Summary: Microsoft and Novell lure people into thinking that .NET is required, that Microsoft is "open source", that the GPL is dangerous, and that software patents are a necessary hurdle

ONE of the best examples of Microsoft hypnosis these days is Vista 8. The Microsoft boosters keep raving about it, as if it's actually "coming real soon now".

Elsewhere, writers are quoting Microsoft talking points as Microsoft Codeplex tries to pretend that it's independent (the messenger is a former Microsoft employee). This too is a form of hypnosis, accompanied by the lie that Microsoft is a friend of "open source" (however it defines this term).

“Likewise pretends to be an open source company, but it actually sells proprietary software with Microsoft patents; it's dressed up as "open source" using the "open core" trick.”Meanwhile we have companies with Microsoft roots such as Likewise. Likewise pretends to be an open source company, but it actually sells proprietary software with Microsoft patents; it's dressed up as "open source" using the "open core" trick [1, 2, 3, 4]. It's not the only company with Microsoft roots that uses this trick and it currently tries to 'infect' Ubuntu with those Microsoft software patents.

It ought to be added that based on this new press release, CollabNet repeats some footsteps of Geeknet, which got filled with some former Microsoft employees [1, 2] and then became more welcoming towards proprietary software such as .NET. From the first paragraph of this press release:

CollabNet€®, the leader in Agile application lifecycle management (Agile ALM) in the Cloud, today announced that it has hired Bert Huijben, a leading committer of the Apache Subversion€® open source project and the lead committer for AnkhSVN, the premier integration of Subversion and Microsoft€® Visual Studio€®. Huijben plays a key role in the Subversion project, as he brings much needed expertise and focus on Windows. He is also the founder of the SharpSVN open source project, which provides .NET bindings for Subversion. More information about CollabNet and Subversion is available at http://www.open.collab.net/products/subversion/.

"Microsoft launches open-source tool," says this short new article, but there is no sign of source code in the site. It's probably another marketing ploy.

SOFTWARE GIANT Microsoft and technology provider Global Gateway Innovation Exchange launched Thursday an open-source management tool that developers can use to monitor multiple-platform projects.

Here is ZDNet giving exposure to the GPL fear-mongering company that's run by a former Microsoft manager and here is another new post about Pinta, which is an attempt by a Novell developer to bring this Paint.NET clone to GNU/Linux [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11]. This latest promotion receives only negative comments in LinuxToday [1, 2], due to Mono, which is co-Developed with Microsoft now.

Another Novell developer has just announced what seems like preparation for Ubuntu-Banshee integration. Ubuntu One has already added Mono/Banshee bindings. That was months ago.

Microsoft wants to be inside GNU/Linux. Novell helps that happen. ⬆

"I saw that internally inside Microsoft many times when I was told to stay away from supporting Mono in public. They reserve the right to sue"

--Robert Scoble, former Microsoft evangelist