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by billhilf on February 21, 2008 09:00am
I have always been a fan of Tim O’Reilly’s phrase the “architecture of participation” to describe “systems designed for user contribution.” I liked it so much that at last year’s OSCON I made this concept the focal point of a discussion about how Microsoft’s products, programs, and partnerships have evolved over time to further this idea of ‘participatory systems’. (The slide I used at OSCON in Portland on July 26, 2007 is shown below).
(Presented July 26, 2007, OSON, Portland, Oregon)
I also like the metaphor of an ascending curve that reminds me of a strand of DNA. To me it is a visual representation of the fact that as the number of examples of architecting for participation have increased, the mindset and the behaviors involved in doing so have increasingly become a part of the company’s core culture and software design and development practices.
Today we are making a set of broad-reaching changes that go above and beyond any prior incremental changes in Microsoft’s DNA, that opens the door on new horizons for what architecting for participation might mean in the future. I want to talk about what this means—and why an open source interoperability initiative is an important part of it.
To understand why Microsoft is making broad-reaching changes to its technology and business practices that will drive greater interoperability, it’s important to step back and look broadly at the way the emergence services oriented architectures, web services, and the growing importance of software plus services are transforming the world of technology.
Ray Ozzie described this sea-change well this morning:
…as we put more and more of our data into [technology] products, a new set of issues emerge. Whether it’s our health records, or our customer databases, we’ve progressively learned that our documents and data have a lifetime that potentially spans well beyond the lifetime of any specific application that might’ve been used to create it. For our records and our documents, issues such as preservation and portability have become vital concerns…Furthermore, as a byproduct of the internet’s ubiquity, virtually every system and product nowadays has become interconnected. From the mobile phone in your pocket, to your PC, to the heterogeneous systems within our enterprises, everything’s being interconnected – and connected to the Web as our “universal hub” for information sharing.
At MIX ’07 Ray put the sweeping implications of this overarching vision in the context of history, starting with what he called the “dawn of the PC revolution” in the 1980s. There is an important connection to bear in mind between some of the key inflection points in the technology landscape (like the availability of low cost PCs, and cheaper, faster connectivity) with changes in how aspects of openness and developer opportunity have evolved together. This resonates with me when reading today’s announcement (available here):
Historically, as lower cost hardware became widely available, documented APIs and free SDKs enabled developers to more quickly develop applications
As the number of applications exploded, and network connectivity became the norm, protocols enabled exchange of information between programs and over the wire.
And as many types of computing devices have proliferated and connectivity has become ubiquitous, data portability and standards have become key tools in the toolbox for a loosely-coupled, services-based world.
Long-term success for Microsoft depends on our ability to deliver a platform that is open, flexible, and provides customers and developers with choice. These choices include Microsoft and open source technologies working together, and this will continue to be the case in the future. By increasing the openness of high volume products across APIs, protocols, and standards, we can continue to provide the platform that offers developers and businesses, including those based on open-source technologies, the broadest range of opportunities to innovate, deliver value, and create seamless experiences for end users.
By building on and expanding existing facilities, events, and resources supporting interoperability, including labs, plug fests, technical content and opportunities for ongoing cooperative development, the open source interoperability initiative will ensure this fundamental change in how we run our business and share information is broadly inclusive of open source technologies. As Microsoft takes this significant step forward into the interconnected world of the future, we aspire to doing so with members of the open source community by our side now and for the long haul.
Today is an important day, full of change. A wise inventor once said: “The world hates change, yet it is the only thing that has brought progress” and although I’m sure today’s news will bring critics aplenty, it is with time and commitment that this change will manifest. I’m extraordinarily proud to be part of Microsoft and to be part of this change.
FAQs, updates and news about the initiative will be posted on www.microsoft.com/opensource/interop .
by Sam Ramji on February 22, 2008 02:06pm
Four years ago, we started the Linux Lab at Microsoft. Two years ago, we established the Open Source Software Lab at Microsoft. One year ago, we initiated the Linux Interoperability Lab at Microsoft.
Yesterday, we announced the broadest change to the way the Microsoft builds software and works with open source communities and developers.
By now you’ve probably read the announcement – “Microsoft Makes Strategic Changes in Technology and Business Practices to Expand Interoperability” and are wondering what it all means, and where it came from. In a nutshell, the documentation for the APIs, document formats, and protocols used in Windows Vista, the .NET Framework, Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, Office 2007, Exchange Server 2007, and Office SharePoint Server 2007 will be made publically available. All developers will be able to access the documentation with no need to sign a license or pay any fee.
We are also announcing the launch of the Open Source Interoperability Initiative – a framework that will let us consistently support community development teams who build implementations of these specs with labs, technical support, plugfests, and joint testing and development.
