Now, don't start crying on me, but this one will probably smack as being overly sentimental. Guilty as charged.
More often than I'd like, I'm forced to acknowledge "mea culpa" and reverse course on something I've said. I've always been more optimistic than most on Microsoft's chances to get open source right, but I occasionally think I've met exceptions to the rule.
I thought I had discovered one in Sam Ramji. He's part of Microsoft's Emerging Business Team, and I was fortunate to share a table with him at the recent SDForum event. Like virtually everyone I've met at Microsoft, Sam was articulate (sophistic is the word I sometimes apply to Microsoft friends like Jason :-), intelligent, and not afraid to back down from an argument.
We had plenty at our breakout session. (I learned after the fact that I wasn't supposed to blog this session. Again, mea culpa. Since Google doesn't forget anything, there's no point in trying to erase what I wrote. But I can at least acknowledge when I was wrong.) In the case of Sam, I misunderstood both what he said and what he meant.
The discussion went round the table about whether open source is a follower or a leader. I've taken both positions in the past, but generally believe that commercial open source obviates community open source's (not really a true distinction there, but I assume you know what I mean) definitional need to follow.
(Open source "in the wild" relies on a sufficient body of developers with interest and aptitude for a given technology, which happens once the groundwork has been laid by someone else. So, for example, you would not likely have an open source database until databases were well understood and a large enough group of developers could combine around creating one. I suppose one developer could innovate something on their own, but the money required to build up a mass of skilled developers around a technology largely precludes it, in my opinion.))
Anyway, I took Sam's comments to be pejorative on this, but after exchanging emails with him, I think I was wrong. Sam was no more antagonistic toward open source than I am. In fact, his background (lots of open source in it) makes him as likely as I am to be friendly about open source, and understanding of it.
Sam's response to my misunderstanding? He sought me out and tried to understand why I had misunderstood him. This has universally been the response from Microsofties that I've known. It's one reason that I put Microsoft in a very different class than most companies threatened by open source. The company started out as belligerent toward open source (and, indeed, sometimes this old tendency flares up), but quickly learned that this was the wrong way to become part of the community.
I'm actually quite bullish that Microsoft will continue to figure it out. Heresy, I know, but I'm not religious about software. I haven't met anyone there yet that hasn't shown enough humility to truly become part of the community (then again, I've yet to meet Ballmer or Gates ;-). If Tim thinks Microsoft could well be defined as an "open source company" because of their code contributions, I can agree, too. But I think the greater test is the quality of the people in the company. In this department, Microsoft has a very deep bench.
Sorry for misunderstanding you, Sam. Thank you for reaching out to me. And thanks for being a credit to your employer. Sorry I said otherwise. I was wrong.
And now I will go back to killing your SharePoint business. :-)
Posted by Matt Asay on January 21, 2006 09:27 AM
