[Linux-aus] [Osia-discuss] Re: If you could ask Microsoft a question, what would it be?

[Jiri Baum]

Hello,

Brent Wallis:
> The big 2 questions I have in my head is "why" this MS visit, and,
> what the SLUG and MS want to get out of it.

"A Microsoft partner is a victim they haven't got to yet."

For MS, it's clearly advantageous to appear to have reformed its ways and to 
appear to be cooperating with the community. They will gain cooperation in 
return, goodwill and so on. In addition, in our case, they're likely to gain 
some measure of discord among us, which is again to their benefit.

Why SLUG is falling for it, I'm not sure; most likely, it's built on a culture 
of cooperation and openness and simply doesn't have the necessary defences. 
It would hardly be alone in that - even organisations such as ISO have 
trouble in such circumstances (and that's just a current, on-going example).

A leopard can't change its spots.


Jiri
-- 
Jiri Baum <jiri at baum.com.au>                   http://www.baum.com.au/~jiri