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> This article veers into conspiracist territory as it goes on, with the idea that Microsoft is engaged in some grand, secret scheme to infiltrate open source and destroy it from the inside.

I don't think that's an unfounded fear, given their history:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...

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Reminder that - as the wiki mentions - the extinguish part is not a direct action from Microsoft, but the outcome of the "extend" part with Microsoft's competitors being unable to keep up. For this to work you need an environment where "something" can be embraced and extended, having competitors that implement that "something" independently and finally them being able to keep up - thus making Microsoft the defacto owner of that "something", which also gives them control over continuing it or stopping it.

If Microsoft is not able to exclusively control something, they cannot extinguish it, even if they embrace and extend it.

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