Microsoft Launches Its Own Open Source Foundation 344
darthcamaro writes "Microsoft already had its own open source (OSI-approved) licenses, its own open source project hosting site and now it's adding its own non-profit open source foundation.
That's right, the company that is still banging the patent drum against open source now has its own 501(c)(6) open source foundation. Officially called the CodePlex Foundation, it's a separate effort from the CodePlex site and is aimed at helping to get more commercial developers involved in open source. Considering how they continue to attack Linux and open source, will anyone take them seriously?"
trap (Score:4, Funny)
Re:trap (Score:4, Insightful)
Translators note means: Just as Planned.
Jealousy (Score:5, Insightful)
They have the money and they have to try, but I am doubtful that they'll do much else besides foster Microsoft-centric development of tools and programs similar to the Windows Powershell IDE by Dr. Tobias Weltner.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I think Microsoft sees a lot of good work going on in the open source community and it wants to tap into that source of innovation.
Cloning proprietary applications and OSes is innovation?
Their best plays have been rip-offs of established ideas.
Pot calling the kettle black? Almost any app you see in the Linux land is either a clone of a proprietary app or a clone of a clone (and so on).
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Cloning proprietary applications and OSes is innovation?
There are plenty of small, single purpose open source applications with small, innovative communities around them. Consider XMonad, a tiling window manager. No general purpose computer user would ever need a tiling window manager, but the interface is easily modified for turn key kiosk applications. It is excellent for automating repetitive programming jobs. And so on. Each of these is a small niche, but with active development, each niche gets wh
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
There is truly innovation in the programming language sphere, and Microsoft has a record of hiring successful open source language designers. Simon Peyton-Jones (of Haskell fame) is a recent example.
Recent? Simon Peyton-Jones has been working for Microsoft Research since 1998. In fact, he is still working on GHC as a Microsoft employee - LINQ was definitely inspired by some things in Haskell, but Simon didn't design it.
If you want a better example, it's ex-Sun, ex-Google Neal Gafter of Java closures fame [javac.info], since last year working for Microsoft (not MSR) on .NET languages.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Jealousy (Score:5, Insightful)
Cloning proprietary applications and OSes is innovation?
MS-DOS 1.0 was originally QDOS, Tim Paterson's clone of Digital Research's CP-M. MS-DOS 2.0 was an attempt to clone some UNIX features. Some (folders, file handles, I/O redirection) were implemented successfully; others (namely pipes) are simulated due to the lack of any sort of task switching.
Pot calling the kettle black? Almost any app you see in the Linux land is either a clone of a proprietary app or a clone of a clone (and so on).
Windows is a clone of Mac OS classic, and Excel is a clone of VisiCalc and 1-2-3. Real or malarkey?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Jealousy (Score:4, Insightful)
I think you're rather abusing the word "clone" here. A clone would be identical. DOS was not a clone of CP/M, Windows was not a clone of MacOS, Excel is not a clone of VisiCalc. They have similar functionality, common concepts (I mean, there are only so many ways you can do a spreadsheet) and probably some operability or low-level rip offs, but they ain't clones.
Distinction without a difference (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, they are hugely popular and they have the major market share. They make billions of profit, yet smaller companies like Apple seem to be the ones coming up with new products.
Microsoft has been a drag on innovation for more than two decades. Its best, and seemingly only, plays continue to be copies of new technology.
Re: (Score:2)
"Derivative" and "clone" are too different words. Lotus 123 and MultiPlan were a derivatives of VisiCalc. (I actually used the Xenix version of MultiPlan on a Tandy 6000 to do payroll and scheduling, and for the time it was a pretty impressive spreadsheet).
Re: (Score:2)
I'd say that most products by both MS and Apple are derivative - not that there's anything wrong with that.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you'd said this:
All software work is derivative.
I'd probably agree.
I mean, sure something like Office is an evolution of other productivity software that came before it, but you're kidding yourself if you think Apple (to use your example) is creating things that aren't similar evolutionary steps or improvements over previous products.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Even if they take the best ideas elsewhere, MS products are usually solid and just work. Visual Studio is *still* considered the best development environment there is and with a reason. Windows is still the major mostly used OS in desktop (mac, the only competitor, doesn't really come even close).
Even if you have original ideas, you have to know how to put them together. Now to do something other than car analogy. Even if you have the best ketchup in the world, you cant make your hamburger better if its all
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Oh you naive windows fool. You think MS products are usually solid and just work??? When has a MS product EVER "just worked"? Name one case....exactly. And saying that Visual Studio is the "Best IDE" is really a large jump, Most widely used, yes, but the best? Hardly. How much does VS Team Suite cost for a site license, and how much is XCode? I'd much rather develop in XCode any day of the week.
