Microsoft's openness pledge: What's the reality?

I've taken some flak from the anti-Microsoft crowd for my positive report on Microsoft's openness pledge. I stand by my position but think it's also worth taking a deep breath (all of an hour later :-) and recognizing Microsoft's position for what it is.

This is not manna from heaven. It's surely self-interested on Microsoft's part, as Mary Jo of ZDNet suggests (OOXML vote coming up next week, anyone?). This might be a little too cynical, however, as this has been in the works for months.

So let's give the company a little credit. It's a great step in the right direction, but it's not manna. Here's why:

• Open APIs and open protocols, but you still have to pay to use Microsoft's IP. So you can look but not use without a fee. The ultimate openness pledge would have included both access and use for free, but it's not going to happen anytime soon.


• Even so, it's important to recognize how much content Microsoft is opening up. I've talked with Microsoft before about the API and protocol access it's opening up, and it started at $10,000 and up. The fact that it is opening up access is a significant move for Microsoft and should not be deprecated lightly.


• Microsoft is (re)committing not to sue (noncommercial) open-source developers, and (re)committing to let commercial open-source developers pay to use its IP. No change here. The first commitment is mostly a way to ensure Microsoft gets paid by downstream commercializers of open source, so you can think of it as a channel sales program. :-) Microsoft would have done better to provide a more far-reaching program as IBM has (PDF), but Ballmer still has too much of a fetish for IP. Give him time.


• Microsoft is allowing third-party developers to integrate their file formats into the next version of Office. Basically, this is a way to stave off use of OpenOffice by enabling developers to plug OpenOffice formats into Microsoft Office. It's a way to pull in value to Office, not give away value.

And so on. There's a little (or a lot of) self-interest in each of these endeavors, as there should be. Microsoft is not the Red Cross. It's a corporation.

For me, however, as a competitor to Microsoft, I think this greater transparency is a step in the right direction. Will it go anywhere? That's for Microsoft, prodded by you and I, to decide. So let's keep prodding.

[seo2seo]

"So let's give the company a little credit: it's a great step in the right direction."

No, let's not. Because it isn't. It's a PROMISE of a great step. no more than that. Let's control our child-like enthusiasm for the Road-To-Damascus repentance (again!!), and wait until they actually deliver.

Once they actually DO SOMETHING, I'll be happy to chip in to a bottle of bubbly.

That's WHEN they deliver. Or maybe IF they deliver?

[Pete Bardo]

They have to start somewhere. Every journey begins with a single step, just as every innovation begins with a thought. At least they're thinking about it.

Well, it is Microsoft. Maybe they only want us to think they're thinking about it.

In any case, I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for this to happen either.

[jeromatron]

I still don't see this as worth the *significant* announcement press and attendance by those executives beyond just a show. They reiterated a lot of what they were already doing trying to put some "we're really trying" polish on it. What they were already doing is doing patent agreements with commercial entities. This still doesn't address the nebulous patent assertions at all and continues the FUD with regard to open-source. Maybe they're not trying to; maybe it's just meant to swing the OOXML vote, which seems likely given the timing and show.

Again, I ask you to show me one single case where MSFT made friendly-like with a competitor and that competitor actually had anything beneficial from it 5 years later?

MSFT has made grand promises like this countless times. See the analysis by ECIS at http://ecis.eu/documents/210208ECISStatement.pdf - Thomas Vinje has a really great analysis of this latest hot air spewing from Redmond.

Also, does anyone else not think that this is just a way to get more MSFT IP-encumbered technologies into F/OSS software? With the intent of incresing MSFT's ability to sue their biggest F/OSS competitors down the road? I mean, seriously, MSFT says "you can use this info if you're a non-paid F/OSS developer." So some well intentioned hobbyist uses the MSFT info to write some little app which makes it into a commercial distro and BAM, MSFT is darkening the skies with lawyers.

Many folks assume bad intent in the case of MSFT. The thing is, folks don't form that kind of opinion unless there is a demonstrable history of bad acts. In MSFT's case, that's pretty much all they've done as regards to F/OSS and Linux in particular.

Openness. Yeah, sure. That's just MSFT's way of doing "embrace, extend... and extinguish."

[Matt Asay]

Look, let's be clear. Much of this stems from Microsoft's desire to appease the European Commission. It's also a preemptive strike against US antitrust concerns that will likely arise around the Yahoo! deal.

But I don't care why Microsoft is doing it. And I don't even care that Microsoft was very quick on the call to reassert its patent claims against Linux (in response to a statement by Chris DiBona). I care about the signal of intent. I care about the direction. I care because it will be that much harder to step back from this ledge now that Microsoft has stepped onto it.

We should be supportive of the intent and demanding that Microsoft live up to its commitments. That's what I get from this.

[seo2seo]

"We should be supportive of the intent and demanding that Microsoft live up to its commitments. That's what I get from this. "

Matt, you are still not getting it. M$ have stated this 'intent' so often, that it is not for us to believe it and make them live up to anything - it's for THEM to prove it's not just more B$.

It's not our place to be trying the make them do anything at all - that's all up to them. All we can do is judge them on the results.

And so far, there aren't any.