Bonum Certa Men Certa

Android is Being Disrupted by Microsoft and Its Satellite Entities Like Cyanogen, Patent Trolls, and Xamarin

Forking (to turn Android into a Microsoft common carrier), patent litigation (to threaten zero-cost advantage), and takeovers (to annihilate software freedom)

Fork



Summary: A glance at the current situation in the mobile market, where Microsoft has virtually no presence, with focus on how Microsoft is trying to intervene and wrestle with the market leader, Android

THE MOBILE market is a very lucrative one. Not only has it outgrown the desktop (and laptop) market but it also thrives -- from a business point of view -- because of a huge number of applications which many people pay for. There is a lot of money to be made in mobility, both on the software side and hardware side. Microsoft makes money from neither.



Microsoft tried hard to enter the mobile market but since the Windows Mobile days it barely ever succeeded. Nowadays, Microsoft's mobile platforms continue to be called off and Microsoft tries to rebrand, most latterly with the Vista 10 label.

"There is a lot of money to be made in mobility, both on the software side and hardware side. Microsoft makes money from neither."As many of the spendings are gradually moving away from the desktops, the revenues reported by Microsoft decline a great deal and Microsoft even reports losses. Then, financial games (or accounting tricks) are used to make up for it. According to Wall Street media, Microsoft now "raises money to repurchase stock and repay existing debt. It sold its longest portion, a 40-year bond, at a yield that was 1.8 percentage points more than comparable government debt, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Mead Johnson Nutrition Co. and Dr Pepper Snapple Group Inc. also sold bonds today."

This is not a sign of health; it's rather the very opposite. Its due to a rapidly-slipping Windows dominance. Rest assured that Microsoft's force-feeding of Windows will only get worse, as the British media serves to reaffirm, as does the pseudo-British media (US company with co.uk domain and some writers who happen to be British but living abroad). Microsoft's force-feeding of Vista 10 is painted as quite benign by Microsoft Peter, but most people find it infuriating.

"Microsoft's force-feeding of Vista 10 is painted as quite benign by Microsoft Peter, but most people find it infuriating."Going back to the situation in the mobile market, it could, in principle, help Microsoft find reprieve. Apple, for example, isn't doing so badly, and that's largely owing to its presence in the mobile market (especially where people have a lot money that they are willing to spend). Microsoft cannot sell mobile devices, hence it is unable to impose its APIs, patents, lock-in etc. on this market. This, in turn, harms Microsoft's desktop monopoly. Based on new articles such as "Microsoft’s smartphone sales collapse and even Surface feels the pinch" or "Microsoft reports falling revenues, slowing Surface sales in latest quarter", things won't change for the better any time soon. To quote one report: "‘Mobile first, cloud first’ is Microsoft’s new mantra, but its fiscal first quarter financial results showed growth in only one of them. Indeed, the mobile hardware business saw its revenues fall by a huge 54% year-on-year, to $1.1bn at constant currency, a sad comedown from the glory days of Nokia, and with gross operating profit of just $100m."

As readers of ours know by now, Microsoft is now attempting E.E.E. (embrace, extend, extinguish) of the leading mobile platform, Android, which is based on Linux. Microsoft tries to turn an open platform into its own proprietary back yard.

The Microsoft booster Tim Anderson now bashes Free software using a case of a company bought by a Microsoft proxy, Xamarin. To be fair to Anderson, maybe it was the editor's own bait headline, "RoboVM: Open source? Sorry, it's not working for us" (well, surely it worked well enough until Xamarin decided to take over because the project thrived and then got acquired).

Microsoft and Xamarin appear to be crushing the freedom of Android, one piece at a time, after Xamarin formally took over RoboVM [1, 2]. To quote from Anderson's article:

The company, which was recently acquired by Xamarin, used to publish its core compiler under the GPL licence. However, users noticed that the latest published version on GitHub was 1.6, while the product itself is at 1.9.