Visual Studio is big, bloated, slow, you name it. It's not even smart enough to generate a temporary intellisense
Re:Jealousy (Score:4, Funny)
and how much is XCode?
$600, but it comes with a free computer.
Re: (Score:2)
Nice work sliding the subject from a good product (VS) to a not-so-good product (VSS).
Re:now that IS a TASTY burger (Score:3, Interesting)
Urg, remind me not to read your comments during lunch.
Aside from shamelessly "borrowing" their "innovations" from other companies, and their strong-arm restraint-of-trade distribution tactics, Microsoft have always been the masters of "good enough." For any of the products Microsoft offers (Visual Studio included) there are several commercial competitors that are demons
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, very recently I am sure you are aware Microsoft launched yet another "Get The Facts" style FUD campaign against Linux, this time aimed at Best Buy employ
Re: (Score:2)
and still modded as troll :-)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I think Microsoft sees a lot of good work going on in the open source community and it wants to tap into that source of innovation.
Can we please kill the word "innovation" already?
I don't care about innovation, not should most people involved with software do. Ideas are trivial, implementation is king.
Re:trap (Score:4, Funny)
embiggen?
Re:trap (Score:4, Funny)
embiggen?
That's a perfectly cromulent ending, but I think AC was going for "extinguish".
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
I thought he was going for all your code are belong to us.
Re:trap (Score:5, Funny)
I think Microsoft, for public relations purposes, needs to update the 3 E's (Embrace - Extend - Extinguish), to something more warm and fuzzy, and at the same time, descriptive of what they actually do:
Hug (you know, like you hug the one you love).
Stretch (like you do when you get ready for a good work out).
Cut Off Air Supply (like Netscape).
New acronym to HSCOAS - to be pronounced Husk-o-a$$.
Re:trap (Score:4, Funny)
"Cut Off Air Supply (like Netscape)."
Do they have agreements with Gordon Russell and Russell Hitchcock as well ??!!!
Embrace, Extend, Extinguish (Score:5, Insightful)
... doesn't seem to be working so well against open-source stuff. Maybe Microsoft's new strategy is to split and balkanize the open-source community with a bunch of conflicting licenses and communities.
Division, Discord, and Destruction
Re:Embrace, Extend, Extinguish (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe Microsoft's new strategy is to split and balkanize the open-source community with a bunch of conflicting licenses and communities.
Microsoft doesn't need to do that. The open-source community has been doing that just fine by themselves for years now.
Re: (Score:2)
MS only uses EEE when there's a potential for profit.
Re:trap (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:trap (Score:4, Insightful)
With Windows I can just point out the "Designed for Windows X" logo and my customers will get devices that work every. single. time.
Normally, I wouldn't nitpick to this degree, but you seemed to place great emphasis on this point. Are you saying that you've never encountered a Windows user complaining that their printer just "stopped working?" It seems to me that every nontechnical person I know has expressed this frustration to me at one time or another.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:trap (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with Ubuntu, or any other Linux for that matter, is that the lack of a stable ABI and certification process for hardware makes it damned near impossible to sell at retail. Which wifi sticks work out of the box at Walmart? Which of the half dozen all in ones that are on sale this week at Staples work, and which are paperweights? Will this laptop at Best Buy work out of the box, INCLUDING wifi, and will it continue to function after the next update without jumping through CLI hoops from hell?
Which one of these devices will continue to work after the next Windows upgrade?
I tend not to throw out perfectly working equipment just because Microsoft decided to gratuitously change their device driver model. I find that 5yr old video and sound cards work just fine in recent releases of Linux, but aren't worth the manufacturers time to create new device drivers in order to operate under the latest versions of Windows. How much hardware was thrown out in order to update to Vista?
You keep buying your cheap crappy hardware at the Staples clearance sales. I'll buy decent equipment that is built to last longer than 6 months, and use an OS that doesn't obsolete it.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not a problem it's a feature and it's by design. Do you really want to compare the amount of old hardware that works with Linux compared to other popular desktop operating sytems? If hardware vendors were truly interested in selling hardware for Linux, they would get their drivers into mainline and then maintain them.
Coal.. Kettle? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That's right, the company that is still banging the patent drum against open source now has it's own 501c open source foundation.
