12.08.19
Posted in FUD, GNU/Linux, Microsoft at 6:06 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
The latest POPAganda from Microsoft
Another day, another pattern of FUD and deception from longtime Microsoft boosters
Summary: Microsoft and its boosters (and media partners) haven’t grown tired of spreading falsehoods to stigmatise and take control of GNU/Linux by creating their own versions and traps for it
THE ATTACK on GNU/Linux is very easy to see. Anyone who’s remotely familiar with “embrace”-”extend” (the third E has variants) can see it and smell it from a mile.
To smoothen the gears of this latest EEE scheme Microsoft relies on a bunch of ‘fake news’ and lies (such as Microsoft “loving” everything). They also spread the lie that Microsoft is suddenly loved by all, the ‘new Microsoft’…
The lies are spread by a handful of people (who of them was arrested earlier this year for sexually assault children) and they’re writing from the same ‘script’ (probably same sraff; there are private communications with Microsoft’s PR operatives inside and outside Microsoft’s headquarters).
“To smoothen the gears of this latest EEE scheme Microsoft relies on a bunch of ‘fake news’ and lies (such as Microsoft “loving” everything).”WSL is not GNU/Linux but an assault on the platform, the classic EEE pattern. Just see the views of the program managers. They think it’s perfectly fine for Microsoft to blackmail and assault GNU/Linux with software patents. These are not Linux-loving (heh. Love?) people and they’re not friends. They pick an existing thing, first GNU only and soon Linux too, then “extend” it with Windows-only “goodies”. This is already happening. There’s an “extend”.
Now comes SJVN with misleading clickbait (“Canonical makes Ubuntu for Windows SubSystem for Linux a priority”). Don’t be alarmed. It’s untrue. That’s a falsehood, promoted if not by SJVN himself then someone above him (they change his headlines and articles, sometimes censoring what he originally wrote). It’s hard to tell for sure who’s responsible for this, maybe the editor of ZDNet, who is very close to Microsoft (he even does a podcast with Microsoft agents). When I posted the link in Disapora I received one immediate response saying, “no surprise that zdnets title is clickbaitish. they are sinking real resources into this, which is lousy, but title implies they are putting this ahead of other things. thats a stretch.”
“They also spread the lie that Microsoft is suddenly loved by all, the ‘new Microsoft’…”“Making Ubuntu better on the Windows desktop is unfree,” wrote another person, “and a serious step backward.”
They’re actually making it sound like Canonical now prioritises WSL over standalone GNU/Linux.
This is a good example of what’s often called ‘fake news’. What’s the ‘meat’ of it all? Well, they hired someone (to join a company with several hundreds of employees). There’s one single job advertisement for one single person (less than 0.5% of the technical staff) and as far as we know, the original person who worked on this for Canonical left the company (we don’t want to name him or the person they’ve hired). In fact, maybe the vacancy is due to someone quiting or some sort of “goodwill gesture” to Microsoft. Whatever it is, that didn’t stop the Microsoft boosters from raving with ‘fake news’. Microsoft propagandists are having a ‘day field’ over it and each time they promote WSL — as Softpedia’s Microsoft mole Bogdan Popa has just done (he’s still attacking and smearing GNU/Linux routinely) — they reaffirm the fact it’s an anti-GNU/Linux move. Popa’s article does not deserve traffic as it’s trollish and basically a bunch of lies. So the link is omitted; but the headline says “Canonical loves Windows 10″ (in case someone is desperate enough to read fabricated ‘news’).
It’s similar to the “Microsoft loves Linux” lie and the substlety here sort of tries to imply that “Linux loves Windows or Microsoft” (“Canonical loves Windows 10″). Is this reciprocal? Ask people who actually develop and/or use GNU/Linux.
Jim Zemlin said a year ago, “Open Source Loves Microsoft”…
Just ignore the fact that Zemlin himself prefers proprietary software and speaks neither for Open Source nor for Linux. He speaks for Microsoft more than he speaks for either of these. So does his wife (top Microsoft partner). █
“Microsoft has a master plan for open source and it’s not good. Open Source is about Freedom, not control. Don’t you all think it’s a little suspicious what Microsoft paid for GitHub?”
