Summary: How entities with Microsoft ties are silently putting a Microsoft toll inside distributions of GNU/Linux and UNIX

WE RECENTLY explained how Microsoft used Novell to squeeze itself into open stacks, even with proprietary software.

The 'Microsoft press' is openwashing the whole thing. This is done with nonsense, as usual, using a fake (ish) domain that is supposed to seem independent and objective. Those with experience and awareness of media companies can see what's going on here. In fact, a lot of the promotion for this came from Microsoft boosters all along.

It is too easy to be misled by all this openwashing -- the attempt to make Microsoft look open (Sam Ramji and Microsoft boosters do this in IDG at the moment). The company called Black Duck is part of this problem and we need to remember that it came from Microsoft. Black Duck keeps raving about profit from proprietary software that exploits what's free, promotes Microsoft licences, trashes the GPL, but paints itself 'open', just like Microsoft's friends at Likewise, which puts a patent tax on Linux (Likewise too has Microsoft roots). Here is one "useful idiot" who plays along with them by typing/pasting:

It seems that Likewise’s new focus is paying off, however, with the announcement last week of an agreement with Microsoft to develop Server Message Block (SMB) 2.2 support for Linux and other Unix-like systems.

They are trying to stomp on Samba and do it the Microsoft-taxed way. For shame. Samba is not happy, obviously (it got exemptions after a long case at the EU Commission).

Those stories ought to show us how companies that pretend to be 'open' in fact have roots in Microsoft and their role is to impose a Microsoft tax on UNIX and Linux. It's not just Novell anymore (Novell does not have roots in Microsoft). ⬆