Microsoft Blesses LGPL, Joins Apache Foundation 425
Penguinisto writes "According to a somewhat jaw-dropping story in The Register, it appears that Microsoft has performed a trifecta of geek-scaring feats: They have joined the Apache Software Foundation as a Platinum member(at $100K USD a year), submitted LGPL-licensed patches for ADOdb, and have pledged to expand their Open Specifications Promise by adding to the list more than 100 protocols for interoperability between its Windows Server and the Windows client. While I sincerely doubt they'll release Vista under a GPL license anytime soon, this is certainly an unexpected series of moves on their part, and could possibly lead to more OSS (as opposed to 'Shared Source') interactivity between what is arguably Linux' greatest adversary and the Open Source community." (We mentioned the announced support for the Apache Foundation earlier today, as well.)
Yeah, right (Score:0, Insightful)
They "embraced" Java at one point too. Embrace, extend, pollute, destroy.
Re:Keep off the cynicism... (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if they finally turned around and will finally work with everyone else with no dark agenda for the future, old-timers like me (i.e. more than 25-30 years old) will not trust them until they have really proven themselves.
Their most recent move was the OOXML fiasco, so you can understand my skepticism.
Re:Circling the drain.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Embrace.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Extend...
Extinguish.
Sorry Microsoft, but given their past behavior and downright malicious attacks, they're going to have to do far more to gain trust.
What is interesting/scary is that for a relatively small amount ( As seen from the Microsoft Universe ), they could buy off virtually every project, of note, out there. How many projects could be supported on Microsoft's toilet paper budget alone?
There's much reason for caution. (Score:5, Insightful)
The Apache and LGPL licenses aren't much of a threat to them. GPL is, because GPL prevents "embrace and enhance", Microsoft's commonly-exercised strategy to take over a market. Microsoft has signed over work to FSF in the past when it was necessary to get changes into GCC for one of their (past) divisions that was making a Unix compatibility layer. I don't think this is the first time they've had to deal with GPL, by far.
So, the big question is, have they turned over a new leaf? I think they're still a super-size multinational for-profit corporation, and the reality is that every one of those will be self-serving first, whether they are Microsoft or someone more usually identified as a "friend" to Open Source. But Microsoft has managed to set themselves ahead of other corporations as a frequent user of dirty-fighting tactics to get its way. I don't expect that corporate culture to go away.
I think we still have some big problems with Microsoft, primarily around software patents. They are still in a position to attack Linux with them, although they would probably do that using a proxy, as they did with SCO. Their increased involvement in Open Source organizations means that they will be taken as a member of the Open Source community when they speak with national legislators. This is terrible for us, because it means they'll be able to short-circuit our work to protect Open Source from software patents by speaking to government as an insider in our communities. They've been lobbying for a software patent treaty between Europe and the U.S. (part of the "anti-piracy treaty" currently under discussion but not available to the public) which could make criminal prosecution a new tool against suspected patent infringers on both sides of the Atlantic. And because this is a treaty rather than legislation, it effectively takes the question out of public debate and just leaves it to congress to approve or reject the entire treaty. Want to guess how many people in congress want to be seen as "for piracy"? Any non-trivial software program infringes patents, Open Source or not. We're still in rather deep trouble regarding this, if anyone wants to push the issue. And their general counsel made clear, in a recent speech at OSBC, that they're still not willing to put down the patent "gun".
So, I can't say I think this is a good thing.
Bruce
Never (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple will never use Intel processors.
Dell will never ship AMD processors.
Dell will never ship Linux.
These things happen. People can change their minds. Microsoft is still doing evil and illegal things on a regular basis (like last year, offering illegal bribes to get Nigeria to drop Mandriva) but not every single employee at Microsoft is evil. Not every department is necessarily evil.
Microsoft has been doing a number of reasonably good things for a while now, and everyone keeps suggesting they are part of some scheme and conspiracy. People shouldn't be completely shocked by this act.
I think it is just a continuation of a new trend towards being slightly less evil. Every time Microsoft opens more protocols, releases more code, and tries to work with the OSS community, instead of acting like children and calling names, I think the community should encourage Microsoft to continue the trend of migrating to a more open company.
Re:Circling the drain.... (Score:3, Insightful)
If by failure you mean "still dominates the desktop market at about 90%" and by skyrocketing you mean "OS X has budged a few points, more at the expense of Linux desktops than Microsoft" then you might be right.
