The Sikh Geek

Miguel de Icaza has a really excellent post on the recent announcements by Microsoft on its Opensource strategy. It looks to me that Microsoft is starting to hedge its bets here! Continuing to develop the way they have traditionally done is proving to be a huge investment for Microsoft and it’s by no means clear that it is the most efficient and productive way. To say that Microsoft could become a totally Opensource company seems quite fanciful at this moment in time. If we look at what’s happened within the technology industry, then there isn’t a major company that hasn’t had to change its strategy because of opensource. These companies include IBM, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, Novell and I’m sure there are more.

My own personal belief is that future software development strategies will lie somewhere between opensource and proprietary commercial methods. What balance there will be and what it will look like, I don’t know. I’m just not that clever to work that out. What we can say is that Microsoft is starting out on a journey which it doesn’t know where it will take them to. All we need now is Microsoft is stop the IP Patent claims on Linux and trying to sign Patent Protection deals with various Linux vendors!