Bonum Certa Men Certa

MSBBC Continues to Abuse GNU/Linux Users While Promoting Microsoft Products (at Taxpayers' Expense)

Jonathan Ross
Photo by The Admiralty



Summary: The BBC -- now filled with former Microsoft executives -- is still blocking Free software users from content that they have already paid for and at the time time it is promoting lagging products from Microsoft

THE BBC can hardly be sued (nor can it be boycotted because of the way it collects money). For quite a few years now it has taken on board employees of Microsoft UK [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7], who in turn use the BBC to exclude Free software users and maybe to invite yet more Microsoft UK employees.



Last week we wrote about the latest step in blocking GNU/Linux users from BBC, essentially removing them from content that they have already paid for. The issue has since then been covered by The H and by Ars Technica, which says:

The BBC has enabled SWF Verification for its iPlayer streaming video service. This content protection mechanism has locked out users who consume the iPlayer video content with open source software.


Here is the latest development, as published this morning.

BBC Trust won't probe iPlayer open source gripes



The governing body of the BBC has no plans to investigate the Corporation's decision to block open source implementations of RTMP (real-time messaging protocol) streaming in the iPlayer, despite grumbles from many UK viewers and listeners of the service.

"The decision to block open source plugins is a matter for BBC Management. The Trust has not received any complaints on this issue and has no plans to look into it further at present," a BBC Trust spokeswoman told The Register.


This is clearly not over. What the BBC does here is without an excuse (not a valid one anyway).

Last week we showed that the BBC carried yet more Microsoft propaganda, which it only tried to correct later at the sight of typical gaps in knowledge. Here is what The Atlantic wrote about Microsoft's propaganda; it didn't buy it.

Do The Ends Justify The Means In Microsoft's War On Spam?



[...]

Microsoft argued that it had linked 277 domain names to a botnet, a network of compromised computers instructed to perform a task such as denial of service attacks and sending spam e-mails. Some computers in a botnet are run by spammers themselves, but the majority are "drones" or infected computers whose owners are unable to stop or unaware of the task being performed. Microsoft alleged the domains were part of a botnet called Waledac, which the company estimates includes between 30,000 and 90,000 drone PC's, according to The Journal.


More importantly, those "drones" are running Windows. Here is another criticism, this time from IDG News Service:

A prominent security researcher today said he doubts Microsoft's take-down of the Waledac botnet would have any impact on spam levels, as the company claimed.


Going back to the BBC, now that Microsoft's Natal is delayed, Jonathan Ross from the BBC keeps hyping it up:

Microsoft Project Natal demo season seems to be ramping up. Yesterday we revealed that Jonathan Ross got a Project Natal hands-on, now MTV has got its mitts on the motion-sensing system. And it claims it noticed a delay…


Watch this report: "Jonathan Ross Reveals Details About Microsoft NATAL"

The soon-to-leave BBC TV presenter, Jonathan Ross, has released some information through his Twitter account to more than half a million Twitter followers, about the launch of Microsoft's next generation controller otherwise known as project NATAL.


This is why the BBC often seems like a marketing front for Microsoft products. Given the influx of Microsoft executives who entered the BBC, it would only be a natural thing to occur. And what is it that they promote here anyway? One of the worst consoles of all time, the Xbox 360? It not only cost Microsoft billions of dollars is losses (business failure) but it also smashed records in defect rates (technical failure). It allegedly burned down people's houses and even killed a baby.

Based on the past week's news, those problems persist [1, 2, 3], but Microsoft is trying to hide it. What utter negligence.

Also in recent days we found these reports about “Corrupt Mod” allegations:

Yet again Microsoft and Xbox LIVE get themselves in the news for all the wrong reasons, and this time it’s for a video that has been posted on the internet that shows an Xbox LIVE moderator taking offensive action into his own hands.


This would not be the first. And anyway, why is the BBC promoting this product so much? Because it's associated with the United States rather than Japan? Or because Microsoft entryism has radically transformed the BBC to the point where it not only advertises Microsoft but also shuns people who use products that are not Microsoft's?

"We have 17.1 million users of bbc.co.uk in the UK and, as far as our server logs can make out, 5 per cent of those [use Macs] and around 400 to 600 are Linux users."

--Ashley Highfield, BBC, now Managing Director at Microsoft UK

Recent Techrights' Posts

Advocacy of Software Freedom Changed, LUGs Became Less Relevant
The way we see it, support groups like LUGs sort of outlived their usefulness when it became easier to install GNU/Linux
For the Second Time in a Few Weeks Microsoft Lunduke Makes False Accusations Against Senior Red Hat Staff to Incite a Despicable 'Troll Army'
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims or says can be trusted
Compromised by NVIDIA Proprietary Library
Meanwhile in Boston there are "[r]oundtable talk with FSF volunteers (both in-person and online)"
How Software Patents Were Viewed or Their General Status Changed Over Time
A rough summary
 
