Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft is Not an Open Source Company But Microsoft Bribed and Took Over Many Open Source Authorities (Rivals' Voice Hijacked)

Hostile takeovers, scuttling the opposition from within

Promoting Microsoft and/or taking over GNU/Linux. Mission accomplished.



Summary: Free/Open Source software (FOSS) and GNU/Linux are being taken over by Microsoft moles, bought by Microsoft Corporation, and the collective voice of the alternative to Microsoft and Windows is being muzzled (they tell us they "love" us while they're attacking us and sometimes suing us)

TECHRIGHTS has spent this horrible year (for FOSS) refocusing on Microsoft's attacks. Readers tell us that 2019 was a terrible year for FOSS for a number of reasons and we agree. This is why we're revisiting many of these issues, notably the infiltrations facilitated by the likes of Jim Zemlin, who turned Linux.com into a Microsoft propaganda site. A site called Linux.com nowadays helps the corporate media spread Microsoft's lies. It's really that bad.



David told us (in IRC), "here is one of those stories that maybe needs a little more attention..."

"Basically," he summarised, it explains "that Microsoft is developing AI for Chinese government use for facial recognition etc. and openwashing it through OpenAI...

"A site called Linux.com nowadays helps the corporate media spread Microsoft's lies.""We all know what media would have said had Google done this in China," I responded, "but much less has been said about what Microsoft is doing there," he added, pretty much finishing my thought. "So I thought it was an interesting article about the "new" Microsoft..."

There's another disturbing new piece; dated yesterday, some readers sent it to us and mentioned it in IRC. It's written by former The Register staff, Ashlee Vance, who left a long time ago to work for more mainstream media; it certainly seems like he has become a Microsoft propagandist for the same publisher as that of Dina Bass (doing Microsoft puff pieces for well over decade). Benjamin Henrion joked, "Github is now ICE resistant!"

So some piece of proprietary software from Microsoft now paints itself as champion and guardian of FOSS?

THIS. IS. INSANE!

"So some piece of proprietary software from Microsoft now paints itself as champion and guardian of FOSS?"The piece is classic Microsoft propaganda ("GitHub is preparing for a different kind of the end of the world.") which glorifies GitHub. Nat Friedman is pronounced "NOT a friend, MAN!" He has long been a turncoat, a mole, a proprietary software infiltrator. These people are no FOSS allies. He had come from Microsoft, came to FOSS, did a lot of damage, and then came back to Microsoft.

Now they talk about safety vaults? After attacking FOSS?

Remember that Microsoft is working for the Pentagon and ICE.

Another reader has noticed and alerted us about this new article in which Mac Asay is citing Microsoft as a source... regarding security of its very opposition!!

Who does Microsoft think it is? So now it's lecturing us on security of FOSS? The company that puts back doors in everything?

"It's like Microsoft controls every meaningful group that's associated with FOSS now. Mission accomplished?"Where are defenders against this malicious entryism? Have they all been bribed and co-opted? It certainly seems so sometimes.

When Sonatype doesn't badmouth FOSS it works for Microsoft more directly to then (yesterday) find itself boosted by the Linux Foundation. So yet more GitHub/Microsoft propaganda from the Linux Foundation. It's like Microsoft controls every meaningful group that's associated with FOSS now. Mission accomplished?

Microsoft has not changed; the PR strategy has.

“This is WAR, and in that regard, I believe we should design Janus such that if this multiboot partition (has a unique partition number (11)) is found, we should warn the user a foreign OS has been detected, give them a chance to exit and read the docs and possibly make a backup, and then repartition the disk, removing the multiboot partition. This way, we disable OS/2 2.0 in *all* cases.”

--Microsoft [PDF]

Recent Techrights' Posts

SLAPP Censorship - Part 26 Out of 200: Asking for Documents and Information You Already Have, Even Letters and E-mails That You Yourself Sent!
barristers are expensive
Links 27/03/2026: Studying Whale Births, Apple is Cancelling Products, Cambodia Arrests Journalists Over Photographs
Links for the day
 
