Microsoft: Come closer. So I can stab you in the back.

ABOUT A DECADE ago "cloud computing" (as a term, as that is for the most part what it boils down to) had started securing a foothold. Businesses were ridding themselves of servers that they had long controlled and instead used something akin to a terminal (or browser) to access some servers they neither owned nor controlled. Let's not even bring "edge" and "smart" and "AI" and other nonsense into it. The world of so-called 'IT' (another controversial term) changed; whether it's due to marketing buzzwords or vice versa (in reverse) isn't what's important right now.

"In our view, simply ignoring what Microsoft is up to (in 2019 in particular) is no longer an option."Some of our readers bemoan the OSI; some even blast the FSF, saying it hasn't kept up with emerging threats. The emergence of systemd and various forms of Microsoft entryism (e.g. in Python) would sometimes be cited. We don't bring up these issues often enough. That's mostly because we focus on software patents, as we have since 2006. Our intention is to gradually change that and return to focusing on Microsoft threats; Novell is long gone, but the same tactics are now resurfacing with Azure‎ (Microsoft tries to sell it using promises of "IP peace of mind"). At the same time Microsoft's takeover of GitHub can be seen as an abduction of developers and development. Satya Nadella merely continues the strategy laid forth by Bill Hilf‎ and Sam Ramji (under Ballmer) a decade earlier. Months ago Microsoft got itself a seat on the Board of the OSI; these people now promote, from various such seats, alternatives to "Open Source" (various other terms) and are connected to the managers of "Open at Microsoft" -- the same managers who phoned my employer to condemn me and caused me trouble. They know what they're trying to achieve and how. It's the same old Microsoft; there's no "new Microsoft", only new PR.

"It's the same old Microsoft; there's no "new Microsoft", only new PR."In our view, simply ignoring what Microsoft is up to (in 2019 in particular) is no longer an option. That's why we began writing a lot more about the Linux Foundation and we shall revisit other topics, such as Apache‎ being hijacked. Even the chief of Eclipse has begun complaining about it in public (there were some press reports about it earlier this month). Recently, corporate media spent more time and space covering WSL (WeaSeL) than GNU/Linux itself. Microsoft's sponsorship of the media pays off. They want developers to use Vista 10 with extensive NSA surveillance and Visual Studio (openwashing through "Code") while UEFI 'secure boot' makes it hard to even boot GNU/Linux on a new laptop/desktop. ⬆