In a somewhat surprising move from a company that rattled sabers with what seemed like the entire open source software world last year, Microsoft has become a sponsor of the open source Apache Software Foundation and has opened up some of its protocols for use by OSS developers. Microsoft’s Sam Ramji, director of the company’s Open Source Software Lab, made the announcement at OSCON. While neither Microsoft nor Apache revealed the actual amount of Microsoft’s sponsorship, the Redmond-based software giant’s contribution will be at least $100,000 per year.
