07.04.08
More Lies and Hijacking of “Open Source” by Microsoft
It’s back to Free Software, people
“Open source is an intellectual-property destroyer [...] I can’t imagine something that could be worse than this for the software business and the intellectual-property business. I’m an American; I believe in the American way, I worry if the government encourages open source, and I don’t think we’ve done enough education of policymakers to understand the threat.”
–Jim Allchin, Microsoft Vice President
ow quickly things change and how shamelessly can an abusive monopolist pretend. Shortly after the Sandcastle fiasco [1, 2], Microsoft becomes an egocentric opportunist once again. It is turning a disgusting case of “Open Source” abuse — some would say “a scandal” — into a publicity stunt and it’s appearing in the form of positive coverage in the media at the moment. It’s essentially advertising the proprietary software-reliant Sandcastle as “open source”. How weaselly.
“Will Microsoft try to play against VMWare using the “open source” buzzword of Xen?”There are other fascinating examples. Earlier today we showed how the technical chief of Xen was becoming a servant of Microsoft under the umbrella of its new Partner of the Year. He was preparing for big announcements. Will Microsoft try to play against VMWare using the “open source” buzzword of Xen? Evidence seems to appear in articles like this new one, but it’s too early to make an accurate prediction.
As a third example, consider this: a case of describing the GNU/Linux-hostile Silverlight in an open source context. Remember "open source-compatible"? The abuse of terminology for marketing purposes truly boggles the mind.
For more lies, see this short analysis of the Xandros-Linspire situation. Both are mentally aligned with Microsoft — in terms of business goals and ways of accomplishing these goals.
Funny
liesreading: Q&A: Xandros’ CEO Andreas Typaldos — Kevin Carmony: Xandros / Linspire - Here Comes the Spin — Kevin Carmony: Michael Robertson, Where’s the Cash? — Michael Robertson: Xandros Buys Linspire — Comments on LWN.net, and on The Register.Of course, it was all about this happening: Xandros Acquires Linspire, Creator of CNR Application Distribution Facility and Freespire Desktop.
Both distros are dead cows anyway.
We covered this before and reached a similar conclusion, which is backed by several other publications [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. Selling out to Microsoft was an act of misery that will get these two players nowhere. All they ever wanted was a ‘cheap Windows’, without much (or any) regard for the values of Free software. it doesn’t work that way and they will find this out the hard way.
To borrow an old joke, you can put an “open source” lipstick on a proprietary resource pig and put it on the server. But it’s still a proprietary resource pig, which is bug-ridden, poorly-supported and therefore unstable and unreliable. No volunteer would support it. █
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.