Open source Microsoft: Do we need it ?
24 Jun 2004Microsoft has commented on themselves being open to taking a greater role in the open source community. Perhaps this is a case of, if you can’t beat them,
join them. At best, a ploy to get developers on a completely different platform using, maintaining and contributing to their software.
What I see as benefiting developers most is not the release of any specific application (…Office excluded), but instead additional information about spec
ific file formats, API’s and other data exchange mechansisms.
I’m not overly enticed by seeing a company open source software for which their are already alternatives in the community. It would be interesting to see
what kind of developer support there is in the community for these releases. Is a company like Microsoft prepared to continue providing resources for main
tainance and support or has the software effectively become abandonware and _donated_ to the community with the hope of having its shelflife extended. Is
Microsoft just looking for extra developers to help with their development efforts ?
I applaud the company’s efforts to try and get a foot in the open door, but it would be even nicer if they donated something releavnt in sourcecode
or detailed specifications that would help improve interoperability between the different systems.
At the very least Microsoft has lendedsome credibility to the open source movement, whether it was needed or not. They definately have a solid grasp on ho
w to build developer communities (as a Java developer, I’m sometimes envious of what they’ve got for the .NET community. [Scoble’s][2] a great read).
Cheers.
[2]: http://radio.weblogs.com
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