How many clueless or lazy journalists will drink the Kool-Aid?

Summary: The openwashing of .NET continues with yet another publicity stunt that is intended to lock in developers

THERE is some propaganda campaign going on right now. Judging by who's spreading it with love letters to Microsoft, one cannot miss the source and the method of distribution. We must write quickly to counter the marketing, which is basically a load of selective/subjective misinformation and spin.

The biggest disappointment (but not a surprise) comes from Phoronix, which habitually covers Mono (for over 5 years now). One can see the comments (forum) for corrections. Michael Larabel is relaying Microsoft PR without quite checking the facts and so do a few other writers who jump the gun and are spreading to some Linux sites Microsoft's misinformation. One can expect this from Microsoft-funded networks like GigaOm (Microsoft used to pay Om Malik for Microsoft advertising disguises as articles), so nonsense like this is not too shocking. We sure are expecting lots of Redmond-based and Microsoft-affiliated Web sites to virtually spam the news until the weekend (and even after the the weekend) with false claims that .NET is "open source" even though it's not. Watch Microsoft press minions like Mary Jo Foley spreading the PR (at least not with a misleading headline). We also expected the likes of Miguel de Icaza to continue to openwash .NET because Microsoft does an "open core" PR publicity stunt (promoting a trap as though it's "open"). Don't be fooled by this widely-cited post with a bad headline that is very misleading. Down at the body is says: "There are three components being open sourced: the .NET Framework Libraries, .NET Core Framework Libraries and the RyuJit VM. More details below."

"Xamarin's Nat Friedman and Microsoft's Scott Hanselman can scream and shout "open source" all they want but merely talking about some components going MIT licence and saying that "Visual Studio Community is now FREE to download" is not the same as .NET becoming "open source"."So that's not the whole. The headline is sensationalist garbage. It is very misleading as Microsoft is doing an "open core" PR stunt, it is not open-sourcing .NET. Net Friedman and other Microsoft minions (funded by Microsoft veterans to essentially act as moles inside FOSS) repeat these same claims that may actually bamboozle a lot of journalists. Jo Shields and fellow Xamarin puppets of Microsoft, for example, try to mislead similarly while very openly promoting Microsoft's marketing (they even relay Microsoft staff's tweets verbatim, showing who they're rooting for).

Well, taking the actually news into account, no doubt it's good for Xamarin, but it's a proprietary software company whose interests intersect with those of Microsoft, not FOSS.

Xamarin's Nat Friedman and Microsoft's Scott Hanselman can scream and shout "open source" all they want but merely talking about some components going MIT licence and saying that "Visual Studio Community is now FREE to download" is not the same as .NET becoming "open source". It's just 'free' proprietary, it's gratis. It's tied to pricey malware with back doors.

Microsoft is just so desperate to lock in developers, who are rapidly moving away to FOSS and saying goodbye to Windows because Android/Linux is on the rise. The Linux Foundation's CEO, Jim Zemlin, has already commented on Microsoft's openwashing attempt, correctly pointing out that Microsoft is just trying to lure in developers because Windows is no longer dominant.

All in all what we deal with is merely a deceiving charm offense, as Microsoft and its minions already made similar announcements some years ago about some components, never the whole. Anyone who states something like .NET is "going open source" is either a liar or a person with reading comprehension issues. Microsoft sure has antagonism for the truth and its followers can be blinded by greed. Gratis proprietary software or proprietary software which includes components that are not proprietary is of no practical use. This is merely an exercise in marketing and presentation. ⬆