Bonum Certa Men Certa

The Cycle of (FUD) Abuse

The idea of the cycle of abuse is not new, in which denial enables the "abusee" to become the "abuser", perpetuating the abuse across generations. While most often associated with child abuse, interestingly these concepts can also be applied to Novell's behavior.

Note that I am not a Psych(olog|iatr)ist or doctor of any kind, and this should be taken as a layman's diagnosis, and not construed as medical (or legal) advice.

The following quotes are from Stafford Masie's presentation and Q&A session at the recent CITI forum in South Africa. Visit tectonic.co.za for copies of the MP3 or OGG files to listen for yourself, I just have to proofread the transcripts once or twice more before I post them, I want to be sure they are accurate.

Novell as the Abusee

First, try to get past the condescending tone of Masie's statements and trying to explain how things are in the 'real world' to us FOSS hippies, he is demostrating the negative effects of FUD, something we all abhor:

Now,let me give you a real-world scenario of what happens, now all of you are passionate FOSS members,right, you love linux, etc. but, let me tell you what happens in the real world, the real real world, not the coding aspect, when you take this thing and you sell it to a big enterprise.

This is one example of a deal where we were involved, I wont mention the customers name, and online its been said that we should mention this customers name, I'll pass that by our CEO, its a financial company in the United States. It was a four thousand eight hundred and something server deal, ok.

We were competing with Microsoft, they were going to go with SUSE linux, their minds were pretty much made up, and y'know what happened?...what we believe happened, and I need to be careful because this is recorded, what we believe happened is that the other vendor took the customer behind closed doors and said 'This is a big server deal, have you considered your liability associated with the GPL? have you considered potential patent infringements? have you considered the fact that we potentially may take action?'

Now, did they have a platform, did they have concrete evidence that they could? No. But, y'know what, the customer came back and said, the customer said 'Y'know what, we're gonna go with Microsoft, but we wanna go with you but we're gonna go with Microsoft for now, over the next two years, ok, we are going to call in an external legal entity, legal company, to review the GPL, to review Microsoft's patent stance, to review all of this in... in the context of our business, our legal framework, and we'll get back to you.

That's the problem, we lost a five thousand server deal because of FUD, Fear Uncertainty and Doubt. People don't like that.

That is the problem, absolutely. It is unacceptable for Microsoft to cast a liability cloud over GNU/Linux based upon nothing other than some intimidating statements, which may or may not be enforcable. I am glad to see Novell take a stand against this behavior and speak out, an important part of ending abuse is to admit it is happening.

For a company to imply that there is any sort of patent or other legal liability when running Linux, just to drive people to select their product offering based upon Fear, Uncertainty or Doubt of that potential legal liability is wrong, and it is good to see Novell take that stance.

In fact, we've made it pretty clear on the website that we believe competition between technologies shouldn't be based on the potential legal liabilities and FUD, it should be based on the technology merits of those solutions, and that's how we want to compete.

I applaud Novell for making that statement. Of course, Novell is in complete denial about who they have become, and that is Microsoft's Linux division. Since the deal, Novell has actively campaigned on Microsoft's behalf in the EU, amongst the 'community', and even participates in their anti-Linux FUD campaign, since now they are in the unique position to benefit from it.

Novell as the Abuser

...when the covenant was not there, there was the inherent potential liability of patent infringement when the covenant wasn't there. So, now we've created this covenant in the interest of our customers, not as a competitive advantage, the little guy, etc We've done it in the interest of big companies wanting us to explicitly state that they'll never have this liability associated with Microsoft, because Microsoft is on 100% of their desktops. [...]

Yeah... I think this does give us a competitive edge. Yeah, it does and we're gonna compete, and we want to compete, and we're gonna do what it takes to compete- not to violate the GPL, not to violate the community members, etc But, with Red Hat toe-to-toe, with Ubuntu toe-to-toe we're gonna do what's necessary for our customers, based upon their demand. Now, if we do whats right for our customers, and they(Red Hat, Ubuntu, etc) choose not to, and what we've done is not exclusive, that's their prerogative, I can't be held liable for them not doing what we believe enterprise customers are asking us to do, I can't be held liable for that, ok?

Judge for yourselves, perhaps Novell is unable, due to years of abuse at the hands of Microsoft, to see that they are committing the same abuse they have themselves suffered, and are only setting themselves up again for their own betrayal by Microsoft.


More to come from the CITI presentation and Q&A, including Stafford Masie on how to inspire confidence in your closed-source, proprietary software... ;^ )

...Y'know, we're a Linux company, we do identity management, but we're a Linux company. Identity management, there's so much happening there to open source alot of the APIs, which we've already done, the only thing we haven't open-sourced in the identity world is kinda our directory, and I can tell you what, we probably won't, because again - the same reason alot of proprietary vendors wont take their big software and unwrap it, like I've always said- if you unwrap this baby its ugly, people will run away, ok, there's certain proprietary software that you never want anyone to look at...

