Bonum Certa Men Certa

Messages from the Thought Police (Microsoft/Novell)



Summary: The Microsoft boosters spread GNU/Linux FUD even upon the release of Firefox 3.6 while Novell and Microsoft groom another journalist for coverage of their joint products and glorification of their patent deal

WE GENERALLY avoid Microsoft’s talking head Preston Gralla, but sometimes we do provide examples to show/remind readers that his real masters are at Redmond [1, 2, 3, 4]. He hardly hides this and he probably would not deny it, either. For those who are not yet familiar with his repertoire, Carla from Linux Today provides another fine example (she did this before), noting that IDG is publishing Gralla FUD several times with different GNU/Linux-hostile headlines. Her personal comment is:



Goofy Anti-Linux Story Repurposed With Scarier Title



[...]

With all the wonderful, cool advances in high tech, just how devoid of curiosity, imagination, and knowledge does a person have to be to publish silly crud like this? Is it really that hard to find something interesting, true, and useful to write about? Something of actual substance and value? And to think I was feeling happy about PC World publishing more Linux stories--ed


In the comments we find: "FUD. Pure propagandist FUD. Preston Gralla would make a great politician." Speaking of which, politicians are indeed the same. "Here's cool stuff from a US politician," says a reader of ours who read Hillary Clinton's speech that we mentioned in the daily links (twice even). Quoting from her speech he writes:

"new technologies do not take sides in the struggle for freedom and progress, but the United States does. We stand for a single internet where all of humanity has equal access to knowledge and ideas. And we recognize that the world’s information infrastructure will become what we and others make of it. Now, this challenge may be new, but our responsibility to help ensure the free exchange of ideas goes back to the birth of our republic."

Good words, I wonder if she means it. Well, no, she does not:

"we must also grapple with the issue of anonymous speech. Those who use the internet to recruit terrorists or distribute stolen intellectual property cannot divorce their online actions from their real world identities."

"Intellectual property" is a confusion invented by people at odds with freedom and we should not expect freedom from people who talk about it. Mentioning in the same breath terrorists and people who would share their libraries is a terrible injustice. Anonymous speech is recognized by US jurisprudence as a precondition for real freedom of speech and anonymity is something that only the most tyrannical of police states can eliminate, especially on the Internet. The equipment and manpower needed to defeat people's ability to share is beyond the plans and dreams of the former Soviet dictators mentioned.


In other news, David Worthington sets himself to be indoctrinated with lies about the Microsoft/Novell deal (spin and marketing nonsense). He is hopefully not gullible this time around because previously he was promoting Novell and Novell's Mono after speaking to DiDio and other Microsoft employees [1, 2, 3] (not just the known Mirosoft agents that work from outside the company).

Here is the prelude:

I spent the day touring Microsoft's Cambridge office to learn more about the nature of its relationship with Novell. In the coming days I'll be writing about a new project that the companies have jointly developed, and will examine how they work together in their interoperability labs. Expect a few surprises.


It seems like Microsoft/Novell successfully 'recruited' someone to tell their lies to the public, just as Novell did in London two months ago [1, 2, 3], only to be slammed for the lies it had journalists put in print. These are merciless companies whose business model relies on lying at a massive scale; they call it "PR", which is just a euphemism for "propaganda".

Worthington will hopefully not repeat -- or shall we say "parrot" -- the lies from Microsoft and Novell, which they might as well truly believe in when they speak to him*. If Worthington is unsure about something or does not know the 'antispin', then he can pop in and ask. We are mostly a polite bunch, contrary to what Novell and Microsoft have people think. _____ * For the sake of morale they live in a parallel universe and that's just the nature of indoctrination, which readers of ours who have friends at Microsoft have witnessed a lot of. We also have regulars in the IRC channel who are Microsoft employees and they are out of touch with reality (distortion of facts).

Recent Techrights' Posts

A Lot of Technological 'Progress' Has Been Nothing But Buzzwords
Free software does not try to excite people people over nothing
Proprietary Software: Here Today, Gone Tomorrow
Proprietary software has an entirely different mindset, revolving around business models rather than science
Web Hostnames Down to Lowest Number in More Than 7 Years!
the number of hostnames is falling rapidly (they hide this by choosing logarithmic scale)
Over at Tux Machines...
2 days' worth
Stop Begging Companies That Don't Value Your Freedom to Stop Pushing You Around
That's not freedom
The forbidden topics
There are forbidden topics in the hacker community
Curation and Preservation Work
The winter is coming soon and this means our anniversary is near
 
