Summary: Why Novell's me-too Microsoft projects are third-rate copycats that go back to original works outside Microsoft

Microsoft claims "innovation" for many things it did not invent at all. See for example:

• Reader Explains “Microsoft Innovation”
• It's Official: Patents Stifle Innovation
• Microsoft Innovation is Lawsuits by Proxy
• Microsoft Open to Mutual 'Innovation Tax' (Protection Racket) Program
• Routes to Innovation: Innovation by Publicity
• It's Not Innovation, It's Collusion
• Claiming Innovation for What's Not

InfoWorld (IDG) has this new piece which starts with a false premise. This premise is being debunked as follows:

I read a story this morning over at Infoworld.com that shocked me a bit. Neil McAllister discusses how proprietary software companies, like Microsoft, criticize open source projects by saying that, "They don't innovate, they copy." Is that really the consensus for an entire software realm that brought us the world wide web, TCP/IP, sendmail, DNS, DHCP, Perl, PHP, Apache, HTML and basically everything else that we use on the Internet today? Is that really the stance they want to take?

[...]

Here is a list of Microsoft products and the originals:

* Windows (The Name) - X Window * Windows - OS2 and Mac * Explorer Interface - Mac * MS Office - Lotus and Framework * SQL Server - Sybase * Exchange Server - Domino * Internet Explorer - Mosaic * MS DOS - CP/M and IBM PC DOS * C# - Java * NetBIOS/LanManager - IBM's NetBIOS/LanManager

Two years ago (and previously, in some Free/open source software conferences) we learned that Microsoft employees were being brainwashed inside Microsoft so as to believe that Linux is "stealing" from Microsoft. They daemonise software freedom over there and conveniently deny the roots of Microsoft, which were about stealing in the proper sense of the word. "Don't Talk The Talk, Without Walking The Walk, Otherwise You Are Just Throwing Gasoline On Fire," says another person in response to Neil McAllister's piece.

One good example of Microsoft copying from others would be C#/.NET (running after Java). Twice even. First it was Microsoft copying Sun and later on it was a Microsoft MVP copying Microsoft's copy of Sun (and copying Microsoft's copy of Adobe). Yes, Mono and Moonlight are not examples of copying from Microsoft. These are a copy of a copy going back to more original projects (which Microsoft patented). Watch how Daily India has just marketed Mono:

For any of you who want to program in C#, but can’t afford Visual Studio just to play around, here is a solution.

Mono is open source C#. Check it out!

Yes, that's what Mono is. It's like a trial version for Visual Studio, which requires Windows and other proprietary software from Microsoft. That "Microsoft MVP" title of Miguel de Icaza was deserved and well received. ⬆