LCA2009: Microsoft man encounters Linux storm

By Sam Varghese
Monday, 19 January 2009 12:58

Opinion and Analysis

If Lawrence Crumpton had any inkling about the kind of storm he would face while giving a talk at the Australian national Linux conference in Hobart today, one doubts he would have come along.
Crumpton, platform strategy manager at Microsoft Australia, had no idea of the passionate questioning he would come up against when he gave his talk, the last for the day, at a mini-conference titled "The Business of Open Source."

Humour and deprecatory remarks are generally adopted when one tries to make oneself comfortable in an uncomfortable situation, and Crumpton went it whole hog. (video link)

His talk was titled "Microsoft and open source; did hell freeze over?" and the title on the first slide was superimposed on a picture of a wintry day in Redmond - taken, he claimed, on the day when Microsoft held the company's first open source day.

He began outlining Microsoft's approach to open source but it was evident early on that his progress would not be unhindered.

There were some murmurs in the audience when he began preaching what is today's standard Redmond line about Microsoft being receptive to open source.

Roughly midway through the talk, he paused to allow a contribution from the audience and thereafter the talk never went anywhere.

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