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A try to be 'in' with the code Microsoft out to gain ground lost to Java, Linux with students By Rebecca Buckman THE WALL STREET JOURNAL March 27 -- As a huge and powerful software company, and a fierce defender of its technology secrets, Microsoft Corp. has a hard time looking cool on college campuses. THAT'S BECAUSE brainy young programmers and graduate students like to spend hours taking apart and examining computer software, particularly the arcane instructions known as source code that determine how programs work. Microsoft generally doesn't allow that. These days, many students are instead tinkering with competing, "open-source" software programs such as the fast-growing Linux operating system, which is easily accessible and free. (MSNBC is a Microsoft-NBC joint venture.) So now the Redmond, Wash., company is stepping up its campaign -- and opening its wallet -- to reach out to academics and computer-sciences departments nationwide. It is part of the company's continuing, and often controversial, effort to counteract the Linux craze and convert today's soda-swilling college hackers into tomorrow's loyal Microsoft programmers. One critical effort kicks off Wednesday, when Microsoft announces a program to share with universities more than a million lines of source code linked to its critical new ".NET" Internet initiative. Microsoft hopes professors will use the code in computer-science classes, and students will modify it in the lab and even suggest improvements. The offering, while still limited by Linux's standards, is nonetheless more extensive than Microsoft's previous attempts to share small chunks of Windows source code with academia. The code-sharing program is "definitely a smart move," says Peter Lee, a computer-science professor and associate dean at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. It is also pragmatic: Right now, "the vast majority of [academic] research is based on open-source technology," Lee says, and Microsoft hasn't been a big player because its source code has stayed under such close guard. "Innovation is what drives the software industry," says David Stutz, a Microsoft group program manager. "We would be foolish not to invest in the place that a lot of this innovation comes from, which is the academic sphere." In addition to its new code-sharing plan, Microsoft is trying to curry favor with colleges by doling out free or low-price software, issuing research grants and paying for professional training. About 15 percent of the $250 million budget for Microsoft's research department now goes to university outreach. Microsoft is also fighting a battle on college campuses against Java, the programming language developed by Microsoft archrival Sun Microsystems Inc. Many universities are teaching their introductory programming classes in Java, which has become popular for writing many Internet-based programs. Reflecting that shift, the powerful College Board recommended two years ago that the computer-science Advanced Placement test for high-school students be given in Java instead of C ++, an older language supported by Microsoft. Java exams will start in 2004. Microsoft officials play down the move, saying Java isn't spreading on college campuses as quickly as some had predicted. In addition, most students are "going to have to learn multiple programming languages" eventually, says Rick Rashid, the head of Microsoft's research department. Still, Ben Liblit, a 31-year-old graduate student at the University of California at Berkeley, calls Java "a very nicely designed language from a research standpoint," and says it is gaining traction at Berkeley. And even though Liblit worked as an intern at Microsoft two years ago, where he had access to some Microsoft source code, he likely won't be using Microsoft technology in his upcoming doctoral research. "I have no doubt at all I will start this on open-source software, just because it's so frictionless," Liblit says. Ashish Venugopal, a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon, prefers Linux and Java for his work partly because help for programming problems is so easy to find online. Even if he could access .NET code from Microsoft, he probably wouldn't, he says. The 21-year-old worries that .NET is still too closely tied to the closed Windows system. Even the University of Washington, located right in Microsoft's backyard in Seattle, has switched to Java for its beginning computer-science course. And though the university probably uses more Microsoft technology than many other institutions -- "We have buildings named after Bill Gates and Mary Gates," the parents of Microsoft's chairman, notes student Michael Fernandes -- students still often use Linux tools. "It's just a lot easier to find information on the Internet about open source," says Fernandes, a 22-year-old senior. That is no surprise. Microsoft historically has been extremely protective of its intellectual property and has vehemently opposed some tenets of the open-source movement. It has particularly attacked the "general public license," a practice promoted by a group called the Free Software Foundation that requires that modifications made to open-source programs be freely available to other programmers. Hal Abelson, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, terms Microsoft's stance on the general-public-license issue "paranoid," but says the company now realizes it "needs to move to more of an open-source view." In its new university initiative, Microsoft will share code related to its "common language infrastructure," a new technology that emulates some elements of Java to bring benefits such as better security. Though Microsoft won't use a general public license, its code can run on top of an open-source operating system called FreeBSD. Universities will be asked to sign a license that is only a page or two long; it mainly prohibits people from using the code for commercial purposes. Still, the effort may be controversial. Many academics don't want to sign any license for computer code these days. And some universities, cognizant of Microsoft's huge power in the marketplace, are hesitant to accept free Microsoft goodies for fear of compromising their academic integrity. Lee, the Carnegie Mellon professor, says Microsoft has offered some of his colleagues incentives, such as free software, to use .NET technologies in their classrooms. Those technologies include Microsoft's new C# (pronounced "C sharp") computer language, a Java competitor, he says. While those technologies might be "really good," Lee says, Microsoft's power "makes it hard for an academic to decide, 'Am I bringing this technology into my classroom for the right reasons?' " Other academics, however, note that many computer companies have long peddled their products to students. And some smaller, less research-focused colleges readily embrace Microsoft freebies, saying they are simply being practical by training students on the products they will wind up using in the work world. "We're not here to supplant anybody else's operating systems or tools in the university," says Microsoft's Rashid. But the company does want "a fair chance" to make sure students receive training on Microsoft products, as well as others, he says. Copyright © 2002 