Microsoft tries to maintain its monopoly…are you surprised?

Linux.com has a juicy story about Microsoft’s efforts to quash open standards legislation in Florida. No one (including Novell) should be surprised that Microsoft is talking out of both sides of its mouth on open source and open standards. It’s a regular Jekyll and Hyde when it comes to open source.

On one hand, Microsoft needs to figure out its future. Clearly, open source is going to play some prominent role in that future. It has to. Microsoft has no choice in that matter.

On the other hand, Microsoft has tens of billions of dollars to protect. So, whatever pretty phrases the company may say about Linux, interoperability, etc., Microsoft will do everything in its power to block open source and open standards. It has, in a very real sense, a fiduciary duty to try to kill it.

And so it has done in Florida:

Rep. Homan and his son Doug tried to add [a] open standards boost to SB 1974 as quietly as possible. They wanted the modified bill to at least get through its first committee approval before anyone spotted what they had done. But Microsoft’s Florida lobbyists were on the ball and spotted it almost immediately.

“It was like the movie ‘Men in Black,'” says Rep. Homan. “Three Microsoft lobbyists, all wearing black suits.”

Another lobbyist (unaffiliated with Microsoft) who would speak only “on background” laughed at the “Men in Black” description. “I know those guys,” he said. “They even wear sunglasses like in that movie. They are the ‘Men in Black’ of Florida lobbying, for sure.”

A legislative staff employee who would lose his job if he were quoted here by name said, “By the time those lobbyists were done talking, it sounded like ODF (Open Document Format, the free and open format used by OpenOffice.org and other free software) was proprietary and the Microsoft format was the open and free one.”

I guess the real question here is how to work with a company that must, of necessity, turn a Janus face to open source. Open source is both threat and opportunity for Microsoft; unfortunately, in the short term it is a massive threat with very little opportunity. That’s why Bill Hilf’s team and the Linux lab are relatively small (fewer than 25 people), compared to the tens of thousands of other Microsofties leaning the other way.

From the outside, how can the community help Bill Hilf’s team despite the occasional, even constant, howlings from the rest of Microsoft? I don’t know. I do know that Microsoft has been very helpful to a range of open source startups, including my own. Kudos for that. But does that work outweigh the harm that Microsoft does with things like this Florida shenanigan?

Again, I don’t know. Your thoughts?