The installation of an open source guru has signalled an unexpected U-turn for Microsoft

FOR MANY years, Microsoft has been perceived both as the main rival and the target of the open source software movement, a collaborative approach to developing software that requires the code to be freely available to other developers.

Microsoft’s dominance of huge markets, from desktop operating systems (with Windows) to productivity software (with Office) and its for-profit modus operandi, often positioned it as enemy number one for open source enthusiasts.

Abrasive comments from chief executive Steve Ballmer in past years about open source projects such as the popular operating system Linux – which he once referred to as a cancer – have not helped engender affectionate feelings in the community for the software giant.

Some feel the company continues to target open source applications that compete with its own products, an opinion often expressed in open source community blogs and discussion boards.

So what could possibly persuade Gianugo Rabellino to take the newly created job of open source guru at Microsoft? Rabellino is an Italian open source advocate, who has been highly active in promoting open source software through the company he founded, Sourcesense.com. He is vice-president of the open source web server software Apache XML project management committee.

“I was looking for new challenges and fun things to do, and got this call from Microsoft,” he says during a visit to Dublin recently. “And if there’s a company where doing open source is going to be interesting, that’s going to be Microsoft.”

Carrying the freshly minted title of senior director for open source communities at Microsoft, Rabellino’s role is to be the chief driver for open source projects within the group, as well as nurturer of relations with the broader open source community outside the company.

Far from tiptoeing around the issue of Microsoft’s still-controversial reputation within the wider open source community, Rabellino clearly enjoys tackling it head on. To start with, he says that from his time running Sourcesense, which helps companies integrate open source applications into their operations, he “knew that Microsoft was serious about open source”.

In recent years Microsoft has developed its own open source initiatives, from creating various open source tools to “open sourcing” some code and creating a cloud computing infrastructure, Azure, designed to support open source applications. Open source is a hot topic at every level within Microsoft, Rabellino says. He’s spent his first five months in his role talking to people across the organisation and “it’s not like I’m bringing the open source gospel to untrained ears”.

Over time, he says, Microsoft has realised many of its customers want to run mixed software environments that include open source applications running on Windows, or Microsoft applications running on Linux.

Microsoft should be given credit for consistency and clarity about the way in which it views open source, he says. “With Microsoft, it’s really clear. We sell software and in order to sell software and have happy customers, we want to interact with open source,” he says.

As a public company, Microsoft “has to create value for the shareholders and has to listen to the market”, and that means selling proprietary products. But that goal can sit alongside open source initiatives and applications, he argues.

And he notes wryly that at least, Microsoft is unambiguous about its stance on proprietary applications and profit motivations, unlike some companies in the open source space that incorporate open source code into proprietary products.

Nonetheless, he did worry that his friends in the open source community might be critical about his putting on the Microsoft hat. “When you get a job offer from Microsoft, and all your career has been about open source, you think twice,” he admits. “But my friends said, ‘you’d better take it quick, or otherwise I am going to take it from you!’ ”

He has been working to get the open source community talking about – and with – Microsoft. “One of my biggest fears was that I would end up involved in lots of conversations about [past] history. But most of the discussions in the community have been about specific technologies, and the opportunities to address,” such as how to use Microsoft’s cloud computing environment Azure.

Interoperability is the word he says best sums up Microsoft’s approach to open source. “It’s about different technologies, devices and needs. It just makes sense.”

Within and outside Microsoft, he wants to make sure open source “is seen as a beacon to interoperability”. To that end, he is focused on internal technology developments, encouraging open standards, and the open source community itself. He’ll be “making sure Microsoft is and remains on top of community issues, and that the relationship and trust we’re building with the community grows over the years”.

‘SURPRISED AND DELIGHTED’- COMMUNITY WELCOMES ATTITUDE SHIFT

MEMBERS OF the Irish open source community say they have been initially surprised and then pleased to see Microsoft increasingly talking to and working with their members and projects.

Vicky Twomey-Lee, main organiser of the Python open source coding language community in Ireland, says Microsoft became one of the main sponsors of its first annual conference last year.

She acknowledges that “there’s a pre-conception of Microsoft” in the Python community – many would be surprised at “having Microsoft and open source in the same sentence”. But the company has remained in touch “to see what Microsoft can do for us and vice versa. For us, it helps with opening up a rake of opportunities.”

Kieran Logan, founder of Irish jobs start-up RoleConnect.com, built his site using open source tools, including blogging application Wordpress, search software Lucene, web-application toolkit jQuery, and Microsoft’s open source web platform, all running on Microsoft’s Azure open cloud platform.

He was familiar with Microsoft tools because he had worked in the past as a contractor on Microsoft technologies but “was surprised that Microsoft had become so much more open – surprised and delighted”.

The Azure cloud platform “ticked all the boxes” and he says he was pleased at how Microsoft tools were interoperable with his other open source choices for RoleConnect.com.

These are exactly the kind of relationships Microsoft’s Irish “architect evangelist” Josh Holmes wants to promote. He has spent four and a half years with Microsoft in the US and now in Ireland, “working with the open source community the entire time” and focusing particularly on start-up companies.

His main job is talking, he says, “talking about how open our platform is. If you have an open source application, it will run on Windows.”