So they turned from copyleft to proprietary. Xamarin sure is a kiss of death to software freedom. As The VAR Guy put it, "RoboVM has made its mobile app development platform closed-source. Previously, the platform was an open source product licensed under the GNU GPL."

"Xamarin sure is a kiss of death to software freedom."Quoting further: "So far, the company has not offered details about exactly what went wrong with its open source model. It has only made general statements about how its open code failed to attract many contributions and apparently made life easier for the company's competitors.

"It's also unclear to what extent RoboVM's recent acquisition by Xamarin may have played a role in the decision to close-source the compiler. But we're betting the timing was more than a coincidence."

There was also a report from the Microsoft-connected 'news' network, 1105 Media, which contains a lot of details. Given this chronology, which probably serves to indicate time overlap between takeover negotiations and the transition to proprietary, there must have been a correlation. To quote: "The six-employee RoboVM last month announced iOS 9 support in a new release, version 1.8, the final release issued under the open source GPL license. Earlier this month, the company announced updated pricing, and shortly after came news of the Xamarin buyout. One disgruntled developer attributed these events to the company's decision to revert to a proprietary source code model."

Here are some other interesting parts:

"Cool," wrote a poster identified as Carsten in reply to Müller's message. "Now we understand. You were in talks with Xamarin for a while and one of the requirements was an updated price model (no more free stuff!) and closing down the source. Thanks for translating this process into corporate bs-bingo. Attract people for years with an open source model until you attract enough users and are acquired by the next bigger fish. Then we immediately go from open source feel good to updated pricing, closed source. Genius!"

[...]

"Complaints also abounded on a Reddit thread, and a couple Google Group discussions have sprung up to investigate interest in forking the project to keep it open source..."


Miguel de Icaza and his mates appear to love money a lot more than they love software freedom, so they squeeze this goose, RoboVM, for some golden eggs. In due course this can kill the project's popularity. Cui bono?

"In due course this can kill the project's popularity."To quote someone who commented in LXer, "I have to admit, I'm a little confused. On one hand, Microsoft open-sources some components of the .NET framework, and on the other hand they closed-source a vital tool for some Android developers. I'm still convinced that Microsoft doesn't care about FOSS or GNU/Linux, or their communities. They're simply trying to nip a market trend in the bud... they're competing in a manner that appears collaborative at first glance.

"I think it's time we took a moment to re-evaluate how we look at corporate entities that offer open-source software, and if they are susceptible to buyouts, whether their projects are viable for the community to invest precious time and effort into. RoboVM would never have been such a huge loss if it had forked from the very beginning and managed by a non-corporate entity. We've already decided not to trust MySQL any more because of what Oracle has done to it. Why should we not apply this same decision to several other company-offered projects?"

Here is another comment:

In order to put this into perspective, it is important to keep in the forefront of our minds that we are not talking about some small company out there trying in earnest to make a go of it with a free-software project. We are talking about MICROSOFT.

Of course, we have seen this pattern repeated time and time again:

FEAR:

Oh my, a small company was taken advantage of by those evil free-software developers.

UNCERTAINTY:

Well, is this really Microsoft in action or is it Xamarin or is it RoboVM?

DOUBT:

We are all supposed to wonder now if a business model involving free-software is really a good idea... Doubt, please doubt, everyone.

blah, blah, blah... I am so bored by all these pattern repetitions.


Judging this based on the article from the Microsoft booster at The Register (especially the headline), there is indeed a lot of FUD right now, leading people to questioning of the Free software business models. Again, cui bono?

"Gates is trying to make sure that he has a proprietary position in controlling the tools that allow you and me to access information. And that's profitable by definition. How would you like to own the printing press?"