–Eren Niazi, Creator of Open Source Storage
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Posted in GNU/Linux, Microsoft at 1:59 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: One can leverage the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine to better understand how, over time, the Foundation called “Linux” deviated or diverged away from its mission statement for the sole purpose of raising corporate funds and selling influence to corporations (passing the community’s hard work to them — a form of tacit privatisation)
IT can be helpful to understand why and when the (Super)PAC of Jim Zemlin turned its back on its very name. We recently checked archived pages from each year of Wayback Machine’s copies of Linux.com. The site’s title/name, “The source for Linux information,” became (to this date) “News For Open Source Professionals” and it changed either in late 2014 or 2015. In other words, that happened half a decade ago. Whose idea was it to remove Linux from the name of a site called Linux.com?
We’ve moreover noticed that Google spyware was added to each and every page in the site (even very old articles). The site of the Linux Foundation does not have such spyware. It is difficult to pin-point the moment the spyware was added because the Wayback Machine does not save such code. It seems to be making a code substitution to protect viewers from spying. Here’s the code:
Maybe one day people will wish to study the demise of the Foundation or when it lost all sense of direction and identity, outsourcing its code to a proprietary software framework of Microsoft (GitHub) that censors and spies on developers and users/downloaders instead of providing development infrastructure of its own (like it used to). We previously studied how the Foundation had totally removed the community, in stages. Nowadays the Foundation is against the community, which it occasionally mocks. █
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12.05.19
Posted in Deception, Free/Libre Software, GNU/Linux, Microsoft at 8:33 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“If you can’t make it good, at least make it look good.”
–Bill Gates, Microsoft
Summary: The people who develop WSL (mostly Microsoft employees) get easily irritated when asked how many people actually use this thing; but more interestingly, however, they reveal their disdain for GNU/Linux and support for Microsoft blackmail (for ‘Linux patent tax’)
THE introduction of “Windows Slaughtering Linux” (WSL or WeaSeL for short) happened at an inconvenient time (for us at least) because we were super-busy covering EPO corruption and weren’t able to pay much attention — except in Daily Links — to Microsoft’s ongoing attacks on GNU/Linux. EPO coverage was highly essential at that point.
WSL was a (non) ‘solution’ in search of a problem, except Microsoft’s problem, which is GNU/Linux dominating everything (even laptops now that Chromebooks dominate schools). It happened not far apart from the bribery of the Linux Foundation, which was then happy to promote various WeaSeLs (WSL ‘flavours’).
“Microsoft isn’t the sort of company that keeps quiet when it has something to brag about. Heck, it even distorts and sometimes makes up numbers.”Has anyone noticed how we never hear anything about WSL usage figures (even any blog posts about such usage are rather rare)?
Microsoft isn’t the sort of company that keeps quiet when it has something to brag about. Heck, it even distorts and sometimes makes up numbers. We saw and covered many examples over the years.
Over the past few days I mentioned WeaSeL a few times. The main thread (most interactions) can be found here, but there are a couple dozen or so in total, as they’re sort of fragmented. Yes, that’s how Twitter works (or doesn’t work). Just pasting loads of "tweets" would not make it "journalism", so we’ve prepared a summary/outline, which can be defended by the tweets we’ve seen and collected (copies posted in IRC as well for longterm preservation).
“I never saw or met (or even heard of) anyone who uses WSL. That’s a fact.”My ‘rudest’ tweet wasn’t even particularly rude; it didn’t name anyone and was objective (based on my personal experience and observation). “From what I can gather,” I said, “Microsoft WSL has been an utter failure as hardly anyone uses it, we hardly hear about it anymore. But if the goal was to Googlebomb “Linux” with Vista 10 spam, then it was a success.”
That’s it.
It struck a nerve; I never saw or met (or even heard of) anyone who uses WSL. That’s a fact. And I work in the domain every day, so one might/could think that I at least saw it ‘in the wild’ at some point (or heard about someone who uses it). WSL has been around for years. It’s nothing unprecedented (VMs are better). It’s not something new awaiting adoption. If the WSL team wants to prevent further defections from Vista 10, there’s no evidence that they succeeded. The few people who touched it are likely already attached to Windows. They’re ‘hardcore’ Windows users.
