Open Source Blog

Will Microsoft ever take a mainstream product open source?
January 16, 2007

Stephen Walli has posted an interesting ‘thought experiment’ about Microsoft and what it could be doing with open source.

“Microsoft needs to start to explore open source software business processes better than the minor experiments they have done to date. Steve Ballmer also wants to license the company's intellectual property. So here's a way to do that using free software as the hook,” he writes before explaining how Microsoft might hypothetically release the code to its SQL Server database.

Walli describes in seven steps the process and what the impact might be, which can be paraphrased as:

1. The code is released.
2. The company moves to a subscription support model for the product.
3. Understand that the value isn’t in the source code, but the testing, packaging, support and maintenance.
4. Use the GPL v2 license.
5. Construct a patent grant for database related work under the GPL v2.
6. Someone releases a clone, but Microsoft wins on support confidence.
7. Microsoft gets new SQL Server developers, changes and bug fixes

He then explores the potential of code mash-ups with MySQL in the community, as well as enterprise licensing at an enterprise level.

It’s an interesting idea, but how likely is it?

“Based on current open source culture at Microsoft, I see at least six show stoppers in the seven items listed above,” says Walli. As a former business development manager in the Windows Platform team, he should know.

The article reminded me of a speculative news story I wrote late last year about Gartner’s predication that Windows will be the last major release of Windows.

The speculation centered on Walli’s second step – Microsoft moves to a subscription pricing model and expands its use of Software Update as a software delivery model. I am not convinced Microsoft is prepared to make the leap to admitting that its software code is not the most valuable thing it has to offer.

While Cynthia Crossley, UK director of Microsoft's Windows client business group, told me the company is interested in expanding its use of SU, it seems unlikely the company will be moving to a subscription model for any major software products for some time.

"There is a middle ground between the two," she added, indicating that software updates could increasingly complement packaged software, rather than replace it. "I think SP2 was really interesting. In some ways it worked much better than we expected. It depends on what the application is, and the size of it."

The other huge issue with Walli’s experiment is Microsoft’s adoption of the GPL v2. Walli suggests this license as it would allow a community of developers to grow around the product without enabling IBM of Oracle to pinch the code and build a proprietary product out of it.

Sure, they could build a clone, he admits, but it would also have to be GPL v2, and as Walli points out: “if you were betting your business data on SQL Server, would you buy support from ‘Blue Hat’ or Microsoft.”

I have always thought that Microsoft anti-GPL stance was strange given the control it gives developers about what their competitors can do with the code. In certain circumstances the GPL would appear to make much more sense for Microsoft than a more permissive license that allows others to benefit commercially from its work.

Anyway, Microsoft and the GPL? It would seem unlikely. It’s worth noting that when Steve Ballmer referred to Linux as “a cancer” the issue he had was with the license, not the code.

Microsoft has certainly got more open with its code and licenses since then, with FSFE Software Foundation Europe president, Georg Greve declaring that its Ms-PL and MS-CL licenses put it “mere inches from the GNU (L) GPL".

Depending on how you look at it, that’s one small step – or one giant leap.