Summary: How Microsoft cuddles up to GNU/Linux using its MVPs, usually in order to insert some insults and Trojan horses into it

Microsoft MVP Miguel de Icaza has some news to share about Mono's infiltration into devices. Mono and Moonlight both pose issues that are related to control. They give Microsoft control over devices and other code. We are quite thankful that Miguel de Icaza is not just a CodePlex board member; his Microsoft MVP award makes it so much easier to explain to people who he works for. It's those insider "MVPs" which Microsoft executives characterise as their favourite (Microsoft staff extension that has the dubious "independent" label).

“We are quite thankful that Miguel de Icaza is not just a CodePlex board member; his Microsoft MVP award makes it so much easier to explain to people who he works for.”Speaking of Microsoft MVPs, watch out for this known Microsoft MVP and anti-GNU/Linux shill (Jason Hiner), who says he will 'try' GNU/Linux after mocking it repeatedly. Prepare for some trouble and some complaints. It's the same whenever Microsoft-bribed bloggers like Ed Bott 'try' GNU/Linux. Speaking of which, the Microsoft-bribed Tim Anderson, who sometimes writes for the Google-hostile Register, is adding some more scare mongering in his personal site. Microsoft is no better, but he's making a monster out of Google while hoping that nobody will pay attention to the sheer hypocrisy (Microsoft is worse than Google when it comes to privacy).

Anyway, from the latest post of Miguel de Icaza (he has his eyes on more gadgets in which he wants to put .NET [1, 2], just like with Apple's products and MonoTouch):

MeeGo/Moblin Support

We have been working closely with the MeeGo (previously Moblin) team at Novell to offer a streamlined developer experience for developers on Windows, Mac and Linux to target MeeGo devices.

Developers will be able to develop, test and deploy from their favorite platform software for MeeGo devices.

[...]

Mono for Mobile Devices

We recently shipped Mono for the iPhone and we continue to develop and improve that platform. Our goal is to provide developers with a great experience, so we are doing everything in our power to make sure that every wish and whim of the iPhone developer community is satisfied. We are working to expand our API coverage, write helper libraries to assist developers, tune existing .NET libraries to run on Mobile devices, reduce startup time, and reduce executable sizes.

But we have also just started an effort to ship MonoDroid: Mono for the Android platform. This will include a comprehensive binding to the Java APIs, but accessible through the JIT-compiled, 335-powered runtime engine.

Our vision is to allow developers to reuse their engine and business logic code across all mobile platforms and swapping out the user interface code for a platform-specific API. MonoTouch for iPhone devices and the Monodroid APIs for Android devices.

Here is a Comes vs Microsoft exhibit which explains why Microsoft wants to put .NET/Mono in devices. Novell et al have already attempted to sneak Mono into Android [1, 2, 3] and into LiMo. As Jeremy Allison explained a few weeks ago, devices that happen to include phones are an area of huge growth for Linux, so Microsoft wants to rob Linux using software patents and associated "tax" that suddenly make Windows look more attractive (or makes Linux a Microsoft cash cow). As a worthwhile reminder, Microsoft does sue device makers for using Microsoft-compatible software whose legal situation is made blurry before the assult. Moreover, promoters of Mono are Microsoft employees, former Microsoft employees, and Novell employees whose wage comes from Microsoft.

Lucas Rocha has just announced his resignation from the GNOME Board and Microsoft's mole [1, 2] has just announced that Microsoft will give a keynote talk at OSBC two years after Matt Asay invited them to spew FUD in there [1, 2, 3].

Microsoft will be active at the Open Source Business Conference, acting as a sponsor and providing a keynote speaker.

I will never forget my arguments with Matt Asay over this. Microsoft was brought in by Matt Asay (who also helped Microsoft enter OSI) and this precedented affair has been rather harmful ever since. Other like-minded Web sites such as Groklaw also complained. And by the way, it's not a matter of "intolerance" because people are actually choosing to participate in what they very well know is a convicted and abusive monopolist, which is continuing to abuse the freedom of developers using lawsuits and racketeering [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]. Microsoft can pretend to play nice (when this suits its own products) and it can carry on pretending that CodePlex is independent from Microsoft (which it's not, even if it added the well-funded DotNetNuke). Microsoft uses money to force itself upon the community which it is also attacking. Just look what company had itself positioned at the centre of this new mesh. That's just repellent and maybe that too is intentional. ⬆

"Microsoft is asking people to pay them for patents, but they won’t say which ones. If a guy walks into a shop and says: “It’s an unsafe neighbourhood, why don’t you pay me 20 bucks and I’ll make sure you’re okay,” that’s illegal. It’s racketeering."

--Mark Shuttleworth