I guess Microsoft just made an announcement that they’re going to become more open or something. The announcement seems pretty vague but lets hope that they at least do some of what the promise.
But I tend to think that this is not Microsoft’s attempt to become all nice and fair. History has shown that businesses will be nice and fair only when they have to be. Microsoft, being the target of constant antitrust investigations has some incentive to be nice and fair, but that’s not their true motive.
I think people within the company are starting to realize that given the presence of open source software, and given the presence of a new set of companies whose core technologies are not based on MS software, that if MS is retain its position as the platform to build on, then they are going to need to change their game. Although many will argue that the MS platform is still better than the OSS platform (and in many ways, it still is), the advantages it has are diminishing at an accelerating rate.
Companies have realized that it’s no use trying to compete directly with Microsoft. You have to do something that MS doesn’t. And when you figure out what that something is, there’s a good chance that you’ll build it with OSS. Why? Because usually to have any chance of success, your idea will have to be radically different from what MS does, and the more different it is, the more attractive OSS looks because it’s so much more flexible. Using an MS platform makes sense when the changes you need to make are in line with the flexibility that the MS platform provides. But with OSS, everything is flexible. You can literally change any part of the code if you’re so motivated. This is a huge advantage (as well as a nice assurance) for those looking to build something new.
A MS that keeps chugging along unchanged, continuing to define only on its own terms how flexible its platform should be, will eventually be obsolete. Their announcement today can be seen as an acknowledgment of this reality. For MS to survive in such a world, they need to make their technologies more flexible — able to be re-combined, built upon, mix-and-matched. This is not going to change the fact that thousands of great paid programmers will be able to produce code that is better than what many OSS projects can provide. But the same programmers will not be able to compete against _all_ of the OSS world. It’s simply too big and too dynamic. So in order to provide value in such a world, MS will need to concentrate on its best products, and make sure what it produces will integrate well with the rest of the world. Otherwise, it will slowly drift in to irrelevancy.
There’s one thing that OSS people always seem to forget when they bash MS and their closed source ways: MS doesn’t _need_ to go open source, as long as it can still “win” being closed source. And not only MS. It is still strictly advantageous as a software company to have a closed source component of their offering. That compromises their unique value, and gives them a competitive edge. But this also does _not_ mean a closed-source company cannot later go open source. If it can be shown that it will work to their advantage, then there’s no reason for them not to. In fact, it would be stupid for them not to. But MS’s business is huge and complicated. It’s still extremely unclear whether opening up all their code would be of any benefit to them. But it’s my firm belief that the day that it does become a unmistakable benefit, MS will be right on it.