Remember my earler post where I asked people like Tim O’ Reilly to be careful not to play into Microsoft’s gameplan? Glyn Moody of Linux Journal points out exactly what Microsoft might be having in mind in their open source gameplan.
This, I think, goes to the heart of Microsoft’s open source strategy. As well as adopting those aspects of an alternative development model that it finds useful, Microsoft is aiming to blunt the undeniable power of openness by hollowing it out. If OOXML is an open standard, and some of its own software licences become OSI-approved, Microsoft will be able to claim that it, too, is an open standard, open source company. For many busy managers, subject to all kinds of demands – including increasing pressure to “go open source” - the difference between Microsoft’s open source and real open source won’t matter, in the same way that the difference between Microsoft’s open file formats and those of the OpenDocument Format won’t really matter. In terms of keeping people happy, what matters for many is the label – the appearance of going open – and Microsoft’s moves aim to provide just that.
Tags: OpenSource, Opensource, Microsoft, OSI
