What do you think of Microsoft's take on open source?
You must be logged in to the O'Reilly Network to post a talkback.

Showing messages 1 through 8 of 8.

• What a Sham
  2002-07-31 11:01:17  plaw [Reply | View]
  
  
  One should read the Microsoft Agreements for Shared Source Initiative. You and I aren't getting access to Shared Source. Only Big Business (with 1500+ licenses), Government and Education (though not students in classrooms) have access.
  
  What am I wasting my time debating the Microsoft Shared Source Initiative? I will never see it. Sun Microsystems lets me download their source code for the premier OS today.
  
  Indeed, I am not clear from reading the Microsoft agreements if one gets to even download the source. The agreements all state:
  
  "Fulfillment:
  Once a licensing agreement is signed by both parties, the licensee will gain access to the code through the MSDN Code Center Premium secure Web site
  
  All source code updates are provided by Microsoft through MSDN Code Center Premium
  
  MSDN Code Center Premium offers secure search, view and just-in-time debugging functionality to augment the efficiency and value of source access"
  
  
  Sounds like more double-talk to me. Looks like one (not you or I as we will never see the code) has to use the Microsoft site to view the code.

• Thanks for the feedback
  2002-07-29 11:15:26  jasonma [Reply | View]
  
  
  At OSCON this past week I was encouraged by the response to this piece. Quite a few people stopped me to talk about it, and overall the conversations were excellent.
  
  I’d like to address some of the points brought up in the comments to this article.
  
  R&D:
  The companies I mention have all reinvested significant portions of their revenues into ongoing software R&D. In 2000, there were approximately 150,000 software companies in the U.S. alone. If you were to aggregate the R&D investment and resulting technologies coming from commercial software companies over the past 15 years, you would find the bulk of software innovation has come from commercially funded sources.
  
  In general, "groundbreaking" innovations are few and far between compared to the incremental innovations. That does not discount the quality or importance of the smaller pieces of work. All of the commercial vendors I mentioned have produced significant innovations in software, be they databases, kernel designs, graphics engines, protocols, directory services, applications, etc.
  
  Learning from open source:
  Not surprisingly, Craig and I have had similar comments regarding Microsoft learning from the open source community. In Craig’s NYU and OSCON ’01 speeches he said we are learning from open source and then listed several proposed efforts. At OSCON ’02 I said that we are learning from open source and here are the programs that we have delivered over the past year. Promises kept.
  
  Microsoft is now sharing the source code to Windows 2000, XP and .NET Server – all versions, all service packs, all betas. This is the single largest (and, arguably, most valuable) quantity of source code ever shared by a commercial entity. As noted in the article, it is not open source, it is shared source. We are also sharing 45% of the Windows CE.NET OS and the Rotor implementation (C#/CLI) under a non-commercial derivative license (modification and redistribution allowed). More than 90,000 developers have pulled down the CE code and more than 35,000 have pulled the Rotor code.
  
  We are looking now to expand the shared source programs into the application space and at the possibility of releasing code under a full commercial derivative license. It’s going to be a busy year and we welcome your comments and feedback along the way.
  
• Thanks for the feedback
  2002-07-29 20:20:40  plaw [Reply | View]
  
  
  I take exception to your comment:
  
  "If you were to aggregate the R&D investment and resulting technologies coming from commercial software companies over the past 15 years, you would find the bulk of software innovation has come from commercially funded sources."
  
  
  First, and most obvious, to measure "software innovation" using some basis of "R&D investment", commercial software will always NECESSARILY come out ahead. The Open Source community works on their own free time, tirelessly.
  
  Second, I must question whether "innovation" can ever come from proprietary and closed sources. If no one else can benefit from the "source" of the innovation, there can be no true benefit to the community at large. There can be no cross fertilization, no criticism, no outside improvement. As far as Shared Source, it seems only possible to use it to assess the bugs in a system, as no one is permitted to make changes.
  
  I would also ask, based on what "argument" is the Windows source code the "most valuable"?

• "The software industry remains extremely competitive"
  2002-07-27 12:59:24  plaw [Reply | View]
  
  
  As we learn with edFactor's excellent post, Microsoft has a hidden agenda with its "Shared Source Initiative": weaken arguments against it in its anti-competitive practices trial.
  
  Indeed, Jason's propaganda piece closes:
  
  "The software industry remains extremely competitive, and open source software offerings vie with commercial software. Microsoft competes with rival offerings regardless of whether or not they are commercial or open source in nature. Competition with open source software should not be seen as an attack on open source or on those who choose to develop under that model. In a sense, we are agnostic on this topic; we believe we can provide customers with the best software solutions to meet their needs, period. Even in discussing the GPL, which is widely seen as controversial, I assert that we need to move from the pejorative to the substantive."
  
