Not only that, but de Icaza could go work for Microsoft, his lifelong dream.

For me, three things have to happen before I buy Microsoft's pro-FOSS bullshit:

1. They gotta open something substantial (Windows? Officer? Internet Explorer?) under a license NOT of their making and NOT because they got busted violating said license (The GPL virtualization drivers they recently opened are an example of "getting busted," not that they were substantial in the first place).

2. They have to genuinely help an open source project directly without conditions such as having to use .NET or the like.

3. They have to MAINTAIN this course for at least five years, a decade being preferable.

Technically they did "open" .NET by making it an ECMA standard, however since the OOXML fasco showed ECMA to be in their pocket, and the fact that standardization does not magically indemnify everyone, AND the fact that legally Mono is only allowable under Novell FOSS projects I wouldn't really treat .NET as an open standard.

As for SQL Server, there's already a superior open source SQL implementation out there.

I'm not surprised. Every so-called "pro-open source" move in Microsoft can too easily be seen as a way to lull gullible fools into a false sense of security.

No, I just direct all of Microsofts "warm fuzzy" PR directed at the FOSS community with a sizable boulder of salt. I saw no sign that Ramji was anything but a pretender int he first place. If Microsoft were truly pro open source, they wouldn't FUD it so much.

Look, another Micropologist buying the "we like open source" bullshit used as a cover for Microsoft's EEE approach to FOSS!

Have you even READ the shared source licenses?

No kidding. To be rid of the two biggest proponents of the two worst extremes of software philosophy.

Paranoia? Sure. However, your implication that its uncalled for is off the mark. Microsoft's history is way too littered with bad acts for me to trust them now just because they make warm fuzzy PR stunts. Perhaps you're just being a troll, but I'll bite

I'm not anarcho-communist. And I am *not* an FSF supporter. And I'm far from being a Stallmanist, too. In fact, I really despise the man. I use Linux because it is superior, not purely because it is FOSS. I support FOSS because my experience thus far is a higher quality, if at the sacrifice for quality.

I'm Linux camp, not GNU camp. It's "Linux" and not "GNU/Linux." Are you done trolling?

Why are we even surprised Microsoft is only half-assing their GPL'd virtualization drivers for Linux?

After all, the ONLY reason we got them opened in the first place was someone busted them for violating the GPL in the first place, and they were never interested in releasing real FOSS anything in the first place. How they got the OSI approval for one of their licenses is a mystery to me. I would have rejected it outright simply on grounds of principle. Here we have a company that has internally and publicly declared FOSS its enemy, after all.

Thus, I don't feel warm fuzzies when Microsoft does stuff like release GPL drivers, establish an "open" source license, supports projects like Mono or Moonlight, or opens sites like CodePlex. Their history is enough, in fact, for me to stand back and look for the ulterior motive and wonder when Microsoft is going to pull the rug out from under and screw those gullible folks who actually think Microsoft turned over a new leaf purely for the reasons stated above. I'm too familiar with their history for me to think they've actually changed, especially when their faux-friendly behavior towards FOSS doesn't look like a change from any other case of EEE or "partner and screw," two of Microsoft's favorite tactics.

Ha ha! If I hadn't replied to this article and I had mod points, you'd get modded up by me.

Indeed, it is hard to find alternatives to Exhanche/AD, and even harder to convince PHBs to use them.

It's likely why we're infected by Mono. Get everyone onto .NET, then shut the door on them.

Don't act so dense. Their intention was never to sue. If they did, Red Hat would have ended up in the soup years ago when Microsoft trolled this out the first time.

No, what Microsoft wanted was for a few distributors to blink. They got that. Novell, Linspire, and Xandros blinked, though questionably their motivation for blinking seems suspect anyway. Novell has de Icaza, so is it really a mystery they jumped at the chance to sign this deal when the biggest public Micropologist (Who called OOXML "superb" and embraced .NET as the "next great thing from Microsoft?") works for them? Linspire, from its beginning, has always wanted to be like Microsoft. Xandros is the only one I don't understand. They probably just fell for it.

Microsoft wants distributors under their thumb to inject poison into Linux and FOSS. That's what Mono and Moonlight are, in my opinion. And the only guy who actually wanted to develop a .NET/Silverlight implementation for Linux was non other than everyone's favorite Micropologist, yes, AGAIN, de Icaza.

This is just one example of Microsoft attacking Linux. TomTom is not a reliable enough example. First off, I don't think it had anything to do with the fact that TomTom uses Linux but that TomTom didn't licence vfat. They've done this to non-Linux distributing companies that violated the exact same patent.

Maybe spreading FUD campaigns against Linux like Get The Facts or this Best Buy thing in much more recent history.

Don't worry. It's just Microsoft giving more fodder to the gullible Micropologists to futily argue to those who are rightly suspicious or even hostile to Microsoft's actions (I STILL don't trust Mono, for example.). I remember having an argument with one where he insisted that Microsoft not only stopped its "war" on Linux, but was now helping Linux.

Now, very recently I am sure you are aware Microsoft launched yet another "Get The Facts" style FUD campaign against Linux, this time aimed at Best Buy employees! It's filled with the same inane dishonest bullshit you'd expect from a Microsoft-created FUD campaign.

Microsoft isn't trying to bury Linux? Bullshit. Microsoft wants to help open source? Jury is still out on that one, but I still think in the end Microsoft has no long-term FOSS interests and just wants to find a good way to mutilate as many FOSS projects as possible.

Many think I'm blindly hating on Microsoft here. No. Blindly hating on Microsoft usually involves simply hating Microsoft simply because its "trendy" without actually understanding WHY I'm hating Microsoft. I *know* why I hate Microsoft, and in my opinion, it's a damn fine reason (Or reasons.). I don't trust Microsoft because I am all-too-familiar with their past behavior. And this looks like just another case of Microsoft starting the "embrace" in "embrace, extend, extinguish." They did in with so many other things in the same way it looks like they're doing it with FOSS. And I'm expected to NOT be suspicious of Microsoft when they do this? Their history has taught me one big thing: Microsoft "helps" until they get what they want, then they get backstabbing.

Thus, it takes more than a Micropologist saying Microsoft no longer wants to harm FOSS and a little inane Microsoft PR (Like their "community promise.") to convince me Microsoft is anything BUT harmful.

Laughably was probably a poor word choice on my part, sorry. Impractical is a little better.

I find most SSDs price-to-space ratio to need a little improving. Speed is nice but I much prefer space, and from what I've seen with SSD, it's way too much to get an SSD of equivalent size to, say, a 500 GiB hard disk and not break the bank. I might be wrong, but I'm sure I could buy another 500 GiB HDD for only around $90... whereas I'd be hard put to find an SSD of equal size for less than a whopping $600, which is way more than I even payed for my computer.

I wouldn't. I seem to recall an old maintainer of glibc who got peeved that Richard Stallman started acting like he wasn't in charge of glibc jut because he made the mistake of putting it under the GNU umbrella. I'd say the EFF would be a better option.