Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft Uses Novell, Likewise, and Ignorance to Market Its Products

Monkey freedom
Mono: Microsoft prison



Summary: Another look at the ways in which Microsoft markets itself with the help of former employees and submissive companies

Microsoft's internal talks about evangelism [1, 2] explain very clearly that the company's goal is to spread and reinforce Microsoft as an industry standard. Microsoft may not publicly promote Mono as much as it can, but that's because, as a Microsoft evangelist put it, "I saw that internally inside Microsoft many times when I was told to stay away from supporting Mono in public. They reserve the right to sue."



Microsoft's victory with Mono is two-fold; it holds GNU/Linux legally accountable and at the same time it spreads .NET at the expense of superior competition such as Java. Sam Varghese has just published an article which elucidates all this:

Mono fits in neatly with the Microsoft vision



[...]

It fits in very neatly with the definition of evangelism at Microsoft: "Evangelism is the art and science of getting developers to ship products that support Microsoft's platforms". (thanks to greygeek on the linuxtoday forums).

The definition is contained in a highly confidential document titled "Effective Evangelism" which came to light during the Comes v Microsoft trial.

The author, James Plasmondon, writes in his introduction: "Every line of code that is written to our standards is a small victory; every line of code that is written to any other standard, is a small defeat."

Novell would probably have a view on this and with this in mind, I rang Michele Bartoline, the company's marketing manager for Australia and New Zealand, who was listed as a press contact on the media release. She wasn't available so I left a message.


The answer would be interesting. To suggest that Novell can beat Microsoft at its own game is not only naive; it is self destructive.

“Like Mono, this group actually comprises Microsoft employees, not just a guy who wanted to become one and joined hands with another...”Regardless of this, Miguel de Icaza and his followers carry on promoting Microsoft and its software. Serving as further proof that Microsoft gains from this, worth noting is the fact that it is mostly promoted by Microsoft boosters like Gavin Clarke, even at this very moment. Miguel brags about companies that move to ASP.NET and he is preaching to his choir (which includes Microsoft employee) to reinforce his own beliefs. Who does this guy really work for? We have always reckoned that Likewise, in light of this latest news, are former Microsoft employees* putting Trojans horses in *NIX (software patents) and spreading Microsoft as a standard. Like Mono, this group actually comprises Microsoft employees, not just a guy who wanted to become one and joined hands with another (Nat Friedman, who worked for Microsoft back then; now he works at Novell)

The Microsoft press at Redmond is spreading the myth that Microsoft is all fine and dandy with open source. Here are a couple of examples from a few days ago ("Microsoft Open to Open Source?" and "Why Does Microsoft Pretend To Be Open Source-Friendly?").

There is obviously some justified skepticism that Microsoft is aware of, but Miguel, as usual, is defending them although he never commented about the TomTom/FAT case.

Microsoft releases ASP.NET MVC under the MS-PL License - Miguel de Icaza replying to comments explains why MS-PL incompatibility with GPL code is not an issue within C# and ASP.NET code.


Whether he actually believes in this publicity stunt or not is irrelevant because he is totally ignoring everything negative which Microsoft is doing; it's like in Beauty and the Beast.

Blackboard, which was funded by Microsoft and finds itself under pressure from Free software as well, responds in a similar fashion by pretending right now. It hopes that some uninformed schools will simply forget its (ab)use of software patents against competitors and clear hatred of "open source". Speaking of schools, Microsoft's Twitter AstroTurf [1, 2] lives on with this attempt to turn more students into the company's vassals (MSPs).

And now that key Microsoft products fail to arrive, one person in the 451 Group suggests that Microsoft ought to have gotten itself some code vassals.

Would an open source approach have helped with ILM2 delay?



[...]

I can’t comment on the technical challenges involved - but the delay of close to a year in the release of Microsoft’s Identity Lifecycle Manager (ILM) 2.0 is clearly a blow to the Microsoft identity ‘ecosystem’. There are sure to be competitors who feel like they can breathe a sigh of relief, but not having a strong Microsoft set of products for provisioning and credential lifecycle management has to be seen on balance as a negative for the market as a whole and certainly technology buyers.


Why would anyone voluntarily help this company? ____ *In their own words, "Krishna, several of our developers and I are all ex-Microsoft folk."

Recent Techrights' Posts

Explaining (in Length and Depth) the Damage Matthew Garrett Did to Linux and to GNU/Linux Users
no matter how many threats we receive
 