As far as I've noticed, MS has just protected *other* patent-trolls by getting the patents what they need. I haven't noticed any misuse by them (if they have, please inform me too :)
Considering how they continue to attack Linux and open source will anyone take them seriously?
How have they actually attacked Linux? The same way that Linux attackes Windows, aka competition? Competition is good and will only improve products.
Just because Microsoft's main business model is in closed source, it doesn't mean a company that big cant contribute to open source at all. Their Bing search engine actually ignored [thinkdigit.com]
Re:Coal.. Kettle? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Coal.. Kettle? (Score:5, Informative)
Wrong. Microsoft sued first and TomTom responded with a countersuit.
See http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE52J1IE20090320 [reuters.com]
Re:Coal.. Kettle? (Score:4, Informative)
The way it went was actually this:
1. TomTom warned Microsoft that the latter infringes on TomTom's patents. This isn't the same as suing, but it can only be interpreted as the first step towards doing that. The purpose of notification is to make sure that, as far as law is concerned, the infringing party infringes knowingly; if they don't stop, the penalties grow significantly (3x, if I recall correctly).
2. In response, Microsoft sues TomTom.
3. In response to that suit, TomTom sues Microsoft over the same patents it warned about at step 1.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
mod parent up.
The Microsoft Corporation owes its shareholders a genuine effort to make money and to do the right thing for the long term. I really can't see how anyone could make a business case for Microsoft to have released Windows or Office to be Open Source - It would have been a highly risky strategy, with no "un-do" possible.
Here, they are trying to dip their toes into Open Source, and the summary bashes them. Geez, guys, get a life!
Re:Coal.. Kettle? (Score:4, Insightful)
Here, they are trying to dip their toes into Open Source, and the summary bashes them. Geez, guys, get a life!
The problem is that it is far too early to tell if this is just another attempt at "embrace, extend, extinguish" -- something MS has a very long and well documented history of doing, or the final stage of "ignorance, denial, attack, accept."
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No doubt their motivation is self-centered, but that's not the point.
The bottom line is that IBM has contributed significantly to open source projects. The reason they can afford to do so is because the interests of the two are aligned - IBM has made Linux a strategic part of their business. If that were to change tomorrow they can't "discontinue" the good they've done since the contributions are GPL'd.
I'm not saying that IBM are morally better than Microsoft because of this, just pointing out that there ar
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If they were ever smart enough to do a Good Thing â the world would support them because they are so well known. As much as I hate Microsoft personally if they changed, I'd be a pretty loyal guy. Everyone would. We could use true and open unified computing if done properly.
However, since we have that thing called history, and it can't be cleared like our browsers one, most people tend to believe that leopards don't change their spots.
I give it 6 years for Microsoft to evolve or die, really.
Re:Coal.. Kettle? (Score:5, Interesting)
Since you have already been modded troll I shouldn't be feeding you but just this time.
Yes they are obligated to maximize profit for their shareholders, to that goal, it makes no sense to release Windows or MS Office as FOSS, that's not what I want, nor what the majority of FOSS users want either. Except for the minority of loons that actually do want that, the majority of FOSS users and developers understand MS is under no obligation to release Windows or MS Office.
Still we need a Free, Open Source operative system and office suite, a non hostile system that doesn't regards its users as thieves by default, An office suit that doesn't antagonize us, insert malicious secret codes in our documents, and OS that has the features we want, not the features someone else wants us to have and be limited to.
So we make our own. No actions from MS are required. But MS has acted. Against us, every time they poison and flood an open standards forum, every time they bribe a politician who is considering going free, every time they they build intentional incompatibilities in their software, every time they scare clients with bogus patent threats, every time they come up with deceiving names to inject noise in the conversation, like .net, like officeopen instead of openoffice, like shared source instead of opens source, and now this fake open source foundation.
That is what we are complaining about, we don't want them to release their products as FOSS, we just want them to stop playing dirty.
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry - Microsoft has a VERY long and dirty history of bakstabbing, cheating and crushing every entity that trusted them.
I got a message today that the company I work for has been made a Microsoft Gold Partner. Suddenly I am even happier that I'll retire in 3 months ...
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
How have they actually attacked Linux?
Microsoft claimed that linux infringes on 235 MS patents but refused to say which ones [cnn.com]
Re:Coal.. Kettle? (Score:5, Informative)
Link [groklaw.net]
Note that MS tried to keep the auction secret, but apparently someone within AST clued OIN in as to what was happening.
Even though AST claims they are not into litigation, there be demons within.
