Bonum Certa Men Certa

“The New Software Is Full Of Bugs…They’ll Be Upgrading For Years.” How IBM Red Hat Keeps Customers On The Hook. Bruce Perens Endorses Devuan.



Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer

I

’ve always been a James Bond fan.



I must have seen some of them 20 times.



There was a line in the movie Tomorrow Never Dies that made me laugh when I was 13, and it was obviously about Microsoft.



Elliot Carver:
Mr. Jones, are we ready to release our new software?



Jones:
Yes, sir. As requested, it’s full of bugs, which means people will be forced to upgrade for years.



Elliot Carver:
Outstanding.

-Tomorrow Never Dies


I thought about this again today when I saw a link about Bruce Perens endorsing Devuan. He is a former Debian Project Leader, and says Devuan GNU/Linux is how he would do Debian if he were in charge today.



The people running Debian today are basically IBM flunkies who swallow everything Red Hat vomits out on top of us, including systemd.



Devuan GNU/Linux replaces systemd with a normal init system and fixes software to work without it.



But why does it do this?



Essentially, IBM Red Hat is creating software that is gargantuan and hard to understand, and is full of bugs. They do it so that their customers can never stop paying for support.



If things just work for the user like they did with GNOME 2, X11, and Upstart, then nobody is going to pay Red Hat to give them patches and training and support. Because they can just install anything and it will basically work, like Linux distributions used to 15 years ago.



Fedora 9 was a much better release than Fedora 38. I didn’t really have any problems out of it. Essentially, I think things were just too calm and so Red Hat had to make some disasters (GNOME 3, Wayland, systemd, portals, Flatpak, and pipewire) that would take decades of patching to sort out.



(I’ve blogged about how pretty much all of these have severe bugs that nobody is interested in fixing that have made my computers less reliable than the one I used with older versions of Linux.)



Microsoft behaves like this too.



When things are too calm and working too well, like they do oh so briefly sometimes (think Windows 2000 and Windows 7, not Windows Vista, 8, 10, and 11), they have to throw in some nightmares that people hate and then sabotage the alternative (which is sometimes the previous version of their own product).



Over the years, Microsoft has done things such as deliberately destabilize Windows 95 with bad dlls that leak resources, retroactively put in WGA in Windows XP, added telemetry and monthly megapatches to Windows 7, sabotaged Windows Update in Windows 7 to deny security updates to people with Skylake or newer CPUs, etc.



I literally just blogged about how Microsoft screws people over with office suites and how IBM is prodding LibreOffice users to stupidly do business with Microsoft.



They haven’t exactly been subtle as far as tossing a grenade down the hatch to ruin something you already use, and if they haven’t done it to Windows 10 yet, they probably will eventually.



What these companies that sell licenses and support are good at is making sure you’ll always need more of it.



I’m considering checking out Devuan now that their new release based on Debian 12 is out. It certainly can’t hurt to look and see how it acts on my older laptop.



Although I have to say I’m impressed by how stable openSUSE Leap with KDE is.



They’re still pushing back against IBM Red Hat bullshit in some ways. I noticed systemd complaining the other day that the thing that shits binary coredumps into your logs wasn’t there. 🙂



Roy Schestowitz mentioned in one of his videos the need for more “community” distributions.



No community of people who actually used the stuff would ever design anything like Microsoft or IBM Red Hat have produced. But many people seem to be apathetic enough to figure out how to tolerate the failures and pay for endless parades of patches and new licenses.



Recent Techrights' Posts

Links 25/07/2025: NOAA Cuts Endanger Lives, "Europe's Self Inflicted Cloud Crisis"
Links for the day
YouTube is a Spamfarm, Slopfarm, and Clickfarm (a Lot of Numbers There Are Fake)
Those who don't fake look unpopular and unimportant
 
