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Microsoft's Open Source Guru Faces Tough Fight
coondoggie writes "Microsoft's Sam Ramji is like a turkey knocking on Thanksgiving's door. Ramji has the unenviable task of stretching his neck out into the open source world as Microsoft's representative. On top of it, his employer has preheated the oven with years of hubris, sleights of hand and broken promises.
Ramji's Sisyphean task was evident last week in Portland at the Open Source Conference (OSCon) and will likely be fuel for chatter at next week's LinuxWorld gathering in San Francisco."
Microsoft is good at winning the game when people are agressive towards them. Which I know its very easy to get hostile towards them. But they are somewhat lost when another group is their host and they are not in control. So we should be welcoming, give them a drink of the kool-aid and treat them like one of the gang. Its going to be hard and we'll have to keep an eye out for deception, but I think we should start playing nicer with them and hope that they do the same. Perhaps Microsoft would see the light and become friendlier to open source and open standards. Unlikely, but so was getting Excel working under Linux through Wine if you asked someone 10 years ago.
In the end, open source is simply a better model for software development and its a lot more impervious to threats than proprietary software is. Businesses just don't get that. In a business, the software focus is on making money. In open source, the software focus is on quality and empowering the end user. In the end, open source and the user will win. Heck, we're already winning, Microsoft is interested in open source (regardless of the reasons).
Don't throw arrows. Be diplomatic.
I'd like to know what it would take for Microsoft to actually back up those claims with proof in a public forum. But that's probably a question for Steve Ballmer, since he's the one who seems to flog the patent FUD.
OTOH, I have contracted at Microsoft (once as a dev doing an intranet site for a testing lab, once being the editor in charge of a couple of sections of the MSW homepage), and it's an interesting culture there. It's not the Death Star with Ballmer walking around, periodically strangling people with his mind just to show who's boss.
In a company that big you can't escape the control freaks and evidence of The Peter Principle, but you also have people there like my manager on the intranet site contract, who was the best manager I've had in the 23 years since I started having managers. For all the greed and arrogance people here like to claim go into Microsoft products, there are a lot of people who are there because they love what they do and Microsoft gives them the opportunity to get paid well for doing it. I met some awesome people at Microsoft, people I really respect.
I switched to Mac to avoid Vista. I use NeoOffice instead of MS Office. But I can say that despite some of the aura of badness Microsoft gives off as a company, there are people there who are truly dedicated to the company being a good citizen, putting out good products, and getting along with others. The people who give Ramji a hard time really haven't given him a chance.
Start a happiness pandemic
"Sucks to be you!"
Admit it. You post strawman arguments as AC so you get modded Insightful for refuting them, rather than Troll
Herculean, surely? Maybe even Gargantuan.
It still kills me how close his name is to Sam Gamgee.
We are open source, we accept all code but we are also a community. This community must be respected. Corporate entities will run all over us and then want to be friends. Must we lie down and take it or resist and be defiant because we are the movement? I know what I am saying is controversial but I say it with a reason. Bow once and bow a thousand more times. Microsoft is the main enemy, defeat him and we will conquer all. I may be in the few, but I say rise because the time is now and it is time to strike.
If you ask me, the major battle between Microsoft and Open Source is the upcoming battle for dominance of our social organization. I mean no less than our very systems of governance. From Microsoft, we have Facebook (and of course, there is MySpace). From open source, we have metagovernment. I really have no idea who might win that one.
why can't we just ignore them? I mean seriously, if there is one thing we (oss guys) can agree on... SURELY this is it. For many years, hate for M$ has been the only thing that the free software community could agree on.
why can't the entire free software crowd just stand up and say "No thanks", we aren't interested in what you have to say.
if you think that M$ will ever help free software in any meaningful way, you obviously haven't been paying attention over the past couple decades.
there is good news in this though. M$ is obviously noticing that every day there are people installing linux who used to use window$. They know that linux on the desktop is closing the gap and many other companies stand to profit from it. After years of pretending OSS didn't exist, or worse yet, attacking it in underhanded ways, they don't have a piece of the action. This whole M$/oss thing, just means they are realizing there is a chance that maybe OSS really IS the next big thing.
My prediction is that a huge company with unlimited resources like google will package up a nice, distro, call it something flashy, advertise the hell out of it, and give it away for free. I am well aware of the options that already exist, but the average person is not. It takes flashy marketing to capture the market.
how can M$ possibly compete with other companies who come in at a price point nearly $0, with a better product, a good ad campaign, AND profit margins of nearly 100%? They can't. Someday the house of cards will fall. They know it, they think, they can adapt by getting involved with OSS. They will fail because we hate them.
