Microsoft reaches out to Firefox lovers

Offers Vista support olive-branch… but does Mozilla need its help?

The head of Microsoft’s open source business has offered help to get Firefox to work with the upcoming Vista operating system but it remains to be seen if Mozilla and the open source community will respond positively to the gesture.

Sam Ramji, director of Microsoft’s open source software lab, posted an open invitation to work with Microsoft on a Mozilla development discussion group on Monday.

Ramji wrote: “I’m writing to see if you are open to some 1:1 support in getting Firefox and Thunderbird to run on Vista.”

He stressed Microsoft is “committed to evolving our thinking beyond commercial companies to include open source projects” in the Vista project.

Ramji was also anxious that Mozilla and the open source community should not take the offer lightly. He stressed his contribution to Vista is the “non-trivial effort of getting slots for non-commercial open source projects”.

The early signs from the open source community are that some are suspicious of Microsoft’s motives.

Read more: silicon.com