Bonum Certa Men Certa

The Quest to Daemonise Critics of Microsoft

Daemon



Summary: Mischaracterisation and demeaning sensationalism as tools of making sticklers of law and ethics look bad

LAST WEEK we pointed out that critics of criminal activity tend to be portrayed as 'bad guys'. This is very sad. In essence, it leads us to a state where criminals are glorified and they also set an example for others to follow, having shown what felons can get away with. Nice guys need not finish last and good people need not be excluded from deciding on world policy. It takes a lot of talent to take people whose intentions are good and moral value is high and then totally reverse this, casting them as "irrational haters". Richard Stallman is a good example of victims of this tactic. He is a big target to many.



It is almost understandable that some people view Microsoft's GPL violation [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6] and the company's response to it as something worthy of credit. Even proponents of GNU/Linux are led into feeling this way.

To its credit, rather than damning the tool to program hell, Microsoft released the tool's source code under the GPLv2 licence.


Microsoft's PR people are trying to portray this latest GPL violation as something positive instead. But why "credit"? Microsoft had no choice. As we put it back in July when Microsoft was caught violating the GPL, "Microsoft's Goodwill is to Obey the Law" (having broken it and gotten caught). This is a repeating pattern wherein Microsoft is trying to inverse truisms and add exaggeration with strong words like "evil" or "hate" to provoke or stigmatise critics.

“This is a repeating pattern wherein Microsoft is trying to inverse truisms and add exaggeration with strong words like "evil" or "hate" to provoke or stigmatise critics.”Yesterday we gave an example of this in relation to Matt Asay's "The convenient fiction that Microsoft is evil." We deliberately link to the Linux Today page which contains a lot of comments. The response from Linux Today is largely negative, and rightly so.

What a terrible, almost trollish, headline to use. Maybe this is why Microsoft employees (or former Microsoft employees who now serve Microsoft from the outside, e.g. Mono) pretend that he is the second most influential person in "open source" (never mind those developers, lawyers and marketing people are much more important!), expecting that he'll reciprocate.

It is rather insulting when people who work with Microsoft preach to people who strictly stick to the law about how irrational and intolerant they are. As if to say, "follow my lead for peace and harmony along with peace-loving and harmony-loving Steve Ballmer. We should forgive Microsoft every year for any crime that's committed again and again. What's a bribe between two tolerant people? What's a recurrence of hundreds of times to a behavioural pattern? Let us have compassion."

It's a patronising attitude and it is not fair.

The facts speak for themselves. Microsoft is still attacking GNU/Linux in very disgusting ways [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6].

Here is one new response to Asay's piece. It's titled "Convenient Fictions" and it is sarcastic.

It’s a convenient fiction that a vocal minority within the open-source community believes Microsoft is the source of all evil in the technology world.

For “such people“, it is far easier to denounce an imaginary one-dimensional straw man directing irrational “hate” towards a single entity than a principled stand against anti-freedom activities, no matter the source.

The fact of the matter, as a moment of honest research will show, is that the “vocal minority” has something to say about Microsoft, Apple, Intel, the MPAA, the RIAA, and many other entities – large and small – that engage in anti-user, anti-Freedom activites.

[...]

However, it makes no more sense to take this single incident and use it as exculpatory evidence than it would to use this single incident as damming evidence. Yet, by connecting this single “error” to the hateful straw man, that is exactly what “such people” are attempting – avoiding any mention of over a decade of history of clearly-not-mistake hostile and illegal actions.

Such dishonest apologetics do no one a favor. They do not cast Microsoft in a more favorable light. They do not strengthen the credibility of the apologist. And they do not convert the critic.


Asay was not alone with this line of argument. A decades-long writer of books about Microsoft development is sort of trivialising criminal activities and describing critics as though they are kids or "Star Wars" enthusiasts by exaggerating. It's titled "IT Needs Its Darth Vaders" and the response to it is negative. Rainer Weikusat calls it "babble".

Does the psychiatrist know about the existence of control freaks?



Well, does the psychiatrist know about the existence of (still kicking and very much alive) control freaks? For example, what's going on with the secret ACTA negotiations -- the looming threats of global DMCA, three strikes laws, etc. http://www.michaelgeist.ca/index.php?option=com_ta gs&task=view&tag=acta Or does the author believe that we should all sit down and relax and trust our future to the the benevolent senator Palpatine?


