Microsoft Launches Its Own Open Source Foundation

darthcamaro writes "Microsoft already had its own open source (OSI-approved) licenses, its own open source project hosting site and now it's adding its own non-profit open source foundation. That's right, the company that is still banging the patent drum against open source now has its own 501(c)(6) open source foundation. Officially called the CodePlex Foundation, it's a separate effort from the CodePlex site and is aimed at helping to get more commercial developers involved in open source. Considering how they continue to attack Linux and open source, will anyone take them seriously?"

Comments

Re:trap

[Icegryphon]

keikaku doori
Translators note means: Just as Planned.

Re:This is mainly a Tax Strategy

[nschubach]

Not sure it it's that or the fact that they are still trying to be the "center" of technology. It's been revealed in internal docs that they'd rather see their system or standard being used rather than someone else. If they can push their way into Open Source development and corner the market on it, they can phase out licenses they don't agree with and form the community how they like instead of how the community does.

Jealousy

[mollog]

I think Microsoft sees a lot of good work going on in the open source community and it wants to tap into that source of innovation. Regardless of what they say, Microsoft is sorely lacking in true, original innovation. Their best plays have been rip-offs of established ideas.

They have the money and they have to try, but I am doubtful that they'll do much else besides foster Microsoft-centric development of tools and programs similar to the Windows Powershell IDE by Dr. Tobias Weltner.

Re:Jealousy

[sopssa]

Even if they take the best ideas elsewhere, MS products are usually solid and just work. Visual Studio is *still* considered the best development environment there is and with a reason. Windows is still the major mostly used OS in desktop (mac, the only competitor, doesn't really come even close).

Even if you have original ideas, you have to know how to put them together. Now to do something other than car analogy. Even if you have the best ketchup in the world, you cant make your hamburger better if its all burned up, rotten and full of bugs and worms. You need the *whole* thing to be good.

Re:Jealousy

[tepples]

Cloning proprietary applications and OSes is innovation?

MS-DOS 1.0 was originally QDOS, Tim Paterson's clone of Digital Research's CP-M. MS-DOS 2.0 was an attempt to clone some UNIX features. Some (folders, file handles, I/O redirection) were implemented successfully; others (namely pipes) are simulated due to the lack of any sort of task switching.

Pot calling the kettle black? Almost any app you see in the Linux land is either a clone of a proprietary app or a clone of a clone (and so on).

Windows is a clone of Mac OS classic, and Excel is a clone of VisiCalc and 1-2-3. Real or malarkey?

Re:Jealousy

[MightyMartian]

I think you're rather abusing the word "clone" here. A clone would be identical. DOS was not a clone of CP/M, Windows was not a clone of MacOS, Excel is not a clone of VisiCalc. They have similar functionality, common concepts (I mean, there are only so many ways you can do a spreadsheet) and probably some operability or low-level rip offs, but they ain't clones.

A little naive, as usual.

[gillbates]

"We believe that commercial software companies and the developers that work for them under-participate in open source projects," Microsoft stated.

While I applaud the intent to appear to be open source friendly, they haven't yet begun to address two of the major issues with Microsoft and open source:

1. What happens when a Microsoft developer inadvertently contributes to their Open Source repository something better than a commercial Microsoft offering?
2. Most of us developing commercial software *CAN NOT* participate in open source projects due to overly broad non-compete clauses in our contracts. The extent of our participation is not up to us, or Microsoft - it's up to our employer, and Microsoft's recent action in this regard does nothing to change this.

Now, here we have Microsoft reinventing the wheel, aka sourceforge. I could even go for a BSD style license, or even public domain. But I have one question:

Would they host, and allow development on ReactOS? (for those who don't know, it's an open source Windows clone)

How Codeplex and Microsoft deal with this question would reveal far more about their true intentions than what their pundits say about their open source attitude.

Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

[MoxFulder]

... doesn't seem to be working so well against open-source stuff. Maybe Microsoft's new strategy is to split and balkanize the open-source community with a bunch of conflicting licenses and communities.

Division, Discord, and Destruction

Re:Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

[Desler]

Maybe Microsoft's new strategy is to split and balkanize the open-source community with a bunch of conflicting licenses and communities.

Microsoft doesn't need to do that. The open-source community has been doing that just fine by themselves for years now.

Re:Coal.. Kettle?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Here, they are trying to dip their toes into Open Source, and the summary bashes them. Geez, guys, get a life!

The problem is that it is far too early to tell if this is just another attempt at "embrace, extend, extinguish" -- something MS has a very long and well documented history of doing, or the final stage of "ignorance, denial, attack, accept."

Distinction without a difference

[mollog]

Sir, you make distinctions without a difference. All of Microsoft's work is derivative.