Watch the FSF Party Live (via Livestream)
It's in WebM format, which is widely supported by now
When Microsoft "Integrates" Something With "AI" It Means It's Losing Money and Is Generally Hopeless
how did Bing fare after 36 months of LLM slop being hyped up as "replacement" for search?
Most Certificates Don't Improve Security, They Mostly Increase Downtime (for No Good Reason)
The 'Gemini sites' (capsules) are a growing force
The statCounter Site Has Data Integrity Problems
Maybe we'll get back to statCounter when its data becomes more "stable" again
10 Ways to Combat Software Patents
software patents are loathed also by proprietary software developers
"Just a Little Bit of Meat..."
Free software "absolutism" is not a radical stance, more so if the only "radical" belief the user possesses is that he or she must be in control of his or her software, and by extension his or her computer
Red Hat is Ignoring the Free Software Community, It's a "Fortune 1000" Vendor
Red Hat's blog also participates a lot in promoting of Wall Street's latest pump-and-dump "AI" scheme
Free Software Foundation Party Has Begun
We shall be focusing a lot on software patents today
Former Head of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Lina Khan Knows Whatever Microsoft Touches Will Die
Just like Skype (as recently as months ago) [...] When Microsoft grabs things, or when it buys things, it almost never ends well
Slopwatch: Fake Articles About LibreOffice in Austria and Wine 10.16
very short
Links 04/10/2025: "attempted Coup" Noted in Facebook, Russia Kills Journalists via Drones
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/10/2025: Anesthesia and Baudpunk
Links for the day
Links 04/10/2025: "Privacy Harm Is Harm", Criticism Outlawed in US
Links for the day
Garmin Uses Linux for Some of the Garmin Products, Now It's Sued by Strava Using Software Patents
Software patents should never have been granted in the first place
Richard Stallman Will Give a Talk in Sweden in 6 Days
Dr. Stallman, despite his battle with cancer is still alive and mentally sharp
FSF Turns 40
We'll be focusing on patent-related topics this weekend
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, October 03, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, October 03, 2025
Gemini Links 04/10/2025: Distro Hopping and "Part Time"
Links for the day
We Are Turning 19 in One Month, FSF Turns 40 in 3 Hours (CET)
For our anniversary next month we still have no concrete plans
Patent Docs (or PatentDocs) Learned the Wrong Lessons From the Death of TypePad
Had they gone ahead with an SSG, they'd become a lot more future-proof
USPTO Patent Bubble Already Imploding, After Decades of Artificial Inflation, Entire Offices Close for Good
we can deduce that financial pressures (lack of "demand" for monopolies) play a role
TikTok is Not Harmless (Being CheeTok in the US Will Advance Orange Agenda)
Social control media isn't "fun and games"; it's a digital weapon that lets hostile groups or nations infiltrate others, then turn them against themselves
Andy Farnell and Helen Plews Explain What "Modern" Tech Does to Old People
Imposing terrible tech "religion" on people is not helping them
Tomorrow the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Turns 40 and Its Web Site is Still Slow Due to DDoS by LLM Slop Bots
For an advocacy group, uptime is important (for its message to remain accessible)
Slopwatch: Google News as a Firehose of LLM Slop About "Linux"
Google News is really bad
Datamation, Where I Used to Publish Articles, Appears to Have Been Sold to TechnologyAdvice Only to Become a Slopfarm
I'd prefer to not associate with that site anymore
Links 03/10/2025: "NPR’s Economics Lessons Come With Neoliberal Spin" and Canada Post at Risk
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/10/2025: Panic Attacks and Food Adulteration
Links for the day
Links 03/10/2025: Lawyers Caught Using LLM Slop Explain Why They Did It, LibreSSL 4.1.1 and 4.0.1 Released
Links for the day
FSF Board Grew 50% Since Last Year, Has New President, Turns 40 in Two Days
It's a good move for the FSF and - by extension - for software freedom
Links 03/10/2025: Conflicts, Death of TypePad, and TikTok/CheeTok Gives a Boost to Far Right Groups in Europe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 02, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 02, 2025
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: 'Open' 'AI' Resorting to Gimmicks and Fake Funding, Europe’s ‘Drone Wall’ Discussed
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: Brave Passes 100M Users Milestone, Kodak Selling Its Own Film Again
Links for the day
Michael “Monty” Widenius: It Started in 1983 With Richard Stallman (RMS)
The other co-founder of MySQL is a bit notorious for confronting RMS rather viciously
su lisa && rm -rf /home/ibm/power
Novell was ruined by another person from IBM, Ronald Hovsepian
A Record Demand at Microsoft: Demand to Cancel
What we're witnessing is a very ungraceful destruction of XBox
Microsoft is Losing Europe
Hence all the "support" and "discount" offers that are limited to Europe
The Free Software Foundation Starts Fund-raising for 40th Anniversary
New pop-up 2-3 days ahead of the 40th anniversary event
Systemd Breaks Networking in Debian and Microsoft Staff Rushes to Make Face-Saving Excuses in LWN
Microsoft's bluca is already there in the comments, his Microsoft money pays for LWN to let him leave comments early
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 01, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 01, 2025
What the End of XBox Will Look Like: a Fiery Crash
XBox is the next Skype. It won't last much longer. Expect many more layoffs.
Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
A day later he speaks in Sweden
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: SMTP Pipelining and End of ROOPHLOCH 2025
Links for the day