Is Moblin, the open source mobile operating system initially launched by Intel and now overseen by the Linux Foundation, a potential thorn in Microsoft's side?

t seems we’ve arrived upon Microsoft open source. In the last couple of years, whenever there was discussion of Microsoft’s open source projects and efforts such as CodePlex or Port25, there was typically the standard open source response: it’s not OSI-approved; it’s not real open source.

“Open Source” advocate: «...I associate much more with the "Open Source" (also as Richard defines it) camp, and am open to the existence and use of proprietary software...» --

Director of Source Program at Microsoft Corporation Jon Rosenberg submitted its Shared Source License called "Microsoft Community License" to Open Source Initiative for considering it as an OSI approved Open Source License.

There have been quite a few Moblin related announcements these last weeks: The release of the final version of Moblin 2.0, the Moblin Garage and the preview release of Moblin 2.1. More interesting is the news released by Microsoft's Silverlight team that they will develop Silverlight 3 for Moblin.

Preluded by the discomforting subject line “Microsoft infiltrating into open source world,” we have just received a headsup from an anonymous reader.

Patents are the only threat that Microsoft can brandish against free and open source software and that is exactly why people should be wary of the Mono project, free software advocate and Samba hacker Jeremy Allison told a packed auditorium at the 11th LCA today.

Novell is considering making a one-click "open-source app store" for its upcoming Moblin-based OS for netbooks. The scheme is intended as a selling point for average users largely unfamiliar with free software alternatives outside a Microsoft platform.

"Open source is a development methodology; free software is a social movement. For the free software movement, free software is an ethical imperative, because only free software respects the users' freedom. By contrast, the philosophy of open source considers issues in terms of how to make software “better”—in a practical sense only. It says that non-free software is a suboptimal solution.