Perfect dies.
... wait... all they have to do is write software for Windows. Do this, and the competitor (Linux) will die.
Now take all these OSS groups. Many programmers want lots of people to use their software. They work for free, but they still get credit. Microsoft can give them all the credit in the world. All they have to do is bow down and worship
Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
Why would any company ask its competition how they could get along better, if the real motivation wasn't to be more competitive? Am I missing something?
-- Fratz, human
MS does support open standards. They can read and write to them just fine. They just like to "enhance" them, and "innovate" to add functionality that, sadly, leaves open software hopelessly out of date and incompatible.
If you want full featured software, come over to the dar..., uh, our side of the street.
Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now, and let us slay him... and we shall see what will become of his dreams.
*shhh* Linus, *shhhh* I am your father *shhhh*
You're old school? I beta tested the motherf***ing abacus!
but there are a number of people in the community who hold a lot of power to persuade and influence.
Remember, you only need consensus, not unanimity.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Microsft has been characterized by their actions over the years as predatory... even when it hurt the bottom line. They would target and squash a company just because they could... because they relished a cutthroat style of competition to get motivated.
If I could get an ear within MS I'd try to get them to admit to themselves that the Internet made them more money and the Internet was entirely structured from Open Standards... ethernet, TCP/IP, sockets, HTML over HTTP and on and on... They profitted enormously from NOT fighting these standards... no dial-up MSN only.
The reason for this is the Rising Tide effect.
More investment is poured into a market and most companies benefit in some ratio to their marketshare... there's some shifting but the big winners accelerate adoption and don't fight the new standards that are causing the explosive growth.
Microsoft saw the benefits and only tried minor hacks to the standards (DHTML for example).
When microsoft realizes that having your only significant competitor cost almost nothing they should have the next big Eureka moment. The way to destroy the Sun, HP, and IBM Unix businesses is to accelerate the enterprise adoption of Linux.
Oracle got it... if they spend less on Sun, HP and IBM hardware they have more budget for our products... duh. IT budgets are finite... growth comes from getting more of the budget.
Sun, HP and IBM could be effectively driven out of the Enterprise software business. Enterprise deployments of big applications goes crazy based upon new cost models and Microsoft's boat rises on that new high tide.
The logical extension is commercial Linux versions of their higher margin products (MS SQL, Visual Studio) and even more growth as a company when
the only other significant alternative is an OSS project with little revenue to help it compete for Enterprise requirements.
That's what I might tell this guy to explain to Bill gates and Bill of course would sob gently...
"You mean we've already won? There's no one left to kill? Just mine the veins we already own?."
Well... there is Oracle still.
Bill will likely develop an interest in politics where dirty tricks still mean something.
McD
All cynicism and paranoia aside, if Microsoft is serious about wanting to interoperate (with anybody, not just the FOSS community), here's the input I'd give them:
-
Use open standards, and don't try to subvert them with little "improvements" so that they don't interoperate except with MS software any more.
-
Don't gratuitously invent your own closed or encumbered standards and then try to get them accepted as industry standards.
-
Stop giving the impression (and remember that actions speak louder than words) that your primary goal is to require everyone in the world to use Microsoft software, and to make it frustrating or impossible to use anything else.
My 3 cents.Sure, what could be wrong with that?
Name a good software company that has had a serious relationship with Microsoft as a competitor and has come off better over a 5-year period as a result of trying to cooperate with them (OK, IBM lasted a bit longer, but most are dead).
IBM has demonstrated any number of ways of showing some level of cooperation with the open or free software communities. Apple, too, has earned some good karma, basing their OS and browser on open code and architecture, even if they keep a lot proprietary. Sun has been involved as well, and it hasn't kept them from keeping other things private. So why can't Microsoft think of something like most other major companies have, without calling a conference of competitors that sounds too much like looking for a target to attack, much like SCO's supposed invitation to IBM and the open source community to sit down and work things out?
