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Microsoft Hires Director of Linux Interoperability
AlexGr sends us to Todd Bishop's blog in the Seattle PI for news that Microsoft has brought someone aboard to serve as its Director of Linux Interoperability and head up the Microsoft/Novell Interoperability Lab. "...his name will be familiar to people in the open-source community. In an e-mail late Thursday night, a Microsoft representative said the role will be filled by Tom Hanrahan, who was most recently the director of engineering at the Linux Foundation, the group created through the recent combination of the Free Standards Group and the Open Source Development Labs."
That is what Microsoft would do if they were serious about interoperability with anyone. They'd support ODF -- natively, not through some third-party open source plugin. They'd drop OpenXML. And they'd stop lobbying governments who want to stardardize on a real document format.
Or, hell, send some developers over to the Wine project.
Since none of this is happening, I can only assume that this "Linux interoperability" guy is either a complete hypocrite, or is going to have no real power within the company.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I have no idea why, but for some reason "Director of Linux Interoperability" brings to mind the US Drug Czar and the War on Drugs
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not entirely sure about the universe - Einstein
How about we wait until we've actually heard from him before we jump to conclusions. It's always possible that he'll either be marginally effective or that he'll bail out once he decides he can't accomplish anything useful.
No need to assume he'll become evil.
Not yet, anyway.
*sigh* back to work...
It would be good news.
If we lived in that universe where "Director of Linux Interoperability" actually meant what you think it means. Unfortunately, out in the REAL WORLD, that title actually means "Director of increasing the perception of interoperability with Linux system while actually making them less compatible."
So yeah, keep living in your dream world.
How we know is more important than what we know.
I'd say much sooner than that. These days Microsoft's cash cow is Office, not Windows. As GWB is having some trouble in maintaining his Google bomb, Microsoft will soon realize that MS-Office in Linux is a better business model for them than OpenOffice in Linux.
Seriously, what this means is that MS will become more compatible with Linux, not making Linux more compatible with MS products from an interoperability standpoint.
For example: better NFS client / serving from Windows server, Office being able to read (not write) ODF, running Linux applications on Windows, stuff like that. Things that help people migrate OFF Linux. There may be a side effect that some things in Linux will work better with MS, but that is a side effect and not intended behavior.
If MS was serious about working with Linux in a positive way, they would be releasing proper documentation on their file formats and network protocols with no strings attached (such as massive license fees.) Unless forced to do so (by the EU) this will NEVER happen.
Anything else is just smoke and mirrors.
I know that yes/no/maybe/haha weren't entirely useful as tags except for a quick laugh (not debating the inherent usefulness of tags at all, which I feel debatable).
itsatrap would be completely apropos here.
Just sayin'... the tagging system currently may as well be a checkbox list of categories. Not exactly user generated.