Bonum Certa Men Certa

Linux Magazine and Novell: Conflict of Interests

Bullets on board
Totally missing the point



Novell's PR people proudly (yet blindly) announce that they were well placed in Linux Magazine, but they neglect to mention a serious conflict of interests.

Linux Magazine has peered into its crystal ball and picked Novell as one of its “Top 20 Companies to Watch in 2009”.

[...]

Linux Magazine notes our SUSE Linux Enterprise Server Subscription with Expanded Support program as well as our groundbreaking partnership with Microsoft and the development work being undertaken as part of that partnership.


"Groundbreaking partnership with Microsoft," eh?

One of the key people in Linux Magazine is Zonker (Joe Brockmeier), who is now leading the OpenSUSE community as a Novell employee. No conflict or interests there, eh?

“One of the key people in Linux Magazine is Zonker (Joe Brockmeier), who is now leading the OpenSUSE community as a Novell employee.”Novell's relationships in mainstream media have always made it difficult to trust coverage. The same goes for smaller sites like OStatic by the way, as Zonker is an author there [1, 2]. They promote Novell products like Mono and even Go-OOXML (several times in fact). Kristin, who is Zonker's colleague, covers a lot of OpenSUSE, e.g. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6].

We have already commented on Zonker's appointment and what it means to Novell when they hire a journalist. They can manipulative coverage and thus alter public perception.

This is also happening right now in CIO Magazine (of IDG|IDC [1, 2, 3]). Zonker is preaching about "Corporate Contributions", which is the tune Novell wants to sing in order to isolate grassroots from "commercial", "enterprise" and other buzzwords that elevate Novell's status at the expense of "unsupported" distributions. He does the same thing in his ZDNet blog, albeit it's rather subtle.

"Ideally, use of the competing technology becomes associated with mental deficiency, as in, "he believes in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and OS/2." Just keep rubbing it in, via the press, analysts, newsgroups, whatever. Make the complete failure of the competition's technology part of the mythology of the computer industry. We want to place selection pressure on those companies and individuals that show a genetic weakness for competitors' technologies, to make the industry increasingly resistant to such unhealthy strains, over time."

--Microsoft, internal document [PDF]

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Microsoft's GitHub is Losing Traffic, Based on an Extensive Web Survey, and Its Future is Uncertain
Remember that Microsoft keeps close to its chest the operations and finances of GitHub (because it's embarrassing!)
[Meme] Shoestring Budget With Record Profits (Because Hundreds of Thousands of Fake European Patents Get Granted)
Record profits? EPO staff does not benefit!
 
Disputing the Achievements of IBM's CEO, Who Already Terminated Many Jobs at Red Hat (Which He Had Allegedly Suggested Buying)
Buying a company to gut it within about a year?
Links 14/10/2024: One Year Since Activision Blizzard Demolition 'Officially' Began and Amazon Corporate Layoffs Accelerate
Links for the day
Gemini Links 14/10/2024: Dabbling in GemText, Unit Testing
Links for the day
Links 14/10/2024: Keeping Multiple Blogs, Wrestling With Misinformation
Links for the day
[Meme] Class of Microsoft
"Everything started with Microsoft DOS!"
History Education and Rejecting Creation Myths
The creator of Linux isn't the creator of GNU/Linux
How to Follow Our Updates About EPO (or Everything Else for That Matter)
follow us via RSS feeds
EPO Administration: Wait Several Months or Until Next Year for Clarifications
"After the intranet announcements of 18 September and 27 September and recent emails from CIGNA concerning opting into the VECOZO network, colleagues have been contacting us with queries and requests for guidance."
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 13, 2024
IRC logs for Sunday, October 13, 2024
Unrest at the European Patent Office as School Costs Eat Away the Income
"Letter to the administration on the Education Allowance - DISDH - German School"
Gemini Links 13/10/2024: ArcMenu, Emacs decide-mode, Midnight Pub Mass-Deletion Option
Links for the day
Links 13/10/2024: Science, Politics, and Some Gemini
Links for the day
Links 13/10/2024: Writing, Remembering John Wheeler, Voice Cloning
Links for the day
Certificate Authority Let's Encrypt Falls to 0.7% in Geminispace (It Was Around 12% Just 2 Years Ago and 7.5% This Past February)
Let's Encrypt is down again
Gemini Links 13/10/2024: Self-hosting Snac2 and Invasion of e-ink
Links for the day
SDxCentral, which the Linux Foundation Paid to Produce Marketing SPAM, Has Now Become Slop (LLM Spew) Disguised as 'Articles'
Google should delist it
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, October 12, 2024
IRC logs for Saturday, October 12, 2024
Links 12/10/2024: More Site Blocking, China's Hostility, and Evan Gershkovich's Upcoming Book
Links for the day
"Security Advantages" Explained by a Scammy "Security" Site That Uses LLMs to Spew Out Garbage
destroying the Web by saturating it with "bullshit".
Links 12/10/2024: Boeing to Cut 17,000 Jobs, Medieval Sleeping Habits, Warning About Liquidweb
Links for the day
Links 12/10/2024: Health, Safety and Climate Concerns
Links for the day
Gemini Links 12/10/2024: Ensemble and Assembler
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
Links 12/10/2024: TikTok Layoffs and Risk of More Wars
Links for the day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, October 11, 2024
IRC logs for Friday, October 11, 2024