Stop being so evil. Microsoft has enough money in the bank to be able to afford business ethics and earn trust.
How insincere can Microsoft be? They don't need to sit down with anybody. All they need to do is publish their specifications for the API to their operating system. This claim that they want to 'find common ground' could hardly be more insincere.
When they're ready to cut the BS and be serious, all they have to do is publish their API. After that, let's talk.
Best regards.
It's their head lawyer (clue the sharks with lasers comments) - which is in itself quite scary - think about what he does all day and why he might care - I suggest we send a couple of IBMs 'Nazagul' along just make sure we know what's really up
it was reported Eric Raymond was seen buying a "No, I will not fix your Windows" t-shirt...
You want to work with the Open Source community? Fine. Show us your openness. Tell us about your relationship with SCO. That'll be one big test of their willingness.
And the worms ate into his brain.
-Stop saying OSS is Communist
-Full CSS2/XHTML 1.1 in IE7 with no proprietary extensions
-As stated, open the file formats.
ACs are modded -6. I don't read you, I don't mod you, I don't see you. Don't like it? Don't be a coward.
If you include ignoring the standard definition and doing whatever you please, yes, they read it. By that definition, my toaster reads it, too.
Do you really think they wanted to control the browser market for any purpose than to destroy it, because it was free and open?
Unfortunately for them, even after abandoning their users and code base for several years after they thought their opposition was dead, they find they have to come back to it once in a while.
If they would implement and support W3C and other standards, as well as reputable browser vendors do, it would be a start.
And they're the only ones that matter to microsoft. Does microsoft care if joe coder makes his own O/S? Hell no. Microsoft cares about IBM, and SUSE, and REDHAT, people who can actually give major corporations support. I hate to break it to you, but your local DMV isn't switching to Gentoo anytime soon, because... taht's right... they want support. And any *open source* company that's offering support has a leader. And THOSE are the only people Microsoft REALLY cares about.
Wanting to meet in order to better interoperate with OSS sounds too vague to me.
Am I being paranoid, or are there hidden motives? What are they?
Is this like the scene in the beginning of Braveheart when the English King invited the nobles to a meeting, and then hung them all?
Actually, the statement is mostly correct; the law itself is mostly just fine. What's horribly broken is the patent examination and granting process. The examiners have done a shameful job in maintaining the integrity of patents by allowing patents on trivial "inventions" or re-purposing of existing inventions; by allowing patents that do not fully describe how to re-implement the claimed invention(s); and by allowing patents that are nearly unreadable with legalese and deliberately vague language.
Fix the examination and approval process, and the patent system will almost certainly sort itself out again without any legislative changes.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
Microsoft cannot get the OSS community to agree to anything. They can't say: "Do xxx we have a signed agreement from your CEO".
Even Linus can only speak for 10% or so of the Linux code base.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Here is a first-hand account of Microsoft's earlier effort in London, UK. Look for the great quote from Debian's Philip Hands at the end of the article.
h e_facts/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/06/28/ms_mugs_t
It goes a little like this...
Brad Smith: The king desires peace.
Eric Raymond: Longshanks.. er.. Gates desires peace?
Brad Smith: He declares it to me, I swear it. He proposes that you withdraw your attack. In return he grants you file formats, patents, and this chest of gold which I am to pay to you personally.
Eric Raymond: File formats and patents. Gold. That I should become Judas?
Brad Smith: Peace is made in such ways.
Eric Raymond: Slaves are made in such ways. The last time Gates spoke of peace I was a boy. And many open-source nobles, who would not be slaves, were lured by him under a flag of truce to a barn, where he embraced and extended and extinguished them. I was very young, but I remember this Gates notion of peace.
They just want to get all the OSS leaders together in one room, then expose them to government-regulated IP!!!!!!!!!!!!!
'SBEMAIL!' is better than a goat!!
Fix the examination and approval process, and the patent system will almost certainly sort itself out again without any legislative changes.
