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Microsoft Launches OSS Site, Submits License For Approval
prostoalex writes "Microsoft has launched a site dedicated to collaboration between Microsoft and open source community. The site helps developers, IT administrators, and IT buyers find out what Microsoft's product offerings are, and read articles about open source such as 'Open Source Provider Sees Sales Doubling After Moving Solutions to the Windows Platform.'" Relatedly, CNet has the news that the company has submitted its shared-sources license to the OSI for approval.
Do like Microsoft does with standards... run away as far as possible as fast as you can.
Most of the stuff on
Is that Balmer has run out of chairs. By doing this he hopes to gain access to all the Open Source communities chairs.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
for their "Spin" artice as an example.
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
Microsoft is now trying to catch some of the OSS halo effect... while trying to figure out how to own it... or at least trash it? Who do they think is going to buy into anything like this? I guess when your primary business model is going down in flames, you need to co-opt someone else's.
Most of the stuff on
It seems Microsoft's approach on this site, is to twist the terminology and meaning of Open Source to link it to their products.
From the site (microsoft.com/opensource), they've linked to a PDF explaining how SharePoint (first link, 'share' and 'open') is the 'Road To Open' and the Sharepoint Learning Kit (SLK) has been released under Microsoft's own OSI-submitted open source license.
Could the idea be to confuse the average consumers (and buzz-word obsessed manager types) into thinking Microsoft when they hear 'Open Source'?
Either way, it's interesting to see them formally acknowledge their opponents - again!
ilovegeorgebush
If you can't beat 'em, join' em?
I mean, at the end of the day, a large chunk of OSS developers also have regular day jobs coding proprietary software for money. The money in OSS is in support, not in the end product itself.
Secondly, OSS only works for products, and we all know how the product-service life-cycle goes. So, if Microsoft can't make money out of a product, they can make money out of a service.
And so, even MS can now say that they are doing that "Open Source thing" when a potential customer's (tech-ignorant) management asks them.
This is probably a first step to that end. News at 11.
Windows is an pathetic excuse for a platform. It doesn't even properly implement the minimal syscalls required by the POSIX standard (open, close, read, write, fork, exec).
If they actually cared about getting more open source developers to port their applications to Windows, they'd harmonise their API with the other major operating systems (Linux, OS X, Solaris, *BSD). As it is, this just looks like (yet another) an attempt by Microsoft to paint over the gaping flaws in both their business model and their approach to software development.
Wake me up when that changes. Until then, I really couldn't give a shit about Microsoft's supposed "friendliness" to open source software or their non-free "open" license.
Pirate Party UK
gives me a weird feeling in my stomache. I'm not sure what it is, but I got a chill up and down my spine. I can't catagorize either feeling as good or bad, just strange. When it comes to that empire my first question is usually what's their real objective, with this one I'm not 100% sure and that scares me.
Does this mean we actually crossed over the line as legitimate to them, or is this bait for something else?
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
FOSS != OSS
See the Wikipedia article on Alternative terms for free software and RMS's Why "Free Software" is better than "Open Source".
I haven't read the article, I haven't seen the site or the license they submitted.
But I know Microsoft. It's a trap. Either short-term, or long-term. Somehow, this is designed to ultimately restrict our freedoms or slow down the replacement of non-free software with free software.
You may call be bigoted, or a troll. I see my view on this particular issue as just highly conditioned from decades of experience.
It's a cookbook!!
It's a reciprocity clause. Suppose A holds some patents, and they've contributed them to software S and licensed them for use there. Now, B comes along and sues everybody using software S (including A) claiming that it infringes some other patents held by B. If B uses S themselves, the clause is intended to insure that B loses their license to A's patents, opening them to being counter-sued by A for patent infringement. The idea is to force a situation where a patent-holder can't block everyone else from benefiting from a piece of software while continuing to benefit from it themselves.
Well this is interesting. It is the equivalent of asking a Nazi about Jews and expecting objectivity. Also MS is having trouble having people developing on their platform. They are losing developers for Mac OS and Linux. People know a sinking ship when they see one. Plus the subtle jabs they take at developers claiming that it is their software causing security problems (which is partly but not totally true) why would anyone want to develop for MS when OSS provides full flexibility. People can see the code and not come up with hackish solutions or workarounds to problems they may encounter. http://www.cio.com/article/122152/Microsoft_Window s_Loses_Ground_With_Developers_Survey_Says
With Vista being a mess of compatibility and DRM/WDM/"Security" laden crap, it makes it hard for any real innovation to happen in the application space. I used to work for MS. One of the biggest gripes I heard was that drivers were always made wrong. Applications were usually buggy which caused problems with the OS. While again that is PARTIALLY true, part of the problem was the fact that I later learned (after I left MS for the real world) that coding for Windows platforms is a PITA. The closed nature makes everything a hackish effort. Workarounds here, hooks there.
Linux, BSD and other open source kernels out there have easy access to the lowest level if necessary of the kernels and OS in general. This makes it extremly easy to integrate with a minimum to intermiediate learning curve (if you are coming off Visual Studio specifically)
This is how to do it:
"Claims that Open Source Software would be legally troublesome or low quality are completely unfounded. Plenty of large organisations are deeply ivolved with open source development and recognise its potential. As an example, even Microsoft, a company traditionally commited to the closed source model and a long standing sceptic of many open source projects, has recently started to use it for its own codebase and has launched open source initiatives of its own: . Althou the project has had some problems, some of whic were related to the inability of the closed portion of the software to interoperate with the open bit, the work proceeds and recent developments has lead some analysts to predict the company may consider using the same model for other projects as well."
Lets see them try to argue with that one... If they claim the article is accurate they will be promoting OSS. If they claim the project has problems they are admitting that yet another of their projects is a complete failure. If they try to claim the proprietary bit is doing well but the open bit is doing bad, they will piss off anyone participating which could easily lead to a good chunk of bad press. Lets help them shoot themselves in the foot.