"Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches."

--Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO

Summary: Citrix-controlled Xen keeps bending towards Microsoft, which misuses "open source"

THAT Microsoft manipulates the virtualisation market is something that we last summarised a couple of months ago and now there is more supportive evidence.

Citrix dazzles market -- and Microsoft -- with new Xen products

[...]

But the lack of Linux desktop support is disappointing from the pen source virtualization vendor.

This is part of the trend we've been seeing ever since Citrix, one of the closest allies of Microsoft, bought (and overpaid for) XenSource. It was partly about causing harm to GNU/Linux.

Microsoft dips its fingers in many wells which are "open source", but in the case of Xen there was the GPL, so Microsoft could not acquire it directly (antitrust was another important issue). And speaking of which, Microsoft's sponsorship of SourceForge.net 2008 Community Choice Awards turned it rather hostile towards open source [1, 2, 3], but there are no anti-FOSS prizes from this year's contest, unlike last year's. Microsoft does, however, still misuse the word "open" and thus dilutes it:

It's Open, Gov, Honest

Interesting to see Microsoft jumping on the openness bandwagon again - specifically, on the open government bandwagon.....

If only more people knew what Microsoft means by "open". ⬆

"More Open Than Open [...] I am constantly amazed at the flexibility of this single word.”

--Microsoft's Jason Matusow, integral part of the 'Open' XML corruptions (further background in [1, 2, 3])