Consider the millions of developers building commercial or in-house applications on top of .NET - being able to debug into the .NET implementation will be invaluable, and (IANAL) it looks like the license grants me the copyright and patent rights to use the source code in just this way. Nice.

For the open source guys who feel that despite the laws on the books, they have some deity-given right to steal the copyrighted or patented intellectual property of others, stay away or enjoy your time in court.

I'm glad MS decided to help the law-abiding people who've built businesses on top of MS technology, rather than hold back because of the lunatic open sourcers.

You neglect the fact that Microsoft has previously released Rotor. That any one could use ILDASM or Reflector to look at the .Net internal classes. And that MFC has shipped with source for years. I think in reality there is little to worry about.

Joe
Your collegue Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols is as biased as they come against microsoft (Pro Linux ...of course) you only have to look at his latest article "Vista is a Zombie".
I dare you to read it and then tell me that he isn't biased or just plain stupid !!
So please do not ask him to quote anything to do with Windows as he is "PRO" linux and against microsoft.
At least get someone who at least seems that he is not biased !!

"stay away or enjoy your time in court".
A excellent advice of somebody that know it.We could remember all the MS's dirty tricks, all the
sentences, all extrajudicial adjustments,etc...yes, MS know about.
---------
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2191754,00.asp
Quote:"Let's say a year from now, Microsoft does a SCO. They claim that Mono contains code that was stolen from the .NET Framework reference source code. They point at their code, they point at the license, and sure enough, there's similar code. After all, both projects are implementing .NET; there will almost certainly be lines of code that looks alike."

"Better still, from Microsoft's point of view, all they need to do is find one Mono programmer who has signed the license to look at the .NET Framework reference source code. With that "proof," they'll claim they've found their smoking gun. SCO failed in its attempts because it never did have any evidence that there was Unix code in Linux.

Microsoft, however, is baiting its trap for Mono programmers with .NET cheese. They'll claim, come that day, about how open it was in letting people look, but not touch, their code. With the combination of "proof" that some Mono code has been stolen from Microsoft and its attempt to muddy the waters about what open source really means, it can look forward to having a much better chance of killing off an open-source project than SCO ever had with Linux"

"If you ever, and I mean ever, want to write open-source code, I recommend you not come within a mile of Microsoft's .NET Framework code or any other similar projects that the boys from Redmond "open" up."

"If you do, you're nibbling on the cheese of a trap that will eventually snap shut on you and kill up your program and quite possibly your job and finances."

Joe
For anyone that doubts that Steven J. Vaughab-Nichols is biased or just plain stupid read this link (objectively please)
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2190228,00.asp

Makes lots of sense to me. Microsoft can put this out and then not have to support Novell, those working on the Mono project and Moonlight. They can tell Novell to use clean room techniques to resolve any problems they have.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=780

Microsoft to release .Net as Shared Source
Posted by Mary Jo Foley
Quote: "While Microsoft isn’t requiring developers to sign any non-disclosure agreements to view the .Net source code, I’m sure anyone working on an open-source project would need to think twice about looking at Microsoft’s code in order to avoid potential IP conflicts."

Neil:

This link really has nothing to do with the topic! So what if SJVN is biased? You are biased, I am biased, everyone is biased. At least SJVN is very self-aware his biases, does not pretend to be unbiased, and, as a result of his particular biases, has some very interesting things to say from his (unabashedly biased) perspective. Don't take everything about MicroSoft so personally.

A Windows ISV:

There may be some mutually beneficial reasons for Microsoft to make its code available, but maybe, just maybe, Microsoft does plan some traps for the unwary. As far as stealing code, so far, Microsoft's list of 235 patent violations has been as ephemeral as Sen. Joseph McCarthy's ("I have here in my hand a list of 205--a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department.") On the other hand, the number of NON-OpenSource illicit users of Microsoft code is staggering. Furthermore, there are many who believe that Microsoft has been systematically violating the patents of the OpenSource community. Love them or hate them, the members of the OpenSource community have a very different agenda than Microsoft or other proprietary software firms.

sug
Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols is the editor of eweek "Linux Watch" ....now do think he is biased !!! I do and so do a lot of other people !

http://www.betanews.com/article/Microsoft_Makes_NET_Framework_Source_Code_Visible_Under_License/1191442454
Quote:"Of course, there's an alternate theory being floated which deals less with practicality and more with conspiracy. By making source code open for "examination" but not "use," this theory goes, Microsoft is attempting to befuddle the issue of what "open source" should rightly mean."

