ComputerWorld: ActiveX in Disguise?

“Alan pointed out that Microsoft will make .Net
development tools that will produce applications that create an
unpleasant experience for users who don’t subscribe to Passport,
the same way its applications produce HTML that’s annoying to view
in Netscape. Alan also said that Microsoft has already floated a
software license that makes it illegal to mix Microsoft tools and
libraries with software licensed under the GNU General Public
License.

That means you can only combine open-source software with
Microsoft libraries if you give Microsoft the right to take what
you’ve contributed for free, make it proprietary and then sell it
back to you.

Alan nailed .Net for what it really is. You can call it .Net,
HailStorm, Passport or CLI, but all .Net amounts to is warmed-over
ActiveX. ActiveX failed to catch on and lock Internet users into
Windows, in part because someone was clever enough to demonstrate
how easy it was to create an ActiveX-enabled Web page that steals
information from your Quicken database if you visit that site.”

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