Bonum Certa Men Certa

Black Duck (Proprietary) Gets More Microsoft Employees, Anti-FOSS Coalitions Forming

Scroll with BSoD
Having failed to compete with code, Microsoft pulls contracts



Summary: The consolidation of GNU/Linux foes as seen not just in the eyes of Groklaw

Black Duck was created by a former Microsoft employee and has since then done some dubious things which we covered quite extensively. It has gotten worse because the company does a great deal not just make people scared of Free software (Black Duck is a proprietary software company) while applying for software patents; Black Duck also gives lip service to Microsoft, helping it get more influence inside the "Open Source" circles. Whenever Black Duck celebrates improved sales, well... then it just means that more proprietary software gets 'sold' (licensed for use).



A company called SpikeSource vanished into obscurity a long while ago. We mentioned it in relation to Microsoft crashing OSBC 2009 and reminded readers that SpikeSource had resorted to participating in Microsoft's anti-GNU/Linux strategy [1, 2]. SpikeSource was not a friend of software freedom but a facilitator of Windows adoption.

This brings us back to Black Duck, the proprietary software company which keeps taking some Microsoft boosters and former employees on board (the latest example being Ohloh). On the Microsoft front this is great news (entryism and what Microsoft privately calls infiltration), especially now that the Microsoft booster SpikeSource becomes part of Black Duck. It's like a reunion which another Microsoft booster covers:

SpikeSource –a Silicon-Valley startup once blessed by big names and championed as the future of making money on open-source – has shut-up shop after seven years.

The assets of SpikeSource have been bought by Black Duck Software. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.


Dana Blankenhorn has mentioned this too. There's no explanation there of what SpikeSource was doing in recent years -- something which we consider to be selfish and harmful. They helped a patent bully and corrupt monopolist gain more power and squash freedom while pretending to support it. There is nothing more dangerous than a foe who pretends to be your friend.

Ziff Davis covered this SpikeSource story and Groklaw's Pamela Jones is finally waking up to the trouble which is Black Duck by quoting: "Black Duck Software acquires the assets of SpikeSource and also hires Sara Ford, former program manager for Microsoft's CodePlex open-source project hosting site."

We wrote about Sara Ford several times before [1, 2, 3]. Her agenda and methods were not so different from SpikeSource's but she worked directly for Microsoft, repeating the very same PR lies. Now she'll just serve a satellite which in all likelihood will be further assimilated to Microsoft (from which the founder of Black Duck originally came). Jones quotes from the Ziff Davis (funded partly by Microsoft [1, 2, 3]) article:

In related news, Black Duck hired a former Microsoft program manager to help run Ohloh.net. Black Duck hired Sarah Ford, former program manager for Microsoft's CodePlex site for hosting open-source projects, to be Black Duck's senior product and community manager for Ohloh.net....

In a Nov. 15 post on the Ohloh blog, Ford said: "I spent the last 5 years promoting open source development on CodePlex.com, Microsoft's open source project hosting site. During my tenure as the Program Manager for CodePlex.com, I watched 10,000 open source projects get created on a forge hosted by Microsoft. I believe a large part of this success comes from utilizing agile methodologies to respond to community feedback via site enhancements. In upcoming posts, I'll talk about how agile is the most fundamental thing you can do to improve the user satisfaction of your site."


"Ohloh.net was started by two ex-Microsoft employees," Jones points out. "Then Geeknet bought it. Now it's owned by Black Duck. Geeknet is a member of OIN. This list of OIN licensees indicates that Black Duck is not and Ohloh.net is not."

Of course not. Groklaw wrote about Geeknet joining OIN at the time (around the same time that Ohloh left).

It is worth noting that even SugarCRM (which pretends to be open source for marketing purposes) is joining the OIN:

SugarCRM and Open Invention Network (OIN) today announced the signing of SugarCRM as an OIN licensee. OIN's mission is to enable and protect Linux. By becoming a licensee, SugarCRM, a leading provider of open source CRM software, has joined the expanding list of companies that recognize the importance of participating in a substantial community of Linux supporters and leveraging the Open Invention Network to further spur open source innovation.