Obama is a twitter sock puppet
Yeah. Apache, Firefox, MySQL, Asterisk, PHP, Wikipedia, BIND, Postfix: all COMPLETE FAILURES.
Utter crap that nobody ever uses, right?
I smell a rat! This fool will follow Microsoft's deception or he will be looking for a new job. That is reality. Microsoft is not going to allow their source code to EVER be open sourced.
It all has to be a joke, and written to give open source advocates a nice fuzzy feeling inside. Try again. bla!
Yeah, FOSS is *so* far behind that MS is desperately throwing money around trying to get a foot in the FOSS door. "Dear Know-Nothing", indeed!
Caveat Utilitor
I am not a Linux kind of guy, but if I were, I would want Microsoft to be as open, honest, and helpful as I can get them.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
I think we should fight Microsoft, not Sam Ramji. We should just make it clear that Sam works for a company with a monopoly conviction and a long record of dirty fighting.
Microsoft's joining Apache, to a great extent, as an anti-Linux play. They still can't stand the GPL, it's too fair for them, but they think they can take some of the oxygen from Linux by being more of a platform for Apache-style software. And the Apache license lets them "embrace and enhance".
Don't give up now, folks. Only your vigilance and your willingness to point out when Microsoft plays dirty tricks will keep them from getting away with even more of that.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
As a company, they are #000000.
MS is a big powerful company now not so much that they had great stuff, at best they had adequate stuff that really wasn't designed to be used on the internet, I mean egads look at the issues over the years, but that they were just so predatorily atrocious in doing business time after time after time. I guess it is OK that some folks there are "nice guys", but the company remains collectively..an abomination. I mean they are teh megasuck. Like others have pointed out, years of dissing open source and mumbling the patent threat with nothing so far to back it up but more threats is pretty rude and rank behavior, and near as I can see, designed on purpose to influence markets, so where is the SEC with all of that?
I sort of feel just a teensy bit sorry for their "open source" spokesperson, but really, he cashes the check, that check is probably quite decent, and he knows he is going to be catching flak for a long time because of his corporation's past track record and their well deserved reputation of embrace, extend, extinguish. I see absolutely zero indication that they really have changed anything, other than a new slyer/sneekier approach.
Poor, poor Ramji. I feel so sorry for him. Getting his head cut off and all. Boo Hoo. TFA is pure Microsoft FUD. Yeah, Microsoft is trying to get along with Open Source. Sure.
Microsoft wants to kill Open Source and don't ever forget that.
Hey Ramji, after all your employer has done to promote Open Source like backing SCO and buying off ISO, why don't you just crawl under a rock someplace and quit wasting our air. Just go cash that big check and live in some kind of peace and harmony with your bought-off ass.
"The ferrets, they're every where I tell you!"
It's not the Death Star with Ballmer walking around, periodically strangling people with his mind just to show who's boss.
That's what Apple is like.
I'm glad to see that there are still a few people who know how best to treat Microsoft, with caution.
While filming Army of Darkness Sam Ramji defied conventional filmmaking, keeping costs to a minimum by utilizing a variety of improvised measures. Rather than invest a ton of money into a specialized dollie, for example, Mr. Ramji got a few extras to help carry his camera crew in scenes of the movie. It *totally* figures that he's an open source dude, you know? I didn't know he was working for Micro$oft now, though...
Harold
just stop polluting my favourite projects with windows only perversions... Open source is supposed to be cross platform... I don't want any "improvements" made to projects so they run better on windows... in fact I'd prefer it it if people stopped porting things to run on windows... make all the best stuff available on Linux...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
They are coming. Their are quite a few of them, but they are coming. Remember what I said about "Preventing the last year of open source and Linux?" While Linux is strong now, do realize that we got a break.
In Vista, I expected the Harbinger of Linux's Doom. I expected another Windows 2000. I was pleasantly surprised how bad Vista turned out.
We got a break, we got lucky, and Linux will survive to fight another day, but the monsters are still out there. At this point, Linux needs to focus on combating OSX. Apple is as lethal a threat as M$ is.
I love the comparison of turkey at thanksgiving's day door and pre heated oven. I feel sorry for the guy.
