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Gentoo Founder on his way to Redmond
Rotworm writes "Recently former founder of Gentoo Linux, Daniel Robbins, has managed to procure employment with Microsoft. Robbins describes his position as "helping Microsoft to understand Open Source and community-based projects." Seemingly there's no scandals as Robbins managed to finalize the transfer of all Gentoo's IP to the Gentoo Foundation, Inc."
Microsoft has headhunted the competition before. This is not new for them or anyone else. The only difference here is that MS has a known, powerful, flexible enemy in Open Source. We're like a hydra; cut off one of our heads, two more will (eventually) grow in its place.
Plus, the "change things from the inside" thing isn't new either. The MS Macintosh Business Unit, formerly MS Bay, consisted primarily of Mac shareware and commercial SW developers who had been hired to work on Mac Office and Mac IE. These were guys who thought, ate, drank, and slept "Different." They are the reason Mac Office tends to leapfrog Windows Office in features and overall quality with every release, and also why IE on the Mac didn't suck. Anyway, even these guys ended up chugging the Kool-Aid - when Apple started releasing competitive products (most recently Safari), these guys acted as if it was their God-given right to be the exclusive developers of these types of software, going on record in the Mac press, denouncing Apple for daring to create competing products. Somehow they'd gotten into the MS mindset of expecting that their (MS's) stuff was supposed to be the only stuff around to support the OS, or to be treated as first-class citizens. The difference was that Apple didn't have to support this same opinion.
Back on-topic a bit, I think the gentards have nothing to worry or be ashamed about. Even though he'll probably turn with time, this isn't a pride thing. Maybe he just needs to eat, and wants to use his skills as a means towards that goal (shocking!). Who knows, maybe working for the bad guys really will change them for the better.
Microsoft dont do anything out of the goodness of their hearts. They are a corporate entity with a fiscal responsibility to their shareholders.
:-).
He will be brought on board to continue the MS strategy of embrace, extend (in a proprietary fashion) then replace. MS do not want to support linux in any way, they want to kill it. Dead. Every linux box sold represents money ripped from their pocket.
My guess is that this could be something like:
- get linux to run well on MS virtual machines, so linux can become just an app running under 2k3, and therefore slowely sink into oblivion.
- work on their command line tools. Looks like they have finally realised that the {Li,U}n{u,i}x way of providing powerful command line utilities is actually pretty useful (perhaps learned from the struggle when they first tried to convert hotmail to NT
Interesting times ahead.
Anyone else notice that this isn't the first ABQ->Redmond migration for a "distribution" founder?
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
what they are trying to do is to break up the opensource community by hiring all the top talent. If they hire the top leaders and put them in project s that never see the light of day, then they don't have to worry about them as competitors to MS. It is worth the million or two in salary to get a top guy.
Which can be summed up as
"Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer"
Surprised no-one else quoted that one first....
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
MS is a big company. Lotsa money. I would be surprised if they didn't have a variety of black project operating systems in development simultaneously. Of course Longhorn is their next premier *public* effort, but that doesn't mean they might not be "exploring" other avenues for contingecies sake. It costs them little when it's a business deduction after all.
Just like apple maintaining an x86 OSX branch for years, "just in case" is a reality that sometimes proves to be useful when you least suspect it.
So then MS therefore needs d00ds who have a proven track record of original thought as opposed to drudge work. A company needs both kinds, but it has to start with original thinkers before the hard working drudgework drones take over.
This reminds me of this joke:
Q: Is it true that in Sovie Russia every peasant will get a tractor from the State?
A: Yes, it's true, but it's not a tractor it's a bike and they don't give them, they take them away.
Same with Microsoft:
Q: Is is true that the Microsoft will give freedom and choice to users for free?
A: Yes it's true, but it's not for gratis and they don't give it, they take it away.
"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." -- Prof. Dumbledore