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Microsoft Gets a New Open Source Chief

Posted by Zonk on Wed Apr 09, 2008 03:14 PM
from the he-gets-a-spiffy-hat dept.
Microsoft Software
mjasay writes "Microsoft just promoted Sam Ramji to run its growing Linux and open source operations. The former head of Microsoft's Open Source Software Lab, Ramji has a long history with open source, having built out large-scale open-source based applications while at Ofoto, and continuing to run applications like World of Warcraft and Office 2003 on WINE. Microsoft has been putting increasingly open-source savvy people in this role, starting with Jason Matusow and most recently employing Bill Hilf in the role. Ramji has made friends with many in the open-source business and development communities, but will his promotion spell any sort of an about-face for Microsoft in its patent policies? It's unlikely, but at least it demonstrates a step in the right direction."
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Submission: Microsoft gets a new open source chief by mjasay (1141697)
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  • go sam! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 09 2008, @03:16PM (#23016750)
    Man, I loved his work with the Spiderman movies. I didn't know he was an open source advocate to.

  • Microsoft's open source staff (Score:5, Funny)

    by heroine (1220) on Wednesday April 09 2008, @03:17PM (#23016768) Homepage
    Good to see Ratatouille got a job after the restaurant gig failed.

  • Not a step in the right direction (Score:5, Insightful)

    by masdog (794316) <masdog.gmail@com> on Wednesday April 09 2008, @03:18PM (#23016780)
    Microsoft won't change their patent policy, regardless of who is at the helm of their open source division. That policy is set at the top and won't change until Ballmer and Gates are gone for good.

    • That policy is set at the top and won't change until Ballmer and Gates are gone for good.
      This just in: The Free Software Foundation has retained the consulting services of Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano [wikipedia.org], who will perform undisclosed services for an undisclosed fee.

    • That policy is set at the top and won't change until Ballmer and Gates are gone for good.

      And why would it change then? It works. (For Microsoft.)

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by billcopc (196330)
      Yup. It seems every few months we hear about Microsoft snapping up some second-rate OSS poster child. They pay them to sit around doing nothing, Microsoft gets to throw the name around, and eventually the OSS guy leaves and writes about his boredom on Blogspot.

      Daniel Robbins did it, then they made ESR laugh with us, and now this Sam dude. Why don't they just dress Ballmer in a BSD devil costume and call it a day ?

  • Patents, although worrisome will go away in the long run, the main points that MS should get is support Linux , some technologies such as Office would be decent Linux apps that people would pay for if either it was a native Linux version or was seamlessly integrated in WINE. MS needs to stop turning a blind eye to Linux if they ever hope to gain respect and marketshare. Competition improves quality and if MS would port over some of its applications (as badly coded as much of them are) the OSS developers w

    • Re:Not Patents (Score:5, Interesting)

      by masdog (794316) <masdog.gmail@com> on Wednesday April 09 2008, @03:28PM (#23016938)

      Microsoft doesn't need respect and marketshare. In the desktop space, they still lead. Supporting Linux would only help diminish that lead in Microsoft's key markets.

      Microsoft's competition against Linux is mainly in the server space. Linux as a server OS is especially attractive for web-applications, middle-ware, and databases. Corporations like Linux because a single good Linux admin and no licensing fees is a cost savings over a couple of Windows Admins(especially for business critical apps). It is also where the threat of patent litigation will cause legal departments to block new implementations of Linux.

