Update: And I quote,

You’ll never catch me, Microsoft! Bwahahah haahaha hahaha ha.

Signed,

The Phantom.

DISCLAIMER: I may have got just a tad bit “creative” in regards to what Da, err, The Phantom, actually stated in his follow-up, which, technically speaking, is something similar to,

It’s a trap!

M. David Peterson theorizes that competitivness is behind MSFTs offer to help mozzila.org port Firefox to Vista:

“..MSFT doesn’t like to be outdone by ANYONE..”

Hmm, that doesn’t explain the last five years. My theory: they want to lure the FF developers up to Redmond in the winter and dampen thier spirits in the cold, grey, rain so the IE team can catch up. That’ll give the IE folks time to implement Javascript 1.7, more CSS, native svg and xaml. And they can steal e4(x)linq from the vb.net folks while they’re at it ;-)

Actually, I think if you add mine to his, the result is pretty cool! :D ;)

Thanks for the follow-up, Phantom!
—

[Original Post]
Never to be outdone by the crafty work of The Phantom, Microsoft attempts to pull some Phantom-esque moves of their own,

Google Groups: mozilla.dev.planning

Schroepfer and all:

I sent this invitation to s…@mozilla.org as well, but in case their
spam filters are set to block @microsoft.com email addresses, I’m
posting here.

I am the Director of the Open Source Software Lab at Microsoft, and I’m
writing to see if you are open to some 1:1 support in getting Firefox
and Thunderbird to run on Vista.

As part of my mission as an advocate for open source applications on
Windows, I’ve gotten spaces set aside at the Windows Vista Readiness
ISV Lab. In the past the company has only invited commercial software
developers to these labs. I’m committed to evolving our thinking
beyond commercial companies to include open source projects, so I went
to the non-trivial effort of getting slots for non-commercial open
source projects.

The lab itself is a 4-day event held in Redmond every week through
December 2006; we provide secure office space for 4 people, hardware,
VPN access, and 1:1 access to product team developers and support
staff.

If you’re interested, please send email to sra…@microsoft.com,
jcan…@microsoft.com, and mfran…@microsoft.com - I’m on vacation
through 8/27, but Jamie Cannon and Michael Francisco will help you get
tracked in.

You can learn a little more about my lab on our site,
http://port25.technet.com.

Best regards,
Sam Ramji
Director, Open Source Software Lab
Microsoft Corporation
(xxx)xxx-xxxx *
xxx…@microsoft.com **

Your move, Dan, err, Phantom! ;) :D
—

NOTE: To those of you wondering what on earth the Starbucks Barista put in my Chai Tea Latte this morning,

The Phantom (AKA Dan Sickles), was the one responsible for turning the tables on my On Closures, Persistence, Web Browsers, and Yet Another Microsoft Innovation (That’s Seven + Years Old) That Will Eventually Be Implemented By Everyone Else post from a while back, bringing light to the fact that there was a lot more progress in regards to the various efforts by Mozilla to bring a seven year old Microsoft technology into “the fold” than initially meets the eye to then follow-up with yet another fine example of implementing Browser-based persistence and storage.

While I must emphasize the fact that this is just “a theory”, it is my belief that it wasn’t so much the realization that its time to make some changes on campus, embracing main stream OSS products to ensure they run well on the next generation Windows OS, and instead the fact that MSFT doesn’t like to be outdone by ANYONE, but in particular, “The Phantom“.

On a related note, I’ll stop by the hospital here in a bit to have them check my blood for whatever it is that the (REALLY CUTE, BTW… I think I might I have a crush on her ;)) Starbucks Barista added to the Chai Latte mix this morning. ;)

NOTE: While I have a read a few non-Moz blog entries that claim “EVEEL!!!”, I believe its worth noting that the response from the folks at Mozilla is exactly what you would expect from the first class organization the folks at Mozilla represent. Without-a-doubt, yet another shining example of OSS done right!

Thanks Mozilla!
—

* number removed to protect the guilty until proven innocent. On a related note: Why does that entire sentence just feel backwards to me? Oh! I know! CUZ IT IS! ;) :D
** same, but replace number with letters