THE world is changing and Microsoft is not prepared for this change. Free software (or "Open Source", or FOSS) is gradually becoming a requirement in more and more places. In India, for example, the government moved toward adoption of FOSS, so Microsoft crushed policies, primarily by lobbying (both directly and by proxy). In some cases Microsoft simply pretends that it is now an "Open Source" company, or something along those lines, openwashing (characterising as "open" proprietary software) its 'crown jewels', e.g. Windows and Office (remember that OOXML stands for "Office Open XML"). We need to counter that, or else Microsoft will succeed at changing perceptions (making them all distorted and false). It's about systematic, induced confusion and ultimately about making it hard to distinguish between FOSS and proprietary.

"It's about systematic, induced confusion and ultimately about making it hard to distinguish between FOSS and proprietary."One Microsoft advocacy site openwashes Microsoft because some people threw/slapped software that not many people are likely to find useful (not even Microsoft) at GitHub. Worse, however, is what Microsoft does yet again as a piece of proprietary software from Microsoft reaches a new version. We recently gave one example of that (the BI product) and now we see it in Visual Studio. We saw that done five years ago, earlier this year, and earlier this month. It's a Big Lie.

Here is Microsoft's official announcement. Phoronix did some Linuxwashing of Visual Studio and Microsoft Peter painted Visual Studio as an "Android, iOS, and even Apple Watch" thing. There are just two examples among many. There is also openwashing that typically latches onto .NET for weak support of the false insinuations. This is just proprietary software (compiler in this case, which makes it worse as it can potentially add back doors to compiled software).

Speaking of Windows, Microsoft, and Openwashing, watch Marius Maronilla (with a Windows-like avatar) marketing Windows as 'free', pretending that people choose GNU/Linux for price and that Free/libre is the same as gratis (the headline alone is calling it Linux, mistaking free for gratis, and assuming it's all down to price). Propaganda efforts will likely escalate if not exacerbate in the coming days becase of the Vista 10 hype -- a subject we shall cover in the next post. ⬆