After over a decade of being in the shadow of the Free Software movement and 30 years of its inflexible dogmatic principles, disruptive new Open Source thought leadership is emerging that is truly able to compromise with the realistic needs of business and end-users without carrying the baggage of strict adherence to an ideology that is by definition a culture of exclusion. (artwork by Spidermonkey, Inc.)
My last article on Richard M. Stallman’s verbal attack on Miguel de Icaza and his continuing crusade against anyone who doesn’t fit the mold of the Free Software community seems to have struck a chord with those who sympathize with that movement’s ideals to the point of driving them to utter histrionics, unjustified hero worship and irrational thought.
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Friday, October 9, 2009
On the future of Open Source thought leadership
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Open Source Is Our Next Level: Microsoft
As open source is adopted on a range of platforms, understanding, engaging and supporting open source development will continue to be fundamental to enabling more customer choice, says Sam Ramji
BANGALORE, INDIA: Recently, Microsoft released 20,000 lines of device driver code to the Linux community. The code, which includes three Linux device drivers, has been submitted to the Linux kernel community for inclusion in the Linux tree.
The drivers will be available to the Linux community and customers alike, and will enhance the performance of the Linux operating system when virtualized on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V or Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V.
Sam Ramji, sr. director, Platform Strategy, MicrosoftSam Ramji, sr. director, Platform Strategy is responsible for developing sustainable partnerships with open source communities as part of his role as senior director of Platform Strategy in Microsoft's Server and Tools organization. This includes overseeing the operation of Microsoft's Open Source Technology Center (OSTC), which serves as a landing point for open source communities and companies interested in working with Microsoft, as well as a resource for Microsoft product groups interested in open source technology.
Tom Hanrahan, who also plays a critical role in Microsoft's day-to-day open source interoperability efforts, is the director of the OSTC. His team played a key role in the development of the drivers, and will manage their ongoing enhancement.
Sam Ramji and Tom Hanrahan talk about releasing Linux device driver code to the Linux community in an interview with CIOL. Excerpts:
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Friday, August 21, 2009
Microsoft offers open source link for PHP, .Net
Microsoft's Developer and Platform Evangelism Interoperability team is introducing on Friday an open source project to bridge PHP and Microsoft's .Net programming model, Microsoft representatives said.
The company's PHP Toolkit for ADO.Net Data Services uses REST as a bridge between Microsoft's software platform and the popular PHP scripting language, said Peter Galli, Microsoft open source community manager, in a blog entry. With the kit, developed by Persistent Systems, PHP developers can more easily take advantage of ADO.Net Data Services, which are a set of features in the .Net Framework for building and consuming data services from the Web. The services previously were referred to as Project Astoria.
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Thursday, May 14, 2009
Microsoft preps for open-source cloud apps
Microsoft has unveiled a toolkit for PHP developers building open-source applications that help fluff its planned Azure cloud.
PHPAzure is a software development kit (SDK) for programming to both Windows Azure and the underlying SQL-like Windows Azure Storage service's blobs, tables, and queues. PHPAzure is an open-source project developed with RealDolmen and hosted on Microsoft's CodePlex site.
The PHPAzure community technology preview (CTP) was unveiled by Microsoft India and is due for completion on August 21. Azure is itself currently in CTP and has been promised for delivery by the end of this year.
PHP is one of the web's most popular programming languages, running more than 20 million sites. It's also used in conjunction with Apache, Linux, and MySQL - a web server, operating system, and database combo that Microsoft is in competition with.
Microsoft's recognized the importance of winning over PHP developers and has worked with Zend Technologies to fine-tune PHP to Windows until now. The risk was developers would otherwise build their PHP applications on Windows and deploy on Linux instead.
With PHP being a default web-programming environment, Microsoft has accepted it must embrace the language as a way to populate Azure with applications, moving it from a standing stop.
