Rich irony of Kevin Johnson's departure from Microsoft

Kevin Johnson, who has headed Microsoft's Windows empire, is leaving Redmond to take the helm of Juniper Networks, a leading network infrastructure vendor.

Johnson, the man who for years fought against open source, and particularly Linux. The man who talked about Linux forking back in 2005 and then who, as head of Microsoft's Windows unit, must have been involved in trying to foster that fork with Microsoft's patent deal with Novell. The same Johnson who, as head of the Windows business, had to have been involved in Microsoft's patent campaign against Linux.

Johnson, the man who now heads up a company deeply indebted to and entrenched with the open-source FreeBSD operating system at the heart of its Junos operating system, as well as Linux.

Yesterday: Open source, Johnson's enemy. Today: Open source, Johnson's friend. Oh, how sweet the irony!

From its Intrusion Detection Platform to the FreeBSD-based Junos, Juniper is in deep with open source. In Junos it has chosen an "open, but not open source" model that may play well to Johnson's Microsoft sensibilities.

Regardless of the model, it is delightful to see Johnson now dependent on the same "patent-infringing" open-source operating systems that he once fought. Who knows? Maybe Steve Ballmer will sue him?

[Sumatra-Bosch]

Kevin Johnson, like every thinking person in IT, has come to realize what a monstrous horror MSFT is.

[MadLyb]

Wow, elitist much?

Open Source is just another competitor, an interesting one, but just another competitor none the less.

Every person who moves from one company to another deals with this change in 'allegiance', whether it is the company's products or their realtionship to the former employer. It comes with the territory.

Interesting sidenote, wandered over to Juniper's site and checked out the area on JunOS where they say very little about the heritage of the OS. In fact, the primary hits from a search for "Open Source" and 'JunOS' was the GNU portion of the licensing.

Guess they don't care about it as much as you do.

[electronista]

There's a definite irony, but I suspect Johnson is like most businessmen: he'll defend the policies of whatever company gives him the nicest salary. We should just be thankful he's on a side that encourages openness.

At least, as long as he's not some Trojan horse there to force Juniper into a licensing agreement with Microsoft.

[The_Decider]

Juniper is in a totally different area than MS. Unless MS is going to try and get into the network hardware business.

[Buckyballs]

If you can't beat'em, join'em, that's what I always say...

[bicparker]

I think it would be difficult to move anywhere outside of Microsoft and not have open source as part of your world.

[Kwasiowusu]

As has been pointed out by previous posters, everyone that leaves one company, and goes to work for another company in a similar business, fights for the interestrs of his new company. After all, they pay his salary. Nothing new there. As for Linux, Microsoft is totally smoking Linux on the world's desktops, and is even beating Linux in servers as well. Plus Juniper is not even an operating system company. They make routers. Juniper doesn't even compete with Microsoft. You are stretching a bit here. And it's not working. Nice try.

[The_Decider]

Beating Linux in servers? What are you smoking? The only category Windows beats Linux on the server front is exploits.

Too bad Linux is more efficient, stable, secure, and easier to use than Windows.

It is a shame that Linux market share on the desktop(which is larger than published numbers show, most Linux boxes are boxes from places like Dell and HP and are counted as Windows boxes even though only Linux is on them).

Technical superiority is where Linux beats the snot out of Windows. MS is a marketing company, not a technology company.

[The_Decider]

Juniper does have an OS.

I wouldn't suspect that you know it since you truly don't understand what an OS is.

[Noah Clements]

It just shows how silly the cheerleading is. Open source vs. proprietary is just one group of companies competing with another group of companies with another business model. Why in the world should other people get worked up about that (unless it is your company competing in this space - as it is in your case). Some companies in the open source world have a better product than the proprietary competitor does (includes issues of customer service and customization), and vice versa.

What exactly makes IBM (for example) any more or less moral than Microsoft? Is Richard Stallman the pope granting blessings (I used to love the patron saint of free software shtick - that was funny)? Or to put another way - how does your affiliation with an open-source software vendor make you more morally pure than Bill Gates?

[Matt Asay]

Who said anything about pure? I think you missed the point, Noah: Kevin has been attacking the integrity of Linux/open source at the intellectual property level. He will now be basing his entire business on stuff that a few weeks ago he would have told you violates Microsoft's IP. Does it, or does it not? If it does, will Juniper be next in line for a patent license? i doubt it.

[S!egfried]

It's just a job Matt...