Doubtful.
Forget about silly patents. A big problem with patents today is cross-licensing and patent-pooling. In a nutshell it works like this:
Big companies join together in "co-ompetition" and pool their patents, if a company want access to any of their patents the price of entrance is that the new company's patents go into the patent pool and are all automatically cross-licensed to other poolers.
Enter little guy with a great idea. He patents it. But in order to implement the patent and manufacture a product using it, it just so happens that he needs to license a minor patent in one of these patent pools. It also turns out that at least one member of that pool is a potential competitor.
So now the little guy is stuck in a catch-22 - the only guarantee of profitability for his new business is the exclusive right to sell products based on his patented idea. But in order to produce those products, he must give up the exclusivity of his patent protection to his biggest potential competitors.
The only reasonable way out is to outright sell his patent to a big company that is already a member of the aforementioned patent pool, probably the one most likely to compete with him. Obviously the fact that he can't make use of the patent himself means that its value on the open market is greatly reduced, and once a great behemoth of a company gets ahold of the patent who knows how well it be implemented or sat on completely forgotten during the next corporate layoff. So, neither the creator nor society in general benefits much at all in this scenario.
Is it a common scenario? I've been told it is, but I really don't know. It certainly sounds plausible enough what with all the media coverage of patents and patent pools in the last 10 years or so.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Companies that have found themselved in competition with OSS have finally started to see value. Not in the OSS, certaintly not, but in the (free, as in beer) developer base. You see, developers that work for free are a finite resource, there simply aren't that many to go around.
Sun caught on to this not too long ago, and psudo open sourced Solaris in the hopes that developers would flock to it, fix it, maintain it, and innovate on it. Sun realized that by open sourcing solaris it could, in theory, triple maybe quadruple its development and enginnering efforts for free! Oh, yeah, and it still owns and can sell Solaris!
Now MS sees that it can kill Linux, OpenOffice and other competetors by drawing it's developer base into the MS flock. I'm not talking about Linus and Stallman here, but I'm talking about the applications developers. People don't run any OS to stare at it, they use it to run programs.
I don't see MS open sourcing hardly anything, but what I do them doing is building an MS type source forge, some sort of MS exclusive [psudo] open source license, and maybe open sourcing it's development tools under that [psudo] open source license. They think they can give away free tools, and sponser a collaboration site and perhaps a few hundred or thousand OSS developers will start coding software that adds value to Windows for free.
I hope they are wrong.
Be Safe! Sleep with a Marine. Semper Fi!
Look, the very nature of "intellectual property" accepts that fact that you believe that it's "OK" to use the coercive power of government to controll waht people copy. So let there be no doubt, we are what we hold ourselves accountable to, and we are far more beholden to the forces that are pulling us apart from Microsoft that the ones that are keeping us together.
One more thing, if it's only about the technology, and not freedom. Then what's to keep Microsoft from offering key people money and benefits to influence the direction of Linux. If they don't see freedom as the end in itself, then they surely won't see anything wrong with that. The fact is, freedom matters, and in the information age the freedom to copy and distribute information that's already out there really matters.
I think it wreaks of desperation. MS isn't the new thing anymore, they are the big bad monopoly. It's not easy to market as the big bad guy, so they want to be seen like IBM,the former big bad guy that's getting attention over OSS commitments. Plus that whole SCO thing didn't crush linux as expected, and longhorn is getting poor reviews. People are frustrated with poor security ruining they computers.
In the past MS didn't even give a phukene reach around as they embraced the competition, and now they are offering to reach out ?
I just don't really care have microsoft reach out. They carved out their solitude with monopolistic practices, and now they can deal with the consequences.
