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Cloud Driving Microsoft To Open Source?
Julie188 writes "Sam Ramji thinks the days where Microsoft's, (and Apple's, and Oracle's) love-hate relationship with open source are numbered, thanks to the cloud. Whereas some open source advocates say the cloud may kill open source, because users won't have access to the source, Ramji says the cloud will be its salvation. Ramji, Microsoft's original internal open source dude, thinks companies building clouds won't be able to keep up if they don't participate in open source communities because that's where the developers building new cloud infrastructure are doing most of their work. The main concerns standing in the way for both cloud builders and users of free software are legal fears, he contends. These include fears of the GPL's copyleft provision and fears of being sued by downstream users. Is he right ... or full of FUD?"
Also not present in the article.
On the whole I agree with Ramji here though. I think that the development of cloud computing in many areas (though not applicable everywhere of course) will force many companies who are sitting on the fence to adopt open source both for reasons of up front cost, and also for reasons of participation in the community. This trend will furthermore move up the stack until all that is held as proprietary (even in BSD-licensed projects) will be a few enhancements tailored to the niche of the specific cloud provider. This is already to be seen in BSD-licensed projects like Apache and PostgreSQL, and it is almost certain to occur with GPL-licensed (not AGPL licensed though) as well.
The fact is that although from a user, access to the source is not necessarily provided with cloud computing, as a provider, it is absolutely necessary.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
On AirNews
The kernel in Windows 9 will be Linux.
Steve Jobs will be reincarnated as a Pony.
Obama will get us out of Afghanistan, balance the budget and move Wall Street to a FEMA trailer court outside of Biluxi, Mississippi.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
What does the creator of "Army of Darkness" know about "cloud" computing?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Microsoft will most likely keep their business model that they have had for almost 40 years - in its very nature, their business model does not shift to new Ideas, but shifts the new Ideas into that model.
I'm sure I'm just really jaded now but I can't read a slashdot story anymore without looking for the anti-MS rhetoric. You think Microsoft sits around thinking about whether the cloud will force the adoption of open-source or closed-source software? Or do you think they're looking at what Amazon is doing and they've done the math. The cloud is about viewing computation as a commodity to be sold and bought. Why do open-source advocates have to make everything about open-source? Isn't the far more interesting trend that computing solutions are collapsing? We're getting better at this stuff and not re-inventing the wheel every time (MS is better at this than just about any other company IMHO; Oracle by comparison is terrible, which is sad news for java). It's not about open-source vs close-source it's about tool-sets that make your life easier as a developer. The cloud is just another tool. Looking at things as open vs closed is a pretty antiquated idea in my opinion.
"We're microsoft. We'd really like to profit off this new openstack thing. Please, please, please re-license it so we can screw you all over. Pretty please?"
OMG! The annual apple harvest is coming! I foretell that the hysterical mobs will burn down the orange orchards and oranges will become extinct! FUD.
And it seems to be shit -> for, in the end what he seems to be demonizing is copyleft license. So then entire thing becomes a veiled statement for proprietarization of previously open licenses.
Read radical news here
because that's where the developers building new cloud infrastructure are doing most of their work.
You do realize Microsoft and Apple have a lot of developers, and they can hire more. If they need more people to build cloud infrastructure, they will. Microsoft was able to build an entire OS without using Open Source Software. They can also build an entire Cloud Infrastructure without using Open Source Software.
...it probably won't matter if it's open source or not.
Go back and take a look at Miguel's technical description of Metro. App developers will code a mixture of XAML and a general purpose language such as C#, which will compile into bytecodes interpreted by the .NET CLR and bound to the new WinRT runtime (perhaps using the infamous P/Invoke), which Miguel says is layered on top of COM (a component technology leftover from the '90s which MS developed to compete with CORBA and DCE) on top of Windows kernel services. Who outside of Redmond has time to become even mildly proficient in all of this stuff, along with their normal job responsibilities?
So what? The shameless company is sticking to the license. How is this wrong? I don't get this. The sources are still available and actively developed. The shameless company might employ some of those developers (it does) and contribute back to the community (it does).
I am a programmer who's employed to work on public domain software. My software is regularly used by academia and in commercial products. That people find it so useful is a good thing for me. That people can use my software to make money is a good thing, for me, for them, and for our users.
You ideologues are the same as ever, a bunch of fools.
Life's a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
If you are in I-T, just fucking shut up about Apple. You just keep saying stupid fucking things. How is WebKit a love/hate relationship with open source? How is shipping the only name brand PC with open source software on it a love/hate relationship with open source? Fuck. So stupid.
Without the GPL, a shameless company can base its own Operating System on the work of open-source contributors, lock it down, put a nice logo on it and sell it with its hardware, calling it "innovation" or "vision".
TiVo and Android do that with the GPL.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
It's already here.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
And this is wrong in what way?
They are sticking to the licence, and using the code as intended by the people who chose to release it under said licence.
Furthermore, they are contributing new open source code back to the community at large (and not just by being "forced" to by things like the GPL licence on KHTML/Webkit).
I'm not sure what your point is. That it's "shameless" to participate in open source projects?
Or will they stay because MS doesn't allow them to download all their documents or transfer them to another service (or allows them to be downloaded, but they're in proprietary formats that are useless for migration purposes anyway)?
Don't you wish you hadn't wasted 3 seconds of your life reading this sig?
Open standards are more important anyway. It helps you avoid lock-in and it provides an environment in which open source can do well.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.