11.28.21
Posted in Deception, Europe, Marketing, Patents at 1:19 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Video download link | md5sum 3ec4eadab0b6d2d6dd1d32598e7051b8
Summary: Finding news about the EPO is almost impossible because today’s so-called ‘news’ sites are in the pockets of Benoît Battistelli, António Campinos, and their cohorts who turned the EPO into a hub of litigation, not science; this is part of an international (worldwide) problem because financial resources for journalism have run out, and so the vacuum is filled/replaced almost entirely by Public Relations (PR) and marketing
THIS site of ours has been around for a very long time and it started by focusing on patents (initially it was one particular patent collusion). Back then, in early winter of 2006, there was no lack of press coverage when important things happened. The media was all over the Microsoft-Novell deal (literally hundreds of press articles). One could expect that somebody out there would get assigned to investigate events of interest. I fondly remember those days; almost all the coverage from those days is now offline (broken/changed links, sometimes no copy left online, primarily due to copyright law).
Reading news about patents 10 or 15 years ago was occasionally fun. There were the occasional journalistic works into key matters/subjects like software patents and patent trolls. Sometimes they’d quote some law firm, but it would not dominate the narrative. Back then groups like FFII and the EFF habitually wrote about patents and sought reform. It was possible to actually find information. There was also a balance.
“Reading news about patents 10 or 15 years ago was occasionally fun.”In the past few years, however, as we’ve mentioned many times before, it’s almost impossible to find any real journalism about patents. It’s so rare. And where it does exist it is super shallow, it’s almost like a mildly-edited press release of some company.
In the context of EPO affairs and the UPC, the situation has gotten quite extreme; not only do they dominate the narrative with deliberate lies (disinformation) but they also shout down critics and sometimes delete comments of people whom they do not agree with. The so-called ‘news’ sites about patents are now sponsored and controlled by the litigation ‘industry’ [sic] — the exact same thing which happened to EPO management.
“Last week we said that the World Wide Web is fast becoming nothing but a PR “spamfarm” and the same has become true about important topics in Wikipedia (where there is a lot of money at stake).”Seeing that there is only a slim chance of finding actual news in RSS feeds about patents (Patently-O is now paid and controlled by a patent litigation company that lobbies for software patents), I’ve decided to permanently relegate the reading of news about patents, turning it into a weekend task. I started experimenting with such a cycle about a month ago (for the first time since this site was born) and so far I find that even days later (without watching such news at all) I miss nothing of true value/importance, partly because a lot of what stays on the Web is either false or spammy (like law firms promoting themselves).
Many of the rebuttals are nowadays posted in Daily Links (as editorial comments); writing whole articles of response/rebuttal is very time-consuming and it does not scale well; this seems like a broader trend on the Web. Last week we said that the World Wide Web is fast becoming nothing but a PR "spamfarm" and the same has become true about important topics in Wikipedia (where there is a lot of money at stake). In the video above I used the example of JUVE, which became absolutely terrible in recent years (it has quit pretending to be doing actual news), as explained above in a video with more information/examples to come in Daily Links… █
Permalink
Send this to a friend
11.08.21
Posted in Deception, Google, Law, Marketing, Patents at 1:03 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Video download link | md5sum 5d31e60d64b3c31a3c60838dd839d277
Summary: The video above shows the awful state of affairs when it comes to journalism on the subject of patents, and on software patents in particular (the same is true for "Linux", as we explained and showed last week)
The software patents conundrum is hardly new to me; I’ve written about it for nearly two decades and over the past 5-10 years anything resembling journalism on the subject of software patents diminished to zero; there’s just about a sum total of zero articles on this subject, at least in English (law firms doing shameless self-promotion of software patents doesn’t count as journalism).
The subject or this issue isn’t particularly new; over the past half a decade we’ve repeatedly complained about how “the news” was basically dominated by those looking to profit from patent litigation. █
Permalink
Send this to a friend
11.05.21
Posted in Apple, Deception, GNU/Linux, Marketing, Microsoft at 7:50 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Video download link | md5sum a2f1255b07abc18ef12c95556ba9e58a
Summary: Journalism on the Web is dying and is being replaced by SEO/affiliate links/spam farms; the vacuum is moreover being exploited by PR operatives who boost brands of Microsoft by piggybacking opposing brands, such as “Linux”
THE ATTACK on the brand or the name (or brand name) “Linux” carries on. It’s moreover being ‘hijacked’ by the very same people and companies that are looking to undermine GNU/Linux. They know exactly what they’re doing and the media helps them. It’s intentional.
“It has been getting harder to find actual GNU/Linux news, partly because the media isn’t functioning anymore and a lot of self-described journalists are just PR spammers.”Earlier this year we stated that Phoronix should be careful of Microsoft after Phoronix had received ‘freebies’ from Microsoft. This is how sites self-nuke and drive away their audience. Looking at the front page of Phoronix, as I did in the above video, you find Phoronix doing Microsoft articles more than once per day. Some people point this out in the comments; they’re not happy.
As a side note, we still see Visual Studio Code being wrongly described as “open source” and WSL being painted (sometimes even in Microsoft/Windows sites) as “Linux” even though it’s just Windows. ChromeOS with Crostini is “Linux” because ChromeOS is at least GNU/Linux-based (Gentoo to be more specific).