--PaineWebber Media Analyst Christopher Dixon



Recent Techrights' Posts

Security is Desirable, But Not When the Term Security is Misused to Imply Centralisation of "Trust" (Whose?)
'Security' is not an excuse for vendor lock-in
The Media Helps Microsoft, Amazon and Others (GAFAM and Beyond) Lie About Mass Layoffs Amid Valuation Bubble
The media, instead of saying that there's an "AI bubble" crashing the economy might instead choose the narrative of "jobs replaced by AI"
Bad Tempered? You Might Have Just Given Away That You're Losing the Argument
Brett Wilson LLP is fully aware that it is being investigated
 
[Video] Dr. Richard Stallman at Technické Univerzitě v Liberci
New/via libre-liberec.cz
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, Linux Journal (Slashdot Media), UbuntuPIT, and Google News (Noise)
egregious plagiarism
Links 17/10/2025: Better Answers Sought After Air Crashes, "China Fans Patriotic Sentiment as Trade War With U.S. Heats Up"
Links for the day
Links 17/10/2025: Fentanylware (CheeTok) Causing Problems, Japanese Government Blasts Slop
Links for the day
The Linux Foundation Seems to Have Turned Linux.com Not Only Into a Spamfarm But Also LLM Slopfarm
it's polluting the Web, even important domains like Linux.com, with spam and LLM slop
Links 17/10/2025: UK’s Largest Breach Penalty and Windows TCO Examples
Links for the day
Go Watch Video About Librephone, Get Microsoft Ads
Very ethical company...
Campaign of Defamation Against the People Who Built NixOS (and Are Now Pushed Out From Their Own Project)
We've already grown familiar with - and resistant to - such tactics
Links 17/10/2025: Nestlé Crisis, Canada Post Versus 'Gig Economy' [sic] and Vista 11 Breaks Itself
Links for the day
Tux Machines Has Helped Separate Opinions/Analysis From News
In September 2023 we decided to split things apart and not repeat links in both sites
Tux Machines Has Improved Navigation of GNU/Linux and BSD News
Some more 'wiring' work
What a World Would Look Like If Everyone Used Free Software Only
Freedom is what matters, not "Open".
Richard Stallman (RMS) is a Target of Defamation Campaigns Because of His Views on Software (But Politics Are the Excuse for Defaming Him)
Here in this site we try to refrain from politics, except in Daily Links
End of Vista 10 and Rise of GNU/Linux as Client Side Operating System
It seems certain GNU/Linux will grow in popularity over time
Taking Stock of a Week's Worth of EPO Leaks
We remain committed to exposing EPO corruption as long as it keeps happening
Mathieu Parreaux claims FINMA knew since day one
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Calumny, Libel, Joerg Jaspert & debian-private untouchable cyberbullies
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 16, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 16, 2025
Techrights Turns 19 in 3 Weeks
coverage of suppressed topics and protecting all sources/whistleblowers
International E-Waste Day Same Day as End of Vista 10
message from Akira Urushibata
The EPO's Central Staff Committee Presents Evidence That Staff Compensation Lowered While the Office Increases Income by Illegally Granting Invalid Patents
These people become millionaires by doing illegal things
Second or Third Wave of Microsoft Mass Layoffs in October 2025, This Time Portugal
Those are just the ones we know about, there may be several more
'Help Net Security' (helpnetsecurity.com) May Have Become a Slopfarm as Well
Zeljka Zorz, Editor-in-Chief at Help Net Security, was reported to us
Gemini Links 17/10/2025: Rant About Network Solutions, Strange Anomaly on Lagrange
Links for the day
EPO Staff Representation Lacks Social Dialogue With Relevant Management, Controversial and Sometimes Illegal Policies Implemented Without Necessary Input
"In this open letter, the CSC requests that the President submits an agenda item in the next available General Consultative Committee (GCC) meeting on setting up regular meetings between the CSC and the higher management of DG1."
Links 16/10/2025: Political Leftovers and Gemini Protocol Links
Links for the day
Lies Need to be Corrected
the Court never invited us
Slopwatch: Guardian Digital (linuxsecurity.com), Slashdot, Google News, and More
Maybe one day, once the bubble pops completely, Google News will just outright delist all slopfarms
