Has Microsoft Seen the Open Source Light?'
As we reported on Sunday, Microsoft is becoming a co-sponsor of the Open Source Census (OSC), a further commitment to the company's interoperability principles launched earlier this year. The OSC is trying to figure out how widespread the use of Open Source Software is within companies and to generally promote its use.
But having Microsoft sign on has some people both excited and leery. From a practical standpoint it makes sense for the maker of Windows to participate, since most open source programs and applications run on Windows, the most widely-used operating system in the world. However, the software giant has a bad name when it comes to dealing with the rest of the computing world. The company has long been accused of monopolizing the industry, it claimed last year that open source violates 200 of Microsoft's patents, and has said on several occasions that open source software is a bigger threat to the company than Google.
So what to make of all this? Some may see it as a PR ploy to get back in the good graces of the development community, while the company itself says it recognizes the changing face of the software "ecosystem." I see it as both.
There's no way programs like Open Office, a suite of free programs that competes directly with Microsoft Office, are good for the Redmond-based company's core business. But at the same time it sees Google giving away countless online applications for free and realizes that the old way of doing things is, while not dying, at least threatened. Microsoft may just want to be out in front of the open source revolution; what the company will do when, and if, it gets there remains to be seen.
REPORTED BY PC WORLD CONTRIBUTOR IAN PAUL
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I'm not sure if you've got your facts straight... First of all, I highly doubt that "most open source programs and applications run on Windows" considering that several ENTIRE DISTRIBUTIONS run on open source software; GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, OpenSolaris, ReactOS, and a many others you've never heard of. Secondly, with all of this in mind, I actually doubt that Windows is the most widely used OS in the world (maybe is the US - lol, but not the world my friend). In a world of Ubuntu, RHEL, Fedora, Debian, SUSE EL, openSUSE, Mandriva, Knoppix, Mepis, Inside Security, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenSolaris, HP UX, IOS, Linksys Linux Router OS, OS2, SCO Unix, and even more you've never heard of - Microsoft Windows may have a hold on the desktop (which it kind of doesn't), but it's unlikely that Windows is the most widely used OS when others have been places MS Windows can never go (routers, printers, cameras, DVRs, Sony Bravios, vehicles, refrigerators)...
Dancing on the head of a pin while splitting hairs.