A tour of the Microsoft open source lab [LWN.net]

A tour of the Microsoft open source lab

Posted Mar 21, 2008 8:41 UTC (Fri) by afalko (subscriber, #37028)
Parent article: A tour of the Microsoft open source lab

Is it me or did I learn just about nothing from reading the blog article? I am curious what
exactly Microsoft researchs? Performance? Features? How to make winapps compatible?

Why do they need all the powerful hardware? I "researched" OSS on a Pentium III 600MHz box,
I'm sure they could have too. If they "love" OSS so much, do they contribute patches or
release OSS?

...My 2 cents...I don't like secrecy. The article does not convince me at all that Microsoft
is pro-OSS/nice to OSS.

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A tour of the Microsoft open source lab

Posted Mar 21, 2008 11:50 UTC (Fri) by Felix.Braun (subscriber, #3032) [Link]

It's true that the blog entry is a bit light on information. But then, that's true for about
99% of all other blog entries out there.

As I see it, this is a completely ordinary blog entry about some folks on the Microsoft Campus
who have some really sweet hardware to play with open source code. Their team seems to total
all of four employees. Can you think, what kind of influence a team of four may have within a
company like Microsoft? That seems to reflect the importance level that is attributed to
interoperability there.

Be that as it may, you sure can't blame these four guys for company policy. For all we know
they might be perfectly respectable hackers just doing their job in a world filled with suits,
just like the rest of us.

Can you imagine, what it must feel like to work on OSS at Microsoft? No wonder these guys may
feel a bit isolated. So they just wanted to announce their existence to the world in a blog
post. I don't see why they have to be held to higher standards than the rest of the
blogosphere just because they happen to be on Microsoft's payroll.

A tour of the Microsoft open source lab

Posted Mar 21, 2008 12:15 UTC (Fri) by cpm (subscriber, #3554) [Link]

Yet they still work there.

That's on them.

A tour of the Microsoft open source lab

Posted Mar 21, 2008 16:39 UTC (Fri) by szh (guest, #23558) [Link]

> you sure can't blame these four guys for company policy.

Yes, only blame for choosing the company with such policy.

> might be perfectly respectable hackers

Your definition of respect must be different from mine.

> just doing their job in a world filled with suits, just like the rest of us.

That's no excuse for helping THE MOST ANTI-FOSS suits in the world.

> So they just wanted to announce their existence to the world

I believe they were told to do so, to make a better image of the company, which tries hard to
destroy FOSS, yet they lie "We all love Linux and open-source".

A tour of the Microsoft open source lab

Posted Mar 21, 2008 16:58 UTC (Fri) by Obsid (guest, #42617) [Link]


> I am curious what exactly Microsoft researchs? Performance? Features? How
> to make winapps compatible?

Yes :)  Add interoperability and education too.

Steve