Microsoft Now Sponsor of Open Source Census
Submitted by srlinuxx on Mon, 06/16/2008 - 04:59.
Microsoft has become a sponsor of The Open Source Census, a project started earlier this year that aims to track and catalog the use of open-source software in enterprises worldwide, the group announced Monday.
The company's "customers, partners and developers are working in increasingly heterogeneous environments," so participation in projects such as the census is relevant to the "ecosystem" in which Microsoft operates, said Sam Ramji, Microsoft' senior director of platform strategy, in a prepared statement.
It is the latest gesture by the Redmond software giant toward the open-source community, which has long regarded it as a bogeyman due to actions like its claim last year that open-source software violated more than 200 of its patents.
Ramji, who could not be reached for comment, is seen as a major driver behind Microsoft's gradually warming attitude -- at least publicly -- toward open source and interoperability.
Microsoft and Its Open-Source Gambit
eweek.com: So what is Microsoft's interest here? Are they for real? What do they stand to gain? Well, plenty. And I'm not going to attempt to answer the other questions, because I can only speculate. But, as for Microsoft being real in its support for open source, of course they're for real. Yet it depends on what perspective you're looking at. Microsoft is serious about supporting open source in some respects and fiercely competing with it in others.
Indeed, some say part of Microsoft's overall strategy with its open-source support is to participate in different projects and efforts so as to gain intelligence about the open-source world the company must compete with.
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Why is Microsoft sponsoring the Open Source Census?
Mary Jo Foley: Whether you are in the camp that believes a contingent inside Microsoft is attempting to get the company to turn over a new leaf about open-source software, or you remain a skeptic, believing Microsoft is trying to embrace and extinguish the open-source flame (or are somewhere in between), the first question that comes to mind is why Microsoft is joining the census.
I’d assume sponsors of the Census would get more detailed reports than the average participant. When the Census was launched last year, this was a bone of contention among some in the open-source community.
And note the mention of license compliance here -
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“Loving to death”
'Call it the “loving to death” strategy: Microsoft entwines its tentacles around more and more of the open source world until it becomes almost - almost - an indispensable part of it. Result: the person on the Clapham omnibus is confused about what is and what isn’t open source….'
From here
From Groklaw
From Groklaw … [PJ: Um. They want to figure out who to sue over their stupid patents they allege are being infringed? You think? Learning from history and past Microsoft paid-for studies, I’d also predict that we will see a headline that Novell is winning in adoption rates, thus “proving” that it was right to sell out and sign a patent deal with Microsoft. A secondary finding could be that enterprise use of Linux otherwise is slowing, compared to a healthy Microsoft, I’ve no doubt. Thanks, Mary Jo, for letting us know Microsoft is funding this “study”, so we can ignore the results. I naturally hope no one joins the study, now that Microsoft is sponsoring it.]
Reaction to News of Microsoft's Support of Open Source Census
ostatic.com: Although there will always be a segment of the open source community that is suspicious of anything Microsoft does -- from entering into an agreement with the Eclipse Foundation, to its support of SourceForge's Community Choice Awards -- others concede that the move is likely part of a larger plan to finally become a good citizen within the FOSS community.
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Conspiracy theory: Microsoft sponsors open source census to prep
cnet.com: Considering that Microsoft has yet to be a real friend to open source I have to be at least a bit suspect of the intentions behind the sponsorship of the ongoing open source census.
My guess? I think Microsoft wants access to the results both so it can understand open source but also so it can start to consider legal actions against the most popular products and the companies that develop them.
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