Microsoft warm to opensource

[miriam_e]

Well, well, well. :)

It seems Microsoft may be seeing the light. They have an opensource project on SourceForge.

It would be good to see them become a good corporate citizen instead of evil... I can hope anyway.

Comments

[damien-wise.livejournal.com]

They dipped their toe in the water be co-operating with the Mono project. I doubt their motives for going along with OSS because I think they'd rather take the positives (making their software more powerful and reliable, squashing bugs faster, good PR, having the work of many great minds for free or very little) without giving much in return (not patenting everything, cutting costs, giving users all the source, being nice people).
No, I'm not saying Bill Gates eats babies -- it's just that I don't trust Microsoft.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Heheheh :D
I don't trust Microsoft either, but I think that once they get the taste of OpenSource there may be no going back. They can't own OpenSource, so they can't taint it -- I think the reverse may well happen and it ends up altering them.

It would be nice not to have to double-think every Microsoft action to understand what deeper agenda it may represent. It becomes tiring. Surely it becomes disillusioning to those who work there too. Most people want to do good and be respected. I doubt MS can keep up the bad work forever -- it just takes too much effort. Eventually I think they have to give in. I think we are seeing the beginning of that.