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Microsoft and the Windows-isation of PHP After Zend Deal

Several hours ago we discussed Microsoft's participation in Pycon 2008. Also, recently we showed the effects of Microsoft's role in Zend, but our focus was not Zend in isolation [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. To sum it all up, Microsoft strives to have everything PHP run on top of Microsoft Windows Server. It was predictable and it was said openly last year.

Here comes further evidence that Microsoft is getting uncomfortably closer to the development process of PHP. LDAP, Microsoft's InfoCard and Microsoft commits on CodePlex are just a few examples of this.

Zend Framework 1.5 also features LDAP authentication designed to work with Microsoft's Active Directory and LDAP-enabled directory systems.

On the web front, Zend Framework 1.5 features the ability to implement OpenID and Microsoft's InfoCard for single sign-on. In turn, the PHP code for InfoCard will be posted to Microsoft's CodePlex site. With InfoCards Microsoft has become a committer to Zend's PHP, along with IBM and Google who signed up with version 1.0 launched nine months ago.


Isn't Microsoft getting just a little too close to a project which it competes against (with ASP/.NET)? It wants its bread buttered on both sides and it clearly wants to steal PHP away from its number one threat, GNU/Linux. Only a few days ago, Matt Asay wrote this item with the headline "The future belongs to Linux". Microsoft knows this and it tries to bend the rules.

You've already lost the mindshare war, and tepid changes to Microsoft's server licensing policies won't change things, either. Your company's limp olive branch to the open-source community ("You can use our software royalty-free and without fear of legal retribution...so long as you never make a penny from your efforts") is worse than insulting.


Don't. Let. Microsoft. Hijack. PHP. Why can't developers wake up and smell the coffee (mind Asay's remarks above)? It's not just PHP by the way. We have recently mentioned Java, Eclipse, Apache and OSBC. Using Novell, Microsoft already subverts GNU/Linux as well, e.g. with Mono, virtualisation, OOXML, Silverlight and royalty rights. Some projects are enticed by sponsorship money, which is akin to a stranger offering candy to a child. This whole fiasco requires and also deserves wider attention.

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