And Microsoft pretends to have changed

WHO CAN DENY that Microsoft suffers badly? Our previous post spoke about the departure of a Microsoft Vice President, but she's not alone. There are at least two more, based on this comment which had Mary Jo Foley convinced (she may have received a confirmation of some sort).

VPs are already leaving. Look for Lewis Levin or Richard Mcaniff (richardm) in the address book or on the web site. They are already gone. So I think executives will be axed also. I'm not sure why everyone thinks product groups will get the big axe. Did you forget about MSIT, or product support? There must be 3000-4000 people in MSIT and product support across the world. Also just letting all CSGs and vendors go would be a huge savings.

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But like I said look for VPs who are already gone, richardm, lewisl. Not sure who else is gone. I think that execs need to be worried also not just the front line.

Why did they leave so quietly?

Needless to say, this chaotic state of affairs harms Microsoft, which is the most vicious opponent of Free software, despite all the "open-source" 'fluff' pieces, a new example of which comes from IDG|IDC [1, 2]:

Microsoft for the first time is contributing code to an Apache open-source project, continuing the company's softening of its attitude toward open-source software and the community that supports it.

This is self serving. There is no charity in a company that by its very own admission hates the GPL and hates Linux. It's not an ordinary company. Apache is hopefully keeping its eyes open [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]. The article says "open-source" (mind the dash), not "Open Source" and definitely not Free software. It's probably no coincidence. ⬆

"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