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Microsoft's Mundie to Continue OSS Outreach
Techie writes "In an interview with eWeek Craig Mundie, Microsoft's new co-head-honcho and chief research and strategy officer, says he plans to continue to push the Redmond software titan forward with its goal of greater interoperability with software licensed under the GPL." From the article: "Even in Bill's own public remarks, he pointed out that he thought his iconic status and the way that was reported tended to overemphasize his role in the company's innovation and execution. This is really a transition that has been in the works for a couple of years, with a couple to go before, and we will see the emergence of a lot of great talent that has today been portrayed as all Bill. This is a company with, in many cases, the best people in the world. "
Its a trap!
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
So they want to extinguish their bad-guy image, and extend an embrace towards the GPL?
Wait, maybe I have this backwards...
Isn't interoperability more a question of standards compliance than licensing? Or did eWeek's question pertain more to 'general interaction', as if Redmond needs to be more aware of the existence of, say, Ogg.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Don't trust anything Mundie says about F/OSS any farther than you can spit. Just a short time ago, Mundie was Microsoft's anti-open-source poster child. Now he's pulling an olive branch out of his ass. Either he's lying through his teeth, or he's talking out of both sides of his mouth.
Microsoft's sins are legion. They have a hell of a lot of work to do before they should expect anyone with a brain larger than a peanut to trust them.
I think they are realising that OSS isn't going away, each year it continues to get stronger and because of its structure they cannot aggressivly compete against it in a traditional sense.
We are already seeing huge benefits of OSS and what it can achieve and I think Microsoft have realised if they are going to have any future in it they need to work with it to some extent.
I am neither a programmer nor a lawyer, so there may be some nuances I'm missing, but here's how I see it.
- FLOSS reveals everything there is to know about how it operates and interoperates.
- Microsoft reveals as little as possible about how it operates and interoperates.
- Microsoft has a high-profile, highly-paid person trying to figure out how to make the two work together. So far, this appears to be quite a challenge for them.
Unless I've missed something crucial, Microsoft will never fix this problem to everyone's solution. The problem isn't in their software. The problem is in their business model. But they can never admit that, so they'll go on trying to figure out which size wrench to use to hammer the light bulb into the socket.
What if I do the same thing, and I do get different results?
IBM was the Microsoft of it's time and now it's a darling of geeks everywhere. All companies eventually have to learn to transition from being an entity that makes standards to merely contributing to them. Microsoft will learn this lesson albeit the hard way but they will learn.
Then in the future we can adjust our ire towards future threats like Apple for closing Darwin off to development and Google who is probably amassing more power than any one company should.
Ok here's a tip I got from my karate instructor, when someone's spoiling for a fight and are clearly about to start flailing, ask them a question, something dumb, irrelevant and obscure. When they take their eyes off you to think about it (and yup, people do exactly that when they're thinking, one of the reasons mobile phones are so dangerous in cars) you kick them in the balls and run for it.
The moral is watch what people do, don't listen to what they say.
The guys at the top of companies are all politicians, they tell you what you want to hear while continuing as always.
Deleted
This is a company with, in many cases, the best people in the world.
... maybe not so many now that Google is on the scene. The problem with Microsoft is how little the use of that talent translates into actual products. One has to wonder if the reason that Microsoft keeps so much highly-paid intellect on staff is more a matter of keeping those brains away from the competition (or from becoming competition) than for developing new products. They've used that principle in their lobbying efforts in Washington: hire everybody who's anybody and make sure that nobody else can have them. A Microsoft spokesperson once called that "sucking the air out of Washington."
The best people that money can buy, certainly
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
"Isn't interoperability more a question of standards compliance than licensing?"
Standards often include patented features. Most standards bodies require a minimum of RAND licensing. RAND is not sufficient to allow GPL implementations, however. Microsoft has a history of crafting licenses and patent grants that preclude GPL implementations.
The benefit of open standards comes from opening up competition, by removing standards compliance from control by a sole source. In the current market, Microsoft can crush any competitor that uses the same business model as Microsoft, so 'standards' that may only be used by similar commercial enities don't offer real competition. Only Free software, supported by a business model that can't be crushed by Microsoft, has shown a serious threat to Microsoft's domination. Yes, Apple, Sun, and others have had an impact, but they are vulnerable to changes in management direction. Sun may have saved Java from Microsoft, but they could turn around and sell it to Microsoft. I don't expect that to happen, but it's possible.
Interoperability with standards isn't enough. The standards need to be open, too. There's a lot of professional PR doublespeak about what 'open standard' means, but I rely on one test: can someone write a GPL implementation that complies with the patent licenses?
It's kinda complicated: http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2006/03/ 30/564809.aspx
I tell you what. If MS puts their patents on the table and removes their support of SCO and copyright liability, then I'll consider talking. Until then, forget it, actions speak louder than words.
Microsoft declared _war_ on Linux, the GPL and anything else that threatens their hegemony. And we're just supposed to smile and say thank you when they want to "increase interoperability" between Windows and Linux? After all the bullshit they've pulled? This is a war, and if Microsoft wins, we're screwed with DRM, formats that change year after year, and more monopoly tactics that wipe out budding technology like Ballmer steps on an ant. There's a reason why Penguinistas don't like Microsoft and it's because we've seen what happens to Microsoft "partners." It's like watching people get tossed in a tank of sharks and then being asked if I'd like to go for a swim in the new pool.
Craig Mundie is an ass.
Hey Craig, how come I can't get Word Perfect for Linux anymore?
--
BMO
The emporer had force powers that allowed him to control weak minds and shoot lightning from his fingertips. Microsoft has money and a bunch of software that works sorta, most of the time, in some ways, if you don't try to do something important with it. I guess they both have covert control over the senate, but if MS was designing the death star, the rebel alliance wouldn't have needed to fly through the exhaust tunnel, or hit a thermal vent the size of a "womp rat" because the reactor would have been put on the outside to remain compatible with deathstar 98 and to allow a certain class of star destroyer to dock that hadn't been used for ten years.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
Ok here's a tip I got from my karate instructor, when someone's spoiling for a fight and are clearly about to start flailing, ask them a question, something dumb, irrelevant and obscure. When they take their eyes off you to think about it (and yup, people do exactly that when they're thinking, one of the reasons mobile phones are so dangerous in cars) you kick them in the balls and run for it.
All that leadup in your story and you didn't give us a good question? I was severely disappointed."What is the weight of an unladen swallow?" If they ask african or european, just fight them, they're a wimp.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
It is not supprising you have heard the line elsewhere though. George Lucas was never one for highly momentous lines, witness the usually talented Natilie Portman looking like a moron when she says pearls like "hold me like you did on naboo" and "you're breaking my heart Aniken". Hell, the only memorable lines in the 6 movies were Han Solo's which were probably snuck on the script when Lucas was visiting the shrine to himself for his daily devotion.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
When Linux was only a tiny or isolated part of the OS market, it's was to MS's advantage to do everything they could not to recognize, support, or interoperate with it.
But as Linux reaches a significant size, MS's lack of interoperability becomes a liability. People start not bothering buying Windows licenses because it doesn't work well with their favourite OS (e.g., read and write common file formats), despite the fact that Windows may have functionality they would like to access.
As Windows begins its descent from dominance, it will be forced to start "playing well with others".
This prediction is worth everything you paid for it.
I hear this all the time, and I've come to the resignation that it's just a fact of life that people want to think this way, but frankly it's bullshit.
I am a senior editor at InfoWorld. I can tell you unequivocably that the editorial staff at InfoWorld is not in the business of sucking up to advertisers; indeed, we are not involved in the business of procuring advertisements in any way. Any reputable publication has a "church and state" policy with regard to sales and editorial. InfoWorld does, and I have no reason to believe our distinguished competition at eWeek is any different. (Of course, they're not as good at their jobs as we are, but they're not crooks.)
At InfoWorld we are also not in the business of repurposing press releases, nor do we accept any so-called bylined articles contributed by vendors. Any "advertorial" is clearly marked as such -- it's the rules.
Editorial staff at computer journals do nurture relationships with major technology vendors but that's because it's necessary to what we do -- which is report on IT. We may not print answers to the "hard-hitting questions" as often as you might like. In many cases, however, the reason you don't see answers to those questions in print is because the person we ask refuses to answer them.
You don't have to believe me, of course. But come on -- do I walk around saying programmers don't do anything but eat Cheet-Os, drink Mountain Dew, and add bugs to software?
Breakfast served all day!
With some groups, I'm willing to extend trust. MS, however, has a track record. They will need to PROVE that they are trustworthy before I will trust them. Even then it will be an iffy kind of thing for a decade or so.
But proof comes first.
1) Stop campaigning for closed standards. This is the first step towards earning trust.
2) Stop attempting to corrupt existing standards. This can be done simultaneous with 1.
3) Stop spreading FUD. If you continue to act like an enemy, there's no way I'll be willing to trust you.
Those steps are negative, but essential. Until those conditions are met there is no possible positive action that I would trust.
4) Do something positive. There are lots of options here, but if a government forces you to it, then it doesn't count as a positive action from you. Merely neutral (at best).
Possible examples of positive actions are:
1) Pushing an open standard, and adopting it in your own programs.
2) Opening the file format specifications beyond what the EU is demanding. (Alternatively, creating a new Open file format specification and adopting it...but this is 1 again.)
3) Releasing a version of MSWind that doesn't automatically remove the ability of other OSs on the same drive to boot. (Yeah, Linux isn't so good about this either. SuSE seems to do this, but most distros presume that they are the grand PooBah *AND* the Lord High Executioner wrapped into one bundle.)
4) Other. (I said there were lots of choices. There's really too many to enumerate.)
But proof comes before belief.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Snort. Gee, I don't know why anybody would ever be suspicious of Microsoft.
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Go read those papers, the "Halloween documents." They aren't just random FUD, those are internal Microsoft documents stating exactly how Microsoft intends to destroy OSS.
"Embrace, extend and extinguish" isnt' a summary that was randomly invented by OSS paranoiacs, according to sworn testimony the phrase came out of Microsoft VP Paul Maritz' mouth in Intel's meetings with Microsoft
So we're supposed to not be suspicious when they announce that, gee golly, they're serious about embracing?
You're either a fool or a shill.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
A nice start would be allowing redistribution of MSVCP71.DLL and MSVCR71.DLL as part of GPL applications? Python 2.4 switched to a newer Microsoft compiler and requires these DLLs on machines. Microsoft provides free compilers - see http://wiki.python.org/moin/Building_Python_with_t he_free_MS_C_Toolkit However the C libraries that the compilers use can only be redistributed under terms that preclude GPL licensed software, although some debate the interpretation.
Consequently that means that people who have GPL licensed Python apps can't move to Python 2.4 or newer because of Microsoft's licensing.