"As eWeek's Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols suggests, with knowledge of .NET's intricacies out in the open, Microsoft could eventually claim that programmers of Mono - a .NET work-alike project for multiple platforms - stole ideas from .NET directly instead of innovating on their own, for what he calls "doing an SCO."

Marco,

Just more reason not to touch Silverlight/Mono with a ten foot pole. Flash is king, and will continue to be, unless MS can provide the lock-in (the fix) in Windows Seven, or whatever the next OS will be called.

Hi Chips:About MS's goodness,there are not something like that.

I would think the license would be great for debugging .NET applications.

Joe , once you start to refer to Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols , you are taking the extreme end as Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols is a die-heart Linux fanboy.

If we claim some country harbor extremists and terrorist, then this is equivalent to Weeek which harbor IT extremist like Mr Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols and you

I can't possibly imagine a benefit of stepping through the .NET source code. To understand what is going under the hood they say. Well isn't that what the documentation is for? "Returns the value of such and such", "Creates this or does that" should be enough.

Opening up the source code of .NET so people can "understand" what is going on just says "our documentation stinks". What happens when you step through System.IO or System.Collections.something and find something isn't working? Huh? I clearly states that you can't modify it! So knowing why it doesn't work as advertised helps you not a bit. You will still have to implement a work around in YOUR code not theirs.

So you're not better off at all. You just happen to KNOW first hand why YOUR code has to be hacked with a work around. Of course you have the added liability of having seen their source code which could happen to be other's source code or ideas (MS gets sued all the time for IP infringement).

I think I'm not alone when I say I've worked a great deal in software development and never had a great need to step through other's libraries. Because a great deal of them come compiled and are close source. This open "placebo" Microsoft offers is functionally the same. You know why the bug happens to be, but you can't fix it. Of course it could not be technically a bug. Just sloppy documentation. Wouldn't it be better if MS just got that right instead of having you read through their code to figure it out?

Joe,Chip,Neil+ All
Do you know that this all has to do with ALL my posts here? It's all about VCSY!!
----------------------------------------------
Microsoft hit with patent suit from Vertical Computer

By John Letzing

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) Vertical Computer Systems Inc. said late Friday it has sued Microsoft Corp. for allegedly infringing a patent related to computer application generation. Vertical Computer said in a prepared release that the suit was filed April 18 in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. Vertical Computer said in the release that Microsoft's .NET system violates a patent Vertical Systems filed in 1999, and awarded in 2004, covering "a system and method for generating computer applications in an arbitrary object framework."
----------------------------------------------

VCSY has been fighting to survive being run out of business by Microsoft for 8 years.

Do you know why VCSY's shareprice is under 2 cents? It's because VCSY has been heavily shorted over the years in an attempt to put them out of business, just look at the trading activity today-1.5 Million shares, almost all buys at the ask at .019 -.023 but the Shorters(Microsoft?) walked the price back down when the volume slowed up, so now all of those new shareholders are holding at a loss(for "obvious" reasons). This manipulation has been going on for years. VCSY shareholders as myself have been getting abused and that's why I brought my posts here. If I was spamming, I think Joe would have blocked my posts long ago.

You can learn alot from yo-elevens posts
http://ragingbull.quote.com/mboard/memalias.cgi?member=yo-eleven

Is VCSY only worth 2 cents a share? There are many that want you to think so! This is your typical David vs. Goliath, and this is where many of Microsoft's problems(Delays) have stemmed from!

How will Microsoft put out Viridian or Silerlight 1.1 without licensing VCSY's other patent(521)?

I do agreed with Gerardo, who is really going to read all the .NET source code ?

To me , Net framework is much more superior then the rest. The codeing become more readable and we can experiment a lot of new CLR-based new language

But the Linux fanboy , Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols said "Open-source developers should avoid this code at all costs" . I don't really understand his extremed statement and being not from programming background , he should refrain himself for such statement. Further , Mr Joe Wilcox should not quote the statement as well. To me , both are at fault of supporting each other

Linux Watch + Microsoft Watch = Nothing to Watch

Joe Wilcox described NET 's license as a poison pill, it sounds silly , inmature ....

As a programmer , we don't really need to get down to source code of it. I am a happy Dot NET progammer .

If NET is a poison and indeed I have been swallowing this poison pil for long time and I am still kicking alive .

I am still make a living as a programmer with vast NET experience

Mr Joe Wilocx and Steven fall into the "false -expert" syndrome where they think they understand the subject matter and start to bull shit

Dear I-Man , we recommed you to go for sychiatric evaluation on your current mental state .

