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

[Nathan Bailey]

Microsoft Research do some really interesting, innovative and even  
completely open stuff. If we're looking for opportunities to  
collaborate (= help Microsoft to engage with, contribute to and build  
our community) then I would think it would be good to:
i) Understand what are some key MS research activities of interest to  
the SLUG/LUV communities
ii) Understand some key problems in the SLUG/LUV communities that MS  
research or MS in general may be able to help solve
iii) Understand what grants, cooperative research and cooperative  
development priorities MS may have right now.

Microsoft is a huge cash cow (in the OS and Office sections, at  
least). We should be actively working with them to help them spend  
their money on things that are important to both of us.

Let's not use this opportunity to dig up all the things MS have done  
(or are doing) wrong. Let's use it to find ways to help them do right.  
They're not going to change their core values (and neither are we),  
but there is still plenty of room for agreement and collaboration.

re,
N
PS: Some people may be surprised to think that MS would want to work  
with, contribute to or build our community. But MS already do a lot of  
this for a lot of different communities. Helping communities is good  
business. Let's find ways to help Microsoft contribute to our  
communities.

On 13/01/2008, at 12:10 PM, Sridhar Dhanapalan wrote:

> On Sun, 13 Jan 2008, "Brent Wallis" <brent.wallis at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> On Jan 12, 2008 10:47 PM, Sridhar Dhanapalan  
>> <sridhar at dhanapalan.com> wrote:
>>> On Sat, 12 Jan 2008, "Brent Wallis" <brent.wallis at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> K...so they asked to come along or did someone invite them?
>>>
>>> They offered, and we treated them with even more scepticism and
>>> conditions than we would an offer from anyone else.
>>>
>>>> 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.
>>>
>>> Those questions are key. I have added them to the wiki page[1].
>>
>> Excellent....but I would like to suggest that it is very important
>> that MS state their reasons for attendance _before_ the event.
>
> They are attending to discuss the MS-Novell deal (it's been about a  
> year since
> it was announced) and their activities regarding interoperability  
> (including
> SMB, OOXML and virtualisation) and open source.
>
> It'll be mostly a Q&A session, so we can ask them whatever we like  
> and watch
> them squirm ;)
>
>
> -- 
> "I fully admit that there are some major problems in the Windows OS"  
> - Eric
> Traut, Microsoft engineer, October 2007
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