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...

[Anonymous Coward]

Judas ! Go to the creationist museum where you belong.

Finally

[HalAtWork]

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

Wow...

[nametaken]

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

Are you sure you don't mean...

[cmacb]

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,

Are you sure you don't mean... SATAN!???

hehe

[QuantumG]

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.

Itsatrap

[pembo13]

You never hear stories of angels going down to hell to spruce things up, do you?

re

[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]

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.

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

Now Windows will have 200 distributions with subtle changes between them. They will, change the GUIs between them. Add package repositories. And the OS core will be modifiable.

All of it, for a "reasonable" amount of money.

Chill the still

[democrates]

Cut the guy some slack, they're probably holding his family hostage. Seriously though, MS issue recruitment staff with MIB memory blanker gizmos. You meet, POOF!, and then believe them when they say "We are your friends! Ak. Akak Ak Ak!"

And Who Did They Hire??

[Black-Man]

As director of Linux sue-ability?

mods?

[HiggsBison]

... fire ... burn ... smoldering pile of ash ...

I realize this was meant as "funny", but
Must ... resist ... modding ... "flamebait" ...

Razzing doesn't break bones

[cyberianpan]

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".

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

"Ministry of Linux Interoperability"

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does this remind me of The Ministry of Peace?

Predicted further Ministries:

• Ministry of Fair Competition (in charge of creating and maintaining monopolies)
  
  
• Ministry of User Empowerment (in charge of keeping users from mucking around with their own data or applications)
  
  
• Ministry of Community Development (in charge of eradicating the Open Source and Free Software communities)

Worst story ever?

[mattgreen]

I can't wait to read all sorts of interesting theories on how this will really work from people who have never been inside Microsoft, yet feel the need to 'enlighten' us with their ignorance. In order to help us positively identify people most participating in groupthink, please use one or more of the following memes so we can divvy out moderation points faster:

* Ballmer throwing chairs
* Embrace, extend, extinguish
* Clippy hate
* Funny BSOD jokes

In the meantime, I'm curious who took the job, because people will hate them for no reason now. Ah zealotry, without thee, what would I do on this site?

Re:Are you sure you don't mean...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, I believe his new designation is Linuxus of Borg. He was chosen because up until now they've been thwarted by Linux users, and have chosen a familiar user to aid the assimilation process. His uniqueness has been added to their own collective. Resistance is futile.

Re:Finally

[ciroknight]

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]

Re:ODF

[hxnwix]

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 ...

Re:Once again

[milatchi]

linuzz rocks
OMG MS copies Apple again

Re:Once again

[nine-times]

Microsoft doesn't play with words like that. Just think of all the genuine advantages windows provides to users through WGA.

Re:Quick Question

[Tough Love]

Tom, if you happen to read Slashdot, just how many of Novell's 30 pieces of silver do you get?

Actually, I'm not unhappy Microsoft got Tom, he was a largely ineffectual paper pusher at OSDL, with little community contact, empathy. I don't doubt that Microsoft's real agenda is to find new ways to inhibit Linux interoperability, and Tom is just the man to fail at that.

Microsoft Director of Linux Interoperability(TM)

[thegnu]

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

Re:Finally

[badspyro]

I have found the next start-up command for windows...

apt-get install adware