To me, it’s a logical progression from the work and learning we’ve done with the Mozilla Foundation, the Eclipse Foundation, the Linux Foundation, the Apache Foundation, the Samba Project, MySQL, and PHP. We’ve learned how to make agreements with community projects – including those which lack a legal entity for formal agreements; how to deliver technical support; who to listen to; and how to prioritize our work. We have seen how positively developers and users respond to these kinds of collaborative efforts. This is reflected by the progression of our approach: the creation of the OSP (Open Specification Promise), the IECC (Interoperability Executive Customer Council), the IVA (Interoperability Vendor Alliance), the submission and approval of the Ms-RL and Ms-PL by the OSI, and the PFIF/Samba agreement and ongoing collaboration.
It’s also a major evolutionary step, and significant commitment for our engineering teams. Ray Ozzie says it best: “Customers need all their vendors, including and especially Microsoft, to deliver software and services that are flexible enough such that any developer can use their open interfaces and data to effectively integrate applications or to compose entirely new solutions. By increasing the openness of our products, we will provide developers additional opportunity to innovate and deliver value for customers.”
Because we are a platform company first and foremost, it will be entirely worth the investment both due to the increased transparency to developers, and due to the expanded range of innovation that can be built on Microsoft technologies.
I think this is a great day not just for Microsoft, but for the software industry. And I thank the people who have helped us learn what it’s taken to get here – most notably Jeremy Allison, Matt Asay, Mike Schroepfer, Andi Gutmans, Jim Zemlin, Mike Milinkovich, Zack Urlocker, Marten Mickos, Andrew Tridgell, Miguel de Icaza and Stephen Walli. We will continue to look to their perspectives and advice as we continue down the open road.
Here are a few of the responses we’ve seen – and I’ll quote from the industry publications and blogs:
LWN.net: “The announcement is sweeping enough to make one check the calendar, but we are still a month and a week early for pranks. Microsoft is making available specifications for APIs and communication protocols for Exchange, Office, SQL Server, SharePoint, and others without requiring a license or royalty payments. They will indicate what patents they believe cover any of the protocols and "will license all of these patents on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms, at low royalty rates." There may be lurking dangers, but it appears to be a sincere effort at providing interoperability.”
Matt Asay (Alfresco/The Open Road): “As a Microsoft admirer, critic, and competitor, I can't help but applaud the depth and breadth of this move ... All in all, a huge day for Microsoft. Will there be gaps in Microsoft's efforts? Undoubtedly. For one thing, it hasn't really made much progress on its covenant not to sue commercial open-source providers, despite what Ina writes. But I'm impressed that it's even bothering to try.” Andi Gutmans (PHP/Zend): “I believe Microsoft has finally understood that their closed nature has significantly hindered the growth of their eco-system. In many ways the threat of Linux has by many been interpreted as a threat of open-source (wrongly so in my opinion) …. Microsoft is now enabling the open-source community to grow its contributor base around such technologies and significantly improve the delivered quality. As most open-source developers and users live in heterogeneous environments this will benefit many.” Jeremy Allison (via The Register): "It's definitely a positive step. Doesn't mean any change for us [Samba] as we already had all these docs, and the promise not to sue is only for 'non-commercial' open source, which is a bit meaningless. But that's the same thing we had really (they're listing the patents etc.). At least everyone now gets access to the same info, which I'm very happy about. As for the rest, the devil is in the details. If they can follow through with this, the world will be a better place.” Zack Urlocker (MySQL/Open Sources): “… even if it was legislated, it's still good for the industry. And it’s good for Microsoft customers. And ultimately, it's probably good for Microsoft to be more open. If Microsoft wants to attract the next generation of developers and users, they should take the hint: Open works.”
Matt Asay (Alfresco/The Open Road): “As a Microsoft admirer, critic, and competitor, I can't help but applaud the depth and breadth of this move ... All in all, a huge day for Microsoft. Will there be gaps in Microsoft's efforts? Undoubtedly. For one thing, it hasn't really made much progress on its covenant not to sue commercial open-source providers, despite what Ina writes. But I'm impressed that it's even bothering to try.”
Andi Gutmans (PHP/Zend): “I believe Microsoft has finally understood that their closed nature has significantly hindered the growth of their eco-system. In many ways the threat of Linux has by many been interpreted as a threat of open-source (wrongly so in my opinion) …. Microsoft is now enabling the open-source community to grow its contributor base around such technologies and significantly improve the delivered quality. As most open-source developers and users live in heterogeneous environments this will benefit many.”
Jeremy Allison (via The Register): "It's definitely a positive step. Doesn't mean any change for us [Samba] as we already had all these docs, and the promise not to sue is only for 'non-commercial' open source, which is a bit meaningless. But that's the same thing we had really (they're listing the patents etc.). At least everyone now gets access to the same info, which I'm very happy about. As for the rest, the devil is in the details. If they can follow through with this, the world will be a better place.”
