Jay and I are speaking together at FSOSS 2007. We’ll be iterating on our presentation from Web2Expo, tentatively titled 12 Steps to a better User Experience for Developers. It should be an interesting presentation. I’m sure that it will be the least of my challenges as a Microsoft employee at a Free and Open Source conference. I think my personal views on these topics and corporate views are not completely orthogonal. But I’m going to be very clear, the opinions expressed are my own, they do not represent the views, opinions or anything else from my employer.
I repeat, the opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer’s view in any way. Simply, do I think people should have the choice between different licensing models. Yes. Choice is the key here. You should be free to choose the software that is free, you should be free to purchase support for software, you should free to purchase an executable binary. It is your choice as a consumer. It is your choice as a developer to choose a license that works for you and your personal or business needs.
The Symposium is a two-day event aimed at bringing together educators, developers and other interested parties to discuss common free software and open source issues, learn new technologies and to promote the use of free and open source software. At Seneca College, we think free and open source software are real alternatives.