Microsoft opens door to open-source software community

[rpm]

Microsoft opens door to open-source software community

 

[The_Unbeliever]

Hmmm I wonder if this means that Microsoft is tacitly acknowledging that Linux & Mac OSX etc are eating away at its market dominance, or maybe one should quarantine Microsoft and it's allegedly new open face like one does with a suspected Trojan Horse...

I still think it's a trojan horsie...

I won' tbe surprised if they clamp close on their now-open API's and start demanding royalties from world+dog after a few months (or a year or so)....

 

[Turtle]

My understanding is they're forced to do this by EU law, are actually being dragged kicking and screaming to publish some API etc. documentation, but are at least trying to get some positive PR out of it by pretending they're trying to make their products more open. The only "open" is open source, MS is trying to subvert and dilute the term and create market confusion about 'openness' --- this does NOT mean they are open sourcing anything, what MS refers to as "open" is merely publishing a little bit of proprietary API documentation.

 

[Skeptik]

People will be able to freely customize programs to work with Microsoft software, but if they sell applications for others to use, Microsoft will extract fees, according to Ballmer.

"In some sense we are opening up, and yet we retain valuable intellectual property rights," Ballmer said. "The clear message is that patents will be readily available for the right fee."

They left the vital info for last.

What MS is really trying to do is get people to use their code and then forever after charge them royalties.

Didn't MS recently fail in their attempts to make their own Document format a 'standard'?

IMHO their motives are usually suspect.