Microsoft Has Tainted GNOME, Which Has Key People Acting as a SLAPP Front Against Techrights (Trying to Censor the Site by Extortion and Many Threats)
Don't worry, it'll come back sooner or later. The Law Society is as biased on SLAPPs as it is on patents because it's deeply connected to the litigation industry, as we explained and showed many times in the more distant past.
Yesterday we wrote about GNOME because facts still matter. The principal reason/motivation to revisit this subject was, GNOME is rogue; it was a common denominator in the SLAPPs, aside from Microsoft (an overlapping factor aplenty). This is the same GNOME which has been silently silencing and "disappearing" people, as we saw last year (even elected representation, i.e. people that GNOME users/developers trusted, got expelled for secret reasons). Then, GNOME sacked women, not men, despite GNOME being (already) dominated by men. What does GNOME have to say about men who strangle women? Or slut-shaming by creeps in GNOME clothing? Does GNOME think it is appropriate to put such people in Planet GNOME?
There's a good reason why many women keep away from GNOME; women aren't dumb. Nor should they become "collateral damage" in abuse against reporters [1, 2] and productive developers (defamed as "Sexists").
So what exactly goes on at GNOME these days, other than it running out of money (like the SLAPPing firm, which entertains foreigners to attack domestic sites because quality doesn't matter to broke firms)? Some leaders quit without a proper explanation [1, 2, 3], perhaps seeing skeletons in the closet (that they had not been properly informed about). Did she find out about the SLAPPs too? One common denominator (other than Microsoft salaries) is GNOME, which was led by an actual professional crank until she quit so suddenly months ago. Another leading person quit only days apart (they seem to also lack a Treasurer). As for us? We were receiving intimidation letters from a GNOME person, whose platform is run by the President of GNOME, Robert McQueen. Then he got another GNOME person to do more SLAPPing.
Many people believe that because the G in GNOME stands (or stood) for GNU it therefore means that the project is about freedom. Remember that GNOME is trying to impose "secure boot" on everybody (to the point of scaremongering against people who turn it off). GNOME is basically promoting Microsoft monopoly and Microsoft control over PCs, even those running GNU/Linux. We know what can - and does - go wrong.
So who's really running GNOME? What is its true mission?
The notion of misusing money to buy control over one's opposition isn't unprecedented. We explained how this was done in GNOME Foundation, just like Public Knowledge, OSI, and Linux Foundation (dominated by Microsoft). When money buys seats and roles, then undermining organisations becomes only a question of money.
"Microsoft has long had "moles" or "operatives" inside the competition [we covered examples in the past]," Techrights said in IRC a day ago. "This includes FOSS and Linux. Techrights gets "punished" for merely "unmasking" or showing the evidence about them."
If Techrights managed to "blow the cover" of moles that seek to harm rivals or turn rivals into devoured-by-Microsoft former rivals (coopting them), then guess who will bear the brunt.
Techrights is simply showing facts. They don't like that. GNOME was run Miguel de Icaza, followed by another Microsoft mole, Peters, who has since then become a mole inside the Linux Foundation (from leading GNOME to being a leading Microsoft mole inside "Linux", on Microsoft's payroll, just like de Icaza, the predecessor). This pattern is trivial to demonstrate, there's nothing speculative about it.
One reader said that drawing up an inventory of Microsofters on FOSS-related boards and in executive positions at competitors would be worth making, adding that "a complete review with additions might be timely".
At the moment the best approach is to cover one institution at a time (sometimes with screeenshots because pages 'break' over time), then tie them together at the end. We need an index.
"I think most remain unaware / ignorant of just what extents Microsoft infiltrates institutions, government, and other businesses," said the reader, "no project or committee is too small to avoid their attentions".
We'll revisit GNOME in the future because directly - not just indirectly - it plays a considerable role in censorship campaigns. Perhaps one can expect a project that started in Mexico to uphold the same "freedom of the press" standards as the country of origin. In the past few years me and my family got more threats - including horrific deaths threats - than I can recall and enumerate. █
"Year after year, Mexico remains one of the world’s most dangerous and deadly countries for journalists. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, in power since 2018, has not yet carried out the reforms and measures needed to stop the spiral of violence against the press." -RSF