Zack Urlocker (MySQL/Open Sources): “… even if it was legislated, it's still good for the industry. And it’s good for Microsoft customers. And ultimately, it's probably good for Microsoft to be more open. If Microsoft wants to attract the next generation of developers and users, they should take the hint: Open works.”
We recognize that the communities’ judgments of the significance of this announcement will be entirely based on the actions that follow. The optimistic undertone that I’ve seen so far suggests that we can make real progress.
We will report back frequently on the progress and details of this work – especially on the Open Source Interoperability Initiative – here on Port 25. This announcement is the starting point of the next phase of Microsoft’s work with open source, and as Port 25 readers know, we are here for the full marathon.
The interoperability principles are posted here: http://www.microsoft.com/interop/principles/default.mspx
by Sam Ramji on February 25, 2008 12:31pm
There are no guarantees that a future of Microsoft + Yahoo! will arrive, but the possibilities have me feeling positive. These are just my personal opinions – and who knows what will happen – but a few things described below give me optimism for an increasingly high-performance, multi-platform, PHP-infused and developer-driven future.
Here are a few reasons why I’m excited.
Yahoo! is famous for its culture of openness. Outstanding technologies like Hadoop have been developed and contributed to the community, and the fundamental concepts of open Internet culture at Yahoo! are core to its success. Microsoft has made strides in the last few years in understanding and embracing open source developers, development models, and technologies – I’d say we’ve gone from 1 to 100 and are still going. Yahoo! would speed our progress from 100 to 1,000.
One important reason? Technical leaders like Rasmus Lerdorf, Doug Cutting, and many others….
Those who read Port25 often know that we are at the heart of the shift at Microsoft to embrace PHP on Windows. My team has had the privilege to work with Andi Gutmans and Zeev Suraski and their engineering team. Just through this collaboration with community developers and our partners at Zend, Microsoft engineers and product teams learned a lot.
We have also learned a great deal from Jim Hugunin (Jython and Iron Python architect) and come a long way in our openness to new languages and community development. John Lam has shown us the light on Ruby. I think we are at a point in time where we could thrill developers with Rasmus’ leadership on PHP. Having the inventor of PHP in the same company with the language runtime performance wizards in the Developer Division under Scott Guthrie, makes my mind boggle.
Similarly, a major focus at Microsoft is understanding the developer – and those of you who have been watching have seen the shift from strictly “let’s show PHP developers that ASP.NET is cool” to “and let’s show PHP developers that we understand that PHP is cool”, a result of learning from day-to-day work with PHP developers. The sheer mass of PHP-focused voices that this combination would bring would make PHP absolutely fundamental to the company. Many of these developers are actively contributing to code beyond the core Yahoo! web platform and are leaders in their own right.
And, finally, we’ve taken a great leap forward in Windows/Linux Interoperability in both virtualization (SuSE Linux on Hyper-V) and protocols (identity, management, file systems, networking), with major customer, partner, and engineering commitments. I have no access to information on Yahoo!’s server farms, but I expect Microsoft + Yahoo would accelerate our capabilities in Windows/ Linux interoperability significantly as well. The modern datacenter is a heterogeneous environment, and I have heard over and over again from customers the value they place on our recognition and technical competency supporting that real-world heterogeneity.
The world is different today than it was 10 years ago, and so are we. Here on the Redmond campus, MacBook Pros aren’t unheard of, and people with knowledge of Linux are in demand. Some of those MacBooks are running Vista, administrators are running PHP and ASP.NET on the same machine, and we’re seeing adoption of open source in and on top of a range of Microsoft technologies. As the world has changed, so has Microsoft, to the benefit of the company and our customers. This would be an exciting next step—here’s hoping!
by Garrett Serack on February 26, 2008 02:34pm
This morning, we've had the honor of hosting the Apache Software Foundation in the Windows Server 2008 Application Labs. They are here this week in order to get some deep knowledge about Windows Server 2008, and access to the folks from product groups who can help them make their apps work better under Windows Server.
We asked them out to campus because we are extremely interested in having the Apache web server (well, all the Apache projects) run great on Windows Server 2008. Now, every time I say that, some folks always want to know "Why would you want that?" or "What do the IIS folks think about that?"
Well, it turns out that some folks have apps that run on Apache. Yes, even on Windows. Sometimes, it's a matter of investment in a particular solution where their app uses Apache. It could even be that they just simply prefer the model that Apache provides. Regardless, it's important to us that those applications run as good as they possibly can on the Windows platform.
As to the question about IIS, there are several Apache projects like Tomcat that currently support IIS, and hey, we'd like to have even better support. To make that happen, we've asked some folks from the IIS team to join us in the labs, where they can open up and give the assistance that is needed.
