Message and Intent

I read this morning that Microsoft has hired a former colleague of mine, Peter Galli, to be a Senior Communications Manager on Microsoft's Platform Strategy team.

I was glad to hear Peter had landed somewhere after Ziff Davis went through its latest round of layoffs a couple of months ago. Granted, not so happy he landed at Microsoft, but it appears his role there will be similar to my role here at the Linux Foundation: community manager.

Matt Asay, who's blog picked up on this, noted that Peter joins the ranks of journalists who have become community managers of late. He specifically mentions Joe Brockmeier's move to Novell as their community manager, yet forgets to mention me. After all the traffic I have sent his way over the years, seems like a big thing to forget. Well, Matt, remember the little people while you toil away at... what was that company again? :)

Seriously, Peter's move to Microsoft may represent that the boys and girls at Redmond may finally get that there's something to open source beyond strictly code. Community, as we've been saying all along, is a big part of the equation as well. What engenders quality in open source is not just great code, but a willingness of a community to make that code great as well. If Microsoft is finally twigging to this, then good for them. Really.

But, I doubt it. While I have no doubt of Peter's honorable intentions, I have the sneaking feeling that this is all part of Microsoft's new strategy to message their way out of their problems? Vista quality laughable? Hire a comedian to tell a better joke. Open source strategy not doing well? Hire someone to tell a better story.

Sooner or later, Microsoft will have to realize that they will have to do more in order for people to take their open source credentials seriously. Like really participate in existing projects, instead of trying to create artificial "open" environments that are still under their control.

If Peter's going to tell us that story, I'm all ears.