[dundee] Microsoft going open source?

[Rick Moynihan]

I fail to see how any of these moves have anything to do with 'open-source'.

* The publication of APIs for "all high-volume" products.

As far as I know they pretty much do this already.

* Sharing 30,000 pages of documentation for Windows client and server
protocols that were previously available only under a trade secret
licence.

Were they not ordered to do this by the EU?

* Indicating which of its protocols are covered by patents, and
promising not to sue open-source developers for development or
non-commercial distribution of implementations of these protocols.

I suspect the non-commercial distribution clause here effectively
nulls this for any serious open source project.

We can say that these are all good things that Microsoft are doing.
But the problem for me is the conflation of language, where bandying
the term open about implies 'open source' even though it couldn't
really be further from the truth.

I suspect the problem here is that 'open' doesn't really mean
anything, a point continually made by Stallman and Moglen.
Unfortunately I'm not convinced 'free' or even libre is the right word
either.

R.


On 21/02/2008, gordon dunlop <astrozubenel at googlemail.com> wrote:
> Here is the latest story of Microsoft and open source.
>  http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/169737/update-microsoft-promises-to-open-up.html
>
>  Gordon
>
>  _______________________________________________
>  dundee GNU/Linux Users Group mailing list
>  dundee at lists.lug.org.uk  http://dundee.lug.org.uk
>  https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/dundee
>  Chat on IRC, #tlug on dundee.lug.org.uk
>


-- 
Rick Moynihan
rick.moynihan at gmail.com
http://sourcesmouth.co.uk/blog/