Microsoft is openwashing its lock-in (like greenwashing or whitewashing)

Summary: Ill-informed journalists are helping Microsoft disseminate false messages (or half-truths) about Visual Studio

MICROSOFT finally addressed a criticism we made here before, but it wants the world to misinterpret that and wrongly extrapolate. The following criticisms are still applicable:

• GNU/Linux Circles Ought to Stop Promoting Visual Studio, Which is Neither Cross-Platform Nor Free Software
• Openwashing Microsoft Visual Studio to Promote Visual Studio 2015
• No, Virginia! APIs, Visual Studio, and Apple Are Not Open Source
• Openwashing Visual Studio and Oracle's Worrisome Embrace of Mono Rather Than Java

Remember that Visual Studio is not "open source" and is not "cross-platform". Microsoft probably hopes to mislead or confuse the public by opening up and then merely compiling for other platforms just a portion, whereupon it can use misleading headlines to give people the impression that Visual Studio is on equal footing with Eclipse, for instance. It's the "just enough" openwashing strategy.

It might actually work!

See this week's news headlines.

Cynthia Harvey [1] deemed .NET "open source" even though it's still proprietary and patented (we have more promises than deeds), Apple-oriented sites covered it from a Mac-centric point of view [2], some Linux sites [3-5] focused on just one small component of a large proprietary bundle (with no plans of becoming "open source"), and Microsoft apologists [6] or dedicated boosters [7-9] did their best to openwash Microsoft because this tiny portion of a proprietary software suite, Visual Studio (with a proprietary compiler that can potentially sneak in back doors into a lot of programs), had its source code liberated.

This might help get some non-Windows developers 'addicted' to Microsoft's tool and if they later want the full (complete) bundle they'll need to buy a Windows licence, buy a Visual Studio licence, and then rely on proprietary software from an NSA partner.

Is the world really better off with yet another code editor? One that is Microsoft-leaning? ⬆

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. 11 New Open Source Development Tools





2. Microsoft’s Android emulator coming soon to Mac as it open-sources Visual Studio Code





3. Microsoft Open-Sources Visual Studio Code for GNU/Linux, OS X, and Windows





4. Microsoft's Visual Studio Code open-sourced





5. Microsoft Open-Sources Visual Studio Code





6. Microsoft's open source .Net now ready for real apps





7. Microsoft courts Linux, iOS and Android developers with new wave of technologies





8. Google engineers praise Microsoft open-source collaboration: ‘We share the same soul’





9. Visual Studio now supports debugging Linux apps; Code editor now open source

   A version of the clang/C2 compiler is already used for Project Islandwood. Extending it to all Visual Studio C++ development is an exciting prospect for C++ developers; although Microsoft's own compiler has made great strides in recent years, clang offers superior standards support in a number of areas. Being able to take advantage of that in Visual Studio will be very welcome indeed.