03.26.14

Gemini version available ♊︎

The Politics of Openwashing: How Microsoft Pretends That Windows Has ‘Open Source’, Generates Self-Congratulatory Coverage

Posted in Deception, Microsoft, Windows at 5:01 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Deceiving manoeuvres from Microsoft, which is trying to put an “open” label on its common carrier, despite the fact that it is as proprietary as anything can be

MICROSOFT MUST be very desperate to appear as “open” as GNU/Linux/Android even though Windows is definitely not. Several journalists got bamboozled by Microsoft’s latest PR charade, which involved exposing source code of legacy stuff that’s of no use and nobody uses. Microsoft’s thugs are once again interjecting themselves into museums (public space), just as Bill Gates did over the past decade or so (the Gates Foundation was paying establishments like these to glorify Gates and warp computer history, omitting all the crimes).

The OSI’s president stresses that “Microsoft has NOT “open sourced” MS-DOS or Word v1. Both are under a restrictive & non-open-source license,” with reference to this licence.

As David Gerard (Wikipedia) put it to me last night, “even hacker news doesn’t think it’s safe to look at these downloads” (nothing from Microsoft is safe these days).

Dr. Donnie Berkholz, a Gentoo developer who now works as an analyst, responded to the OSI’s president by saying that Microsoft rejecting Open Source licences “is frankly just weird. Who’s going to benefit off code that old anyway. Why wouldn’t MS actually open-source it?”

I responded by saying that making it FOSS would weaken some patents and other such stuff that Microsoft may need to attack rivals with. “Because suing your customers is great business,” Berkholz replied and the OSI’s president added: “Not just rivals; also those they wish to, uh, monetise.” He alluded to patent extortion. “Or to force into Windows, e.g. Barnes and Noble,” was my followup. We already saw how Microsoft used patents to sue Barnes and Noble and when challenged in court Microsoft then bribed Barnes and Noble to embrace Windows instead of Android. That’s the modus operandi of Microsoft nowadays. Microsoft abuses patents and copyrights for blackmail purposes.

To see some poor coverage of the latest non-event (or even worse [1], with pro-Microsoft/XP propaganda [2] and misuse of the word “free”), just consider what Engadget wrote. Making useless old code seem ‘open’ is good for nothing except openwashing, but some news sites pretend it’s great news for “geeks”. They are basically printing/transmitting Microsoft talking points/PR, citing Microsoft press releases which are calling crimes that led to monopoly “open” (look, but don’t touch) and trying to pass off the PR as goodwill. Here is Will Hill’s response to the nonsense from Engadget:

It is bad and could be very bad in various ways. It is historical revisionism and copyright propaganda. It may also be a trap for free software developers.

We can be sure that the source code is washed of sabotage for competitors. That would be revisionism. The Engadget article itself is either revisionism or ignorant – Gates simply purchased/licensed/stole QDoS, the Quick and Dirty Operating System to make MS DO.

From a copyright perspective, Microsoft is pretending binary code finally enriches the public domain but that’s a farce. We can’t verify that this is the source code they worked with, nor should we trust companies to finally come clean decades later. This is very important because copyright protection is only granted in the US if it advances the state of the art and public domain. None of that happens here. This will be used as propaganda the same way the Gates Foundation is – a germ of truth will be blown out of proportion to conceal an ugly reality.

Finally, Microsoft never really gives anything away -this code is poison and should be avoided by free software developers and competitors alike. Let’s look at their “agreement”. Oh yeah, you don’t even have freedom zero because there are limits on personal use. Personal use if only for “non commercial purposes,” it appears that even consulting based on results of tests are prohibited. You may not share your copy or your modified copies. It’s like they looked at the four freedoms and negated each, and that’s just the first of eight restrictions. One of the nastier restrictions limits damage to $5 for anything, including things Microsoft should have known about – like anti-competitive sabotage.

FU Microsoft, I’ll stick with DosBox and other free software. You can keep your fake old crap and I still don’t think you have legitimate grounds for copyright monopoly.

In summary, Microsoft did nothing commendable. It’s just a PR charade which contributes nothing to computing. It distorts public museums and warps history. Again.

Related/contextual items from the news:

  1. Microsoft open-sources MS-DOS. ’80s kids dance in the streets

    Microsoft actually bought the rights for QDOS (stands for “quick and dirty operating system) from Seattle Computer Products in 1981 for a paltry $25,000. What happened next is computer history.

  2. As WinXP death looms, Microsoft releases its operating system SOURCE CODE for free
Share in other sites/networks: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • Reddit
  • email

Decor ᶃ Gemini Space

Below is a Web proxy. We recommend getting a Gemini client/browser.

Black/white/grey bullet button This post is also available in Gemini over at this address (requires a Gemini client/browser to open).

Decor ✐ Cross-references

Black/white/grey bullet button Pages that cross-reference this one, if any exist, are listed below or will be listed below over time.

Decor ▢ Respond and Discuss

Black/white/grey bullet button If you liked this post, consider subscribing to the RSS feed or join us now at the IRC channels.

