Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft Wants GNU/Linux Users and Developers Addicted to Microsoft APIs by Means of Cross-Platform Proprietary Software

Locked inside Gates

Locks



Summary: Microsoft's proprietary software, such as Visual Studio Code and PowerShell, thrown at GNU/Linux users in an effort to promote Microsoft's way of doing things and re-enforce lock-in

MICROSOFT is trying very hard to confuse the population. It's aiming at low-hanging fruit -- the non-technical people who are easy to bamboozle and convince through repetition that Microsoft is now "Open Source". Microsoft's googlebombing, as we have stated here before, keeps pushing Microsoft and "Open Source" into headlines. Jim Martin from PC Advisor is doing the "Windows Open Source" routine even one month after something actually happened (publicity stunt in Wired Magazine) and another British news site does the "Microsoft Open Source" routine (yet again!). If one isn't careful, he or she might be led to believe that Microsoft completely embraced "Open Source". See yesterday's headline "What if Windows went open source tomorrow?" Days ago we found openwashing in a puff piece from Kevin Kelleher at Time Magazine. This is propaganda. It's effective. People repeat what the propaganda tells them.



The most serious issue with all this is perspective or perception. In this new article about ".Net Core" (as in open core) Bill Weinberg is correct about what 'open' (openwashed) .NET does; it's all about Windows and Microsoft lock-in. It is about leading people, including developers, into the prisons of proprietary software (Windows, Office, SQL Server, Hyper-V and so on). Microsoft recently used some non-news about Visual Studio Code (which is as proprietary as can be) to seduce people into the fantasy of "Open Source Microsoft". As one GNU/Linux-centric site put it: "Microsoft Visual Studio Code, as opposed to the original Visual Studio for Windows, is not a complete integrated development environment containing an its own compiler and typical tools of this kind of development environments but it’s simply a code editor like sublimetext, atom, kate or brackets." So it's not only proprietary but also less potent than Free/libre software. Paul Krill, the Editor at Large at InfoWorld, continues his Microsoft apologism, going further than openwashing Visual Studio. "Continuing its overtures toward open source," he says (loaded statement), "Microsoft is unveiling technologies for packaging applications and remotely debugging JavaScript."

Another article, titled "Visual Studio Code For Linux: What it Means", provides another kind of analysis and notes that 'Linus Torvalds once said: "If Microsoft ever does applications for Linux it means I've won."'

"Bill Gates once said: “They’ll get sort of addicted, and then we’ll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade.” That very well applies to developers as well as end users. Microsoft is trying to make developers 'addicted' to Microsoft."Well, but those applications are proprietary. They're unwanted. A Microsoft promotion site wants people to run ".NET on Linux and Mac OS X" (that's the real goal, spreading .NET). By repeating the words "open source" in relation to proprietary software Microsoft gives people the wrong/false impression that its proprietary software is suddenly "open". Microsoft is doing that to its Web browser right now [1, 2] and by extension, by saying that this proprietary browser may run on Windows for phones, Microsoft promotion sites serve to openwash Windows Phone [1, 2]. How appalling it that? Cross-platform efforts with proprietary software and a little bit of "open core" in very few areas (getting developers 'hooked' on Microsoft APIs) is not "Open Source". It's only now that Microsoft says it may finally stop torturing the Web with ActiveX, so never mind "Open Source", what has Microsoft ever been for standards? Bill Gates once said: “They’ll get sort of addicted, and then we’ll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade.” That very well applies to developers as well as end users. Microsoft is trying to make developers 'addicted' to Microsoft.

Microsoft booster Darryl K. Taft was one among several (including Adrian Bridgwater) who promoted Telerik, a longtime booster of .NET ("enhancements to its existing solutions, ongoing support for Microsoft development tooling" says the latest press release). The push for the whole world to become prisoner of .NET is reaching new heights as even Fedora 23 is chewing Mono [1,2] (after it got rid of it half a decade ago).

Let's remind ourselves that amid all the "Microsoft Open Source" nonsense (googlebombing) there is very little that is actually open and a lot which is proprietary and geared towards lock-in. Microsoft now wants to 'addict' UNIX/Linux users to Microsoft's command-line syntax [1, 2]. As if GNU/Linux hasn'tgot enough Free software shells like GNU Bash... well, apparently it needs Windows, too. Microsoft insists it needs proprietary Windows blobs like PowerShell. To quote one report: "After having shocked the world by releasing Visual Studio Code for Linux, Microsoft had the pleasure of announcing today the immediate availability for download of PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC) for GNU/Linux operating systems." Compiling a pile of Windows lock-in for another platform is not openness. It's a proprietary trap, just like Visual Studio Code. Developers are hopefully wise enough to see through the lies and the gross spin. Related/contextual items from the news:

  1. Mono 4.0 with Microsoft's Open Source Code to Arrive in Fedora 23
    We announced last week that the release schedule of the upcoming Fedora 23 Linux operating system has been published and that the distribution might arrive on October 27, 2015, if everything goes according to plan and no unexpected delays occur during the development cycle.


  2. Mono 4 Is Planned For Fedora 23
    Aside from the other features proposed thus far for Fedora 23, the update of the popular Red Hat sponsored Linux distribution due out in late 2015, you can add Mono 4.0 to the list.




