Is Microsoft going Open Source?

Question

The person who may have started this opensourceness at Microsoft may be none other than Bill Grates. In an interesting story before Gates left as Microsoft CEO, he may have started a new era of opensourceness at MS.

Sam Hobbs · Answer

I was going to say that I have also thought about Open Source. There are some people that are religious about it and exagerate it's value. I am skeptical about its value. I have an idea for something that I have not heard discussed (and I have told no one) that I think is potentially more powerful than Open Source. I will keep that a secret and it is unlikely someone can guess what it is.

Sam Hobbs · Answer

I think Codeplex is the second generation of sites like that from Microsoft and when they announced the first generation it mentioned that it could be used for open-source projects. So yes Microsoft understands that Open Source is powerful and must be respected and Microsoft has given it a chance. I don't think there has been any sudden developments in that area including any potential for sudden developments.

Mahesh Chand · Answer

So I have been observing MS moves on open source. I don't think MS is going to open source any of its cash-cow software (Windows Office Servers etc) but the development is leaning towards working with open-source standards and that seems like the initiative when MS plan to drop Silverlight and adopting HTML 5. Also CodePlex has been a good repository of open source project and most of them were (good ones) have been contributed by MS team.

Sam Hobbs · Answer

The comments I wrote that got lost forever were similar to what Vulpes said. Windows is sold with every new computer sold in retail stores including online. If there will be a day when consumers will have the option to not pay for Windows either because Windows is free or because it is Open Source then it will be a very new world. First note that there are many definitions of Open Source. Many people use the term as being synonymous with free but it definitely is not. Open Source software can be offered for free but depending on other things Open Source can be sold and vendors can require that their software must be purchased to be used. There are multiple types of licenses for MySQL with varying costs associated with it. The Gnu license however requires that software using that license be offered for free. Obviously Bill Gates had thought about Open Source very much. So one time he gets up and presents some of what he had been thinking. The question is what happened after that; what affect did his presentation have? Is Microsoft exploring Open Source because they see it as opportunity or a threat? Note that the article said Microsoft realized how powerful the free software movement could be. Do we know for a fact that those exact words exist in their minds? Note that it implies that they see Open Source as opportunity. If however it is more accurate that Microsoft realized how powerful the free software movement would be then that implies that they see Open Source as a threat. Just one character can change one word into another word with a very different implication. This article is implying that Microsoft might become substantially more Open Source than they already have and this article is making that implication because the alternative story would be boring . Vulpes used Apple as an example; an important and very relevant example. IBM has also written software; probably more than Apple and Microsoft combined. In the area of operating systems IBM has definitely written substantially more and a much greater diversity of OSs than Micrososft and Apple combined. IBM embraced Linux a long time ago; nearly from the beginning. I have a copy of Xenix which is a version of Unix that Microsoft sold for the IBM PC before Linux became available. The point is that there is substantial competition for Microsoft from Open Source and the competition has existed for the life of Windows.

Vulpes · Answer

I am generally very cynical about the machinations of large companies software or otherwise but one thing that's worth pointing out is that MS have a long way to go to match their arch-rival Apple when it comes to open source: http://www.apple.com/opensource/ Personally I can't see MS wanting to do anything to taint their traditional proprietorial cash cows (Windows and Office) whilst they're still pulling in the dough. However MS must make an impression in online services if they're going to compete with Apple Google Amazon etc. in the future and if that means embracing open source offerings within Azure then that does make some sense to me.

Sam Hobbs · Answer

Oh ******. I was typing a reply and somehow did something that caused everything to be lost. It is very frustrating.