That being said, I don't trust this at all. I smell evil afoot.
Re:Last I checked, MS still claims Linux 'IP' (Score:2, Insightful)
What do you mean? Microsoft already did pull an SCO against Linux. That's what SCO was!
Re:The Mayans were wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
More probably, 2007 was The Year of the Linux Desktop. The Asus eeePC showed that the Linux desktop is a perfectly viable business proposition, at the same time that Windows Vista flopped in the market.
Microsoft isn't defeated yet, but they are certainly doing a strategic retreat. You can be quite sure they will do their best effort to regroup and counterattack, but at this moment no one can deny that free software is advancing.
Re:Is this stage 4? (Score:4, Insightful)
That strategy only worked for Gandhi because the British were basically civilized. It wouldn't work so well against, say, the Khmer Rouge.
It's hard to say what the case is here.
Re:Keep off the cynicism... (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe they finally got tired of being wrong. This is surprisingly clueful behaviour, and should be encouraged.
Sure. But actions are where it's at. Let's see what Microsoft does with this. They've got a long history (up to recent events) of doing Bad Things.
Maybe this is a turning point. I hope it is. But the cynic in me believes Micrsoft is holding something behind their back.
My guess is this is simply another shot at figuring out Linux's air supply. The old standby of sales didn't work. Copyrights and patents haven't really provided any handholds. Businesses have been resistant - and really, it's just a different angle on sales. So the new tact is to go after the LAMP stack (or the general idea that LAMP represents).
Sure - "developers, developers, developers" still holds true. But now it extends to "applications, applications, applications."
Re:Keep off the cynicism... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yet even in the wake of tampering with ISO, one Microsoft employee from the Office group recently had a quote saying that Microsoft knew they have lost the document standard war, and that was why they were adding support for ODF in SP2.
Re:Never (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody is shocked, but everybody is rightfully suspicious.
Re:Keep off the cynicism... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Circling the drain.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Maybe it has something to do with this ... (Score:5, Insightful)
The story you are referring to is written by a software patent proponent who would like to reverse the USPTO's new position on software patents. He is choosing google as his example in order to inflame other corporate attorneys into working on the problem in favor of software patenting.
I would be overjoyed if the Bilski case and other recent cases solved the software patent problem for us. But I think the reality is that congress is ready to repair the situation and restore whatever software patenting the courts and USPTO administrators take away.
New Topic Icon (Score:2, Insightful)
Slashdot really needs an Admiral Akbar icon because this story just screams "IT'S A TRAP!"
Re:Keep off the cynicism... (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft making their protocols available isn't the same as "work with everyone else". Microsoft's protocols and file formats all:
a) tend to be very complex and/or virtually impossible to fully implement. See OOXML.
b) change with every version of Windows, and then sometimes in between. Somehow, documentation lags implementation by quite some time. Years sometimes. See Europe's attempt at extracting up-to-date documentation from them.
While releasing documentation closes the gap somewhat, it still leaves the game as "Works best when you only use Windows machines". Which is exactly what is best for Microsoft.
While this can be viewed as a positive step, it very much is a "you can play with my ball, but under my conditions, and whenever I get a new one, you can't play with it until I feel like it", and not "let's all play together with all the toys so everyone can have more fun".
Re:This is a move against Linux... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm fine with that. Saying, "okay, we're fine with you using Apache and PHP instead of IIS and ASP, but try them on Windows!" is a win-win.
The end users have choice. Linux shouldn't be the only choice, in the same way that Windows shouldn't be the only choice.
Competition is good. Interoperability is good. Choice is good.
Microsoft once believed they had to force and bully people into locked solutions. To an extent, portions of Microsoft still operate that way. But other portions of Microsoft realize they have market share, loads of wealth, and a huge staff. Why not just try to put out a good product and compete? Let the market decide.
Re:Tactics aside... (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's not get overconfident. Whatever gains we once made on the desktop have been blown away by Apple. Despite the fact that we give away a wonderful compatible office suite in OpenOffice 3 for free, most companies and individuals are still buying MS Office. The software patent system is still tilted against us, and may be getting worse depending on an upcoming treaty - assumptions that the Bilski case will solve the problem for us are unrealistic to say the least. And it looks like they will get ISO to publish Office Open XML.
So, sure Microsoft is positioning itself for future strategy, but I bet they still see themselves winning. And they may well do so.