Links 30/09/2023: Bing Almost Offloaded Due to Failure/Losses, Nvidia Raided
Links for the day
Community is the Lifeblood of Freedom in the GNU/Linux World
Removing or undoing the "cancerd" (systemd) is feasible but increasingly difficult
Richard Stallman Says He Will Probably Live Many More Years
"Richard Stallman has cancer. Fortunately it is slow-growing and manageable follicular lymphona, so he will probably live many more years nonetheless. But he now has to be even more careful not to catch Covid-19."
Quitting 'Clown Computing' and GAFAM is Only the Start
The Web and the Net at large became far too centralised
They Say Free Software is Like Communism When They, the Proprietary Software Giants, Constantly Pursue Government Bailouts (Subsidies From Taxpayers)
At the moment Ukraine is at most risk due to its dependence on Microsoft (inside its infrastructure)
Social Control Media Has No Future, It Was Always Doomed to Fail (Also Promoted Based on Lies)
Recent events, including developments at Twitter, meant that they lost a lot of their audience and then, in turn, sponsors/advertisers
They're Been Trying to 'Kill' Richard Stallman for Years (by Mentally Tormenting Him)
Malicious tongue wanted to do him what had been done to Julian Assange
We Temporarily Have Two Gemini Capsules
They're both authentic and secure, but they're not the same
Consumerism is Lying and Revisionism
We need to reject these liars and charlatans
Links 30/09/2023: Open VFS Framework, CrossOver 23.5, Dianne Feinstein Dies
Links for the day
Security Leftovers
GNU/Linux, Microsoft, and more
Microsoft Down on the World Wide Web, Shows Survey
down by a lot in this category
IRC Proceedings: Friday, September 29, 2023
IRC logs for Friday, September 29, 2023
A Society That Fails Journalists Does Not Deserve Journalism
It's probably too later to save Julian Assange as a working publisher (he might never recover from the mental torture), but as a person and a father we can wish and work towards his release
Almost Nothing To Go With Your Morning's Cup Of Coffee
Newspaper? What newspaper?
Techrights Was Right About the Chaff Bots (They Failed to Live up to Their Promise)
Those who have been paying attention to news of substance rather than fashionable "tech trends" probably know that GNU/Linux grew a lot this year
Selling Out to Microsoft Makes You Dead Beef
If all goes as well as we've envisioned, Microsoft will get smaller and smaller
Mobile Phones Aren't Your Friend or a Gateway to Truly Social Life
Newer should not always seem more seductive, as novelty is by default questionable and debatable
Links 29/09/2023: Disinformation and Monopolies
Links for the day
iFixit Requests DMCA Exemption…To Figure Out How To Repair McDonald’s Ice Cream Machines
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Jim Zemlin Thinks the World's Largest Software Company Has 200 Staff, Many of Whom Not Technical at All
biggest ego in the world
Microsoft GitHub Exposé — In the Alex Graveley Case, His Lawyer, Rick Cofer, Appears to Have Bribed the DA to Keep Graveley (and Others) Out of Prison
Is this how one gets out of prison? Hire the person who bribes the DA?
Richard Stallman's Public Talk in GNU's 40th Anniversary Ceremony
Out now
Links 29/09/2023: Linux Foundation Boasting, QLite FDW 2.4.0 Released
Links for the day
Red Hat Does Not Understand Community and It's Publicly Promoting Microsoft's Gartner
RedHat.com is basically lioning a firm that has long been attacking GNU/Linux in the private and public sectors at the behest of Microsoft
A 'Code of Conduct' Typically Promoted by Criminal Corporations to Protect Crimes From Scrutiny
We saw this in action last week
Objections to binutils CoC
LXO response to proposed Code of Conduct
Conde Nast (Reddit), Which Endlessly Defamed Richard Stallman and Had Paid Salaries to Microsoft-Connected Pedophiles, Says You Must Be Over 18 to See 'Stallman Was Right'
Does this get in the way of their Bill Gates-sponsored "Bill Gates says" programme/schedule?
Techrights Extends Wishes of Good Health to Richard M. Stallman
Richard Stallman has cancer
endsoftwarepatents.org Still Going, Some Good News From Canada
a blow to software patents in Canada
The Debian Project Leader said the main thing Debian lacked was more contributors
The Debian Project Leader said the main thing Debian lacked was more contributors
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, September 28, 2023
IRC logs for Thursday, September 28, 2023
Links 28/09/2023: Openwashing and Patent Spam as 'News'
Links for the day
Links 28/09/2023: Preparing Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.9 and 9.3 Beta
Links for the day
We Need to Liberate the Client Side and Userspace Too
Lots of work remains to be done
Recent IRC Logs (Since Site Upgrade)
better late than never
Techrights Videos Will be Back Soon
We want do publish video without any of the underlying complexity and this means changing some code
Microsoft is Faking Its Financial Performance, Buying Companies Helps Perpetuate the Big Lies (or Pass the Debt Around)
Our guess is that Microsoft will keep pretending to be huge, even as the market share of Windows (and other things) continues to decrease
Techrights Will Tell the Story (Until Next Year!) of How Since 2022 It Has Been Under a Coordinated Attack by a Horde of Vandals and Nutcases
People like these belong in handcuffs and behind bars (sometimes they are) and our readers still deserve to know the full story. It's a cautionary tale for other groups and sites
Why It Became Essential to Split GNU/Linux Stories from the Rest
These sites aren't babies anymore. In terms of age, they're already adults.
Losses and Gains in an Age of Oligarchy - A Techrights Perspective
If you don't even try to fix something, there's not even a chance it'll get fixed
Google (and the Likes Of It) Will Cause Catastrophic Information Loss Rather Than Organise the World's Information
Informational and cultural losses due to technological plunder
Links 28/09/2023: GNOME 45 Release Party, 'Smart' Homes Orphaned
Links for the day
Security Leftovers
Xen, breaches, and more
GNOME Console Won’t Support Color Palettes or Profiles; Will Support Esperanto
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer