LWN: Comments on "Former Linux Architect Moves to Microsoft (eWeek)"

Former Linux Architect Moves to Microsoft (eWeek)

Duncan — Thu, 16 Jun 2005 10:27:41 +0000

> However, [there was the Zynot fork] and someone
> left to start their own distro because of
> accusations about Daniel Robbins, I started to
> feel really nervous. [T]hese kind of personality
> conflicts happen[,] but the nature of the
> accusations reminded me of the way M$ operates.

Interesting you should bring that up. Someone mentioned the Zynot fork
when I was researching my switch to Gentoo (from Mandrake), so I looked it
up and read the guy's posted statement, both the initial one and the later
followup. I came to ENTIRELY the opposite conclusion you seem to have
come to. The guy in question exhibited every sign of mistaking the man in
the mirror for Daniel Robbins -- it was /quite/ evident that he had all
the characteristics he was accusing Daniel of having -- from the guy's own
statement. In addition, both his history, and his stated goals for Zynot,
seemed to backup a conclusion that this guy didn't truly understand open
source or its dynamics in the first place, and was attempting to apply
rules that had worked in his previous closed source experience to the open
source community, where they didn't really apply, nor could they be made
to without destroying the very elements of open source that give it the
advantage it has!

Keep in mind, Daniel Robbins COULD have chosen a BSD style license for
Gentoo originated projects, allowing them to be taken closed source at his
whim. Or, he could have chosen something like the Mozilla Public License,
generally open but allowing one corporation (Netscape, in the original) to
take it closed. Instead, he chose the GPL, MUCH harder to take closed.

Now, one may note that the original Gentoo policy forced devs to sign a
contribution agreement yielding copyright to Gentoo Technologies, which
was NOT guaranteed to not go private with what they could. *THAT* was a
*VALID* criticism, one that has in general been rectified now, with
Daniel's departure and the creation of a not-for-profit Gentoo Foundation.
However, note that a simple copyright transfer policy in itself cannot be
considered evidence of ill intent to take things proprietary, unless one
ALSO considers Richard Stallman and the FSF guilty of ill intent to take
things proprietary, with their similar copyright transfer policy (altho it
does have a clause, I believe, that reverts the transfer if the FSF
licenses the work in a non-libre way).

However, back to the subject at hand, I really don't know what to make of
this, except that MS *HAS* offered some legit open-source work in the
past, if /only/ for tools that tend to support Unix to MS migrations, and
for previously Unix only tools such as network traffic capture (ethercap,
maybe? one of them, it's been some time since I researched it, back when I
was on MSWormOS myself and looking for an appropriate capture tool to
sleuth out what some traffic was that I was seeing). Further,
it's /possible/ if not /likely/ that the noises MS has been making
recently about making friends with open source are legit. I'm extremely
sceptical myself, but it's certainly possible that someone could believe
them, whether or not they actually /do/ turn out to be legit.

So... my judgement withheld pending further developments. He's an
extremely sharp guy, in any case. It'll be interesting to see if he
really /has/ gone over to the dark side, or if MS casts him back up like a
bad meal, or if, just /possibly/, MS has really desided (or elements in it
have decided) it must accept open source (and yes, libreware specifically)
as an on-the-ground fact, and must eventually deploy its apps on them if
it is to survive as a sizeable industry force. (I don't know if I'd now
consider MSOffice on Linux a good or a bad thing, advancing Linux, or
advancing the still-closed MSOffice monopoly to a new platform, but I can
see how they might see they need to do it, in any case, and wouldn't fault
someone from our community from joining them to see it happen,
particularly if they thought it'd benefit open source more than it would
perpetuate the MSOffice monopoly.)

Duncan

Former Linux Architect Moves to Microsoft (eWeek)

twiens — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 13:40:15 +0000

I had tried Gento a few years ago and had been basically pleased, but eventually moved to Debian for two reasons. First, Gentoo differed in a number of ways from most Linux distro's which I felt made it more difficult to learn about Linux in general. This however wouldn't have been enough for me to move. However, when one there was a break in Gentoo and someone left to start their own distro because of accusations about Daniel Robbins, I started to feel really nervous. Not to say these kind of personality conflicts happen and are a big problem, but the nature of the accusations reminded me of the way M$ operates. Now that we are witnessing Mr. Robbins going to work for what seems to be the greatest enemy of FOSS, I know that my nervousness was well founded. I would like to be charitable and optimisitic about the influence someone well grounded in FOSS could have at Crimosoft, but I am not hopeful.
All that said, I think users and advocates of FOSS can take this as another sign of the continued strength of our cause. Since the SCO FUD campaign hasn't been the silver bullet against GNU/Linux, now the acquisition of persons susceptible to money over principle would be the next line of attack. At each step, GNU/Linux continues to make inroads and become a real competitor to Windoze.

Former Linux Architect Moves to Microsoft (eWeek)

smitty_one_each — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 13:08:02 +0000

If they port MS Office to C# ...

Former Linux Architect Moves to Microsoft (eWeek)

geripi — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 11:27:56 +0000

I see anouncements of LinWord coming to linux at 2010. The real release date will be somewhere 2015 of course (we all know MS).

;)

Former Linux Architect Moves to Microsoft (eWeek)

Wol — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 07:09:07 +0000

Well, they did have a study in the news recently that says that (unless MS can outlaw Linux) they are inevitably going to lose ... and a lot of MS's recent behaviour is exactly in line with what the study said MS would *have* to do in order to prolong their survival.

So if there are rational business managers at MS (big if :-) then MS are simply preparing for the day when Windows becomes irrelevant ...

Cheers,
Wol

Former Linux Architect Moves to Microsoft (eWeek)

huffd — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 06:19:39 +0000

Some of the more rational at M$ are seeing the light. If you can't beat them join them. I expect to see LinWord by mid 2007.

Former Linux Architect Moves to Microsoft (eWeek)

roger — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 03:04:49 +0000

I won't withhold my judgement.

... that traitor!

:-)

... Well, microsoft does have much to learn from us Linux folks.

Former Linux Architect Moves to Microsoft (eWeek)

alspnost — Tue, 14 Jun 2005 21:13:44 +0000

I always wondered what Daniel had been up to since leaving Gentoo. I'll refrain from judging this move until we see what comes of it, further down the line. Daniel's a pretty amazing chap, and I'm sure he will be an asset to Micro$oft; let's just hope that his influence and experience works in mysterious ways :-) Well done Daniel, good luck, and thanks again for Gentoo.