A few days ago we wrote about Microsoft's latest PR move for "open source". Well, "open source spin" is what it ought to be called when Microsoft does useless things to confuse people and characterise something whose core is all proprietary as "open". Moreover:

[T]he TCP/IP stack will not be open-sourced - because, as Peter Galli, who runs Port 25, Microsoft's means of communicating with open source, says , "the TCP/IP stack is third party software that Microsoft licenses from EBSNet, so we do not have the rights to distribute that source code.

"If someone needs to access the source code for the TCP/IP stack, they can contact EBSNet directly."

What use is a framework that caters to internet-connected devices without a TCP/IP stack?


Watch "FOSS" mentioned in relation to Word documents in this new press release. It was a long time ago that we warned about "Open Source" losing its meaning because of Microsoft (OOXML described as "open source" in the Times of India right after massive corruption).

“Microsoft is, I think, fundamentally an evil company.”

--Former Netscape Chairman James H. Clark

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

The UEFI Restricted Boot 'Time Bomb' is About to Go Off in a Few Weeks
Garrett was the first person to face sanctions (like muting) in our IRC channels because of his abuse; worse yet, he hijacked other people's names and then locked them out of their own accounts
Nobody is "Replaced by AI", It's Just a Smokescreen for Jobs Being Eliminated by Lack of Money (Too Much Debt) and Offshoring
It's also why many make the jokes about the "I" in "AI" being "India" or "Indians"
The US Government is Now in the Business (Literally!) of Saving Microsoft and Intel
This means that President TACO/Cheeto now has greater financial incentive to also prop up Microsoft and Windows
 
