Bonum Certa Men Certa

Outercurve - Just Another Microsoft Proxy/Group

Microsoft front gets another makeover

Sheep shearing



Summary: CodePlex/Microsoft wolf in new sheep's clothing; Free software luminaries are not foolish enough to fall for it

In order for Microsoft to speak on behalf of its opposition (Microsoft's CodePlex does this a lot), Microsoft must pretend to be a friend of the competition. But who would ever trust Microsoft within the community it is ridiculing, extorting, and sometimes even suing? That is why Microsoft created all sorts of shells.



“It sent loads of fake letters from dead people, all in support of Microsoft. Then it got caught red-handed and lost legitimacy.”One good example of a Microsoft shell is ATL, which as a service to its funder Microsoft decided to speak 'on behalf of' dead people. It sent loads of fake letters from dead people, all in support of Microsoft. Then it got caught red-handed and lost legitimacy. In some countries, such behaviour might put Microsoft and ATL members in prison, but in the US 'lobbying' (often a euphemism for corruption) is quite routine and almost never punished for. Anyway, from the ashes of ATL came ACT, which is pretty much the same group accommodating some of the same people under a different identity, using a new name (deceptive acronym meaning the opposite of what it works towards). It's a simple case of nymshifting and it happens not only to Microsoft front groups. Additionally, for extra credibility Microsoft tends to 'buy' those who are publicly perceived as Microsoft opponents; this helps Microsoft shut them up (Microsoft critics no more) and also poison or drain its pool of opposition.

Today we are seeing Microsoft engaging in yet another act of nymshifting. Having been publicly dismissed by many groups including the FSF, Microsoft's vacuum for Free/open source developers (CodePlex) is moving under a new 'umbrella', aptly name Outercurve (outer to Microsoft, only by means of obfuscation and illusion). Here is Microsoft's explanation for the symbolic move:

The branding, undertaken to reduce confusion and differentiate the not for profit foundation from the Microsoft owned and operated forge CodePlex.com, comes a year after the foundation’s launch. In that time the foundation has developed a governance model, hired executive and technical management and elected an independent Board of Directors. Additionally the foundation created a project acceptance and management process that enables it to accept and support contributed open source projects - six projects have been accepted to date.


As Simon Phipps put it, "The new initiative was being weighed down by its association with Microsoft, so this rebrand is an essential step if they are to achieve the potential they speak about."

Outercurve is just another proxy for Microsoft. It's hardly worth debating at all because it's obvious to anyone inside the Free software world (outsiders might be more gullible and also the crowd Microsoft is gunning for). Microsoft is just reworking the method of assigning staff to serve itself while they are distancing themselves, at least perceptually.

Here is why claiming that Outercurve is not Microsoft is an illogical proposition:

Microsoft launched the CodePlex Foundation in September 2009 as a way of bridging the open-source and business communities. The organization has since attempted to distance itself from its Microsoft roots, looking for outside funding and insisting on platform neutrality.


As The H put it, it's funded by Microsoft and it's about software patents too. It's not just run purely by Microsoft (it tried putting some people who were not previously Microsoft employees inside this shell).

Although it has been looking for further sponsors, the Outercurve Foundation is however, still solely sponsored by Microsoft and still describes itself as being able to "provide a software IP management process and project development governance to enable and encourage organisations to develop software collaboratively to develop results faster".


Red Hat's Fontana wrote: "It would be sort of funny if the Outercurve Foundation were named after a Eugenius Harvey Outercurve." Perhaps he meant Eugenius Harvey Outerbridge. Microsoft Florian likes Outerbridge, which must mean that it's bad for GNU/Linux. He too appears to be a front (now proceeding to attacks on the FSFE).

