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Posted in Deception, Free/Libre Software, Law, Microsoft, Samba at 10:59 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
A FEW DAYS AGO, Bradley Kuhn explained why Microsoft is unlikely to be really interested in open source. In fact, at the beginning of this month, Microsoft unleashed a press release that explicitly insulted open source for bearing higher TCO (it’s Gartner-speak by the way) than Microsoft’s proprietary technology. How can this two-faced approach stand?
=> explained why Microsoft is unlikely to be really interested in open source | Gartner-speak
Well, Microsoft appoints all sorts of people who pretend to live in an entirely different universe, from which they deceive the competition. One of these people is Sam Ramji, to whom SDTimes gave the soapbox a few days ago (SDTimes belongs to or is affiliated with IDG [1, 2], of which it is a member). In response to this deceptive article, which came across as though it was just parroting Microsoft on open source, the same publication released this rebuttal that echoes Bradley Kuhn.
=> people | they deceive | 1 | 2 | Microsoft on open source | ↺ this rebuttal
The number of lines of code Microsoft has given back to the community is tiny compared to other software companies of the same size, he said. “Microsoft has made tiny contributions under BSD-style licenses and is making big noise about giving code back. They are making a mountain out of a molehill. Sam’s job is to put a clean face on Microsoft’s involvement with free and open-source software, and to make the community feel that they are giving back.”
Sam Ramji, whom we mentioned in [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11], does not even have any real background in Free software. The closest he got to it was Software as a Service (SaaS). Lack of experience can be an excuse for imposed ignorance. Further, states the article:
=> 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11
Kuhn’s biggest point of contention is that Microsoft is still refusing to participate with the General Public License (GPL), the most widely used open-source license. “They basically have the opposite position of every other company involved with open-source software,” he noted.
Kuhn also dismissed Microsoft’s work with the Samba project as being nothing more than a consequence of court-ordered mandates.
This never prevented Microsoft from pretending that they love Samba and complied due to the goodness of their hearts. We must all remember the truth though. █
“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, President of Platforms & Services Division at Microsoft
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