In his keynote this evening, Microsoft's top lawyer, Brad Smith, made a resounding call to the open source community to "work together", to "build bridges", to dialogue and "discussion about hard issues" i.e. intellectual properties/patents. Great speech but really little change in Microsoft's strategy towards the open source community which can be summed in 3 words: Pay your bills!

Inspite Smith saying, Microsoft is not turning the page on its past, it's not "moving on". Microsoft is still a closed-source company with a business model grounded in making everyone pay for its software and patents. There will be no free lunch. So why Microsoft's top lawyer even bothered coming in an open source gathering in a first place? Well... my take away (and you'll hear for yourself on our podcast after the jump) of Smith's keynote is that Microsoft is making it much easier now for the open source community to pay royalties for its patents. Is it a good thing? At least it's a start!

Microsoft and interoperability

Yes, Smith mentioned about "interoperability", about how Microsoft opened the kimono and published its communications protocols and how it was a "big big deal" for the company. And yes, these protocols are free to use during the development process and Microsoft will not seek royalties as long as the final product is for "non-commercial use". So does that mean that the open source developer can get away paying Microsoft royalties if its free "non-commercial" software is used by enterprises in a commercial setting, just paying for services and support? I don't think so. It probably means just universities, non-profits, etc...

"If there's one thing I've learned from my work over the past 2 decades is that 2 engineers can solve a problem a lot faster than a 1000 lawyers", said Smith.

Microsoft and IP/patents

Inspite conciliatory words, Microsoft will not give away its patent for free. Not to the open source community, not to anyone for that matter... at least not with something in return. If not money, then patents (cross licensing) on technologies the open source would have created and owned. The problem Smith argues is that there is not just one entity (a Cathedral) representing the open source community (the Bazaar), its developers and its companies, whom Microsoft can talk to and sign a cross-licensing agreement with. Can the Open Source Initiative be that "cathedral", or would it be the Free Software Foundation? could be that organisation, but does it have the authority over all the open source community? I don't think so. So, as Smith puts it: It's a "conundrum".

"We live in both side of the fence everyday. We have more patent lawsuits pending against us than any other company in our industry. We spend more money defending patent lawsuit than any other company in our industry. We see first hand many of the problems that exist in our patent system. But we still in a believe in the benefit and the value that a well functioning patent system creates".

Microsoft's dream: a "bridge" with the open source community

"We believe in the importance of building a bridge that makes it possible for the different parts of our industry to work together. We believe it needs to be a bridge that respects the diversity of different business models. We believe in a bridge that is scalable, that is workable, that is affordable, that is workable. That doesn't tied us... that lets everybody do what they love to do and respect that. That's a hard bridge to build. But its... a bridge we very much need to build".

The magic of software: closed and open source working together!

"We all believe in the magic of software... we have a lot we can do together. If we look at our problems squarely in the headlights and talk to each other honestly in how me might built some more bridges to address them, I think we have a lot more magic that we can unleash".