Bonum Certa Men Certa

The Public Relations 'Industry' Has Co-opted the Media to Attack Software Freedom

Video download link



Summary: Free/libre software is under attack, but those who attack it hide behind proxies and PR firms (sometimes they even send an expedition of employees to bury/censor links to Techrights); we need to talk about IBM, which has begun doing that along with more familiar villains such as Microsoft

THIS morning we (re)published a good article from Alex Oliva, the person who left IBM as soon as Red Hat was taken over by IBM. We commend and applaud him for that. He also had some stories to tell after he had left. IBM doesn't care about freedom and sometimes IBM actively fights against it, just like Microsoft did for its entire existence, unlike Red Hat.



Red Hat at this moment of time is just a name or a brand; the same is true for Fedora, which is "its master's voice" (IBM being the master -- a term that was hardly deemed problematic before IBM arrived at the scene).

"IBM doesn't care about freedom and sometimes IBM actively fights against it, just like Microsoft did for its entire existence, unlike Red Hat."It has meanwhile occurred to me that while recording this video I said that Linux-Libre 5.12 hadn't been released by Alex just yet. As of the time of writing the text (about the video above), it's officially out! Maybe it was even announced while I was recording the video.

In any event, the video shows the sort of biased media we're dealing with and who really owns it, who pays it, and why it defames people whom the sponsors (IBM in this case) are desperate to "cancel" (banish or ostracise from society for no crime at all, unlike IBM's crimes!) and while this video focuses on ZDNet we could just as well mention other publishers, including those deemed responsible for 'ousting' (temporarily) Linus Torvalds at the end of 2018 (there are IBM connections there as well).

Of course I've become a lot more cynical about the media, seeing how Benoît Battistelli and António Campinos were bullying and bribing publishers so as to not report crimes. They also block sites that expose those crimes. Ever wondered why the media never mentions IBM's still-disturbing role in Nazi Germany (anymore)? Follow the money...

Freedom is always under attack. There's "no money" in freedom and there's a lot of money to be made by taking away freedom, replacing it with control.

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