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06.02.19

A Handbook for Destroying the Free Software Movement

Posted in Free/Libre Software, Microsoft at 11:41 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Oradour sur Glane site

Summary: Introduction of a new satirical ‘handbook’ published exclusively here (by a pseudonymous reader)

Developers are the source and the lifeblood of any software project. But today, when more computers are in use than ever, developers have less control and less reward for their invaluable contributions than any other point in software history. Competition is great–it’s the thing that puts your company on top! But free software has turned competition into something anybody can win– and that’s not good for business or your bottom line.

To put computing and profits back into their rightful hands, this handbook will assist developers and employers alike in taking back computing from the so-called “Free Software” movement–because as we all know, the best software is NEVER free!

Don’t be worried about Microsoft or their new Open Source initiatives–this book will tell you how to make the most of these forays into enemy territory and even use their own politics to bring users and platforms back under your influence. Instead of mourning these losses, you can turn them into real gains for you and your company.

You may have heard of the Halloween documents–a series of leaked internal memos from Microsoft on how to deal with problems just like these. This book will outline some of those ideas for you, and even show you how to take these solutions to the next step and infiltrate both the communities and their projects, to the point where their development is stalled for months or even years at a time.

Above all, the key strategy is not to destroy free software completely, but to break it in enough important places so that it poses less and less of a threat to your near-monopoly.

Too many people are discovering free software as a way to avoid doing business with your company. Your mission, if you choose to accept it: is to show the world that free software isn’t worth the trouble nor does it live up to the hype–so they can give up and go back to using YOUR software (maybe you can even poach a few of their developers for your own company.)

Because profit is nothing without the control of your customers! █

Copyright (c) 2019 Ted MacReilly

All rights reserved. Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this work for any purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies.

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