SAN DIEGO - Microsoft's Craig Mundie, the software giant's point person in its contentious debate with the open-source coding movement, tried to build a better rapport with 2,000 developers at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention here on Thursday.
He didn't get a warm reception.
Representatives of the open-source community, including commercial enterprises such as Red Hat, were unconvinced that Microsoft's warmer approach to movement is genuine, arguing that the company was giving the appearance of openness, not actually opening up. Microsoft, the target of much criticism these days, has objeced to the open-source community's free software, which is posted on the Net for anyone to use and change.
"Microsoft has no beef with open source," Mundie, a senior VP of Microsoft's Advanced Strategies group, told the gathering of skeptical developers. But he also made it clear: Microsoft has no intention of abandoning its "commercial software model" for greater openness.
That Microsoft has problems with the open-source movement is no surprise. If the rival operating systems using Linux coding were to find popularity with computer users, a significant chunk of Microsoft's $8 billion in Windows sales last year could be in jeopardy.
Last week, Microsoft took a step to mollify open-source developers, placing its Windows CE operating system for handheld computers into its so-called Shared Source program, the company's version of open-source development. Under the program, developers can retrieve the system's underlying software code but can't use it commercially. For a commercial project, a developer must buy a Microsoft software license. By contrast, the Linux operating system code is freely available.
Microsoft worries that participating in open source - using pieces of free software in Windows, for instance - could require it to post all of its closely guarded Windows source code on the Internet. Without the ability to sell a program such as Windows, the industry wouldn't have R&D dollars to improve its products, Mundie contended.
Unfortunately for Microsoft, open-source software is becoming increasingly popular because software developers like to look inside a piece of software when they're designing companion programs.
For much of this year, top Microsoft executives have been unabashed in their public criticism of the freewheeling open-source movement. In February, group VP Jim Allchin called open source an "intellectual property destroyer." Three months later, Mundie equated open source to the failed business models of dot-coms that gave away products and services hoping to gain a market toehold. In June, CEO Steve Ballmer referred to it as a "cancer."
Microsoft's unwavering front man has been Mundie. "He's really representing a deeply held conviction inside Microsoft that open source is the work of the devil," said Dwight Davis, an analyst at Summit Strategies. And he and others have been unafraid to offend community members. "There really is an element of tone deafness at Microsoft."
As a result, animosity against the company has been quick to build, a development that was obvious at last week's conference. "Microsoft's anti-open-source strategy has backfired," according to open-source advocate Bruce Perens, who serves as senior strategist to Hewlett-Packard's Linux software efforts.
