In responding to the devastating criticism of the Codeplex Foundation’s fundamentally flawed organization and the high skepticism of its motives, Mr. Ramji revealed a bit of the true motives behind the Codeplex Foundation:

Look at projects related to Mono, you also can look at NUnit, NHibernate, we really feel optimistic that the Foundation could help them gain a higher level of credibility in the open source community. They feel they have been lacking that strong moral support.

Break that down and chew on it a bit!

Mr. Ramji is saying you know those Microsoft-approved “Open Source” projects like Mono? And you know how the Open Source community keeps rejecting them? Well Microsoft is going to create our own playing field and support them!

In fact, Microsoft is going to provide “strong moral support”! Oh, Microsoft. Your “Open Source” people are so often good for a chuckle. Thank you for that, at least. Strong moral support. From Microsoft. In Open Source. Heh.

I like this because it is largely the pro-Novell, pro-Microsoft people who are always trying to argue that ideals and morals don’t matter. It’s all about what the user wants, and being “pragmatic”, and “Microsoft is just a business doing business like any other business”. But here we have talk about needing “credibility” and “moral support”? Knock me down with a feather! The notion that there is an underlying moral and ideologial foundation to Open Source! Why that there is zealot talk!

Microsoft is not new at leveraging its considerable resources into creating a rubber-stamp pre-approved situation, especially when the real and existing community doesn’t want anything to do with Microsoft’s offerings – <cough> OOXML</cough> – and the CodePlex Foundation is just another example of that.

The very idea that Microsoft can even set up an independent Open Source foundation is absolutely ludicrious. Pick any absurd analogy you like: Yankees fans setting up a Red Sox Appreciation Society, the Klan setting up a Civil Rights commission, Nickleback fans setting up a music appreciation group, whatever.

The big defense on Mr. Ramji’s part is that the OpenPlex Foundation is in “beta”. Software is in “beta”, organizations are not. Organizations are founded with a purpose, a mission, and an agenda. Yours is showing, Microsoft. Yours is showing.

This article was cross-posted at The-Source.com.