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Microsoft Sponsors Apache Software Foundation

Posted by timothy on from the it-has-an-excellent-license-after-all dept.

gbjbaanb writes "Ars Technica reports that Microsoft is to sponsor the Apache Foundation to the tune of $100k. From the article: 'I asked him if this could possibly be the beginning of a broader initiative by Microsoft to increase Apache compatibility with .NET web development technologies, but he says it's still too early to guess Microsoft's future plans for Apache participation. ... He doesn't anticipate a confrontational response from the developers working on individual Apache projects ... The response of the broader open source software community, however, is harder to predict.' (In related news, MS also intends to participate in the RubySpec project.)"

5 of 120 comments (clear)

  1. Cliche? by Johnny_Law · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Would, "It's a trap", be too cliche?

  2. Microsoft Support of OSS by iamhigh · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Could it be that they would like to quit supporting IIS? Make Apache do the dirty webserver stuff, but keep all the content creation in a dll or something. Maybe the 100k is for working on Windows API's and such?

    That is the only logical conclusion, as nobody just gives money to the competitor. Right?

    --
    No comprende? Let me type that a little slower for you...
    1. Re:Microsoft Support of OSS by porkThreeWays · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I don't know if they see it as a replacement so much as IIS/Webservers aren't terribly important to their core business model. IIS is a pretty crappy web server in comparison to... ummm... almost everything else. I think it's more important to Microsoft that people are using .net and Windows servers. If they want to use another web server on Windows w/ .net, so be it. They'll always offer IIS, but they don't fight IIS replacements tooth and nail like they fight Office replacements.

      --
      If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
  3. Re:A better sponsorship by bsDaemon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Couldn't the same argument be used in reverse -- quit developing for KDE/GNOME, Windows already dominates, develop for that?

    Oh, that's right -- monoculture is ok so long as its your monoculture.

  4. Developer, developer, developer....! by judethecutedude · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Steve Ballmer is either:
    1) Trying to appear more "open" (what with all the lawsuits in Europe & the oh-so-enthusiastic reception of OOXML), so they can have more influence in the real standards body.
    2) Simply trying that old trick (to pretend suck up to developers) & then turn around & do something else.

    Eitherway, its a PR stunt because it's hard to believe Microsoft wants to change its definition of "industry standards" from "something we came up with" to---wait for it---"industry standards". Unless I'm missing something