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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A try to be 'in' with the code Microsoft out to gain ground lost to Java, Linux with students By Rebecca Buckman THE WALL STREET JOURNAL March 27 -- As a huge and powerful software company, and a fierce defender of its technology secrets, Microsoft Corp. has a hard time looking cool on college campuses. THAT'S BECAUSE brainy young programmers and graduate students like to spend hours taking apart and examining computer software, particularly the arcane instructions known as source code that determine how programs work. Microsoft generally doesn't allow that. These days, many students are instead tinkering with competing, "open-source" software programs such as the fast-growing Linux operating system, which is easily accessible and free. (MSNBC is a Microsoft-NBC joint venture.) So now the Redmond, Wash., company is stepping up its campaign -- and opening its wallet -- to reach out to academics and computer-sciences departments nationwide. It is part of the company's continuing, and often controversial, effort to counteract the Linux craze and convert today's soda-swilling college hackers into tomorrow's loyal Microsoft programmers. One critical effort kicks off Wednesday, when Microsoft announces a program to share with universities more than a million lines of source code linked to its critical new ".NET" Internet initiative. Microsoft hopes professors will use the code in computer-science classes, and students will modify it in the lab and even suggest improvements. The offering, while still limited by Linux's standards, is nonetheless more extensive than Microsoft's previous attempts to share small chunks of Windows source code with academia. The code-sharing program is "definitely a smart move," says Peter Lee, a computer-science professor and associate dean at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. It is also pragmatic: Right now, "the vast majority of [academic] research is based on open-source technology," Lee says, and Microsoft hasn't been a big player because its source code has stayed under such close guard. "Innovation is what drives the software industry," says David Stutz, a Microsoft group program manager. "We would be foolish not to invest in the place that a lot of this innovation comes from, which is the academic sphere." In addition to its new code-sharing plan, Microsoft is trying to curry favor with colleges by doling out free or low-price software, issuing research grants and paying for professional training. About 15 percent of the $250 million budget for Microsoft's research department now goes to university outreach. Microsoft is also fighting a battle on college campuses against Java, the programming language developed by Microsoft archrival Sun Microsystems Inc. Many universities are teaching their introductory programming classes in Java, which has become popular for writing many Internet-based programs. Reflecting that shift, the powerful College Board recommended two years ago that the computer-science Advanced Placement test for high-school students be given in Java instead of C ++, an older language supported by Microsoft. Java exams will start in 2004. Microsoft officials play down the move, saying Java isn't spreading on college campuses as quickly as some had predicted. In addition, most students are "going to have to learn multiple programming languages" eventually, says Rick Rashid, the head of Microsoft's research department. Still, Ben Liblit, a 31-year-old graduate student at the University of California at Berkeley, calls Java "a very nicely designed language from a research standpoint," and says it is gaining traction at Berkeley. And even though Liblit worked as an intern at Microsoft two years ago, where he had access to some Microsoft source code, he likely won't be using Microsoft technology in his upcoming doctoral research. "I have no doubt at all I will start this on open-source software, just because it's so frictionless," Liblit says. Ashish Venugopal, a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon, prefers Linux and Java for his work partly because help for programming problems is so easy to find online. Even if he could access .NET code from Microsoft, he probably wouldn't, he says. The 21-year-old worries that .NET is still too closely tied to the closed Windows system.
Even the University of Washington, located right in Microsoft's backyard in Seattle, has switched to Java for its beginning computer-science course. And though the university probably uses more Microsoft technology than many other institutions -- "We have buildings named after Bill Gates and Mary Gates," the parents of Microsoft's chairman, notes student Michael Fernandes -- students still often use Linux tools. "It's just a lot easier to find information on the Internet about open source," says Fernandes, a 22-year-old senior.
That is no surprise. Microsoft historically has been extremely protective of its intellectual property and has vehemently opposed some tenets of the open-source movement. It has particularly attacked the "general public license," a practice promoted by a group called the Free Software Foundation that requires that modifications made to open-source programs be freely available to other programmers. Hal Abelson, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, terms Microsoft's stance on the general-public-license issue "paranoid," but says the company now realizes it "needs to move to more of an open-source view."
In its new university initiative, Microsoft will share code related to its "common language infrastructure," a new technology that emulates some elements of Java to bring benefits such as better security. Though Microsoft won't use a general public license, its code can run on top of an open-source operating system called FreeBSD. Universities will be asked to sign a license that is only a page or two long; it mainly prohibits people from using the code for commercial purposes.
Still, the effort may be controversial. Many academics don't want to sign any license for computer code these days. And some universities, cognizant of Microsoft's huge power in the marketplace, are hesitant to accept free Microsoft goodies for fear of compromising their academic integrity. Lee, the Carnegie Mellon professor, says Microsoft has offered some of his colleagues incentives, such as free software, to use .NET technologies in their classrooms. Those technologies include Microsoft's new C# (pronounced "C sharp") computer language, a Java competitor, he says.
While those technologies might be "really good," Lee says, Microsoft's power "makes it hard for an academic to decide, 'Am I bringing this technology into my classroom for the right reasons?' "
Other academics, however, note that many computer companies have long peddled their products to students. And some smaller, less research-focused colleges readily embrace Microsoft freebies, saying they are simply being practical by training students on the products they will wind up using in the work world.
"We're not here to supplant anybody else's operating systems or tools in the university," says Microsoft's Rashid. But the company does want "a fair chance" to make sure students receive training on Microsoft products, as well as others, he says.
Copyright © 2002 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.