In case you missed the irony of the VCSY/Microsoft lawsuit surroundings

Some simple facts.

November 18, 2004 Ballmer accuses Linux of violating >258 patents

November 30, 2004 VCSY Patent 6,826,744 granted

February 7, 2007 Microsoft receives cease and desist on VCSY patent 6,826,744

February 20, 2007 Ballmer repeats threats against Linux on patents

April 18, 2007 Microsoft sued for infringing VCSY patent 6,826,744

May 13, 2007 Ballmer accuses Linux of violating 258 patents

October 3, 2007 Microsoft makes .Net code available to read

October 1x, 2007 "Meet and Confer" sessions begin for 6,826,744 infringement case

By: baveman(repost)
04 Sep 2007, 08:10 AM EDT
Msg. 158466 of 158466
(This msg. is a reply to 158464 by waitin-on-news.)

Hey Softies..This IBM patent references VCSY Siteflash(744) patent:

http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT7...

Dear I-Man , you haven't confirmed the appointment on the psychiatric evaluation and you still throwing rubbish around the internet

Your mind is seriously attacked by unknown virus called VCSY

Joe Wilcox
In all the time that I have placed comments here I have never been censored ....until today !!!
I have tried to put some extra info on regarding Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols and each time it says "Thank you for commenting.
Your comment has been received and held for approval by the blog owner"
And each time it never showed up !

Is Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols biased because he writes everthing good for Linux and absolutely bags the hell out of microsoft (something like Chips would do if he had half the chance) or anything to do with Microsoft on Linux watch ?
I think so !

Here are just a few examples of how biased he is.

Here is his home at Desktop-Linux:
http://www.linux-watch.com/articles/AT6147270486.html

Additional columns:
http://www.linux.org/news/reporter/00070.html

Here is one example of how biased he is.

http://www.linux.org/news/reporter/00070.html

Wow you really have not done any research here have you? Could you at least, as a professional journalist, talk to some MS developers to ask them what something means before you write this kind of fear, uncertainty and doubt.

The .NET framework assemblies have never been obfusticated. That means that it has been easy to use MS supplied tools like IDASM or independent tools like Reflector to review the source code (just not in as user-friendly a form) and you will find many MS articles referring to the use of Reflector as a tool for spelunking the framework to diagnose hard to solve problems.

Developers, especially MVPS, used to the shipment of framework source for MSs previous framework libraries have been campaigning for years to have similar access to the .NET framework source, to ease their debugging burden. MS has met those requests from its customers and this release will support debugging into the framework code. That's its purpose.

There is nothing new here apart from a convenience to developers.

The level of ignorance in your post as to what is happening here is woeful.

Oh no, we're doomed!

Microsoft has previously tried to characterize open-source licensing as "viral" and even a "cancer". So to have its own not-quite-open-source licensing described as a "poison pill" seems eminently fair, doesn't it?
And so what if SJVN is biased? How does that automatically make what he's saying wrong? Who's to say Microsoft won't sue? It would be a more effective strategy than the one SCO tried to use, at any rate.

Lawrence
"And so what if SJVN is biased?" It shows that he is biased and that what he is saying cannot be completely trusted !!
If he were not biased then I and countless other would have to agree, but we don't have to because he quite clearly is totally biased against microsoft, or didn't you the "reporter" link and read WHO the author was ???
So you see YOU haven't got a leg to stand on and that he is wrong, as "SJVN" has shown quite clearly that either doesn't really know about the makeup of Vista or if he does he thinks we are idiots to believe him !

Their code is already available using a .NET decompiler like Reflector. Who cares about their not so open-source license.

Dear god your an idiot :o

This will help massivly when it comes to debugging problems that are in the BCL rather than in your own code.

If your an opensource developer working on mono then guess what ... don't look you idiot! It's quite simple.

We had this ability before with Reflector but now this will allow us to step through the code *inside* Visual Studio and as professional .Net developer I'm very pleased this has happened.

Oh did I mention your an idiot?

eder,(you know it's TRUE!)
I strongly believe someone long ago tried to short VCSY into oblivion. I also believe it was done in conjunction with an effort to drive the company into the ground via Ross/Arglen's deceptive business dealings with VCSY/NOW Solutions.

I believe someone was told the industry could be convinced VCSY concepts were old and obsolete and VCSY itself would be dispensed with, allowing the technology to be taken and used to extend the ideas nearly every two-bit software hobbyist was convinced could be done with XML if somebody could just figure out how to actually do it.