“Current Microsoft employees are attacking former ones for daring to question the alleged ‘success’ of WSL!”People with spare time can read this long thread in Twitter (with context and everything); the gist of it is, Microsoft is failing to provide proof of WSL adoption. Then, it starts calling former Microsoft staff who inquires about these numbers “rude”. Current Microsoft employees are attacking former ones for daring to question the alleged ‘success’ of WSL!
After much insistent querying they ended up asking for more than a month to come up with a way to create spin (they already know the numbers!) and in the process they reveal something even darker. I’ve mentioned patents Microsoft uses for blackmail against GNU/Linux OEMs (companies that distribute Linux devices) — patents which are not publicly listed/disclosed. I cited an example as recent as months ago (a lawsuit by Microsoft — an instance from this year).
“If someone violates a patent,” a Microsoft manager responded, “the patent owner has recourse. If you have issues with patents, then take it up with the PTO and Congress.”
“They’re this hostile towards GNU/Linux and insist it’s OK for Microsoft to blackmail it using patents!”Microsoft lobbies both the PTO and Congress for this blackmail to carry on. Way to shoot oneself in the foot with that reply!
This is nothing amusing! This is like the program manager in charge of EEE against Linux, the WSL team. They’re this hostile towards GNU/Linux and insist it’s OK for Microsoft to blackmail it using patents! And they then pretend to be the victims.
Remember that, at least to them, GNU/Linux is just a nuisance for Microsoft to attempt to ‘tame’ (if not undermine, which is hard, then at least control). Everything these guys said has merely confirmed what we knew all along about WSL’s intentions (and its team’s attitude towards GNU/Linux).
We made copies of over 50 tweets about this. There’s no way to delete such tweets (we would notice and have made local copies in IRC channels).
Notice how almost all of the people in the thread/s are Microsoft employees, both past and present, and one (Hayden Barnes) is employed by Canonical to help Microsoft put Ubuntu in the belly of Vista 10 and send out press releases to promote this spyware.
“It’s worth noting that several former Microsoft employees took my side, insisting it’s actually an attack on GNU/Linux and Microsoft likely lies about it, won’t share numbers (always a bad sign) and so on.”Mitchel Lewis, who does guest posts here (gladly allowing us to syndicate his articles), asked : “Since when is it unprofessional to be shrewd and ask for supporting facts?”
“They are using psychological tricks to paint themselves, who attack GNU/Linux, as the victims,” I responded to him. “I covered dozens examples of these tricks over the years.” Many dozens.
It’s worth noting that several former Microsoft employees took my side, insisting it’s actually an attack on GNU/Linux and Microsoft likely lies about it, won’t share numbers (always a bad sign) and so on.
The only ones trying to battle my claim are full-time WSL folks, i.e. Microsoft people.
“IMO,” Mr. Lewis continued, “this seems more of a situation where people without formal training in logic, rhetoric, and debate resort to deflection, projection, ad hominem and other basic logical fallacies in error when they can’t advance their argument. It’s a central theme of the Platonic dialogues…”
Basically, it’s like a politician saying, “I built a road!”
But none was built.
“Microsoft has long used that “polite criminal” narrative; sure, we committed a crime, but at least we’re polite about it, whereas the law enforcers are “aggressive” and “rude”.”So the politician starts panicking when asked about it repeatedly, only failing to deliver an answer and then attacking the journalists who keep asking about it.
“Stop bullying me!”
People are familiar with brutal cops saying (or shouting) “stop resisting” when they assault people who pose no actual threat.
“Microsoft alumni here,” he added later, “built Exchange Online with a few friends and later dabbled in predictive analytics/defect density to better anticipate failures within Exchange Online. Plz tell me moar aboot statistics.”
“Reversal of narratives is an art form. Bad people have long attempted to portray good people (activists, whistleblowing champions, public interest groups) as malicious, self-serving, arrogant and so on.”Microsoft has long used that “polite criminal” narrative; sure, we committed a crime, but at least we’re polite about it, whereas the law enforcers are “aggressive” and “rude”. “They’re out to get us!”
“Poor Trump…”
The subject of a “witch-hunt”…
His wife claims to be the most bullied person, for… well, supporting the biggest bully in the world.