By midday, two fine gentlemen from the Compatibility Lab (Pat Altimore and Maarten Van De Bospoort) presented a great session about general compatibility issues with Windows Server 2008.
In the afternoon, we had Ari Pernick (along with a posse of extremely knowledgeable folks, whose names I did not get... but I will) come out from the Core Networking group. They spent about two and a half hours going through details in the Windows Server 2008 networking stack, as well as a deep investigation of the HTTP.SYS technology. Now, I’m no slouch when it comes to this stuff, but I tell ya, I learned a lot yesterday just sitting in on that. From the water-cooler conversations that we had later in afternoon, I would expect that we’re going to see some interesting changes in Apache httpd, and Tomcat in the future.
After that, we took an hour and came up with a list of other issues and questions that the Apache folks had, so we can drag in some more product groups on Tuesday and Wednesday.
As for the evening, we all went out to the Rock Bottom Brewery for some food and drinks and some socialization—I took a few pictures, and I’ll get them up as soon as I can.
by Sam Ramji on February 27, 2008 06:00am
When I think about what works really well in open source development and technology, the following things stand out:
So where did we apply these ideas to the development of Windows Server 2008?
Overall, we’ve learned and continue to learn from open source development principles. These are making their way into the mindset, development practices, and ultimately into the products we bring to market.
I’ve focused here on “what Microsoft has learned from Open Source” – and ironically, I’ve agreed to do a panel at OSBC on 3/25 with Jim Zemlin of the Linux Foundation on “what Open Source can learn from Microsoft”. As all of the different organizations in IT continue to evolve, we’ll learn from each others’ best practices and make increasingly better software. As in science, this incremental improvement will move all of us forward.
by Garrett Serack on February 28, 2008 04:59pm
The Apache Visit to Microsoft Campus: Day Two
Day two turned out to be quite a busy day!
First thing in the morning, we started off testing some Apache applications on Windows Server 2008, both the 64 and 32 bit versions. Right away, a few things were uncovered, primarily around UAC, data redirection (where Windows redirects writes to the file system and registry to safe locations for low-rights processes) and an odd issue with an event mutex that we're tracking down.
After getting a little testing done, we had a great in-depth presentation of IIS by Senior Program Manager Thomas Deml. Like the Core Networking presentation the day before, it was really informative, and the Apache folks took the opportunity to really drill down into the architecture of IIS. Why would they? Like I mentioned before, a number of Apache Projects (like Tomcat) support IIS in one way or another, and could benefit from tighter integration with IIS.
After lunch, Peter-Michael Osera and Li Shao spent a couple of hours addressing some of the C++ and toolset questions the Apache team brought. They really did an admirable job answering the questions that they could, and the ones that they didn't have answers to, they are following up via email over the next couple of days.
After that, some more time for testing rounded out the rest of the day.
For supper, Sam Ramji, took the team out to Ruths' Chris Steakhouse for a fantastic meal, and we had a great evening talking about nearly everything under the sun.
by Garrett Serack on March 03, 2008 02:00pm
Day two moseyed late into the night...well for me anyway--cowboys wake with the sun.
Day three turned out to be a day full of surprises for me--most of the sessions were significantly more interesting than I would have guessed.
We started the day with a presentation by Bill McKinley on Windows Logo Certification (for which there is a great little quickie primer here). I highly recommend checking this out--the logo certification program provides some tools to assist with certification validation, and even if you have no interest in certification, running the tool will give you a rundown of potential issues that your customers will face.
After a break for more testing, Rob Mensching and Peter Marcu dropped by to give the team a thorough examination of WiX (the open source Windows Installer XML toolset). Again, very cool stuff. Admittedly, there seems to be a somewhat steep learning curve, but it integrates nicely into build scripts, and has all the flexibility you'd ever need.
After lunch, we did some testing, with a quick little jaunt to the Microsoft Company Store, where the attendees took advantage of Microsoft Employee pricing on some software and hardware.
We rounded out the day with a session on Windows Error Reporting -- you know when an app crashes, and you can send anonymous debug info to Microsoft? The information ends up in the WER system, where developers can register to get crash and hang information for their software and drivers. I knew that the information was collected, but previously, I had no idea how easy it is for app developers to get their hands on the data. I strongly recommend that you check it out.
While Wednesday was the last day for most of the attendees, a few stayed through Thursday, and I'll post a wrap-up on that tomorrow.
by SteveZ on March 14, 2008 02:17pm
As my first blog on Port25, I suppose it's appropriate to write a couple paragraphs about myself... so here it goes:
My name is Stephen Zarkos, and I am a Program Manager at the Open-Source Software Lab at Microsoft. I work directly with many of the other contributors whose blogs you've probably read on Port25, including Sam, Hank, Anandeep, Kishi and others.
