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Microsoft Dilutes Open Source, Coins 'Open Surface'
sfcrazy writes "Now, Microsoft is coining yet another term to further confuse users — 'Open Surface.' Senior Director for Open Source Communities at Microsoft, Gianugo Rabellino, said at Oscon 2011 that customers don't care about the underlying platform as long as the APIs, protocols and standards for the cloud are open. That's when he threw the term 'open surface.'" This seems to have more than a grain of truth to it — after all, programmers have been creating open-source software with closed-source programming languages for many years, and I'm certainly more impressed by Google's willingness to let me export my data than I am turned off by the fact that they use a mix of open and closed source software to run the Google circus.
I believe this is step 2
This is so backwards from Slashdot norm. A summary with a tidbit of "news" in it and intelligently written opinion, no FA to read.
Am I missing something, did Microsoft not really coin this term or is there some biased, slanderous opinion that was unintentionally left out of the summary?
Chalk this down to a marketing team with nothing better to do.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
It's called "published API".
Microsoft, as usual, is trying to conflate "published protocol" (an interface that can be used by independently developed software that may share no components with software providing interface) and "published API" (an interface that requires direct use of software providing the interface within common framework such as libraries, plugins, compilers' handling of interface definitions, etc.)
Shut up, Microsoft. Nothing short of published, open protocol is going to suffice. And none of your products will survive if you won't hide and obfuscate protocols used by them. You know that and we know that, so don't pretend that you are not our enemies.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
I'll be the first to coin "free (as in freedom) surface."
as long as the APIs, protocols and standards for the cloud are open
The key thing is to ensure that the APIs cannot be controlled, or changed or withdrawn or have conditions of use imposed on them. Open means more than just having them documented.
The only way to ensure that the APIs remain usable is to have the ability to rebuild the underlying software, rather than simply have a third party provide us with it - where the way the API is still under their sole control. To do that requires unencumbered access to the source code, and the entitlement to copy it and make other things that use it.
Without those abilities, there will always be the possibility that the original owner could arbitrarily change it, refuse to support it, add private functions and features or prevent certain classes of users from benefitting from it. These are the attributes that make free software valuable.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Whether or not this is a move to co-opt FOSS, I can't say, although I have my suspicions. But from a security standpoint, it sucks. Security breaches are becoming more and more common; with the underlying code being closed, there can be no independent confirmation of the quality of security measures, patches, etc. So when a vulnerability is found and 'patched', we still won't have any assurance, beyond Microsoft's say-so, that the patch fixes the problem and doesn't introduce any new ones.
This announcement doesn't really change anything, and on the face of it it's non-news. But as propaganda, it stands a good chance of getting more people to drink the MS Kool-aid. And remember when MS used to use undocumented OS calls to give their own applications an edge over competitors? I think we can expect such abuses to increase greatly - the appearance of openness will hide what's really going on.. The 'surface' may be 'open', but the underlying code, and the underlying politics, are murkier and more closed than ever.
Besides, 'Open Surface' sounds rather shallow, doesn't it?
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
His revelation is right on the mark. I constantly see proponents of Open Source say things such as "It's auditable because the source code is free". Well yes it is, but no one cares. I think even from the Slashdot crowd the number of people who bothered to build Firefox from source is a small minority compared to those who downloaded it. Those who actually look at the code are an even smaller subset of those bothered to build from source.
People talk about open source as if users give a damn. Users are only interested in 2 things, how much it costs, and if it works. Open APIs are part of the ability for something to work if your idea of working is interoperability.
I believe the following statement on the front page says it all:
"rights under Microsoft patents covering such specifications are available separately"
Published APIs are important, nay, necessary for "cloud" applications and services to be useful to developers to build upon. Open source is necessary for community based development of the underlying applications or services.
Open source software is completely irrelevant in this instance and this appears to be a simple strawman attack from Microsoft against the open source movement.
customers don't care about the underlying platform as long as stuff works. Problem with Microsoft is that their stuff does not work and their users don't have any option for fixing it.
And this open shit coming from MS which has history of closed APIs, protocols and standards.
yeah, just wait till you use the APIs and get hit with suit for violating patents and copyrights.
Kaching!
Assuming you had this open surface* then in the context of cloud computing* i'd say you probably wouldn't care what the back end platform is since you could be running on any platform that implements the open surface*, in the same way that most people don't care about what OS the server that their website is hosted on is running. Then again if you want vendor lock-in then i don't see how this would be beneficial.
