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msApache?

July 27th, 2008 by , Filed under: Commentary

The InformationWeek reports that Microsoft had just became an Official Apache sponsor.
The article says that the sponsorship is a “Platinum Sponsor” which means a donation of more than $100,000 per year.

My first reaction was “Oh now, please don’t touch this one, it is working so good. ”

MS and Open Source in the same sentence simply doesn’t sound right. Especially when it comes to Apache. Something tells me this is not good news. I don’t know why. On the other hand, $100K for MS is peanuts. Maybe I’m just paranoid?…

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  • Gullit

    Yes, you’re paranoid! :P
    I think there is no problem if MS wants to make donations.

  • adam.sellers

    i think you’re right to be a little skeptical yairb… my initial reaction was the same as yours… the question begs to be asked, why is MS getting interested in sponsoring OS applications? could it be that they see the future coming??? The eutopia would be a company like MS fully supporting a whole bunch of OS applications, providing they don’t start trying to tinker with the GPL this can only be a good thing for the community as a whole i’d think… After all, it’s worked for Java!

  • http://buddyhacker.com buddyhacker

    well lets see how apache become msapache ?

    lot of good apache users are there for open source

  • Lev

    You can never be too paranoid. Who drives OS development? Main sponsors! Disagree? Then answer following question: Who make main development decisions for Eclipse, for JBoss ?

    OS or not, stakeholders are always in charge, this way or another. I don’t think that anything drastic will happen to apache straight away, but in the future … who knows … M$ made their first step :)

  • http://www.ybo-interactive.com yairb

    Lev,
    My thoughts are not because of the fact that an open source project has sponsors, but because this sponsor represents everything that is against open source and everything that is against the purpose of the open source community. Apache is one of the symbols of the open source world, something that MS are trying to compete for many years and can’t win. Now, I’m afraid that they are trying to influence it with their $money. I hope I’m wrong, but I think I would feel different of SUN, IBM, or even Google would be there instead of MS.

  • http://carezia.srv.br André Carezia

    In my opinion, money is irrelevant for open source projects. Development will continue to happen whether or not money is on the table. Forks will be made if necessary, and people will start other similar projects.

    Open source projects are out of powerful people hands. As Doc Searls says, power is on everybody’s hands.

  • http://www.0x80.org/ Qnix

    i liked your reaction

  • http://www.cityvillehackz.com/ Cityville Hack

    Thanks for the information I need this.

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