Summary: Canonical's Ubuntu is now used as the bait by which to seduce developers in the GNU/Linux world into Microsoft dependencies, surveillance, and software patents

MANY PEOPLE'S FAVOURITE DISTRIBUTION UBUNTU (many do prefer it the most, or at least its derivatives, owing to alleged ease of use) has reportedly been used by Microsoft to advance the latest campaign of Visual Studio openwashing. Visual Studio is proprietary Microsoft lock-in, nothing to do with Free/Open Source, so this is very sneaky and crude. Nevertheless, some in the Free/Open Source world are easily fooled. "Microsoft seems to take a more friendly approach towards the Linux community," said one journalist, "and now they've done something that might have seemed impossible a couple years back. They demoed an app running in a Linux distro at the BUILD 2015 developer conference that takes place in San Francisco, California."

What is this app though? Microsoft either releases software that promotes its proprietary stack of its surveillance network ('cloud'). Remember when Novell stood side by side with Microsoft while helping it infiltrate and divide Free/Open Source software with patents? This is what Canonical should keep in mind now that it's jumping into Microsoft's 'cloud'.

According to [1,2], Microsoft is now copying Canonical's ideas. Ubuntu does not need Visual Studio, but Microsoft truly needs developers, developers, developers, especially now that many are migrating to (or have already migrated to) Free/libre software that empowers them and emancipates them, as well as users. ⬆

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. Microsoft's Continuum Looks Suspiciously like Canonical's Ubuntu for Android

   Remember a couple years back when Canonical was showing us how you could transform your phone into a full-fledged Ubuntu PC? That was a more of a concept, but it's 2015 and that hasn't been made possible yet, at least not by Canonical. Microsoft just demoed the same thing with its Windows phone.





2. Windows 10 just beat Ubuntu to the smartphone-PC convergence punch

   Microsoft’s ploy to transform Windows Phones into full-blown Windows PCs when connected to an external monitor may seem revolutionary, but it’s nothing new. At least not in theory.