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Friday, May 1, 2009
Open Source Group Challenges Microsoft Patents
The Open Invention Network, an industry organization that protects Linux by acquiring and licensing open-source patents, is taking Microsoft to task over three patents related to its now-settled lawsuit against in car GPS device maker TomTom.
Microsoft sued TomTom in February for allegedly infringing on eight of its patents, three of which pertained to TomTom's implementation of the Linux kernel. At the time, Microsoft officials said the suit wasn't the start of a patent enforcement campaign against Linux, but didn't rule out further lawsuits.
OIN this week posted details on the three patents -- U.S. patents 5579517, 5758352 and 6256642 -- to a section of its Linux Defenders website in an attempt to get community members searching for prior art that could prevent Microsoft from wielding them in future lawsuits.
Microsoft has been known to get defendants to sign non-disclosure agreements and then coerce them into settlements. Since Microsoft refuses to offer specifics on which of its patents Linux specifically violates, industry experts have speculated that the software giant's claims might not hold up in court.
TomTom ended up paying Microsoft an unspecified amount for coverage related to the patents. As has been the case with past Microsoft lawsuit targets, TomTom decided to pay up rather than fight a lengthly legal battle.
Not surprisingly, Microsoft has a different view of what transpired. Microsoft says it has only used legal means to enforce its patents on two other occasions: In an August 2006 suit against Belkin, and in a July 2008 suit against Taiwan-based Primax Electronics.
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Friday, April 3, 2009
Microsoft Open to Open Source?
That's what one Redmond exec says. Plus, Microsoft hits Apple on its price tag, certification as a game, and more. Microsoft argues that it's on the right open source track. It believes that open sourcers should respect Microsoft patents, and conversely Microsoft should interoperate with key open tools.
When it comes to open source, Microsoft has a balancing act that would be tough for Philippe Petite. Redmond must pacify shareholders by hanging onto commercial licensing, but it can't totally irritate open source-friendly IT pros. If Microsoft is too much of an open source enemy, IT can turn their backs and move to Linux, MySQL and Apache in droves.
Mac Attack
I am a fan of the Mac for its stability, elegance and sheer fun factor. But there's one thing I hate: the price. I can buy an Acer netbook for around 300 bills -- less than a third of the price of the cheapest mobile Mac.
This reality is not lost on Microsoft, which recently launched an ad attacking the economics of Apple ownership. I haven't seen the commercial yet, but apparently Lauren, a young woman, wants a laptop with a 17-inch screen. She goes to the Apple store and quickly finds the only screen she can afford is four inches too small. Instead of uttering the words I might ("$6%%8&!!!!") she deadpans that she's "just not cool enough" for the Mac. Instead, she buys an HP for $700.
My daughter is a young woman named Lauren. She had an HP but ditched it for a MacBook, and so far my Lauren has never looked back. Somehow, I just couldn't talk her into that $300 Acer netbook!
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Friday, March 13, 2009
Microsoft Rubs Shoulders with Open Source
Microsoft and the Creative Commons turned up at the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference and released an Ontology Add-in for Microsoft Office Word 2007 so authors can add scientific hyperlinks as semantic annotations, drawn from ontologies, to their documents and research papers.
Ontologies are shared vocabularies created and maintained by different academic domains to model their fields of study.
The Add-in is supposed to make it easier for scientists to link their documents to the web in what Microsoft called "a meaningful way."
Microsoft remarks that "the nuggets of information necessary for science to progress are often hard to find, submerged deep within the web, or within databases that can't be easily accessed or integrated. As a result, many scientists today work in relative isolation, follow blind alleys and unnecessarily duplicate existing research."
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Wednesday, February 4, 2009
If Microsoft Loved Open Source, Who Would It Buy?
Could Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) take its cash reserves and buy an open source company? Why not? Who expected Oracle (NSDQ: ORCL) and Citrix Systems (NSDQ: CTXS) to become such big investors in open source. Citrix' purchase of XenSource sure has worked out--for Microsoft, in my opinion. And that example might seed a desire for more open source code in Microsoft's camp.