I do believe the ferocity of the effort to drag VCSY down indicates somebody somewhere has a whole lot to lose by VCSY surviving and from VCSY technology being in VCSY control.

And the easiest way for a company to be driven into the ground is by shorting their stock in a massive way.

Who would have benefited most quickly and thoroughly? Microsoft. The historic evidence in XML demonstrates that quite easily. MSFT had an excellent and plausible web strategy with their XML efforts, however, SOAP from the beginning was an outmoded methodology akin to SCADA RTU (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition Remote Terminal Unit) than distributed computing and parallelism.

SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) was a first clue Microsoft was not going down the right road. Subsequent system failures and developmental dead ends proved those inadequacies out through time leading to Sun splitting with MSFT's efforts at SOA in 2006 and taking up IBM's methods which depended more on a form of distributed middleware.

MSFT's additional efforts at "Smart Clients" demonstrated they realized the need for client side processing, but, their efforts were hindered because of the brittle nature of their architecture and the non-extensible nature of their programming methods for their Smart Clients. That development ran aground in late 2006 with a number of failures and inadequate performances.

Much has been said on other boards about VCSY going bankrupt, but, VCSY has not gone bankrupt and those who refuse to comment on the technical merits of 744/521 are in a battle against the clock now.

Microsoft STILL has the most to gain by using 744/521, but, the fact they have yet to allow daylight to see any of their XML development from the days prior to the granting of 744 in November 2004, and now continuous delays in product capabilities ranging from Vista to Longhorn to WinFS and Viridian demonstrate MSFT is incapable of handling XML in an effective way.

That tells the industry they have a technology deficit that prevents them from productizing web platform efforts that match 744/521, forcing them to take RPC (remote procedure call) methods that are typical of the SCADA RTU methods I wrote about above.

Folks can twist and turn all they like but, should MSFT be foolish enough to allow this to go to court, the world will find shortly just how impotent MSFT has been all this time and how much time and treasure they wasted hunting in futility for a work around or solution that would perform as elegantly as the 744/521 methods. They did all that only to fall into "licensing" problems that prevent them from shipping what should have been shipped four years ago.

So, I do believe somebody engaged in a massive shorting campaign against VCSY. The vociferous ridicule from various posters demonstrates there is some truth to that concept. If that is true, there really is only one software entity short of a national government that could have done such a campaign undetected and one would assume that entity would be the one most likely to benefit from a VCSY demise.

Time will tell. It always does.

Neil writes: Your collegue Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols is as biased as they come against microsoft (Pro Linux ...of course)

And anyone who is pro-Micro$oft isn't biased? Only in your prejudiced world.

Ad hominem attacks only reveal that ther attacker doesn't have any substance to contribute. Why not try evaluating the content of the article intead of the person who wrote it?

AndyJ, then what? Say you do find a bug in the BCL? What can you do about it other than hack your code to work around it? What benefit does it give you besides the reassurance that the error is in the BCL? Which you already knew before you found it because that is why you went searching in it.

IMHO you get too little for agreeing on terms which can back fire. To quote the C# Shared Source License "9. Microsoft reserves all rights not expressly granted to you in this license."

I wouldn't go all the way to say it is Poison, but no doubt there can be complications on agreeing with a contract. Whatever that contract may be. Just as there can be complications on agreeing with a GPL contract. Bill Gates go it right when he termed GPL as virulent. Which it is from his perspective. We must then realize that from the perspective of open source so is MS' Shared Source. It all boils down to what came first the chicken or the egg. Did the MS code exist first or was it taken from a GPL product? Did the GPL code exist first or was it taken from an MS product?

Who knows and finding out can lead to some serious legal headaches. My position is if I don't need it then I will not look at it. Pretty much like a developer at SAP, Oracle, Microsoft etc is at risk by looking into open source code of competing products so is the open source developer. If you can't fix the bug in the Microsoft code or improve it in any way to better my solutions, I'd stay away from it all together.

Joe, isn't it funny how VCSY is sueing Microsoft for the use of VCSY's SiteFlash(744) patent, which is in all of Microsoft's .Net Framework but yet all these highly edumacted individuals seem to not want to comment, except to say that i'm nuts. Why no debate?
-------------------------------------------
Microsoft hit with patent suit from Vertical Computer

By John Letzing
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) Vertical Computer Systems Inc. said late Friday it has sued Microsoft Corp. for allegedly infringing a patent related to computer application generation. Vertical Computer said in a prepared release that the suit was filed April 18 in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. Vertical Computer said in the release that Microsoft's .NET system violates a patent Vertical Systems filed in 1999, and awarded in 2004, covering "a system and method for generating computer applications in an arbitrary object framework."