      • unfortunately that's a problem too - Microsoft still leads in the server space too (though not by nearly as nuch as the desktop). Now I see Linux making big inroads to this market, but MS makes a ton of money off their server offerings - not just all the Windows Server flavours, but also all the server-based frameworks and 'servers'. Ever seen the cost of crappy old Biztalk server? even crappier Sharepoint? (especially as you also need Office Pro to get Infopath that makes it halfway worthwhile). Applicatio

          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by Bert64 (520050)
            You cant install 2008 without a GUI...
            The graphical layer is still running, the only difference is that it executes cmd.exe (in a window) instead of explorer.exe when you log in. It's not like the pure textmode of a unix system, and it still doesn't support serial consoles and boot without a video card installed like any serious server os.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by darkfire5252 (760516)
      I've thought about this for some time and I can't find the catch, so I'll bounce it off of you guys. Microsoft is pissing off their user base and risking corporate and government conversions to competitors due to them continually trying to create vendor lock-in. Here's an idea that sounds like the absolute worst thing (from MS's point of view), but I'm starting to think it is the most profitable thing that MS could do, and would guarantee MS's future prosperity in a way that nothing else could:

      Make MS p
  • I wonder if this is the beginning of MS splitting into two different wings to meet different needs. The heavily patented and closed software, which might be appropriate for some clients; and a new open source branch to sell products to clients that will be better by open software.
  • Sam Ramji is an acronym for

    "I am Sam jr"

    There you have it. Microsoft is pure evil !

    We need to get out while we still can !

  • Know thy enemy. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bluemetal (1269852) on Wednesday April 09 2008, @03:22PM (#23016836) Homepage Journal
    It doesn't hurt Microsoft to be well versed in the ways of their rivals, even if they do not practice thier techniques themselves.
  • ... to see a stealth MS-funded Linux distro. One that crashes and shits out, just to show people how much better Windows is a-la them sponsoring all those Linux "news" sites and putting up anti-Linux/pro-Windows banners [schlesinger.us].
  • Wait Microsoft... developing open sour... *Head explodes*

    • Microsoft... blowing hot air?

      Nothing new.

      Honestly, I don't care whether they're lying or whether they're just incapable of delivering on their promises. Either way, there's no reason to suddenly trust that Microsoft really means it this time.

  • Ramji (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Elektroschock (659467) on Wednesday April 09 2008, @03:26PM (#23016896)
    When I saw the video of his Heise conference talk I thought, he looks like a trade fair presenter without any clue of the underlying technology. I can be wrong. But at least he is no person that appears to have the required independence and integrity required for the job. Why don't they take Miguel who is almost assimilated. At least he is an open mind and has an independent record of achievements outside Microsoft. I believe that Office on Wine is a pretty inspiring idea of cross-plattform. In the 90th Microsoft wanted Win32 everywhere but then it went on the anti-Linux ideology road and promoted unreasonable patent policies in nations abroad. When you see how Jason Matusow promoted OOXML you can clearly see that these persons do care less about technologist-friendly business pratices. Developers, developers, developers, was Ballmers slogan. I start to understand why. The company forgot to take the opinion of its developer community serious and inspire them.
  • So, does anyone remember the whole Deutsch Physiks thing, and how that cost the Germans valuable people in the tech side of the arms race during world warII. I imagine this is sort of like losing Edward Teller would have been.

    Heads up Sam, it's a trap. Let's just say they don't have our people's best interests at heart.

  • I KNOW!! I KNOW!!! (Score:5, Funny)

    by bhunachchicken (834243) on Wednesday April 09 2008, @03:31PM (#23016980) Homepage

    "Microsoft Gets a New Open Source Chief"

    Is it Miguel de Icaza?!! Is it??!

    (reads summary)

    Awwwwww... disappointment... :)

  • Microsoft always tries to keep an eye on what the open-source world is doing. Perhaps to steal ideas, perhaps to embrace, extend and extinguish new emerging standards and technology.

