Port 25: The Open Source Community at Microsoft

It's been a while since I made an appearance on Port25. I felt it was important to provide some thoughts to the Port25 community on Sam Ramji's impending departure from Microsoft. After many years helping to carry the open source software banner for the company, Sam is leaving Microsoft at the end of this month. You may have also heard that he ...

I have always been a fan of Tim O’Reilly’s phrase the “architecture of participation” to describe “systems designed for user contribution.” I liked it so much that at last year’s OSCON I made this concept the focal point of a discussion about how Microsoft’s products, programs, and partnerships have evolved over time to further this idea of ...

It’s been a while since I’ve had a chance to blog. It is usually on airplane time that I do any blogging, and since I haven’t flown in a while, I guess that will be my excuse. I’m on my way to Asia, currently over eastern Russian airspace, which means I’m hours from anywhere, so I’ve opened my ‘blog ...

Today, Microsoft took another step in its relationship with the open source software community. We did this by bringing up a new web property that clearly outlines Microsoft’s position on OSS by providing specific information about Microsoft, the OSS community and the interaction between the two. The new site also details information about ...

Things I’ve been collecting, with no rhyme or reason connecting them…I stumbled upon this very interesting project from Microsoft Research India – SMS Toolkit.  This project, and the work being done here with mobile phones and SMS servers as a PC replacement in rural areas is fascinating – here is a deeper look. This ...

We recently announced the addition of IIS7 to the Server Core installation of Windows Server 2008 (formerly known as Longhorn Server).  Server Core is an important evolution of our server product and will include a variety of roles, such as print server, media services, Active Directory, DNS, DHCP, and now IIS7 for Web serving.  All of ...

It’s been an interesting week, with people offering a range of opinions about what they think is happening in Redmond.  Despite a lot of pontification, our strategy regarding intellectual property and open source has not changed – and it is not frivolous litigation or fear. IDG did an article – it’s a far more ...

I have strong opinions.  Those of you who know me personally know that I am not one to "follow the herd" and that I speak up.  However, I need to comment on a recent story where I was quoted. A few folks have emailed or called me about statements I said in the Bangkok Post about the ‘end of Linux’ and ‘there ...

When I started programming, it helped me a lot to think about the OSI model (Open Systems Interconnection Basic Reference Model).  On the right is a simple example of a five layer OSI model.  This type of model can help when coding or administering a system so you can effectively debug at the right ‘layer’.  I’ve ...

I found this through James titled “How well does open source currently meet the needs of shareholders and ceo's?”  It’s interesting to read through both post and comments.  I spend a lot of my day on these types of issues, related to software business models and technology trends, and the main point of Hugh’s ...