A Microsoft Veteran Embraces Open Source

“Microsoft, of course, has long been the archenemy of the open
source community, which is built on the notion of freely sharing
intellectual property for the good of the community. I.B.M. and Sun
Microsystems have embraced the open source cause, as have other
technology giants. Even Apple’s OS X operating system is at
its core open source — an Apple executive has said that more
than 50 percent of the lines of code in OS X come from the open
source Berkeley Software Distribution and related projects.

“In contrast, Microsoft has made only grudging accommodations to
the open source movement, offering some of its source code to
programmers who use its technology while valiantly arguing that
for-pay software is less expensive than free software when you
consider the bigger picture.

“Mr. Curtis, who joined Microsoft in 1993 and left in 2004, begs
to differ.”

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