What is a guy like me doing in a place like this?

re: What is a guy like me doing in a place like this?

rufat — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 18:52:50 GMT

platin

re: What is a guy like me doing in a place like this?

bonnie — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 04:32:26 GMT

hello im new to this,

re: What is a guy like me doing in a place like this?

andy — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 16:13:34 GMT

sssredghj

We're Writing Firefox Plug-ins? Interview with Ian Gilman and Thoughts on 10 Months at Microsoft

Port 25 — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 03:19:52 GMT

Hank Interviews Photosynth Developer Ian Gilman and shares his thoughts after 10 months at Microsoft...

re: What is a guy like me doing in a place like this?

Wesley Parish — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 04:37:38 GMT

"OSS applications" - I take it that includes to the very PC-like and quite unUNIXy KOffice and OpenOffice.org?

Well, FWIW, I have suggested to Matusow that Microsoft should attempt to make Microsoft's Compiled HTML (*.chm) a standard. This would make it more attractive to the KDE and GNOME development to re-implement; and speaking as someone with some experience in training raw beginners, it would make it easier to train people on whatever equipment is at hand.

You know, using *chm as a standard for distributing training materials. It would allow us to develop a standardized curriculum for raw beginners for any office suite, that could be used on any office suite whose maintainers cared to make it so.

What do you think?

re: What is a guy like me doing in a place like this?

liquidat — Thu, 08 Jun 2006 20:17:37 GMT

It is very interesting to see someone like you (=with your background) working at MS, and I appreciate that you are honest and really put the finger on the pressing question: why?
The reason is as surprising as understandable: there are ways to change a system from inside, that's what most people do all the time (personal life, work life, political, etc.) - I wish you good luck, there are areas where MS must improve (mainly interoperability with non-MS products), and there are even areas where most probably must be a change of original motivation (from dominance through monopolism to fighting with good products in a real market). This will take a long time, but I wish you every luck you need :)

About something I would be interested and which is at least touching your area of research:
Your research area will be OSS applications (among other topics). The question whihc raises here quickly is: what is MS going to do?
While Port 25 shows that there is at least a movement inside of MS which maybe really tries to change some of MS' old habits, and while some things which are published by MS are really kind of Open Source friendly, the overall way does not seem to change at the moment. Think here about things like the anti-open-source licence of the MTP references, the anti-3rd-client licence of MSN, the closed enhancements to smb to push competitors out of the market, and so on.

Is the movement around Port 25 just a drop in the ocean which will vanish soon, or is there a real change going on inside of MS? Will MS go on with the attempt to use possibilities to push out competitors through it's monopol, or will we see a more real-market like way with the often cited competition?
Are the closed extensions to smb and the strange IE6-html-extensions something which will not happen in the future again?
Are there forces inside MS which realize that "standards" (which are there to enforce competition and make cooperation possible) are good for MS in a long term?

I could go on with this for lines and lines, but I think you got the idea - you even mentioned several points by yourself :)
It would be nice to read about that - at the moment things like Port 25 looks like an small island in a big ocean, only visible when you talk about specific server to server communication and service tasks, but invisible when you look at MS as a whole.

liquidat