Miguel snuggles closer to Microsoft

Sam Varghese
Wednesday, 16 September 2009 10:20

Opinion and Analysis

De Icaza himself has no qualms about pointing out that he was kicked off the board of the FSF for "refusing to be an active part" in what he says was a campaign to rename Linux as GNU/Linux. This sits somewhat at variance with the glowing descrption of him as an open source advocate but never mind.

My respect for the FSF has gone up a thousand-fold after hearing of this.

What I do find strange is that few people have heard of this campaign that De Icaza mentions. All I have seen is polite requests by FSF founder Richard Stallman to acknowledge the contribution the GNU Foundation has made to all distributions, by using the name GNU/Linux instead of Linux; in truth, the latter only refers to the kernel and Stallman has never sought to rename the kernel.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting one's contribution to be recognised. Even Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, who built the Apple I and II in their entirety and without whom there would have been no company, felt the need to remind the world at large about his contribution a few years back through a co-authored book called iWoz. It was published at a time when Apple was becoming synonymous with Steve Jobs.

The CodePlex Foundation is a commercial entity. The board, set up under the non-profit rules of Washington State, has complete control over the foundation and is also self-perpetuating, according to a detailed analysis by Andy Updegrove.

The motives of the foundation are pretty clear: to enable "the exchange of code and understanding among software companies and open source communities."

What this translates to is fairly simple too: there are just so many developers of free and open source software. If these folk are busy developing applications for Windows, then who will have the time to develop for Linux? Remember, it is only killer applications that make an operating system grow in the desktop space; VisiCalc did it for the early Mac.

No doubt, there will be commercial incentives on offer for the developers who go the Windows route. Not direct incentives but indirect ones - hosting facilities, development assistance and, for those who suck up the most, the occasional trip to Redmond.

As I've pointed out more times than I care to remember, there are two cash cows for Microsoft - Windows and Office. Microsoft is very happy to have open source applications around - as long as they do not compete with these two.

Incompatible document formats are the method it uses to fight the spread of OpenOffice.org. And if other open source applications run on Windows, why would people bother about GNU/Linux at all?

To return to De Icaza, if he is making a contribution to the CodePlex Foundation, then by extension he is also contributing to extending  the dominance of Windows on the desktop.

By pushing out SDKs like MonoTouch he is also helping Microsoft fight its rivals.

In a press release accompanying the announcement, De Icaza is quoted as saying: "The vast majority of Windows-centric developers, ISVs and IT organizations (sic) have chosen the C# language and .NET for development."

He's pretty good at spin of this nature, just pulling things out of the air much in the manner that a village magician pulls a pigeon out of his coat sleeve. We mustn't be surprised at these flights of fancy - remember how his company Ximian used KDE keywords to promote GNOME?

And this man is still called an open source advocate? Heaven help us.