Summary: Triumph for Free software supporters in New Zealand as an opposer/pretender from Microsoft calls it a day and quits

ANOTHER one leaves the nest (joining many others). What makes him rather unique is that he played along with the Microsoft plot to appease Free software supporters by pretending to be a friend while the company attacked with patents [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6], even sued (TomTom and Melco for example).

Microsoft New Zealand national technology officer Brett Roberts - one of the software giant’s most senior staff - has announced his resignation, sneaking in ahead of an official company announcement.

[...]

Mr Roberts has often served as Microsoft’s public face in controversial arenas, such as the ongoing debate about Linux and open source software - and has been a frequent visitor to the capital for discussions with government departments, and others.

Microsoft is losing more and more fakers.

The following new article is titled "Microsoft tries to improve image among open-source developers," but Microsoft is missing the point. To win people's support you don't improve image, you improve behaviour. Judging by its actions, Microsoft is still the same spoiled brat and bully it has always been.

The article quotes someone from Microsoft's BS department that Sam Ramji quit not so long ago.

Garkusha is an emissary from Microsoft Corp.'s Canadian arm whose job is to convince open-source software disciples that his company is not the evil empire it appears to be.

[...]

It'll be a tough seduction. Open-source advocates are still on guard after a series of internal memos leaked in 1998 suggested Microsoft wanted to infiltrate and destroy the open-source threat. Known as the Halloween Documents, the memos detailed an "embrace, extend and extinguish" strategy to make Microsoft interoperable with open source, then slowly make itself the standard everyone has to pay for.

Microsoft responded that the memos were simply one engineer's musings and were not an official company statement.

That's a lie, as we have already shown. This document was passed around by Bill Gates to others from the board. Nothing has changed since, except the lawsuits against Free software (manifested in part through ideas expressed in the Halloween Documents). ⬆

"It’s a good moment for people to take a step back and re-think how friendly Microsoft is to open source."

--Bradley M. Kuhn (SFLC) in response to the TomTom lawsuit