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Microsoft Investing In "Open Source" Lab In Philippines

Posted by timothy on from the damned-publically-if-they-do-or-don't dept.

jaromil writes "Following up its cozying up to OSCON, now Microsoft is launching its first 'open source' lab in the Philippines, paying for a huge media coverage. From the press release it seems they are also advertising the issue of 'interoperability' to outnumber one of the strongest features of open source in Asia: recycling old computers. Any suggestions for good stories about MS interoperability so far? :)"

1 of 95 comments (clear)

  1. Smoke and Mirrors... Otherwise Known as Buzzwords. by VE3OGG · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is why I have such a dislike of "big business".

    Forget for a moment the wasteful philosophy getting people to upgrade for new shiny (and I am by no means saying the 'upgraders' are guilt free).

    Dismiss the fact that Microsoft has no desire to "embrace" open source -- quite the opposite, it wants to control the market with it, or rather redefine the market on its terms -- sure, you can use all of our codebase that we provide as open source, but you only get to plug-in our components, using our tools, with our licensing restrictions.

    What irks me most is this marketing bullshit that gets thrown into the air. Right now, reading through the PHB technical mags and rags, one can't go an issue without seeing something on "open sourcing" saving money here, or "interoperability" brings new efficacy to the table, or "free software" causing a major paradigm shift breeding synergy in the multi-faceted workplace.

    And that is what this is. It has nothing to do with functionality, and certainly if one goes by Microsoft's track record with open source, it has more to do with embrace and extend.

    Now, at this point it would be easy to say: "don't condemn them yet, IBM was once seen as Satan too!" (Not withstanding IBMs frivolity in the patent market).

    All I can say to that is maybe, and I damn hope them have learned their lesson. The open source community, however, has been burned far too many times with MS' carrot and the stick act.