Links 24/08/2025: Heatwaves Threaten Workers, Maldives Versus Press freedom
Links for the day
Gemini Links 24/08/2025: Digital Cameras and Printers
Links for the day
Links 24/08/2025: GAFAM Lie About Pollution and Slop's Carbon Footprint, The Guardian Says Slop ("Hey Hi") is a Bubble That Will Send Stock Markets Into a Freefall
Links for the day
80% of the Sponsored (Fake) Articles in The Register MS Are Promotions of Ponzi Schemes (Unethical Money), the Rest is Banned Chinese Business
Is that an ethical way to make money? No.
Should Currys PCWorld Start Voiding Warranties of Users of Vista 11?
If a person's laptop has a mechanical issue, should this person replace GNU/Linux with Vista 11 for the repair shop? Only to damage the SSD?
Newer is Not Always Better, and It's Possible That 'Peak' is the Past
People creating their own platforms means progress, whereas centralisation (like moving from blogs to social control media) is the opposite of progress
LLM Hype is Sowing Destruction: It Contributes to DDoS Attacks and Makes the Web Less Accessible (JavaScript "R U Human?" Tests)
If it was googlebot, it would be possible to argue that you'd at least then get referral traffic from Google Search. With LLMs, all you get is plagiarised.
Links 24/08/2025: New York Times Talks About Hey Hi (AI) Bubble
Links for the day
Gemini Links 24/08/2025: Upgrading Debian and Mobile-indifferent Design
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, August 23, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, August 23, 2025
Richard Stallman's Talk in Buenos Aires Scheduled for 16 November 2025 (a Month After FSF Turns 40)
they've just updated their site and Stallman is listed first
Men Who Abuse Women Should Never Spend Over 3 Years of the UK High Court's Time
This demonstrates that we need a reform in the UK
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, WebProNews, LinuxSecurity, and the Serial Slopper
The bubble needs to burst, but even then the Web will be left with residues of these slopfarms
Links 23/08/2025: Science, War, and Important Win for the British Media Against SLAPPers Who Abuse Women
Links for the day
Gemini Links 23/08/2025: BaseLibre Numerical System and Back to Oldschool
Links for the day
"Deserved Victory" for "Women That Suffered"
"GNM defended its reporting as being both true and in the public interest and in a judgment on Friday"
Links 23/08/2025: onmicrosoft.com as Spam Cannon, The Cheeto-Intel Deal Is Official
Links for the day
Wired Complained About LLM Slop Only Days Before It Got Caught Doing That Itself
Never throw stones in a glass house
IBM "Value" Down 14.16% in a Month, Red Hat Layoffs Allegedly Discussed 12 Days Ago
"IBM is a dinosaur. Dinosaurs get extinct when the don't keep up."
We're Seeing More Countries Where Windows Isn't Even in Second Place Anymore (Third or Worse)
In a way, Microsoft can barely even hold onto second place anymore
Microsoft Workers on Canonical's Payroll
If you want something that's sort of like Ubuntu but is not controlled by Canonical, then look into Linux Mint, Debian, or LMDE
GNU/Linux Climbs to 4% in Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone isn't a very rich country (to say the least), but it's better off than some of its neighbours
The SLAPPS Run Out of Oxygen Because They're Abuse of Process
At the end of the day we plan to publish over 1,000 articles explaining what happened
The Register MS Gets Paid by the Employer of the Previous Editor in Chief to Promote the "AI" Ponzi Scheme, Which Does Considerable Damage to the Web and to Online Journalists
The Register MS can 'badmouth' slop all it wants; it gets paid to inflate this bubble. It's actively participating in it.
Soon It'll be Autumn, Time to Repair Things
Where they don't charge an arm and a leg
Doing Our Best to Cover Software Patents When the Mainstream Media Does Not
Even the FSF has its limits
Gemini Links 23/08/2025: August Questions and Network Solutions
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, August 22, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, August 22, 2025
Microsoft Has Issues in Guyana
It's not just Guyana
About 25% of the "Linux" News/Results in Google News Today Are LLM Slop, Almost 20% From the Same Rogue Operators of Slopfarms
Google, which tries to market itself as an LLM giant, apparently fails to understand what's wrong with it
Harassing People on Holiday
There are "no-go areas"; but that assumes all laws firms have ethical standards
The Great, Undeniable Value of Paper Trail, Not Purely Digital Systems
Suppose you have nothing but bits on someone else's computer and "word of mouth"...
The Company Behind Ars Technica, Reddit and Wired Caught Publishing LLM Slop (It Also Admits It Now)
Condé Nast busted
Links 22/08/2025: Lagrange 1.18.8, Wired Magazine and Business Insider Caught Resorting to LLM Slop
Links for the day
This Saturday It's Gonna be 3.5 Years* Since Russia Invaded Ukraine. No Microsoft Protests Against Microsoft Having Provided Russia With Services.
Companies do not have consistent policies and enforcement of "corporate values" is somewhat of an egg salad
Slopwatch: Sites Gone Rogue, Google Promoting Lies, and DDoS Attacks by Plagiarism Giants
Charlatans and frauds engage in a war against artistic industries, mislabeling plagiarism as "AI"
Links 22/08/2025: Cisco Layoffs, LA Times Says "AI Hype is Fading Fast"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/08/2025: K for Kentucky and Caddy Versus LLM Slopbots
Links for the day
The "End Software Patents" Initiative of the FSF Explains "WHY [to] ABOLISH SOFTWARE PATENTS"
We hope to cover patent-related issues more and more as the big anniversary of the FSF approaches
Freenode Sniffing
The grown-ups left the building
The Only Thing Worse Than Misinformation is Misinformation Sold to Everyone as "Intelligence"
Misplaced trust is worse than none at all
The Register MS Now Openly Admits LLM Hype Does Damage, But It's Also Being Paid to Participate in the LLM Hype (With Paid 'Articles' and 'Webcasts' for Paying Advertisers)
The Register MS gets paid to do this
End of the Smartphone Era? No.
Maybe the media should focus on producing accurate, factual news
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, August 21, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, August 21, 2025
Enshittification of Airports, Airlines, and Airplanes
If people are willing to tolerate standard declines and enshittification (nowadays sold as "pivot to AI" or "replaced by AI" or "AI layoffs") they will pay for it some other way
Latest Is Not Greatest: The Case of "Foldable" Tech
don't be shamed into abandoning old things just because the "fashion industry" of Apple and Samsung tells you to
Airlines and Their Tricks That Only Work in the 'Digital Age'
People sceptical of the direction technology has taken are not "Luddites"
Open Source Initiative (OSI), Which Became a Propaganda Front of Microsoft and "Hey Hi" (Hype, Misnomer), Wants You to Forget These Scandals
A lot of these issues won't be set aside until there's a resolution