Linux Solutions

The newly appointed head of Microsoft’s global Linux and open source team, Sam Ramji hopes the company will have a clear and comprehensible open source strategy by 2015.

He wants people to clearly understand what projects the company is contributing to, and what code Microsoft plans on making available on a routine basis.

“We don’t have hard rules… right now, it’s still careful judgment case by case.

“It’ll be understood, woven in to the fabric and in product-development cycles, so it’s well understood: ‘Here is the parts of our product that will be open source.”

To the outside observer, it would appear Microsoft is operating in its support of open source on a case-by-case basis. For example: in March it sponsored the Open Source Business Conference, but not EclipseCon.

Microsoft has moments of “openness” at times. Take the six hundred thousand pages of documentation for its implementation of Extensible Application Markup Language that were released this spring under its Open Specification Promise. The company also released 30,000 pages on its Windows APIs and protocols.

With the company publishing these massive technical documents, developers believe it could be a royalty and rights landmine. They are concerned that individuals might be forced in to paying Microsoft for inadvertently using techniques that are already ‘owned’ by Microsoft.

For Microsoft to release its infrastructure-level-code – tools, APIs, Protocols - free to read is a big step, but they are unlikely to open up Windows and Office for all to see.

Ramji claimed there is little value in opening Windows or Office. ISVs and systems integrators “rely” on a consistent platform and openness leads to forking.

It’s a strategy of practical engagement with open source that’s at least moved on from the early days, with Microsoft’s “Get the facts” campaign. Designed to convince IT buyers to pick Windows over Linux and open source products. However, it failed to take into account what those building the applications were really doing with their code.

2015 is seven years away and why Ramji picked this date is not clear. The challenge for Microsoft - thanks to its size, product diversity and an unpredictable management stance on open source - is to use the next seven years to not just pull level with IBM, Oracle et al by 2015 in its corporate policy, but to actually overtake them.