Open Source Guy Takes the Hardest Job At Microsoft 325
jbrodkin writes "Gianugo Rabellino, founder of the Italian Linux Society and a key member of the Apache Software Foundation, traded his Linux and Mac PCs in for a Windows 7 laptop and took on a newly created job at Microsoft designed to encourage collaboration between Redmond and open source communities. 'Developers nowadays are mostly to be found in the open source world,' the new Microsoft executive says. 'We need to go where they are.' With Rabellino's help, Microsoft is expanding its successful partnership with PHP developers , but Steve Ballmer and crew are a long way from completely erasing their poor reputation in Linux and open source circles."
So, (Score:4, Insightful)
what about asp, asp.net,
and really, what 'partnership' anyway ?
Assimilation (Score:2, Insightful)
.
Does anyone really think Microsoft wants to partner with the Open Source people?
Microsoft is out to destroy the Open Source community. Why else would Microsoft prohibit Open Source apps from the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace [theinquirer.net]?
Big Society (Score:4, Insightful)
Steve Ballmer is the same type of creep as George W. Bush or David Cameron. Instead of Open Source think Compassionate Conservatism or Big Society. It's all the same thing and just a way to market useful idiots as being in the club and get them to work for free. If it doesn't make them and their pals a profit (or reduce a loss) they'll hang you out to dry the second the going gets difficult.
How about instead of selling out to these toffs people learn management, marketing, and finance themselves so they can provide a better alternative? Microsoft, the Republicans, and the Tories will never change. They just want to be top dog and don't care how they do it. Anyone who things they have changed is wasting their time. It's the 1930's all over again.
Re:As always... (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't know whether it's a trap, but what has the Open Source community to gain from working with Microsoft?
examples (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, I don't know this guy personally, so it's not an attack on him, but MS has hired various "open source" people in the past, and what do we get?
MS pays Nokia to drop KDE and MeeGo. MS pays Novell to develop a C# and .Net stuff (which prevents the antitrust commission calling them a monopoly), and when Novell goes bust, MS buys their patents.
I don't see any indication that this hire is any good news for us.
When someone removes a turd from a punchbowl (Score:5, Insightful)
No one wants to take a drink from it, no matter how thoroughly they claim to have cleaned it.
Re:Alternative title: flunky sells out (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not the hardest job in MS. It's a PR stunt. Just being hired is already a win for MS.
The hardest job at MS would be their security experts. Imagine trying to do a job and having every last move you make either neutered or cancelled entirely by Marketing.
MS has a small army of highly skilled people. They could definitely produce higher quality software. I believe they could make malware a rarity if they really wanted to do it. But what's their incentive when you can make billions without going to all the trouble?
The only reason MS is being so nice lately is they're more irrelevant than ever. Microsoft can handle being loved and they can handle being hated. What they don't want to face is being ignored. They're hardly obscure yet but they are long-term strategic thinkers so they realize that things are moving in that direction, in baby steps at the moment. The real interesting stuff is coming from Google and Apple while Microsoft is stagnating. Windows 7 is nice but it's not the giant improvement that XP was over Win98. Even the XBox360 is showing its age.
When things were going so well for MS and the industry was very interested in what they were doing, we got to see how much of a dick they can be. If they start innovating again you can expect their attitude about Open Source to go back to the "Halloween documents" days. I hope Mr. Rabellino understands one thing very well: if you get in bed with Microsoft, you're going to get fucked.
You know, even if Microsoft really has turned over a new leaf and really has a sincere desire to honestly work with Open Source, even if this really isn't a trap of the "embrace and extend" sort ... their past behavior makes them unworthy of our cooperation. They have about ten years of complete asshattery to undo and all of the people who perpetrated that are still running the company, particularly Ballmer. Maybe this is like politics where people have horribly short memories.
Re:As always... (Score:5, Insightful)
Actions speak loudest.
There are lot of people working in the open source software industry who have no problems with working with Microsoft. We've just been burned a few times and aren't interested in wasting time with people who talk the talk but won't walk the walk... In other words, get back to me when they're actually doing something other than barring copyleft from WP7 marketplace or claiming that linux kernel violates hundreds of patents without prodiving any verifiable facts.
