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12.20.11

More Trouble for FOSS and the Presence of Former Microsoft Managers (‘Inside’ FOSS Communities)

Posted in Free/Libre Software, GNU/Linux, GPL, Microsoft at 11:29 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Black Duck

Summary: Another roundup of dubious incursions inside the FOSS community/ies

Friends of Microsoft, such as the 'Microsoft press', are still trashing Free/open source licences and firms that are headed by former Microsoft managers are making new announcements about ‘fogification’ (cloud) of software and the relevance of licences. We are talking about OpenLogic, which just like Black Duck is a proprietary software company whose products are pimped under “open source” banner in the news. The main business model is getting rich by trashing FOSS licences or creating a scare around FOSS. Here is the press release [1, 2] which openwashes this product. Microsoft is trying to buy itself a voice inside the “Open Source” community also by pushing press releases that are said to be giving us a survey. So, Microsoft is now conducting Open Source surveys too? On whose behalf? This is the recipe for controlling one’s opposition. Mind the latest extortion from Acacia, which is also manned by former Microsoft staff (see our wiki page about Acacia).

It was only days ago that we warned about GPL FUD coming from Microsoft circles. Watch out and stay alert. Black Duck is placeboware — something to check a box with and spend money on for alleged fear of “non compliance” (excepting code search for other FUD like common security issues). As Microsoft MVP Miguel de Icaza put it a few weeks ago:

Koders is part of Black Duck, and searching for the term renders a bunch of matches. Not a single one of the results displayed actually contain a single use of the kSecReturnData constant. And not a single one of the snippets actually show the kSecReturnData constant. It is as useful as configuring your browser to use StumbleUpon as your search engine

We urge people to be suspicious of firms that were created by former Microsoft marketing managers. They know how to make money by deceiving people. It’s what they are professionally trained to do with a straight face. █

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A Single Comment

  1. Michael said,

    December 20, 2011 at 2:58 pm

    Gravatar

    Microsoft Press is owned by Microsoft and has nothing to do with your comments. Why even mention them other than how you are lost?

    http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/training/format-books.aspx

    As far as supposedly open source software not being so, what program and what is its license? Point to it. Back your claim!

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