Bonum Certa Men Certa

Raspberry Pied in the Face -- Part II: Raspberry Pi Foundation in Violation of GNU/Linux Rules (Because of Microsoft)

Video download link



Summary: The blunder that harms the reputation of the Raspberry Pi (to appease or to serve Microsoft objectives like the ones we saw at Intel) is far from over; some have only just found out about it and they're as mad as hell

AS WE noted in Part I, which was mostly introductory, we had spent the past week (almost a whole week!) researching verifiable facts rather than hearsay about our findings regarding the relationship between Microsoft and the Raspberry Pi Foundation. We actually broke the story, but almost nobody in the media gives us credit/attribution. Some unknown incognitos even removed links to Techrights (in Wikipedia articles about this very serious scandal), so maybe there's some large-scale face-saving PR campaign.



"Many of us have Raspberry Pi devices and we can no longer trust system updates."This morning someone sent us this new Lunduke video (also here) and latest among several stories about it in SoylentNews (a site which, to its credit, respects Techrights and habitually links to Techrights). We reposted (embedded) the Lunduke video because unlike some shallow puff pieces and self-serving Canonical spin it does not seek to underplay the severity of this cautionary tale. It cautions us about trust. Many of us have Raspberry Pi devices and we can no longer trust system updates. The Microsoft "implant" was nefariously packaged as if the clear goal was to hide it, to basically conceal what they had done. We'll explain the technical details later in this series.

"By not including any source for their packaged attack," one associate told us, "RPF seems it might have moved in violation of the guidelines / rules for 'main'..."

"Lunduke and I share the view that the Raspberry Pi Foundation needs to issue a massive apology."Some Debian developers, we are being told, are already angered by this. There is still no official word (statement or announcement) from the Raspberry Pi Foundation. Nothing. To make matters worse, there were efforts to gag their very own customers. Not cool...

Lunduke and I share the view that the Raspberry Pi Foundation needs to issue a massive apology. Even that alone would be insufficient. In Part III we'll look at some of the technical aspects and the contractual obligations we suspect to have led to this blunder. This isn't just some 'accident'; there's more to this story than the Raspberry Pi Foundation wants us to believe. They gaslight us. Who are the customers? Us or Microsoft?

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