WHEN Microsoft moles start to take over something they typically get the job done. In the case of Nokia, Yahoo and Novell, where the companies are fairly large, the hijack (completion of the job) can take several years to complete. The vulture just keeps circling the prey, weakening it by driving away resistance. Microsoft has been trying to infiltrate and in some hopeful sense take over FOSS, sometimes with the help of proxies set up by former Microsoft marketing managers for whom Indian 'news' (PR) sites are kindly reposting press releases with very slight edits. This helps the takeover. To a certain degree, Microsoft has been successful, even while simultaneously suing FOSS using patents. Another company which has been taking over by many former executives from Microsoft is VMware, whose former manager, who had come from Microsoft, became a manager at the Linux Foundation just earlier this month.

Don't lose sight of Microsoft. The vulture is void of ethics and it's always looking for the next kill. Nokia was a top Linux contributor before Microsoft killed it (just days ago the takeover became official). ⬆