Summary: The smears and the deception continue to focus on just one weak phone or flawed line of reasoning, all intended to just make Windows look like an ideal host to all software developers

WE CAN'T get a break from FUD, thanks in part to IDG, whose "open source" writers are sometimes people who are fighting against Open Source (as defined by the OSI). We gave a new example yesterday (Microsoft writing for IDG about "FOSS") and last year we showed fake coverage of open source from an Apple and Microsoft shareholder, Bill Snyder. He is still there writing for IDG and his attacks on FOSS and on Linux carry on as usual. He is now finding a weak Android device (there are almost 100 types) and then extrapolating to the whole of Android (Linux) to say it has "flaws" (there is a more reasonable take for Aero critics). Gartenberg, a former Microsoft AstroTurfer (on the company's payroll) who occasionally writes for IDG, associated Android with Nazism some weeks ago (he tried to find 'dirty' apps, which have nothing to do with Google). Microsoft's booster Gavin Clarke associated Android with "porn and pirates" (in the headline even) just a few days ago (here is another new example of Clarke's disdain for Microsoft's rivals, saying in his headline that "OpenSolaris board commits ritual suicide").

Stephen Withers, a longtime Microsoft booster at ITWire (Withers keeps posting advertisements like this one), gets around to promoting/advancing Microsoft's "open source" spin, which is still circulating after it got seeded by Jon Brodkin at IDG (then spun further by IDG [1, 2] by Bort and Shimel). Withers plays along with similar lines to help an "embrace and extend" strategy which marginalises Freedom and GNU/Linux, making "open source" just another class of third-party applications for Windows. To quote part of his spin piece:

Microsoft has released more than 300 projects as open source. Its contribution to existing projects includes 20,000 lines of code submitted to the Linux kernel in the form of device drivers for use with hypervisors.

This was released due to Microsoft's GPL violation, it is just 14,100 lines of code, it is almost tossed out because they have poor stewardship, and it is only used to sell more of Windows and Hyper-V, which is proprietary software. It's also used for Microsoft's PR purposes. As for those "300 projects", they are for Microsoft's stack. The whole "Microsoft loves open source" nonsense is also ridiculed by Groklaw. Pamela Jones writes: "Oh. 'Love' as in marriage of convenience."

She also links to the "Microsoft Open Source Strategy is Upside Down" article which we cited last week, remarking that "[t]his is the clearest explanation of Microsoft's hateful Open Source position that I've read yet. And I have to inquire: Why is Apache helping them do this?"

Microsoft's PR moves around 'open' take another step with a charm offensive in Slashdot (headlines say "Microsoft's Security Development Lifecycle under Creative Commons License"). Harish Pillay says: "so what? Needs AgLight. FAIL!" ⬆