Thanks to Guido Sohne's invitation (now based in Nairobi) in February, I've joined several people at a Microsoft Technology Summit (MTS08) at their campus in Redmond.
Hearing Sam Ranji speak earlier this morning, it's clear that he wants us to test the strength of his asbestos pants (read his blog:-)). Sam Ramji is Microsoft's director of "platform technology strategy", and Guido works for him. Sam's mission is to take heat at open source events and panels on Microsoft's behalf, while demonstrating that Microsoft is "listening" to views and complaints of FLOSS community members.
I hope to evaluate the extent of their intent to co-operate. Accordingly, I am at the M$FT campus in Redmond, Seattle, WA for a couple of days of dialogue in a “non-non-disclosure agreement" meeting, with some 40 odd people (Microsoft, C#, Ruby, Flex, PHP programmers, NGO activists and bloggers, welcomed to challenge Sam and his gang on their several approaches to FLOSS.
There may yet be some kind of wiki (I hope:-)) or other site on this event, which I'll post.
