Firstly I think that it’s the job of people like Sam Ramji and other Open Source focused people in large multinationals to figure out how Open Source can work for them. I don’t think that Microsoft think they can render FLOSS unable to compete, because it isn’t possible and they aren’t that stupid. We certainly spoke to him about the freedoms and philosophy of FLOSS and drove home to point to him and his team that it _isn’t_ just a business model and licensing scheme, and this was hard for them to understand.

We certainly didn’t recast the concept of freedom In fact we challenged their narrow view and had an interesting discussion out of that. I totally agree with you that this is important but people in our community need to stop thinking Microsoft is the enemy as there are many challenges facing us and choosing an easy target doesn’t help us. Ultimately as we explained to the Microsoft people, if they don’t get it, it will be their loss as the market is heading in that direction.

I can understand his position being in between a rock (Microsoft) and a hard place (the community), however I think for him to succeed he and his team really need to keep grounded through keeping in touch with the community.

I hope that you do understand that “for him to succeed” means that Open Source as we think of it must be defeated and abolished. Bill’s money comes from Microsoft, and the Microsoft business model is founded on obtaining and holding a market monopoly position. Bill Hilf’s taskforce operates on the presumption that FLOSS has a soft underbelly somewhere that will give MS an opportunity to subvert and destroy the OSS community. Bill’s mission is to find the weakness and construct the mechanism for expoliting that weakness.

There is an obvious collision happening here — either Microsoft’s business model must change to compete on service in a non-monopoly market (and that means change to something with lower profit leverage, thus taking a massive penalty to the MSFT share price) or Open Source must be rendered unable to compete in Microsoft’s monopoly markets. All the touchy-feely understanding in the world is not going to fix this simple incompatibility — one side or the other is going to have to admit defeat and bend to the other.

Quite frankly, when talking to Microsoft employees, FLOSS advocates should try their hardest to deliver the full force of the philosophy of freedom and community cooperation and if we come across as loony zealots then just let the MS guys spend their brainpower trying to handle the concepts. If you try to recast the concept of freedom into a worldview that has no space for such a concept then the more you think you are achieving, the more you lose.

Tyson, it is certainly incorrect for people to assume that there is no community activities or sharing from anyone in Microsoft. I know some great people who do or have worked for Microsoft and it is certainly unfortunate when people are blinded to that. Congratulations on your great work.

I guess this goes to the heart of something that’s been bothering me. Just because a person might disagree with a company direction or practices doesn’t mean they should write off all the individuals in that company. It is a dangerous and pointless line to cross.

I see you cracked open the grape kool-aid but it doesn’t seem to have had the desired impact.

When you are ready for the podcast, let me know and I’ll set-it up.

It was great to meet you and Jeff, I look forward to seeing you both at OSCON…?

-Michael

I find it strange that you think Microsoft employees would not do volunteer work in 3rd world countries, or have never been in the OSS world.

I am a Microsoft employee and last year I went to Yogyakarta and rendered walls on an earthquake proof house for a few days. The walls were put up by other Microsoft employees, the foundations laid by others and the hole laid by others. Materials, travel and even my time was paid for by MSFT.

The year before that I loaded trucks full of tsunami relief for Aceh victims. The exercise was organized by Microsoft and paid for by Microsoft, and the goods were donated by Microsoft employees. I know that several employees went to Aceh to help directly as well.

There are many other programs around too - for example Microsoft HQ will match charitable contributions dollar for dollar for employees.

Many Microsoft employees were in the OSS world before joining Microsoft (myself included). For an interesting response, perhaps you should ask employees why they joined Microsoft?

> Would billg or steveb ever contribute to wikipedia to donate their personal knowledge to a commons?

Hmmm billg runs the largest charity the world has ever known and donates an enormous amount of his time to it. In fact he’s retiring from Microsoft to run it. He gives away billions of dollars ever year and has completely changed the face of medical research according to my friends in medical research.

Perhaps you can look up the wikipedia entry on billg and the Bill & Melinda gates foundation and discover for yourself.

Sounds like a fun time was had by all with the trading of ideas and definitions across the board.

I realise many here consider Microsoft as the software scurge of the world (bit like those who consider Mecca the same) but we all have something to offer, it just comes in differnent forms and in different ways.

BTW, I agree with Kevin Mark’s implicit suggestion above that contributing to community projects and participating a bit in their socio-economic mechanics would help MS understand a bit better what it is they are dealing with. Even the focus at Open Source Labs appears to be almost exclusively technical - and from a distance in some sense.

I think I’ll go write a longer response to your post at my blog!

Cheers,
Samir