For those of us who were unable to attend the conference, is there an online transcript of the Q&A session? My best efforts at locating one have been unsuccessful.
I hear what you're saying, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em!" But I really think we can beat 'em. Have you tried the latest Ubuntu?
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Great analogy. I think MS is going to do EXACTLY what Japan did facing the atomic bomb:
Implode, be incinerated, be eviscerated, bleed to death, slowly fall apart from radiation, and gasp desperately for a few more breaths of air, ultimately surrendering. Have you tried Vista?
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Linux.
And some others that I like:
Gimp
SumatraPDF
Pidgin
Open Office
Dscaler
Zsnes
VLC
Virtualdub
Audacity
Thunderbird
Virtualbox
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Microsoft is a single entity in one sense, but it is also a community, or a political organisation, if you will, comprised of lots of people with differing agendas and varying levels of "evilness". Adhering to a militant stance as a stated policy and assuming defiance as a fixed position is not just very lazy, it is short sighted, counter-productive and stupid.
Sure, it makes everything easy now. You don't have to think about what your "enemy" is doing, just reject everything as bad because it comes from Redmond - just like how anything that Muslims do is terrorism and anything the Jews did in central Europe in the 1930s was evil and subhuman. It actually doesn't help anyone though.
Microsoft can make public gestures of reconciliation and receive public rejection. This gives the wider community the impression that Microsoft is fair minded and willing to cooperate with others while the FOSS community are is some bigoted group of crackpot zealots. So Microsoft wins the battle for hearts and minds while the FOSS community, through a conscious choice of ignorance, loses. Pressure on Microsoft to share protocols and adhere to genuine open standards is diminished while the world of FOSS remains an obscure backwater.
Yeah, I've come across this approach personally many times, and it's never been successful for the militants in the long term. It tends to be one of those behaviour patterns that intelligent teenagers grow out of. Sometimes it's just the militants who lose, mostly it's everyone.
Of course if everyone was determined to adhere to a militant approach, I suggest marching in the streets wearing brown shirts as a good start to impress the general population and win supporters. Worked for Adolf.
I don't therefore I'm not.
So, he's kinda like the Colin Powell in George Bush's administration?
.....And dominate the auto industry with reliable hybrids.
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
.... still be very bad drivers.
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Just look at another M$ news today about some versions of Vista failing to dual-boot: http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/30/204241
So, what was that noise about Microsoft being more open?
http://revj.sourceforge.net
Look at the guy they hired to run their Linux Lab, Hilfe or something like that is his name. They made him up to be a friend to OSS but then he got put in charge of their anti-linux marketing or the likes.
20+ years of watching these guys tell me it is business as usual for MSFT. Windows is their baby and nothing is going to threaten it. Linux and OSS is too compelling for many of Microsofts customers so Microsoft must get its hands dirty and shove its way into that area enough to figure out how to pull those customers back to Windows.
Their business is Windows and maintaining that products position. Software which runs on Windows and some other platform is a threat. This is how it has always been so why would anyone think they are playing any other game? Twenty years folks, twenty years. Just look at ODF and MS-OOXML for proof of how far they'll go to protect their position.
this new guy should not be given the time of day IMO.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
We should not trust Microsoft, no matter how nice their liaison to the FOSS community, until they drop their claims that Linux distros infringe their patents. Either they need to specify WHICH patents or withdraw the claim entirely.
If we give in to anything less, we're selling out and lending cred to M$, not to mention allowing them to make money off of FOSS through their "licensing" program.
Nitewing '98
Everything works...in theory.
Do these three words sound familiar? embrace extend extinguish
There was a nice post about this issue couple of days ago in securiteam, they called that post msApache
I really liked that name...
Until there are actions made by Microsoft that benefits open source in general everything Microsoft does in OSS should be taken with a large dose of skeptisism. Its all PR.
As long as their goal is to obliterate any competition, kill partners any time it gives a benefit and screw their customers over they shouldnt be allowed to be in our community. While we play nice they spend their time trying to come up with new ways of controlling or killing the open source movement.
HTTP/1.1 400
The article describes a different situation: the guy is getting laughed at by customers (governments and companies) every time he speaks about OSS.
Users prefer things that work...
The open source world is also ready to fight if necessary.
Stallman is waiting.
Just take a look at this video, in which he practically destroys arguments against microsoft's open-source positions.
A guillotine is much more humane (less chance of mishaps).
