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The Credibility Issues of MS's CodePlex Foundation
alphadogg writes 'Microsoft's new CodePlex Foundation has serious flaws to correct if it wants to become a credible force in the open source industry, and attract a diverse collection of developers and participants, according to an expert in forming consortia and foundations. Andy Updegrove, a lawyer and founder of ConsortiumInfo.org, says Microsoft has created with CodePlex a rigid foundation that has almost no wiggle room and a poorly crafted governance structure that concentrates authority at the top and leaves little power to others who might join the foundation.' Here is Andy's detailed analysis of CodePlex's structure: "Over the past 22 years, I've helped structure scores of open, consensus based consortia and foundations, and represented over 100 in all... In this blog entry, I'll show where I think the legal and governance structure of CodePlex has wandered off the open path, and offer specific recommendations for how the structure could be changed to give people (other than Microsoft business partners) confidence that CodePlex will be an organization worth joining."
But it almost perfectly captures Microsoft's view on the software market.
extern warranty;
main()
{
(void)warranty;
}
Doesn't look like it captures the OSS development spirit, to me...
That's probably because it isn't supposed to. It's supposed to allow Microsoft and any other companies who sign on to support it the ability to say "We like open source. We're spending eleventy-billion dollars on supporting an independent open source foundation." By calling it "open source" even if it's not, it succeeds at its PR purpose.
Remember the Halloween Documents? I don't think we have any reason to think that Microsoft has suddenly decided that they should become the next Red Hat.
I am officially gone from
Why, the article might lead one to think that Codeplex was set up as an entirely self-serving initiative under Microsoft's firm control! Who could imagine such a thing?!
From FTA:
Q: Is that good or bad?
A: In my view, itâ(TM)s bad, because it means that the Board of Directors not only has complete control, but the Board is also self-perpetuating (i.e., the directors elect their own successors). Moreover, there are no term limits on how long a Board member can serve. In this kind of organization, the Board is not answerable to the participants, and the participants have no say or control at all over how the organization is managed or evolves.
The author of the article points out that Microsoft has created a self-controlling organization without industry partners and given it complete control of itself. The implication is that CodePlex will fail because participants will be backed into a corner if they want to do anything that the Board of Directors opposes. It seems like the term "Microsoft Open Source" is still an oxymoron.
I think it needs less Microsoft or better, none at all. It blatantly obvious this is a mere publicity stunt. The bylaws arent accidentally about giving all control to Microsoft.
The only good thing at all is that it puts Miguel de Icaza on Microsofts side so that people easier understand where his loyalty really lies. The discussions about Mono and abolishing it from distributions should get easier now.
HTTP/1.1 400
The whole reason d'atre of The CodePlex Foundation is that it isn't the Free Software Foundation or the Open Inventions Network. Microsoft could have just have easily one of these or similar organizations. But then again they wouldn't be so easy to control - which is the whole point of the exercise. Pollute, extend and embrace Microsoft control of 'open source', and by extension Open Standards. And here's what one of the current members of the board of TCF has to say about his time at the FSF.
..
.. "There's an old game in politics. If some group is giving you trouble, launch a competing group under your control"
... :)
"I hope that I can last more on this foundation than I lasted at the FSF, where I was removed by RMS after refusing to be an active part of the campaign to rename Linux as GNU/Linux", Miguel de Icaza
Lets see who else is on the 'open source' CodePlex board: Sam Ramji (Microsoft), Bill Staples (Microsoft), Stephanie Davies Boesch (Microsoft), Miguel de Icaza (Novell), D. Britton Johnston (Microsoft), Shaun Bruce Walker (DotNetNuke)
This blog sure has it figured out already
So there you have it, what could be more 'open' than that
Shockingly, if you time and time again fuck people over, they stop putting so much trust in you.
Microsoft releases a driver for Linux under the GPL and spins it as them working towards accepting open source more. Except it doesn't really help anyone but them. And later it turns out that they were only doing so because they were breaking the GPL. And then later that the code was shit and has taken a bunch of effort to get into decent shape and they've been completely ignoring emails on the subject.
Microsoft puts C# and the CLI under the "Microsoft Community Promise" and trumpets as it being a win for interoperability and open source. Except it only covers the core standardized parts. All the libraries specific to Microsoft's implementation that are widely used aren't included. As a result it basically only makes it easier to move from other implementations to theirs, and not the other way around, and the only one who wins is Microsoft.
Microsoft works towards standardizing the new format for the new version of Office, and yet again plays up the interoperability aspects. Except the standard is a bloated mess, poorly defines things, in many cases says "just do it like that other program did" and doesn't specify what that means, and is in general just shit. It's nigh-impossible for anyone but them to properly implement. It replicates an existing standard, a better one, for no purpose beyond continued lock-in. Even Office doesn't properly support it and won't until the next version. It has myriad serious problems with its standardization process.
Is it really a surprise that people don't trust them when they're constantly doing things like that? If they made a serious effort, they could win most people over, but they so far haven't. And even if they do eventually do so, it'll be entirely reasonable for people to be cautious at first, because they have an extensive and still growing history of being deceptive with this sort of thing.
"There is the little matter of potential patent time bombs. I won't use Mono for that reason alone. I have absolutely no faith in Microsoft's largesse, or in the moles like Icaza who seem hell bent on selling everyone up the river."
.NET through Mono would be to abolish the standard, something I imagine wouldn't even remotely bother Microsoft at that point.
.NET to Linux despite the fact that very few developers saw real value in it. Notice how few big projects outside of his umbrella actually use Mono or even want to use Mono. Note also that the only Mono-using apps I've seen on Linux are aimed directly at GNOME, de Icaza's little "love child."
Amen. I always like to say when someone defends Mono for being an ECMA standard: "Standardization does not mean indemnification." The worst a standards organization could do to Microsoft for patent trolling
As for de Icaza, it should have been blatantly obvious that he was a traitor when he:
- Applied for a job at Microsoft. I don't know how he responded to being rejected, assuming he actually was rejected.
- Actually wanted to bring
- I think a real red flag should have been raised when he started calling OOXML "superb" and blindly thinking it was being "FUD'd." I doubt he ever actually read the standard.
To me, CodePlex is just abother ploy on MS's part to try to control code. That's also why I think they were so unusually interested in proliferating Mono with de Icaza.
I am beginning to think that maybe Darl McBride was attacked viciously by a penguin as a child.