--| Richard Stallman on How to Deal with Microsoft |-----
The following is Mirrored from: http://linuxtoday.com/stories/4999.html
Richard Stallman proposes three remedies that would help enable free
software operating systems such as GNU/Linux compete technically while
respecting users' freedom. These three remedies directly address the three
biggest obstacles to development of free operating systems, and to giving
them the capability of running programs written for Windows. They also
directly address the methods Microsoft has said (in the "Halloween
documents") it will use to obstruct free software. It would be most
effective to use all three of these remedies together.
1. Require Microsoft to publish complete documentation of all interfaces
between software components, all communications protocols, and all file
formats. This would block one of Microsoft's favourite tactics: secret and
incompatible interfaces.
To make this requirement really stick, Microsoft should not be allowed to
use a nondisclosure agreement with some other organization to excuse
implementing a secret interface. The rule must be: if they cannot publish
the interface, they cannot release an implementation of it.
It would, however, be acceptable to permit Microsoft to begin
implementation of an interface before the publication of the interface
specifications, provided that they release the specifications
simultaneously with the implementation.
Enforcement of this requirement would not be difficult. If other software
developers complain that the published documentation fails to describe
some aspect of the interface, or how to do a certain job, the court would
direct Microsoft to answer questions about it. Any questions about
interfaces (as distinguished from implementation techniques) would have to
be answered.
Similar terms were included in an agreement between IBM and the European
Community in 1984, settling another antitrust dispute. See
http://www.essential.org/antitrust/ibm/ibm1984ec.h tml.
2. Require Microsoft to use its patents for defense only, in the field of
software. (If they happen to own patents that apply to other fields, those
other fields could be included in this requirement, or they could be
exempt.) This would block the other tactic Microsoft mentioned in the
Halloween documents: using patents to block development of free software.
We should give Microsoft the option of using either self-defense or mutual
defense. Self defense means offering to cross-license all patents at no
charge with anyone who wishes to do so. Mutual defense means licensing all
patents to a pool which anyone can join -- even people who have no patents
of their own. The pool would license all members' patents to all members.
It is crucial to address the issue of patents, because it does no good to
have Microsoft publish an interface, if they have managed to work some
patented wrinkle into it (or into the functionality it gives access to),
such that the rest of us are not allowed to implement it.
3. Require Microsoft not to certify any hardware as working with Microsoft
software, unless the hardware's complete specifications have been
published, so that any programmer can implement software to support the
same hardware.
Secret hardware specifications are not in general Microsoft's doing, but
they are a significant obstacle for the development of the free operating
systems that can provide competition for Windows. To remove this obstacle
would be a great help. If a settlement is negotiated with Microsoft,
including this sort of provision in it is not impossible -- it would be a
matter of negotiation.
This April, Microsoft's Ballmer announced a possible plan to release
source code for some part of
"Extend an olive branch" - (vb)
(1) To attack with IP lawsuits, especially when the lawsuit is very weak, but the party being sued does not have the resources to fight it.
(2) To fund 3rd parties to attack with IP lawsuits. "Microsoft extended and olive branch, through SCO, to IBM and Daimler-Chrysler "
"Build some bridges" (vb)
To sit down with a party to decide how to most effectively extend an olive branch. (qv)
"Collaborate" (vb)
To protect one's monopoly by destroying ones opponents by any means, fair or foul. Especially of political bribery to effect legal changes that make the modus operandi of potential competitors illegal.
"Open up one's file formats"
(1) To obscure one's file formats, especially formatting, so that competitors products look buggy when viewing files.
(2) To send malformed files when ones servers are communicating with one's potential competitors. "Microsoft's web servers have opened their file formats to the Opera web-browser"
From the company who has said laughing "open standard? doesn't that mean it's broken, incomplete?" (a Finnish Microsoft representative in an interview I don't remember which).
I'm not too optimistic.
Sitdown? We don't need no stinkin' sitdown. You can interoperate with our code a lot easier then we have been able to interoperate with your code. The only reason you can even call it your code is the fact of weak free licences like the BSD and your ability buy code innovated by others.
So now you want a sit down.
GO AWAY!