"I would love to see all open source innovation happen on top of Windows."

--Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO

Summary: Open Source is "WINNING!" according to mainstream media; what is actually being won, however, when this 'open' stuff brings with it a whole raft of surveillance and proprietary software stacks which cost hundreds of dollars (to merely rent, for one person, for limited time)?

TINKER all you want. Look, touch. Study, modify. But your program won't run unless you use code you can neither study nor modify. Code which contains heavy surveillance you cannot switch off. Code with NSA back doors built in (by design).

Welcome, ladies and gents, to the world Steve Ballmer long pursued.

Windows... is "open".

Proprietary software such as Windows... is "open" for business.

They're "open" to ideas and "open" to contribution of more software.

So-called 'open source' software...

"It's further exacerbated by Microsoft's takeover of GitHub -- a subject we shall revisit later in the week in our Openwashing Report series."Programs that would offer no freedom/liberty if run; simply because the developers never bothered with Free/libre development toolkits, development platforms, and operating systems. .NET and Visual Studio, for example, aren't "open".

This is not a new issue. But it's a persistent one. It's further exacerbated by Microsoft's takeover of GitHub -- a subject we shall revisit later in the week in our Openwashing Report series.

Microsoft is of course not the sole culprit. It no longer has a monopoly on dilution of the term "Open Source".

Ghacks Technology News has been posting reviews of "open" programs lately; the problem is, quite a few of these run on no platform other than Windows (example from last week and another one from Monday). So what good is it? If it won't run without malware called Microsoft Windows (that spies on oneself and has NSA back doors), how much freedom does one really gain?

"What does "Open Source" really mean if it won't run on the BSDs and GNU/Linux?"In recent months we spotted at least half a dozen similar examples from Apple's iOS and OSuX. In recent weeks we also saw the word "Free" used; because nothing is as affordable as Apple's "i" things, right?

A whole bunch of recent articles marketed NetNewsWire as "open" and "Free and Open Source" (new example here, "NetNewsWire 5.0 RSS Reader Rebuilt from Scratch, Now Free and Open Source") because of its licence. The main issue is, you can run the program only if you use a proprietary software platform with DRM and NSA back doors.

As we said above, this is not an entirely new issue; however, it seems to have gotten worse this year. What does "Open Source" really mean if it won't run on the BSDs and GNU/Linux? Apple and Microsoft want to indoctrinate potential/junior developers to produce their 'open' programs this way. Inside their cages. Visual Studio 'Code' (open core) and other bait is the means; compelling schools to teach Windows is another. ⬆