I joined the Lab in September of 2005. Having a strong Linux background, the prospect of working at a Linux research lab, at Microsoft, seemed like a bit of a conflict of interest for me. But in the end it was simply raw curiosity that required me to take the job and discover what this place was all about. I can honestly say that I have not been disappointed.
I started life at Microsoft as a "Penguin", which is a term we lovingly use to describe our test engineers and Linux/OSS subject matter experts that work in the lab. It was just this last year that I moved into my current Program Manager position. Nonetheless, I still consider myself a Penguin, and much of my job still revolves around the same research, technical analysis and testing we've always done in the lab. And now as a PM, I also participate in the management and scoping of some of our research projects, as well as overall management of the lab facilities. In fact, many of my current responsibilies I inherited from Kishi, who some of you may know from his contributions to Port25.
Since my first days here I have not only had opportunities to work with many amazing people and unique technologies, I have also had a rare glimpse into the ever apparent change occurring within Microsoft and its relationship with the OSS world. I like to think that some of my blunt opinions and fanboy ranting played perhaps a small part. I used to joke that with my strong opinions about OSS, most software companies would have probably kicked me out within a few months. Sometimes, when I catch Hank on a bad day, I bet he wishes they had ;)
I think most readers of Port25 have a fair understanding of what the OSS Lab at Microsoft is all about. Part of my purpose of blogging on Port25 is to open the door a bit wider, and write about some of the inner workings of the lab itself. Be sure to watch this space in the coming weeks for more details about the OSS Lab, our projects and, of course, the Microsoft Penguins.
by MJM on March 18, 2008 11:05am
A couple of months ago, I mentioned that Microsoft would be sponsoring Computer and Information Technologies Section of the American Sociological Association’s (CITASA) pre-conference and graduate workshop on July 31, 2008 in Boston, MA. That sponsorship included the "Microsoft CITASA Port 25 Award" to recognize excellent research on open source software development. CITASA chair, Keith Hampton of University of Pennsylvania, recently announced that Yuwei Lin from the Centre for e-Social Science, University of Manchester has received the award and will be keynoting the CITASA 2008 Pre-Conference. Yuwei's describes her research interests as follows:
"Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) studies, Science and Technology Studies (STS), virtual communities (in connection with e-collaboration, e-learning and e-society), usability and user requirement analysis (particularly in the area of e-Social Science), digital culture (especially in relation to hacker culture), and the cultural and socio-technical dynamics in community-based innovation systems. Other research interests include gender and ICTs, the digital divide and glocalisation of information technologies, innovation and knowledge dynamics. Additionally, her research also seeks to contribute to the genre of virtual methodology and online research methods by which researchers use new ICTs as a medium for social research itself."
(You can learn more about Yuwei's research and publications at http://www.ylin.org/) As open source matures and diversifies as a development model, interesting and challenging issues are surfacing. I’m very excited that Microsoft is supporting groundbreaking research to understand and address these issues. In the modern IT environment, community is a vital part of software success. Through the research of folks like Yuwei, community characteristics like collaboration and distributed development will become better understood and more successful.
by Sam Ramji on March 19, 2008 02:22pm
I’m writing this from EclipseCon in Santa Clara, California, where I’m going to announce the beginning of Microsoft’s collaborative work with the Eclipse Foundation.
This started about a year ago when I met Mike Milinkovich at an open source event (the Open Source Software Think Tank 2007) where we were seated at the same table, and assigned to discuss “key issues inhibiting the growth of open source”. We found we had pretty similar ways of looking at problems – I found Mike to be very pragmatic and straightforward in his thinking. That discussion led to a conversation about what we could do to help Eclipse developers building software for Windows.
At the same time, the CardSpace team at Microsoft was already working actively with the Higgins Project to establish a secure, interoperable framework for user identity on the web – an architecture known as the Identity Metasystem. Since the inception of Higgins, the CardSpace team has worked very closely with the Higgins team, providing them the protocol documentation they needed to be able to build an identity selector that is interoperable with CardSpace, as well as placing those protocol specifications under the OSP so that they knew that it was safe to do so. We share a commitment to building a user-centric, privacy-preserving, secure, easy-to-use identity layer for the Internet.
Currently, Higgins, Microsoft, and dozens of other companies and projects are in the midst of the third OSIS-sponsored user-centric identity interop, where we all try our code together, providing the data needed to improve both our implementations and the interoperability between them.
Among a range of other opportunities (which we’re still working on), we discovered that Steve Northover (the SWT team lead) had gotten requests to make it easy for Java developers to write applications that look and feel like native Windows Vista. He and a small group of developers built out a prototype that enables SWT to use Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). We’re committing to improve this technology with direct support from our engineering teams and the Open Source Software Lab, with the goal of a first-class authoring experience for Java developers.
