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Today, Steve Martin of Microsoft wrote a post criticizing the secrecy behind the development of Cloud
Computing interoperability guidelines. He has attacked the attempts by some
vendors who are trying to push interoperability guidelines. He has called for an
open process instead of a closed approach, supposedly, taken by these
vendors.
The first part of his post, where he touts Microsoft’s
embrace of openness and how they have strived to achieve openness and
interoperability while developing standards in the past, is plain nonsense. Come
on!! Who are you kidding? Long time industry observers know how open Microsoft
was and the kind of role it played in the standardization processes. Probably,
the Youtube generation may not be aware of it but I am old enough to see through
the nonsense in that part of his post.
embrace of openness and how they have strived to achieve openness and
interoperability while developing standards in the past, is plain nonsense. Come
on!! Who are you kidding? Long time industry observers know how open Microsoft
was and the kind of role it played in the standardization processes. Probably,
the Youtube generation may not be aware of it but I am old enough to see through
the nonsense in that part of his post.
But the second, and the most important, part of the
post is their call for openness in the drafting of Cloud interoperability
standards. I definitely agree that there should be openness in the drafting of
any standards. It should be both democratic and open. As Microsoft points out in
the above said post, there should not be any vendor bias in the standardization
process. It is important that an independent body plays a major role in ensuring
an open process to develop these standards.
post is their call for openness in the drafting of Cloud interoperability
standards. I definitely agree that there should be openness in the drafting of
any standards. It should be both democratic and open. As Microsoft points out in
the above said post, there should not be any vendor bias in the standardization
process. It is important that an independent body plays a major role in ensuring
an open process to develop these standards.
While I could agree with Microsoft on this principle,
this post about lack of openness appears to be hypocritical. It sounds like a
loser desperately trying to get a foothold in the marketplace. Where was their
sense of openness while developing desktop standards? Where was their sense of
openness when they tried (still trying) to elbow open source out of the picture?
What happened to their sense of real openness when they tried to force their way
through the backdoor into the OSI license approval process? Did they even know the
term openness when they tried to force Internet Explorer down our throats in the
early days on internet?
this post about lack of openness appears to be hypocritical. It sounds like a
loser desperately trying to get a foothold in the marketplace. Where was their
sense of openness while developing desktop standards? Where was their sense of
openness when they tried (still trying) to elbow open source out of the picture?
What happened to their sense of real openness when they tried to force their way
through the backdoor into the OSI license approval process? Did they even know the
term openness when they tried to force Internet Explorer down our throats in the
early days on internet?
Dear Microsoft, what you are advocating here is an
important issue for the very success of Cloud Computing. In fact, I have told
many times, in my posts here at Cloud Ave, that I want Microsoft to be a major
player in the Cloud Computing marketplace. I have even argued that Microsoft’s
presence is essential for even establishing the credibility of Cloud Computing
in the enterprise segment. But, before we trust Microsoft and line behind the
company to fight for an open process to develop interoperability guidelines, we
want to see Microsoft establish credibility in terms of “openness” as defined by
the real world. Until then, any talk of openness by Microsoft will appear to be
just hypocritical and it may even derail any attempts to fight secrecy in
developing Cloud interoperability guidelines.
Related articles by
important issue for the very success of Cloud Computing. In fact, I have told
many times, in my posts here at Cloud Ave, that I want Microsoft to be a major
player in the Cloud Computing marketplace. I have even argued that Microsoft’s
presence is essential for even establishing the credibility of Cloud Computing
in the enterprise segment. But, before we trust Microsoft and line behind the
company to fight for an open process to develop interoperability guidelines, we
want to see Microsoft establish credibility in terms of “openness” as defined by
the real world. Until then, any talk of openness by Microsoft will appear to be
just hypocritical and it may even derail any attempts to fight secrecy in
developing Cloud interoperability guidelines.
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Microsoft should fear Ubuntu’s Cloud efforts (news.cnet.com) - Berkeley
report calls for standard cloud API to drive adoption (insidehpc.com) - Microsoft Readies For Another Big Tech Battle
(businessinsider.com) - Microsoft criticizes drafting of secret ‘Cloud Manifesto’
(infoworld.com)
Actually, I think that Microsoft’s stance and behavior re: open-ness and standards has been really good over the last few years (ie, anything but “nonsense”).
Folks like Kim Cameron have driven microsoft to adopt standards of interoperability around things like OpenID and SAML tokens — neither of which were invented at Microsoft.
I don’t know enough about the whole “cloud manifesto” brouhaha to speak intelligently about it, but I think saying we can’t “trust” microsoft because of how they act toward open processes ignores their very trustworthy actions over the last 5 years or so.
Eric, I do agree that Microsoft has made some positive moves but they are yet to establish the credibility. If we take their open source talk on one hand and their attempts to push away open source vendors and Linux vendors on the other, I still have misgivings against them. As a leader in the traditional software world, their actions are more cosmetic than sincere. At least, that is the opinion myself and many other in the open source community have about them.
So what you are saying is that Microsoft should go back to its closed off ways of yesteryear and the new accepted paradigm is monopolisation and closed off processes for vendor/consumer lock-in.
You can’t have it both ways, that would be.. well.. hypocritcal.
That is your interpretation Steven. I can’t help it. Asking them to establish their open credentials is not asking them to go back to old ways. I don’t get your logic here.
The whole thing here seems heavily to be PR-driven. It looks like the Open Cloud Manifesto is IBM-pushed, and MS is jumping the gun to pull people on their side around the PR swarm.
While I agree that Martin’s sentiments are nice, I’ll believe MS’s actions when I see them. Same for IBM and this whole Cloud Manifesto business. Both sides are saying the same thing here: openness is great and all, but we want *our* openness.
Still to early for me to buy into either side.
My point is this. Microsoft once were not open. They didn’t accept open source, they tried to monopolise. The market lashed back at them. Now they are a lot more open, and trying to become more open constantly.
Except when they do, this kind of thing happens. The markets says “Hey you can’t talk about being open because you weren’t in the past”. What’s Microsoft to do?
I mean your article here basically criticises Microsoft for not being open in the past, and criticises them for being open now. Its a lose-lose situation.
Are you saying they should have just signed the document and not said anything about it? Because if they hadn’t signed it and kept quiet, the manifesto would have appeared at some date with a big fat advertisement that “Microsoft refused to sign this” and by then it would be too late for Microsoft. They’ve done the right thing about bringing this issue out in the open now.
The moral here is don’t hold others accountable to standards that you are not willing to fulfill.