Microsoft's open source point man
Martin Gregory does one thing, and one thing only, for Microsoft: lobby against open source. Dan Warne talked to him. — What are the misconceptions of open source? — Number one, we don't compete with open source ... as a development model or a technology model.
Context & Ripple Effects
The interview lands at an awkward moment for Microsoft's messaging. APC's conversation with Martin Gregory — identified as a lobbyist whose single brief is arguing against open source — runs days after the company shipped an emergency patch for a critical Windows graphics-file flaw, with security experts already reporting two more WMF vulnerabilities behind it, four years after Bill Gates' companywide email made security Microsoft's declared top priority. The corpus itself frames the tension: alongside the Gregory piece sits reporting that Microsoft still cannot get computer security right.
Gregory's central claim, that Microsoft does not compete with open source 'as a development model or a technology model,' sits uneasily beside his job description — a full-time advocate against it. The same day's coverage also confirms a separate five-year Microsoft–Apple software agreement, a reminder that Microsoft's competitive positioning in early 2006 runs through both proprietary partnerships and public arguments about open source.
First-order effects
- Gregory's remarks hand open-source advocates a ready-made contradiction: a company running a dedicated anti-open-source lobbying operation while denying it competes with the model, a framing critics can quote directly in procurement and standards fights.
Second-order effects
- Each high-profile Windows security failure — the WMF patch cycle playing out exactly as this interview publishes — strengthens the reliability argument open-source vendors and their customers make against Microsoft, forcing Gregory's counter-messaging onto defensive ground.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, opposition to open source becomes institutionalized inside large vendors as a government-relations function rather than an engineering position — meaning the real contest shifts from code to policy rooms, with the outcome turning on how credible vendors like Microsoft can make their 'we don't compete with the model' argument while funding advocacy against it.
The trend: As open source moves from hobbyist phenomenon into enterprise and government consideration, major proprietary vendors are building permanent advocacy operations against it — making vendor credibility on openness itself a competitive battleground.