Microsoft Corp. has extended an olive branch to the open-source community, calling for a sit-down to discuss how the software giant can better work with the open-source world. But don"t expect to see an open-sourced version of Windows any time soon. Microsoft is making nice with its open-source adversaries, while continuing to defend its rights to hold and use its arsenal of software patents.
At a recent conference sponsored by the Association for Competitive Technology (ACT) in Cambridge, Md., Brad Smith, Microsoft"s general counsel, called for bridge building between Microsoft, its competitors and the open-source community. "In the world of software development today there is a broad panoply of software development models," Smith said.