Bonum Certa Men Certa

GNU/Linux and the GPL in Particular Are Under Attack Because They Spread Fast (Like a 'Cancer')

Is the "cancer" Microsoft? Buying GitHub was all about control, not freedom, and curtailing the GPL by sabotaging it.

Steve Ballmer... Checking his men for cancer of the thigh... Who said sit down?



Summary: The good news is that GNU/Linux continues to expand (widespread usage); the bad news is, it has come under a sheer magnitude of attacks and the media barely bothers to mention the obvious

We've just shown that according this month's figures (so far), based on data from about 3 million sites' logs, Windows reached another all-time low, whereas GNU/Linux continues to make gains.

On desktops and laptops, GNU/Linux rose to 10% in India this month and in general Windows went down sharply to 17% in India this month (it's at 9% in Turkey, it cannot exceed single-digit territories for months already). Turns out people either cannot afford or don't want to buy some Vista 11 laptop these days. Sales measurably plunged. In Nigeria, GNU/Linux rose to 5.13% this month. It's a very large population overall. Some very large populations (the above-mentioned 3 countries are almost 2 billion people) are steering away from Microsoft, but the media just isn't reporting on it. Why? Follow the money. Instead of reporting such facts, the media attacks GNU/Linux and defames key people. There have been no "Linux" posts from ZDNet in 11 days already and ZDNet's Liam Tung persists with his -- i.e. Microsoft's -- propaganda ("Microsoft: Hackers are using open source software and fake jobs in phishing..."). Microsoft is just using its media moles to blame the competition for its own failures. It is noteworthy that ZDNet staff was reduced to very few parrots of companies like IBM and Microsoft. In the areas of interest it's just Steven Vaughan-Nichols (SJVN), Liam Tung, and Jack Wallen. SJVN is mostly being assigned puff pieces for corporations (and their front groups which attack the GPL), whereas Liam Tung is little but a Microsoft mouthpiece. As for Wallen, he was 'borrowed' from a sister site (TechRepublic, mostly a spamfarm of diplomas mills these days) to help pretend ZDNet isn't a sinking ship.

"Some very large populations (the above-mentioned 3 countries are almost 2 billion people) are steering away from Microsoft, but the media just isn’t reporting on it. Why? Follow the money."To a certain extent, GNU/Linux scares Microsoft a lot more than the BSDs because of the licence. Accordingly, Microsoft wages a war on GPL complaince and enforcement. We wrote about this last night and the topic came up in IRC, the plagiarism aspect in particular. Projects need to move away from GitHub. The sooner, the better. "I have a person working on adding more features to Gitea," our sysadmin wrote, separately noting "the reality is that an ML model is *not* code, at least not in the sense that normal software is code..."

A reader has meanwhile contacted us. He wrote to say (regarding the Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC), which seems to be doing what OSI did in 1998):

I read your latest blog about the total corporate takeover of Linux [...]

This has been going on for a decade or more by lwn.net, Linux Foundation, Microsoft, etc.

It's time to take back Linuxf rom these corporate paid idiots! lwn.net editor Corbet is #1!

I've been censored and blocked by him for years for commenting on how Firefox is spyware!

Any comments against the Google spy machine have also been censored by Corbet for years!


This reader argues that "lwn.net Corbet is "#1 enemy of FOSS!"

We mentioned some days ago how had admitted (openly) the financial relationship with the Linux Foundation, his role inside the Linux Foundation notwithstanding.

"LWN never writes about the gross media bias, the growth of GNU/Linux, or anything of that sort."Judging by the editorial policies and choices, LWN is strongly in favour of the corporate takeover. There's a "token" mention of FSF statements and resistance from community actors; but it's in the tiny minority.

Anyway, Linux 6.0 has just been released and LWN will mention this soon. LWN never writes about the gross media bias, the growth of GNU/Linux, or anything of that sort. It's focused on corporations and their kernel-level work. That's unlikely to change due to reductions in staffing, which followed many cancellations by longtime LWN subscribers. Maybe they deserved that.

