James Gerber

Microsoft's Savvy Open Source Move

Hi Joe,

I agree with your article. As a big open source lover, I use Windows XP as my main OS. For some reason, I just can't get into any of the many different Linux distros on a UI level. Microsoft and Windows, despite all of their faults, excel at the UI. However, I love OSS apps and for the most part, they work great on Windows. I think that most OSS apps should have a Windows installer for this very reason, because a lot of people use it as their OS and they will not achieve the same penetration if they don't. One of my clients announced recently that they had released a Windows installer, and downloads really spiked on SourceForge. It was pretty cool to see happen in real time. And in regards to Microsoft working more with OSS, I think that's a no-brainer and they would be foolish not to. I think they're doing that, as this announcement and last week's on their working with SourceSense on Apache POI show. They're slowly beginning to open up, but I'd like to see them open up even more. Imagine the possibilities.