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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."
NOW things will finally start getting better between MS and Linux!
Twinstiq, game news
...back in those days, it amounted to little more than a means to migrate from Netware to an NT domain. The Unix compatibility stuff that exists now amounts to about the same. I wonder what Microsoft has in mind with all this? It would be weird if it was more than "one way" compatibility.
Bill: Tom, I am your father.
Tom: Really?
Bill: No, but I hve tons of money for you!
Tom: Dark side it is!
I believe the title should be: Microsoft Hires Director of Linux Inoperability Slashdot should read through their posts more carefully in the future, so that typos like this doesn't happen.
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
As director of Linux sue-ability?
And Brad Smith, senior vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary at Microsoft, is rumoured to have gotten quite concerned about this development. After reading case law on "duty of care" that an employer ought extend to employees he has arranged for Tom Hanrahan to immediately go on advanced "object avoidance course" which will be taught by crack martial arts instructors. Microsoft is refusing to confirm rumours that Hanrahan is currently in a Seattle gymn with 10 instructors & a number of pieces of "office furniture".
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.
They want windows desktops and servers to interoperate with linux servers...
Why? because linux has a significant server marketshare, and they are FORCED to interoperate with it or face losing marketshare themselves.
Linux however has very little desktop market share, so it's more profitable for microsoft to ignore it and thus make it harder for people to migrate to linux.
Ever noticed how a lot of the interoperability between windows and other os's centers around those os's implementing proprietary protocols from windows, rather than windows implementing standards from other os's. There have been a few other cases where microsoft have been forced to implement standards to interoperate (tcp/ip, image formats etc) but they have always preferred to force their own proprietary implementations on people if they will stick (netbeui, bmp etc).
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Didn't Microsoft and Sun sign a deal to "interoperate" a few years ago? Where has THAT gone?
BTW, Microsoft does not want to interoperate with Linux and OSS. They want it gone, so any "talk" about deals and smoke-mirror agreements will only flounder, stall, and drag on forever. Anybody who believe otherwise is just fooling themselves.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
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.
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.