Microsoft: We love open source

Radically backtracking from its earlier stance on the open-source community, software giant Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) has now admitted that its earlier hostility was a mistake. Almost a decade ago, company CEO Steve Ballmer called the open source Linux operating system a "cancer" where its IP was concerned; Microsoft has also accused open source providers of violating hundreds of its patents in recent years.

In a recent interview with Network World, Jean Paoli, the general manager of Microsoft's interoperability strategy team explained that the mistake has to do with equating Linux with all open source technology. "We understand our mistake, he says," and pointing out that the various work that Microsoft has since done with open source, he quipped, "We love open source."

Microsoft is committed to open standards, says Paoli, who pointed to Microsoft's heavy involvement in the creation of open data protocol OData and driver source code designed to make the Linux kernel work better under its Hyper-V hypervisor technology.

So what prompted the radical change in thinking at Microsoft? Paoli himself offers the clue when he pointed out that the world today revolves around the concept of "mixed IT." 

Paoli explains, "Today it is a reality that many customers, if not the majority of customers I talk to, use Oracle and Red Hat and Microsoft and IBM and VMware and Google, etc. It's all around what we are calling mixed IT. You have commercial software and open software together, in many, many cases."

While there is no executive tasked specifically with managing open source, the company says that more than 150 employees take up a "shared responsibility" on various open source collaboration efforts. Microsoft says that it runs many projects that embrace open source today and even have a site dedicated to open source here.

For more on this story:
- check out this article at Network World
- check out this article at Telegraph.co.uk

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