DecorWhat Else is New


  1. Links 02/06/2023: Arti 1.1.5 and SQL:2023

    Links for the day



  2. Gemini Links 02/06/2023: Vimwiki Revisited, SGGS Revisited

    Links for the day



  3. Geminispace/GemText/Gemini Protocol Turn 4 on June 20th

    Gemini is turning 4 this month (on the 20th, according to the founder) and I thought I’d do a spontaneous video about how I use Gemini, why it's so good, and why it’s still growing (Stéphane Bortzmeyer fixed the broken cron job — or equivalent of it — a day or two after I had mentioned the issue)



  4. HMRC Does Not Care About Tax Fraud Committed by UK Government Contractor, Sirius 'Open Source'

    The tax crimes of Sirius ‘Open Source’ were reported to HMRC two weeks ago; HMRC did not bother getting back to the reporters (victims of the crime) and it’s worth noting that the reporters worked on UK government systems for many years, so maybe there’s a hidden incentive to bury this under the rug



  5. Our IRC at 15th Anniversary

    So our IRC community turns 15 today (sort of) and I’ve decided to do a video reflecting on the fact that some of the same people are still there after 15 years



  6. IRC Proceedings: Thursday, June 01, 2023

    IRC logs for Thursday, June 01, 2023



  7. Links 02/06/2023: NixOS 23.05 and Rust 1.70.0

    Links for the day



  8. Gemini Links 02/06/2023: Flying High With Gemini and Gogios Released

    Links for the day



  9. Links 01/06/2023: KStars 3.6.5 and VEGA ET1031 RISC-V Microprocessor in Use

    Links for the day



  10. Gemini Links 01/06/2023: Scam Call and Flying High With Gemini

    Links for the day



  11. Links 01/06/2023: Spleen 2.0.0 Released and Team UPC Celebrates Its Own Corruption

    Links for the day



  12. IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, May 31, 2023

    IRC logs for Wednesday, May 31, 2023



  13. Tux Machines Closing the Door on Twitter Because Twitter is Dead (for a Lot of People)

    Tux Machines recently joined millions of others who had already quit Twitter, including passive posting (fully or partly automated)



  14. Links 31/05/2023: Inkscape’s 1.3 Plans and New ARM Cortex-A55-Based Linux Chip

    Links for the day



  15. Gemini Links 31/05/2023: Personality of Software Engineers

    Links for the day



  16. Links 31/05/2023: Armbian 23.05 Release and Illegal UPC

    Links for the day



  17. IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, May 30, 2023

    IRC logs for Tuesday, May 30, 2023



  18. Gemini Protocol About to Turn 4 and It's Still Growing

    In the month of May we had zero downtime (no updates to the system or outages in the network), which means Lupa did not detect any errors such as timeouts and we’re on top of the list (the page was fixed a day or so after we wrote about it); Gemini continues to grow (chart by Botond) as we’re approaching the 4th anniversary of the protocol



  19. Links 31/05/2023: Librem Server v2, curl 8.1.2, and Kali Linux 2023.2 Release

    Links for the day



  20. Gemini Links 31/05/2023: Bayes Filter and Programming Wordle

    Links for the day



  21. [Meme] Makes No Sense for EPO (Now Connected to the EU) and Staff Pensions to be Tied to the UK After Brexit

    It seems like EPO staff is starting to have doubts about the safety of EPO pensions after Benoît Battistelli sent money to reckless gambling (EPOTIF) — a plot that’s 100% supported by António Campinos and his enablers in the Council, not to mention the European Union



  22. Working Conditions at EPO Deteriorate and Staff Inquires About Pension Rights

    Work is becoming a lot worse (not even compliant with the law!) and promises are constantly being broken, so staff is starting to chase management for answers and assurances pertaining to finances



  23. Links 30/05/2023: Orc 0.4.34 and Another Rust Crisis

    Links for the day



  24. Links 30/05/2023: Nitrux 2.8.1 and HypoPG 1.4.0

    Links for the day



  25. Gemini Links 30/05/2023: Bubble Version 3.0

    Links for the day



  26. Links 30/05/2023: LibreOffice 7.6 in Review and More Digital Restrictions (DRM) From HP

    Links for the day



  27. Gemini Links 30/05/2023: Curl Still Missing the Point?

    Links for the day



  28. IRC Proceedings: Monday, May 29, 2023

    IRC logs for Monday, May 29, 2023



  29. MS (Mark Shuttleworth) as a Microsoft Salesperson

    Canonical isn’t working for GNU/Linux or for Ubuntu; it’s working for “business partners” (WSL was all along about promoting Windows)



  30. First Speaker in Event for GNU at 40 Called for Resignation/Removal of GNU's Founder

    It’s good that the FSF prepares an event to celebrate GNU’s 40th anniversary, but readers told us that the speakers list is unsavoury, especially the first one (a key participant in the relentless campaign of defamation against the person who started both GNU and the FSF; the "FSFE" isn't even permitted to use that name)


RSS 64x64RSS Feed: subscribe to the RSS feed for regular updates

Home iconSite Wiki: You can improve this site by helping the extension of the site's content

Home iconSite Home: Background about the site and some key features in the front page

Chat iconIRC Channel: Come and chat with us in real time

Recent Posts