If you follow the OSS news, it will be difficult not to have noticed the long list of agreements between software companies in the Open Source world, and Microsoft.

Is it a sign that Microsoft has seen the light? Is Microsoft going to change its monopolistic and anticompetitive behavior? Is the battle over, and Open Source has won?

I do not think so: Microsoft has a very precise strategy in mind, which is, on top of it, not particularly new.

Unfortunately, I still have found not a single decent analysis of their strategy on the web, or the professional press, and I have to say that in the F/OSS community some people seem too keen to congratulate themselves for passing agreements with this juggernaut, to take the time to sit down and look at what they really have agreed to.

So, I think it's time to give a different point of view. Ready? Let's go!

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