Geminispace is Growing Faster in 2025 Than It Did in 2024
What matters is that corporations haven't ruined it and LLM slop is extremely rare
Links 13/09/2025: China Punishes for 'Negative' Posts, US Police Unable to Find Shooter
Links for the day
Who's the Mystery Financier of SLAPP Against Techrights and Is That a Millionaire/Billionaire?
Whose idea was it to fund meritless lawsuits against my wife and I?
Slopwatch: Slow Slop Day
This distracts from or may take traffic away from the original articles, actually written by actual people
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, September 12, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, September 12, 2025
CoC Gone Wrong: Celebrating Murder OK, Complaining About the Celebration Gets You Banned
Hopefully the NixOS Foundation will have a word with (maybe replace) the moderator/s
Gemini Links 12/09/2025: Familiarity and Secondary Dominants
Links for the day
Links 12/09/2025: "Bad Reviews" as Extortion Weapon, "Free Speech At Risk in America’s Schools" According to ACLU
Links for the day
Only One Speaker Does Not Do Sharecropping for MElon (in X.com)
The man who puts principles before PR/optics
The Mind of the 'Hulk Hogan of UEFI'
in a nutshell
A Day After "UEFI 9/11": UEFI Secure Boot Bypass
In the news today (right now), as published in the past few hours
Links 12/09/2025: Slop Code as Liability, Microsoft Outlook Down for Many
Links for the day
It's Still Not to Late to Turn Off "Secure Boot"
If people reboot their PC or server today, and it relies on "Secure Boot" on Sept. 12 or later, then depending on the firmware there may be trouble ahead
Links 12/09/2025: Shira Perlmutter is Back, “Software Per Se” Patent Rejections in In re McFadden
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Linux Plagiarism, Slopfarms Still Infesting Google News, Many Images Are Fake
Google is promoting plagiarism
"This Morning Might Turn Out to be an Interesting One for System Admins Who Haven't Updated Their Devices' Secure Boot Certificate" (If They Reboot)
Who asked for this anyway?
Gemini Links 12/09/2025: Metric System, Dumping Windows, and Software Architecture is Dead
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, September 11, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, September 11, 2025
Microsoft Admits the Workers Have Lost Trust (Endless Layoffs, 12-13 Rounds of Layoffs This Year), So Now It's Trotting out Its Peter Bright-Like Media Prop Jordan Novet
What they don't want people to pay attention to right now
Links 11/09/2025: Windows TCO and Russian Drones Invading Poland (EU/NATO)
Links for the day
Gemini Links 11/09/2025: xkcd, misfin, and Alhena 5.3.2
Links for the day
Repetition of Last Summer (Microsoft Breaking Dual-Boot Systems)
UEFI 9/11 is about to kick in
UEFI 'Secure Boot' Boiling Frogs (Cannot Turn Off 'Secure Boot')
"MSI laptop is locked on Secure Boot and doesn't allow me to turn it off"
UEFI 9/11 Aftermath - Part IV: The 'Hulk Hogan of UEFI' and His 'Hideout' Holiday (Retreat From Reality)
Let's keep an eye on what matters
UEFI 9/11 Aftermath - Part III: Mr. 'Secure Boot' (Shim) and His Fake 'Holiday' (Sending My Wife and I Threatening E-mails on 9/11)
despite being on holiday, according to him, he finds time to instruct lawyers to contact my wife
UEFI 9/11 Aftermath - Part II: "The SecureBoot Thing Got Out of Hand."
The next few weeks might be... interesting
UEFI 9/11 Aftermath - Part I: "I Believe This Affects Thousands of Devices... Because Multiple Devices I Checked, Whether Client or Server [...] Affected."
Most people aren't even aware that this is happening or about to happen
The UEFI 9/11 - Part X - An Outline of the Series About Microsoft Sabotaging GNU/Linux (With Ramifications to Unfold Online in Coming Weeks as People Reboot)
Today is UEFI 9/11 (9/11/2025)
Ron Wyden: Microsoft Should be Held Accountable for Security Breaches (He Has Said This for Years Already, It Never Happens)
Negative media coverage isn't a fine and it does nothing to compensate Microsoft's billions of victims
Culture of silence: Ubisoft harassment convictions, Mozilla, Sylvestre Ledru & Debian make no comment
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Disable 'Secure Boot' (If It Lets You)
it doesn't put you in control
Links 11/09/2025: "Hey Hi" Ponzi Schemes at Oracle (Unpaid Contracts) and Cindy Cohn is Leaving the EFF
Links for the day
Longtime Red Hat Staff: Maybe Just Disable 'Secure Boot'
A refreshing take from Adam Williamson
Gemini Links 11/09/2025: Playdate Console, Dichotomy between the Real and the Digital
Links for the day
A Dozen Observations About "UEFI 9/11" Deflections
What we are expected to see, tentatively
The Microsoft AstroTurfing and Microsoft-Led Blame-Shifting Tactics Are Ahead of Us
Of course it has nothing to do with security, it's about control, i.e. them controlling everything
Celebrating Assassination is Bad Because It Legitimises Assassination of the People You Like, Too
Condoning or even celebrating political assassinations is bad optics (and taste)
The World's Richest Ponzi Scheme (Faking Value Using Net Waste)
The higher they go the harder they fall
We Could Dual-Boot Back in the 1990s, Why Has This Become So Difficult?
And prone to breakage
Being Conditioned to Accept Unreliable Computer Systems That Fail With Black Screen of Death (BSoD)
Welcome to 2025
Slopwatch: Google News is Still Promoting Many Fake Articles About "Linux", in Effect Rewarding Misinformation and Plagiarism
things continue to deteriorate
New Series: The Coup Against GNU/Linux Has Begun
today, this year in particular, we shall also focus on Secure Boot, which is sold based on a lie and tortures many computer user
New Paper on "BYOVD, but in firmware. Signed UEFI shells, vulnerable modules offer new paths for Secure Boot bypasses."
One might say digital "security theatre"
Links 11/09/2025: Oracle Layoffs, Drunk Pilots in Japan Airlines, US-Korea Tensions Grow
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, September 10, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, September 10, 2025