    Maybe they actually intend to work on interoperability. However, I think it is too early to guess, let alone really know what they intend to do here.
  • I don't know, I'm hoping you do. Is there any way that Windows and Linux are able to provide mutual benefits to each other? Or are they exclusive? Because the only thing that will make Microsoft truly support open-source is the very real fact that they need to make money off of it. Anything less would open them up to liability when the shareholders sue. Pesky shareholders.
    • If Microsoft split into two independent companies where one makes an OS and the other makes applications, then yes, they could have mutual benefits. In fact if this were the case, Windows would be much better and their Apps much more innovative. OS revenue wouldn't be subsidizing Zunes and Xboxes, it would go directly into improving the OS. For the Apps company, it would be in their best interest to support more operating systems. Just because it runs on Linux, doesn't even mean it has to be open source

  • Makes a lot of sense. (Score:5, Funny)

    by lancejjj (924211) on Wednesday April 09 2008, @04:03PM (#23017408) Homepage
    GM has a VP for Quality. Exxon has a VP for Environmental Protection. Why shouldn't Microsoft have a VP of Open Source technologies?

    • But seriously, folks... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by PCM2 (4486) on Wednesday April 09 2008, @05:24PM (#23018314) Homepage
      ...it seems to me that any major commercial software company would be insane not to follow open source closely.

      When most people start talking about open source, they quickly turn into armchair intellectual property lawyers and the discussion veers toward talk of business models, patents, copyrights, licenses, and so on. It's easy to forget that the primary product of the open source movement is a lot of really interesting code.

      What's more, while this code may be copyrighted and licensed, it's generally patent-unencumbered. This means that Microsoft is free to take pretty much any interesting and novel idea that might come out of open source and rip it off -- rewrite the basic algorithm in C# and slap it into a commercial, closed-source product.

      The best case the open source community could come up with is to say that Microsoft's code was a derivative work of their own, copyrighted code -- but that would require A.) money, for B.) lawyers, who C.) gain access to Microsoft's code in discovery, and D.) luck out, in that Microsoft failed so miserably to write code that didn't resemble the open source original that they left an obvious smoking gun.

      What are the chances? It's not like there aren't any good programmers at Microsoft.

      In other words, in an age where most corporations are trimming R&D to enhance their bottom lines, Microsoft (and every other software company) has an amazing R&D resource in the work of the open source community. And hell, if anything really amazing comes along, it wouldn't be too difficult to wave a bunch of money under the developer's nose and get their efforts working for you, full-time.

      What's not to like?

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by setagllib (753300)
        They do this regularly to enhance the .NET platform. IronPython and RubyCLR have had some of their developers hired. Sun is doing similar things for the Java platform. It remains to be seen whether Microsoft will pervert the projects they talent-tap into using other licenses.

        Even Microsoft knows that the open source space has a lot of code, ideas and talent they can legally use, but it seems only the developer-oriented teams (.NET, etc) "get it", and even they are largely bound by the corporate culture of a
  • I will remain skeptical of Microsoft until the day it GPLs its source code for Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office, and adopts ODF as a standard. Until then, Microsoft will be the same Microsoft that just last month engaged in cheating and fraud to get its MOOXML specification accepted as a standard.

    This is not to say that I hate Microsoft or wish their stock ill. But it does mean that Microsoft's business model is based on leverage its monopoly on the consumer desktop operating system and its office productivity suite application. Relentless, merciless competition is deeply embedded into Microsoft's business structure, much more so than other proprietary software vendors. Because Microsoft's business structure depends on maintaining its monopoly status, they will not tolerate any competition at all in that space, and they will resort to both legal and illegal (anti-trust) means of achieving their goals.
      • @CannonballHead:

        You wrote: So what you're saying is that if it's not open source, it's not good?

        No, what I am saying is that Microsoft will continue its predatory practices until its two main profit centers, Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office, are GPL'd.

        I know that not everyone likes Free Open Source Software for all purposes. As it so happens, I am an attorney who runs his law office on Free Open Source Software only (except for Adobe Flash, the only non-Free package in my office). But Fr

  • Bullshit (Score:3, Insightful)

    by HermMunster (972336) on Wednesday April 09 2008, @04:53PM (#23018004)
    Bullshit. This is simply their attempt to own open source. They want to embrace, extend, extinguish.

    Their model has nothing to do with the decade old definition of open source.

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