Hmmm....

mrweasel · Posted: Tue, 22 Aug 2006 09:10:37 Post Subject: Hmmm....

From the Inq:

MICROSOFT HAS promised to help Firefox and Thunderbird coders get their open source programs working on Vista.

The head of Microsoft's open source software lab Sam Ramji said that Vole had approached Mozilla to if it's interested in making sure the Firefox browser and Thunderbird e-mail client run under Windows Vista.

Ramji said he had set aside office space for open-source developers and would make Microsoft engineers available to Firefox and Thunderbird coders.

He will be holding a lab in Redmond in December 2006. Normally Vole only invites commercial developers.

There has been no comment from Mozzarella to the offer yet.

More at Information Week. Âµ

I wonder why MS is being so nice? Might they be thinking of "buying them out"?

bruceleeon · Rated R Joined: 15 Jun 2003 Posts: 59

That is a good move...

Hellfire · Rated XXX Joined: 05 Aug 2003 Posts: 3473

Could be lots of reasons to play nice...

anti-trust - they can't complain their software doesn't work if MS offers to help them with it. "MS did something to specifically make Firefox not work" Seen that complaint many times with new releases....

publicity - MS realizes the large market share Firefox has, so playing nice gives MS good publicity

doing the right thing - Ok, this one is a bit hard to imagine, but it IS possible...

Changing tactics - look at all that MS has done differently with Vista compared to other release...contacting the hacker community was a BIG change...

And you could also be right....

BeerCheeze · Posted: Tue, 22 Aug 2006 11:21:57 Post Subject:

It's a simple business model. Have as much software operate on your OS as possible.

There is nothing to be lost by helping Mozilla out there, and nothing to be gained by excluding them. Heck, the more people actually use FF, the more wholes that will be found, and the less pressure on MS.