Some time later in the week we will have more to say about the OIN, also in relation to Novell. Microsoft has several OIN-like entities out there but they are patent trolls, meaning that they are offensive and aggressive (Intellectual Ventures, the new shell where Novell's patents go, and maybe Traul Allen's Interval and Acacia). As a reader as ours put it the other day by quoting Groklaw, "I can't help but wonder if Paul Allen no longer trusts in his Microsoft stock to support him". Here is a broader part of Groklaw's new article:

Do you remember when Google, Apple, Facebook, OfficeMax, Yahoo! and Netflix/OfficeDepot/Staples/eBay all filed motions to dismiss or sever Paul Allen's Interval Licensing's patent infringement complaint? They filed to dismiss for misjoinder and Google filed a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. Google and the others want the cases separated into eleven instead of one humungous case, if the court doesn't toss the complaint out.

Allen has answered with his opposition to both ideas. And the accused Gang of Eleven read the filings and their response could be described simply like this: What do we all have in common? How can it possibly work for any of us to have to go forward as a group? And Google writes, "Interval has not identified any products of any of the defendants that are allegedly infringing." All it has said "without explanation" is that all the defendants infringe one of its patents with "similar" functionality, but there are no facts to support the claim. What functionality? What is the claim?


AOL is part of this lawsuit and it takes an active role as Groklaw shows: "AOL says if Interval had been specific, it would have just answered, and the case could have progressed. However, it files this reply in support of Google's motion, joining it, because it has no clear picture of what Interval is complaining about."

Why does that matter? Well, it sure seems like Microsoft is involuntarily building a sort of coalition containing many Microsoft veterans. They pretend to be for "open source" (Mono and Moonlight for instance). It collects software patents (even Black Duck does) and avoids OIN. At times it is also attacking those who are really supporting software freedom. They try to reform it for Microsoft's convieniece.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, and Google News
We've also just noticed more slop from UbuntuPIT
 
