As program manager of the Shared Source Initiative at Microsoft, Jason
Matusow is responsible for coordinating Microsoft' global source licensing
strategy. ZDNet UK caught up with him.
Q: Just over a year ago, Microsoft senior vice president Craig Mundie made
his infamous comments about open source. Since then, Microsoft has been rolling
out its Shared Source Initiative. How do you rationalize your Shared Source
Initiative with Microsoft's views on open source?
A: One unfortunate thing we did was coming out against open source--we knew
it would be controversial. There is a longstanding industry debate around source
code and what role it plays. IT professionals have one point of view, developers
have another, business decision makers have yet another and then hobbyists come
at it from an entirely different direction again.
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