- MarissaBrand
- gordman
- mithunsarker
- Kim07
- Ralph Waldren
Former Microsoft Executive Goes Open Source.
Submitted by Wonko The Sane on 17 November, 2004 - 14:03.
Nat Brown, a Microsoft executive for nearly 10 years, has joined a company specialising in open-source media software. What's interesting here is not that he left Microsoft, and not that he joined an Open Source company - but the reason that he left Microsoft:
...He was also one of the main contributors to the infamous "Halloween memo", in which Microsoft first documented concerns about open-source software as a competitive threat.
Brown said the memo, chiefly written by engineer Vinod Valloppillil, partly reflected his admiration of open-source methods.
"There were a lot of us that talked about open source casually in email, and the memo synthesised a lot of those discussions," he said. "My thought was that there's this beautiful thing with open source where, as a developer, there's a very low barrier to entry. The flexibility that gives you is really incredible."
Brown said that when he decided to return to work after a few years to concentrate on his family, it was natural for him to look at open-source companies.
"I knew I wanted to get back into something and do it with a smaller company," he said. "I'd been talking with Microsoft about going back to work on the Windows infrastructure. But the company is just very, very big, and the opportunity to have [an] impact and really execute on your ideas is very limited."...
So to be creative and have an impact, Nat Brown felt he had to leave Microsoft. OK.