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Microsoft Open Source

'Inside Microsoft's Open Source Program Office' (venturebeat.com) 47

Posted by EditorDavid from the company-community dept.
On Friday VentureBeat published a new interview with Stormy Peters, the director of Microsoft's eight-person open source programs office: "These are exciting times as more and more organizations are engaging more with open source," Peters said. "It's also just as important to developers to be able to use open source in their work — jobs that involve open source are more likely to retain developers."

However, the growing threat of software supply chain attacks and other security issues, not to mention all the license and compliance complexities, puts considerable pressure on developers and engineers when all they really want to be doing is building products. And that, ultimately, is what the OSPO is all about. "OSPOs help make sure your developers can move quickly," Peters said. "Without an OSPO, teams across Microsoft would probably have to do a lot more manual compliance work, and they would all have to reinvent the wheel when it comes to understanding open source licenses, compliance, best practices, and community — we know they'd do well, but we want to help them do even better and faster by learning from each other and using tools standard across the company."

Open source program offices have evolved greatly through the years, according to Peters, with two specific changes standing out in terms of scope and industry adoption. "OSPOs no longer focus solely on license compliance and intellectual property concerns — we now help with best practices, training, outreach, and more," Peters explained. "And, it's no longer just tech companies that have OSPOs." Indeed, a recent survey from TODO Group, a membership-based organization for collaborating and sharing best practices around open source projects, found that while OSPO adoption is still at its highest in the tech industry, other industries such as education and the public sector are gaining steam... "We want to reduce friction and make it easier for employees to use open source — that includes using and contributing to open source software, as well as launching projects in the community...."

"Our job is to help make it easier for employees to use and contribute to open source," Peters explained. "We work with all the groups to help set policy, empower employees with knowledge and tools, and consult different groups across Microsoft and others in the industry on their open source strategy."
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'Inside Microsoft's Open Source Program Office' More

'Inside Microsoft's Open Source Program Office'

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  • Yeah, sure (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

    So, the salary of literally everyone on this "group" depends on everyone else not understanding open source software licenses, so their real goal is going to be to be making open source appear to be complicated to use as possible.

    And the first lie is that it's not really that complicated to use open source software, not for any company that has used _any_ type of software whatsoever. i.e. the complex

  • Arty pictures of young people in trendy clothes. Continual association between "Microsoft and "Open source" throughout the article. "Doled out" money for github? As if they bought if for some altruistic cause. Who are they trying to fool?

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Because Microsoft has proven that it has moved on from that now. Their open source contributions have been good, they haven't been disruptive or tried to pull a bait-and-switch. They actually listen to the community, e.g. the recent reversal on some .NET features that people objected to being tied to Visual Studio.

        They have earned a second chance.

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Yup. But It will take awhile for me to forget

  • 20 years ago? (Score:3)

    by coofercat ( 719737 ) on Monday October 25, 2021 @08:21AM (#61924249) Homepage Journal

    This while piece smells like it's 20 years old. I mean, sheesh, most shops started dealing with open source, compliance and license issues about that long ago. Microsoft are trying to make it sound like they're doing something new. Maybe this is what "innovation" looks like inside MS these days?

    The thing that this crystalises is that MS is having to allow developers to use open source tools in order to retain them. No longer is is sufficient to develop tools themselves and then have developers use them knowing that's a transferable skill when you want to leave. Instead, the opposite is becoming true - if you know how to use some open source tools, then MS are more likely to hire you than if you don't. As much as it's obvious for just about everyone else, it must be quite a cultural "climb down" for MS, as their iron grip on the industry starts to rust.

    • Mick Jagger made a song about it with Marianne Faithful - "As Tears Go by": "Doing things we used to do, they think are new."

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      This while piece smells like it's 20 years old. I mean, sheesh, most shops started dealing with open source, compliance and license issues about that long ago. Microsoft are trying to make it sound like they're doing something new. Maybe this is what "innovation" looks like inside MS these days?

      The thing that this crystalises is that MS is having to allow developers to use open source tools in order to retain them. No longer is is sufficient to develop tools themselves and then have developers use them know

  • Wrong (Score:1, Funny)

    by dujardin ( 622689 )
    "Office" is not an open source program

  • I don't get it (Score:3)

    by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Monday October 25, 2021 @09:00AM (#61924353) Homepage Journal

    the growing threat of software supply chain attacks and other security issues, not to mention all the license and compliance complexities, puts considerable pressure on developers and engineers when all they really want to be doing is building products. And that, ultimately, is what the OSPO is all about.

    Who the fuck out there is trusting Microsoft to explain FOSS licensing to them after all the time they spent attacking FOSS? That's like trusting the US Government to give you guidance on how to avoid a coup.

    • Yeah and especially after they vaguely put a threat of patent infringement out there (with 0 proof or specifics) and used it to strong arm revenue from people who didnâ(TM)t want any of their crappy products.

    • The last time I heard Microsoft explaining Free software, they were saying it's a cancer.

  • Begin license text. Copyright Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permissio
    • There are many different licenses in a typical FOSS distribution - more than 20.
      • Yes of course. But for the most part they are nowhere near as scary or unclear as a typical Microsoft, Apple or Google EULA
    • The MIT license is in fact the default and preferred open source license at Microsoft. Most GitHub Microsoft org projects are using MIT, some use Apache 2.0 due to earlier license policies. The complications are that MIT is not always compatible with other license agreements, which is what the Open Source Program Office is there to help with. For example, the Visual C++ Standard Library uses Apache 2.0 with an LLVM exception. The DirectX Shader Compiler uses LLVM technology so it has to use an LLVM Releas

  • "We want to reduce friction and make it easier for employees to use open source — that includes using and contributing to open source software, as well as launching projects in the community..."

    That should be considered *extremely* worrying to any open source project Microsoft sets its eyes on. If Microsoft actively involves itself with an open source project, that project should be considered compromised. The only way open source software will be able to survive is by immediately making a Micrsoft fr

    • The only way open source software will be able to survive is by immediately making a Micrsoft free fork of any infected project

      Nah, that's what licenses are for. Notably GPLv3 is fairly resistant to fuckery because it doesn't allow amendment, and requires patent licensing [fsfe.org]. Some other licenses are less resistant to tampering by Microsoft or other malicious actors, though.

    • By your yardstick, Linux and BSD are all compromised by MS, so good luck finding something to run.

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