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Microsoft Faces Skeptics at Open Source Conference

By: John K. Waters

4/8/2008

"It's just about talking a common language," Thomas said.

The same is true for directory compatibility, with the WS-Federated spec. The companies are still working on the underpinnings of allowing their directories to determine trusted relationships -- that is, the exchange of tokens.

"This piece is still yet to be completed," Thomas said. "It's been defined, but we are actively working on that."

On the document interchangeability side, Microsoft and Novell said files are interchangeable through their support for standards, notably Microsoft's Office Open XML specification, which just this week was approved as a standard by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). While the office suites will be able to share key formatting attributes, functions such as Visual Basic-based macros won't work across platforms, admitted Thomas.

"I'll be quite honest, I'm not going to sit here and tell you everything is going to carry over," he said.

Open Enough?
Microsoft was addressing an open source conference, with many skeptics in attendance.

"I like the fact that Microsoft is cooperating with the Linux community, but for me, it's about the openness in the standards -- if you are going to collaborate and keep it closed, then it really wouldn't benefit us," one audience member said.

"We're a company that happens to value patents," said Rodriques. "We can have that debate and I absolutely respect that today. But what we're trying to do is figure out, how do we open up our APIs? How do we open up our protocols with the open source community, use it where it makes sense, and that's the next wave as we move this relationship."

Thomas added in an interview that the challenge is in coming up with a happy medium.

"I think we have the right intent, but at the end of the day we still have to make sure that both worlds can meet in the middle," he said. "We're an intellectual property-based software company; we want to work with that open community where it makes sense."

Paul Brown, director of global strategic marketing at Novell, said in an interview after the session that he wasn't surprised by the skepticism but he is encouraged by Microsoft's latest moves.

"You have to give them credit," Brown said, noting Microsoft's recent interoperability pledge and the release of its APIs. "They really have opened it up."


John K. Waters is a freelance journalist and author based in Palo Alto, CA.