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Microsoft's New Leaf On Interoperability
A large number of readers are submitting the news that Microsoft has made a major announcement about interoperating with others including specifically the FOSS world. The impetus is the ongoing EU antitrust case against Microsoft. The announcement comes in the context of the release of 30,000 pages of API documentation for Microsoft Vista, Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, Office 2007, Exchange Server 2007 and Office SharePoint Server 2007 — and a listing of patents that apply to these technologies, and a pledge not to sue open source developers who use the APIs. InfoWorld summarizes by saying that Microsoft "promised greater transparency in its development and business practices." Fortune is blunter, saying "Microsoft declares truce in open source war." Here's Microsoft's FAQ on the open source interop initiative.
Wait a year. If, a year from now, it turns out this is real, then pay attention. More likely, there will be minimal compliance with EU competition regulations, just as there was in the last two Microsoft antitrust cases.
It's because of their history- Microsoft has never been transparent, and any interoperability they've promised has always turned into embrace, extend and extinguish.
What we need is for them to work with open standards so we can integrate a few Windows boxes into mixed environment without every other system having to create hack jobs to speak to them. Just because they make API's available just means the workarounds to integrate their world with Linux/Unix/whatever can be supported and the risk of failure is reduced. I'm tired of making compromises to have a heterogeneous environment.
Wouldn't it be better for them to in a sense "escrow" those patents w/ an external body like the open patents.org people?
That would indeed show their good faith in allowing TRUE interoperability. As opposed to this, "really we promise we won't beat you THIS time...."
Just my $0.02.
Its what the PoTUS does at his inauguration when he says he'll uphold the Constitution.
Have gnu, will travel.
They will get bashed anyway. Bashed if they do, bashed if they don't. They can't win.
yes they can. Instead of announcing yet again (and how many times have we heard it already?) that they were going to interoperate, they could shut the hell up and just DO IT. If they did that they'd get kudos from me.
But for a couple of trite but true old sayings -- once bitten, twice shy. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.
Until I see some real actual interoperability I'm forced to believe that it's the same lie we've heard over and over again. I'll no more believe Microsoft's lies than I'll let Bighead in my house again.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
If they want to use it commercially then they get sued. This type of news, coupled with yesterdays student IDE give-away is cast iron indication MS is worried by the FOSS world - of course they are attempting to defeat them with these measures while still securing their commercial revenue streams - having their cake and eating it.
I am sceptical if it will work though - the commercial business end of the spectrum have previously shown themselves more likely to make the shift away from MS products - it is the home market that is much more entrenched.
Why would you want to work with MS solutions? Shouldn't *they* adhere to open standards? This makes no sense at all, and must obviously come from a legal world and not a developer world. To explain myself: It is not up to everyone else to work well together with Microsoft, it is up to Microsoft to support open standards. Take Exchange for instance, any client, following the standards, should be able to connect to it, not having to know that it is special magic Microsoft stuff inside. See how nice that works? Everything should work according to that model...
Exactly..you can't just overlook decades of market abuse just because Microsoft promises a few things. Only an idiot would take their word on issues like this w/out a huge grain of salt given their past documented history.
Outside of mind bogglingly huge government fines, which MS seems willing to endure, there's no business reason for MS to actually want interoperability with anything or anyone. If they publish their API's, they open the door for competitors to make inroads, and possibly expose themselves to legal risk based on their past behavior. Once win32 software can run at least as well outside of Windows as it does on Windows, then Windows becomes irrelevant: that's their biggest fear. Their second fear is FOSS developers competing and winning against their products and their partners'.
Any API or documentation that MS publishes has been internally determined to have low or no risk to them. If they published everything, there would be a completely FOSS Windows clone started within months, and the outcome would be similar to how Linux overcame the commercial Unix flavors.
This action, like so many before, is a meaningless charade to make them appear cooperative.
Can't read their doc as it's not published in a format that's interoperable: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/interoperability/docs/MicrosoftInteroperabilityAnnouncement.docx
Microsoft are going to have to change an awful lot before people are willing to trust them.
While they haven't made too many statements on the topic lately, it wasn't too long ago they were whining about a bunch of unspecified patents which Linux supposedly infringes on. They haven't suddenly become friendly to FOSS.
Opening some documents to try to stave off further legal woes in Europe does not a 'nice' Microsoft make. If they change their ways, and if they do it convincingly for a period of time, then people might start to think of them as less evil. But, I'm gonna need a little more time before I start thinking they have any of our interests at heart.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Difference between IBM and Microsoft is that IBM actually had (and still has) a full portfolio. IBM offered a wide range of hardware and software that was of the utmost quality. Microsoft offers an office suite tied to a mediocre operating system that survives on the network effect, and that is still trying to catch up with basic multi-user and security standards that UNIX variants have had for years. They have recently tried to buy their way into other commodity markets, using monopoly cash from their lock-in tactics.
If Microsoft truly interoperates, they will be commoditized out of existence.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba