Bonum Certa Men Certa

Another Microsoft General Manager Quits the Company, Microsoft Refuses to Say Why

Summary: Dean Lester abandons the ship after some more changes in the company's structure; the CodePlex Foundation still seems dysfunctional and symbolic at best

A LOT of executives have abandoned Microsoft in recent years and here is the latest major departure:

Microsoft also confirmed the departure of Dean Lester, another company veteran and Dynamics general manager, who had previously been general manager for Windows graphics and gaming technologies. The company didn't disclose Lester's reasons for leaving but said, in response to our inquiry, that they were not related to changes in the Dynamics organization. We left a message for Lester at a publicly listed home number but haven't heard back.


Microsoft is shrinking. A few months ago we saw its chief turncoat calling it quits, leaving Microsoft's attempts to extinguish GNU/Linux in somewhat of a ruin. Andy Updegrove has this update about the turncoat, who works at Microsoft's CodePlex Foundation along with Novell's de Icaza to promote Microsoft as the 'standard'.

As you may recall, Microsoft announced back on September 10 that it had launched a new foundation "as a forum in which open source communities and the software development community can come together with the shared goal of increasing participation in open source community projects." It called it's new non-profit organization the CodePlex Foundation, echoing the name of a commercial site, called CodePlex.com, that it had earlier set up to host open source development projects.

Microsoft launched the CodePlex Foundation with bylaws and other governance documents with which I had some issues, and about which I posted some recommendations. But it also publicly stated that these documents, and the initial boards of directors and advisors, were only temporary. Within 100 days, the statements posted at the site pledged, a new Board would be announced. Nominations for the Boards of Directors and Advisors were welcomed, as well as recommendations on changes to the governance documents.

But December 19 - the 100 day mark - passed quietly, with no announcement of a new Board or a status update on the other goals. So what's up with the CodePlex Foundation, and its pledge to promptly transition into a more independent organization?

One clue may be that the search for a permanent Executive Director, to replace interim President Sam Ramji, apparently isn't moving quickly.


Is this thing dead on arrival? It only makes the headlines when Microsoft breaks the law by violating the GPL [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6].

Speaking of the GPL, Miguel de Icaza -- like Microsoft -- is not much of a fan. The unnecessary attacks on Richard Stallman (notably GNU and GNOME kerkuffle [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]) are the tip of the iceberg and here are some decent thoughts from Bruce Byfield, whose complaints about hostility are potentially made in reference to these incidents. He is being vague on purpose. Having Microsoft inside GNU/Linux is just not healthy because the company is viciously attacking GNU/Linux like no other company ever did. The last time it got caught red-handed in a very major way [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6] it just announced the CodePlex Foundation, some say in order to distract and remove attention from its racketeering [1, 2, 3].

New year promise

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