The head of Open Source Development Labs (OSDL), Stuart Cohen, started rumors flying on Tuesday when he offered comments about upcoming cooperation with Microsoft. Cohen made those remarks while speaking with attendees at the Commonwealth Technology Forum in London.

The OSDL, founded in 2000, is a global consortium dedicated to accelerating the adoption of Linux.

"OSDL has always held the opinion that Microsoft will listen to its customers and find a way to successfully participate in open source," said Jennifer Cloer, an OSDL spokesperson, from a media office in Oregon. "However, there are not currently any collaboration efforts to report. Stewart made those comments about future expectations, but there have been no back-room meetings or secret agreements," she said.

Cohen did not respond to requests to discuss the basis of his comments on collaboration with Microsoft.

Microsoft Denies Interest

While Cohen's comments Tuesday clearly fuel the speculation that the OSDL might be trying to broker a deal with Microsoft, company officials remain adamant about not changing long-standing policies regarding open-source development.

"With specific regards to speculation that Microsoft may begin developing applications to run on open source platforms, I do want to confirm that Microsoft does not have any plans to port applications to Linux," said Katherine Clouse, a spokesperson from the Waggener Edstrom Rapid Response Team for Microsoft.

Microsoft's general manager of platform strategy, Martin Taylor, used an e-mail exchange yesterday to deny that Microsoft will pursue any collaboration with the OSDL.

"We have and will continue to make our strategic bets on the Windows platform. Simply put, we believe that Windows provides greater business value and lower long-term costs for customers than competing platforms, including Linux," Taylor wrote.

Some Cooperation Exists

However, Taylor admitted that Microsoft does engage in limited collaboration with selected manufacturers.

"We understand many of our customers operate in mixed environments, and we are committed to working together with customers, partners and the industry to provide solutions that meet customer needs," Taylor wrote.

He noted that Microsoft has an agreement with Motorola that allows that manufacturer to build Linux-powered phones that include Microsoft's proprietary ActiveSync protocol. As another example, Taylor said Microsoft currently licenses certain Windows Media technologies to TurboLinux so that they may use these technologies as part of their bundled Linux distributions. (continued...)

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