Microsoft warming to open source?

[the_JinX]

The fact is that Linux is now competing with Windows. That is good because it is spurring us on and making us compete better, but equally, it is difficult for us to say Windows has better management tools than Linux because all of a sudden people say we are attacking open source.

http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-958754.html

Q: Just over a year ago, Microsoft senior vice president Craig Mundie made his infamous comments about open source. Since then, Microsoft has been rolling out its Shared Source Initiative. How do you rationalize your Shared Source Initiative with Microsoft's views on open source?

A: One unfortunate thing we did was coming out against open source--we knew it would be controversial. There is a longstanding industry debate around source code and what role it plays. IT professionals have one point of view, developers have another, business decision makers have yet another and then hobbyists come at it from an entirely different direction again.

[HavangerSr]

is this ms warming up to source code, maybe. is it ms running out of ideas and need help, probably. . i think most of it is lip serverivce. nothing really gettin done. like ms said, they can't and wont distribute at least 3%. the part everyone wants to know.

[aeallison]

M$ will have to comply sooner or later, Bill Gates and his cronies are not stupid. Just pig-headed, and their refusal to comply with open source will ultimately lead to their downfall, or compliance...pull your heads out MicroSoft!

[t2k2]

I think it would be great. I don't know if I think it will happen anytime soon, but Hey, what would this mean for Linux if M$ went Open Source? Whattaya think?

[problemchild]

Yeah.... I agree with the others. They're not warming to it, they simply have no choice. The reality of the market in 2002 is that serious admin types like and trust open source, and Microsoft is feeling the pinch from that. But if you read the article, they're mostly paying lip service to open-source. Currently, it's very expensive and you have to meet a strict set of criteria to qualify as a "shared source" partner and sign an NDA, and then you may not modify the code at all and its only real value is in debugging applications. Not surprisingly, very few people have taken them up on it.

They're going to have to move past the lip service stage, because people just aren't buying it right now. So far, shared source has been pretty much a flop, and Linux will keep gaining ground on Windows.

[allenb1963]

Let's face it....M$ will ride the current business model until they have wrung every last penny out of it. How they respond to the growing open source movement in a manner that provides them with the profit margins they are so accustomed to is going to be interesting, to say the least.

[4MidgetHitmen]

It was only a matter of time until M$ did start to move toward open source... Question is will their open source stuff be any better then the stuff they put out now...

[Chuck56]

Well, 4M, I was pretty happy with xp home, until I installed that damned SP1. It didn't hurt xp, but it wrecked IE6 to the point that I switched to Netscape 7. Haven't head a single problem with the new Netscape. XP has been rock solid from the day I upgraded, in February. Not a single problem or complaint so far, and I never thought I'd ever say that about any MS product.

[Terr]

I would like to just mention that IMO Open source isn't some sort of magic-new-reality kinda thing. Whenever I hear someone gush about it in an idealistic way about how it is only a matter of time before we are ushered into a new utopia (etc etc)...

I think the future will be weirder than most theories... MS will probably eke out as long as they can on client-windows systems, and maybe have either an Open-source department or have sections of their server projects open sourceed. I don't see Linux prospering on the desktop market (and really pinching Microsoft there) for at least a few years. (Which can be pretty long in some industries.)