• Your chance to feed the Ubuntu Brain(storm)
• Do You Dare to Brainstorm? -
• Ubuntu Brainstorm Brings Even More Democracy to Open Source
• What Windows Server 2008 Learned from OSS -
• How open source has influenced Windows Server 2008

I was a little bit surprised when I looked at the Best Buy web site: Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 Windows and Norton AntiVirus 2008 Windows are both listed as accessories for the Asus EEE PC, which runs a dedicated version of Xandros Linux. Apart from the platform compatibility (just a minor issue) both software exceed the hardware specifications of the small PC (a very good product, by the way).

I have a question: would you buy any IT product from such an incompetent retailer?

Yesterday’s post was definitely a mistake, and therefore the text has been replaced with a fake one (lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, et caetera) to avoid the cache trap.

Today I’ve had a long conversation with Pierpaolo Boccadamo, Microsoft Italy Platform Strategy Director. He is a real gentleman and has been very kind to me, although he was involved in a very important server announcement and my words have been quite a problem for him, Sam Ramji and Andrea Valboni (the people I’m in touch with at Microsoft). I apologize, guys, seriously.

I’ve been told that this blog is now seen by Microsoft as an authoritative voice of the open source community. I’m happy and surprised at the same time: I’ve never been a corporate person, and I’m not the best one for the role but I will try to stick to it at least until we will get to know each other in a better way.

Please do understand, though, that the open source community isn’t and can’t be similar to a large enterprise. Therefore, the language will always be different in tone from what you could expect if we were a “regular” company.

But there are advantages, too. You have my mobile phone number, and you are not just asked by warmly invited to call me whenever you feel that I’ve made something wrong. I don’t have any problem today and I won’t have any problem in the future to acknowledge my mistakes (if any, of course).

I’m a volunteer, and I use my free time for the the community. I don’t have a status to defend, and if I lose my “job” I will have more time for myself, my family and my hobbies. It’s a different perspective from yours, as you are in a corporate position.

Of course, this doesn’t translate into a lousy attitude. I try to do my best, as I have been doing for all my professional life: you know the results, and therefore you may understand how seriously I handle the task.

Let’s start working at the interoperability project and forget - for the time being - the other issues (although I know that we will be carefully watching each other on a daily basis). You have my commitment, and the commitment of Associazione PLIO.