Bonum Certa Men Certa

FUD, Litigation, Unsubstantiated Accusations Against GNU/Linux

"Liberal institutions straightway cease from being liberal the moment they are soundly established: once this is attained no more grievous and more thorough enemies of freedom exist than liberal institutions."

--Friedrich Nietzsche



The quote above goes well with articles which involve free market think-tanks (i.e. like the Alexis de Toqueville Institute, which accused Linus Torvalds of code plagiarism). It certainly brings back memories of the dying SCO and also of Microsoft, which secretly attempted to fight Linux from legal fronts (the 'pawns' include Tanenbaum, who was too ethical to be 'corrupted'). This has never truly stopped. There is almost nothing that would stop unethical companies from making self-promotional lies and accusations.

Sam Varghese has just made us aware of an article where this phenomenon gets further explored and exposed. He refers to another element of it as FOSS spinmeistery.

In August 2003, a little more than three months after the SCO Group had filed a lawsuit against IBM, seeking damages for alleged breach of contract, I had an email exchange with Blake Stowell, who was then the public relations manager of the former company.

[...]

But the spinmeister cannot do this - he or she has no skills in this direction and there are few companies which are looking to hire incompetent "advocates" or "consultants." One thus finds that the spinmeister, in many instances, sets up his or her own consultancy and actively uses his or her position in the FOSS sphere to generate business. Self-promotion comes easy to this breed, dishonesty and a lack of integrity is close behind.


The article as a whole is worth a read. There is also this other new essay which addresses the FUD Microsoft has used against GNU/Linux.

My favorite, classic FUD comes from Steve Ballmer. "There's no company called Linux, there's barely a Linux road map. Yet Linux sort of springs organically from the earth. And it had, you know, the characteristics of communism that people love so very, very much about it." Here, Ballmer went to the route of the American psyche. How many Americans, to this day, still cringe a little in fear at the voicing of "communism"? If there's anyway to turn Americans off from buying a Linux PC, it's to emblazon the image of a big, red, Soviet Flag on the face of Linux, to conjure up an image of Fidel Castro reciting his communist propaganda from a speech he'd written on his openoffice,org word processor, to strike fear into our hearts at the thought of a Wisconsin Senator named Joe McCarthy barging into our houses in the middle of the night to send us away to prison for life because we owned an Ubuntu PC. I can't say if this FUD actually worked; it was so preposterous, and so few people give any credence to what Ballmer says anymore, that people might have just laughed at it. But it does show the depths to which proprietary software makers will go to keep the Linux and open source software threat out of their wallets.


As we found out recently, the company goes further than this. 'Thanks' to Novell, Microsoft now makes money from so-called 'communism'. It also dumps 'donations' in order to 'save' the world from so-called 'communism'.

Recent Techrights' Posts

All Your "Github Projects" Will be Gone One Day (Just Like Skype)
If you have code you wish to share and keep, then start learning how to do so on your own
Fedora Already Lost Its Soul Under IBM
Fedora used to be very strict compared to many other distros and it had attracted very bright volunteers
Links 17/04/2025: Calling Whistleblowers at Microsoft, Slop Doing More Harm Everywhere
Links for the day
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Privacy Fiasco in Detail: In Conclusion and Enforcement Action Proceeds Against OSI at the California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA)
There's too much to cover in one single part
 
Microsoft's Attack Dogs Have Failed. Now What?
It would be utterly foolish to assume that Microsoft has any intention of changing
To Understand Who's Truly Controlling You Follow the Trail of Censorship (or Self-Censorship)
Do not let media steal and steer the narrative; CoCs are not about "social justice", they're about corporate domination
Microsoft is Still Attacking GNU/Linux and the Net
Microsoft bribed the government using money that did not even exist
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, April 17, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, April 17, 2025
Gemini Links 18/04/2025: Pinephone Pro and Linux is too Easy
Links for the day
Links 17/04/2025: Russian Bot Farms Infect TikTok (Which US Government and SCOTUS Decided to Block January 19), US Hardware Stocks Crash Due to Tariffs
Links for the day
Gemini Links 17/04/2025: Sticking to Free Software, Smolnet, and Counting the Reals
Links for the day
When You Fail to Filter Your Clients You End Up SLAPPing Reporters on Behalf of Bad People From Microsoft in Another Continent
“American Psycho”
Links 17/04/2025: LayoffBot and Tesla Cheats Buyers
Links for the day
Gemnini Links 17/04/2025: Role of Language and Back to Mutt for E-mail
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, April 16, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, April 16, 2025
Trump Authority (CA) With a Trump NSA is All About Security, But Whose?
A "turnkey tyranny", as the NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake loved to call it
Confirming IBM Shutdowns and Layoffs Today
It's not over yet
Gemini Links 16/04/2025: The 2010s Are Calling and Why "Tools Will Not Liberate Us"
Links for the day
You Should Probably Self-Host Your E-mail and Never Use a Web Browser for Mail
Does anyone still believe Gmail is "free"?
Links 16/04/2025: Cliff Lynch RIP, More Attacks on Science (NASA)
Links for the day
StatCounter Shows the Market Share of Vista 11 is Decreasing in Ukraine This Year
Microsoft abandoning Vista 10 users would be a victory for Vladimir Putin
Google Promotes Fake Articles (LLM Slop) Instead of Originals, Relaying Microsoft's Linux FUD Emanating From Microsoft LLMs
Shame on Google for participating in the slopfest
In Some Countries the Largest OEMs Already Dump Microsoft Windows
Windows at 18.9%, Android 60.2%
The "Gold" Rule: Taking Money for Reputation Laundering and Openwashing Under the "Linux" Banner
Seller of expensive toilet paper, Jim Zemlin
LLM Slop Says Slop is "coming for white-collar jobs. Microsoft’s layoffs are just the start"
Look what the Web has become
Microsoft Down From 100% to 10% in Myanmar/Burma
only about 4% of Web requests in Myanmar/Burma come from Vista 11, soon to be the only "supported" version of Windows
Reporting Facts About Violence Against Women Deserves Awards, Not Frivolous Lawsuits and Threats
What is Microsoft's stance on women's safety?
Linux.com as Spamfarm of the Linux Foundation, Partner of the Gates Foundation
They no longer publish articles
When Fedora Said It Was Looking to Integrate "AI" It Meant Promoting Microsoft's Proprietary Spyware and GPL-Violating Slop
When they say "AI" they mean Microsoft
Slopwatch: The Typical Slopfarms and the 'Brian Fagioli Dilemma'
To the Web and to society (exposed to the Web) LLMs are a net negative
It Used to be IBM, Now It's Microsoft (Why You Need to Fire Microsofters or CIOs Working for Microsoft)
Typically the only effective solution is to identity and remove Microsofters from one's project/organisation (before they can bring more Microsofters in)
IBM Closes Offices and Labs in the United States to Open New Ones in India
It's not layoffs per se; they're substituting/swapping veteran employees for lesser-paid ones
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, April 15, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, April 15, 2025
Gemini Links 16/04/2025: IndieWeb Carnival, Tinylog RFC, "Focus, the Web and Gemini"
Links for the day