Does Microsoft really care about Open Source? Is it “part of a ploy” or an earnest effort to “build bridges”? What does Microsoft do with Open Source communities & projects? This panel is your opportunity to find out! Representatives from several open source projects will talk candidly about their experiences working with folks from Microsoft Canada and share thoughts on what works and what doesn’t. Also on the panel will be a representative from the Open Source Lab at Microsoft, based in Redmond, Washington.
Here’s your chance to ask questions, voice your concerns, offer ideas, suggestions and vent, if you’re so inclined. We’d like to start the panel off with some questions posed from the Web. Please submit your questions, comments, or suggestions using the comment section below this post. Thanks for participating. Should be a lively discussion!
I’ve attended a few open source conferences where Microsoft had a presence, but this will be the first I’ve attended actually being sponsored by MS. While MS has dominated the desktop for almost a decade or better, the future doesn’t lie in the desktop, but in the cloud, where open source dominates. So, it’s not surprising to see MS take an interest.
I also just got done cleaning up malware off a Windows laptop – granted, they are a huge target, just because of the user base, but the development cycles for open source and contributor resources are far greater in OSS and that gives them an edge in making the web and the desktop friendlier and more secure.
If you embrace open source, as I do, here’s a question for you – are we really open source, if we shut out proprietary systems?
I appreciate that Microsoft makes Visual Studio Express available for free. However, the real problem is that you can’t really do anything with Visual Studio express as add-ins are disabled (eg unit testing, subversion, etc). The message is that Microsoft is letting you “play around”. In contrast with Java, C++, Ruby, Python there are no such limits. And if I want to get a limitless environment I have to literally fork over a thousand dollars. At least in previous editions Microsoft had a cheap standard edition that allowed me to develop with open source. I am right now contemplating moving away from .NET because I am tired of the restrictions. I just want to develop software.