So, to get back to your comment: what exactly has MS done that we should be interested of and how should we "move on" with regards to that? I've heard they're actually useful (or at least not harmful) in the PHP circles -- good for the PHP folks. That doesn't mean I'm going to trust or rely on Microsoft in my projects (mostly on the mobile client side), not without considerable show of commitment from them.
Re:As always... (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh bullcrap. They create a position like this every year or two, then we get this little "Ask the Quisling some Questions!!!" to which said quisling will answer that Microsoft has changed, that Microsoft wants to co-operate with the FOSS community, blah blah blah and then suddenly in the midst of all this goodwill Ballmer announces that Linux or OpenOffice or whatever violates ten bazillion of Microsoft's patents.
Fuck this guy.
Re:Assimilation (Score:4, Insightful)
Destroying the open source community and wanting to hire them because "that's where the developers are" are hardly contradictory. They gotta eat somehow...
If that's where the developers are it's partly because Microsoft's business practices and general stagnation drove them there.
Re:As always... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, because corrupting the ISO process [theregister.co.uk] was soooo 1990's... no wait!
Re:As always... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Alternative title: flunky sells out (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's the claim: http://www.ipodobserver.com/ipo/article/Microsoft_Confirms_it_Originated_iPod_Box_Parody_Video/ [ipodobserver.com]
Microsoft spokesman Tom Pilla on Tuesday confirmed with iPod Observer that his company initiated the creation of the iPod packaging parody video that was first reported last month. "It was an internal-only video clip commissioned by our packaging [team] to humorously highlight the challenges we have faced RE: packaging and to educate marketers here about the pitfalls of packaging/branding," he said via e-mail.
He's there for PHP (Score:5, Insightful)
According to TFA, 'Rabellino's main focus right now "is to enable PHP to shine on our platforms."'
So, he's there to get people to migrate from LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySql, PHP) systems to WIMP (Windows, IIS, MS-SQL, PHP) systems.
precisely. (Score:4, Insightful)
no php developer will ditch lamp and start working on 'wimp'. this at most can cause an infiltration of php developers into windows/iis scene, and cause microsoft to lose on that front too. because due to the synergy in lamp, and the immense software scene of php apps on lamp, php devs will gravitate towards lamp and they will take ex-microsoft clients with them too - 'this requires this, that and that paid infrastructure in ms, but, see, its free on lamp' -> whoops - another client moved to lamp. because, its free into the future - even if you expand, expand expand, cluster, cluster and set up farms.
their effort is pretty much pointless.
please dont talk bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft is evil, blah blah blah, but if people really want open source alternatives to make any progress with regular people, they need to gain mindshare.
open source alternatives dont need to make progress with regular people in web development scene - that scene is already OWNED by open source. the amount and variety of apps on lamp stack (linux apache mysql php - insert postgres sometimes), and their usage is so huge and so varied. this is what causing microsoft to try to bring all those small and medium businesses (and recently big ones) that got out of their hands in regard to web presence, back to microsoft platforms.
the summary is - all this is pointless. there is no reason for anyone, developers and clients alike, to move to microsoft's platforms. everything is free on lamp stack. even if you go VERY big, and start to cluster servers and then have to employ server farms. all you need to pay for is development of your app. no licenses, no other shit. and, development is quite cheap, because the php dev scene is big.
there is nothing microsoft can offer to open source community in this field.
Re:We will when MS does. (Score:4, Insightful)
Just bear in mind, they have patents (rightly or wrongly) and *could* use them against Linux - but so far have not done so.
I don't really see how they can use patents against "Linux" -- you can't sue "Linux" as an organization. In theory they could sue IBM or Google or someone like that, but those companies have their own patent arsenals. Conversely, they could sue one of these little guys who has no patents, but the little guys also have no money. So Microsoft might get an injunction, but then they've tipped their hand and three days later there is a version that works around whatever patent the old version was allegedly infringing.
And on top of that, any real aggression against Linux would be bad PR for the open source developers they're allegedly trying to woo here, plus any potential antitrust problems for going after a competitor to their monopoly, plus the risk of IBM or someone retaliating, or the EFF or someone else starting a project to invalidate whatever patents they're using to rattle sabers.
It's a lot safer for them to just spread FUD and not actually litigate anything. Although it makes you question their stance in favor of software patents -- one wonders whether a bunch of patent lawyers who don't want to be out of a job aren't lobbying the lobbyists.