Just because Microsoft bought an open source company doesn't mean it would have to add its code to Windows or some other product, then give it away. Oracle bought InnoDB and Sleepycat's BerkeleyDB as ways to expand its customer base and product line, and it did so without putting Oracle 11g under the GPL. Microsoft could do the same thing.
I don't want to carry this argument too far. Some people will say Microsoft is about as likely to buy an open source company as it is to make Windows open source. Ah, check my thoughts on that topic here.
I don't think any purchase is on the immediate horizon, but I don't rule out such a thing happening in the next two years. Microsoft, more slowly than most, has begun to discern the value of open source code functioning with Windows and the rest of its product line. When Citrix bought XenSource for $500 million, Microsoft spokesmen acknowledged they gained both Linux and virtualization expertise from its close ally through the purchase. That expertise speeded the delivery of its hypervisor, Hyper-V.
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Monday, February 2, 2009
Microsoft's Web Sandbox is now open source
Microsoft's Web Sandbox Live Labs project is now available under an open source license. Microsoft chose the Apache 2.0 license for the project, but pointed out that the project will not become an Apache project, although the vendor has been a member of the Apache Software Foundation since July 2008.
The Sandbox technology aims at allowing developers to create secure mash-up solutions and page extensions, like ads, or web-based gadgets, by isolating the components. In addition, the project wants to provide interoperability with script frameworks.
The software giant presented Web Sandbox in a Community Technology Preview (CTP) at its Professional Developers Conference (PDC) in autumn 2008, but the project was slightly overlooked, as the media largely responded to other technologies, like Windows 7 and Azure. The project is based on Microsoft's experience with DHTML, web-based gadgets and the BrowserShield project.
Source : http://www.heise.de/
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Microsoft Keeps Embracing Open Source, Digs PHP
Microsoft, the commercial software behemoth from Redmond, Washington, continues to dip its toes into the open source pool. Microsoft's Open Source Technology Center (OSTC) is home to the software vendor's relationships with a few open source products such as MySQL and SugarCRM. The OSTC has been hard at work lately -- especially, in the web application space.
After releasing their own open source CMS and making it easy to install open source applications on Windows Server, what else has Redmond been up to?
Forging New Partnerships
The standard web programming language on the Internet is PHP. The scripting language part of what is known as the LAMP stack which includes the Linux operating system, Apache web server, MySQL database engine and PHP as the final component of the host platform for many well known web sites and web applications.
Microsoft has been contributing to the PHP framework in a number of ways, as CNET reports. Most notably, Microsoft has been funding work that has led to enhancements in the PHP run-time engine and PHP application projects.
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Thursday, October 2, 2008
Are Microsoft's open-source actions enough?
While Microsoft Corp. realizes there is greater benefit to collaborating with the open source community from an interoperability perspective, it may prove difficult to change its pro-proprietary image, said an open source analyst.
Microsoft was a company focused on intellectual property claims where "not more than two years ago claimed that Linux software infringed on some of its 235 patents," said Jay Lyman with The 451 Group. Yet, he added, it's hard to argue with the work that the software giant is doing with Novell, and of the presence it has on SourceForge, the development and download repository of open source code.
Indeed, the company announced the Microsoft Open Source Technology Center this year, which was essentially a unification of the Open Source Software Lab opened in Redmond, Wash., three years ago, and the Microsoft/Novell Interoperability Lab in Cambridge, Mass., a year ago.
While the Center may not physically be one building, the unification "was really an opportunity for us to pull the work together to be very focused on a few areas," said Tom Hanrahan, director of the Microsoft Open Source Technology Center.
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Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Microsoft hails open source outreach
The company detailed accommodations made for open source, including the Microsoft Open Source Technology Center, at ZendCon 2008
Microsoft continued to make its case on Tuesday that it is a friend to open source, listing a number of efforts it has undertaken in spaces ranging from Linux to virtualization and rich Internet application technology.
