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).