Teach cats synchronized swimming. I would rather teach helpdesk people to think. It's a tough row to hoe.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Yeah Excel and many other apps are working under wine despite microsoft's continued efforts to thwart wine. They sometimes even went so far as to changing their libraries to make sure 3rd paty apps wouldn't work under wine.
And as of recently they added a feature that blocked installation of Vista (SP1) on a dual boot system with a dualboot manager not certified by microsoft: Dual Boot Not Trusted, Rejected By Vista SP1
Recently on a neighbours laptop when booting of a (linux) live cd, upon rebooting into windows the system started complaining that the system would possibly be severely damaged and that it had to be checked. This was on an acer, one of the better known microsoft cronies.
at the door.. you know what to do with it: it needs to be slaughtered first and then put in the oven at fairly high temperatures.
in any case, i would let a dog or a rat try it first, it might still be poisoned though.
...in an alternative universe, a "guru" (short for "Guru meditation number") was a system crash, like a BSOD. Except it wasn't blue, the background was black, and the text was red, inside a flashing red box that filled the top half of the screen.
microsoft is capitalist,they go where they think the money is.
if you give em hard proof of a more profitable future in OSS,they will run to it faster than a young puppy chasing a rubber ball.
I wanna see the f'd up Microsoft source code. Stop giving these crappy-code writing bastards a hard time!
They have broken the law, cheated on business partners, used underhanded tactics in the OS to stifle competition.
That has nothing to do with capitalism. Capitalism does not work without the respect and adherence to the rule of law, and needless to say, one is immoral because one chooses to, not because one is a capitalist.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Every time they would try to reach out, people like you would just tell them to fuck off even if they mean well
They DO NOT mean well. How many more times?!
Add an awesome future to Microsoft's LGPL version, and relicense it as GPL.
The community version will then become better than the official version, and everybody will start using it. BWAHAHAHA.
Unless we're working with libraries. I'm really not sure what would happen in that case. See, if you modify a library you're legally obligated to release the changes into the public. This is perfect for APIs and things that require interoperability.
Wish I could be there . . . I say be polite, don't play into their hands . . . but don't trust them at all, keep them at a distance.
And show them we are better than they are. Please get that point across.
SARAVA!
Recently on a neighbours laptop when booting of a (linux) live cd, upon rebooting into windows the system started complaining that the system would possibly be severely damaged and that it had to be checked. This was on an acer, one of the better known microsoft cronies.
Microsoft may be evil, or not, but dont assume EVERYTHING they do is evil. the reason for THIS particular warning (and it is a warning) is because of one of 2 reasons:
1) When you install Linux, you are given an option to resize your windows partition to fit Linux. The rezise only moves the partition, but does not update any checksums or transient indexes. Therefore When windows next boots up, it has to do a checkdisk, to ensure that the partition is still valid (same as a linux fsck), and data integrity is maintained. There is usually nothing wrong with this, and in general is a "good thing"
2) if you mount a windows NTFS partition in Linux in read/write mode (not reccommended) it will also need to to a chkdsk, as checksums are not updated.
Have a nice day!
Microsoft may be evil, or not, but dont assume EVERYTHING they do is evil. the reason for THIS particular warning (and it is a warning) is because of one of 2 reasons:
1) When you install Linux, you are given an option to resize your windows partition to fit Linux. The rezise only moves the partition, but does not update any checksums or transient indexes. Therefore When windows next boots up, it has to do a checkdisk, to ensure that the partition is still valid (same as a linux fsck), and data integrity is maintained. There is usually nothing wrong with this, and in general is a "good thing"
2) if you mount a windows NTFS partition in Linux in read/write mode (not reccommended) it will also need to to a chkdsk, as checksums are not updated.
1) and 2) are irrelevant, for I had neither mounted nor read nor read from the hdd, nor did I resize or otherwhise use it. The only thing I did was boot.
100% classic, real-deal bonafide /. article this- can't resist commenting! :D
MS would need to first (L)GPL at least XP/2000, Vista, VB/C#/.NET and Office to the fullest extent possible before the free software community will even listen to a word that they or any of their infiltrators may have to say. Until then we'll carry on using Linux, xorg, gcc, OOo etc. and tools that protect our freedom to compute as we like.
Simple!
ready to bugger us sans lube.
Yeah M$ is doing heaps for the os comunity, right behind it. just look at what would happen if i wanted to dual boot 6 articles prior
RTFA
Linux!=OSS
To think "Microsoft is supporting OSS" = "Microsoft is supporting Linux" is to commit a grievous logical error. OSS includes lots of applications and infrastructure that runs on Windows and MS Platforms.