Traditionally, Microsoft has been viewed as the commercial counterpoint to the open-source movement. But the company's presentation on Tuesday at the ZendCon 2008 conference in Santa, Clara, Calif. reiterated accommodations for open source
"We are trying to drive interoperability and integration with open source into the Windows platform by design," said Tom Hanrahan, director of the Microsoft Open Source Technology Center.
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Monday, August 4, 2008
Microsoft warns of open source threat
Microsoft has warned of a growing threat to its business model from open source software.
In its annual report the company has said that it was facing increasing pressure from open source vendors, who Microsoft claims are stealing its ideas and benefiting from its intellectual property.
“A number of commercial firms compete with us using an open source business model by modifying and then distributing open source software to end users at nominal cost and earning revenue on complementary services and products,” it said.
“These firms do not bear the full costs of research and development for the software. Some of these firms may build upon Microsoft ideas that we provide to them free or at low royalties in connection with our interoperability initiatives.”
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Friday, July 25, 2008
Microsoft: We're Open (Source) For Business
Redmond says it's changing into an open source-aware software company, but it's still going to take time.
For years, the poster child of the anti-open source movement was Microsoft, with its proprietary software model. In recent years, however, the company has changed its views, starting an open source software lab to work on interoperability issues. It's even become a purveyor of its own open source-approved licenses.
What do these efforts mean? For Sam Ramji, Microsoft's director of open source technology strategy, they indicate the company is "open" for business.
"The strategy is founded on meeting people where they are," Ramji told InternetNews.com. "Independent of whether or not the application programming layer is a Microsoft technology, we really look at ourselves as being an infrastructure layer, and our job is to support the workload and the development styles that people want to use."
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Monday, July 7, 2008
Microsoft Equipt vs open source and free software
The computer users of the world have been getting more interested in open source and free software for some time now and Microsoft’s new Equipt subscription service is aimed at defending the Office franchise.
As we reported the other day, the pricing model for Equipt will be $69.99 per year and you get a lot of software for the money that can be accessed by up to three computers.
Circuit City have got the exclusive rights to Equipt beginning mid-July and it’s hoped by Microsoft that the convenience of Equipt will stop some Office users moving towards the open source or free software route.
There is a lot of competition for Microsoft and that’s why this new service was needed to keep them in the game, as IBM is offering Lotus Symphony free and also other brands have similar free Office software packages.
The sales results for Office products have shown a downward pattern and the last quarter saw Office products among consumers drop 39%.
Will you use the new Equipt subscription service or do you have another favorite?
Source : http://www.product-reviews.net/
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Microsoft to developers: ‘Open source is a choice’
Microsoft's presence in the summit drew quite an impact, if not harmless ribbing. In a presentation by noted IT entrepreneur Winston Damarillo, mentioning indicators that open source is ready for primetime deployment, one answer reads: "The number of times in a month Microsoft says: ‘We support open source.’"
"My answer to that was: ‘We should have done it earlier,’” said Abet Dela Cruz, Microsoft Philippines platform strategy manager, narrating Monday's panel discussion at the Cebu summit.
Dela Cruz represented Microsoft in the panel along with representatives from IBM and Red Hat.
"It took IBM about 10 years to be at this stage and it is only now that Microsoft is going in the same direction," said Dela Cruz, who is still in Cebu attending the two-day summit.
IBM has been a staunch supporter of open source although the tech giant does sell its own proprietary software.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Can Microsoft 'do' open source by 2015?
Sam Ramji wants people to clearly understand what projects the company is contributing to, and what code Microsoft is making available - along with the terms - on a routine basis.
It seems Ramji is talking about people both inside and outside Microsoft knowing what’s going on.
"We don't have hard rules... right now, it's still careful judgment case by case. By 2015, I think it would be set up," he told Reg Dev, just before his promotion.
"It'll be understood, woven in to the fabric and in product-development cycles, so it's well understood: 'Here is the parts of our product that will be open source.”
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