Summary: IDG continues to deceive people regarding "FOSS", now with the appointment of a Microsoft person to run the "Open Source" blog; Ostatic overlooks the aspects which make Microsoft a unique foe of software freedom

IDG has had a fauxpen source blog for just under a year. From the very moment it showed up we warned about those whom IDG had assigned to run it. Editorial control determines convictions, biases, or even the level of self-censorship and funding sources of the publisher (e.g. advertisers or whitepaper clients) have a huge impact.

It was just last week that IDG seeded the "Microsoft loves open source" nonsense (yes, that's where it originally came from) and it didn't take long for Bort and Shimel from the fauxpen source blog to add more fuel to it. We explained both in:

• IDG Spin: Microsoft a Victim in Patent Racketeering, Loves Open Source (Bort spin)
• Microsoft Tactic: We Love Open Source, But Those 'Zealots' Don't Love Us Back (Shimel spin)

Other writers in the fauxpen source blog are actually from proprietary software vendors, namely Black Duck and OpenLogic. There are almost a dozen writers there though, so Amy Vernon and others who are not in the pocket of those in the business of fear or proprietary software tend to add balance sometimes. But now they add Microsoft people, starting with the post "A FOSS project isn’t necessarily a software product."

It's written by Microsoft's Walli from CodePlex. He is removing the "F" from "FOSS", thus redefining "FOSS" to something Microsoft can accept. To him, Free software is communism (based on his very recent post).

That's just Microsoft's goal in 'taming' its competition. It's about perception and stereotypes and since Microsoft is a major client of IDG, why not? Maybe Greenpeace should also give a blog to Shell and BP, which now has some green colours in its logo.

“It's about perception and stereotypes and since Microsoft is a major client of IDG, why not?”Not only "Free software" but also "FOSS" is now under threat of losing its meaning. Just consider subversion of the "FOSS" word by people like Microsoft Florian, a .NET developer. It is reality distortion in action, a clear case of entryism.

The editor of OStatic is sadly enough falling for a lot of it because Microsoft marketers/spinmeisters are increasing PR and charm offensives as part of their attempt to paint others as the source of trouble (Richard Stallman, FSF, 'dirty hippies' et cetera). Owing to disinformation campaigns from Microsoft Florian and others, there's painting of Microsoft rivals as "evil" with reinforcement through polls that can be manipulated (timing, push polling, and documented cases of Microsoft rigging polls). OStatic reaches the conclusion that "For Microsoft and Others, Proprietary And Open Source Coexist," but for Microsoft, Open Source can only ever be complementary to proprietary software. That's because Microsoft is in a unique position of actually owning its underlying platform, which is proprietary. IBM does not own GNU/Linux, so it can never truly carry other applications in the dependency sense. Just see what Windows has been doing to the bootloader for example. ⬆

"I once preached peaceful coexistence with Windows. You may laugh at my expense -- I deserve it."

--Be's CEO Jean-Louis Gassée