It has been getting harder to find actual GNU/Linux news, partly because the media isn’t functioning anymore and a lot of self-described journalists are just PR spammers. We wrote some things about this last year. Over the past few weeks we saw UbuntuPIT, a site that used to cover GNU/Linux/Ubuntu, becoming an Amazon spam farm (affiliate links, garbage disguised as recommendations) and over the past year that site promoted lots of Windows things, sometimes iOS and Android. They ought to drop “Ubuntu” from that site’s name. █
Permalink
Send this to a friend
10.29.21
Posted in Deception, Marketing at 6:41 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
If at first you fail…
Look for bailout…
Summary: Swapnil ‘Spamnil’ Bhartiya is turning the authoritative site Linux.com into a self-promotional ‘spam farm’. His YouTube channel is failing (see above), so now he’s just wiping the floor with Linux.com, a domain that hundreds of people poured their lives into for two decades (until the Linux Foundation (LF) suddenly fired everybody in 2019); this is part of a pattern wherein Zemlin et al. help people from the Foundation create their private companies, externally, and then funnel LF funds to them (for peripheral PR services, sometimes for Microsoft) despite it being an immoral practice which jeopardises the LF’s IRS status and tarnishes the "Linux" brand.
Permalink
Send this to a friend
10.16.21
Posted in Deception, Marketing, Microsoft, Windows at 5:52 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
The hype started this past summer
Windows market share as a function of time from 2009 until October 16th (today). Raw data [ODS] available.
Summary: The very latest figures from Web usage show that it’s hardly even a blip on the radar; Windows continues bleeding to death, not only in servers
Permalink
Send this to a friend
09.23.21
Posted in Deception, Free/Libre Software, Marketing at 4:26 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Video download link | md5sum bf9a28ebbc76b6f04c43a67369a86239
Summary: The so-called ‘Linux’ Foundation (LF), together with edX, are basically marketing their services and products, but this is disguised as 'research' (a false narrative widely parroted by shallow and paid-for media partners of theirs), piggybacking brands like “Linux” and buzzwords like “Open Source” (even when they promote proprietary things, e.g. memorisation of proprietary GUIs)
THE SALARY of Jim Zemlin and his den of nepotism (the Zemlin PAC) requires selling tons of junk, otherwise they will keep operating at a loss. Like Mozilla, they lose money by overpaying themselves. Zemlin is to Linux what Baker is to Mozilla/Firefox.
“It’s a cabal of corporations with a mission to control the public.”In recent years (mostly the past year) Zemlin et al shifted focus to exams and certification in order to fill the gap left by cancelled in-person events (the former cash cow of the so-called ‘Linux’ Foundation) and having edX as the paid-for shill of revisionism [1, 2] — paid by LF/Zemlin PAC (indoctrination and corporate training disguised as “ed” or “education”) — means there there are overlapping interests. Mutually beneficial, sure, but not beneficial to the general public. It’s a cabal of corporations with a mission to control the public.
Most of the video above goes through most of the latest LF puff pieces, which I’ve studied patiently and piled up over the course of this week. I hope my explanation makes sense despite it being spontaneous and unscripted, i.e. the usual. █
Permalink
Send this to a friend
08.21.21
Posted in IBM, Marketing, Red Hat at 10:37 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Video download link | md5sum 18739a1627d1b4bc21e69f0d6ed3e806
Summary: IBM has a grip on the media, so many people won’t know about the recent layoffs; as if without IBM formally declaring those layoffs — set aside the exodus — the media lacks the authority to mention that it is happening
THE PAST few days in these forums were rather telling. I’ve been watching these closely for about 4 months and spend dozens of hours assessing the situation, based on insider accounts (also some former IBMer with contacts inside the company).
“…we must conclude that the current trajectory is towards an obsolete IBM, which in turn spells trouble for Red Hat as well.”While the media issues a bunch of cloudwashing fluff such as this there’s no mention of this year’s layoffs or the ongoing exodus (Google News shows not even a single article). It is a suppressed subject that we wrote about before.
Having spent dozens of hours researching these RAs, based on one of the most active forums/boards in thelayoff.com (there are many insiders there — something that we’ve mentioned here in passing before) and lots of blogs/sites of Red Hat and IBM, we must conclude that the current trajectory is towards an obsolete IBM, which in turn spells trouble for Red Hat as well. I saw many of the very same patterns in S.u.S.E. under Novell, which was at one point headed by a former IBMer (Hovsepian), who sold out to Microsoft and then sold the company. █
Morale is low, the flagship products were sold (e.g. to Lenovo)
Permalink
Send this to a friend
08.20.21
Posted in Deception, Marketing at 5:53 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Beware passive-aggressive corporate trolling with 'isms'
Summary: In the age of ‘slush funds’-level PR (marketing budget set aside, or money that buys puff pieces in the cheap/corruptible media) ordinary people need to be careful and actually check if we're told the truth about the companies (many media sites blatantly offer “sponsored narratives” as products/services — as a form of perception management)
Permalink
Send this to a friend
« Previous entries Next Page » Next Page »
Content is available under CC-BY-SA