Frameworks
Hot Topic
Microsoft makes the right call: make each release more compliant than the last and to make standards the default.
In this issue, our
cover
feature
explores the ongoing shift by Microsoft toward a more open, interoperable and standards-savvy approach to development technologies. It's a trend that started with the release of the .NET source code and promotion of XML-based open file formats for Office, and more recently culminated in the Feb. 21 interoperability pledge announcement.
Along the way, Microsoft has helped kick off some of the most heated debates in the always -- hot arena of developer and IT technology adoption. With its interoperability pledge and standards-making push, Microsoft has crossed some long-held ideological lines, and it's creating a lot of tension in the process.
Miguel de Icaza can tell you. The Novell vice president, former Gnu Project founder and lead of both the Mono and Moonlight projects says he has seen an incredibly passionate response to Microsoft's various efforts. De Icaza's association with the Microsoft-Novell pact late last year was an immediate lightning rod.
"When Novell first signed this agreement in November, I went to this conference in Spain and many of my friends and acquaintances wouldn't even look me in the eye," de Icaza recalls. "I think people took this a little more seriously than they should have. People wouldn't even say hello to me at breakfast."
De Icaza has been public about his disagreements with Microsoft in a number of areas, including the impact of tightly held patents on software innovation. During a panel at the MIX08 conference in Las Vegas last month, de Icaza voiced his concerns about the Microsoft-Novell deal, saying that he wished Novell had "stayed with the open source community."
Still, de Icaza feels that Microsoft bears far too much blame and that open source proponents are often every bit as aggressive as the most ambitious Redmondian. Even when the company does things like open its XML file format or enable access to APIs and protocols, it still gets attacked. "It's damned if you do, damned if you don't," de Icaza says.
So what can Microsoft do to defuse the animosity and perhaps spare de Icaza more chilly receptions at breakfast?
"If I were Microsoft, I would probably try to gain the trust of open source developers and work closer with them. I would try to mimic many of the things Google does, like the Summer of Code, which makes many young developers happy.
"I don't know if they're going to be successful at opening up the company more. I really wish they do, because they could get a lot more bang for the buck. They could stop all this anti-Microsoft sentiment very quickly."
Do you agree that perhaps Microsoft is getting a bad rap? What would it take for you to have a more positive view of Redmond's actions in the industry? E-mail me at
mdesmond@1105media.com
.
About the Author
Michael Desmond is editor in chief of Visual Studio Magazine and former editor in chief of Redmond Developer News. He has served
as senior editor of news at PC World and executive editor at Multimedia
World magazine, and has written for dozens of publications and Web sites.
Desmond has also written four computing books, including Microsoft
Office 2003 in 10 Simple Steps or Less.