Microsoft's Open Source Strategist Is Leaving

IT MAY COME AS A SURPRISE to learn that Microsoft has any kind of open sauce software strategy aside from stomping on any bunch of commie hippies daring to offer free alternatives to its market-monopolising software, but it seems that one respected member of the Redmond braintrust has been working tirelessly for the last three years in an effort to make the software behemoth play nice with the other slightly grubby children in the playground.

Sam Ramji, who is currently the vocal spokesvole for all things open sourcery at Microsoft, is moving on to pastures new at the end of this month and he leaves behind an interesting legacy. More importantly his departure will leave a gap that might prove difficult to fill.

Sam's official brief was to create a strategy that enabled Micrososft to 'co-exist and thrive in a heterogeneous IT world' but his legacy goes way beyond that. The company originally had a single department that dealt with free open source (FOSS) software but, according to one Microsoft insider, it is now an important part of many product groups and strategies across the company.

Ramji's job was never going to be easy. The biggest software company on the planet had a nasty reputation for making life difficult for any upstart that tried to muscle in on its turf. There was never any real evidence that Microsoft would use strong-arm tactics to undermine fledgling companies, but when you have unlimited access to some of the world's most tenacious and ruthless lawyers and a bottomless pit of cash to throw at patent disputes, someone is gonna cry 'bully' sooner or later.

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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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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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Microsoft Weighs Next-Phase In Open-Source Support

Microsoft's, shall we say, cautious engagement with open-source could mean frameworks like Spring and Hibernate are the next projects tuned to Windows.

Sam Ramji, director of the open-source development lab, in a recent interview pointed to the rise in what he called "micro frameworks" and their importance.

"It's something we have to be a lot closer to," Ramji told The Reg, noting Microsoft had held talks with the SpringSource company and "a couple of their other folks."

Ramji also hinted at deeper work in areas already visited by Microsoft, specifically in the realms of Apache and on PHP.

"There's a lot more work to do with Apache for sure. There are open-source communities like SpringSource we have to do a lot more work with - they have really rich Java and .NET sides. There's a lot more work to do with the PHP community. A lot of what we are into now is we've built up some great opportunities we can now cont to get deeper in," he said.

Ramji did not get into details.

Spring founder and SpringSource chief executive Rod Johnson separately pointed to areas for improvement between the ubiquitous Spring and Windows.

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