This is exciting to me – as a Java developer in my prior life (as well as the first technical marketing manager for BEA’s WebLogic Workshop, now Apache Beehive) it just makes sense to enable Java on Windows. We started a collaborative effort with JBoss two years ago that continues to this day. At the end of the day, it’s all about the developer. There will be more to come from the conversations that Eclipse and Microsoft have begun, and I look forward to announcing those in the future as we have demonstrable technology results.
Cheers, Sam
by SteveZ on March 20, 2008 03:13pm
To some folks outside of Microsoft, the Open-Source Software Lab has been a sort of mysterious place. A place where we study Linux and open-source software, cursing our enemies while brewing our malevolent plans to combat those nasty FOSS developers. Oh, and we also have a death ray on the roof of building 17. It's Linux-powered, of course, just to add a little irony.
As you probably have guessed, the reality is that the OSS Lab is just a room full of servers, used by engineers who just love to work with technology. Much of what we do is research, testing and of course there is an educational aspect as well. We all love Linux and open-source, and I almost never take my death-ray to work.
Currently, our lab houses about seven racks of servers. Unlike some of the build-labs on campus, the OSS Lab contains an eclectic variety of hardware. From older Pentium III Compaq blade servers, 8-way Xeon, Itanium and Opteron systems, to the latest POWER6. Most of the systems run some distribution of Linux, but we also have several BSD, AIX and Sun systems as well. And, naturally, we also have a good number of Windows systems (we are an interop lab, after all).
So now, to help cure your curiosity, the following is a short photo-tour of the actual Linux/OSS Lab at Microsoft. Enjoy!
We just had installed a new 12-ton cooling unit in the lab. The OSS Lab has continued to grow over the years, and things were getting a bit too toasty in there.
A top view of our penguin-powered servers...
Here are a couple of our server racks. We have a fair number of blade systems now from HP, IBM and Dell. In the background is the new IBM P570 (POWER6) system. It's basically totally sweet.
This is my favorite of them all, the ultra-small Gumstix Netstix. We've had this little guy running Samba, Asterisk, Apache and various other things. It runs Windows CE now, too.
Two of the Penguins that work in the lab; Chris (left) and Christoph (right).
I'm not proud of this. We're typically much more organized....
I finally got our plasma screen remounted after the recent cooling upgrades. Halo 3 looks pretty awesome, and we take our weekly UT3 tournaments very seriously.
The rest of the Penguins. From left: Christoph, Joel, Frank and Chris.
That's all for now!
by jcannon on April 01, 2008 08:16pm
Last Friday, March 28th, 2008 was Microsoft's first company-wide Open Source Day. This was a significant event and milestone in the company's move towards openness and was made freely available to any employee interested in attending. Packed full of panels and presentations by leaders in open source technology and programs at Microsoft, including a few industry folks, the discussion was open and uninhibited (subtitled : "Everything you wanted to know about open source and Microsoft, but were afraid to ask.")
The event itself was held at the Microsoft Conference Center on the Redmond campus....the same facilities we use for executive discussions with visiting customers and dignitaries. The space itself represents our largest and most sophisticated meeting center- and it was used at capacity to host a cross-section of business, marketing, legal and engineering employees throughout the day. Who would imagine this was happening only four floors below the same building complex that houses Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer's offices....
Mario is blogging more deeply on this later in the week. However, I wanted to share some pictures I snapped during the event which I thought those outside the company might find interesting.
The above slide, titled, "Why go open?" was presented by Raven Zachary of the 451Group. Raven, the first speaker of the day, was presenting his perspective on the trends and issues facing the open source industry. This slide in particular focused on the "why" of going open....You may not be able to read the fine details, but it illustrates primary reasons why software companies choose open source business models. In order: competitive forces, first-mover advantage, customer demand, improved distribution, commercial barriers, community model and internal resource constraints.
Not the first topic one might expect Microsoft to lead the day's discussion with. But this was a different day and it lead with bold statements to challenge the wisdom of this crowd.
This picture is my favorite. For those unfamiliar with the weather of the Pacific Northwest, you know that snow is seldom seen, especially this late in the season. However, Friday saw a squall come through Redmond...and while not sticking, certainly causing a whiteout and dangerous road conditions.
Why is this my favorite? When someone came up & asked what was going on in the Conference Center, pointing to the Open Source poster on the wall, I said, "Didn't you hear? Hell has frozen over?" :)
Till next time, - Jamie
by MJM on April 04, 2008 04:34pm
Jamie blogged about Open Source Day earlier this week. I’d like to provide a little more context about what the day was and why we did it.
