Bonum Certa Men Certa

Why is IDG News Service Attacking the GPL?

Richard Stallman



Summary: The smears against the GPL need tracing back to their roots

FOR people's awareness, it seems important to alert that attacks on the GPL have risen in number. These are not the typical attacks and they are accompanied by personal attacks, as stated earlier.



We found out that a PR agency from the United States is sending people semi-personalised press releases about a debate which seems hostile towards the GPL, based on the participants (what's called a "stacked panel"). Somehow they ended up getting my E-mail address, scooping it from somewhere and then striving to promote this nonsense, which they did. It came from IDG (which relies on Microsoft as a large revenue source [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] and also employs Microsoft/Apple investors as writers). IDG is being mentioned in the form of InfoWorld, which also fed this to the news feeds. It was IDG that published and spread an article which was moronic, boldly stating in the headline, "is the GPL irrelevant?"

“It was IDG that published and spread an article which was moronic, boldly stating in the headline, "is the GPL irrelevant?"”That was of course a nonsensical contention to start an article with. The GPL is used by most Free/open source software projects and it is by far the most ubiquitous software licence in the world. How does irrelevance come into it?

Attacks on the GPL and anything and anyone associated with it are not news.

Black Duck -- with some roots in Microsoft -- was funneling in Microsoft-centered code automatically (no filtering) to saturate its pool and then claim a dip in GPL. This deceptive claim is still being parroted today and also today we've heard of private stories where similar anti-GPL actions were taken in Europe. Programmers are being pressured by bosses (maybe Microsoft-guided) to abandon the licence, maybe because of all the FUD, some of which comes from Microsoft lawyers [1, 2]. Such dissemination of lies (or myths) about the GPL leads to further misuse and misappropriation, as expressed in the following new story:

A report published Sunday in The New York Times says Aleynikov told FBI investigators that he had inadvertently taken about 32MB of proprietary Goldman Sachs software while taking open-source code that he said can be used freely by anyone.

Aleynikov, a high-level developer for Goldman Sachs, was arrested by the FBI on July 3 on charges of stealing computer code that automates the firm's high-volume trading on stock and commodities markets.


As Sam Dean puts it:

The case discussed in the post concerns a Goldman Sachs Group programmer, Sergey Aleynikov, who was arrested--by the FBI, no less--and charged with stealing computer code designed to automate Goldman Sachs' massive trading business. Aleynikov's defense was that he was only trying to download open source software governed by the GPL.


The truth -- or at least the verdict -- remains to be seen, but why is it that the perception of free as "illegal" lives on?

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

The Mainstream Media Took 4 Days to Realise Microsoft Shut Down Its Operations in Pakistan and Fired Everybody
We estimate that Microsoft has had about 29,000 layoffs since January
“Twibel” Actions Against Comedians (and Why It's a Truly Low Blow)
they try to make up in quantities for a lack of merit or quality
Rewriting Things in Rust
How far would you go?
 
IBM is Not Your Master
IBM makes friends with people who exclude the majority of the population: women
Help Fund the Free Software Foundation (FSF)
If you have some dollars to spare, go support the FSF
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 05, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, July 05, 2025
A Short History of Attacks on Techrights (and Boycott Novell Before That)
good opportunity to tell again the story of several (not all) attempts to silence us
Leadership in Free Software
Don't let IBM lead. It's a terrible flag bearer.
Linux Foundation Apparently Flirting With Slop (Marketing by LLM-Generated SPAM)
The Web is in a really bad state!
COVID-19 Sped Up Site Improvements in Techrights
A few months later we created our very own IRC network
Gemini Links 05/07/2025: Negative Questions and 'Touching Grass' (Going Outside)
Links for the day
Links 05/07/2025: Dalai Lama Succession as 90th Birthday Approaches, 40 deg C in China
Links for the day
Links 05/07/2025: Hungary and US Defecting to Russia, "Google's Hotseat Hypocrisy"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/07/2025: 4th of July 2025 and "Zig Roadmap 2026"
Links for the day
How to Combat the Exploitation and Abuse by Microsoft GitHub
Not to mention corruption and crimes against women
Bryan Lunduke is Actually Sending His Audience to Attack People
"[Lunduke] is actually sending his audience to attack people."
Even The Right Wing is Rejecting Bryan Lunduke
no wonder he became so irrelevant and marginal
Microsoft's MSN Helps Microsoft Spread Lies About the Layoffs' Scale (Well Over 25,000 People Laid Off This Year)
There seem to be monopolies on lies and on truth
The Death of X Has Been Greatly Exaggerated (by Compromised Media)
X.Org Server is alive and well
In 2025 Everything is "AI". Remember Blockchains?
Talk about what companies and things (services, products, software) actually do, not the labels they use
Julian Assange Has Been Free for a Year
Julian Assange and I disagreed on some things
Monopolies and Scalping
Monopolies gravitate towards price hikes
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 04, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, July 04, 2025
Microsoft's August Layoffs Wave: "August is Confirmed for Additional Performance Based Cuts"
"August is confirmed for additional performance based cuts from the recent connects along with additional organizational cuts."
What Microsoft Reputation Laundering (With a Weaponised Law Degree) Looks Like in a Foreign Continent
You would expect this in uncivilised and primitive countries
Slopwatch: LLMs 'Write' Fake or Distorted 'News' About "Linux"
LLM slop disguised as news
Links 04/07/2025: Google Replaces the Web With Slop, "AI Might Kill Us All"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/07/2025: Mindfulness and F1
Links for the day
Weeks After Microsoft Bankruptcy in Russia the Company Shuts Down in Pakistan, Too
Last month Windows' share in Pakistan fell to an all-time low
Rob Musial's June 2025 Additions of Malware in Proprietary Software
Via the GNU Web site this week
Links 04/07/2025: Microsoft's H-1B Visa Applications Show Another Crisis Unfolding, Many More Deep Cuts and Shutdowns Revealed, Complete Microsoft Exits
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/07/2025: A Day To Remember and "Stop Killing Games"
Links for the day
Crime and Corruption at Microsoft GitHub Cannot be Covered Up by SLAPPs in Another Continent
We'll write about this for a long time to come
Slop Videos Are Disappointing Garbage, Nothing New, Just Brute Force up on Display or a Pedestal of Slop
Slop videos aren't a new thing
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 03, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, July 03, 2025
The War on Local Storage (People Hosting Their Files Locally and Privately)
There's nothing wrong with controlling one's computing
What Digital Independence Means
Independence in the digital realms means abandoning platforms like GitHub, not just rejecting proprietary software
NVidia is a Bubble
they temporarily see fortunes and wrongly assume perpetuity thereof
Fedora Does Not Care About Diversity and Inclusion, It's About Optics (Corporate Image)
any notion of inclusion is superficial and misleading
Don't Buy the Excuses for Microsoft's Mass Layoffs
Back in the 90s, Microsoft bought a lot of companies to get and stay ahead