Bonum Certa Men Certa

Proprietary Software on the Road to Nowhere

Golden Gate
As always, corporations and nations try to project wealth, confidence, and stability. But reality ain't quite so.



Summary: We're meant to think that some American corporations are worth trillions of dollars (even corporations that operate at losses!) and many such corporations are in fact funded by taxpayers against taxpayers' will (subsidies); we need to be patient as their business models lack long-term viability and they will eventually collapse (they try to sink freedom-respecting alternatives, but that's an impossible task, corrosive to oneself)

THESE past few years we saw Microsoft and IBM falling into the realm of financial engineering (basically faking their performance in order to reward managers) and judging by what insiders say about IBM, it might be at the point of no return after more than a century. It's unable to attract or even retain talent; Microsoft is like a "love child" of IBM and therein too there are layoffs (across many parts of the business).



A lot of technology giants are subsidised by their military/government and VCs. It is what some people deem an "open secret" or a "duh moment". They always hope to turn things around one day; in the case of AWS, after quite a few years they finally managed to become profitable and in Twitter's case it has been mostly losses. A lot of the advertising business is a bubble based on false advertising of the potential reach (Twitter, Facebook, Google etc.) and they even get caught faking "engagement" levels in order to attract advertisers, entice users, and so on.

A lot of social control media, YouTube included, is basically faking it or exaggerating numbers. In recent years and especially in recent months YouTube turned into something else -- resembling something of the "infinite scrolling" addiction model -- wherein suggestions are pushed not based on what one searches for or subscribes to. They just strive to entrap people in and decide for them what to watch next, irrespective of actual preferences. It's the "social control" in social control media and we strongly encourage people to reject (i.e. not upload to) any of that social control media.

The sorrows of those technology giants aren't visible; they're being propped up by people looking to gain some other way (like those who "support journalism" but actually look to bias the publishers). In Google's case, it's willing to lose billions of dollars on silly pipe dreams ("Stadia") and clown computing nonsense just because it helps establish/secure some geopolitical goals.

Golden Gate FogWe've often spoken about how political the EPO has become (UPC likewise), but it is the same in the private sector. Benoît Battistelli and António Campinos aren't scientists; they're political hacks. It therefore also implies that the question of software patents becomes a political question influenced by corporate lobbying, not science or scientists (practitioners who code rather than just sue).

"My personal belief is that we just need to endure the storm; all that perseverance will pay off in the long run."A lot of large companies play a game of lottery; they pretend to be all big and powerful, even when they're in fact deep in debt. We can drive them out of balance with stalling tactics; some of them already collapse. In IBM's case, the attacks on the FSF may in fact be connected to the company's imminent death (in many respects, the company is already dying).

Free software will need to endure all these destabilisation tactics, divide-and-rule strategies, and most importantly infiltration. People who haven't a penny (or "kings of overdraft" -- in their own words!) will carry on rocking the boat. They may try to sink lots of boats, but in the Free software movement we have lots of backups, including escape routes. We need to make more and more of them; decentralisation will help a lot.

My personal belief is that we just need to endure the storm; all that perseverance will pay off in the long run. For instance, Microsoft's hostile takeover on millions of Free software projects has not paid off. Money is being lost, too. It was all along more about destruction and disruption.

At the moment lots of money is being pumped from the US government (China does the same by the way, for strategic geopolitical reasons) or its military to technical projects and multinational firms. That money won't last forever; that inflow will run dry (a stimulus or bailout money to Microsoft, to the tune of $10,000,000,000, has fallen through; because there was no justification for it; nor was there any for the HoloLens grifting -- a company whose entire staff had been laid off by Microsoft).

Carry on sharing code, delete GitHub, move away from "Red Hat" (IBM), reject social control media and let's see where we get in the coming years as global power shifts (however gradually) to the east. Not because it needs to, just because it is inevitable. Attempts to ban/sanction entire companies (TikTok, Huawei etc.) -- companies that increasingly adopt Free software as means of improving self-reliance -- show that the so-called full-spectrum dominance cannot be assured by conventional means anymore.

