It’s been an interesting nine months on Port 25. For those keeping track, the endeavors of our lab have taken us to Portland, New York, California, Thailand, Boston and more. We’ve had the chance to speak to some leading minds in the free and commercial open source world, including Eric Allman, Andi Gutmans, Tim O’Reilly, Matt Asay, Miguel de Icaza, among others. And there’s more to come. So we thought, at this time of year, it was time for a pause – a moment of examination - to try something different.
So here’s the idea. While we’ve had the fortunate opportunity to talk to many provocative folks across the globe that have been very generous with their time and knowledge, we’ve yet to turn the camera on ourselves and let you ask the questions. So let’s do exactly that. …We’ll take user-submitted questions (unedited), compile them, and then go around the table with the staff of the Open Source Software Lab to get the answers. Don’t hold back, feel free to air grievances (by grievances, I mean tough questions), or challenging technical issues you’re working on. We’ll try our best to address the most challenging, and most common, submissions. And given the often fiery tone on Port 25, there’s only one guiding principle to be smart about: questions of a derogatory, legal or unprofessional tone will likely be ignored.
Otherwise, the ball is in your court to pose whatever Linux, Windows or OSS-related question that’s buzzing in your brain. Use the comments below to post your question (in the interest of total transparency), or if you prefer, you can submit a question via e-mail. We’ll take the top 7-10 questions and get Sam, Kishi, Bryan, Hank and Anandeep all together right after the New Year, and tape a roundtable discussion of the Q&A session. We’ll post the resulting conversation on Port 25, in totality, afterwards. If it’s a productive discussion, we can schedule more – or even think about a live Town Hall chat with more folks from across Microsoft. The tone of the conversation is really up to you.
Looking forward to hearing your questions ~ have a merry Festivus :)
PS. It may help to keep in mind the backgrounds of our lab staff – ie, it’s unlikely we can answer questions related to nuclear physics (that I’m aware of – Sam might have a few tricks up his sleeve).