http://www.news.com/8301-13580_3-9876425-39.html
Open-source fans mixed on Microsoft move
Open-source fans can be a skeptical bunch, but I've seen
their collective opinions shift--for example in the
gradually diminishing loathing for Sun Microsystems as that
company stopped deriding Linux and started moving its
portfolio to open-source software.
So it's not a surprise that various representatives had a
mixed reaction to Microsoft's move Thursday to share details
of its technology with open-source programmers.
The move could make it easier for many projects to work well
with Microsoft products and potentially replace them--for
example the Thunderbird e-mail software could communicate
better with Microsoft Exchange servers and also displace
Microsoft Outlook on PCs. But Microsoft also made it clear
that a pledge not to sue open-source programmers only
applied in "non-commercial" contexts, so open-source fans
didn't get everything they want.
And even though Microsoft said it now will share the
specific list of patents it says it has on technology it
wants to license to others--something open-source fans have
sought once Microsoft asserted last year that Linux and
other projects violate 235 patents--some see signing
licenses as incompatible with open-source license requirements.
For its part, Microsoft is pledging to move beyond its
historically adversarial treatment of the open-source realm.
"As Microsoft takes this significant step forward into the
interconnected world of the future, we aspire to doing so
with members of the open source community by our side now
and for the long haul," said Bill Hilf, Microsoft's general
manager of platform strategy, on his blog. Hilf previously
ran Microsoft's Linux lab and was an Linux deployment
specialist at IBM.
I surveyed various companies and individuals about the move
and received some other thoughts unsolicited. Here are some
reactions:
• Jim Zemlin, Linux Foundation executive director: "The
world of software development has been marching in a steady
direction toward being open and transparent. As Linux's use
continues to rise, so does the demand for customers to
enable it to interoperate with Microsoft products. This
announcement by Microsoft seems to indicate they want to
participate in that march. Even if some of the announced
details still seem less than ideal for open source
developers, at least it's a first step."
• Michael Cunningham, Red Hat's general counsel: "Red Hat
regards this most recent announcement with a healthy dose of
skepticism. Three commitments by Microsoft would show that
it really means what it is announcing today:
"Commit to open standards: Rather than pushing forward its
proprietary, Windows-based formats for document processing,
OOXML, Microsoft should embrace the existing ISO-approved,
cross-platform industry standard for document processing,
Open Document Format (ODF) at the International Standards
Organization's meeting next week in Geneva...
"Commit to interoperability with open source: Instead of
offering a patent license for its protocol information on
the basis of licensing arrangements it knows are
incompatible with the GPL (General Public License)--the
world's most widely used open source software
license--Microsoft should extend its Open Specification
Promise to all of the interoperability information that it
is announcing today will be made available...
"Commit to competition on a level playing field: Microsoft's
announcement today appears carefully crafted to foreclose
competition from the open-source community. How else can you
explain a 'promise not to sue open-source developers' as
long as they develop and distribute only 'non-commercial'
implementations of interoperable products? This is simply
disingenuous."
• Miguel de Icaza, founder of the GNOME project and a Novell
programmer working on Mono, an open-source implementation of
Microsoft's .Net software: "As a chess move, it is a
fascinating one...On the surface it looks very good. (There
are) lots of things that we want to interoperate
with--Office, SQL Server, SharePoint. Getting the
documentation to everyone sounds great, and it seems like
they are serious about doing more interoperability
work...When the full list for patents becomes available, the
question is what will open-source vendors do if they find
pieces that have historically infringed: will they choose to
license and be the recipients of the community wrath, or
will they hold their grounds and risk a lawsuit?"
• Jeremy Allison, a founder of the Samba open-source
project: "The devil is in the details. If they can follow
through with this, the world will be a better place...It
doesn't mean any change for us (Samba) as we already had all
these documents, and the promise not to sue is only for
'non-commercial' open source, which is a bit meaningless. At
least everyone now gets access to the same info, which I'm
very happy about. Hey, should we ask for our money back ? :-)."
• Matt Asay, vice president of business development for
Alfresco and a writer for CNET's Blog Network: "The really
big news is Microsoft's commitment to open APIs (application
programming interfaces) and open protocols...It's great
news, and it's big news. My company has been seeking this
API and protocol information for months (years, really). But
Microsoft's pledge doesn't obviate the need to negotiate
patent royalties, if required, with the company."
• Andi Gutmans, a co-founder of Zend: "I have no doubt
Microsoft is doing the right thing for their business. I
believe Microsoft has finally understood that their closed
nature has significantly hindered the growth of their
ecosystem...Microsoft has had a strong Microsoft-centric
ecosystem, but going down this path they are able to extend
their applicable market beyond today's reach...I believe the
PHP community can only benefit from this move. With PHP
being a heterogeneous solution which works on pretty much
any operating system, any database and any Web Server; the
more interoperability capabilities it has with all
open-source and proprietary solutions the
better...Microsoft's all or nothing approach has been an
accelerator for the adoption of open-source operating
systems. While I am a big fan of Linux, I do believe that
this is going to put an increasing amount of pressure on the
Linux/Unix backers to deliver innovation and value on top of
these systems."
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