Microsoft announces new strategy of interoperability, jumps on the "open" bandwagon

Someday in the distant future, your grandkids will be hugging their Microsoft Robot Friend, browsing the Weboverse on Internet Explorer 29, and going to a rock concert held by Steve Ballmer's head, and they'll have never known the evil, nasty Microsoft we grew up with. Starting today, Microsoft has dropped a bit of a bombshell on the computing community by jumping on the "open" bandwagon and altering the way they do business with third-party developers. According to a wordy press release issued by the company, the Redmond giant will begin embracing an open attitude by publishing documentation for all of its "high-volume product" APIs free of charge, will detail patents it holds and applications that cover its protocols (to avoid nasty, Linux-like mixups, we assume), and will provide a "covenant not to sue open source developers for development or non-commercial distribution of implementations of these protocols." Sound like big news? They've got a lot more to say on the matter -- hit the read link and learn all about cuddly new Microsoft.

[TomTom2007 @ Feb 21st 2008 11:52AM]

Micro-pen-soft?

[kizane @ Feb 21st 2008 12:11PM]

Sounds to me like My Gropen Soft...

[John @ Feb 21st 2008 1:32PM]

Is that what you use to write on a tablet PC?

[john @ Feb 21st 2008 11:53AM]

yeah, and I'll believe it if it's still true when my grandkids are using computers.

[john @ Feb 21st 2008 11:54AM]

(if it's even true at the end of the month)

[garbuhj @ Feb 21st 2008 11:54AM]

Yeah, right. I'll believe it when I see it.

[Jeff @ Feb 21st 2008 12:14PM]

talk is cheap.

[DP @ Feb 21st 2008 3:18PM]

I know you guys maybe skeptical, as I am too a bit, but this is what happens when you get desperate (Yahoo! anyone?).

[Valiis @ Feb 21st 2008 11:54AM]

Woah...its not April fools day is it?

Thats crazy?!?

[James Baker @ Feb 21st 2008 11:54AM]

soooo... ReactOS/Wine gets a boost?

[raulr @ Feb 21st 2008 12:08PM]

"non-commercial distribution"

Wouldn't those be commercial distributions?

[Jon Doe. @ Feb 21st 2008 12:20PM]

Not likely. They probably aren't going to be focusing on OS API's but most likely inter OS communication, something that the open source community has wanted for a long time.

[jbhitter24 @ Feb 21st 2008 11:56AM]

Oh Shit!

[Todrick @ Feb 21st 2008 3:02PM]

Yeah, what he said!

[Todd @ Feb 21st 2008 11:56AM]

Laocoön, priest of Troy, who, in Virgil's Aeneid, tells his countrymen to "Beware Greeks bearing gifts". Both German and English have expressions related to “Greeks bearing gifts”, but they don't use the same idioms. While English concentrates on warning against Greeks with gifts, German emphasizes the gift itself. Ein Danaergeschenk is a “fatal gift” that brings misfortune or causes problems.

[jbhitter24 @ Feb 21st 2008 12:00PM]

Or in germany you can just give them a 'gift' ;)

[riobard @ Feb 21st 2008 12:16PM]

timeo danaos, et dona ferentes

[Samurai Jack @ Feb 21st 2008 1:20PM]

"Quicquid id est timeo Daneo et dona ferentes" -- Whatever it is, I fear Greeks even when they are bearing gifts. (speaking, of course, of the Trojan Horse)

Who knew being forced to memorize parts of "The Aenead" would come in handy 25+ years later? ;-)

[Derbeste @ Feb 21st 2008 12:00PM]

Don't do it, guys!

It's a trap!

[Jubei @ Feb 21st 2008 12:03PM]

I just had to laugh out on that one! Isn't it obvious? LOL

[john @ Feb 21st 2008 3:28PM]

"Mom, Dad, don't touch it, it's EVIL!"

*BOOM*

[IkeTurner @ Feb 21st 2008 12:03PM]

Steve Jobs is crying

[clak @ Feb 21st 2008 12:12PM]

No, he isn't, moron, cause Apple development tools are already free. Welcome to the twenty-first century.

http://macapper.com/2007/04/16/the-gems-of-apples-development-tools/

[Jon Doe. @ Feb 21st 2008 12:16PM]

So are MS's http://www.microsoft.com/express/ Moron. Free but limited. But still free.

[Jon Doe. @ Feb 21st 2008 12:04PM]

Gotta jump on the bandwagon. I'll believe it when I see it. Right now such a change is fundamentally a 180* turn to what MS has been doing and they have a KNOWN history of embrace, extend, extinguish. Don’t get me wrong, I want this more then anyone could imagine. But its so fundamentally different from the MS we knew. . . hell knew yesterday, that I don’t believe it and won’t until it happens.
All I know is if true Hell is about to get a hokey team to go with that ice rink.

[Ian @ Feb 21st 2008 12:06PM]

If Microsoft is embracing openness, they must be intending to either kill "openness" or make their flavor of it the standard. And while the concept of Microsoft making its "open" model a standard may seem like an oxymoron, it would be in keeping with Microsoft's history.

[Samurai Jack @ Feb 21st 2008 12:15PM]

Just look at the shenanigans perpetrated by Microsoft to get OOXML accepted as an open standard. Today's announcement is a marketing exercise, nothing more. Well, that and a bid to placate Yahoo!, which is a company that's committed to open source/standards.

[Loonie @ Feb 21st 2008 2:01PM]

Microsoft have a habit of trying to embrace things around the neck.