  There are numerous references to "competitive",
  "competition", "compete", and "vie".
  
  And, of course, there is the parting shot at the GPL (i.e. "widely seen as controversial"), which presumably contradicts the exact point not only of the article, but of the sentence itself!
  
  I wonder if the word meant wasn't "controversial" but rather "competitive".

• What is Microsoft "learning"?
  2002-07-25 15:06:45  edfactor [Reply | View]
  
  
  (First off, I am probably the only person who both was there for Craig Mundie's speech last year and also saw Jason's speech at the iLaw conference in early July.)
  
  Both Craig and Jason stressed they are "learning" from open source. But the speeches, a year apart, showed no progress. Craig tried to back off comments by Balmer, Allchin et al. that open source was a bad thing. Despite that difficult PR move, I thought Craig's speech was sincere. I do think he lost the debate on the basis of Microsoft's reputation and some smaller points. (Tiemann also had the home crowd advantage, to say the least) Craig promised Microsoft would do the right thing in this area.
  
  Fast forward a year to Jason at Harvard. Jason says basically the same thing as Craig, but unlike Craig, he cannot help but squeeze in just a little fear about the GPL, saying that Microsft tells people that they need to be careful about using those products due to the licensing issues. He later then told the audience during Q&A that he didn't want the whole session to be about the GPL. (Kind of a hit and run)
  
  Microsoft is intentionally spreading fear about the GPL and hoping to catch all open source in that sentiment.
  
  Some of what Jason said was quite true. He pointed out that the vast majority of Microsoft's customers didn't want the source - saying that that was "their job" in Redmond. He also said that it's not Microsoft's goal to totally open their stuff. Agreed all around.
  
  I actually don't expect Microsoft to like open source at all! I expect them to hate it. After all, they compete against Linux, Apache and many others.
  
  What Craig didn't get and Jason still doesn't get is that people have real concerns about their motives in shared source and sponsoring events dedicated to openness. It's like when a tobacco company sponsors some youth anti-tobacco campaign. People wonder, "Why are they doing this?" With cigarettes, we wonder if the tobacco companies sponsor prevention programs just so they can tell juries that they are not the big, evil companies that people think they are.
  
  So with Microsoft, it's not unreasonable for people to question their motives in this area, especially when their executives and salespeople continue to spread FUD about open source.
  
  And even though a year has passed, Microsoft has apparently not learned that unless they do a few huge things to prove they have good motives (something on par with Sun bringing J2EE to Linux against their own Solaris interests) no one is going to trust them.
  
  Maybe next year.
  
  

• Excellent, thoughtful article
  2002-07-25 09:38:18  Tim O'Reilly [Reply | View]
  
  
  Good one, Jason. I concur with almost everything that you say here. I do think that you have to realize that Microsoft has such a history of strongarm tactics that it will take a long time for people to trust its motives.
  
  I'll also say that there are some unanswered questions. For example, at OSCon last year, in the Q&A after Craig Mundie's presentation, there were a number of questions about hidden patents in Microsoft's shared source, and he answered somewhat evasively but left the definite impression that the answer was "yes." Given that a key element of open source is transparency, in the service of user control, hidden patents remain a block to trust.
  
  Still, I agree very much that there is a "move to the middle" by both proprietary software vendors and open source developers. I hope to see it continue, and I most certainly hope that the discussion can get into the right room. It really helps when key Microsoft folks like you come out to engage in the conversation.

• groundbreaking?
  2002-07-25 00:20:31  david_given [Reply | View]
  
  
  hola,
  
  #home
  It is difficult to overvalue the groundbreaking contributions of IBM, Apple Computer, Sun Microsystems, Banyan Worldwide, Novell, and Microsoft, to name just a few.
  #end
  
  Can you elaborate on this point, please? Specifically, what do you as the "Shared Source Initiative" pm see as each of these companies groundbreaking contributions?
  
  I am curious if you would include DB2, OSX, Java, etc on your list?
  
  thanks
  davids

• The gist
  2002-07-24 16:29:31  cdjfelton [Reply | View]
  
  
  Commercial vendors do more than sell products; they also deliver value. If any company's product ceases to deliver value, no matter what development model was used, the market will exercise its ultimate power: not to buy.
  
  I think this sums up their fears pretty well doesn't it. The GPL offers a better value.