Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft is SourceForge Awards' Only Sponsor, Uses it to Spread FUD

Embrace, subvert, and rubbish

Yesterday we wrote about Microsoft's latest successful invasion into a free open source event. This happened in Romania. Moments ago we also shared you an unusual incidents from Romania Hungary. Steve Ballmer has just had eggs thrown at him during a talk. This is more disruptive than what happened in China during a speech by Bill Gates last year, though not quite as memorable as that pie in the face.



Is all of this justified? Of course we don't endorse it. Can we sympathise? Well, have a look at this, will you?

The other day we shockingly wrote about some bizarre awards that are offered in this year's SourceForge.net awards contest. They inspire fear.

Among them you have:



Now get a load of this. The only sponsor of SourceForge.net2008 Community Choice Awards is Microsoft. Yes, you heard that right.

The page states (in full, in case it gets modified later):

Sponsors

Diamond

Microsoft is a worldwide leader in software, services and Internet technologies for personal and business computing. Microsoft offers a wide range of innovative products and services designed to help individuals and organizations realize their full potential.

Through efforts like Port 25, Shared Source and Codeplex, Microsoft is focused on participating in a broad range of choices for developing and deploying software, including open source.

To learn more, please visit www.microsoft.com/opensource.

Getting Started: If you are an interested in starting an open source project, Microsoft provides a number of programs and initiatives to help you achieve your goals. This includes lightweight, freely downloadable programming environments, such as Microsoft Visual Studio Express.


No other companies are even listed as sponsors. See for yourself at http://sourceforge.net/community/cca08-sponsors

When we talk about Microsoft attempting a hijack, can skeptics finally see what we're warning about?

Steve Ballmer license
Image from Wikimedia

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