This may be a semantic point, or it may be more than that, but can you tell me if those were MS's words ("to make a version of its Common Language Runtime (CLR) available for cross platform")? I ask because this is a different thing to say than "to make its Common Language Runtime (CLR) available...". Maybe I'm reading more into this than I should, but a version of might mean a stripped down CLR so that not everything will be doable cross platform - or it might not mean anything nefarious at all.

>THIS article will be slightly be more technical than usual. One of the things that has been announced by Microsoft, especially in its Mix 07 event, was its plan to make a version of its Common Language Runtime (CLR) available for cross platform.
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>What does it mean for you and me?
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>The CLR is the heart of Microsoft’s .NET framework programming model. It is the programming and software development tool of choice for Windows, and of late, has become even more popular than Java.
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>By making this cross platform (or at least allowing other companies to connect to it), it means that millions of .NET developers can now easily write software for non-Windows environments.
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>That means that Microsoft is more open and is supporting different platforms.
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>This is significant.
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>In fact, one of the blogs that I recently came across even blatantly argues that Microsoft does not really hate open source. In fact, open source does something for Microsoft—it keeps them in the news.
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>If you look at the Internet, thousands of articles come out every month debating on open source versus Microsoft, and these are all free publicity to keep Microsoft in the minds of many people.
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>Without such fight, Microsoft may appear in the news and in the Internet much less.
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>What he argues is that all these different open source programs (many of which runs on top of Microsoft) actually contributes to Microsoft’s revenues.
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>The product that threatens Microsoft is the open source called Linux. Arguably, this is one of the few products, by virtue of it being more mature, with a larger support, better financed and with a better chance of threatening two of Microsoft’s core products (Windows Vista and Windows Server).
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>The others are, arguably, less threatening, unless they help the Linux platform.
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>One of the websites that have intrigued me is a website that is petitioning for the continuation of visual Foxpro.
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>Visual Foxpro, if you recall, was a database development platform that is a variant of the foremost development platform of choice during the 1980s—the dBAse and Clipper.
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>Foxpro was bought by Microsoft in the early 1990s. However, due to some developments, Foxpro has started to become less and less popular.
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>In March this year, Microsoft announced that it will not release a new version of the product (however, they will support the product until 2015).
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>There are still many Foxpro enthusiasts. Recently, a website was set up with a petition to convince Microsoft to release Version 10, which was already long expected by everybody.
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>The last time I checked, there were already 3,537 who signed the petition. If you go to the site, those who signed said they developed over applications that run in over 75, 000 servers and 822,000 computers.
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>The people who signed come from about 80 different countries worldwide. It is especially noticeable that the tool is really popular in developing countries.
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>If you note, there were only 341 programmers from the United States, 90 from Germany and 42 from United Kingdom who signed. In contrast, 479 developers from Russia, 280 from China, 294 from Argentina, 150 from Brazil, 156 from Peru and 109 from Ukraine signed petition.
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>There were 38 developers from the Philippines, including two from Cebu, who signed the petition.
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>If you are a Visual Foxpro enthusiast, you may want to visit the website at http://www.masfoxpro.com. This is Spanish for More Foxpro, which, incidentally, is the purpose of the site—to petition Microsoft to continue to release and support the product. (www.ngkhai.net/bizdrivenlife)
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>http://www.sunstar.com.ph/static/ceb/2007/05/03/bus/ng.a.tool.for.developing.countries.html