*yeah i don't think we need yet another term for an existing concept
This is, as stated, a ploy to dilute what open source means. To say customers don't care about the platform is silly considering how serious platform intrusions are, how serious platform reliability is and how platform updates are handled. Can Microsoft really say that Windows gets out of developers way and out of the way of maintenance admins? No, and for decades they designed Windows so it wasn't out of the way. This is just another Microsoft ploy in their attempt to Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish open source and in particular GNU/Linux. IMO
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Aww, I have better things to do but I just can let pass this opportunity
Open Surface it's a means and the end itself, to bring developers developers developers the joy and magical tools that allow for easy integration of polisynergistic code with the flick of a finger .
Right from your non thrown chair, You can take your open source code and rub it to the installation dvd of Windows 8 and it magically interfaces extending its functionality, embracing it's capabilities and extinguishing old grievances that used to populate the relationship between open source developers and real developers developers developers.
We welcome anyone to try this chair-blasting experience and together create a new world of Open Source Surfaces with You, my Open Source developer, bending over a table of perfectly interfaced and monetizable software.
Signed
Steve Ballmer
(I was in marketing before getting the promotion, remember?)
Yay marketing! Trolling the world for profit since the 30's. ©
> customers don't care about the underlying platform as long as the APIs, protocols and standards for the cloud are open.
That seems true. Customers want openness in the part that they deal with. Since the customer does not deal with system maintenance and development, he does not care whether the underlying platform is open. The provider of the cloud service, on the other hand, has a deeply vested interest in the openness of the platform. Maintenance, repair, and extension requirements all strongly favor an open platform from the cloud service provider's perspective.
Pointing out that the customer does not care about platform openness as long as the protocol is open is a bit like saying that automobile drivers do not care if the paving crew uses horse-drawn paving machines as long as they get the job done in a timely manner. It does not necessarily follow that horse-drawn paving machines make sense.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Microsoft has taken some big hits and seems like they are ready to play ball with the community. They are totally OK with modifications to their phone platform where Apple and Android Handset makers are not. They have reversed their stance on linux and are actively using it, contributing to it, and offering it as part of their cloud services. Is Ballmer a nutjob? Yes. Do you really think after how badly he tanked the company since Gates left he's calling the shots anymore, and will not be "stepping down" soon? Come on.
Microsoft, please first open "surface" Skype. Give us somewhere to get an API key and a protocol specification to the Skype network so we can make apps to send push notifications to Skype usernames that subscribe to them. Digium has stopped Skype support for Asterisk, open up the protocol and instantly every PBX software in existance can have a Skype module -- instantly you add amazing corporate-level value to your product. Make all your services as easy to manage for Linux admins as Amazon's cloud platform services are. I might even use MS-SQL server in my web app if it were hosted on a server I could manage with nothing more than an SSH and the occaisional VNC connection. Give Oracle some real competition to Java and SQL, give Apple some real competition to handheld gaming/communication, give Google some real competition to Online Presence Management and Advertising.
You have the potential to surpass your former glory, but you aren't going to do it by mimicing anymore. Drop "embrace, extend, extinguish" for "innovate, profit, liberate". Hell, you want some amazing branding, open source Windows XP and watch the ensuing holy war in the open source community over which Desktop OS to run once the first mashup is made. Change with the times and you will not be left behind.
Have gnu, will travel.
besides English, or is Microsoft marketing just losing it? Anything that's on the 'surface' in English is bad. 'Scratch the surface' and you haven't done enough. 'On the surface' means superficial, shallow. Maybe it's different in British English, but in American English this just sounds awful.
Either that or it's April 1st again...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
His revelation is right on the mark. I constantly see proponents of Open Source say things such as "It's auditable because the source code is free". Well yes it is, but no one cares. I think even from the Slashdot crowd the number of people who bothered to build Firefox from source is a small minority compared to those who downloaded it. Those who actually look at the code are an even smaller subset of those bothered to build from source.
It isn't necessary for a user to personally view, modify, or even compile the source to benefit from open source. At some point the copyright holder may add shovelware, spyware or just plain bugs. They may choose not to port to other platforms. They may just abandon the product. In these cases. a user of a closed source app can do little but continue to use the old version until it no longer runs on current platforms or until advanced security threats make it unsafe.
But as long as one person has the will and ability to adopt what the developer has effectively or literally abandoned, the freeloaders can still their updated binaries. They won't be exactly what they wanted but the freeloaders never had or asked for that anyway.
They had their chance to brand it to the point of Nintendo, Nike, and Kleenex
and ?
With a majority of 'customers' moving towards open source technologies such as Linux,
...what? What majority is that?