Yes, they are hugely popular and they have the major market share. They make billions of profit, yet smaller companies like Apple seem to be the ones coming up with new products.

Microsoft has been a drag on innovation for more than two decades. Its best, and seemingly only, plays continue to be copies of new technology.

mixed signals

[Jeek Elemental]

http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/09/linux-foundation-to-microsoft-stop-secretly-attacking-linux.ars

While I dont think theres some grand plan to kill open source, I see absolutely no reason to trust MS at all.
Even if Ballmer swears on a stack of dried lawyers, that means nothing tomorrow if someone else gets the job.

The MS engineers probably mean well, but have no say in the end.

And ofcourse theres all the crap theyve pulled in the past, should this just be forgiven?

Re:trap

[MynockGuano]

With Windows I can just point out the "Designed for Windows X" logo and my customers will get devices that work every. single. time.

Normally, I wouldn't nitpick to this degree, but you seemed to place great emphasis on this point. Are you saying that you've never encountered a Windows user complaining that their printer just "stopped working?" It seems to me that every nontechnical person I know has expressed this frustration to me at one time or another.

Re:trap

[Shotgun]

The problem with Ubuntu, or any other Linux for that matter, is that the lack of a stable ABI and certification process for hardware makes it damned near impossible to sell at retail. Which wifi sticks work out of the box at Walmart? Which of the half dozen all in ones that are on sale this week at Staples work, and which are paperweights? Will this laptop at Best Buy work out of the box, INCLUDING wifi, and will it continue to function after the next update without jumping through CLI hoops from hell?

Which one of these devices will continue to work after the next Windows upgrade?

I tend not to throw out perfectly working equipment just because Microsoft decided to gratuitously change their device driver model. I find that 5yr old video and sound cards work just fine in recent releases of Linux, but aren't worth the manufacturers time to create new device drivers in order to operate under the latest versions of Windows. How much hardware was thrown out in order to update to Vista?

You keep buying your cheap crappy hardware at the Staples clearance sales. I'll buy decent equipment that is built to last longer than 6 months, and use an OS that doesn't obsolete it.

Re:Parental oversight

[Delkster]

Or even more like "Major industry vendors will be able to get together and keep working on open source software projects, and MS will convince their customers to run that open source software on Windows rather than on Linux".

MS realizes that a lot of open source software (servers, scripting languages, etc.) are in broad use and will stay that way. It's useless trying to make them go away. What MS can try to do is prevent that open source software from dragging people away from Windows.

MS wants visibility in the same space with specific open source projects. If they doesn't have that visibility, open source software (Apache, MySQL, whatever) will be associated mainly with open source platforms, but if MS can break that association, many organizations might end up running their open source applications on Windows. That means keeping their customers, and many open source projects don't even compete directly with MS products because MS doesn't have a similar offering, so MS might not even lose that much by advocating selected projects.

Creating bindings between open source software -- say, a scripting language -- and MS platforms such as .NET may help MS with that as well. You know, the whole embrace, extend, etc. thing.

Re:now that IS a TASTY burger

[HitoGuy]

Don't worry. It's just Microsoft giving more fodder to the gullible Micropologists to futily argue to those who are rightly suspicious or even hostile to Microsoft's actions (I STILL don't trust Mono, for example.). I remember having an argument with one where he insisted that Microsoft not only stopped its "war" on Linux, but was now helping Linux.

Now, very recently I am sure you are aware Microsoft launched yet another "Get The Facts" style FUD campaign against Linux, this time aimed at Best Buy employees! It's filled with the same inane dishonest bullshit you'd expect from a Microsoft-created FUD campaign.

Microsoft isn't trying to bury Linux? Bullshit. Microsoft wants to help open source? Jury is still out on that one, but I still think in the end Microsoft has no long-term FOSS interests and just wants to find a good way to mutilate as many FOSS projects as possible.

Many think I'm blindly hating on Microsoft here. No. Blindly hating on Microsoft usually involves simply hating Microsoft simply because its "trendy" without actually understanding WHY I'm hating Microsoft. I *know* why I hate Microsoft, and in my opinion, it's a damn fine reason (Or reasons.). I don't trust Microsoft because I am all-too-familiar with their past behavior. And this looks like just another case of Microsoft starting the "embrace" in "embrace, extend, extinguish." They did in with so many other things in the same way it looks like they're doing it with FOSS. And I'm expected to NOT be suspicious of Microsoft when they do this? Their history has taught me one big thing: Microsoft "helps" until they get what they want, then they get backstabbing.

Thus, it takes more than a Micropologist saying Microsoft no longer wants to harm FOSS and a little inane Microsoft PR (Like their "community promise.") to convince me Microsoft is anything BUT harmful.