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Microsoft and Apache - What's the Angle?
A week ago, we discussed Microsoft's contribution to the Apache Foundation. Now, Bruce Perens has written an analysis "exploring the new relationship of Microsoft and the Apache project, how it works as an anti-Linux move on Microsoft's part, and what some of the Open Sourcers are going to do about having Microsoft as a rather untrustworthy partner." In particular, he notes:
"...Microsoft can still influence how things go from here on. If they have to live with open source, the Apache project is Microsoft's preferred direction. Apache doesn't use the dreaded GPL and its enforced sharing of source-code. Instead, the Apache license is practically a no-strings gift, with a weak provision against patent lawsuits as its most relevant term. Microsoft can take Apache software and embrace and enhance, providing their own versions of the project's software with engineered incompatibility and no available source, just as they forced incompatibility into the Web by installing IE with every Windows upgrade."
1. They want to talk to regulators as "insiders" in the Open Source community, asking for increases in software patenting that will actually block Open Source.
2. Trying to become the dominant server for Apache Foundtion software is an anti-Linux play.
3. There is a potential for embrace and enhance of Apache Foundation software.
4. If they really want to be sincere community members, let's see them play by GPL rules, not by Apache's "anything goes" rules. What they're doing now is trying to seem members of Open Source without any of the obligation.
Bruce Perens.
How about a phone number: 510-984-1055. It turns away calls when we'd be asleep.
Bruce Perens.
Usage of IIS has been increasing dramatically since March 2006. Usage of the Apache HTTP Server has declined significantly beginning in that same month
Nice try, troll.
According to the page you linked, Apaches usage has actually increased, as has IIS. Admittedly, Apaches market share has gone down, but that's not what you said. There are still 8.5 million more Apache servers (serving 24 million more sites according to Netcraft) than IIS.
Totals for Active Servers Across All Domains
June 2000 - June 2008
Not to mention that as the largest single OS vendor, Microsofts market share is bound to grow, as their users start discovering the internet. Apache users are largely self selecting in this respect.
that's a BSDaemon, thank you very much...
Usage of IIS has been increasing dramatically since March 2006. Usage of the Apache HTTP Server has declined significantly beginning in that same month.
Those numbers were mainly due to changes in parked domains, nothing real.
You seem to be talking about Open Source as one single entity - it isn't, and it never will be. What Apache are doing is nothing more than ensuring they can increase their own market share by having their products run well on all platforms. Whats wrong with that?
Should Apache 'take one for the "team"'? No.
System Libraries (I use the capitals to specifically indicate a reference to the capitalized term in the GPL 3) don't have to implement a Standard Interface. They can instead serve as the interface to allow the use of the work with a Major Component. Which simply means Microsoft would have to make the non-Free extension code part of or highly dependent on code in a Major Component, called via a System Library.
As long as the GPL allows covered software to be run on non-Free platforms, the owners of the non-Free platforms will be able to embrace and extend the GPL software with non-Free code. You can set up some hoops, if you like, but they can always tilt the platform to serve as a ramp through the hoops.