Some people think I bash Microsoft a lot on this blog, and maybe that’s true, but I don’t think I ever do it unfairly. To prove that I don’t just comment on the bad stuff, here’s a major piece of positive news about the software behemoth: Microsoft appears to have fixed the flaws in the Open Specification Promise (OSP).
The major flaw in the OSP when it was originally announced is that the promise not to sue people who developed upon or used Microsoft protocols and formats extended only to those who operated non-commercially. This of course made the whole OSP basically useless, because the primary area where people want to inter-operate with Microsoft is in the enterprise, where, rather unfortunately, most companies do not work for free. Most enterprises are not particularly happy about engaging the services of purely voluntary organisations, at least in visible or critical areas, because of the potential exposure to core business functions; they need support contracts, even if in practice they don’t strictly need or use them - I’m sure that I’m not the only person at the sharp end of getting problems resolved who ended up getting good answers faster from nonprofit communities rather than official support channels.
Anyway, all of a sudden and with little fanfare Microsoft appears to have addressed this; on Friday they updated the OSP to remove the non-commercial clause. The surprising bit is perhaps not that they realised it was broken (I’m sure the beleaguered pro-open source elements in the company knew this from the start), but that the upper echelons allowed them to fix it. The rhetoric spouted by the likes of Ballmer does not gel with this kind of move, and even the recent high water mark of Ballmer committing MS to being more open had the look of a man who had a gun to his back, and it didn’t take long for him to start beating his drum about patents again after that. I’ve been skeptical the action on the ground would be free from gotchas or caveats, and the original OSP certainly reinforced this. No longer.
With this change, Microsoft has made a significant step in the right direction. Companies deploying & supporting the likes of Samba, OpenOffice & POI have operated under something of a cloud until now, glancing nervously over their shoulders in fear of suddenly becoming a target for the three hundred pound gorrilla beating its chest about patents and Linux, and customers felt the anxiety too I’m sure - leading to less credibility being afforded to those kinds of alternatives. If MS stay true to this agreement it really does open opportunities for better competition in the commercial sector, which can only be a good thing for customers. Keep this kind of practical change up Microsoft, and I might even start liking you again. Just get rid of that relic of 1980’s capitalism you have at your helm 
July 28th, 2008 at 7:51 am
That is interesting, I wonder if that extends to ROTOR, and if it helps the Mono guys out.
I was listening to the podcast the other day, and I heard that the F# / generics thing actually came out of a contribution to ROTOR 1.
July 28th, 2008 at 8:39 am
Not sure.
I have to say that Sam Ramji seems like a really decent bloke, and the contrast between what he & his team are doing and what the upper management do & say is pretty marked. I’ve been incredibly cynical about what MS’s real intentions were following their commitment to being open - I’ve heard promises like that before in the last 15 years ish and it’s never panned out (as someone who has had to make MS systems interoperate with others on lots of occasions, open source and otherwise, I have a lot of reason to doubt the practicalities), but now there’s this weird dichotomy between a little mini-state in MS which appears to be trying to do the right thing, while the majority of the other divisions often seem to be trying to do quite the opposite. I know Ballmer did the “we’re open” announcement, but I wouldn’t believe him if he told me the sky was blue. I honestly don’t know how this is going to pan out long term, whether Sam & co will win, or whether MS will just experiment with this for a while before deciding it’s not worth their while and reverting to the old ways. The fact that the CEO is so blatantly anti anything that reduces MS’s monopoly (not surprising I suppose since it’s a nice place to be in, except if you’re a customer) makes it hard to give them the benefit of the doubt, hence why I think to *really* go down this path in a way that people trust, they need a change at the top.
July 28th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
For Balmer I think it boils down to Google’s success and how much it eats away at him that their business model so solidly supports open source and open standards. As much as he detests it, I think it’s become a competetive requirement, not just for business but for attracting/keeping talent, and he will probably go to almost any length to find ways to beat google at something(or at least lose less often).
July 28th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
See, I don’t really get Ballmer’s Google obsession. Sure, they’re a huge brand now and are caning MS in online services right now. But, MS are still making a mint on desktop software & enterprises, where Google has pretty much no penetration at all. Now, I know online services are growing and are the new sexy thing, but they’re not going to make desktop software obsolete overnight, no matter how much some pundits might rant about it. None of the big enterprises are seriously considering putting their data in the cloud yet. Sure it’s going to eat into MS’s business a bit, but they’ve got years of good earnings just based on existing customers - just look at how well a dodgy product like Vista can do because of existing channel partners. Anyway, no-one stay’s top dog forever, and that’s a good thing.
