Port 25 - Communications from the open source community at Microsoft
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Joining Microsoft's Open Source Effort by Mark Stone on March 12, 2009 09:15AM

"Open source at Microsoft." My friends still find that phrase surprising. Yet for those of us who have worked so long on open source, if we really believe the principles we have espoused, shouldn't this be the expected outcome?

In 1994 I did my first Linux install. It was an early version of Slackware, running the 1.0.8 kernel. The term "open source" was still several years in the future. While I never really accepted the basic premises behind the ideology of the Free Software movement, the methodology we later called "open source" seemed obvious and sensible. Share knowledge, collaborate with others, expect and encourage others to evolve your ideas and share their innovations. In other domains, we call this the Scientific Method. Without the ability to openly share ideas, the process of scientific discovery would come to a grinding halt, and we'd be stuck in something like the medieval era of alchemy.

So I am pleased, but not surprised, at the progress open source has made in the last 15 years. And I'm happy to have had a front row view to a lot of it. That journey has taken me through O'Reilly, as the executive editor for their open source group, to Editor-in-Chief of the brief-lived Journal of Linux Technology, to a long stint at VA Linux Systems (now SourceForge) initially leading the web arm of their open source evangelism efforts and later running their developer relations program. Along the way I worked with Chris DiBona and others to get a couple of important books out on open source (Open Sources, and Open Sources 2.0).

SourceForge's developer relations program introduced me to a lot of technology companies eager to reach out to SourceForge's community of open source developers. About six years ago one of the companies we worked with was Microsoft. I worked with Stephen Walli (then at Microsoft) and others to help get Microsoft's first open source projects up on SourceForge. At the time this was a big deal. Few at Microsoft had much familiarity with open source licensing, and there was unease about opening up intellectual property in this way. And Micrsosoft had no experience with the long term benefits of "paying it forward" with this kind of investment in the open source community.

Today is a different story. Microsoft has its own open source project hosting site, Codeplex. Codeplex is growing steadily, and hosts about as many projects today as SourceForge did in 2002. Microsoft has OSI approved licenses that are used by many projects. And Microsoft has an entire group under Sam Ramji that works, among other things, to improve open source offerings on top of Windows.

Some view this turn of events at Microsoft with suspicion and hostility. I do not. Indeed, it would be hypocritical for any true open source believer to view Microsoft that way. If we genuinely believe that the collaborative practices inherent in open source are an important part of software development methodology, then we have to believe that (a) the world's largest creator of commercial software would benefit from contributing to open source, and (b) the world's largest creator of commercial software would be smart enough to recognize those benefits. So it should seem natural, not surprising, that Microsoft's evolution has turned in this direction.

Six months ago I was curious -- fascinated even -- watching Microsoft's recent open source efforts from the outside. For the last six months I've had the privilege of working first-hand with Sam's team, and getting an inside view of what open source is like at Microsoft. I've also had the distinct privilege of getting to know some of the developers and projects on Codeplex. Mine has been an unusual journey from SourceForge to Codeplex, but one I'm happy to have made. And I look forward to sharing some of my experiences with these open source projects here on Port25.

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  1. communist said:

    "Share knowledge, collaborate with others, expect and encourage others to evolve your ideas and share their innovations."

    Oh TomTom would have no problems with you sharing your precious 'innovations'.

    "Microsoft has an entire group under Sam Ramji that works, among other things, to improve open source offerings on top of Windows."

    Yeah as if that was ever the problem - the problem has been interoperating with Microsofts stuff.

    Anyway posts like this crack me up - port25 at its best. Blog how great you are to the open source community and its them not playing nice... YES we should just throw all our previous (AND current EEE/ ISO corruption / TomTom case?) experiences out of the window and treat Microsoft much better.

    Go port25!

    PS: All that comment blocking / delaying just so that it doesn't show up in a timely fashion is sooo lame - or are you inable to properly set up something so simple like this.

    posted at 02:55PM 03/13/2009
  2. fluke said:

    The idea that Microsoft advertising itself as being a so-called friend to Open Source is really not a surprise.  Neither is the fact that it seems to be more about marketing spin than delivering on any real promise.

    Chris DiBona predicted that Microsoft would use it's standing with the OSI to confuse the issue as to what open source really is.  It would be nice if that view was just that of suspicion and hostility.  But Microsoft has done a great deal to back DiBona's stance rather than follow the words of Bill Hilf or Sam Ramji.

    Bill Hilf had indicated that a distinction would be made between open source and shared source.  He also indicated that microsoft.com/opensource would be dedicated to what Microsoft was doing for open source.  Today, the microsoft.com/opensource website has a link to the Shared Source Initiative.  Rather than showing dedication to open source, as such Microsoft has used the site to gray the lines.

    Sam Ramji stated it to be the policy of Microsoft to use the term open source to mean licenses that are approved by the OSI.  Codeplex, which Microsoft continues to self-proclaim as a “open source project hosting site” is home to such projects as Microsoft Singularity RDK.  Not only is the project's license not approved by the OSI but also reject key requirements under the Open Source Definition.  As such, when Peter Galli announces additional Microsoft projects on Codeplex, he ends up also needing to specify if OSI approved licenses was used.  If the Sam Ramji policy was followed then an OSI approved licensed should already been implied for all Codeplex projects.

    I was let down to find out that a food product I liked only advertised itself as having no salt.  In reality, it still had salt in it but less than it had in previous years.  Port 25 and Codeplex is a similar let down.  In reality, Codeplex has more OSI approved licensed projects than previous years, but when advertised as the “open source project hosting site” it seems implied that it is 100% OSI approved licensed projects.  When Sam Ramji said back in June 2008 “Our policy regarding use of the term Open Source is clear: Open Source refers to projects using OSI-approved licenses,” I like to think he really meant it.  But even today, Microsoft seems to throw the term open source loosely.

    You point out that “few at Microsoft had much familiarity with open source licensing.”  It seems like that statement could still apply today.  Very few at Microsoft seem to be able to explain why Singularity RDK does not qualify as open source.  Instead, the way Microsoft uses the term “open source” seems to indicate it is the same as simply “source available.”  The alternative to the theory that Microsoft continues to be lack familiarity with true open source licensing is that  has choose to purposely periodically ignore the open source definition.  Either way, the bottom line is that Microsoft seems to be falling behind in making a positive distinction in a sea of companies that are now claiming to be open source friendly.  Instead, Codeplex is another johnny come lately from yet another company that claims to “get it” when it comes to open source but in reality still doesn't.

    posted at 03:36AM 03/27/2009
  3. Dypops said:

    excellent site this port25.technet.com great to see you have what I am actually looking for here and this this post is exactly what I am interested in. I shall be pleased to become a regular visitor :)

    posted at 07:46AM 04/16/2009

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