Slashdot Mirror
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
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.
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, 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.
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 was there when he was being grilled at the final keynote. Honestly, O'Reily (the OSCON sponsor) had to ask people to *STOP* asking the MS representative tough questions... but he even gave the harder questions a go. Not everyone wass going to be happy with the answers, but... they won't ever be, right? It's coming from the Ebil Micro$oft, afterall.
MS is changing with the times, as any successful corporation really must. There are even some pretty compelling business reasons for this, I'll wager. For instance, MS can (I presume) distribute this "free" software without typical development costs (and I presume it wouldn't hurt them to distribute the source code for these free utilities). They can instead focus their developers on ensuring that FOSS interacts and is integrated well with their products and services. They even receive free bug fixes and are likely to contribute bug fixes themselves.
Evidence of this business practice is emerging even now: MS is a platinum sponsor for Apache, and contributed a MSSQL patch to ADOdb (BSD license, not MS). Of course, MS isn't the only large corporation doing this (Sun, HP, IBM, Google, etc).
Well, at least, that's my theory for the sudden about-face.
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."
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.
Yah, but... Sisyphus rocks!
Idha khatabahum lijahiluna qalu salaman
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
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
Just take a look at this video, in which he practically destroys arguments against microsoft's open-source positions.
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.
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
Says the person posting on the Internet.
how to invest, a novice's guide