About 6 months ago, our team was discussing the fact that, while many external people understand what Microsoft is trying to do in the open source space, many folks inside Microsoft still aren't fully aware. As a result, we continuously discover people across Microsoft who are interested in (or working on) ways for their product or program and open source to grow together but believe they have to 'go it alone.'
To help those folks, we decided to put together an informational event to explain to key segments of our internal community what the company is doing with open source and why. Little did we know that what was originally expected to be a 2-3 hour discussion in a conference room with a few people would turn into a full-day event with 12 presenters, a 400-person, full multi-media presentation hall and one heck of a catering bill.
When I first announced our intent to inform employees about Microsoft’s source code strategy, I received an amazing response. Although my team spends its days thinking about how Microsoft participate in the open source communities, we sometimes forget how many parts of the company touch on open source issues. From product groups to marketing groups to our legal division, it seems like everyone has questions or ideas about how Microsoft should engage with open source.
Ultimately, since this was our first internal event, we decided to go with the 30,000’ view and bring in a series of speakers to talk about what we’re doing with source code and why we’re doing it. We left a lot of details to later discussions. The point of the day was to get employees thinking and talking about open source in new and challenging ways.
To make sure the day wasn’t a Microsoft echo chamber, we invited Raven Zachary from the 451 Group to provide external context for our discussion. He got the day off to a stimulating start by providing an entertaining and informative overview of the business of OSS and how Microsoft fits in. While Raven pointed out some of the good things we’re doing, he focused particularly on what we’re not doing so well and how we can do better. He also provided the audience with some great insight into how Microsoft is viewed by many in the OSS community. He showed one slide in particular that really made me think:
This is a map from a site that is regularly updated to reflect how the “software wars” against Microsoft are progressing. I think the image is great, and not just because it’s entertaining. It reminds me that everything we do as a company is being watched and analyzed by smart and insightful -- even if sometimes a bit obsessive :) --- people. That means we have to do “real” things, and we have to be transparent about why we’re doing them. That doesn’t mean that everything we do has to please everyone; that will never happen. We just have to be sure there’s a reason for what we do and we that we share that reason openly and frankly.
After Raven set the stage, the audience heard from a number of folks including Sam Ramji, the Sr. Director of Platform Strategy, and Bryan Kirschner, the Director of Community Strategy who explained our open source strategy from a business and community perspective respectively.
Probably the most provocative of the morning’s keynote speakers was Tony Hey, the Corporate VP of External Research. Tony’s background is in academia, a place where Microsoft has had some challenges (as this slide from his presentation vividly illustrates):
Tony gave an inspirational talk about how Microsoft should be willing to work with open source in the academic arena. Tony is a straight shooter, and he emphasized that, when you strip away the ideology and propaganda, our goal is to provide the best experience for our customers. To do that requires flexibility in how we approach software development and licensing. As a company, we should expand our horizons and harness the best of all the various approaches to create the most efficient solutions to academics’ technological challenges.
The rest of the day involved talks by various groups who participate in code sharing at Microsoft, including the Shared Source Program and CodePlex (before anyone complains, neither of those groups were billed as purely “open source,” although there are certainly open source aspects to both.) We also discussed OSS legal issues and had a couple of panels involving folks here at Microsoft who work on open source projects or programs, including Rob Mensching, the developer of WiX, John Lam, the developer of IronRuby, Shawn Burke, the developer of the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit and Tom Hanrahan, the director of the Microsoft-Novell Interoperability Lab in Cambridge, Mass.
At the end of the day, we had a reception for the hardy souls who stuck around through the snow. I was very pleasantly surprised by the reaction of the audience throughout the day and at the reception. There were tough questions and great stories from across the company. We knew there was a lot of interest in the company regarding open source, but we were surprised by the depth and breadth of that interest. This bodes well for the company because that interest will drive more and more open source activity inside and outside the company as we move forward. Who knows, maybe we’ll get Steve Ballmer to talk at Open Source Day 2009.
by Garrett Serack on April 10, 2008 04:20pm
Back in January, I invited the Apache Software Foundation to attend the Windows Server 2008 Application Compatibility Labs, here on our campus in Redmond.
The week that Apache was here, was so valuable for both groups--the product groups got to see and understand what some of the issues were that some of the Apache projects have run into, and the Apache folks were able to get their hands on the developers who built the system.
Myself and Bill Rowe had hammered out some details before I actually sent the invitation out. Along with posting it on some of the Apache Mailing Lists, I also posted the invitation on my own blog so that others could see what we're up to. And, as to be expected, there was a wide variety of comments posted--both positive, and ... less positive.
My favorite though, was: "Microsoft should go to Apache developers and see if Windows Server 2008 works correctly with Apache, not the other way around."
