Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft's War on Java Shows That Microsoft's E.E.E. (Embrace, Extend, Extinguish) Tactics Are Alive and Well

Microsoft a serial killer of FOSS

A serial killer



Summary: Microsoft has just killed yet another FOSS project (using money to shut down competitors) -- one that was helping Android and Java

THE headline "Embrace, extend – and kill. Microsoft discontinues RoboVM" says it all really. Several people in our IRC channels noticed this original story (from the original statement) rather quickly and later on in the day some people told me about it privately, so it obviously wasn't overlooked at all.



"Nice," Lirodon wrote in the afternoon, "and now Microsoft has killed RoboVM dead. It was already dead when they became non-free."

"Microsoft," MinceR responded, "where projects go to die [...] just like they killed entire video game developer companies (Terminal Reality and Ensemble Studios)" (we covered this years ago).

Microsoft is just the same old evil company, there is no ' new' Microsoft. Microsoft will try this against GNU/Linux if it can. It's its classic modus operandi, but taking on a project as big as these (to "extinguish") is a monumental task.

What Techrights wrote about RoboVM when it was first "embraced" [1, 2, 3] turns out to be true. We foresaw exactly what Microsoft would do about RoboVM once it's payday (yet again!) for Miguel de Icaza.

Some people still wonder, what exactly happened to RoboVM? Here it is in their own words: "Over the past few weeks, we’ve been working with the teams at Xamarin and Microsoft to assess the technology and business conditions of RoboVM to determine the path forward for the products. After looking at the complete landscape for mobile development with Java, the decision has been made to wind down development of RoboVM."

After they had made it proprietary (shortly before Xamarin stepped in formally), essentially stabbing the whole community in the back, the Microsoft people (all of them are Microsoft staff now) did this:



For any fools out there who still think Microsoft doesn’t do E.E.E. against FOSS, here we go again. What would it take to wake people up? How many more companies need to die? How could RoboVM not know that Xamarin was an evil proxy of Microsoft? It was common knowledge as it wasn't hard to see where Xamarin's money had come from (Microsoft veterans).

Microsoft is now essentially shutting down another pillar of Java, so this is classic E.E.E. via Xamarin. As one person put it to us, "and today Microsoft ordered RoboVM to wind down operation" (linking to the original announcement).

A lot of the utter rubbish about Microsoft "loving Linux" is a villainous lie. It's the best lie money can buy as it's clear that Microsoft is still very aggressive; it hates GNU/Linux, it hates Android, and it hates Java. Don't let the Microsoft-funded media fool you (Microsoft Peter, for instance, moved from the UK to the US to write for Condé Nast, which is paid by Microsoft). Microsoft basically buys articles from various large media networks; it pays networks to tell us that Microsoft has changed, but nothing is changing, it's only escalating.

The above, says Fernando Cassia, "reminds me of VirtualPC, which was a product of Innotek Gmbh and offerend Windows virtualization under OS/2 hosts...."

He then told me, "guess which product they dropped after being acquired by Microsoft? Yes, Virtual PC for IBM OS/2 :-/"

He further emphasised that "everything Microsoft does is about leveraging its cash cow to hurt competitors or whatever it sees as a menace" and "the war on Java started ten years ago... "Operation Sunblock" never really stopped" (here is the article about "Operation Sunblock")

"20 years ago," he added a few hours later, "boy how time flew [...] "+options available...including tools that will help you PORT TO XAMARIN" //Competitor eliminated.Mission accomplished"

When will be the next antitrust probe against Microsoft bribery, racketeering, blackmail, and extortion? Did it get enough lobbyists in all the right places in order to shift any such focus to Google? Remember that Microsoft is still run by the same thugs (only the CEO changed) and they want Android and Linux to be next in the E.E.E. pipeline. Microsoft loves nothing but itself and its own monopoly of lock-in and back doors. New charm offensives try to lull us into sleep and inaction (no defensive/reactionary statements from the community).

As one person told me yesterday: "Remember Microsoft's charm offensive with Nokia? We all know very well how that ended and what happened to MeeGo & Meltemi."

We wrote a lot about what Microsoft did to Nokia. How many more Linux and FOSS backers need to die (out of work) before the media acknowledges that Microsoft is a liar and an assassin?

