05.03.10
Giving Legitimacy to Microsoft at the Expense of “Open Source”
Summary: Gartner, Black Duck, SAP and other friends of Microsoft encircle Free/open source software for interjection and distortion of the basic terms
ENOUGH has been written here about the corrupt Gartner Group and how it operates. Bill Gates is among its big investors and Microsoft a major client. Another company which was actually created by a Microsoft employee to later masquerade as a Free/open source authority (while only developing proprietary software and software patents) is Black Duck.
One reader showed us that this new webinar requires annotation because it is hosted by Free software foe SAP along with Black Duck.
“[N]ow they’re calling they have always been doing as Open Source.”
–Anonymous readerOur reader writes to explain the issue: “Five will get you ten that it’s more of the same anti-FOSS talking points and usual Party Line drivel from Microsoft Partners except now they’re calling they have always been doing as Open Source. [...] It seems that the methods and message from Microsoft are the same. It talks through its partners. What has changed is that the title of their usual monkey business is changed and one or two celebrities from FOSS are brought in as keynote speakers to try to lend an appearance of legitimacy.”
In addition to this, some days ago in the press archive (largely or entirely ignored by all the news sites) we found Black Duck receiving more of that legitimacy it requires from Gartner [1, 2, 3]. Historically, for obvious reasons, Gartner has been hostile towards Free software (it doesn’t pay Gartner’s bills) and favourable towards patenting of software. It’s all just a gentlemen’s club where one does a favour to a fellow member who defends the club’s interests.
Speaking of which, the same reader tells us: “President Obama was in Estonia recently to speak in Tallin. You study the Microsoft attacks against the US, well it was interesting to notice that Microsoft evangelist and its chief lobbyist, Warren Buffett, was mentioned by name by the President.
“Buffett as you might remember is one of the primary financiers of Bill Gates’ political action committee and lobbying organ, The Gates Foundation.”
The Free software world probably knows Estonia because of the Windows botnets [1, 2] that attacked it and because it has a prominent Microsoft crony/booster inside the Commission (Siim Kallas [1, 2, 3]). █
