Al on Linux
That last post, was pretty lame, so I'll try to answer some more interesting questions this time.
Obviously, the opinions expressed here are my own and in no way represent the official point-of-view of Microsoft or any other organisation blah blah blah.
Original questions are here: microsoftquestions [SLUG Wiki] If you're a SLUG member, please add to them!
Given your past comments about and behaviour towards the FLOSS community, why should we trust you and work with you?
Chances are, the Microsoft community and the FLOSS community are a lot more alike than we are different. As to trusting and working together, I think it is better for the industry that we do. Although, I think it has got into a bit of a tit-for-tat now. But, there are examples of Microsoft engaging with the FLOSS community, eg. Codeplex, the ODF Converter and the Ms-Pl license
Is there anything Cathedral-style development could learn from Bazaar-style development? And vice versa?
I think that the learning point for Cathedral-style development is the importance of unstructured testing such as Beta programs and making more source code available for review.
I think that a challenge with the Bazaar model is that developers that can understand and write the code have a lot more say than another stakeholder like an end user or the support guy.
This question is an interesting one. I think I will write a full blog entry on this down the track.
What do you think are Linux’ greatest strengths? Greatest weakness?
- it's diversity - it's great to have so many options... but can be confusing choosing apps and " betting on" which fork will survive/thrive, eg. CVS vs SVN.
- the community - the community is great (as are all the technical communities), but like every community, there are some bigoted people that really misrepresent it.
Perhaps unlike other areas of the company, Microsoft Research seems to have earned some respect in the FLOSS community. Are there any research activities that might be of relevance to us? Are there any problems in our community that MS Research or just MS in general might be able to help solve? Are there any grants, cooperative research or cooperative development priorities that MS may have right now?
- I think Feedsync is going to be huge.
- I also think that the Open Packaging Convention in Open XML should be seriously considered for other zip containers.
- Not sure about grants. I'm the wrong guy to ask
Okay, it is late and I need to sleep on the other questions.
