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Mitchell Ashley
Microsoft Missed Perfect Chance To Contribute GPL Code
Written on Wed, 11/11/09 - 8:52am
Using open source software in your product. Doesn't Microsoft know that bloggers, techno-dudes and everyone else is watch them like a hawk waiting for Microsoft to make a GPL license misstep? Friday blogger Rafael Rivera called Microsoft on the carpet accusing Redmond of lifting code from the ImageMaster...
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Microsoft Is Perfect Example Why Executive Pay Is Broken
Written on Fri, 11/06/09 - 8:34am
Text message this morning from CNN: Unemployment hit 10.2% in October. Microsoft announced earlier this week another 800 employee layoffs to the 5,000 previously announced employee layoffs. If you look at Microsoft's financials you see why, a 14% revenue and 18% net income drop for the last reported...
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SharePoint Grabs Attention of The New York Times
Written on Wed, 08/12/09 - 12:02am
You know something's hot when non-tech publications talk about a product technology like Microsoft SharePoint. Ashlee Vance of the New York Times has an article talking about SharePoint's success even with our downed economy. It's not popular these days to be positive about a market dominator like Microsoft,...
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Is Open Source The Enemy Within Chipping Away at Proprietary Microsoft?
Written on Tue, 08/04/09 - 6:47am
Sam Ramji, Senior Director of Strategic Platforms at Microsoft, said some pretty unexpected things during his interview on my podcast this week. I've gone back and listened to the interview with Sam several times, each time picking up a new little tidbit, but also re-enforcing what I heard him say about...
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Sam Ramji: Why Microsoft contributed to open source
Written on Mon, 08/03/09 - 9:50pm
Sam Ramji, Senior Director of Platform Strategy joins us to talk about Microsoft’s recent open source code contribution to Linux. During the podcast Sam Ramji and I dive into details about the GPL'd Linux drivers, talk about how Microsoft worked with members of the community during their development,...
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Did Microsoft Violate the GPL and Were They Forced To Make Linux Hyper-V Drivers GPL?
Written on Fri, 07/24/09 - 4:12am
If what ComputerWorld is reporting and this blog post is saying, Microsoft may have effectively GPL'd the Linux Hyper-V drivers, whether intentional or not. If you link your code to GPL licensed code, your code is then considered to fall under the GPL license also, provided you distribute the combined...
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Microsoft GPL Linux Drivers First Legit Open Source Contribution
Written on Mon, 07/20/09 - 3:47pm
While Microsoft has made some prior moves to be more friendly towards open source (albeit slightly more friendly), Microsoft's GPLv2 contribution of Linux drivers will be seen as the first legitimate Microsoft move by the Linux open source and user communities. Microsoft's cozy relationship with Novell...
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Should Software Licenses Hold Vendors Accountable? Microsoft and Linux Say No
Written on Tue, 05/19/09 - 3:36am
Over the weekend Microsoft and the Linux Foundation issued a joint letter to the ALI (American Law Institute) objecting to some new draft guidelines.
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Is Interoperability The Right Microsoft Open Source Strategy?
Written on Fri, 05/15/09 - 3:16am
Win over the PHP open source community. Get PHP developers to put their apps on Windows and Microsoft technologies rather than open source software options on Linux. That's what Microsoft would love to do. The BHAG (big hairy "audacious" goal) would be to achieve a transformation from LAMP...
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Microsoft: The Platform and Open Source Company?
Written on Wed, 03/25/09 - 7:53am
We keep seeing some mighty strange talk from Microsoft these days. Not only is Microsoft a platform company now for Microsoft-based applications through the Azure platform, but Microsoft is embarking on two new strategies: be the web platform and cozying up to open source, from Linux right up to and...
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Why Windows 7 will never kill off Linux
Written on Wed, 01/14/09 - 2:24am
My Network World blogging colleague Ron Barrett has whooped up a firestorm with his blog post "Why Windows 7 will crush Linux". I have to say he's one brave soul for taking on the open source and Linux crowd. They're a passionate and vocal bunch, and the only thing higher on their...
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Microsoft Cozies Up To Open Source
Written on Mon, 10/06/08 - 3:45am
Scott Guthrie announced Microsoft Visual Studio would begin shipping with open source library jQuery. The jQuery library searches and performs commands on elements within HTML, using a very short and easy program to syntax structure. JQuery is open source, dual licensed under the GPL and MIT licenses....
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Google Android: The dude? Or big dud?
Written on Tue, 09/23/08 - 3:51pm
Today's the day Android strutted its stuff to the world. Is Android the game-changer for the SmartPhone industry, a real contender to the iPhone or just another cell phone OS? It's definitely not just another cell phone OS, as evidenced by all the attention around today's launch. Google...
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Chrome Just Means More Incompatible Web Sites
Written on Tue, 09/02/08 - 1:28am
I hear that Google's coming out with yet-another-web-browser and the product development guy in me immediately says, "Oh great. A third incompatible web browser I'll have to develop and test with." And for what, because Google thinks they can build a better mousetrap? Does the world...
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Development Costs In The Cloud
Written on Tue, 08/05/08 - 10:31am
As more of our applications migrate into the cloud, some interesting questions for development rise up. What about development? How will developer use cloud services in the development process? How do you attract developers to develop on your cloud services? How much will cloud services cost you...
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Red Hat Takes Hypervisor Control Back From Citrix
Written on Fri, 06/20/08 - 10:12am
Red Hat announced two important moves this week; open sourcing of Red Hat Network Satellite, and its own virtualization hypervisor oVirt. Open sourcing RHN Satellite is fundamentally about showing the industry Red Hat is still the keeper of the open source flame but the real strategic move is the...
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Microsoft, You're Driving Open Source Advocates Nuts!
Written on Tue, 04/29/08 - 6:09pm
Who would have thought?
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What's the Real Reason AT&T Didn't Like Google Android?
Written on Thu, 04/03/08 - 2:55am
It looks like the iPhone isn't the only "cool" phone AT&T wireless has agreed to carry. After meetings with Google, AT&T said their fears have been allayed that Google Android phones would be too Google app centric, giving Google too much control over AT&T's choice of...
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Microsoft Isn't Credible About Open Source
Written on Mon, 03/31/08 - 2:09pm
Microsoft's trying to play the open source market from both ends, and it's obvious. Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith repeated Microsoft's platitudes about wanting to play nice and find areas to work with the open source community, but in reality Microsoft's actions don't back...
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Microsoft - Stop Open Source Assimilation
Written on Thu, 02/07/08 - 12:40pm
Wayne Kelly, leader of the open source Ruby.Net development project, announced last week that he intends to discontinue development of Ruby.Net and join up with Microsoft's IronRuby open source efforts. This might sound good on the surface, but it is a bad idea. Development of .Net compatible...
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About Converging on Microsoft
Mitchell Ashley has a diverse background in software development, network engineering, information security, mobility, collaborative technologies, and IT management and operations. An early adopter of social media in business, he began blogging about security and information technologies in 2006 at theconvergingnetwork.com. Mitchell is VP of Information Technology at CableLabs in Louisville, CO, and previously held positions as CIO, CTO and VP Engineering at prior companies.
 

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