Codeplex will be no different.
Did you hear the news? Buy a copy of Windows7, and get a discount on new designer sheep clothing.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think open source means what Microsoft thinks it means. Wasn't it just a few years ago that Ballmer or somebody was calling open source a "cancer" and some Microsoftie slashdotters trollishly called it "open sores"?
Maybe they're trying to polish their image, or clean up their act. I hope it's the latter.
Wait a sec... (Score:5, Funny)
Are we in Soviet Russia now?
Re:Wait a sec... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Nyet, comrad.
Re: (Score:2)
In the Tsardom of Russia, you have a succession of Czars. ... Er same
In contemporary America
Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)
Russia only had one czar at a time. The US currently has about 30 of them.
Oh yeah? (Score:5, Funny)
we'll make our *own* Open Source only ours will be better and it'll have beer and hookers! Ha! Forget the beer and hookers! ... wait ... that's not how that goes...
Re: (Score:2)
Now the most interesting part is still to be solved... how do you get girls with open source?
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I try to avoid the girls with open sores. Though ironically a trojan can actually protect you from malware and viruses.
Re: (Score:2)
But if you change the girl.. does that mean you have to share her with everyone?
(as a sidenote, i like the freebsd girl http://nerijus.raguvele.lt/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/freebsd.jpg [raguvele.lt] )
Re: (Score:2)
Wow, you guys might like some of my journals. [slashdot.org] No blackjack, unfortunately. Or maybe that's not so unfortunate?
Parental oversight (Score:4, Informative)
Seems like a meta-organization for open source entities, under the watchful eye of Redmond.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Translation: Major industry vendors will be able to get together, trash and make threats against real Open Source projects, all under the banner of OSS.
Re:Parental oversight (Score:4, Insightful)
Or even more like "Major industry vendors will be able to get together and keep working on open source software projects, and MS will convince their customers to run that open source software on Windows rather than on Linux".
MS realizes that a lot of open source software (servers, scripting languages, etc.) are in broad use and will stay that way. It's useless trying to make them go away. What MS can try to do is prevent that open source software from dragging people away from Windows.
MS wants visibility in the same space with specific open source projects. If they doesn't have that visibility, open source software (Apache, MySQL, whatever) will be associated mainly with open source platforms, but if MS can break that association, many organizations might end up running their open source applications on Windows. That means keeping their customers, and many open source projects don't even compete directly with MS products because MS doesn't have a similar offering, so MS might not even lose that much by advocating selected projects.
Creating bindings between open source software -- say, a scripting language -- and MS platforms such as .NET may help MS with that as well. You know, the whole embrace, extend, etc. thing.
Why not? (Score:2, Interesting)
This is mainly a Tax Strategy (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This is mainly a Tax Strategy (Score:5, Insightful)
Not sure it it's that or the fact that they are still trying to be the "center" of technology. It's been revealed in internal docs that they'd rather see their system or standard being used rather than someone else. If they can push their way into Open Source development and corner the market on it, they can phase out licenses they don't agree with and form the community how they like instead of how the community does.
mod parent up (Score:2)
Parent's post is likely scenario.
Just as they desperately need DotnetNuke to stay relevant in CMS, they need this to stay relevant in other areas.
At this point I'm guessing customers they care about are talking about Open Source and the Microsoft sales rep needs to say "Yeah, we got that." while they are on their way in the Microsoft limo to the strip club/whorehouse.
Sooo.... What Is? (Score:2)
Technically, it's a mess. Are there two or three other .net CMS's with as many plugins though?
Re: (Score:2)
They want to see open source software running on Windows, and want to see IIS as the web server of record, not Apache.
The non-MS participators (with the somewhat odd, but welcome, exception of Monty Widenius) appear to be mostly from a .NET background - Mono project leader; co-founder of MindTouch, whose engine is built on .NET (but run primarily on Mono); co-founder of DotNetNuke, open source on ASP.NET, run primarily on Windows.
Doesn't mean that the software you run on Windows/IIS is any less Free, howeve
A little naive, as usual. (Score:5, Insightful)
"We believe that commercial software companies and the developers that work for them under-participate in open source projects," Microsoft stated.
