Bonum Certa Men Certa

Richard Stallman Defended in Argument with Novell VP

Microsoft Novell



Summary: GNU/Linux and/or Free software supporters do not buy the misdirected defense/offence of Novell's de Icaza

A COUPLE of days ago we wrote about Miguel de Icaza's smear against Richard Stallman. The news has made it into the front page of Slashdot and some other Web sites. The responses to this at Linux Today were uniformly in favour of Richard Stallman, without exception.



To quote just portions from the comments (fair use doctrine), wsd titles his/her comment "Icaza, join MS" and adds:

Why keep pretending? Just join your master.


John Helms calls de Icaza "naive".

Ultimately Stallman is right and de Icaza is wrong.

There is nothing of benefit to OSS/FOSS and Linux to be gained from what de Icaza and friends are doing. Their efforts, as well intentioned as they might be, are wasted until the Ballmer's and Gate's at Microsoft come out and publicly state their support for Open Source and Linux and prove it with real visible actions such as ordering their workerbees to make it an official company policy to support Open Source and Linux.


Barney replies to the above as follows:

This reminds me of what a Microosft insider told be about when there was this big Microsoft managers meeting on Java and Microsofts Visual J++. That's the one where everyone was talking about how they could do a great Java platform and Java IDE and then Bill Gates makes some loud noise and exclaims 'does anyone remember Windows?'.

The result of that meeting is when started Microsoft down the road to an incompatible Java, into court, and to put massive efforts into what would become MS .Net. All because Microsoft executive(s) decided the policy.


An outspoken former Microsoft employee also replies to the "naive" theme:

He's naive, all right. He's been seduced by what, money? Fame? Perceived power? The dude that said Microsoft is not a democracy is right. I know, 'cause I used to work there.

Microsoft executives are hell-bent on one thing: total domination of the computing space. They were when I was there, and they haven't changed a bit.


Lastly, Niki Kovacs says this about Miguel de Icaza:

Miguel de Icaza somehow reminds me of my old spanish hairdresser. The average hairdressing session more or less went like this. After a silent minute, the first sentence began invariably: "You know, me, I'm a democrat!" By this, I had to understand that my hairdresser was perfectly aware of his democratic right to vote for the French Front National, located far right on the political spectrum. And then, off he went in one of his rantings about unemployed Arabs, Social Security, and so on. Until one day I got fed up and went to look for another hairdresser. Now we're talking motorbikes, and everyone's happy. So, although my hairdresser desperately tried to prove it's possible to be a democrat AND a fascist, I guess you just can't be an open source advocate AND a Microsoft fan. Given this company's track record, there's just no way.


That's all the comments at the time of writing.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Links 28/08/2025: Chatbots Distorting/Fabricating History and Also Driving Suicide
Links for the day
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Resists Software Freedom, Even by Attacking Its Own
The OSI is compromised
 
Richard Stallman (RMS) Talk in Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress Will be Remote
This past week RMS received lots of accolades online
The Register MS (Run by Microsoft Operatives): Free Software is Putin, Hence Evil and Dangerous
The current editor in chief is an American Microsofter, the previous one went to work for Google (US)
Gemini Links 28/08/2025: Back in Japan and Why "Hacker News" Sucks
Links for the day
A Much-Needed Wake-up Call to Users of Wordpress.com, Blogspot, Substack and All Those Other Outsourced (and Centralised) Platforms
There are several lessons in there
The UEFI 9/11 - Part II - Campaign of Censorship and Defamation Against Critics
In dictatorships, humour serves an important role. It's tragic.
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, August 27, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, August 27, 2025
Slopwatch: linuxsecurity.com, Slopfarms in Google News, and More
Some readers of ours end up sending us links that are from slopfarms, not realising those are slopfarms
Gemini Links 27/08/2025: Katrina Memories and Google Versus Software Freedom
Links for the day
Links 27/08/2025: Police Against Media Freedom in the UK, Energy-Hungry Countries Targeted by China
Links for the day
Microsoft Windows Fell to All-Time Lows in Egypt This Summer, Vista 11 Adoption Decreases While GNU/Linux Increases
Vista 11 is going down rather than up
Links 27/08/2025: Microsoft Demoralises Staff With Slop Demands, Leaving Mastodon Explained
Links for the day
12 Hours Ago The Register MS Published a Fake (Paid-for) Article, But This One for a Change Did Not Promote a Ponzi Scheme
There are also Free software alternatives, but they don't pay The Register MS for "synthetic" so-called 'journalism'
More People Need to Call Out and Put a Stop to Serial Sloppers
Unless slopfarms are stopped, people will read and share Microsoft propaganda made by chatbots
Gemini Links 27/08/2025: Headphones and Tartarus
Links for the day
Morale at Microsoft is Terrible (Proprietary Plagiarism Machines Have No Future, LLM Slop is a Bubble)
The slop sceptics/critics are going to have lots of "told you so" moments
GNOME "governance issues, staff reduction, etc." amidst Albanian whistleblowing and women trafficking
Notice the connection to Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) and GNOME
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, August 26, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, August 26, 2025
Richard Stallman (RMS) Was Right About "Sideloading" in 1996
We now have computers that treat booting GNU/Linux like an act of "Sideloading"
Panama: Windows Down From 97% "Market Share" to Less Than 30%
In 2009, Windows was measured at 97.24% (compared to 62.32% right now or less than 30% if one also counts Android)
The UEFI 9/11 - Part I - Introduction to Impending Catastrophe (Microsoft Preventing People From Booting Non-Windows Systems)
eight-part series
Why Techrights is Slow Today (Bot Floods)
We don't know if those bots are connected to LLMs (we have not checked), but that is a possibility
Slopwatch: DDoS Slop, LinuxBSDos.com Spam, and Slopfarms in Google News, Including webpronews.com
Among the news we also found fakes, albeit not so much today
Links 26/08/2025: "Ballooning Debt" in France and "Transnational Repression in the UK"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/08/2025: Listening to Alcest and Google Doing Evil (Users Installing Software is "Sideloading" and Prohibited)
Links for the day
Links 26/08/2025: DNS Tampering and TikTok Layoffs
Links for the day
Microsoft's Windows "Market Share" Overestimated
Microsoft's income sources are shrinking
We Shall See...
My wife and I are hardly the first victims of Brett Wilson LLP
This New Determination on a Case Echoes the Modus Operandi of Microsoft's Serial Strangler vs Techrights (Its Online Decision/Judgment Says Truth and Public Interest Defend the Publisher)
Noel Anthony Clarke hopefully has enough money left to pay his victims, which include the publishers
Going Offline
There was life before the Net
The Register MS Has Apparently Shut Down Its Office
It is basically a fake address on the face of it
There Are Also Expectations of IBM Layoffs Very Soon With "Narrative Control."
Some of them mention Red Hat and how IBM failed to achieve anything substantial with that acquisition
After at Least Two Rounds of Mass Layoffs in August Microsoft Said to Have "September Layoff Confirmed - Performance Based"
Those "M5 level meetings" sound plausible
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, August 25, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, August 25, 2025