What a news, my friends ! The Software giant Microsoft has announced that it will share some of its trade secrets to improve the ability of its products to work with other software. I am surprised with this news.According to the media microsoft is trying to increase openness in its computer operating technology to increase opportunities for open source software developers and to support industry standards. I would like to quote Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer
Our goal is to promote greater interoperability, opportunity and choice for customers and developers throughout the industry by making our products more open and by sharing even more information about our technologies.
According to some news sources, Microsoft will now publish on its website the blueprints (”all application programming interfaces and communications protocols”) for its high volume products, and developers don’t need to pay a fee or take a license to use the information.
Microsoft is implementing four new interoperability principles and corresponding actions across its high-volume business products:
(1) ensuring open connections
(2) promoting data portability
(3) enhancing support for industry standards
(4) fostering more open engagement with customers and the industry, including open source communities.
It’s amazing, the biggest enemy of open source is talking of increasing openness in software. Is Microsoft following Google’s policies ? In my opinion this move will prove to be a significant change in how Microsoft does business. Post your comments on this hot topic.
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