Microsoft Denies It's Attacking Open Source

Muglia's keynote focused on the "new Microsoft" in its pursuit of interoperability between its products and other business applications found in corporate computing environments. The senior executive listed Microsoft's work in standards bodies, particularly those establishing Web services standards; more than 800 open source projects; and its own program for no-fee licensing of Microsoft protocols for connecting to its software.

"We recognize that in order to solve the problems that our customers have than interoperability is what we have to address," he said.

Coinciding with Muglia's keynote was a company announcement of a series of offerings to improve interoperability between components of online identity management systems. The industry through separate efforts is developing technology that would enable Web sites to share users' identities so a person could log in once to access multiple services from different vendors. All sharing of information would be done with the user's permission.

Microsoft said it is making its Identity Selector Interoperability Profile available under its Open Specification Promise, Microsoft's no-fee, no restrictions licensing initiative. The ISIP is used in Microsoft's own identity authentication standards called Windows CardSpace.

Microsoft also said it was starting four open source projects to help Web developers support its identity authentication mechanisms. The projects would hosted on open source sites SourceForge, RubyForge and CodePlex.

Finally, Microsoft said it would work on an open-source project with Kernel Networks and Oxford Computer Group to provide an OpenLDAP adapter for Microsoft Identity Lifecycle Manager 2007 for two-way synchronization.