Recent Techrights' Posts

In defence of JD Vance, death of Pope Francis
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Three Years in Prison for Disney Employee’s ‘Menu Hacking’: The Economic Fallout of Digital Menus
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Approaching 10,000 Articles/Pages Since Going Static
Trying to silence or derail the site was always a dumb strategy
Microsoft is Shedding Off Loads of Staff and That Can be Dangerous Too
Working for Microsoft is a choice; nobody forces you to do it
Richard Stallman and the Unix Philosophy
When asked about systemd people must remember that RMS speaks as an active Board member of the FSF and also the founder of the FSF
Get Rid of Back Doors, Don't Obsess Over Bounties and Other Corporate PR Stunts (or Needless Reboot Rituals)
Security as a term has mostly lost its meaning due to repeated misuse for many years
Serial Sloppers Are Killing the Web (They Probably Don't Care, Either)
Slop is a disease on the Web
 
Links 26/04/2025: Facebook Layoffs Again, Remembering What's Real, and Say No to Mass Surveillance
Links for the day
Links 26/04/2025: NOAA Budget Cuts and "Dog Days Ahead"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, April 25, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, April 25, 2025
Links 25/04/2025: Slop Fatigue and Patent Judges Flocking to Fake, Unconstitutional and Illegal Kangaroo Court (UPC, Captured 'Justice')
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/04/2025: Night Manager and Devuan in Hosting
Links for the day
Windows Falls to New Lows in Nicaragua, Now Below a Quarter (It Used to be Almost 100%)
Another all-time low for Windows
The Cost (to Linux) of LLM Slop
Slop 'artists' like Fagioli are far from harmless
Links 25/04/2025: Ubisoft Spyware, Hegseth Fails at Tech on Every Level
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/04/2025: Food Forest Update and Facebook Destroying the Net
Links for the day
Streaming Apps Are “Investor Fraud” That Kills the Planet
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Things Get Increasingly Nasty at Microsoft Ahead of the Fake Results and May's Mass Layoffs Wave
They try to get people to 'resign' so that they won't count as layoffs and the company's 'wellbeing' will seem better
IBM's Debt Ballooned by 8.5 Billion Dollars in Just 3 Months!
Hallmark of a company in a state of disarray, trying to spend its way out of trouble
Big Trouble in GNOME
even GNOME people admit the CoC went wrong
Slopping the Trough: Disney Plus Loses Billions and the Decline of Physical Media in America
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, April 24, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, April 24, 2025
Links 24/04/2025: GAFAM Problems and No Peace (or Ceasefire) in Sight
Links for the day
Slopfarms on the Web Almost Always Generate Anti-Linux FUD When They Produce "Linux" Output
Welcome to the dying Web
Richard Stallman's Oxford Talk Has Just Ended, Here Are Some Photos
he might hop over to another European country
Gemini Links 24/04/2025: Birthday and Good Work of Academia in Esotericism
Links for the day
Links 24/04/2025: EU fines Apple and Facebook, Another Microsoft GitHub Security Blunder
Links for the day
New Article Explains How the GPL Came About and WordPress Having Copyleft Obligations
Having been involved in the WordPress development community since almost the beginning, I know why it chose the GPL and how it restricts abuse by Automattic
IBM Gained Almost 6 Billion Dollars in "Goodwill" Value in Just 3 Months, According to IBM
Congrats to the management!
In Belarus, Yandex is Now Measured as 50 Times More 'Popular' (by Usage) Than Microsoft
Yandex continues to gain, whereas Bing cannot even register at 1%. Last month it was registered or measured at a measly 0.65%.
IBM Cannot Lie to Shareholders Anymore
"I would not be surprised if we see a layoff every quarter this year."
Dr Richard Stallman (RMS) Gives Talk in Oxford University in 4 Hours
If you live nearby, go there (it's free as in gratis)
Using a Law Firm's Licence to Exercise Politics Through Frivolous SLAPPs and Nastygrams (to Silence People, Remove Pages, Demand Fake or Forced 'Apologies')
Things must be getting really bad when lawyers act for raving antisemites
We're Working to Make Full-Site Search Available
This site has over 1,000 'wiki' pages, many thousands of documents, several thousands of videos, and about 50,000 blog posts or articles. We need to make them easier to find/navigate.
Links 24/04/2025: IBM Loses Many Contracts, Intel to Lay Off Over 20% (Not Counting Those Who Leave 'Voluntarily')
Links for the day
Richard Stallman Can Explain to Oxford Artificial Intelligence Society Why LLM Slop is Not Artificial Intelligence and Why It Hurts Society
another 'crop' of LLM slop that damages GNU/Linux and facts
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, April 23, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, April 23, 2025