In some ways, that would have been somewhat impractical--when the Apache folks visited us, they had the opportunity to meet with engineers and program managers from many different groups, in addition to getting access to the hardware in the lab and the expertise of the folks who run that. For us to pick up the 20 or so people from the product groups that they actually met with, and drag them all out to all the locations where Apache developers are--which is pretty much everywhere--would not have been possible
Still, I felt it would be more than valuable for me to go ApacheCon, so that I had the opportunity to meet with Apache developers where they roam. When Bill was in Redmond, he invited me to the Apache Hackathon--the couple of days at the beginning of the conference that developers could hang out and code. So, a snappy 10hr flight later, here I am at ApacheCon in Amsterdam.
The Apache Foundation is an interesting community--or rather community of communities. It's not just one project (the http server is what most people think when they hear Apache), but literally dozens of top level projects, and a whole bunch more in the 'incubator' (where baby projects are cultivated until it is clear that it will have ongoing support and development). The hackathon is just a large room with tables where folks can come in, sit down open their laptops and start coding. It's actually a lot quieter than I imagined it would be. Naturally, the folks in communities tend to gravitate together and discuss their projects.
As I'm not really on any project, I've been bouncing around chatting up different groups, getting their perspective of their own little chunk of Apache. Most of the people I've talked to aren't surprised at all that I'm here--which is definitely a change from conferences a year ago--and are excited to hear about our efforts.
Now, for the funny thing. I booked my hotel a few weeks back, using the internal travel system here at Microsoft. The hotel that the conference is at was booked, so I looked for one nearby. Unfortunately, the tool doesn't let me search for hotels near another hotel, and I didn't know what else was close that I could search near (and my inability to read Dutch didn't help), so I used the tool to show me where the hotels were, I'd switch to http://local.live.com and see how close it was, and if it was close, I'd switch to the other tool to check out the availability, and there was not much available. ... I guess I was distracted while I was doing it, and I ended up booking a hotel right next to the airport, which is in no way close to the conference, and so I spent the night in that hotel--and called the wonderful travel support folks who found me a hotel where I needed to be, and I moved there the next morning. Lesson learned: next time I travel to the Netherlands, I'm asking Hank to find me a hotel.
by Frank Chism on April 14, 2008 03:22pm
“What we have here is a failure to communicate.” - Luke in “Cool Hand Luke”
A fist full of cores in a server rich environment. If you haven’t noticed that the world has changed, you had better wake up and smell the coffee. The era of killer apps written in serial code is ending. Like the norm in species extinction, the reason many ISVs will not survive this change is that the environment in which we develop code has changed rapidly and not all species can adapt to this new world. The change was preceded by a hint of ‘The Shape of Things to Come’ in the Beowulf and compute cluster revolution. This revolution created the first generation of commodity clusters based on microprocessor nodes connected by commodity networks. An evolutionary message from this generation is that if you are building a cluster you really ought to use server class nodes. You _can_ build a cluster from desktop parts, but the higher you scale your node count the more you want the convenience and reliability of server parts. I remember seeing a look of outrage on the face of an Intel marketing person when I commented that I thought their then brand new Itanium Tiger platform was a really nice part for building a cluster. He thought of the new platform as a High Performance Server, not as a ‘part’. Well get used to it. We don’t build computers out of discreet components like transistors any more (which is good for him because Intel makes really big Integrated Circuits, not transistors) and we have just moved up to the point where the level of integration is the server, not the processor.
And Then There Were Cores So into this environment where servers are parts and many high performance computing applications were written to a distributed memory communications aware parallel programming model, the microprocessor has changed in the most radical way I can remember. Our equilibrium has been punctuated (see: "Punctuated equilibria: an alternative to phyletic gradualism" (1972) pp 82-115 in "Models in paleobiology", edited by Schopf, TJM Freeman, Cooper & Co, San Francisco. Eldredge, N. & Gould, S.J.) and we can expect rapid change to a whole new kind of parallelism. The change I refer to is the introduction and near ubiquity of multiple core processors. For years software developers have been able to count on dramatic increases in CPU speed and processing power on a Moore’s Law schedule. But, Moore did not say that the processing speed and power of CPUs would double every eighteen months, he said that the number of gates on a single chip would double every eighteen months. So, all was good for a long time because that doubling of gates meant smaller _and_ faster gates and greater architectural complexity and thus ‘faster’ CPUs. So by about 2005, just about every good idea for a better computer processor architecture ever thought of was incorporated into the major microprocessors on the market. So, when 2006 rolled around the obvious thing to do was to use the next doubling of gates to double the number of ‘processors’ on a microprocessor. Dual core was here and the trend will continue for at least a couple of doublings. Who knows what strange beasties will emerge when we get to the point where ‘many core’ processors become ‘too many core’ processors. Until then, though we can be sure: Multicore killed the serial star....
More on this tomorrow.