Recent Techrights' Posts

Security Isn't the Goal of Today's Software and Hardware Products
Any newly-added layer represents more attack surface
Godot 4.2 is Approaching, But After What Happened to Unity All Game Developers Should be Careful
We hope Unity will burn in a massive fire and, as for Godot, we hope it'll get rid of Microsoft
 
10 Reasons to Permanently Export or Liberate Your Site From WordPress, Drupal, and Other Bloatware
There are certainly more more advantages, but 10 should suffice for now
About 200,000 Objects in Techrights Web Site
This hopefully helps demonstrate just how colossal the migration actually is
Good Teachers Would Tell Kids to Quit Social Control Media Rather Than Participate in It (Teaching Means Education, Not Misinformation)
Insist that classrooms offer education to children rather than offer children to corporations
Twitter: From Walled Gardens to Paywalls and/or Amplifiers of Fascism
There's moreover a push to promote politicians who are as scummy as Twitter's owner
The World Wide Web is Being Confiscated From Us (Like Syndication Was Withdrawn About a Decade Ago) and We Need to Fight Back
We're worse off when fewer people promote RSS feeds and instead outsource to social control media (censorship, surveillance, manipulation)
Next Up: Restoring IRC Log Pipelines, Bulletins/Full Text RSS, Wiki (Archived, Static), and Pipelines for Daily Links
There are still many tasks left ahead of us, but we've progressed a lot
An Era of Rotting Technology, Migration Crises, and Cliffhanging
We've covered examples from IBM, resembling the Microsoft world
First Iteration of Techrights as 100% Static Pages Web Site
We want to champion another decade or two of positive impact and opinionated analysis
Links 25/09/2023: Patent News and Coding
some remaining links for today
Steam Deck is Mostly Good in the Sense That It Weakens Microsoft's Dominance (Windows)
The Steam Deck is mostly a DRM appliance
SUSE is Just Another Black Cat Working for Proprietary Giants/Monopolies
SUSE's relationship with firms such as these generally means that SUSE works for authority, not for community, and when it comes to cryptography it just follows guidelines from the US government
IBM is Selling Complexity, Not GNU/Linux
It's not about the clients, it's about money
Birthday of Techrights in 6 Weeks (Tux Machines and Techrights Reach Combined Age of 40 in 2025)
We've already begun the migration to static
Linux Foundation: We Came, We Saw, We Plundered
Linux Foundation staff uses neither Linux nor Open Source. They're essentially using, exploiting, piggybacking goodwill gestures (altruism of volunteers) while paying themselves 6-figure salaries.
Linux Too Big to Be Properly Maintained When There's an Incentive to Sell More and More Things (Complexity and Narrow Support Window)
They want your money, not your peace of mind. That's a problem.
Modern Web Means Proprietary Trash
Mozilla is financially beholden to Google and thus we cannot expect any pushback or for Firefox to "reclaims the Web" a second time around
GNU/Linux Has Conquered the World, But Users' Freedom Has Not (Impediments Remain in Hardware)
Installing one's system of choice on a device is very hard, sometimes impossible
Another Copyright Lawsuit Against Microsoft (or its Proxy) for Misuse of Large Works by Chatbot
Some people mocked us for saying this day would come; chatbots are a huge disappointment and they're on very shaky legal ground
Privacy is Not a Crime, Reporting Hidden Facts Is Not a Crime Either
the powerful companies/governments/societies get to know everything about everybody, but if anyone out there discovers or shares dark secrets about those powerful companies/governments/societies, that's a "crime"
United Workforce Always Better for the Workers
In the case of technology, it is possible that a lack of collective action is because of relatively high salaries and less physically-demanding jobs
Purge of Software Freedom and Its Voices
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
GNOME and GTK Taking Freedom Away From Users
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
GNOME is Worse Today (in 2023) Than When I Did GTK Development 20+ Years Ago
To me it seems like GNOME is moving backward, not forward, mostly removing features and functionality rather than adding any
HowTos Are Moving to Tux Machines
HowTos (or howtos) are very important in their own right, but they can easily distract from the news and howtos are usually quite timeless or time-insensitive
Proprietary Panda: Don't Be Misled by the Innocent Looks of Ubuntu (and Microsoft Canonical)
Given the number of disgruntled employees who leave Canonical and given Ubuntu's trend of just copying whatever IBM does in Fedora, is there still a good reason to choose Ubuntu?
Debian GNU/Linux is a Fine Operating System, But What if People Die Making It for Somebody's Corporate/Personal Gain?
Will companies that exploited unpaid volunteers ever be held accountable for loss of life, caused by burnout, excessive work, or poverty?
Links 24/09/2023: 5 Days' Worth of News (Catchup)
Links for the day
Leftover Links 24/09/2023: Russia, COVID, and More
Links for the day
Forty Years of GNU and the Free Software Movement
by FSF
Gemini and Web in Tandem
We're already learning, over IRC, that out new site is fully compatible with simple command line- and ncurses-based Web browsers. Failing that, there's Gemini.
Red Hat Pretends to Have "Community Commitment to Open Source" While Scuttling the Fedora Community (Among Others)
RHEL is becoming more proprietary over time and community seems to boil down to unpaid volunteers (at least that's how IBM see the "community")
IBM Neglecting Users of GNU/Linux on Laptops and Desktops
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Personal Identification on the 'Modern' Net
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Not Your Daily Driver: Don't Build With Rust or Adopt Rust-based Software If You Value Long-Term Reliance
Rust is a whole bunch of hype.
The Future of the Web is Not the Web
The supposedly "modern" stuff ought to occupy some other protocol, maybe "app://"
YouTube Has Just Become Even More Sinister
The way Google has been treating the Web (and Web browsers) sheds a clue about future plans and prospects
Initial Announcement of GNU (for Gnu's Not Unix) on September 27, 1983
History matters
Upgrade and Migration Status
Git is working, IPFS is working, IRC is working, Gemini is working
Yesterday in the 'Sister Site', Tux Machines (10 More Stories)
Scope-wise, many stories fit neatly into both sites, but posting the same twice makes no sense logistically
The New Techrights Will be Much Faster
A prompt response to FUD is important. It's time-sensitive.