The real reason behind Microsoft's leap into open source

At the end of last week, Microsoft quietly released unexpected news: the launch of a wholly owned subsidiary to engage open source projects. All the reports stuck to the facts the new president of Microsoft Open Technologies, Jean Paoli, was willing to disclose in a blog post. I approached Microsoft for more information -- especially on why the company took this step -- but received a "no comment" beyond Paoli's blog. Given the new company includes all of Microsoft's open source evangelists, none of whom are exactly shy, I found this reticence remarkable.

Microsoft's history with open source is checkered at best. Its initial strategy in the late '90s, leaked in the Halloween Documents, was to attempt to undermine and attack open source, partly by funding SCO's attacks on Linux. Back then Steve Ballmer famously called Linux "a cancer that attaches itself ... to everything it touches" (actually meaning all open source and not just Linux) and has never to my knowledge recanted.

But Microsoft's overt hostility has given way to a more pragmatic approach, at least on the surface.

Microsoft has come to the realization that open source is an inevitable part of the marketplace and has instead tried to triage it, first at arm's length, then increasingly through open source projects. Indeed, Microsoft is the 17th largest contributor to Linux, hosts project at its nonprofit foundation, supports the Apache Software Foundation, and regularly shows up as a sponsor of open source events.

Open source contact points are now all over the company, though no core products truly adopt an open source approach. Behind the scenes, however, Microsoft continues to subtly undermine open source, as demonstrated by this week's FOIA-backed revelations from Glyn Moody about how Microsoft lobbied against open standards in the United Kingdom.

The new subsidiary is another evolutionary step in Microsoft's open source pragmatism. Since, as Paoli is careful to say, this move changes nothing about existing engagements by Microsoft projects, why is the company doing it? I see little evidence that the hostility to open source has softened at the executive level, though Ballmer no longer derides open source openly. But on the ground, the market is forcing Microsoft's hand.

Given Microsoft won't discuss the rationale for forming its new open source subsidiary, I can only speculate on specific motives. Here are four possible explanations.

1. Consolidation. The new subsidiary takes the standards and open source teams that already exist at Microsoft and groups them under a better name than "interoperability." Interoperability may sound good to some audiences, but it reeks of "our way or the highway" and "isolated competing teams" to lots of developers and has little resonance in the world of open source where words like "contribute" and "participate" have more meaning. This new subsidiary has Paoli's existing Interoperability Team at its heart, now nicely rebranded. I also hear that the former Platform Strategy Group -- responsible for engagement with Linux -- has been folded in to Microsoft's cloud operations.
2. Create a career path. Jean Paoli was one of the people named on the original XML specification and has been a loyal long-term player in the standards arena. High-powered standards wonks are like spymasters: necessary to their political bosses but with work that is usually better unseen. The result is a lack of career path in many corporations. This move could be a reward for Paoli and his team, recognizing his long-standing loyalty to the company. It's a charming and plausible tale if true, although it seems like an expensive and complex way to retain staff.
3. Firewall open source licensing. Licenses like the GNU GPLv3 are an inescapable fact of open source, and they do a fine job protecting their communities. Indeed, if Google had used the GPL version of OpenJDK in Android, it might not be in court today facing Oracle. However, the licenses do that by placing responsibilities on corporate participants, especially on how they handle patents. Most modern licenses include a "patent peace," removing rights from community participants who turn out to be patent litigators. They also secure explicit or implied blanket patent grants from contributors in most cases. A separate subsidiary provides Microsoft an "arm's length" relationship so that license terms can't affect them directly, especially so any implied or explicit grants to rights from their extensive patent portfolio are limited.
4. Firewall patent liability. After years of scepticism, Microsoft became an ardent admirer of software patents -- particularly their earning potential -- when embedded in both de facto and de jure standards (a technique the company gained when it hired the "inventor" away from IBM). Today, Microsoft is actively lobbying for RAND (arbitrary fee-based patent licensing) terms to be allowed in standards so that those "standing on the shoulders of giants" have to pay the giant. But there's a corresponding risk of taint from others planting these "patent bombs" in standards. By having the work done in a separate company, Microsoft limits the liability it faces from those playing the same game by seeking fees and alleging plagiarism.
5. The third and fourth points were part of the reason Microsoft started the Outercurve Foundation as a destination to outsource open source projects it wanted to start -- while isolating itself from any perceived risks its imaginative legal time might envisage. Of the four possible reasons, those two seem most likely to me. I think Microsoft Open Technologies is a legal firewall to allow greater engagement with open source without diminishing Microsoft's ability to be a patent bully elsewhere. Jean Paoli says:

   This structure will make it easier and faster to iterate and release open source software, participate in existing open source efforts, and accept contributions from the community. Over time the community will see greater interaction with the open standards and open source worlds.

   Just like Qualcomm's earlier Qualcomm Innovation Center, Microsoft Open Technologies provides an ideal firewall to protect Microsoft from the risks it has been alleging exist in open source and open standards, while engaging more. Why wasn't the Outercurve Foundation enough to achieve this goal? I don't know, and neither does Outercurve -- Microsoft took this step without consulting or even advising the group, according to executive director Paula Hunter.
   A firewall like this has benefits to Microsoft all around. It reduces the need for overcaution by Microsoft's large and conservative legal department, allowing it to respond to the inevitability of open source without constant pushback from corporate process. From that perspective, it's good news for open source. But it also frees Microsoft to continue and expand its aggressive exploitation of its patent portfolio against genuine open source innovators, leaving Microsoft Open Technologies to pick up the pieces each time the community is caught in the friendly fire of another monetization exploit.
   Is this subsidiary good news or bad news for open source? Time will tell, but the trend is a good one, away from overt hostility and toward positive engagement. While Microsoft is still internally divided about open source, with a change of leadership right at the top, these structures could spell a changed company. Who knows? Maybe one day we'll see core Microsoft products complementing and serving the open source market and community rather than just grudgingly conceding its existence.
                                                                                                                            (courtesy:www.infoworld.com)