Bruce
Re:The Devil must be pissed off (Score:5, Insightful)
ORLY?
Actually, this isn't really much of a turnaround. Microsoft has long played the "we love open source" (but hate GPL!) stance. The Apache foundation has long since been in the BSD-like license camp (there's very little actual difference between the apache license and BSD). Microsoft really doesn't mind being able to take code. It just doesn't like the idea of having to give back. This may be a way of trying to push the open source community to move toward the BSD-style licensing community... after all, Microsoft uses BSD code. OSX *definetly* uses BSD code. It's possible to totally be proprietary and be cool with BSD.
So what about the LGPL? The LGPL does require that if you make changes to the library, you have to give them back. So if you make changes to glib, you gotta give them back. But you can make any app link to glib, and be completely proprietary, and it doesn't have to be open source. In many ways, this isn't too much of a problem for Microsoft though, since they really aren't in the business of libraries, they're in the business of applications and operating systems. It's is a small advancement though.
It's this kind of situation which is why the FSF, which originally produced the LGPL, wrote an essay saying that it's not always strategically the best choice for free and open source software [gnu.org].
Re:Microsoft is not evil (Score:3, Insightful)
Plenty of companies make a profit while staying within the bounds of the law.
When leading a major corporation, you often have to make decisions in regards to ethics. Some companies care about ethics, and others don't.
There is a difference between winning market share in a competitive market, and destroying competition.
In addition to breaking laws, and destroying competition, Microsoft is also guilty of treating their customers poorly.
Are you going to seriously suggest Microsoft isn't evil?
Re:The Devil must be pissed off (Score:4, Insightful)
At this point it would be stranger if more banks didn't fail.
Re:The Mayans were wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
If MS truly GPL'd their software, they would gain unstoppable momentum. Developers, developers, developers!
But at what cost? Sure, they'd probably end up with the best OS in the world, but they'd have to give it away! Microsoft makes huge amounts of money on OEM and corporate distribution without ever having to provide support. Selling support happens to be the only long-term, viable strategy for GPL software, and even then, you can't have a monopoly on it. I could sell support for Redhat OS if I wanted to.
Dell sells millions of computers per year. Even at a Microsoft tax of $10/unit, a lowball estimate of the microsoft tax, they would save millions per year by just hiring a small team at $50k/year to do quality assurance, cutting out Microsoft.
Perhaps they ARE starting to see the light. (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if they finally turned around and will finally work with everyone else with no dark agenda for the future, old-timers like me (i.e. more than 25-30 years old) will not trust them until they have really proven themselves.
However old timers like me (who programmed computers that used vacuum tubes, not just for the switches, but for the DIODES in the logic), remember when IBM had much the same reputation for closed tech and predatory behavior as Microsoft does now.
After SCO vs. IBM (and for a while before) there's no question where IBM is on the issue now. Wouldn't it be nice if, now that Bill is going away, Microsoft is starting to take a few steps down the same path?
(Then again, perhaps an "itsatrap" tag is appropriate...)
Re:Never (Score:3, Insightful)
"You ABSOLUTELY CANNOT join this project whatsoever' would be my response."
A response like that doesn't encourage them to release more. That is precisely the overt, childish behavior I was talking about. I understand being skeptical. But when they open code, says "thanks, hopefully we'll see more of that!"
"They really are that scared of breaking backward compatibility ABIs (even though they broke many with Vista)."
2000 broke ABIs. XP broke ABIs. Vista broke ABIs. And Microsoft has said Windows 7 will likely completely break ABIs. Backwards compatibility will no longer be handled the way Vista does (several revisions of the same DLL in memory at once and such).
"Microsoft does not have to change their business model entirely and start making all their software GPL or LGPL."
They likely won't, yet later in your post you basically say them releasing LGPL code doesn't count unless they release a lot of it.
This is a positive step for them. A couple years ago they'd never do something like this. So today, you say they'd never go further, but who knows?
Each day they move a little closer to being an open, decent company. I hope the direction continues.
Re:The Mayans were wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
What you're missing is the culture of control at Microsoft. The attitude of management in the company is that they know what is best for the industry. They were forged in the theories of Vertical Integration and the power of Intellectual Property. The concepts of a long tail, a peer-collaboration approach, or an open relinquishing of control and trust in the market are not things that have ever occurred to anyone at that company.
