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Aug. 24, 2010

Jean Paoli of Microsoft said yesterday "We love open source. We have worked with open source for a long time now."

"The mistake of equating all open source technology with Linux was really very early on. That was many years ago. We now understand our mistake and we wish to make good on it," added Paoli.

Paoli is the general manager of Microsoft's interoperability strategy team, which touches on Linux and a few open source issues. A Microsoft veteran since 1996, Paoli is also the co-creator of the MS XML specification.

Paoli's recent work involves a new Microsoft initiative to promote interoperability among the key components of cloud networks. The program, described in July at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention, is attempting to promote data portability, use of standards-based technologies, ease of migration and deployment across cloud networks, and application developer freedom of choice.

Microsoft's new initiative isn't strictly an open source project per se but rather, it intends to illustrate the software giant’s evolving relationship with open source technologies and Linux.

Microsoft seems to be making a concerted effort to befriend portions of the open source community, and the software behemoth could certainly benefit in the public relations forum from unpopular moves by Oracle, which is ending the Open Solaris project and suing Google over use of open source Java in Android.

Bad move Larry!

But to be fair to Oracle, Microsoft also launched a patent lawsuit against GPS vendor TomTom in 2009, forcing TomTom to pay Microsoft some licensing fees.

But make no mistake. There are still many critics of Microsoft's wrong attitude in the past toward everything that is (was) open source, and the company gave itself a black eye three years ago by claiming that Linux and other open source software violated a whopping 235 Microsoft patents.

And in 2008, Bill Gates reportedly claimed that open source licenses ensure "that nobody can ever improve the software."

Really Bill? Where did you get that from?

But Paoli also says that Microsoft fully recognizes that its enterprise customers use a mix of proprietary and open source technologies, and that the company is OK with that.

Microsoft has released some technology under its own open source license, the "Microsoft Public License", such as IronRuby, which integrates .Net code with the Ruby programming language.

And Microsoft's bold patent claim in 2007 didn't amount to much, really. The claim seemed intended to lay the groundwork for a firmer stance on IP (intellectual property) and licensing issues, but after public backlash Microsoft has gotten smarter about how it approached Linux and open source concerns.

As Linux gained in popularity in the last four to five years, Microsoft reached out to the Linux and open source community directly with its biggest move toward reconciliation. Unexpectedly, it submitted driver source code for inclusion in the Linux kernel, with the intention of providing "the hooks for any distribution of Linux to run on Windows Server 2003 and 2008 and its Hyper-V hypervisor technology in Windows Server 2008."

WOW! What a feat for Microsoft. The code submission had to occur under the same GPL license, and which Bill Gates has been known to criticize so many times and for so long.

But while the Linux driver project seems to be a success, it doesn't mean the entire "open source community" is ready to call Microsoft friend instead of foe.

Overall, open source is an approach in developing technology and new software, and to some extent a whole philosophy. By its nature, open source cannot and should not be represented by a single voice.

It will be interesting to see how Microsoft makes good on its quote that says "We love open source". So now the question is, will the software giant really work with the Linux and open source community or will it just provide it with some 'lip service' as it has done for so many years?

Time will tell, and we will keep you posted.

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Source: Microsoft.

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