“…”Mopping Up” GNU/Linux won’t be easy, but if WSL fails, then they will try WSL2, then WSL3… or maybe then leap to WSL10 just for hype’s sake. 10 is a special decimal number.”Reversal of narratives is an art form. Bad people have long attempted to portray good people (activists, whistleblowing champions, public interest groups) as malicious, self-serving, arrogant and so on.
When you choose to work for Microsoft you choose to basically work on attacking companies Microsoft considers to be rivals. Because this has historically been the company’s modus operandi. It’s shameless about it, show internal documents. As James Plamondon, Microsoft’s chief evangelist, once put it (in a written presentation): “Mopping Up can be a lot of fun. In the Mopping Up phase, Evangelism’s goal is to put the final nail into the competing technology’s coffin, and bury it in the burning depths of the earth.”
With GNU/Linux it’s tricker because it’s not a company; bribing groups associated with it takes time and longterm deception (like “Microsoft loves Linux”). It cannot be defeated by takeovers, or even investor ‘activists’ (corporate raiders).
“Mopping Up” GNU/Linux won’t be easy, but if WSL fails, then they will try WSL2, then WSL3… or maybe then leap to WSL10 just for hype’s sake. 10 is a special decimal number. What ever happened to Vista 9? █
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12.02.19
Posted in Free/Libre Software, Microsoft, OSI at 3:33 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
They’re chocking on their own blood and complaints are being filed by former insiders (for financial fraud)
Summary: More people are starting to ask questions about Free software while “Open Source” languishes (people can see it’s just a mask for proprietary software); it was a two-decade delaying tactic that’s wearing off (people see GitHub and the OSI/Linux Foundation for what they really are)
MICROSOFT threw lots of money at GitHub, as it had done previously at Skype. By trying to buy a monopoly or near-monopoly Microsoft soon lost that monopoly. People fled. In the case of Skype it was competitors such as WhatsApp (Facebook), not to mention Google, Apple and smaller players like Viber (Rakuten). What’s replacing GitHub? We’re not entirely sure as not many statistics are available, but earlier this year we heard (possibly from the inside, albeit indirectly) that GitHub was losing users and projects. Never mind the likely decrease in new users and projects (entrants).
“That so-called ‘Arctic vault’ won’t go to waste. Microsoft can be buried in it.”We’ve written a great deal about openwashing and GitHub (any project on GitHub ought to be well aware that it is being managed by proprietary software that spies on and censors not only developers but also users/downloaders). Azure is apparently still losing money.
We predict that in the coming years this attempt of Microsoft to hijack GNU/Linux and ‘FOSS’ (they pretend only what’s inside GitHub counts or exists) will fail spectacularly. That so-called ‘Arctic vault’ won’t go to waste. Microsoft can be buried in it. █
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Posted in Microsoft at 1:34 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Truly the mindset of a "dangerous cult" which viciously attacks its critics/exposers
Summary: The official account of Windows Insider is banning people whom it never even spoke to; this seems like a way of ‘punishing’ people who are not ‘true believers’ in Microsoft
Mitchel Lewis, a former Microsoft employee whose articles we’ve at times syndicated here, is no friend of Microsoft. He has evidence of crimes and he writes about various abuses.
“Achievement Unlocked?”
“Did he abuse them? Did he say something offensive? No.”That’s what he asked after he had found out about being blocked by Microsoft boosters.
And for what? The above account bans Microsoft critics, even former employees.
Did he abuse them? Did he say something offensive? No.
“I honestly don’t even recall tweeting at them,” he laughed. “I’m flattered at this point…”
He sent us the screenshot. Was he also reported to Twitter for ‘abuse’? The “bury brigade” mentality? Silence the messenger?
“Microsoft truly operates like a cult. It uses the same indoctrination and intimidation tactics.”I’ve asked him: “Can you find and share the context leading up to it (the ban)?”
I’ve also checked Twitter to see history of interactions. I can’t find any. I can see the contexts from my account, which is not banned (blocked) by Windows Insider. From all I can see and gather, the oversensitive people at Windows Insider could not bear the sight of Microsoft being criticised — even by its own former employees — to the point of simply blacklisting them. From what we’ve heard (testimonies from Mr. Lewis), this isn’t limited to Windows Insider. Microsoft truly operates like a cult. It uses the same indoctrination and intimidation tactics. █
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