Application of the OSP

We now have the OSP out there and it has been applied to 35 web services specs and now the VHD spec. The question I have for readers on this blog (and your friends) is what should be next? Microsoft will not be applying the OSP in any sort of blanket policy across all specifications past, present, or future as that does not make sense from a business perspective. All organizations should take a sophisticated view of their IP assets and think deeply about what to hold close (for any number of reasons including revenue, strategic alliances, security, etc.) and what to be more transparent with. Then, within the transparency arena this is a wide spectrum of choices as to what steps you might take with those assets.

To provide some insight into our thinking, we are looking across our technology set to determine what approach will make sense on a per-technology basis. I have been encouraged with the progress around collaborative dev projects and the work happening at CodePlex (I'm still interested in the work I was part of for so long around Shared Source), and now I really like the steps we are taking with the open specification promise. If I think about what falls in the "key technology trends" buckets I put virtualization and web services squarely in the mix. So the OSP has been applied in those two critical areas. I'm working with a really bright group of folks who are looking at where else we might think about the OSP, but I'd prefer to have our process not be so insular. It is far healthier to have outside voices involved.

Next week we are hosting the first meeting of our Interoperability Executive Customer Council and I am very interested to hear the feedback from that group. But the community of people who are CIOs of multi-national corporations and large government agencies is small. Many of the folks who read my blog are very thoughtful around these topics. (I'm sure that you haveĀ a valuableĀ opinion here Wesley) and I would like to include those ideas in our strategy sessions.

As you might assume, I'll give the prerequisite disclaimer that we won't necessarily take action with a given piece of feedback, but all of it will absolutely be part of our considerations.

Thanks in advance for the comments.