Should Microsoft hire an open-source diplomat or a revolutionary?
Microsoft has had some exceptional people driving its open-source strategy over the years.
Now, with Sam Ramji, senior director of platform strategy and Microsoft's point man on open source, officially leaving for a Silicon Valley-based start-up at month's end, Microsoft has the opportunity to select someone who will ramp its open-source engagement to the next level.
Should Microsoft choose a pragmatist or an anarchist?
Sam Ramji
It's a provocative question, but one that becomes easier to answer when you consider the state of open source at Microsoft and how its various open-source leaders have managed it.
Initially, it was Jason Matusow who took the bullets for Microsoft (and protests/pickets) as it cut its teeth on open-source engagement. Later, Bill Hilf took the reins and moved Microsoft's open-source involvement from discursive engagement to practical deployment: the company opened its open-source interoperability lab, and Hilf lobbied to partner with a variety of open-source companies.
Then came Ramji, who brought open-source credibility to his role at Microsoft, having used it extensively at a previous start-up. Ramji helped to kick off CodePlex, Microsoft's open-source code hosting site and has actively educated Microsoft on open source as much as he has worked with the open-source community to understand Microsoft. (Ramji is also becoming interim president of Microsoft's newly created CodePlex Foundation.)
Microsoft, as Hilf explained Thursday in announcing Ramji's departure, is far more advanced in its open-source activities than it once was, which suggests the ideal replacement for Ramji:
The perspectives on OSS at Microsoft have evolved to the point where Microsoft's open source strategy is no longer just locked in a single 'lab' on campus - now OSS is an important part of many product groups and strategies across the company. We have become increasingly clear on where we work with open source - development methodologies, projects, partners, products and communities - and where our products compete with commercial open source companies or platforms. Today, there are engineering and business leaders across the company, myself included, looking at how to drive interoperability for customers and as a lever for new growth.
Open source is, in other words, increasingly part of the standard fabric of Microsoft's technology and business strategy. As such, it doesn't need a missionary so much as a diplomatic, pragmatic messenger to discover areas within the company where open source can take greater root and to engage with the community outside Redmond.
Microsoft doesn't need a talking head, someone to fill panels at every open-source conference and pontificate on the immaculate conception of open-source code. Rather, it needs someone to help motivate Microsoft's rank-and-file to get involved in such events and to intelligently explain Microsoft's diverse and sometimes seemingly contradictory positions on open source--a fact that shouldn't be surprising to anyone who has worked at a big company.
Microsoft doesn't need a Che Gates, someone who believes open source is The One True Way and is afflicted with the unhealthy and unhelpful Microsoft-hating disease. Such a person will never be heard within Redmond and rightly so: the world has already figured out that open source is a powerful means to develop and distribute software, but it's not the cure for global hunger.
Rather, Microsoft needs a thoughtful mediator to deepen its engagement with the wider open-source community while continually reminding its employees to consider open source in product and business decisions.
In short, Microsoft needs someone who can credibly advocate for open source without being consumed by mindless rhetoric. Someone, in other words, very like Matusow, Hilf, and Ramji, but probably with a shorter Microsoft tenure (similar to Ramji). Any ideas? Send them to Hilf.
To end on a personal note...Sam, you have been incredibly generous to me, usually when I least deserved it. You have been patient and forbearing. I think the world of you. Your new start-up is lucky to have you. The only area in which you failed is I can't remember a single Arsenall ticket being sent my way. But we all have failings. :-)
Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.
Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mjasay. 
Try the following Acid3 test, on IE 8 (or earlier) and compare the results to Firefox 3.5, Chrome 2, Safari 4 and/or Opera 10. IE fails miserably, while the other browsers pass with flying colors (see Wikipedia, for a description of Acid3).
http://acid3.acidtests.org/
Now...try viewing the following HTML5 video, with IE 8 (or earlier). You CANNOT!
http://demo.sproutcore.com/video/
Try viewing this same video with Chrome or Safari. You CAN! And, it looks AWESOME!
Microsoft needs to stop making excuses, for their lack of standards conformance, and JOIN the international standards community to promote open web standards.
and html 5 ISNT A STANDARD!!!!! its coming... and the morons that think that implementing a standard before its released is a good thing... are stupid... suddenly you have 2 sets of code to develop and thats dumb.. and the video feature was REMOVED FROM THE WORKING VERSION OF THE STANDARD....
...........you morons make me so damn mad!
We can use HTML5 in "mad making moron" comments or forget HTML5 at all.
And MS do not want HTML5 and they will kill HTML5 as it is now. Remember my word. Standard can not be called standard if big part of users go against it and microsoft with all its IE users go against HTML5 and MS and ...you, if you use IE8, will kill HTML5.
And you ask WHY MS is against HTML5?
Simple because HTML5 promotes open video decoding and not WMV. Agree with HTML5 means killing WMV so WMP for Microsoft. Microsoft is not crazy better they keep web in '99 style forever than proceed with half - suicide (loose all hard make advantage about keeping :WM things is IT media in customers head) in media market.
Morons do not make you mad. Confusion in your head because MS lies makes you mad.
You should at least get your facts straight, before you call someone else a moron.
1. The Acid3 test results, for the most current browsers, are:
Chrome 2.0 - 100/100
Safari 4.0 - 100/100
Opera 10 - 100/100
Firefox 3.5.3 - 93/100
IE 8 - 20/100
That makes THREE browsers that get 100/100! Notice how badly IE fails!
2. From the Acid3 description in Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid3):
"Acid3 is a test page from the Web Standards Project that checks how well a web browser follows certain selected elements from web standards..."
So...if you fail parts of the Acid3 test, you fail to conform to those parts of the standards.
Why do you think Mozilla, Apple, Google & Opera spent so much effort trying to pass Acid3? Because they have nothing else to do?
3. Regarding HTML5
a. Video has certainly NOT been removed from the working version of the standard.
b. Working implementations are VERY important to the standardization process. They help to validate/solidify the specifications.
why dont u go back and revisit your wiki page before stating incorrect facts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid3
With that said, it's pretty clear what sort of person should be hired, isn't it?
--Zack
Phil.
- by mandoescamilla September 11, 2009 1:52 PM PDT
- So many of Microsoft's open source initiatives have been of the "two steps forward, one step back" variety. It's understandable but lamentable.
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
(16 Comments)Honestly, I don't envy anyone that fills this role. They'll need to carefully balance the needs of the corporation with those of the community and I don't think most OSS advocates have that kind of experience or expertise. whurley has done a great job of that at BMC, but I think he's probably a little too revolutionary for a place like Microsoft :)