While I applaud the intent to appear to be open source friendly, they haven't yet begun to address two of the major issues with Microsoft and open source:
Now, here we have Microsoft reinventing the wheel, aka sourceforge. I could even go for a BSD style license, or even public domain. But I have one question:
Would they host, and allow development on ReactOS? (for those who don't know, it's an open source Windows clone)
How Codeplex and Microsoft deal with this question would reveal far more about their true intentions than what their pundits say about their open source attitude.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
While I applaud the intent to appear to be open source friendly
Don'y you mean the appearance of being open source friendly? I think that's more accurate, and I certainly don't applaud it. I do hope that is indeed their intent, but I sincerely doubt it. It just isn't in their nature.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Would they host, and allow development on ReactOS? (for those who don't know, it's an open source Windows clone)
Sure, if it runs on Windows.
Will anyone take them seriously? (Score:2)
Answer: Yes.
Like it or not, MS is going to spin this in a way that PHB will take it seriously--but seriously only in the Microsoft way.
Company wide MS meeting today (Score:3, Interesting)
My guess (Score:5, Funny)
MS is tying up traffic in Seattle today to bring all of their people together in one of the city's sports stadiums. Anybody know if that is the usual monkey-boy chair toss or is something up?
The stage is dark. Suddenly, a catchy theme pours from the speakers. It's... could it be... YES! Rick Astley! The crowd groans uncomfortably.
One of the screens showing the Microsoft logo goes blue. "Stop 0x0000000A or IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL".
Steve Ballmer appears through a fine mist of perspiration twisted into delicate symmetrical whorls by an army of desperate interns, hair dryers in hand, all aiming at his armpits from just offstage. The humidity in the room increases by an order of magnitude.
"Seven, Seven, Seven! GIVE IT UP FOR ME!"
The stage erupts in blue flame. Mystical symbols are traced on the faces of aghast onlookers as Crawzogorium, the Infernal Keeper Of Ring 0 materializes above the podium.
"WHO DARES SUMMON THE MASTER OF THE HIERARCHICAL PROTECTION DOMAINS?"
Crawzogorium notices the bluescreen. "TAINT! WHO HAS DISREGARDED MY LAW OF KERNEL PROCESS ACCESS? I WILL PUNISH YOU NOW!"
The light in the rooms fades to a dark brown, and a tortured scream is heard. It's Ballmer. His interns have dropped their hair dryers and fled the scene. He's fallen to his knees and is scrubbing at his underarm area with the tatters of his shirt.
Things look bleak for our hero and his audience? How will it all end? Tune in next post!
This post brought to you by AXE - It's how dirty guys get clean.
Lurking in the inky blackness of the void... (Score:5, Funny)
Remember that butt ugly fish with a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth that lives way down deep and has a worm-like appendage that dances tantalizingly just in front of its mouth? That's what I thought of when I read this story.
Re: (Score:2)
Remember that butt ugly fish with a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth that lives way down deep and has a worm-like appendage that dances tantalizingly just in front of its mouth? That's what I thought of when I read this story.
Dude... that's your mom... and she said I should say hello.
And yes, I am going to hell for this one...
read the fine print (Score:2)
I also have to ask, just what do they gain from this _if_ they are completely on the up-and-up with this? Is it advertising or is it that they get to see/measure projects activity so they'll know where to put more marketing dollars to fight it? Or maybe keep and eye on what's active and they should buy up and shut down? Is it just advertising dollars? I really doubt it's about
Tools? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not sure, but my first inclination is that they probably want to encourage the development of Open Source software which is based upon Microsoft Technologies and Tools, so that such projects still require Windows to run, and maybe require Visual Studio, SQL Server, etc to build/implement/install?
I'm sure Microsoft wouldn't be *too* upset about Open Source software which depends upon Microsoft's software to actually work or be built.
It's perfectly utlitarian (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe they're trying to develop a functional open source movement within their development culture? After all, Microsoft sells a platform. The DOS free software movement was a boon to their platform, not a detraction.
We're not looking at a war of ideas, we're looking at a basic platform war. Take Apple, for instance; they sell a high-end commercial platform which heavily leverages the open source ecosystem to augment and flesh-out their platform. Commercial software can be obnoxious, even to a platform vendor: it works against its platform, it puts branding over adherence to user experience, and it makes computer usage frustrating.
If the Windows platform were viewed from the angle of its development community instead of as a vessel for shareware, then they might be able to preserve and further their platform against more open markets (even Apple) coming up against them.
The full F/OSS stack (Linux-FOSS-and above) is a weak platform technically, but a strong idea. Microsoft doesn't have to give up the idea of a professionally maintained platform to leverage an open source third party software ecosystem. Better within their sphere of influence than outside of it. Microsoft is offering an extremely friendly and accessible development environment to its users already; it would be a boon to foster an influx of new platform-defining free applications that add value while not becoming an issue of anti-trust.
