Will open source accept Microsoft leadership
It will once again be a "platinum sponsor" at the Open Source Business Conference in San Francisco next month and its National Technology Officer for the U.S., Stuart McKee, will deliver a keynote.
McKee, former CIO for Washington state, may be best known to open source advocates for admitting that "ODF won" the standards battle with Microsoft's Open Office XML back in 2008.
The last year has seen Microsoft continue its charm offensive with open source, which has succeeded in winning admiration from business-oriented open source leaders.
The company has also tried to disconnect itself from CodePlex, the open source repository it launched. This is reflected in the creation of a separate foundation, under Paula Hunter. It is also reflected through things like support for Mercurial on Codeplex, in addition to its own Team Foundation Server.
Both sides have suffered from the Microsoft-open source war, with Microsoft finding its valuation stable over the last decade and many open source businesses finding the capital windows shut in the wake of the financial crisis.
To many within the open source business community this has created a new "live and let live" attitude toward Microsoft.
But is that true generally? Take our poll and let's find out.[poll=114]