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"Microsoft Open Technologies" MS Subsidiary Closes

posted by CoolHand on Tuesday April 21 2015, @05:12PM   Printer-friendly
from the dr-jekyll-or-mr-hyde dept.

kaszz, "gewg_", and sigma all wrote in on this:

Under Steve Ballmer's reign, Microsoft Open Technologies was founded as a subsidiary of Microsoft. It is now being shut down and folded into Microsoft under Satya Nadella. The subsidiary, staffed with an interoperability strategy team tasked with extending Redmond's open source initiatives, will be embraced back into into the mainstream of the company.

MS Open Tech's president Jean Paoli said "It's now time for MS Open Tech to rejoin Microsoft Corp., and help the company take its next steps in deepening its engagement with open source and open standards." Some claim that a separate subsidiary is no longer needed. Microsoft could easily be the world's biggest vendor of open source software, which is probably one reason some people don't like the term...

Paoli goes on to say:

Team members will play a broader role in the open advocacy mission with teams across the company," he said. "The Programs Office will scale the learnings and practices in working with open source and open standards that have been developed in MS Open Tech across the whole company. Additionally, the Microsoft Open Technology Programs Office will provide tools and services to help Microsoft teams and engineers engage directly with open source communities, create successful Microsoft open source projects, and streamline the process of accepting community contributions into Microsoft open source projects."

Roy Schestowitz at TechRights has a different view of MSFT's recent actions:

"Not much as changed except pretense (face change).

Microsoft dumps its proxy (misleadingly named 'Open Tech') and other attacks on Free software persist from the inside, often through so-called 'experts' whose agenda is to sell proprietary software

Microsoft's long-term assault on GNU/Linux is in some ways worse than ever before. Changing Ballmer's face with another is about as effective as swapping Bush for Obama. Things are only getting worse, even if it's branded differently. The attacks on users' rights (DRM, blobs, spying) have exacerbated. It's just not as visible as before (like the infamous "Get the Facts" marketing campaign), it's more subtle or altogether covert.

There are concrete sign of Microsoft's strategy to destroy FOSS from the inside (entryism) not quite succeeding, which leads to a Plan B, like infecting Android with proprietary spyware, controlling GNU/Linux through Azure, etc.

"For Microsoft, "Open Tech" shutting down is somewhat symbolic, even poetic.""So," some people ask, "what's new at the 'new' Microsoft?"

There's nothing new except worsening levels of aggression.

So how should this new move be viewed?

Is Microsoft bringing the subsidiary in-house to more fully integrate open source in view of a challenging market landscape, or are they surreptitiously trying to take down the open source world from within, using their old tactics?

 
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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by jimshatt on Tuesday April 21 2015, @06:43PM

    by jimshatt (978) on Tuesday April 21 2015, @06:43PM (#173622) Journal
    Also, note that a lot of projects are, in fact, licensed with a Free Software license such as MIT or Apache.
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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by marcello_dl on Tuesday April 21 2015, @07:06PM

    by marcello_dl (2685) on Tuesday April 21 2015, @07:06PM (#173631)

    So, you'd rather build your house on the sand, and the proprietary stack came, and the patents came, and the "keep up with whatever we do" android-like trap came, and the house collapsed. Better to build on the rock (GPL v3).

    • (Score: 1) by beernutz on Tuesday April 21 2015, @09:27PM

      by beernutz (4365) on Tuesday April 21 2015, @09:27PM (#173678)

      They use Apache and BSD licenses for most of their releases. I think those are pretty good too.

    • (Score: 2, Informative) by m2o2r2g2 on Wednesday April 22 2015, @03:06AM

      by m2o2r2g2 (3673) on Wednesday April 22 2015, @03:06AM (#173798)

      If they open source it, (which they are only now starting to actually do properly) I am happy to build on their "sand".

      Just like any other open source project, if a large corporation takes it in a direction you don't like, (eg Canonical), then you can fork it and go your own way.

      Your sand is secure. Stop scaremongering.

  • (Score: 2) by turgid on Tuesday April 21 2015, @08:02PM

    by turgid (4318) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday April 21 2015, @08:02PM (#173646) Journal

    You misuse the term Free Software. You meant to say, "Open Source,"