Microsoft and Open Source, not versus?
Microsoft Revising 'us vs. Them' Attitude Toward Open Source (PC World) by PC World: Yahoo! Tech
This is the most surprising thing I've heard out of Microsoft in a long time.
When I heard they were including an RSS feeder in IE7 and they asked Firefox how they did it because they wanted to MATCH behavior, I was shocked. They apparently did that because they did NOT want to play the "well, it works in IE" game anymore. Other things about IE7, including the enhanced standards support, and especially IE8, which will BREAK certain IE specific code because it either relied on bugs or incorrect standards implementation, are starting to make me think that Microsoft is becoming far more amenable to the idea of fairly competing with rivals.
But this nearly blows everything out of the water! If they fully embrace this point of view, they may release many of their patents and make more of their systems interoperable in open source. Can we say IE for Linux? I don't think that's too far a bad thing.
Of course, they will always tout their software. As well they should. They're putting a lot of time, effort, and resources into developing these products. But now, with the inspiration of open source, it seems that they might actually be trying to develop something that actually helps people rather than selling crap because there was no other choice in the world.
Microsoft is evolving. And it will succeed in its new form.
This is the most surprising thing I've heard out of Microsoft in a long time.
When I heard they were including an RSS feeder in IE7 and they asked Firefox how they did it because they wanted to MATCH behavior, I was shocked. They apparently did that because they did NOT want to play the "well, it works in IE" game anymore. Other things about IE7, including the enhanced standards support, and especially IE8, which will BREAK certain IE specific code because it either relied on bugs or incorrect standards implementation, are starting to make me think that Microsoft is becoming far more amenable to the idea of fairly competing with rivals.
But this nearly blows everything out of the water! If they fully embrace this point of view, they may release many of their patents and make more of their systems interoperable in open source. Can we say IE for Linux? I don't think that's too far a bad thing.
Of course, they will always tout their software. As well they should. They're putting a lot of time, effort, and resources into developing these products. But now, with the inspiration of open source, it seems that they might actually be trying to develop something that actually helps people rather than selling crap because there was no other choice in the world.
Microsoft is evolving. And it will succeed in its new form.
posted by omahaprogrammer at
6:40 PM
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