FreeDevelopers has released a statement of its own regarding the
FSF-endorsed DotGNU: a Free Software alternative to Microsoft's
.NET and official GNU project:
FreeDevelopers announced today the DotGNU project, a
Free Software alternative to Microsoft's .NET. DotGNU has already
been endorsed by the Free Software Foundation and accepted as a
part of the GNU project.
The DotGNU Project has been started by Free Software developers
who are very concerned about what would happen to e-commerce and
the freedom of the internet if Microsoft is successful with their
plans for a centralized authentication system. Microsoft wants
everyone's personal information and credit card numbers to be
stored in their "Passport" system, from where it can be made
available to online merchants without any inconvenience to the end
user. However, such convenience can be also achieved without a
central database that contains everyone's personal information.
David Sugar, CTO of FreeDevelopers said "the existing passport
system offers no technological advantage, and in fact, is a much
poorer technology than what can actually be offered, such as in a
distributed authentication and user data storage system." Sugar,
who is highly respected among Free Software developers as the
maintainer of Bayonne, the GNU telephony system, goes on to say
that Microsoft's passport system is "ethically and morally wrong."
With its passport system, Microsoft is effectively saying, "trust
me - I will hold your wallet and whenever you need to buy
something, I will give it back to you."
