No thanks for all the fish

Summary: Creator of land mines for the Free desktop ends his time at Microsoft's group and returns to more risky activity

Novell's VP and Microsoft MVP Miguel de Icaza joined Microsoft's CodePlex Foundation board last year. Microsoft used him as "proof" that the CodePlex Foundation was not just some shell constructed to promote Microsoft's agenda (Windows, .NET, etc.) even though that was precisely its purpose, as it turned out later. The CodePlex Foundation's board was announced prematurely probably to distract from the fact that Microsoft got caught selling anti-Linux patents to patent trolls [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. That was also the opinion of Groklaw, for example, because this distracting announcement came amid other major fiascos like Microsoft's distribution of anti-GNU/Linux pamphlets and training material to large chains of computer stores across the United States [1, 2].

“They change the API rules in exchange for benefits and/or paychecks.”Miguel de Icaza happily associates himself with a company that happily attacks the freedom of software while pretending to have embraced it, despite trying to change it from the inside (Windows, Mono, etc.). Together, they are demoting GNU/Linux and promoting Windows like Citrix still does with Xen. They change the API rules in exchange for benefits and/or paychecks. All along Microsoft is just buying its way and gently bribing a lot of people to get its way. There is some news from Microsoft about its so-called 'foundation' that it funds [1, 2, 3, 4] and in the press release we find:

Departing from the interim CodePlex Board are Miguel de Icaza, Vice President, Novell

Since de Icaza joined as interim board member he has also earned an MVP from Microsoft, so it's not a total loss. It has also been revealed in the form of a confession from Microsoft that the CodePlex Foundation aimed to increase the use of Mono.

Novell programs like Banshee (Mono based) are still being promoted in some places [1, 2], despite the fact that Microsoft's revealing MCP says that Banshee is suitable for safe use only by Novell customers. To Novell's MonoDevelop lead, says this one person from Linux Today a bunch of reasonable things.

"Here is your MVP award," wrote an Anonymous Coward at Linux Today. "There's nothing wrong with that except it's trying to spread something that's not very welcomed in the Free software community. At least, Microsoft should award MVP title to the developers for their hard work. Just trying to joke (hence, posting as AC), not mean to attack the developers. We are all technical savvy people, just happened to pick different paths."

Now that Novell may be sold [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7], it's expected that Microsoft might hire from Novell. Some "cool" programs written in Mono, however, will continue to cause harm. ⬆