“First they ignore [Huawei et al], then they laugh at [Huawei et al], then they fight [Huawei et al], then [Huawei et al] win.”

--Joke

Recent Techrights' Posts

More Information About Public Talks That Richard Stallman Gave This Week in Europe
Two talks in Switzerland
SoylentNews Grows Up, Registers as a Business, Site Traffic Reportedly Grows
More people realise that social control media may in fact be a passing fad
 
Links 29/03/2024: Fentanylware (TikTok) Fines and UK High Court Makes It Seem OK to Assassinate People Wrongly (Falsely) Associated With "Russia"
Links for the day
Garden Season Starts Today
Outdoor time, officially...
Engadget is Still a Spamfarm, It's Just an Amazon Catalogue (SPAM/SEO), a Sea of Junk Disguised as "Articles" With Few 'Fillers' (Real Articles) in Between
Engadget writes for bots now, not for humans
Richard Stallman's Talks in Switzerland This Week
We need to put an end to 'cancer culture'; it's trying to kill people and it is even swatting people
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, March 28, 2024
IRC logs for Thursday, March 28, 2024
[Meme] EPO's New Ways of Working (NWoW), a.k.a. You Don't Even Get a Desk at Work and Cannot be Near Known Colleagues
Seems more like union-busting (divide and rule)
Hiding Microsoft's Culpability in Security Breaches and Other Major Blunders (in the United Kingdom, This May Mean You Can't Get Food)
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is vast
Giving back to the community
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 28/03/2024: Sega, Nintendo, and Bell Layoffs
Links for the day
Open letter to the ACM regarding Codes of Conduct impersonating the Code of Ethics
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
With 9 Mentions of Azure In Its Latest Blog Post, Canonical is Again Promoting Microsoft and Intel Vendor Lock-in, Surveillance, Back Doors, Considerable Power Waste, and Defects That Cannot be Fixed
Microsoft did not even have to buy Canonical (for Canonical to act like it happened)
Links 28/03/2024: GAFAM Replacing Full-Time Workers With Interns Now
Links for the day
Consent & Debian's illegitimate constitution
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
The Time Our Server Host Died in a Car Accident
If Debian has internal problems, then they need to be illuminated and then tackled, at the very least in order to ensure we do not end up with "Deadian"
China's New 'IT' Rules Are a Massive Headache for Microsoft
On the issue of China we're neutral except when it comes to human rights issues
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, March 27, 2024
IRC logs for Wednesday, March 27, 2024
WeMakeFedora.org: harassment decision, victory for volunteers and Fedora Foundations
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 27/03/2024: Terrorism Grows in Africa, Unemployment in Finland Rose Sharply in a Year, Chinese Aggression Escalates
Links for the day
Links 27/03/2024: Ericsson and Tencent Layoffs
Links for the day
Amid Online Reports of XBox Sales Collapsing, Mass Layoffs in More Teams, and Windows Making Things Worse (Admission of Losses, Rumours About XBox Canceled as a Hardware Unit)...
Windows has loads of issues, also as a gaming platform
Links 27/03/2024: BBC Resorts to CG Cruft, Akamai Blocking Blunders in Piracy Shield
Links for the day
Android Approaches 90% of the Operating Systems Market in Chad (Windows Down From 99.5% 15 Years Ago to Just 2.5% Right Now)
Windows is down to about 2% on the Web-connected client side as measured by statCounter
Sainsbury's: Let Them Eat Yoghurts (and Microsoft Downtimes When They Need Proper Food)
a social control media 'scandal' this week
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, March 26, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, March 26, 2024
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
Windows/Client at Microsoft Falling Sharply (Well Over 10% Decline Every Quarter), So For His Next Trick the Ponzi in Chief Merges Units, Spices Everything Up With "AI"
Hiding the steep decline of Windows/Client at Microsoft?
Free technology in housing and construction
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
We Need Open Standards With Free Software Implementations, Not "Interoperability" Alone
Sadly we're confronting misguided managers and a bunch of clowns trying to herd us all - sometimes without consent - into "clown computing"
Microsoft's Collapse in the Web Server Space Continued This Month
Microsoft is the "2%", just like Windows in some countries