I think part of MS’s trouble is that they want to be top dog at *everything*. Desktop, online, enterprise, games consoles, portable devices, mobile phones, you name it, they want it. They’re greedy and generalist. What happened to a company having a focus and choosing just to do a fixed number of things really, really well? That’s what earns respect and customer loyalty, not stamping your brand on every damn thing in the shop.
If Stevie-boy can’t take getting beaten every so often at something without throwing a wobbler, then he has a bit of a stress problem. Must explain the chair hurling.
July 28th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
Probably MS just wanna build back repo among open sources people and geek - just like what Google does with its Google Summer Code. Maybe after a few years when certain millions have already been poured into Open Source projects, people will get less critical, more forgiving and more soft spots of MS - just like Google ;). A million to MS is just like a pinch of salt taken from an ocean.
July 28th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
“just look at how well a dodgy product like Vista can do because of existing channel partners”
That’s what keeps me feeling so skeptical: Microsoft and its software doesn’t need to be open, convenient for all customers, and nice to people. They can be total wankers for a long while yet thanks to their persistent Windows and Office monopolies.
Sure, the iron anchors of Windows and Office - or rather, the closedness and lock-in monkey-business they bring with them - weighing us down won’t last forever, but who ever heard of Microsoft being forward-looking? Unless they’re detecting rising levels of customer dissatisfaction… maybe Internet culture and such is helping people realize that Microsoft has them over a barrel, and things can be better?
(Captcha: lofty policy)
July 29th, 2008 at 4:54 am
hello sir
I am from Iran and sometimes read your site. It is very interesting!
I must to become familiar with Ogre.However I couldn’t implement even a sample through Ogre and vc++ 2008! The ogre sample (that there is in ogre folder )doesn’t run in vc++ 2008 too. I read nearly all forums about ogre and vc++ but I couldn’t find any solution.
can you help me?
(my english is very bad , sorry!)
July 29th, 2008 at 8:27 am
@fatima: this isn’t the place for Ogre questions, the forum is for that. We provide a VC2008 SDK which is in active use by VC2008 users.
July 29th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
@Steve: I suppose it’s the mindset that Gates first started out with where they were first and foremost a software company. Not simply an office automation software company, or operating system software company, but in the full breadth and depth of the word “software”. They almost never seem to put limitations on the spectrum of software applications and markets they will enter. Sure, hardware is in the fold now, but other than the xbox(which is just a software services platform for them), they have never over-indulged in hardware.
I think what bothers MS most about Google is that they have the capital, talent and technology to quickly make moves that redefine traditional software delivery and broad use. Heck, it wouldn’t surprise me if Google starts offering a plug-in, self-updating, low cost, unlimited user device for office automation that’s cheaper than licensing MS office for medium to large businesses.
July 29th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
I think the trouble with that attitude is that they risk being ‘Jack of all trades, master of none’. Google does online, cloud-based services best. Oracle makes great high-end databases first and foremost. Apple does the slick consumer experience. What does MS do best? I think not being able to say what a company’s focus is (and ‘everything to do with software’ isn’t a focus) is a problem. Windows & Office only takes you so far as a brand.
If I had to say what MS does best, it would probably be developer tools for the masses. I don’t think they make the best dev tools & libraries anymore (open source of various flavours exceeded it some time ago and MS has been left basically copying the likes of RoR, Hibernate et al), but what they do make is still good and is certainly one of the easiest to get up to speed on, and market saturation of Windows means you can’t help but trip over it. But, increasingly developers want to be more flexible as regards platforms, devices, protocols. I guess that’s what’s behind the slow recognition of open source as a positive force, because they’ve realised they’re losing developer mindshare fast outside their already dedicated user base.
Being a Windows / Office / easy dev tool company - is that enough? I don’t know. It doesn’t excite me particularly, and I’m not sure it excites many others either. Until MS can come up with a 1-line, non-wooly statement of exactly what it is they do better than anyone else, rather than relying on market positions they’ve had in the past and being 2nd or 3rd in about 10 other things, they’re not going to capture that brand excitement that I think they want. I think they should drop at least half the things they’re doing and concentrate on doing the remainder fantastically well. Or, break the company up into separate units each with a clear focus, drive, and CEO with passion to be great in that area. Ballmer just wants to milk every possible avenue for money, that’s not inspiring.
July 30th, 2008 at 1:53 am
Well, if you could say there was one thing they are the best at it is “selling” software. With that type of success I think they got it in their heads they can enter almost any software market and outsell the competition, even with inferior product. The software is simply a vehicle to a revenue stream and tapping into a broad spectrum of streams and raking in the money is where they shine. Of course their monopoly behavior to protect the streams has been knocked around a bit, and now they have to play by some new rules and exist in an open ecosystem, but in the end they are a sales, revenue empire first, which paints everything through green colored glasses.