I think this guy is a bit delusional when it comes to how he perceives the broad majority of users. Most users don't give a shit if the product is open source/free software and especially what that means at the source level. They just want something that works for them. If it happens to be free, great, but it often isn't, and it more than often isn't Linux. Vendor lock is meaningless to the broad majority of users.
It's a pretty bold admission because customers "not caring about the underlying platform" means windows won't be the infection vector for all that other MS software. Maybe they're getting ready for a future when there are hordes of iOS and android devices out there. They have to do something to get people using their libraries and other software. I don't think anyone really believes that windows mobile or whatever mobile OS microsoft tries next will take over the market like back in the wintel days.
"I'm certainly more impressed by Google's willingness to let me export their data"
Once you give it to Google, it ain't yours any more.
All I am going to say to those of you who think "open source" does not matter is read Richard Stallman's paper "Who Does That Server Really Serve?"
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.html
Having open and honestly published API's and protocols is important and certainly better than nothing, but there are so many other reasons why access to source code is important for trust and freedom in computing.
What? Are you drunk? Or high? I've never seen a train of thought go as irretrievably off the rails as yours has just done. This is like a roller-coaster that has gone flying off into the gift-shop, or a runaway mine-cart that has gone careening into a chasm.
Um... what? That's not what the word "open" means. If a door is "open" is might at some point in the future be "closed". The word open describes the current state of something.
Unless you mean "Take the word as it is given the specific context I will now thrust upon it, thus defeating the point of my own argument that the word has a specific universal meaning"
I think it's a good idea to differentiate between a truely Open Source thing and something that operates with the outside world in an open way.
For example, a standard USB port verses an ipad connector.
Although it might dilute attitudes, it's also a useful term. You shouldn't turn ones back on that with emotion. Sure, avoid the term but recognise it's usefulness, if only to coin another term because otherwise we're blinding ourselves with emotion... and if having a holy war this is where the enemy creeps in.
A blog I run for the wealth
Yeah, their stuff is "not working" on 95% of personal computers, keep that up, dork, but know that not even the FOSS community likes you.
Oh, it'll be well documented all right. Only the product being documented will be some huge gargantuan beast of a thing that requires hundreds, if not thousands of pages to adequately document. And the documentation will be released 6-12 months after Microsoft release their implementation; the first version of the documentation will be mysteriously different to the implementation and the documentation may never be updated - meaning that by the time anyone else has a hope of having some competition implemented, Microsoft will be well entrenched.
Even so, this would be an improvement over the status quo.
Look on the bright side - with M$ involved nobody's going to suggest intelligent design.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
.. to just avoid, at every conceivable cost and in any way possible, the term Open Standards.
It hurts, doesn't it? I mean, having to work with others?
Insert
Would have been more fitting... Followed by Open Wallet.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
Is it just me, or are open* and cloud* becoming the new cyber*?
Middle manager: "Hey, did you try the new CyberCloud 2.0 Open-Surface ® operating system by OpenMicrosoft ®?"
MS patent goon: "You bet your Zune ® I did! It allows me to innovate my value-added cyberdata to enhance availability in scalable cloud based enterprise architectures channeling an enterprise virtualisation solution, thus leveraging existing ROI and increasing key delivarables as per OpenMicrosoft ® BestPractise ®!"
"The most dangerous enemy of a better solution is an existing codebase that is just good enough." -- Eric S. Raymond
I'm fairly hard-core, so I apply [what I call] the 'walk away' test to everything. That is: 'can I take my data and set up another instance of x on infrastructure that I control?'.
As far as I'm concerned both protocols and APIs, even if published, are potential lock in, I prefer to have the whole stack and my data -available-, even if I'm not going to move every month.
I deal with a certain amount of non-tech-savvy non-profits in the UK who end up glued to apparently 'free' stuff, because they don't understand this.
On y va, qui mal y pense!
Docs aren't perfect. We all know this. To me, if there isn't a open reference implementation I'm not sure it's a open. Only an implementation covers everything required. Yes, in theory, the docs should be an implementation written in English, but that fails as it can't be run and tested, so it's always an incomplete implementation. Also, personally, I often find it easier to dig out exact details for code from other code, rather than from written English.
I'm certainly more impressed by Google's willingness to let me export my data.
I hope you are aware of the fact that they can still hang on to your data, even if you leave? See their Terms of Service, chapter 11. Yes, it really says "perpetual".
Just so you go into this with your eyes open - few read this stuff.
