06.07.08
Microsoft Shows Bad Sportsmanship with Deliberate GNU/Linux Exclusion
“Linux? What’s that?”
Microsoft not only snubs what Ozzie and Ballmer openly say is Microsoft’s #1 competitor. Microsoft also ensures that those who love sports will suffer, unless they pay Microsoft. Remember the Olympic games? It’s happening again. Enter Silverlight.
Here is the scoop, which someone has just brought to our attention in the IRC channel.
Using the European championship to spread malware
Microsoft is pushing their evil SilverLight platform very hard. They want to make sure that providers of cross-platform software for delivering rich applications via the web browser are thwarted. This is normal behavior for a monopolistic company and certainly for Microsoft. To accomplish this goal they are throwing around bucketloads of money and FUD to get content providers to use the Microsoft malware Silverlight exclusively.
Remember that even Fedora won’t accept Moonlight. Microsoft is meanwhile boasting its approach towards Silverlight 2.0 final, which will leave Novell’s customers (licensed for use of Moonlight) even further behind. Surely enough, Microsoft will carry on lying to broadcasters, falsely claiming that Silverlight is “cross-platform” (i.e. only Mac and Windows, according to Microsoft’s definition of the term, which excludes its #1 competitor). █
“[If I ask you who is Microsoft’s biggest competitor now, who would it be?] Open…Linux. I don’t want to say open source. Linux, certainly have to go with that.”
–Steve Ballmer (Microsoft’s CEO), February 28th, 2008
Highlight: Novell was the first to acknowledge that Microsoft FUD tactics had substance. Novell then used anti-Linux FUD to market itself. 
Highlight: Xandros let Microsoft make patent claims and brag about (paid-for) OOXML support. 
Highlight: Linspire's CEO not only fell into Microsoft arms, but he also assisted the company's attack on GNU/Linux. 
Highlight: Microsoft craves pseudo (proprietary) standards and gets its way using proxies and influence which it buys. 
Highlight: The invasion into the open source world is intended to leave Linux companies neglected, due to financial incentives from Microsoft. 
Analysis: Xen, an open source hypervisor, possibly fell victim to Microsoft's aggressive (and stealthy) acquisition-by-proxy strategy.