Lufthansa Modern Slavery, Joerg Jaspert (ganneff) & Debian NSB Softwareentwicklung charade
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 16/10/2025: US Starting More Trade Wars With China, CIA War on Venezuela
Links for the day
SUSE Blog is Still LLM Slop, Marketing Manager at SUSE Cannot Write
Would you buy from a company or seek support from a company that cannot even write (or fakes writing)?
Pretend You're Not Dead: Microsoft Spent Almost Two Decades Rebranding Things as "Cloud, Then "AI", Now "XBox" and "Quantum"
"AI" bubble pops, Microsoft harping about "quantum" already
IBM Allegedly Found New Tricks for Silent Layoffs: LPI, Then MIS (Not PIP)
Remember that "Red Hat layoffs" won't be reported after the bluewashing
Links 16/10/2025: Red Lines and Feeding of Microsoft Trolls
Links for the day
MIT as a Propaganda Mill of GAFAM, Paid by GAFAM
"the news" today
Links 16/10/2025: Lies Euphemised as ‘Dueling Versions of Reality’ and Microsoft "Open" "Hey Hi" Resorts to Porn as No Business Model Was Found
Links for the day
The Local Staff Committee Munich (Representation of the EPO's Staff) Explains When Cluster of Pregnancies May Result in Reduced Pay
"...even one week of part-time working is sufficient to reduce the salary you perceive during the entirety of your maternity leave."
Another Black Eye for 'Secure Boot', Microsoft Media Tries to Blame "Linux"
It enables Microsoft to remotely control computers, even computers that don't run Windows and never had any Microsoft software installed
Slopwatch: UbuntuPIT, linuxsecurity.com, and Various Slopfarms in Google News Attacking "Linux"
A new survey of the Web said that the majority of the Web is now slop (that's being said in the news this week)
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 15, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 15, 2025
Links 16/10/2025: Increased Use of Social Control Media Surveillance in US, French Rage Over Pensions
Links for the day
Links 15/10/2025: Qantas Airways Loses Control of Sensitive Data and Software Patents Are Being Thrown Out
Links for the day
Vista 10 is 'Dead', Here's Why People Should Move to GNU/Linux (or the BSDs)
Today we try to make an outline of reasons move away from Windows to GNU/Linux
Our Sites Continue to Improve
LLM slop has had no noticeable impact on us
Gemini Links 15/10/2025: Neovim, Helix Compared and Gemlog.blue Now Closed
Links for the day
Links 15/10/2025: Mass Layoffs at Amazon, OneDrive Spyware Revved Up, More 'Gen Z Protests'
Links for the day
The EPO's Staff Engagement Survey 2025 is Already Tainted by Intimidation by EPO Management (Trying to Influence Outcomes by Scaring Genuine, Honest Critics)
"[W]e have received reports that, following the previous survey, teams with negative responses were reproached or questioned about their answers..."
The DDoS Attacks by Microsoft's Scam Altman and Other Slop Charlatans and Frauds is Hurting the FSF, Delinking It From Copyleft Projects
This impacts a lot more than access to the licences
Microsoft Scanning Faces in Photos People Upload to Microsoft (Even Unconsciously), Slashdot Turns Report About It Into "Microsoft Sez" (Says)
Or "let's repeat the lies from a PR person/Microsoft's publicist"
[Teaser] Angel Aledo Lopez the Manipulator (Nepotism, Poll Rigging, and Other EPO Corruption)
We'll discuss this later today or tomorrow, based on internal EPO material
Attacks on Techrights Are Only Making Techrights Bigger and Even More Popular
A week ago they offered to settle with us
Epic Metaphor for End of IBM: "The IBM Demolition is Down to the Last Shards!"
Nothing lasts forever
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 14, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 14, 2025
Proprietary and DRM Prisons Spiralling Down the Sinkhole? Not Just Yet.
Let's hope that more people will flee to GNU/Linux
The European Patent Office (EPO), the Second-Largest Institution in Europe, is Cracking Down on Recreational Activities
Without AMICALE activities, and as staff already says it's pressured to work more for less, how can the EPO recruit bright people?
Transparency: FSFE financial reports exclude speaker fees and expenses
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock