Bonum Certa Men Certa

Canonical and IBM Are Turning Ubuntu and Fedora Into Microsoft Windows, Time to Adopt Real Community Distros

Increasingly more about social engineering and legal 'engineering', not technical engineering

Rocky marathon: they keep moving the goalposts, this is OK
Just because you're still on the ropes doesn't mean you're OK, Rocky



Summary: IBM, with its notorious army of aggressive lawyers and mountains of software patents, is trying to make RHEL proprietary and render Fedora 'spyware' (they know it'll put off existing and potential users; later they can claim "reduced demand" for it and mothball the whole thing, rebranding it as "CentOS" after they had already fired Fedora management and then abandoned OpenSource.com and OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice); Canonical keeps up with evil by doing some of its own and they don't compete with Microsoft, so we can trust neither of them

FOR those who do not follow our Daily Links or don't keep up/watch closely enough, here's a quick recap. Less than a fortnight after IBM's "Red Bait" move (we're tempted to say "dick move", but that's not polite or even "professional" enough) we saw Canonical keeping up by taking control of LXD (monopoly!) and pushing Snaps at DEBs' expense (not unlike Red Bait with Flatpak). Snaps are a monopoly at the back end and Flatpak facilitates centralisation -- including censorship -- via Flathub (there are both technical and legal issues). It's promotion of proprietary and monopoly. This can hurt forks and derivatives (Linux Mint blocked Snaps and created LMDE for good reasons). Maybe that's the intention and the plan. Then, days ago, IBM found another way to upset the community and piss off slaves (volunteers). It promoted "telemetry" in Fedora [1, 2]. As for SUSE, it only issued some self-promotional words, but don't trust SUSE. It's the biggest pusher of proprietary software of them all, especially for SAP and Microsoft.



"Free software always adapted; now too it must adapt to survive and we need to reject "corporate" distros because they don't have our (the community's) interest at heart."As we put it in Daily Links some days ago: "Telemetry" = we give you some software but still control it remotely, will pull data out of it (by default, as many people do not change these defaults). It's not truly yours, we remotely observe its usage. What next? Remote activation? CSAM detection? Paywalls?

We also said: Snap's back end is proprietary, so Canonical is trying to build a monopoly with non-Free software. Canonical promotes proprietary Microsoft spyware in the installer, casually promotes Windows (after Microsoft 'incentivised' Canonical to do this), and this trend goes years back. It is not a fluke and it won't stop. There are back room deals.

IBM is not BLMFree software always adapted; now too it must adapt to survive and we need to reject "corporate" distros because they don't have our (the community's) interest at heart. Rocky Linux says it found a workaround, but IBM keeps pulling a fast one and escalating matters every few months (while the Free Software Foundation -- the FSF -- stays idle and silent, probably afraid or shy to criticise sponsors with many employees inside GNU projects).

"It's certainly a lot more likely that Microsoft violates patents than Linux does [...] Basic operating system theory was pretty much done by the end of the 1960s. IBM probably owned thousands of really 'fundamental' patents [...] The fundamental stuff was done about half a century ago and has long, long since lost any patent protection."

--Linus Torvalds, 2007

Recent Techrights' Posts

Taiwan's Media Covers Closure of Microsoft's "AI" Lab, It's Time to Talk About the Gradual Death of Windows and Implosion of the "AI" Bubble
Earlier this week we showed that mostly Asian media had the 'nerve' to mention Microsoft silently shutting down its 'AI' lab
More Gains for GNU/Linux, Based on Web Surveys
the Steam site shows rapid growth for "Linux" this month
 
Confirmed in the Mainstream Media: A Lot of Microsoft "Workloads" Were Just LLM Slop (Helping to Fake Growth for Years, as Microsoft Had Paid "Open" "AI" to Become a "Client") and Demand is Rapidly Waning, Datacentres Canceled and/or Shut Down
Anything to facilitate further accounting fraud
IBM Gets Rid of Kelly Chambliss as Mass Layoffs Reported in IBM Consulting, IBM Loses Key Contracts/Graft
IBM Consulting has been in disarray lately
Slopwatch: Anti-Linux Articles, Not Even Written by Humans
Why aren't Web sites more vocal about this problem?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, April 02, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, April 02, 2025
Links 03/04/2025: Apple Fined Over Secret Surveillance, "Elegant Writer For A More Civilized Age"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 02/04/2025: Books and Cold Tea
Links for the day
Links 02/04/2025: More Layoffs, Nokia Again Takes Advantage of Illegal and Unconstitutional Patent Court With Nokia Staff as 'Judges'
Links for the day
Links 02/04/2025: Seizures and Returns to Windows of 24 Years Ago
Links for the day
LLM Slop Helps Obscure and Distort News About Layoffs (IBM, GAFAM)
It's hard to find accurate information
Links 02/04/2025: Microsoft Developers Are Threatening to Go on Strike, World Backup Day Noted
Links for the day
Gemini Protocol Has Growing Appeal (the Web Got Too Bloated and Full of LLM Slop)
For any "data plan" with bandwidth limits or "tiers" it would be cheaper to use/browse Geminispace
The Web Can Survive LLM Slop, But Only If We Collectively Shun and Discourage Serial Sloppers
Doing nothing ought not be a possibility
Amid Secret Shut-downs and Mass Layoffs at Microsoft (4 Waves of Layoffs in 3 Months of 2025) Some Microsoft Staff Expected to Go On Strike
workers going on strike
Gemini Links 02/04/2025: No more on Mastodon and Gemini Mention Script in Go
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, April 01, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, April 01, 2025
My Motion Disbarring or “Striking Off” Brett Wilson LLP for Enabling Violent Americans Who Try to Crush Microsoft Critics in the United Kingdom by Multiple SLAPPs
"Guns for hire" (for Microsoft people who received Microsoft salaries)
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Hijacked Again by Patent Litigation Industry, as President Cheeto Prioritises Aggressors
The "mafia" has taken over the "industry" and the Federal system (justice and constitutions trampled upon)
Ubuntu Slop and FUD Manufactured With LLMs and Funded (by Oneself) 'Studies'
Slop and FUD are ruining the Web
Gemini Links 01/04/2025: Games and More
Links for the day
Links 01/04/2025: Apple Fined $162M for Privacy Abuses, Disinformation Online a Growing Concern
Links for the day
Why We're Reporting Brett Wilson LLP for Apparently Misusing Their Licence to Protect American Microsofters Who Attack Women
For those who have not been keeping abreast
Newer Press Reports Confirm That Microsoft Shuts Down 'Hey Hi' (AI) Labs Despite All the Hype
The "hey hi" (AI) bubble is not sustainable
Links 01/04/2025: Mass Layoffs at Eidos and "Microsoft Pulls Back on Data Centers" (Demand Lacking); "Racist and Sexist" Slop From Microsoft
Links for the day
Stefano Maffulli and His Microsoft-Funded OSI Staff Are Killing the OSI and Killing "Open Source" (All for Money!)
This is far from over
Gemini Links 01/04/2025: XKCDpunk and worldclock.py
Links for the day
50 Years of Sabotage and a Gut Punch to Computer Science (and Science in General)
Will we get back to science-based computing rather than cult-like following?
Techrights Headlines as Semaphore
"If you are hearing this, thank you"
3 Months in 2025, 4 Waves of Mass Layoffs at Microsoft, Now Offices Shut Down Permanently
"A recent visit by the South China Morning Post confirmed that the office was dark, unoccupied, and had its logo removed."
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, March 31, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, March 31, 2025