Microsoft Corp is continuing to consider making its source code more freely available, under the influence of the success of the Linux community, president Steve Ballmer said yesterday. Reports that Microsoft might offer some of its code on an open source basis first emerged at the WinHec show in Los Angeles last month (CI No 3,635). But yesterday, speaking at an event in San Francisco, Ballmer admitted that Microsoft has a team in place thinking through the kind of strategy we might use.
The Linux development model is interesting, and we’ve all had a chance to learn and study it. We’ve seen a reasonable amount of interest, more than I’d wish, Ballmer admitted. The interest, he said, had prompted Microsoft to ask itself what it is about the Linux model that attracts people. It’s not just the price, he said, because in the end customers want something that gets the job done rather than something that’s just cheap. Ballmer said he also thought the benefits of the collaborative development work used by the Linux community had been overstated – though only slightly. He claimed that there was enough opportunity already for third parties to add value to Windows, through such means as dynamic link libraries and device drivers.
But, said Ballmer, what Microsoft was seriously looking into was the whole notion of open source. There are parts of code that, if we published them on some basis, might help people to be more effective in their jobs, he said. We see that fairly clearly as a requirement, through all the interest in Linux. Although Ballmer said Microsoft was still thinking out all the implementations of such a model, he identified database connectivity pieces as one example where greater access to the source code could be of benefit to customers. But he said Microsoft wouldn’t be embracing a full open source model.
Ballmer couldn’t resist listing some of the downsides of the open source world, however, the first being chaos. He also said full open source would mean the end of standard distribution, that in-house developers would be forever tempted to hack the system rather than get on with productive work, and that there could be no guaranteed response time on bug fixes.
Meanwhile, Danbury, Connecticut-based Bristol Technology Inc is preparing its court case against Microsoft, starting on June 1. Bristol wants Microsoft to hand over the source code to Windows NT so that it can carry on its Windows-to-Unix applications porting business. The court, in Bridgeport, Connecticut, begins jury selection on May 20, and the case is expected to run for up to two months.