[James @ Feb 21st 2008 12:09PM]

When I read the news that MS where going to make a major statement, I thought oh yeah, spinning off part of the company or no further office releases unless soas.

Opening there patent and products to others never even crossed my mind, maybe GNU/GPL is having the impact in sales that we all hope it would.

[π @ Feb 21st 2008 7:42PM]

They're actually not opening their software at all. The word open source did not appear once in their relase relating to their products. What they're doing is using the word "Openness" to make them self look good.

[James @ Feb 21st 2008 8:42PM]

I didn't say open source, neither did Microsoft, as you so rightly say. What I said, was open there products and patents to others.

This means that 3rd party developers will be able to create products that better work with MS crap.

This is a marketing atempt to lure back customers who are looking for open standards, and not intrested in having to change all there documentation to .docx or sim.

[EMoShunz @ Feb 21st 2008 12:10PM]

it's going to come down to that...the big winner in the future will be quality AND open (not unnecessarily free). apple and ms have to adopt this to compete with the big oss guys down the road (not too far, 5-7 years i say). kde4 is the beginning of the end of closed source operating system interfaces. i would love to see apple/bsd/kde have a big group hug and knock windows down.

[Kaminix @ Feb 21st 2008 12:19PM]

*die-hard KDE fan*
I doubt KDE 4 will make path for any such thing. To me it sounds like they need more developers, last I heard KWord 2 might not even be finished for the initial Koffice 2 (which isn't really part of KDE, but still a very important part of a functional KDesktop imo) due to lack of developers.

[EMoShunz @ Feb 21st 2008 12:22PM]

@kaminix:
i don't think that as is it will be a killer of either osx or windows. but i think the root tech behind it has the potential. more like kde 6 (and associated apps, like koffice).

[Carbonize @ Feb 21st 2008 12:13PM]

Wonder what both this story and it's comments would of been like if it was Apple and not MS doing this.

[Jeff @ Feb 21st 2008 12:18PM]

it would have been a lot of people saying "er, 2001 called, and wants its story back."

[Jon Doe. @ Feb 21st 2008 12:23PM]

Yah because its so nice that I can take a Creative or Zune PMP and connect it up to iTunes and it syncs flawlessly. Ooops. Sorry. My bad. Open sourced my ass. Apple uses open sourced software. But allows? I think not.

[Carbonize @ Feb 21st 2008 12:35PM]

Please show me where Apple document how to connect and and talk to an iPod/iPhone ?



(Not saying they don't just saying show me)

[7on @ Feb 21st 2008 12:35PM]

iTunes supports plugins. If you want to write a plugin for your Zune to interface with iTunes then go ahead. Openess doesn't mean 'everything' works immediately. Some developer out there has to want a Zune to sync with his iTunes first. People already sync WinMo phones with iTunes and other PMP.

[sword @ Feb 21st 2008 3:53PM]

Uhh ... an apple fanboy spoke :D behold - a miracle :P

[Seneca @ Feb 21st 2008 12:15PM]

"The interoperability principles and actions announced today apply to the following high-volume Microsoft products: Windows Vista (including the .NET Framework), Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, Office 2007, Exchange Server 2007, and Office SharePoint Server 2007, and future versions of all these products." - From the link.

So, this is all just smoke and mirrors in hopes people will actually buy Vista? "Look mom, sure it's riddled with DRM, but it's openly interopoberable DRM." Yeah, Right.

[James @ Feb 21st 2008 7:23PM]

Really? Apple said they would quit suing people in 2001? Someone tell all the bloggers they have destroyed since then.

[James @ Feb 21st 2008 7:20PM]

Non-douchebagish? You mean like giving out free software to students? Or fixing Red Rings of Death for free? Or giving out Zunes for free when they miss a ship date? Or giving away free Xbox Live games for being down for a day? Microsoft has done a hell of a lot more to make good with customers than Google or Apple ever did.

[Sam Zebian @ Feb 21st 2008 12:20PM]

Micropensoft!

(After they get Yahoo)

[kal326 @ Feb 21st 2008 12:24PM]

Well Microsoft sure seems to be trying to pull in the good PR as of late. This after they started giving away a boat load of software to students for free.

http://channel8.msdn.com/Posts/2047/

The software includes the pro version of VS2008, Expression Studio, and Windows 2003 Server Standard R2. Academic pricing was cheap, but you can't beat free and legal.

[Blaktornado @ Feb 21st 2008 12:27PM]

Ballmer is killing Microsoft.

Say your farewells.



Microsoft, you are the weakest link, goodbye.

[Jon Doe. @ Feb 21st 2008 12:42PM]

Yah because they had record profits last year and has more money in the bank then some small to medium sized countries GDP....yep....MS is dead in the water. Doomed I say doomed. *rolls eyes*

[EQB @ Feb 21st 2008 12:30PM]

The cake is a lie! The cake is a lie!

[horizontaleight @ Feb 21st 2008 12:33PM]

Personally, I see this as a legitimate effort by Microsoft. The industry is shifting in a new direction and they were never one to be left behind. Mounting pressure from the EU will also be a key factor in this actually taking place. For the second time in my life (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation), I applaud Microsoft for trying to leave their old image behind.

[Thunderbuck @ Feb 21st 2008 4:45PM]

I'll admit to a little skepticism; MS has rarely as a company done anything for purely altruistic reasons.

Interesting, though, that this follows on the heels of the new "DreamSpark" program, which is intended to provide pretty much every student on earth with MS development tools like Visual Studio 2008 Pro and Expression Studio...

I think MS has seen the writing on the wall, and come to understand that remaining proprietary will eventually back them into a corner. They're not idiots.