Joe, isn't it funny how VCSY is sueing Microsoft for the use of VCSY's SiteFlash(744) patent, which is in all of Microsoft's .Net Framework but yet all these highly edumacted individuals seem to not want to comment, except to say that i'm nuts. Why no debate?
-------------------------------------------
Microsoft hit with patent suit from Vertical Computer

By John Letzing
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) Vertical Computer Systems Inc. said late Friday it has sued Microsoft Corp. for allegedly infringing a patent related to computer application generation. Vertical Computer said in a prepared release that the suit was filed April 18 in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. Vertical Computer said in the release that Microsoft's .NET system violates a patent Vertical Systems filed in 1999, and awarded in 2004, covering "a system and method for generating computer applications in an arbitrary object framework."

Joe, isn't it funny how VCSY is sueing Microsoft for the use of VCSY's SiteFlash(744) patent, which is in all of Microsoft's .Net Framework but yet all these highly edumacted individuals seem to not want to comment, except to say that i'm nuts. Why no debate?
-------------------------------------------
Microsoft hit with patent suit from Vertical Computer

By John Letzing
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) Vertical Computer Systems Inc. said late Friday it has sued Microsoft Corp. for allegedly infringing a patent related to computer application generation. Vertical Computer said in a prepared release that the suit was filed April 18 in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. Vertical Computer said in the release that Microsoft's .NET system violates a patent Vertical Systems filed in 1999, and awarded in 2004, covering "a system and method for generating computer applications in an arbitrary object framework."

You cannot take Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols seriously because he is so biased. Everything he says is going to be anti-Microsoft no matter how good (or bad) it may be. You cannot trust what he writes because of this.

I think there are two entirely separate things being confused here: Copyright and patent.

With patents, it doesn't matter whether you see the source code, and it doesn't matter whether your code is different -- if your code solves the problem in a way covered by the patent you are infringing (there is no "but I didn't know about it" excuse with patents).

Copyrights, on the other hand, are different -- you have to copy the code substantially (e.g. cut and paste, retype the same code or portions thereof, etc.). Just getting ideas from copyrighted code is fine -- copyright covers the syntax not the concept (the exact opposite of patents).

This means that open source developers that use this code are only infringing if the copy it -- getting ideas from the code for doing something similar is perfectly legal.

Neil, why do you persist in derailing topics with your personal vendettas. Do you honestly, hand on heart, not realise how damn annoying it is. Other people do not care. No wonder you were banned. I don't know how or why Joe puts up with you.

I-Man, give it a rest, please. You look more foolish with every post.

Dan and others confuse legal theory with the real world. Patent infringement lawsuits are a convenient way for large corporations to intimidate smaller competitors. Even if a lawsuit is ultimately dismissed, the process inflicts tremendous damage on the defendant in terms of legal costs, lost time & energy, and forced disclosure of trade secrets and other proprietary information. It usually boils down to a simple reality: MSFT has tens of billions of dollars, what's in your wallet?

Companies like IBM, Intel, TI, and MSFT have built patent portfolios large enough to snare almost any intended target. And when the elephants start dancing, it's usually time for the mice to leave the room.

What is .NET? It is a virtual machine (VM). Now, why does Microsoft need a VM when they own the OS itself? Why another layer of complexity when Microsoft owns the Operating System? Is it a matter of "me too" with Java which has its JVM? I am totally puzzled and it makes no sense to me. I have been involved in large projects that moved from VC++ to C#, and I have seen very sluggish response by this monster called .NET. C# may be easier to code in but it has neither the speed nor the performance of VC++ or Delphi. I still do not understand the need for a VM on top of the OS when you own the OS itself.

.NET is not a virtual machine (VM). The code is compiled from a specific language (C# for example) into MSIL code (Microsoft Intermediate Markup Langauge). At runtime (or before if you wish) it is then compiled into native code for the machine it is running on. This causes a short delay at the first time the application launches on the machine. But after that, the code is running natively on the machine.

It is not like Java. It doesn't run on a VM. That is why Java can be so slow. If you're having problems with performance, it is your code that is the problem.

Bungie Jumping?

I'm not impressed if XBox has VCSY technology onboard. Do you wonder why Bungie is splitting from Microsoft (which bought them in 2000)? One of the best places you can put pilfered patent claims is in a proprietary box and games.

