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.

Comments

Patents covered seperately

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe the following statement on the front page says it all:
"rights under Microsoft patents covering such specifications are available separately"

Re:What is the point of the linked page?

[Sulphur]

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?

In other words, an Open Surface post.

Customers or Providers?

[Bob9113]

> 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.