Microsoft, Moonlight, and Open Source Software (and Novell's Brilliance!)

There's been interesting news about Microsoft support for the Novell Moonlight project this past few days.  Miguel de Icaza as community leader around Mono and Moonlight best tells the news on his blog, and points to Scott Guthrie's supporting blog post from Microsoft.  Tim O'Reilly points out that Microsoft will (predictably) support open source software for competitive advantage, in this case against Adobe.  Matt Asay supports Tim with the observation that Microsoft will use open source "where it's weak" and chides the two companies to just consummate the marriage.   

All the Moonlight support from Microsoft is a Very Good Thing for Moonlight and Novell, but let's be clear: Microsoft's participation in Moonlight is NOT Microsoft doing open source software. 

No code has been contributed to a community under a liberal license.  (As Miguel says, "Microsoft will give Novell access to the test suites for Silverlight to ensure that we have a compatible specification.")  No IP has been contributed to a community under a liberal license.  ("The codecs will be binary codecs, and they will only be licensed for use with Moonlight on a web browser".) 

Novell is doing the heavy lifting with help from Microsoft.  And in return, Novell is actually being pretty savvy (despite Matt's regular swipes at them for a lack of open source creativity and strategy).

• Novell is anchoring itself rapidly as the other cornerstone for cross-platform programming between Windows and Linux.  This gives them a valuable community center of gravity with respect to the enterprise that is much more valuable with customers than "we're not Red Hat".  Miguel has demonstrated himself as a brilliant community leader over the years.  Influence and IP control — It's all good for business. 
• It allows Novell to move Mono beyond the patent FUD and "science experiment" label Microsoft has traditionally thrown at it.  [Mary Jo Foley correctly called this one out.]  For Microsoft to renege on this very public initiative, or to try to claim behind closed doors that they like Moonlight but not Mono will demonstrate to customers once and for all that Microsoft doesn't understand the customer cross-platform/interop needs.  While Moonlight may be a great desktop experience, Mono is also all about server-side applications. 
• Before Microsoft gets any [BROKEN!] ideas around trying to jam yet another unproved specification through the standards process, Novell is anchoring the specification with a second high profile external implementation on another platform.  [This is a Very Very Good Thing for everyone.]

Microsoft certainly gains in the bargain as well.  They get to maintain a position on a multi-platform field they would otherwise forfeit to Adobe's open source maneuvering and market history around Flex and Flash.  They get to be seen publicly collaborating on Linux-based technologies so as to foster the belief with customers that they do genuinely care about cross-platform interoperability (and anchored around C# and .NET technologies).  They may even be in a GREAT position with respect to some customers to be the single source vendor of platforms when one considers the other collaboration deals in place with Novell.  It's win:win for each of them. 

But it's not Microsoft doing open source.  When we start to see Microsoft developer participation in the public code contributions for Moonlight, then they can claim to be "doing open source."  Regardless of the open sourcery of it all, however, it will be fascinating to see where this initiative goes.

Comments

[Steve Loughran]

Let's be grateful for the fact that they are supplying the test suites, though without them being freely available to everyone, you can't be sure that any build of moonlight you make yourself is compatible.

Compare with Sun, who arent letting Apache's independent implementation of Java have access to the Java test kit.

In software, it is is the tests that form the real specification of a product, not the XML specifications or the documentation. If OOXML included a test kit, it would be much easier to assess compliance. But for some reason, neither ISO or OASIS have embraced test-centric specifications, which is where I think all the main standards bodies (even W3C) are going wrong.

[stephe]

Morning Steve: Fair comment. I'd observe however that it's not necessarily the standards development organization that should be responsible for certifying conformance. I posted about the relationship between conformance and certification back in January.

Standards development orgs exist to provide a forum for standards builders. Their needs are somewhat different than implementers and purchasers (even if the developers are primarily implementors). Certification is expensive and fraught with liability issues. The people that care about it should put their money where their mouth is, and implement the necessary programs. This is typically government and industry procurement agencies or vendor consortia that collectively implement the standard.

[Paul]

Steve,

Live in the past and you are bound to stay there.

In case you missed it, Java IS Open Sourced under GPL. Mothing from MS' NET world is.

[Robukake Enderle]

YOU WROTE: For Microsoft to renege on this very public initiative, or to try to claim behind closed doors that they like Moonlight but not Mono will demonstrate to customers once and for all that Microsoft doesn't understand the customer cross-platform/interop needs.

Yes, because THAT will demonstrate your point.
Not the dozens of other valid reasons. No, that will be your breaking point.

I hate to break it to you but weve passed that point a long, long time ago.
Like a beaten women, people like you keep saying "Sure he beat me every day the past 2 years but I think he is ready to change."

THe media deal too much in impressions, feelings, hunches.
Because of professional deformation, I deal in facts.
NOTHING Microsoft has said over the past 12 months signals any changes in their atittude towards open source.
And I dont mean some lower level project manager saying that he has a crush on RMS, I mean the heads of Microsoft, Ballmer and Gates.
WHen it comes to the company, I will take their words rather than employee #23,895.
They have plenty of tools at their disposition and Miguel is one of them. They will use him and discard him just like they have every single partner before. Look at the list of bodies they have left in their wake.

Ah yes, Microsoft has a 'new generation of young FLOSS friendly freedom fighters that are different from the old guard'.

This always come back to my same point, do you base your views on the words of the leaders of GM, Universal or the NFL or one of their minions?

Show me ANYWHERE in the past 12 months were the heads of Microsoft have said anything remotely positive and Ill take it all back.

You cant.

And you wont.

Open source threathens their cash cows just like open document standards would render their Office moneymaker much weaker without the format lock-in which is its main attribute.

[stephe]

Morning Rob: I completely agree. I've said for years that culture comes from the top. I spent 5 years inside Microsoft, and left 3 years ago, and I still haven't seen a change from the top wrt free and open source software. I've also been a partner of the company before I worked there. I know exactly how fast they can turn the charm on and off. And I've written a lot about what ODF will do to their Office business.

I still get to talk to a lot of CIO-types. They've moved on. They know Microsoft doesn't understand cross platform and interop. That doesn't mean that they wouldn't like better support. It also doesn't mean Microsoft isn't slowly learning that they need some form of reality to back up the message. [Message circa 2000: Why would you need anything other than Windows? Message circa 2003: We interoperate -- Look we sort of support NFS if you use AD. Message Now: Okay -- we still don't know why you need more than Windows Server 2003, but we're building better interop.]

I'm merely pointing out that this is a reasonable strategy for Novell to try.