Links 28/03/2026: More Worldwide Bans on Social Control Media (Harms to Adolescents), Protests in US Against Dictatorship
Links for the day
Gemini Links 28/03/2026: Echo Delay and 0x0.st
Links for the day
Rumours of More IBM Mass Layoffs at Beginning of April
IBM is not doing well
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, March 27, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, March 27, 2026
"Headcount" as Distraction From Mass Layoffs and Salary Reductions
Things aren't looking well when one considers revenue is acquired, not earned
"Linux" Slop Turning Rarer, New York Times Nowadays Contaminated With LLM Slop
Another day has passed without much slop about "linux"
Gemini Links 27/03/2026: GTD, Gopher Catchup, Gemini Crawlers, and "Slop Everywhere"
Links for the day
Mozilla Was Ruined Like Sirius Open Source Was Ruined - From the Top Down
Mozilla will never return to its Free software roots
Nokia Could Never Recover From Microsoft
It's very important to remember what really happened
Why Techrights and Many Other Sites Stopped Doing April Fools’ Day Articles
Well before slop (made by LLMs) it was "bad optics" to have satire or humour in a site, irrespective of the day of the year
President Not-Cocaine Campinos Notified of Historic EPO Strikes (Thousands of Workers Not Coming Back to the Office)
Please do pay attention to how the media treats these strikes in Europe's second-largest institution
Slides From the Presentation Discussing EPO Strikes Until End of June or Until End of 2026 (Maybe Next Year Too)
More to come soon (later today)
IBM Cuts Are Everywhere (Global), the Aim is to Lower the Pay
Because the revenues keep falling (IBM buys other companies' revenues using borrowed money)
Perpetual Strikes to Begin at European Patent Office (EPO), Large Majority Votes for Strikes Any Day of the Week
Approved industrial actions [...] Notice how none of the media or even so-called 'IP' blogs write about it
Mozilla is Not a Privacy Company, Mozilla is Run by GAFAM Executives and Managers Who Came From American Surveillance Companies
Would you trust a VPN they claim to be "free"?
SLAPP Censorship - Part 25 Out of 200: That Time Matthew J. Garrett Got Temporarily Banned/Suspended From Twitter
That he gets banned from large social control media platform is hardly surprising given his combative communications
Ubuntu Started as Free With ShipIt, Now It Becomes Payware That Exploits Debian Volunteers (Slaves)
"Ubuntu" the distro now replaces the GNU components inherited from Debian with a bunch of Microsoft GitHub (proprietary) things that reject reciprocal licences
Last Night The Register MS Published a Fake Article. It Mentioned "AI" 27 Times.
Paid-for nonsense! [...] What's left of once-respectable news sites actively harms society
Links 27/03/2026: Google Executive (GAFAM, US, Surveillance) "Named the New BBC Head", Prominent Climate Scientist Resigns From NASA
Links for the day
Gemini Links 27/03/2026: "Being Busy" and "Posting Again"
Links for the day
GNOME Has No "Real" Executive Director, Only an IBM (Perma)'Interim' One With No Openings in Sight
GNOME is having financial problems
Microsoft Experiencing "Leadership Exodus"
Microsoft's current position is no better than Meta's (Facebook)
GNU/Linux Distros Should Reject "Age Verification" and Uphold Software Freedom for Users
It's not about protecting children
Slop Plunge
we can already "smell the blood" of the so-called 'AI industry'
IBM Media Puff Pieces While Layoffs Go On and On
Has the PR industry absorbed the press?
Media Says Microsoft Hiring Freezes, But There Are Already Microsoft Layoffs
They want the public to talk about Microsoft as if it's just not hiring when it is actually firing
Richard Stallman lynchings: Sruthi Chandran splitting Debian
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, March 26, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, March 26, 2026
Links 26/03/2026: Tor Relay at National Taiwan Normal University, Copyright Hammers Fall
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/03/2026: "The War of the Worlds" and "sometimes science is just the dumbest thing"
Links for the day
The World Wide Bots
The shape of the Web is so bad that bots exceed humans in some places
Links 26/03/2026: Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Closes 101 Law Firms in 2 Years, "Please Compensate the Work You Appreciate"
Links for the day
Regaining Software Freedom Means Regaining Control Over Programs That Run on Our Devices
Richard Stallman will speak in Italy
Microsoft Secure Boot Removes Users' Choice
Has Greenland banned Microsoft and 'secure' boot yet?
IBM Pushes Workers Out, It Does Not Count Them as "Layoffs"
The number of IBM layoffs can be as large as tens of thousands per year
Hard to Find a Job After Working for Microsoft (Back Doors Giant, Bribery Hub)
It generally looks like people who chose to serve Microsoft's agenda don't end up too well
Microsoft Lost 31% Of Its Alleged "Value" in Five Months, Then It Got Downgraded
In 2026 Microsoft focuses on keeping the layoffs silent
Altering Perceived Reality to Make It Seem Like Microsoft is Thriving, Not Failing
pretend XBox did not die
SLAPP Censorship - Part 24 Out of 200: The Failed Effort by Brett Wilson LLP to Strike Out My Lawsuit and My Wife's Lawsuit Against Garrett (the Master Allowed Our Lawsuits to Proceed)
This is lawfare
Official New Figures Show That Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Sees Rise in Dishonesty Among Law Firms Forcibly Shut Down ('Euthanised' Due to Misconduct)
It's rather if in our little country as many as 16 law firms were found to be so dishonest that they needed to be shut down
Back to Normalcy
In our datacentre at least
IBM is "Increasing Its Temporary and Part-time Headcount" While Net Headcount Falls (Despite Buying Many Companies and Their Workforce)
Headcount is a rather superficial yardstick.
Confluent Insiders: IBM Laid Off Over 800 at Confluent, Not Just 800
For the record, the layoffs at Confluent won't be over. After the bluewashing there will be "IBM RAs" impacting Confluent folks, aside from PIPs
EPO Union Decides to Continue Industrial Actions, Next Strike in Four Days
The latest strike had the highest participation rate
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, March 25, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, March 25, 2026
Microsoft's "Silent Layoffs" in Slop Clothing
"AI-powered transformation" is just a euphemism for mass layoffs
Where and How to Spot LLM Slop
Many people correctly perceive LLMs as a site's downfall, a step towards the abyss
Public Talk by Richard Stallman in Half a Day "at the Engineering and Architecture Campus of Cesena of the University of Bologna"
He'll probably attract a fairly large crowd
Gemini Links 26/03/2026: Buying a House, Stargazing, OFFLFIRSOCH 2026
Links for the day