“Visibility Builds Trust” – Shared-Source at Microsoft

While a bitter divide sometimes separates advocates of open-source software from supporters of proprietary model, the appearance of Microsoft representative Jason Matusow at a Berkman Center lunch today was considerably more amicable.  Matusow confronted an audience that included committed open-source developers and legal experts, and he refuted the idea that a “clear-cut moral distinction” separates open-source from proprietary software.  Matusow directs Microsoft’s Shared Source Initiative, which, according to Matusow, is based on the lesson that “visibility builds trust.”  The project offers a spectrum of licenses and providers greater user access to the software code.  But middle ground between Matusow’s position and the open-source advocates was harder to come by when questions moved to Microsoft’s support of SCO in the SCO v. IBM legal battle – a position which open-source advocates fiercely oppose.