Microsoft Hires Director of Linux Interoperability 238
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."
Great! (Score:2, Insightful)
ODF (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Connections (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:hehe (Score:4, Insightful)
No need to assume he'll become evil.
Not yet, anyway.
Re:Once again (Score:5, Insightful)
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:ODF (Score:5, Insightful)
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:Once again (Score:1, Insightful)
In addition, on your next post, please spend at least 1/2 of the time talking about the subject rather than about your mod points. For all of that whining, you should be modded down.
It's all about MS-Office profits (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Finally (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Smoke and mirrors (Score:3, Insightful)
Anything else is just smoke and mirrors.
Pesky tags... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
The MS strategy seems clearer now (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure this is one of their main goals; don't know if it's the first or a secondary one though.
Re:how's it been going with Sun (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:re (Score:3, Insightful)
Still, outside of that you're correct. The star system tends to highlight one particular individual out of a large number of nearly equal merit. If the star leaves, an understudy is likely to show up. The partial exceptions are the coders who are excellent and original coders and also good project leaders. There aren't that many of them, so they're harder to replace. Some times no replacement shows up in time, and the project folds. It may be restarted, and it may not.
Quick Question (Score:3, Insightful)
Sera
Re:Finally (Score:2, Insightful)
It's a subtle trap. Really. (Score:3, Insightful)
The idea is a simple one. You want to lock people into your own platform while providing a migration path away from the other platforms. In short you want your customers to see all other platforms as legacy systems.
This is the entire process behind SUA, Identity Services for UNIX, and the like.
It is also the idea behind Samba, WINE, Mono, etc.
Thus, from a Linux perspective, while it would make my life easier to have more UNIX/Linux interop from Microsoft, what we really need to help Linux along is better Windows interop for Linux. This means Samba 4 (with AD DC support), ideally a DCE/RPC implementation that is network compatable with DCOM, better support of Word Documents in Abiword and OOo, and the like. In short, Linux needs to be able to interop with Windows on every level, while forcing Microsoft to play catch-up in this game.
Re:Finally (Score:3, Insightful)