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Microsoft Donates Code To Apache's "Stonehenge" Project
dp619 writes "Several months after joining the Apache Foundation, Microsoft has made its first code contribution to an Apache project. The project, known as Stonehenge, is made up of companies and developers seeking to test the interoperability of Web standards implementations."Reader Da Massive adds a link to coverage at Computer World.
If only we had some history of technical partnerships with Microsoft to use as a guide.
Embrace - you are here.
Extend
Extinguish
How we know is more important than what we know.
Although it is nice to see code donated, they made a much bigger contribution earlier allowing all apache committers access to MSDN. This is full d/l access to all of their products for testing, etc.
Microsoft submitted the code on a napkin and specified inches instead of feet.
Oh, yeah, it's not easy to pad these out to 120 characters.
Corporations can not join the Apache Software Foundation (ASF). Microsoft became a "sponsor" of the ASF last summer, but only individual people can join the ASF.
This is also not the first time Microsoft has contributed code to an Apache project, pulling one quick example out of google...
http://port25.technet.com/archive/2008/10/14/microsoft-s-powerset-team-resumes-hbase-contributions.aspx
-- The Hoss Man
This is an open source project about web standards.
If Microsoft really cares about these things, why have they continued to hack on Trident, which has been so far behind in both of those areas? Why not just adopt Gecko or Webkit as the IE/Windows rendering engine?
As it is, they've consistently shunned open standards, including the Web. Only recently have they been starting to fix IE to follow web standards, and it really seems like they're doing the bare minimum they have to do to claim they're making an effort.
Maybe that's what this is, too? Good press for them, while at the same time, they're doing more to undermine web standards with things like Silverlight than they have ever done to support them?
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Interoperability simply means that Microsoft stuff that was not used (or possible to use) with OSS projects, will be used now. Which leads to more sales.
Microsoft still charges for its products, it just has opened doors to more customers.
Embrace - you are here. Extend Extinguish
I do believe "Embrace" was covered when Microsoft joined the Apache foundation. Now that they're actually adding code... that's represented by "Extend."
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Project Stonehenge!
Abstract:
Nobody will know why something so large and simple was created, what it's good for, how it's supposed to be used. It will face complete abandonment and isolation, only to be admired and appreciated by a handful of people once a year.
I keed I keed!
If the company itself, i.e. the patent holder, donates the code, then it is probably safe. I'm not in a position to judge how useful it might be. But MS has long taken the position that it supports the BSD license, and other similar licenses that allow it to take code contributed by others, close it, modify it, and sell the closed & modified version under a new name.
I can't say that I know that they actually support such projects, but that's been their official position for over a decade.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I'm surprised it's not tagged "itsatrap" yet.
1. Create protocols/formats/standards/specifications which are not inherently inter-operable. (Remember how buggy, incomplete and inaccurate OOXML spec was. Remember how Windows-specific the .NET and Silverlight specs are.)
2. Pick one of your competitors, give him (and him alone, not the whole public) code and/or patent-freedoms so that he can make an inter-operable software. (Remember Novell OO.Org plugins, Mono and Moonlight.)
3. Claim that the standard itself is clean and inter-operable by showing the existence of the above competitor's inter-operable implementation as "proof". In making this claim, take advantage of the fact that most people, organizations and courts make the mistake of not seeing any difference between the original definition of an inter-operable standard - "A standard whose specification is public, true to reference implementation and complete so that any developer can make a fully inter-operable implementation without paying any fees or signing any license agreements" and the twisted definition given by Microsoft - "A standard that has at-least one competing implementation besides the reference implementation".
4. As the claim gradually gets accepted, the "standard" becomes a de-facto standard and more people and government will adopt it. This leads to the death of 1) other standards and 2) other independent implementations of the same standard. (because the top implementations are not inter-operable with them)
5. Now you and your friendly competitor are the only ones in the business. After everyone forgets history, pull the plug and let your competitor die.
The largest prime factor of my UID is 263267.
The code that Microsoft contributed was the Happy Slider. It should be set to maximum if you really want your server to sing.
... and then they built the supercollider.
1: // Code Submission by // Our first "open source" code contribution to this thing called "an Apache project" // // // Copyright (c) 2008-2009 by // // // Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited. // Use at your own risk. // Read the EULA. You have been warned!!! // All Rights Reserved
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12: System.out.writeln("All your base are belong to us.\n");
13: System.out.writeln("Have a nice day.");
Who's going to debug that mess?
You forgot one last line:
14. // Why this isn't compiling? Stupid Java. -chandram
// Code originally contributed by Microsoft Corporation.
// This contribution to the Stonehenge project is limited strictly
// to the source code that is submitted in this submission.
// Any technology, including underlying platform technology,
// that is referenced or required by the submitted source code
// is not a part of the contribution.
// For example and not by way of limitation,
// any systems/Windows libraries (WPF, WCF, ASP.NET etc.)
// required to run the submitted source code is not a part of the contribution
Why is Microsoft so pesky about this? It's all about patents. The Apache License requires each contributor to give a patent license for the code they have contributed. By stating that all the patent-emcumbered libraries are not part of the contribution, Microsoft does not give you a patent license, but you still have to acquire one if you actually want to use their code. So don't use this code, it's a patent trap.
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