Technology Marketing is what happens when people turn their hard work over to people paid to manipulate others.
I've always said that the easiest way for Microsoft to kill the threat of Linux would be to release their own distro. Some of us wouldn't buy it and would stick with our Fedoras, Gentoos, and Ubuntus...but the ones that count (businesses) would drop Red Hat & SUSE (the 2 big players in the business market). And if Microsoft offered them some sort of upgrade path, it would happen almost overnight.
Looks serious. HAVE you tried the latest Ubuntu, or even the second latest?
If Joe Sixpack knew his computer could be fast, dead reliable and simple to use while still doing everything his Windows box can do (this is Joe Sixpack and not Joe Gamer), all for the cost of:
- One blank CD
- Learning to click on the flaming fox instead of the blue E
- Learning to clock on the purple bird instead of the little green man
- Learning to click on the road cone instead of the colorful Play button
- Learning the names of the apps in the OpenOffice suite
he'd drop Windows like a hot potato and never look back. My whiny Paris Hilton wannabe sister bitched and moaned at first when I switched her to Ubuntu (after she stole one of my partly-patched XP gaming laptops and turned it into a spyware and virus-ridden BSODing mess within 36 hours) but after a while she learned how it works and now she doesn't complain, and the laptop hasn't hiccuped once.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
The danger with Microsoft is are they drinking the Open Source kool-aid or have we started to drink the Microsoft kool-aid?
vi +
what? on /.?
dear god man, are you mad?
Oh, the irony... "Anonymous Coward: If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear!"
they have a history of going after Windows ISV's with cross platform products. OSS is tied to Linux in that in over 90% of the projects, they run on Linux if they run on Windows.
While OSS does not equal Linux, it does enable it as a threat to Microsofts only money maker, Windows.
IMO, thinking that Microsoft is "supporting OSS" is a grave error. They support Windows and Microsoft software period. Anything else they do is designed to move customers to Windows and Microsoft software and not the cross platform software.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
At least PR-wise.
Anyone here who ever took part in a BBS knows how people react to the "new guy". It all depends on how he makes his entry and how he behaves himself. Especially in expert boards where the "regulars" have built a reputation. In comes a new guy, and he could be the expert for everything on this planet, when he comes off like this he'll be dismissed as an obnoxious know-it-all.
MS makes exactly the same mistake every time they want to "join" some expert group. OSS developers are such a group. Stallman, Raymond, even SUN as a corporation have build a reputation and their voices are usually heard when OSS is the topic. Even if they just farted, people would start discussing the smell. The reason is simply that they built a reputation and backed that reputation with hard work, so they are accepted as the auctors, the "wise men" of OSS. Their word isn't gospel, but they're usually regarded as being right in general.
Now MS comes in and usually one of the first things they do is that they want part of the spotlight, they want to talk, they want to present their POV, the problem is, nobody wants to hear that. Why should they speak on OSS? What have they done for OSS that "elevated" them to the airs where they may tell us something? It's like someone joining a board and starting pointing out how everything done there is "done wrong" and how much it would be better if everyone did it another way. Does anyone listen to such a person?
A more humble approach would be in order. I can only suggest spending some time learning. Yes, MS will most likely have people on their payroll who have developed OSS, who could actually speak on the matter, but they're from MS. What does the average OSS developer expect from MS? Backstabbing, embrace-extend-extinguish strategies and FUD. That's the sorry reputation MS has in OSS circles.
If they really want to becomes part of OSS, at least to some minor degree, they first of all have to prove themselves again. I usually give people and even companies a "second chance" (or even an n-th), but their usual approach of rushing in with bravado and flaunting will not work well in an OSS environment.
OSS doesn't care about money or style. That's not what makes you an important figure. What does is providing useful software. And so far, MS lacks in that area sorely.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
http://www.birdhouse.org/beos/byte/30-bootloader/h
Until such time as MS comes to the table with full support for Open Standars, such as Ogg Vorbis, Ogg Theora, OpenDocument (to name a few), or for that matter even DNS, there is no point in giving MS pud-pullers the spotlight. MS wants to play? Comply with EU law and banish WMA and WMV formats from the default Windows distros. Or MS can lay off subnotebooks like Asus and even OLPC and let them get back to distributing Linux as the market demands.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
There is an old saying - if you sup with the devil, use a long spoon. Do not invite him to sit at the top table and take part in decision making, and deciding the direction of future projects. I will believe in MS "commitment" to open-source when they release the code for their software, instead of trying to stop me using (my 100% legal version of) XP because I have reinstalled it 5 times.
