Microsoft holds firm in open source debate

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By Ashlee Vance

SAN DIEGO, California (IDG) -- Microsoft may have loosened its licensing structure, but it's still no fan of open source, and the debate between commercial software developers and the open-source community is raging on in a friendly confrontation between top executives from Microsoft and Red Hat at an industry conference here.

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Craig Mundie, senior vice president at Microsoft, echoes his company's long-standing claims that commercial software is but one choice in a large software ecosystem driven by customers, vendors, academia, and the government. While Microsoft stands accused of undermining the strength of open-source software development, Mundie contends open source is a valued part of the software economy, but is not an approach his company will fully embrace anytime soon.

"Microsoft has no beef with open source," Mundie said, addressing a crowd of open source supporters at the O'Reilly Open Source conference. "We happen to like and will continue to pursue commercial software as a business model Microsoft believes in. Ultimately, the market will tell us if that choice is a good one."

Mundie's comments were deflected by Michael Tiemann, chief technology officer at Red Hat, who contends Microsoft's claims are a ruse to hide the company's dominance and control over choice in the software market.

"To build an architecture of trust, it is better to be open than to seem open and better to be trustworthy than to seem trustworthy," Tiemann said.

Microsoft Softens

Microsoft has recently opened some of its software code on select products under its recently released Shared Source License. Under the terms of the license, users can see and even alter some Microsoft code for noncommercial purposes.

This new license is just meant to steer attention away from Microsoft's capability to monopolize parts of the software market, Tiemann said.

Top Microsoft executives have opposed open-source projects, such as Linux, that rely on licenses like the General Public License. They claim the approach fundamentally undermines the commercial software model and poses a threat to intellectual property. The GPL mandates that any software incorporating source code already licensed under the GPL becomes subject to the same terms of the license.

Mundie delivered a biting commentary on the downside of open-source software during a presentation at New York University's school of business in May. His comments at Thursday's conference, however, were tempered by his claims that other Microsoft executives mislabeled open-source software as a "cancer" in various public remarks.

"(The comments) were just unfortunate," Mundie said later. Microsoft meant to criticize the GPL specifically, instead of open source software as a whole, he says.

Audience Allied

Tiemann did not take Microsoft to task for past comments on either open source or the GPL, but focused instead on the future of software development and how Microsoft could control computing built around Web services. Microsoft is taking that approach in its .Net strategy.

"The stakes are very high in how we construct the future of the Internet," Tiemann says. "Do we want a winner-takes-all scenario for whichever company ultimately creates that particular piece of intellectual property that maximizes interoperability (across systems) or do we want to create a commons?"

Tiemann's remarks met with repeated outbursts of applause from an audience largely made up of open-source advocates. About 100 audience members wore plastic red hats, the trademark of Tiemann's company.

This sea of Red Hat allies appeared to make Mundie uncomfortable at times as he sent sharp glares toward several audience members who barked out comments during the debate. He later called some of Tiemann's remarks "snide."

Nonetheless, Tiemann championed Mundie for engaging in the debate, calling him "brave" and applauding the discussion's even-keeled nature.

No Policy Changes

While the battle lasted nearly three hours, neither executive shifted his traditional stance on this long-running point of contention.

Tiemann suggested open-source fans inside Microsoft are beginning a "civil war," asking Microsoft to change its practice of patenting technologies and controlling code.

While Microsoft employs some open-source followers, the company's upper management decides how its technology is implemented, Mundie replied.

"In some senses, it is easy to poke fun or think you know what is going on by looking in from the outside," Mundie said. "The company is clear about what it wants to do. There is no civil war at the management level."