Microsoft Hires Director of Linux Interoperability

AlexGr sends us to Todd Bishop's blog in the Seattle PI for news that Microsoft has brought someone aboard to serve as its Director of Linux Interoperability and head up the Microsoft/Novell Interoperability Lab. "...his name will be familiar to people in the open-source community. In an e-mail late Thursday night, a Microsoft representative said the role will be filled by Tom Hanrahan, who was most recently the director of engineering at the Linux Foundation, the group created through the recent combination of the Free Standards Group and the Open Source Development Labs."

no...

[by Anonymous Coward]

Judas ! Go to the creationist museum where you belong.

Microsoft Director of Linux Interoperability(TM)

[thegnu (557446)]

This is like Microsoft Works(tm), isn't it?

Finally

[HalAtWork (926717)]

NOW things will finally start getting better between MS and Linux!

Re:Finally

[hahiss (696716)]

Great---*now* I will be able to get MS Office and Windows Media Player! And we can replace the standard *nix shells with cmd.exe.

I hope they will release .deb files for 'em. . . .

Re:Finally

[walt-sjc (145127)]

Seriously, what this means is that MS will become more compatible with Linux, not making Linux more compatible with MS products from an interoperability standpoint.

For example: better NFS client / serving from Windows server, Office being able to read (not write) ODF, running Linux applications on Windows, stuff like that. Things that help people migrate OFF Linux. There may be a side effect that some things in Linux will work better with MS, but that is a side effect and not intended behavior.

If MS was serious about working with Linux in a positive way, they would be releasing proper documentation on their file formats and network protocols with no strings attached (such as massive license fees.) Unless forced to do so (by the EU) this will NEVER happen.

That's what the patent deals are for...

[Rob Y. (110975)]

Remember that when Microsoft was trying to get into the file/print/email server game, Novell was the leader in the field. But to win, Microsoft merely had to more or less match their functionality and throw in some price cuts and desktop tie-ins to sweeten the deal.

With Linux, this is harder. They can't use a price advantage to 'choke off the air supply'. Or can they? To me, that's what the Novell patent deal is all about (from MS's point of view, at least). To un-freeify Linux. Microsoft is confident that they can compete on a level playing field. After all, they have a huge starting advantage, plus they still have the ability to tie their server products to their desktop products. But they can no longer undercut on price. That is, unless they convince the marketplace that free Linux is illegal, and the only way to get Linux is to pay Novell's price. Then they can once again price Novell out of the market.

At least one of the Linux-esque ways of doing business is running servers for free, or at least without per-seat licensing. If that goes away, at least a large part of those Linux fans will lose some of their attachment.

Re:Finally

[ciroknight (601098)]

In other news, we got our hands on an early version of this press release:
HELL, Earth. June 8th, 2007. (NASDAQ: HELQ) Hell has Frozen Over.

In a shocking event, Hell has taken on an icy interior today. Says one demon, "It's actually quite nice, what with the flying bacon and all." Operators of the Infernal Furnace spoke to us briefly: "All the sudden our computers froze", "We were installing a Microsoft Service Pack and all the sudden a penguin came on the screen and the whole environment changed." Hell has scheduled a press conference to happen later this week where we will receive an update on this situation.

Representatives at Microsoft were not available for comment.

Contacts:
Lucifer,
666-666-1234
[e-mail]

Steve Ballmer,
666-666-1233
[e-mail]

Wow...

[nametaken (610866)]

Can you imagine how bad that guy gets razzed by his coworkers?!

Razzing doesn't break bones

[cyberianpan (975767)]

And Brad Smith, senior vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary at Microsoft, is rumoured to have gotten quite concerned about this development. After reading case law on "duty of care" that an employer ought extend to employees he has arranged for Tom Hanrahan to immediately go on advanced "object avoidance course" which will be taught by crack martial arts instructors. Microsoft is refusing to confirm rumours that Hanrahan is currently in a Seattle gymn with 10 instructors & a number of pieces of "office furniture".

I recall Netware and NT interoperability...

[by Anonymous Coward]

...back in those days, it amounted to little more than a means to migrate from Netware to an NT domain. The Unix compatibility stuff that exists now amounts to about the same. I wonder what Microsoft has in mind with all this? It would be weird if it was more than "one way" compatibility.

hehe

[QuantumG (50515)]

here's an InternetNews.com interview with him from December 2004.

Couldn't get a quote huh? Gee, I wonder why. I bet if you did get a quote out of him it would be all about his best intentions and how he's going to change things at Microsoft, etc. Give him 6 months, the optimism and naivety will fade away and he'll say repeating the company line.