Insert
Exactly. I've built a company (now almost 13 yo) on an open source foundation, wherever possible. Where that proved impossible or the available FOSS was just too poor technically, etc, then I willingly paid.
Simple.
I'm getting a vision of a solid block of cement with clear windows glued on to the outside.
It's "Office Open XML"... "Open Office XML" would probably have put them in a lot of trouble because that's the name of a software product owned by Oracle (back then, Sun).
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
I assume this is about Natice APIs? Native APIs weren't hidden. They were fully documented, I had access to the documentation because I was dealing with low level drivers.
Or are we talking about some other API?
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Or so said Alan Kay, more or less, arguing for open reference implementations.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
I really thought this was a fairly decent April 1st post....
Next, they "improve" the "open surface". That is an old microsoft story in a new package. This is FUD, seeding uncertainty on open source and open standards, the fear and doubt are just under the surface. Judging by many of the comments here people are already drinking the cool-aid.
Anyone who is too naive or too young should now be able to see what those of us who know better have been trying to tell them for years: Microsoft is our enemy, not because *we* choose them as our enemy, but because they are making themselves our enemy. Thank goodness Microsoft is being marginalized; I only wish there were something better than Google taking their place, although Google's a heck of a lot better than Apple.
Nathan's blog
Its hard to tell a lot of detail (and its possible that the concept is fluff that doesn't have a strong concept behind it) from anything I've seen about it, but the "open surface" description includes not just APIs but also "protocols and standards". Its also not clear what sense of "open" is being used -- if open merely means "disclosed" (which it might, from MS) then its a fairly low bar, if its "unencumbered", then having both the the programming APIs, networking protocols, and other standards "open" means that other vendors are free to implement them, even if the existing implementation isn't open-source.
In either the weak or the strong form, "open surface" is a valuable feature in the cloud (and the strong form obviously more valuable to than the weak form), but "open source" remains valuable as well (open surface is in part important because if the original implementation isn't open source, open surface -- particularly of the unencumbered form -- makes it more likely that a third-party open-source implementation will come to exist.)
Open source implementation of open-surface services is really the gold standard of the cloud -- it provides the maximum flexibility, including the flexibility to freely deploy locally the same cloud apps that you would deploy with a cloud vendor, and to -- assuming you are deploying locally -- evolve (or pay the developer of your choice to evolve) the platform as well as the applications.
...
He coined these terms — open surface and open core — to describe a continued commingling — or a blurring — of open source and closed source software that lies at the core of the enterprise and the cloud.
Open core, or open source, is the existing model in which core features are open source and value-added proprietary commercial software is built on top of it to monetize the technology.
The open surface model, Microsoft’s approach, can be done with APIs, protocols and standards, the Microsoft exec said. The two models are coming together nicely.
So... A tivo is "open core" and a MS SMTP gateway is "open surface". I don't think we needed phrases or sound bites to describe the different ways that platforms could use a combination of closed and open source.
Also from TFA:
“Am I saying that openness doesn’t matter in the cloud? No, openness is extremely important [but] I argue that in the cloud the source code is the Terms of Use and the SLA,” Rabellino said, referring to service-level agreements.”
I have been around a while (I even had one of those wire wrapped IBM PCs a while back) and I have always thought that all Microsoft products were open sores. I guess I missed something along the way.
But is this unholy mating happening on an "Open Surface???" Inquiring minds!
considerations and importance of open technologies comes from the concerns of longevity, modifiable-ness and accessibility of the technology.
so, if a technology may suddenly become closed and inaccessible in future, that means those considerations have no been fulfilled.
therefore, 'open' does not mean open in that context. because context was different from the start :
longevity, modifiable-ness and accessibility
Read radical news here
It's the same fake embrace the wiser propaganda derivative you have seen all to many times in politics and enterprise. Guy Andrew gets a cool term going for him (in this case the FOSS community finally gets Open Source projects mattering in the real world) so Guy Bernard, who is a dominant figure in its decline, dreams up an imitation of the term, similarly titled but semantically empty just to compete.
This tactic is very well documented in politics strategy texts and quite effective at that. It's main strength is the natural misinformation and possible disinformation of the general population who identifies qualities mostly by title and does so quite loosely. In fact non specialists will usually only keep the dominant word of the title in mind. In this case Cathrin 6pack will just understand that Microsoft goes Open, which fact immediately will be related to "Oh, Dean the tech guy always talked to me about Open Software" which will lead to the conclusion: "Microsoft is going Open Software" ergo "Microsoft is Open so there is no need to get uncomfortable and learn Other software to be Open since I am Open with the Microsoft Office"
-- no sig today