Recent Techrights' Posts

Many Microsoft "Assets" Are Fabricated Baloney (to Game the Numbers)
At times it seems like what we deal with are many weak patents (on algorithms), valuations or speculations based on hype ("hey hi"), and stocks held by Microsoft and its own staff
"Internal Changes at Red Hat / IBM"
It seems like quite a few people are leaving
Confirmed in French Media: Mass Layoffs (10% Culled) in Microsoft France
Now some reports in French
Microsoft in Freefall in Finland
Can Finland eradicate Windows from all its infrastructure, including core operations that are sensitive to sabotage by cracking?
Google's Chrome Passes 70% and Web Standards Are Dying
The Web is quickly becoming devoid of any standards
Slopwatch: Plagiarism and Ponzi Scheme, Bubble About to Burst Entirely, Admits Goldman Sachs
the hype that Google News and The Register MS actively participate and profit from
The Register MS Says "AI Web Crawlers Are Destroying Websites", So Why Does The Register MS Help 'AI' Companies? (Spoiler: Money)
People need to call out The Register MS on its hypocrisy
Slopfarms Already Peaked, They Will Die When Slop Companies Run Out of Money to Borrow
slopfarms will lack an actual "engine"
 
Many People Are "Leaving" Red Hat, Even High-Level Managers
Something is definitely going on at Red Hat
Techrights Has Been Subjected to Calls of Violence (and Death Threats), It Never Condoned Violence
I have no sympathy for people who call violence "free speech" and then get in trouble
Condoning Violent Behaviour and "Free Speech"
perhaps Microsoft Lunduke lost touch with what constitutes violence
Takeaway From the Google Verdict: GAFAM Has Too Much Control (Even Over the US Government and Courts With Government Appointees)
Many people feel disappointed but hardly surprised by the verdict
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Turns 40 in One Month
As noted a few days ago, several times in fact, many people now recognise the importance of the FSF's mission, even if most people don't know what the FSF is
"Voluntary" Layoffs at Microsoft (to Game the Numbers, Sugar-Coating a Crisis)
"Employees interested have until the end of October to volunteer."
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 02, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 02, 2025
Links 02/09/2025: Oligarch Tech and Text Encoding Concerns in Ada
Links for the day
"People on LinkedIn Saying That They've Left Red Hat."
We already saw signs of it a month ago and named some of the people
Gone With the BRICs (or BRICS): "Linux 8" in Cuba
GAFAM must be worried
Telecompaper Reports Microsoft to Reduce the Workforce by Another 10% (in France)
Imagine what this will do to staff's morale
India is Back to Windows 8 (Market Share Down to 8%) as Android Soars to a New Record High
For Microsoft, India is a runaway market
Links 02/09/2025: SCO Summit and Russia Suspected Of Jamming GPS
Links for the day
Gemini Links 02/09/2025: Mediterranean Marriage and Staying Connected at 35,000 Feet
Links for the day
Links 02/09/2025: Attacks on Unions, Microsoft TCO, and DDoSing a Growing Problem
Links for the day
Why We Publish Information About the SLAPPs (But Not About the Legal Process), an Abuse of Process by Americans Trying to Silence Critics of Their Employer, Microsoft
It doesn't take thousands of pages to explain something simple
Internet Relay Chat Didn't Fall Off a Cliff
IRC will turn 40 in less than 3 years from now
The UEFI 9/11 - Part V - This is Not a Drill (Disable "SecureBoot" Now)
A "9/11" Coming
There's No Obligation to Speak to Anybody
The very fact that "bkuhn" is till spending time in social control media says a lot about his poor judgment
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, September 01, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, September 01, 2025
Microsoft Trying to Force People to Resign (Amid Mass Layoffs) a Strategy That Takes Its Toll
Microsoft seems to be circling down the drain and the "final flush" will be the moment the "hey hi" (AI) bubble implodes completely
Google Simply Cannot Be Trusted
Only fools would trust GAFAM
Admission That a Third Party (or Parties) Funds the SLAPPs Against Techrights
This can end up costing them over a million dollars
Modifying and Writing One's Own Computer Programs is Not a Crime (or: Google Proves That Stallman Was Right)
We're generally gratified to see so many positive mentions of him
Why We Stopped Publishing Videos (for Now)
We'll probably get back to videos one day, but it's hard to say when or to what extent
What Animal Rights Activism Teaches Us About Sympathy and Focus
It's possible to believe that the planet is warming, that we must do something about it, and still eat eggs and butter
When You Turn Web Sites About Tech Into Political Sites
A lot of people fall into the trap of catering only for particular groups
Gemini Links 02/09/2025: ROOPHLOCH 2025 and Lagrange 1.19 Released
Links for the day
Gemini Links 01/09/2025: News Corp. WSJ and A Month With NixOS
Links for the day
“Sideloading” Never Killed Anybody
There are many online discussions this week about the misnomer "sideloading"
Slopwatch: Google News as FUD Vector Against Linux and Plagiarism Enhancer, Serial Slopper (SS) Uses LLMs to Googlebomb "Linux"
Slop destroys the Web not just by screwing with search engines and helping plagiarists. It's also responsible for de facto DDoS attacks...
Links 01/09/2025: "Attacks on Science" and China's "Soft Power" Grows
Links for the day
Links 01/09/2025: Fresh Backlash Against Slop and "Norway’s Electricity Crisis is About to Hit Britain"
Links for the day
Writing and Coding Isn't Always Enough
Last year we had to assume a role we didn't have before: litigants
Links 01/09/2025: Catching Up (Mostly via Deutsche Welle), "Windows TCO" Effect in UK
Links for the day
Gemini Links 01/09/2025: Linguistic Barriers and "Web 1.0 Hosting"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, August 31, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, August 31, 2025
Autumn Has Come
Autumn should be exciting in all sorts of ways; it'll also mark our anniversary
The UEFI 9/11 - Part IV - External Interference
They all seem to be playing a role in crushing Software Freedom and self-determination for users