Evil is insidious.

Re:hehe

[Dan Ost (415913)]

How about we wait until we've actually heard from him before we jump to conclusions. It's always possible that he'll either be marginally effective or that he'll bail out once he decides he can't accomplish anything useful.

No need to assume he'll become evil.

Not yet, anyway.

re

[by Anonymous Coward]

Bill: Tom, I am your father.
Tom: Really?
Bill: No, but I hve tons of money for you!
Tom: Dark side it is!

Typo.

[guffe (771664)]

I believe the title should be: Microsoft Hires Director of Linux Inoperability Slashdot should read through their posts more carefully in the future, so that typos like this doesn't happen.

ODF

[SanityInAnarchy (655584)]

That is what Microsoft would do if they were serious about interoperability with anyone. They'd support ODF -- natively, not through some third-party open source plugin. They'd drop OpenXML. And they'd stop lobbying governments who want to stardardize on a real document format.

Or, hell, send some developers over to the Wine project.

Since none of this is happening, I can only assume that this "Linux interoperability" guy is either a complete hypocrite, or is going to have no real power within the company.

Re:ODF

[Bert64 (520050)]

They want windows desktops and servers to interoperate with linux servers...
Why? because linux has a significant server marketshare, and they are FORCED to interoperate with it or face losing marketshare themselves.
Linux however has very little desktop market share, so it's more profitable for microsoft to ignore it and thus make it harder for people to migrate to linux.

Ever noticed how a lot of the interoperability between windows and other os's centers around those os's implementing proprietary protocols from windows, rather than windows implementing standards from other os's. There have been a few other cases where microsoft have been forced to implement standards to interoperate (tcp/ip, image formats etc) but they have always preferred to force their own proprietary implementations on people if they will stick (netbeui, bmp etc).

Re:ODF

[hxnwix (652290)]

They'd support ODF -- natively, not through some third-party open source plugin. They'd drop OpenXML.

How much more open could the be? OpenXML is an open standard! Look, in order to parse an OpenXML document, you simply open Microsoft word and ...

Connections

[Gryle (933382)]

I have no idea why, but for some reason "Director of Linux Interoperability" brings to mind the US Drug Czar and the War on Drugs

Re:Connections

[Pojut (1027544)]

I have no idea why, but for some reason "Director of Linux Interoperability" brings to mind the US Drug Czar and the War on Some Drugs

fixed.

And Who Did They Hire??

[Black-Man (198831)]

As director of Linux sue-ability?

how's it been going with Sun

[Locutus (9039)]

Didn't Microsoft and Sun sign a deal to "interoperate" a few years ago? Where has THAT gone?

BTW, Microsoft does not want to interoperate with Linux and OSS. They want it gone, so any "talk" about deals and smoke-mirror agreements will only flounder, stall, and drag on forever. Anybody who believe otherwise is just fooling themselves.

LoB

Pesky tags...

[dr00g911 (531736)]

I know that yes/no/maybe/haha weren't entirely useful as tags except for a quick laugh (not debating the inherent usefulness of tags at all, which I feel debatable).

itsatrap would be completely apropos here.

Just sayin'... the tagging system currently may as well be a checkbox list of categories. Not exactly user generated.

Re:Once again

[QuantumG (50515)]

It would be good news.

If we lived in that universe where "Director of Linux Interoperability" actually meant what you think it means. Unfortunately, out in the REAL WORLD, that title actually means "Director of increasing the perception of interoperability with Linux system while actually making them less compatible."

So yeah, keep living in your dream world.

Re:Once again

[Jussi K. Kojootti (646145)]

Once again I expect to get beaten to death by zealots moderators but I really don't care. Getting karma back on slashdot is really easy screaming a pair of "linuzz rocks" and "OMG MS copies Apple again", so I don't care getting modded down by expressing MY opinion, which is as valid as anyone elses.

...

Not a troll or flaimbait, but mod me so... I don't care. I can fake my stupid karma back. I've done so a houndred of times. Getting karma is easy. losing it by expressing a valid opinion is a honor,

Personally I think that even mentioning moderation ("I know I'll be modded down for this, but..") is pretty lame. You just spent half your post brooding over it.

It's all about MS-Office profits

[mangu (126918)]

I still think MS will have a linux variant by 2015.

I'd say much sooner than that. These days Microsoft's cash cow is Office, not Windows. As GWB is having some trouble in maintaining his Google bomb [google.com], Microsoft will soon realize that MS-Office in Linux is a better business model for them than OpenOffice in Linux.