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

OpenBSD Says That Even on Linux, Wayland Still Has a Number of Rough Edges (But IBM Wants to Make X Extinct)
IBM tries to impose unready software on users
Professor Eben Moglen on How Social Control Media Metabolises Humans and Constraints Freedom of Thought
Nothing of value would be lost if all these data-harvesting giants (profiling people) vanished overnight
 
Media Cannot Tell the Difference Between Microsoft and Iran
a platform with back doors
Links 28/11/2023: New Zealand's Big Tobacco Pivot and Google Mass-Deleting Accounts
Links for the day
Justice is Still the Main Goal
The skulduggery seems to implicate not only Microsoft
[Teaser] Next Week's Part in the Series About Anti-Free Software Militants
an effort to 'cancel' us and spy on us
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news
Permacomputing
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
IRC Proceedings: Monday, November 27, 2023
IRC logs for Monday, November 27, 2023
When Microsoft Blocks Your Access to Free Software
"Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches." [Chicago Sun-Times]
Techrights Statement on 'Cancel Culture' Going Out of Control
relates to a discussion we had in IRC last night
Stuff People Write About Linux
revisionist pieces
Links 28/11/2023: Rosy Crow 1.4.3 and Google Drive Data Loss
Links for the day
Links 27/11/2023: Australian Wants Tech Companies Under Grip
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news
Links 27/11/2023: Underwater Data Centres and Gemini, BSD Style!
Links for the day
[Meme] Leaning Towards the Big Corporate CoC
Or leaning to "the green" (money)
Software Freedom Conservancy Inc in 2022: Almost Half a Million Bucks for Three People Who Attack Richard Stallman and Defame Linus Torvalds
Follow the money
[Meme] Identity Theft and Forgery
Coming soon...
Microsoft Has Less Than 1,000 Mail (MX) Servers Left, It's Virtually Dead in That Area (0.19% of the Market)
Exim at 254,000 servers, Postfix at 150,774, Microsoft down to 824
The Web is Dying, Sites Must Evolve or Die Too
Nowadays when things become "Web-based" it sometimes means more hostile and less open than before
Still Growing, Still Getting Faster
Articles got considerably longer too (on average)
In India, the One Percent is Microsoft and Mozilla
India is where a lot of software innovations and development happen, so this kind of matters a lot
Feeding False Information Using Sockpuppet Accounts and Imposters
online militants try every trick in the book, even illegal stuff
What News Industry???
Marketing, spam, and chatbots
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, November 26, 2023
IRC logs for Sunday, November 26, 2023
The Software Freedom Law Center's Eben Moglen Explains That We Already Had Free Software Almost Everywhere Before (Half a Century Ago)
how code was shared in the 1970s and 80s
When the So-called 'Cancel Culture' Sees Everything in Free Software Through the Scopes of 'Sex' (Because It Cannot Argue on Technical or Legal Grounds)
Losing the plot
Links 26/11/2023: Debunking So-called G.A.I. and Sierra Leone's National Curfew
Links for the day
In the 'Phoronix Universe', Single Job Openings at AMD Are News, But Not ~400 Layoffs
like a classifieds section
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news
Microsoft Shamelessly Attacks Both Git and Projects in GitHub, Using Plagiarism in "AI" Clothing (Exit GitHub Now!)
A mountain of plagiarism
Microsoft Loses Market Share, Market Price of Windows Plunges to Almost Nothing (28 Dollars for Vista 10)
GNU/Linux has grown so potent that Microsoft now charges only dozens of bucks for Vista 10
Professor Eben Moglen Stands with Snowden While Moglen's 'Critics' (Microsofters) Keep Defaming Prominent Whistleblowers
Don't listen to Microsoft liars and weasels, who merely try to "replace" Moglen and override his message
"Check Point" + Microsoft Partnerships Extend to Anti-GNU/Linux FUD
a close partner/pusher of Microsoft tries to alter the narrative (change reality itself)
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, November 25, 2023
IRC logs for Saturday, November 25, 2023
Links 26/11/2023: Fresh Concerns Over North Korea Satellite Ambitions and South China Sea Patrols
Links for the day
Eben Moglen Explains the Connection Between FSF and SFLC (Both of Which Under Attack by Microsofters)
Old clip