Links 25/07/2025: Slop Blunders and China Has Code of Conduct for Lawmakers in HK
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/07/2025: Some Books and Babies and Capital
Links for the day
They Try to Lecture Us on Ethics
They even removed "master" from Microsoft GitHub
The Future of the Web is One Rendering Engine or 'Flavours' of Chrome
The future of the Web does not look bright at all
Best Sites Are Not Optimised for Any Browser, They Work Equally Well With All of Them
Red Hat (IBM) is making rubbish sites
We Don't Do JavaScript and Pages Are Small
Thankfully Gemini Protocol has nothing like JavaScript
'Tech' is Not Technology
Some people use terms like 'Old Tech'
IBM's Debt Rose by Almost 10 Billion Dollars in the Past 6 Months Alone
The "hey hi" circus is coming to an end
Yes, Master
Gaslighting by actual racists
Microsoft Bribes and Buys Politicians to Tell Europe What to Do About Free Software (Which It's Attacking)
Microsoft: we speak for the thing that we are attacking! Follow the money...
Making Backups Quickly and Reliably
Backups are imperative, more so in an age of uncertainty, unpredictable weather, and worsening standards (quality of products going down while prices go up)
Techrights Investigation: Estimating the Point in Time LinuxIac Turned Into LLM Slop (Part of the Time)
Bobby Borisov got lazy
10th Month, Ten Weeks From Now, at Ten AM
In Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 24, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, July 24, 2025
A Nadella Memo Distracts From Microsoft's Cheapening Of the Workforce
Right now the "MSM" (mainstream media) is flooded/overwhelmed by garbage pieces that relay lies for Nadella
Vanishing Faces of GNU/Linux
Free software projects do not depend on any one person or company to still exist
Microsoft Says It Lost 400 Million Windows Users, Now It's Waiting for GNU/Linux to Stop Booting on 'Old' PCs
When it comes to Windows, Microsoft is fully aware of the issue and statements it made earlier this summer suggest it lost 400 million Windows users
Slopwatch: LinuxTechLab, linuxsecurity.com, LinuxIac, and More
Also: The Register's Microsoft agenda (new editor)
Gemini Links 25/07/2025: Gemtext Aware Titan Editor and Gemini Protocol Comeback
Links for the day
Links 24/07/2025: Convicted Felon Quits UNESCO, "Vibe Coding Goes Wrong", and Signalgate Gets Worse
Links for the day
Gemini Links 24/07/2025: Forgejo Woes and Smolnet Directory Week
Links for the day
Misinformation is Not Intelligence
It's low-grade plagiarism and it fails to show any signs of intelligence
Links 24/07/2025: Storage Tapes Still Kicking, Windows TCO 'on Steroids' (Microsoft-Induced Catastrophes)
Links for the day
Bobby Borisov (LinuxIac) Has Apparently Begun Experimenting With LLM Slop, So We Cannot Trust LinuxIac Anymore
So did LinuxIac become a slopfarm? Maybe not yet, but it's getting there
Informa TechTarget's ITProToday is Becoming a Slopfarm Generated by Microsoft Chatbots
Busted.
'Tech' Gimmicks Are for Advertising, Not for Usability
In the case of Microsoft, they latched onto slop
BetaNews Sacked Brian Fagioli and Deleted His Comments, But He Still Tries to Use the "BetaNews" Brand for Self-Affirmation
Fagioli takes the work of other people
[Meme] Hard to Be a Better Person?
Sooner or later they'll realise that for each pound I spend they need to spend about 1,000 times more
The LLM Con Artists Are Highly Destructive
Who will ever be held accountable for this scam?
Too Bribed by Microsoft to Move to Free Software?
Microsoft lies and Microsoft bribery (in politics)
New US Editor for The Register is a Microsoft Booster
"Avram Piltch has served as US editor for The Register since July 2025."
Microsoft Hiring European Politicians is Another Form of Bribery; There Should be a European Investigation
When Microsoft bribed people in Europe for OOXML (there's no denying this!) a European government delegate said that Microsoft operated like a cult
Reda Demanded That FSF Removes Its Founder, Now Reda Works Directly for Microsoft
A sellout and a traitor, first working for GAFAM, now Microsoft
PCLinuxOS is Raising Money to Support Development After Fire Incident at the Host
PCLinuxOS has not had announcements lately
Speed of the Site Should be Better Now
The "bot attacks" impact the speed of the sister site too
Getting More From AnalogNowhere
Recently we used many images from AnalogNowhere
Microsoft, Microsofters and 'Secure' Boot Shills Already Storming the LWN Report About Expiring Certificate, Shooting the Messenger
LWN has clearly stuck a nerve
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, July 23, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, July 23, 2025
Disable "Secure" Boot Today (the Only Better Time to Do So Was Yesterday)
Don't trust anything Red Hat tells you about security
Links 23/07/2025: Windows Killed Company After 150+ Years, US Government Mimics Russia's Attacks on the Media
Links for the day
Freedom Generally Wins at the End, History Shows (But It's Constantly Attacked, Too)
At the moment people realise "Linux" (e.g. Android) isn't enough to guarantee any freedoms
Over 3 Months Later Brett Wilson LLP Still Unable to Recruit a Media Lawyer?
"Immediate start", but not found... still unfilled
“Inhumane” and “Disgusting” Mass Layoff Execution, According to Microsoft Staff
The workers are looking for other places to work
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has a New Slogan for Its 40th Anniversary
The freedoms are what's most important
Microsoft is Trying to "Pull a Nokia" on GNU/Linux as Desktop/Laptop Platform
We all remember that rather well, don't we?
LLM Slopfarms gbhackers.com, "Cyber Press" and CyberSecurityNews Are Drowning Google News (and Shame on Google for Feeding and Facilitating Them)
All are run by the same people
Links 23/07/2025: Droplets GUI Patent Monopoly Challenge, Nokia Leverages Illegal Patent Court Against Rivals
Links for the day
Gemini Links 23/07/2025: Community in Geminispace and Challenges With Old Computers
Links for the day
Links 23/07/2025: Slop Patents Tackled, Slop Copyright Misuses Tackled by Politicians
Links for the day
Our Three Lawsuits Against Microsofters Are About to Become a Lot More Relevant to GNU/Linux
The Master will easily understand why Garrett has been attacking me since 2012
Links 23/07/2025: Retreating From Transparency on Jeffrey Epstein, We No Longer Have Press Freedom
Links for the day
Gemini Links 23/07/2025: Piano and Food
Links for the day
New and Old
On Ageism in Tech
Slop Is Not Intelligence and It Does Not Enhance Productivity
Like voice dictation, which cannot tell the difference between "sheet" and "shit"
EPO Crimes Are Spreading to the British Court System
Society is now paying the price for failing to tackle crimes at the EPO
It's Time to Dump SharePoint and Here's What to Use Instead
Nextcloud, ownCloud, Bookstack, MediaWiki, and MediaGoblin
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 22, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, July 22, 2025
Brett Wilson LLP Has Gone Silent
Sometimes silence says more than nothing at all
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, Planet Ubuntu, and LinuxTechLab
some slopfarms show no remorse and they don't value their reputation at all
Links 23/07/2025: Book Bans, Storms, and Kangaroo Court for Patents Commits More Unlawful Acts of Overreach
Links for the day