Links 09/10/2025: Farewell to Jane Goodall, California Bans Algorithmic Price-Fixing
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: Lost Wages and a Saga Of Continuing To Use Palm PDAs
Links for the day
Richard Stallman's Talk in Helsinki is Done. Tomorrow Göteborg.
There are scarce details in Finnish about Dr. Stallman's talk
New XBox Leaks Probably Serve to Confirm XBox's Collapse (Many More Layoffs)
It's very much consistent with what many other sites have reported lately
The Slop Song
The train wreck marches on
LLM Slop/Advanced Plagiarism Flooding the Zone With Capital That Does Not Exist
Many publishers out there still participate in this bubble instead of calling it what it is
Links 09/10/2025: Sacked Microsoft Workers Make "Sackbird", IBM Taps CockroachDB for PostgreSQL
Links for the day
"Happy Hacking Day" Richard Stallman Talk This Afternoon (From 14:00 to 16:00) at Haaga-Helia University in Pasila
Richard Stallman in Helsinki, Finland
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 08, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 08, 2025
Links 09/10/2025: Impact of Microsoft Layoffs, More Data Breaches
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: Autumn Blues and C IRC Bot
Links for the day
Slopwatch Appreciated by Real Authors of GNU/Linux Articles
We do try to keep on top of those things
Upgraded R.R.R.R.R.R. Today
The Web of 2025 is full of garbage, not limited to slopfarms
Freedom From Proprietary Prisons
Forking always an option
IBM's Watson Died in 1956, Now Watson Dies Again
IBM is becoming just a reseller of GAFAM and other stuff
Microsoft Says That Constant Mass Layoffs Are Success, the Media Isn't Buying This Microsoft Narrative Anymore
If people in the media feel an obligation to repeat whatever lies Microsoft tells, what point will there be to the media?
Links 08/10/2025: "Mali Puts Free Speech on Trial" And Apple Enforces Dictatorship
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: ‘Death to Spotify’ and Law to Ban Loud Commercials on Streaming (Dis)Services
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: Real Innovation and Nina.chat is Dead
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: Y2K38 Bug is a Vulnerability, Chat Control in Europe a Threat
Links for the day
Microsoft Windows is No Longer an Operating System, It's Surveillance Project
Why is this even legal to preload on PCs outside the US?
How and Why Once-Legitimate Sites Turn Into Slopfarms
Many sites will go offline and many social control networks will shut down once they realise or even openly admit they spend money and time gardening a bunch of bots and slop
UbuntuPIT Became a Slopfarm and Gnoppix Tarnishes Its Own Brand With Slop
It fits all the characteristics of mildly-edited (if at all) slop
Slopwatch: Linux Journal and Other Slopfarms
GAFAM needs to go the way of the dodo
Gemini Links 08/10/2025: "Seek Seek Revolution" and Gradient Backgrounds
Links for the day
Qualcomm Arduino Takes Aim at Raspberry Pi
Qualcomm is a Microsoft partner
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 07, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 07, 2025
Stagnation of the Economy and What Free Software Can (or Could) Do For It
If your economic model is based on a pyramid of lies, it won't last very long
Social Control Media is Sinking
it would rightly seem like the era of centralised "social" sites (they're not social, they're about controlling the users) is ending, not overnight but gradually
Participation in Cancel Culture Detrimental to One's Career
A cautionary tale
Passion Wins
we've increased the number of birds we feed to 100+
How Solderpunk and Sean Conner Started Gemini Protocol (and, Collectively, Geminispace) Back in 2019
Based on the "official" history
Arduino is Now a Patent Bully (Qualcomm)
Qualcomm has just bought Arduino
Many Years of Microsoft Cancellations and Faked (Acquired) Revenue "Growth"
XBox is basically the "next Skype"
The Comment TheLayoff.com Has Just Censored for Criticising a Ridiculous Puff Piece of IBM Management
If comments get censored for their "style" rather than their substance, then society will be worse off
The Power of Writing Down Facts
The more we write and publish, the more people will know what happened
Microsoft's Non-Denying Denial About XBox's Death is Already Being Shattered to Pieces
Like Microsoft's 'open' 'hey hi', heralding meaningless non-committing agreements with AMD is little more than vapourware
Slopwatch: UbuntuPIT Joins the Slopfarms Club
Slopfarms gonna slop
Links 07/10/2025: Privacy at Risk, GAFAM Remains Off the Hook
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/10/2025: Modern Retro Console Idea and Batch vs Bash
Links for the day
Links 07/10/2025: International Criminal Court (ICC) Convicts Ali Kushayb; Moroccan Imprisoned for 'Offensive' Shirt
Links for the day
Links 07/10/2025: EU' Chat Control is Back, US Cracks Down on Democracy
Links for the day
Techrights Pursues Justice and Truth Because, Without Those, Society Descends Into Chaos
most people reject dogma and pseudoscience
Upcoming Talks by Richard Stallman in Helsinki, Göteborg, and Rome
Join with him and share the software
Something Bad is Happening in the Open Source Initiative (OSI)
The latest OSI blog post is from a Microsoft operative and a few weeks ago the Executive Director left
TLS 1.3 Dominates Geminispace (99% of Known Capsules)
it's nowadays safe to assume almost every capsule can handle TLS 1.3
Why soylentnews.org Has Been Having Technical Difficulties Lately
The network has been going up and down quite a lot this past week
A Statement Against Violence
The facts are on our side
They've Run Out of Things to Rebrand or Label as "AI"
The next few years will be interesting because if Microsoft lays off tens of thousands of workers each year, there won't be much left except mountains of debt and dying brands
The Register MS is Still Being Paid to Participate in the "AI" Ponzi Scheme Which Will Crash the Economy
The Register MS is hoping to get lucky by tricking people into a scam
Richard Stallman Confirms His Talk in Göteborg This Coming Friday
"The hosts say that the list will not be given to the state"
Most of the "Linux" Results This Morning in Google News Are LLM Slop From the Same Slopfarm, Plagiarising Phoronix
The main question is, does Google even care at this point?
Gemini Links 07/10/2025: Civil War and "Goodbye Web"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 06, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, October 06, 2025