I find the "rumored" break of Bungie from Microsoft is comign at a very interesting and coincidental time.

It's been a pretty easy task for several years to look at the .net library source code. This ability is nothing new, the only change here is you can now do it from within Visual Studio 2008 automatically.

If you want to do it today, just download Reflector, a free utility.

Neil wrote: "Joe Wilcox, In all the time that I have placed comments here I have never been censored ....until today !!!"

I would never censor you, Neil. The comment had two links, which kicked it into the pending queue. I just found it, 13 hours later, and released it. My apologies. I usually check more frequently than that.

The mechanism is designed to filter spam, not you, Neil. My apologies that your comment got delayed. But it's live now.

Appreciated,

Joe

Joe
I remember that now ...thank you, I look forward to seeing the comment here.
Thanks again ! By the way ...what do YOU think of what of what I have stated in the delayed comment? Do you think that it was a fair cop ??

The article by Steven J. Vaughab-Nichols is one of the most biased article i have ever read .. How stupid can any one get ... This is too sad to see people with no real knowledge trying to tell people what is right and what is wrong .. its funny n stupid article... i didnt not even read the full article since i knew it wanna gonna get worst as i go on.....

"My question then for Microsoft is: Why not instead publish less information, such as APIs, that would be more useful to developers?"

Yeah, because the .NET apis aren't public, already, is that what you're saying? You can't be that stupid.

Microsoft has released code to ease development of software that runs on their platforms for years (MFC, ATL, CRT, Rotor .NET CLI) and nobody has been sued. I'm getting sick of this bull. If Microsoft keeps everything closed, they get bashed. If they release code, they get bashed. You'll only be satisfied if the GPL everything.

BTW, your collegue "Steven J. blah blah" is a well-known Microsoft hater and buffoon. You're a buffoon as well, but not as bad as your collegue.

Neil,
just make them none linkable. no http://

spam.com/spam.html

To get around the high tech spam filter.

If I ever had any doubt that MS' making available .NET Framework was a trap, I no longer do. You could ask yourself "Why are MS and so many MS "defenders" interested in that .NET Framework is used?" (Why those who defended the intangibility and sacredness of Ms are now promoting the opposite?) The simple answer: Ms is trying to take the market away from others like Java, it is only about eliminating the competition (“embrace, extend, extinguish”) including the new threats explained already by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols.
Of course this is not all; they are using a similar strategy to that tried with the OOXML format.
The idea is hook us into using only Ms’ codes or formats.
But MS has a point; if Ms does not make it available, and/or people don't use it, Ms will simply fall into obsoletism. But always remember, MS NEVER does something out of sheer goodwill although they might want us to think thus (there always being a hidden hook.)

-----------
Embrace, extend, extinguish: If it wasn’t so, how could Ms stay as a Monopoly?

Ya marco could you explain then the hidden agenda behind this
www.gatesfoundation.com/default.htm
if they don't do goodwill gestures and if there is a hook behind everything. Where is it with the foundtaion.

I could answer to your attempted "straw man" (distortion of argument) in a simplistic manner: the Gates are not Ms. (even though Bill has got most shares.)

However, I won't.

We are all allowed to become rich, but not of the way Bill Gates has done: by creating a monopoly and destroying the competition using illicit manoeuvres. Taking advantage that informatics were a new field, and thus laws had not been adapted yet. Hence, allowed by a monopolistic structure Ms can charge overprice for its products (due to the lack of competition) This allows Ms to become grotesquely and absurdly wealthy.

An unhealthy parallel is then created: Instead of acting similarly to Robin Hood, a reverse situation is created: the common public is robed of money which then goes to overflow from Ms' already full coffers.

Now, we have two possible figures: In one of them, a man who acquired his wealth in an corrupt manner feels a certain emotional guilt, and by distributing a minimal part of his money tries to clean his soul. The other figure is creating a foundation as a stunt, to avoid taxes (inheritance and such), look "nice" and get the social status that charity gives (Mind you, with OUR money- which he got from over-valued products) also, to get for all his family's future generations well paid jobs and a social advantage.

Pick whichever one you like, or take both. Neither one is especially flattering.

Look at Google (example) it gets riches and it does try to benefit us all with free software, or Linux, in which many, many people work for free for the common welfare. Because in the end, if you have no access to certain software, your education will be poor, putting you at disadvantage to those who had better opportunities.

Everything is fair in Love and War suits the strategy used by the Bug guns like MS.You never know what they may come up with.One should always be careful, this is the message getting clear from this article.