Bonum Certa Men Certa

More on Jim Zemlin's (and Novell's) “Respect for Microsoft”

A week ago we mentioned some apologists who fail to see what Microsoft has done to its rivals over the years. They are willing to let history repeat itself. Sadly, these people also fail to tell products and companies apart.

Some more rebuttals to Zemlin's call to "respect" Microsoft have just arrived. They are definitely worth a mention. Don Parris had this to say:

Can you believe it? Given Microsoft's history of antagonism, It's hard to believe anyone - let alone the Linux Foundation - would call on the FOSS community to respect Microsoft. No, if Microsoft wants respect, they should get it the 'old-fashioned' way - by earning it.

After Microsoft has treated our community like rogues for nearly 20 years, called us Communists, claimed the GPL was 'unconstitutional', hijacked our terminology and accused countless thousands of hackers and customers of violating patents without giving anyone any opportunity at all to correct these so-called violations, now the Executive Director at the Linux Foundation calls on us to respect Microsoft?


The article from ITWire is similar, but rather than repeat the arguments above, we urge you to mind the following bits of information.

There are, of course, companies like Novell which have signed pacts with Microsoft, pacts which endanger the growth of Linux in the marketplace. Is this the kind of strategy which Zemlin had in mind?

There are people like Miguel de Icaza who try to tailgate Microsoft by developing open source versions of Microsoft technologies and hoping against hope that specs will remain accessible to them. Could Zemlin have meant this kind of strategy?

[...]

Judging from the CV available on the Linux Foundation website, Zemlin, clearly, has had no touch with open source apart from various marketing roles. It is claimed that he is "widely quoted in the press on open source and commercial software trends..."

If these are the kind of quotes he generates, it would be indeed wise for him to henceforth hold his peace.


The latter part sounds like an ad hominem attack, which Jack claims Ron Hovsepian has been subjected to as well.

Today, I took another look at Ron Hovsepian’s keynote address from LinuxWorld last week, and his message of “expanding, extending, and enlarging” the Linux operating system. Was the message tainted a bit by the fact that Hovsepian is a businessman at the head of the number two commercial Linux distributor in the world? Sure it was, but there were points to be gleaned from his talk that I think the Linux community would be apt to mull over for a bit before they jump on the Microsoft hating bandwagon.


Let's make it clear that Ron Hovsepian has Novell's SUSE (Linux) in mind, not GNU/Linux and not Free software. Taking 'shortcuts' at the expense of everybody else is no route to success. It just isn't.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Extortion is a Crime, Even If You're Based in Another Continent and Work for Microsoft
reported to British authorities
 
Links 06/06/2025: Microsoft XBox Bracing For More Mass Layoffs, Climate Disaster, Fake 'Money' Tokens From US President
Links for the day
Gemini Links 06/06/2025: Vanishing Cultures and MElon Implosion
Links for the day
We're in 6/6 Now, Almost Halfway in 2025
2025 was probably the best year for us
South Americans Are Saying Goodbye to Microsoft
We're hardly even "Cherry-Picking" or conveniently singling out one South American nation
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part III: Data Protection Failures, Just Like at the European Patent Office (EPO)
Just less than a decade ago we showed that the EPO had illegally shared staff data with third parties
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, June 05, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, June 05, 2025
Pushing Microsoft's Proprietary Trash/Trap as "Open" and "Linux" (Windows is 'Linux' Now?)
Maybe it's time to just stop saying "FOSS". The people who use that term are promoting Microsoft.
Slopwatch: Comparing Linux to Vermin, Attacking BSD With LLM Slop, and Helping Microsoft Demonise Linux/OpenBSD/SSH Over Weak User Passwords
Microsoft must be laughing its arse off, seeing how a bunch of Serial Sloppers (no skills, no comprehension, no integrity, no creativity) and slopfarms use Microsoft LLM to flood the Web with anti-Linux FUD
Links 05/06/2025: US Poised for Another $2.4 Trillion to Debt, Cops Want GAFAM Kill Switches
Links for the day
Links 05/06/2025: First US Spacewalk 60 Years Ago, GNU Octave 10.2.0 is Out
Links for the day
Scandinavia Saying Goodbye to Microsoft
The Danes have had enough of Microsoft
GNU/Linux Measured at 6% in Bangladesh, According to statCounter
Windows isn't growing, it's going away
Nat Friedman Had Left Microsoft GitHub Exactly One Week Before Matthew Garrett Sent His First SLAPP (Which Was an Empty Threat, He Was Abusing the Legal System of Another Continent to Terrorise Critics Who Had Just Unearthed Major Microsoft Scandals)
And it was likely talked about by his lawyers around the exact same time Nat Friedman was packing up
Gemini Links 05/06/2025: Loop Earplugs Review and ANS Forth
Links for the day
Armenian Adoption of GNU/Linux
Russian influence in Armenian must be worrying to Microsoft
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part II: Turning a Once-Respected Patent Office Into a Circus and Laughing Stock
It's not legal, but administrators who don't care about the law and don't fear the law would just go ahead and turn things to junk
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, June 04, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, June 04, 2025
Slopwatch: Mindless Slop Pieces, Fake Images and Text, Linux FUD on the Cheap
spewed out by Microsoft-controlled LLMs
Links 04/06/2025: Workers' Strikes, Sudan Exodus
Links for the day
Links 04/06/2025: Linux Foundation PR Spam and Lee Jae-myung Wins Election
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/06/2025: Future Leaders of the World and Platforming Jordan Peterson
Links for the day
Links 04/06/2025: WSL Backfiring on Microsoft and "Disney, Microsoft Announce Massive Layoffs"
Links for the day
Our Case is a Very Easy Win, the SLAPPs From Microsofters Were a Grave Error, and Censoring Information Won't Work (It'll Only Ever Backfire)
Censoring is what people do when they lose the argument
Say the Truth, the Rest Will Follow
There's no guarantee that writing the truth will result in an audience (or readership), but over time - in the long run - people generally gravitate towards what they know or feel to be crude truth, not just what's comforting (albeit false or self-deluding, usually groupthink dictated from above)
How to Expose High-Level Corruption Without Getting in (Too Much) Trouble
Democracy depends on free press and freedom of the press depends on being able to safely publish (and keep available) material that bad people don't want to be known to anybody
In-Depth EPO Coverage at Techrights Turns Eleven
11 years is a very long time
Windows Measured Below 10% in Afghanistan, GNU/Linux Gaining a Lot
about 80% are Android (Linux) users, compared to only about 10% for Windows
Poland's Political Predicament and Social Control Media
Democracy and fake "tech" don't mix well; the latter tends to interfere with the former and that's why we get more "Putins" out there
EPO: Taking Away From the Staff to Give More to the Rich
The Central Staff Committee (CSC) wrote to EPO staff earlier this week
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, June 03, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, June 03, 2025
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part I: It's a Lot Like the EPO
we can commence a series soon
Gemini Links 04/06/2025: Inescapable Questions and Quitting All "Oligarch Tech"
Links for the day