Tree Of Knowledge & The Serpent (Score:3, Interesting)
People who develop and know how to use Linux are a different bred. They tend to be self reliant and innovative. Corporations like MS tend to naturally harbour fiefdoms around which barriers are effected that can stifle just the type of innovation Linux is driven by. The adage "faster nervous systems eat slower nervous systems" can apply where institutions allow barriers like glass ceilings to protect managers, the barriers erected can be seen as speed bumps and additional costs that Open Source skirts. Open Source may look haphazard in it's development but then so does evolution and both do OK in the long run.
A lot of Open Source people use Linux and similar OSes because they need to be able to innovate on the spot and not go begging and pleading with Corporate masters for permission to alter a bit of code. Open Source, in my experience, is about innovation and extensibility. MS expected Linux to die of SIDS in its crib. It didn't. I now think MS sees the power and benefits of Open Source and is looking to undermine Linux by offering a similar environment to lure academics and scientists to a similar platform while mining their innovations.
It's kinda like the serpent wants to take a bite out of the apple.
Is it April 1st already? (Score:2)
Just when you think you'd heard it all. I'm sure their licenses will make for interesting reading. I vaguely recall that they'd submitted
licenses for review by OSI some years past- what became of that?
Regarding a 501(c)(6) organization... (Score:3, Insightful)
From IRC 501(c)(6) Organizations â" page K-4 [irs.gov]
FAIL!
mixed signals (Score:3, Insightful)
http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/09/linux-foundation-to-microsoft-stop-secretly-attacking-linux.ars [arstechnica.com]
While I dont think theres some grand plan to kill open source, I see absolutely no reason to trust MS at all.
Even if Ballmer swears on a stack of dried lawyers, that means nothing tomorrow if someone else gets the job.
The MS engineers probably mean well, but have no say in the end.
And ofcourse theres all the crap theyve pulled in the past, should this just be forgiven?
This makes perfect sense (Score:2)
Funny how it works (Score:2)
Microsoft's employee guidelines explicitly prohibit not only participation in FOSS projects, but even looking at the code. FOSS libraries (with very few exceptions, e.g. Zlib) are strictly off limits. As a matter of fact, every use of FOSS code, even in binary form, has to be cleared with Legal, even if the library is in broad use in some other product. And if you're a mere peon, they will reject your request, since this is the easiest thing they can do, and you will have to spend months rolling your own.
Es
Here we go again (Score:2, Offtopic)
Considering how they continue to attack Linux and open source, will anyone take them seriously?
Are some of you people really this fucking stupid? Of course Microsoft attacks Linux and Open Source. That is part of their competition. Just like they attack Apple. That's what businesses do. Apple, Open Source and Linux attack Microsoft back just as hard (and most of the time with just as much fud).
Its like you people expect Microsoft to produce an ad that says "Our software isn't perfect and Open Source mi
There MS goes again (Score:3, Insightful)
"That's right, the company that is still banging the patent drum against open source now has its own 501(c)(6) open source foundation."
Taking a few profitless applications from the bone pile and making them open source while patenting everything else like crazy was IBM's idea. Another example of non-innovation by Microsoft.
Will anyone take them seriously? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Not offer it as an option on the site for one. It raises the barrier of entry for anyone that wants to use an alternative license. (First they need a website to host it, and if none exist because the MS foundation effectively squashed them... you reduce competition by increasing the barrier to entry.)
Re: (Score:2)
Samba is way more efficient and less resource hungry than Windows' SMB services.
But keep talking, you filthy little shill.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I have to laugh at comments like this.
You can bet that most open source versions of closed source programs are more efficient and less resource hungry, because they typically don't implement all the features of the closed source version. Samba is on different, with whole swaths of functionality not implemented. Also, SMB2 tests have shown to be significantly faster than Samba as well. If you want to read up on why, check this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Message_Block#SMB2 [wikipedia.org]
Hell, I have a Linux base
Re: (Score:2)
The last time I took Microsoft seriously... the OS wouldn't boot because the Registry suddenly became corrupt. As a result, I couldn't access my files.
So I burned a CD of Ubuntu 5.04 (Hoary Hedgehog) at work and installed it at home.
Thanks for giving me the last 4 years of stable computing, Microsoft! I'm glad I took you seriously.
Re: (Score:2)
Keep in mind that they took the TCP/IP stack from BSD to use in Win9x up through XP, IIRC. They love opensource, especially if they can fold it into their own code and use it with impunity.