I have been with the company for a while - eight years or so - and we made a decision a long time ago that we are a completely open source company. It makes our lives, strategic and tactical decisions, and everything else across the company that much easier. We never have to figure out and try to determine and outwit ourselves on what should be below the line as open source, and what should be above the line in proprietary and closed source. Really, we're the only commercial vendor out there that has that luxury. For Microsoft to make some donations here and there, well unless you are going to go across the board I truly believe it's half-hearted. It's very difficult to say "I'm going to open that piece and not that piece". It is a way you develop software or not, it's either a development methodology or a marketing statement - we're doing it as a development methodology and not as a marketing statement.

What did you make of the Microsoft Novell collaboration deal announced a couple of years ago - and how has it evolved since, in your opinion?

The Microsoft Novell thing, in my opinion, was touted as an interoperability thing, but it seemed like there were strings attached to it from an IP perspective and we didn't believe in that. We have worked with Microsoft occasionally and we have offered many, many times to work with Microsoft to whatever level they would like on interoperability, provided that the only strings attached were better interoperable systems for our common customers. That's our offer out there. Novell seemed like they had some strings attached and they took a lot of flak from the community for it and lost a lot of developers over it. I still have trouble understanding how it's in Microsoft's best interests for Linux to succeed- just think of it that way and make your own judgements.

How can open source software aid businesses that may be suffering from the current economic downturn in the US and its subsequent impact in other countries?

I think one of the things that open source has brought to the table for commercial enterprises is agreed return on investment, it is part of the model for open source. So certainly in an economic downturn the ability to have a great return on investment, and to actually gain performance, interoperability and stability and things like that, open source is actually a pretty winning formula. So from a customer base perspective, I think it opens up customers who might not have in the past thought about it to consider open source technologies. Once they consider it and take a look, we're finding that many of them are pleasantly surprised with what they are getting.