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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.
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.
Hasn't Microsoft trained us over time with a reverse skinner box approach, by offering cooperation and failing to deliver on the open principles they committed to?
Microsoft has earned the negative attitude they receive with years of practice, hard work and dedication. It's like posting at -1. It takes time to dig yourself out of it and Microsoft can't just create a new account and start over.
If Ramji really wants to be taken seriousyl, he should be prepared to be received poorly for some time to come and take that in stride.
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
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.
I'm sure there's tons of really great people working at Microsoft. It's easy to put a kind face on Microsoft when you think of the examples of nice people who work there. But when it comes to business, Microsoft is not that nice guy.
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!"
Unfortnutely the good actions of 'the little people' are completely overshadowed by the greed and arrogance of the top decision makers. As with many global companies, and countries for that matter, most of the people that get to the top are, or become, twisted and evil, even if the general population is really quite nice once you get to know them.
Open source is supposed to be cross platform...
Says who?
There are a lot of open-source projects that are platform specific. Sometimes that's what you need.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
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
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.
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.
Says the person posting on the Internet.
how to invest, a novice's guide
Cant speak for the_mink, but I have.
I still, throughout my entire life, have never been able to get any form of Linux running on a laptop I've owned (either personally or through job).
Not once. And these are all high end corporate class machines from Dell and HP. Like the ones that hundreds of millions of other corporate types are using and buying daily.
Ubuntu 8.04 LiveCD wont even run on this laptop. The standard install disc NEVER works on any machine I've ever seen, apparently because the 'splash' screen is a problem. The first step after install from the alternate disc is always to edit grub to disable the splash. Otherwise you never get a screen, and cannot even pull up a terminal. How could the splash option in grub boot result in a terminal not being available? This is not something I understand.
I mean what the hell. Didnt these guys ever hear of a generic software VGA driver, like every other OS on the planet has to fall back on?
And wireless never works. Ever. On any laptop I've ever used.
Even when I recruit the local Linux expert, he spends many hours, and then just shakes his head and gives up. And on the current laptop, thats with the Intel 4965agn, which has a freaking open source driver from Intel. It still doesnt work. And the approach taken to saving WPA keys, where you are expected to enter them in every time you connect? Thats just terrible.
On the flip side, I've had huge success with using Linux running as a guest in VMWare to serve some specific services. Works pretty darn flawlessly, actually. I've had a copy of Kubuntu running on VMWare server on my windows laptop host for years, for various purposes, and it works great. But on real-world hardware? Never.
At the moment Linux and other Unices are purely for deep specialists. And this doesnt mean the millions of rabid 'I use linux' people out there, who rant and rave about how awesome Linux is and how bad Windows is, but then have no freaking idea how to do simple things like switch a linux box from static to dhcp. I mean its just sad.
So it certainly has its place, and 'its place' is growing yearly. But its nothing even remotely like what you're suggesting, at least in my experience.