Move over, Richard Stallman, Microsoft will take it from here...

Summary: Microsoft folks have decided on 'our behalf' who is important to Open Source and who is not

IS IT not just lovely when Microsoft people get to define who is a valid Open Source voice and who is not? This way they can marginalise key people like Stallman (the founder of the movement back when it was more widely known as "Free software") and promote apologists of Microsoft.

“This way they can marginalise key people like Stallman (the founder of the movement back when it was more widely known as "Free software") and promote apologists of Microsoft.”We are talking about MindTouch, the former Microsoft employees who are also Mono boosters. They were sucking up to people like Matt Asay last year [1, 2]. He is the man who helped Microsoft enter OSI and OSBC [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6] -- a fact that many people either don't know or don't remember.

They also idolise one of Microsoft's gate openers [1, 2, 3], Tim O’Reilly. He has financial interests with the company from Redmond, just like the following man whom they included in this year's list:

Miguel de Icaza, founder, Mono and GNOME projects

It's almost as though MindTouch wants to go around publishers and disseminate this list which says, "these are your friends! Follow them."

Now ponder all those who are conspicuously missing. IDG says:

Torvalds was named the most influential blogger in open source, however, despite ranking behind O'Reilly in the overall metric, which includes various Twitter analysis tools and Google Trends.

This is just the latest example of Microsoft redefining the landscape of Free/open source software by wrapping itself up with Geeknet, CodePlex, etc. Matt Asay is on the board of advisors for Geeknet, which got filled with former Microsoft employees as well [1, 2]. Geeknet's news site, Slashdot, also promoted (front page) MindTouch's list that lauded Asay as an Open Source champion.

Watch the author of this latest press release which promotes a Microsoft lobby that Microsoft MVP Miguel de Icaza participated in until recently. It says "CodePlex Foundation", but it's really just Microsoft. They try to pretend it's something separate that submits press releases independently.

Microsoft pretends to have embraced Free software (it called it "shared source" or "open source" and bends the meaning it conveys) while attacking Free software, illegally and legally at the same time (with legal means but with accompanying racketeering [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]). We gave two examples just hours ago [1, 2]. ⬆

"If anybody thinks open-source alternatives are free, I guess as they say, you can see me after class. [...] I will tell you that in any comparison that you would do of Windows with Linux, which is an open-source alternative, we will prove to you that when it comes to total cost of ownership our stuff is more economical, whether it’s the other patent-licensing costs that you might have to pay to use open-source software, which is kind of a big unknown right now [...]"

--Steve Ballmer, National Retail Federation Annual Convention & EXPO