All the Microsoft employees I know corroborate this attitude. And I know quite a few, since I live in Seattle. (Even if they disagree with the concepts, they agree that it is the dominant modus operandi for management.)
Note that these are attitudes that are very common in companies, especially big ones that dominate their respective industries.
The attitude is, "Whatever you can do, we can do better. Our way."
Re:Is this stage 4? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The Mayans were wrong (Score:2, Insightful)
Mark my words. Duke Nukem Forever will ship within the next calendar year. Prey went from vaporware to shipping. People have recently seen and played Duke Nukem Forever. 3D Realms is actually going to ship it. However, we can always mock the Phantom Console, which will never ship.
Sure, but you're ignoring a key factor in Prey's development that directly led to it being finished... It was developed by someone other than 3D Realms.
Re:Tactics aside... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, sorry, but those are three platitudes that I wasn't really discussing.
To put the issue of Open Source overconfidence in better perspective, though, I'd like to see one legislative change in the United States that is designed to help protect Open Source software. Just one. That would be a measure of our wins or lack thereof.
Bruce
Re:Keep off the cynicism... (Score:2, Insightful)
I know everyone constantly says on slashdot that Microsoft has the same failing business model as the record and movie industry blah blah blah..
If microsoft is consistently wrong.. sign me up.. they just had a record $60B in revenue this year..
So I guess this is Plan B? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The Devil must be pissed off (Score:5, Insightful)
they really aren't in the business of libraries, they're in the business of applications and operating systems.
They're very much in the business of proprietary libraries. That's how they lock companies into the Windows platform. If they switched to glibc and gtk (or qt) it would be almost trivial for application vendors to recompile for any platform those libraries are available.
Bollocks. (Score:5, Insightful)
The British killed millions (just in Kenya 1 million natives died during rebellions prior to independence).
This nonsense about how civilized the British were while oppressing other peoples has got really to stop, it has no base in any credible evidence.
Re:Perhaps they ARE starting to see the light. (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually from my point of view IBM is no longer relevant.
The world's largest vendor of Linux, who has their own proprietary version of Unix yet still sells more Linux than they sell of that, one of the most-contributing Linux-supporting companies, the world's largest computer systems consulting company is irrelevant?
I'm impressed.
Re:Microsoft is not evil (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Keep off the cynicism... (Score:1, Insightful)
Indeed, this doesn't mean anything. Large corporations are as schizofrenic as they come because they are not run by one person but by many. You might find one executive within Microsoft that thinks this was a great move, but you'll also find twenty that doesn't. Next week they'll be back to their old tricks again. It's not until you see moves like this over long periods of time (I'm talking years here for corporations the size of Microsoft) that you can be reasonably sure that cultural changes have taken place within the company. There's still plenty of the proprietary mentality left since the days of McNealy at Sun Microsystems, for example. For whatever reason this just happens to suit someones need at this time and to me it just looks like another one of their cheap PR tricks. I know Microsoft and they haven't changed one bit in the last decade.
Re:The Devil must be pissed off (Score:3, Insightful)
They seem pretty much OK with Mono and the Mono team's Silverlight port.
Honestly.... I don't get why Microsoft get treated like crap the instant that they start doing almost exactly what we wanted them to.
I honestly couldn't give a damn if Windows is F/OSS or not. Being able to see the source with a licensed copy would be nice, but not a terribly huge priority for me.
What is a priority, as a Linux user, is that Linux and Windows play nicely with each other. This means that Microsoft has to commit to keeping their protocols open to the open-source community, while the OSS community needs to make sure that things like the Win32 EXT3 driver are well-supported and kept up to date.
This seems like a good start. Let's not discourage them.
Re:The Devil must be pissed off (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, just using Open Standards would be better. And sometimes there are no Open Standards, and then publishing what they are using without restrictive IPR agreements is all we need them to do. They don't have to spend much money on this. We can make things interoperable without any more help than that.
Rather than an ext3 driver on Windows, any network-attached storage device using an open protocol (like Samba) would be a better solution unless you're dirt-poor. Such devices sell below $250 these days.
Re:The Mayans were wrong (Score:1, Insightful)
"The attitude of management in the company is that they know what is best for the industry. ... Note that these are attitudes that are very common in companies, especially big ones that dominate their respective industries."
Not just companies, also crusaders like RMS, ESR, the FSF, and slashdotters in general. All of these also think they know what's best for the industry.