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Simon Phipps comments on Microsoft's latest antics in regards to open source. Specifically, while the public is distracted by show, Microsoft is shaking down the Android/Linux and GNU/Linux communities for patent licenses.
Phipps asserts that it's time for them to put up or shut up by either joining the OIN or admitting that they can't be trusted in the open source community they now claim to love.
Roy Schestowitz has some harsher words on the same topic, noting that the media is ignoring malicious actions in favor of paying attention to the public relations campaign.
While the OIN cannot protect against NPE's aka patent trolls, it is created for just this kind of situation and choosing to join -- or not -- sends a very clear message about their intentions towards the community.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 12 2016, @06:12AM
Simon has written more over at his personal blog. He asks people to join him in answering every M$ announcement related to open source with “But have they joined OIN yet? [webmink.com]” until they actually do. M$ can’t expect to carry on patent shakedowns and also be respected as an open source peer.
Maybe joining OIN would work, but I'd rather seen M$ fold financially and their remaining assets seized. Nothing they have is needed or even advantageous to open source or free software. The world is better off without them. Certainly technology would be much further advanced. The decades of damage they have done to the software industry in general cannot be undone quickly or easily, even if they were to start in earnest, which they haven't. But that complaint aside, I agree with Simon. The only way they can show that they are there to work with open source rather than against it would be to join the OIN.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bitstream on Saturday March 12 2016, @09:14AM
They can't be trusted, period. One should make everything hard for Microsoft. Like when people discovered they could crash the MS-Windows reader by adding "begin 644" at the end of their messages.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 12 2016, @02:04PM
So, you're saying it's OK to deploy malware, so long as it's on MS Windows?
MS has been evil and incompetent at creating OSs since before it rebranded a DOS it purchased and screwed the DEVELOPER, DEVELOPER, DEVELOPER out of his fair share in their deal with IBM.
When people ask why I don't help them fix their "windows computers", even though I have the know-how, I always respond: Friends don't let Friends run Microsoft.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 12 2016, @10:10PM
So, you're saying it's OK to deploy malware, so long as it's MS Windows?
FTFY! Especially Windows 10! But if everyone were jumping off a bridge, that still, um, does not make it right, or even a smart thing to do.