Microsoft's Sam Ramji is like a turkey knocking on Thanksgiving's door.
He's welcomed?
Looking at Microsoft's current situation...
(1) FUD on open source has failed. (Get the Facts...What happened to the bloke who came up with that, didn't he get fired?)
(2) OOXML is in limbo. (Fast tracking process was inconsistent like no tomorrow...Stack the ballot!)
(3) Live Search solution is a flop. (Google is still dominant!)
(4) Xbox 360 has reliability issues. (RROD...What was initially an attempt to save a few million is now costing them a Billion!)
(5) Vista is suffering from poor adoption. (The reality is becoming more obvious when you see that they need to rejuvenate Vista's PR image with deception).
So what's a way to kill Linux? (while they're at it)
Simple, take away its applications! Make them work better with Windows!
LAMP => WAMP.
Do anything and everything you can to win the community over! Play nice, wear T-shirts, throw money at them, donate some code (to Windows benefit!), etc.
Notice how in that movie, "Pirates of Silicon Valley", the character playing Bill Gates wore a T-shirt offered by Apple. (Apple basically embraced them into their community)...Guess what happened? Gates screwed them over!
Point being?
Microsoft can be seen in two views: Character and Personality.
The Character is what everyone knows it has done. It will plunder, stab you in the back, etc to get its way. This is how they've always worked. Manipulate the situation to THEIR benefit. Get what you need NOW! Don't worry about the law, ethics, moral, etc...Leave that for later. (Hello anti-trust cases!)
Personality is its PR side. All that marketing spin, that olive branching to open source, playing nice...Nothing but lip service. Its a facade.
Seriously, wouldn't you be suspicious of the neighborhood bully suddenly playing nice?
Deep down, Sam Ramji is just another expendable employee of Microsoft playing "Liason" with open source. You can feel sympathy for him, but you don't have to feel sympathy for Microsoft. Then again, why would you feel sympathy for Sam? He joined MS on his own accord. His choice.
So the question really is (from a FOSS view): We've done well without Microsoft so far, why do we need them now?
As joked many years ago: Microsoft isn't the solution. Microsoft is the question...And the answer is: NO!
This is becoming even more true in the 21st Century.
I will take as the main thrust of your argument the sentence, "Adhering to a militant stance as a stated policy and assuming defiance as a fixed position is not just very lazy, it is short sighted, counter-productive, and stupid." And I think you're as wrong as wrong can be.
That has indeed largely been the policy of "the movement." And it's been working, slowly slowly slowly, but undeniably working. We're beating their ass on quality, we're changing the public perception with projects like Firefox and Ubuntu, and it's starting to show up in market share. We're really starting to eat their lunch. Sure, right now it's just a bite of the yogurt, but by this time next year, maybe it's the whole cup. The year after, maybe it's the cookie too. This is because of the confrontational nature of the movement, not in spite of it. We're all up in people's faces with this shit. We're gonna have our say, we're gonna be heard. And we're gonna keep rolling out release after release that kick's the competition's ass, and then we're gonna talk a bunch of shit about it, and do it again. Stay tuned. The fun part's still coming.
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
Actually, there is. It makes you dependent on them.
Let's say that you use Microsoft's $100,000 to hire a new employee or two (salaried, not contractual). You are now in a position where if Microsoft decides that they don't like what you're doing they can refuse to repeat their donation the next year, forcing you to lay off those two employees.
I can see Microsoft trying to use the threat of discontinued donations as leverage to steer the ASF into a vulnerable position, then refusing to make a donation at a critical time in order to take advantage of the disruption it would cause.
Argue all you want about excessive paranoia, accepting money makes you beholden to your donors. We call musicians with record contracts "sellouts", we consider politicians who have accepted large "campaign donations" from lobbyists to have been "bought", and the ASF is now in danger of falling into the same territory for the same reasons. There is already talk about the World Health Organization being steered by politics instead of sound science ever since accepting large donations from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Life would be simpler for the ASF if they had refused the money when it was offered.
Travel the Galaxy! Meet fascinating life forms...
You can't extend the olive branch and shit on my pimentos at the same time... http://news.softpedia.com/news/Microsoft-Applauds-Victory-Over-Linux-and-Open-Source-91127.shtml
"The Scorpion and the Frog is a fable often mis-attributed to Aesop. The story is about a scorpion asking a frog to carry him across a river. The frog is afraid of being stung, but the scorpion reassures him that if it stung the frog, the frog would sink and the scorpion would drown as well. The frog then agrees; nevertheless, in mid-river, the scorpion stings him, dooming the two of them. When asked why, the scorpion explains, "I'm a scorpion; it's my nature."
The story is sometimes told with a turtle or fox in place of the frog.
It is often quoted to illustrate the purportedly insuppressible nature of one's self at its base level."
Trust MS to be MS
Rambus "played nice" when they got their dynamic RAM architecture designated the industry standard, but without disclosing their patent which they ultimately used to bully OEMs into royalty fees.
The industry does not forget these deceptive tactics so it is no surprise that the OS industry is apprehensive of M$, who holds a large patent portfolio. M$ is not going to be trusted very easily.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
He's going to find overcoming the bitter jealousy of the FOSS community to be impossible. Each person in it dreams of being Bill Gates... but they never will be. And thus, they get bitter and angry at MS.
Look at the OP, for example. He cites some kind of grievances... but cannot actually substantiate that with facts, since all grievances are figments of the collective FOSS imagination. Then... he describes outreach to the FOSS community as a Sisyphean task. Which it is, but mainly because of the lack of good faith on the part of the FOSS community.
They've tried for over 15 years to overtake Windows with Teh Lunix on Teh Desktop... and failed. Miserably. And despite all their whining, they have no one to blame but themselves. Deep down they know this, but it just fuels their hatred and jealousy even more. Heck, do you realize how big a failure a free product has to be to lose to one which charges money?
The OSS crowd will cooperate with your company if and only if they:
1. Abandon the software patent threat against OSS projects entirely, notably Wine and ReactOS,
2. Order its sales, marketing, legal, and executive departments to cease using its partners in "committee stuffing" as it very clearly did in the ISO approval process of Office OXML,
3. Disassociate any so-called "intellectual property rights" protections from its software and sell/license the code to the RIAA/MPAA member companies,
4. Cease using sales contracts with OEMs as leverage for excluding alternative operating systems and/or software, and
5. Make a public, visible commitment to upholding the above in every aspect of its business.
Although the serf-of-business Bush administration gave your company a slap on the wrist and marginal supervision, it is still a convicted monopolist and still engaging in business methods that are at least unconscionable. There are those in the OSS community who still remember how it undercut Netscape into oblivion, how it bullied companies like Dell and Gateway into excluding Linux, how it betrayed IBM re: OS/2, or how it toyed with WordPerfect. Just in the past few months there was evidence of committee-tampering by Microsoft partners, indicating that Microsoft has learned to end-run the system rather than follow the rules. So don't be surprised that there are those who hate you and do not trust you at all, because the likelihood that your management will ever listen to pro-OSS ideas is zero or less.
If you truly love open source, I strongly suggest you leave Microsoft and work for Red Hat, IBM, Google, Sun, or Canonical. Until then, you are either appallingly naive, or worse, a dangerous evangelist.
"We are Microsoft. You shall be assimilated. Competition is futile."
I had this problem recently.
Here is an easier fix for joe sixpack:
Go to System -> Preferences -> Encryption and Keyrings
Select login keyring -> Change unlock password
Set a blank password for that keyring
Its not the most secure solution, but is better than have your password in a script.
I don't share your faith in the infallibility of ASF administrators.
Furthermore, I think you should check out the sponsorship page at the ASF's website. Becoming a sponsor is a commitment to ongoing support, not simply a one-time payment. One-time donations to the ASF are handled through a separate mechanism, without the public fanfare associated with the sponsorship program.
It seems fairly clear that Microsoft's "sponsorship" is, in fact, supposed to be a revenue stream for the ASF.
So, what part of the management's actions here are retarded? Correctly categorizing a promise of ongoing financial support? Hiring new workers, purchasing new equipment, and purchasing bandwidth contracts that are appropriate for the new budget?
It seems to me that the poor decision was to accept sponsorship from an organization whose interests are so obviously not aligned with the ASF and Free software in general.
Travel the Galaxy! Meet fascinating life forms...
I am not sure which distro you used, but I know later versions of Ubuntu DOES access the windows partition, and yes it can causes some craziness.
Have a nice day!