NewsForge: Commentary: Beware When Microsoft Reaches Out

“eWeek.com this week ran a story entitled ‘Can Windows and Open
Source Learn to Play Nice?’ The opening paragraph of that story,
written by Peter Galli, reads ‘Microsoft has been reaching out to
the open-source community to try to find ways to overcome the
incompatibilities between software distributed under the GNU
General Public License and its own commercial software.’ Anytime I
read of Microsoft ‘reaching out’ to someone, the hackles on the
back of my neck appear and I hunker down into a defensive
position.

“I’ve been watching Microsoft’s Machiavellian machinations since
IBM gave the company the corner on the PC operating system business
in the early ’80s, and when they ‘reach out,’ it’s either to steal
something or to hurt someone…”

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