Recent Techrights' Posts

What Microsoft Reputation Laundering (With a Weaponised Law Degree) Looks Like in a Foreign Continent
You would expect this in uncivilised and primitive countries
Slopwatch: LLMs 'Write' Fake or Distorted 'News' About "Linux"
LLM slop disguised as news
Weeks After Microsoft Bankruptcy in Russia the Company Shuts Down in Pakistan, Too
Last month Windows' share in Pakistan fell to an all-time low
Crime and Corruption at Microsoft GitHub Cannot be Covered Up by SLAPPs in Another Continent
We'll write about this for a long time to come
Slop Videos Are Disappointing Garbage, Nothing New, Just Brute Force up on Display or a Pedestal of Slop
Slop videos aren't a new thing
 
In 2025 Everything is "AI". Remember Blockchains?
Talk about what companies and things (services, products, software) actually do, not the labels they use
Julian Assange Has Been Free for a Year
Julian Assange and I disagreed on some things
Monopolies and Scalping
Monopolies gravitate towards price hikes
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 04, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, July 04, 2025
Microsoft's August Layoffs Wave: "August is Confirmed for Additional Performance Based Cuts"
"August is confirmed for additional performance based cuts from the recent connects along with additional organizational cuts."
Links 04/07/2025: Google Replaces the Web With Slop, "AI Might Kill Us All"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/07/2025: Mindfulness and F1
Links for the day
Rob Musial's June 2025 Additions of Malware in Proprietary Software
Via the GNU Web site this week
Links 04/07/2025: Microsoft's H-1B Visa Applications Show Another Crisis Unfolding, Many More Deep Cuts and Shutdowns Revealed, Complete Microsoft Exits
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/07/2025: A Day To Remember and "Stop Killing Games"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 03, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, July 03, 2025
The War on Local Storage (People Hosting Their Files Locally and Privately)
There's nothing wrong with controlling one's computing
What Digital Independence Means
Independence in the digital realms means abandoning platforms like GitHub, not just rejecting proprietary software
NVidia is a Bubble
they temporarily see fortunes and wrongly assume perpetuity thereof
Fedora Does Not Care About Diversity and Inclusion, It's About Optics (Corporate Image)
any notion of inclusion is superficial and misleading
Don't Buy the Excuses for Microsoft's Mass Layoffs
Back in the 90s, Microsoft bought a lot of companies to get and stay ahead
Happy Independence Day to Our American Readers
Maybe tomorrow will be a good opportunity to explain to American people - in terms of concepts, not brands - which tools respect their independence
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Linuxsecurity, and Google News Getting Even Worse (More Slopfarms Added Which Attack Linux With Bruce-Force SPAM)
Google News is part of the same problem
Links 03/07/2025: More Cuts and Cancellations at Microsoft Revealed
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/07/2025: Favourite Child and Launching WikiGem
Links for the day
GNU/Linux is Replacing Microsoft Windows. But We Need to Eradicate Microsoft, It's a Hub of Crime.
I have been writing about Microsoft since the 1990s when I was in school
Mystery Surrounding the PCLinuxOS Sites and PCLinuxOS Magazine
Let's hope this isn't something major
People and Companies Do Learn Some Lessons From Their Mistakes (Stubborn Ones Don't)
Brett Wilson LLP is an example of one that would rather drown in mistakes
Links 03/07/2025: 'Hey Hi' Slop Ridiculed Some More and Microsoft's Layoffs Tally for 2025 Reaches About 29,000 in Just 6 Months (Almost 5,000 Per Month)
Links for the day
Microsoft Staff Harassing Women, Strangling Women, Telling Women to Kill Themselves and Worse? Not a Problem!
Two women have left Brett Wilson LLP
The Slopfarms Are Losing the Plot (and Google is Propping Up Rogue Sites)
Google is part of the attack on the Web, on information, and on technology
New BetaNews Realises There's No Potential or Future in Slopfarms, Prior Editor Wayne Williams is Back
They realise that slop (so-called "AI") cannot replace humans
Claims That Microsoft Looks for Staff That Works More and Gets Paid Less (or Can Only Code by Grabbing Other People's Code, Under the Guise of "AI")
People can form their own opinion
Richard Stallman Was Right About Reasons Not to Use Microsoft
last updated 2017
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, July 02, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, July 02, 2025
Gemini Links 03/07/2025: No to Cloudflare and Small Web July
Links for the day