Bonum Certa Men Certa

Weak Week for Microsoft, Patent Sellouts Are Left to Do Microsoft's Work

Novell and LG do the heavy lifting

Draft horses



Summary: Microsoft -- like Novell -- is hibernating a little and relies on Novell and LG to promote its products, having jointly signed patent deals that harm GNU/Linux and turn them into slaves/subsidiaries

MICROSOFT and Novell have a lot in common, not just in terms of projects. Both companies are failing to evolve for tomorrow's world of IT, where mobility and Internet reign supreme; they both rest of their legacy and dread the future. Novell's future is very uncertain because it is up for sale and we find almost no news about this company anymore. It's so seriously profound that we stopped the weekly summation of links about Novell, instead moving to a different format. There just wasn't enough news (we call it "Novell news drought").



Things are not improving for Novell. One of the more widely used distributions of GNU/Linux is dropping F-Spot from different variants [1, 2]. Sooner or later, Novell's and Microsoft's dream of world domination with Mono and other useless clones of Microsoft's patents-saturated stack is going to go up in flames along with Novell.

When we also look at impending doom that Novell is reported to be rushing towards, the future for the “gift to the world” is all rather in doubt.


"[G]ift to the world” is a token for Mono. On goes this post: 'Except that arguably the leading Linux distro has stated its to remove one of them? Other distro’s are not including Mono either and in fact I think its fair to say there's a lot of bad feeling around the whole subject. Is this the Mono “enthusiasm” they mean? Again, I’ll let you decide. Where will the “gift to the world” be without Novell sponsorship?"'

“Microsoft's ties with Novell are likely to ensure that projects inside Novell which are beneficial to Microsoft will not die any time soon.”Well, Microsoft pays Novell, so Mono sponsorship (in one form or another) can still be funneled into Microsoft MVP Miguel de Icaza and his fellow Ximian coders (who use a monkey as their mascot, go figure).

Microsoft's ties with Novell are likely to ensure that projects inside Novell which are beneficial to Microsoft will not die any time soon. They might be relocated, but never abandoned unless all GNU/Linux users shun them, in which case the apologists will give up and do something more useful (to Microsoft).

There are other patent partners who sold out to Microsoft, decided to pay Microsoft for Linux, and then helped Microsoft in additional ways. Samsung has begun helping Microsoft DRM a little more aggressively and LG -- another Korean company that sold GNU/Linux down the river -- is now teaming up with Microsoft to promote the embattled Xbox 360. Here is some news coverage from days ago:



Does this seem like a company which is said to have embraced Linux? Surely not. It sells Ballnux and it helps Microsoft make money from Android. Those who look for an Android phone should avoid Samsung, LG, Kyocera Mita, and HTC.

“Those who look for an Android phone should avoid Samsung, LG, Kyocera Mita, and HTC.”Looking at Xbox 360 for a while, there has been no other significant news for Xbox 360, except the fact that the consoles/games business is slowing down (and Microsoft has already lost billions in there). Microsoft paid $75,000,000 to break an exclusivity deal, which harms customers anyway and this product in general seems to rely on contributions from the outside (unless it's Datel, in which case Microsoft is blocking and suing [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]).

The real news about Microsoft is that there is hardly any news at all. The past week has been a very, very slow & scarce week, with apparently just one headline -- and one headline alone -- about "Zune", no news headlines found this week with the word "Bing" in them, and only one about "Silverlight" (we use Google News for reference here). That's pretty bad.

On the Web browsers front, we mostly learn that Microsoft is losing and losing every month. The vocation of Explorer and Windows might as well be similar despite or because the two are tightly linked to each other. From the Financial Express:

It’s no secret that Internet Explorer’s (IE’s) share of the browser market has been declining steadily for years, but when it dropped by over 10% in the past 10 months to below 60% for the first time in its history, everybody took notice. While IE remains the single most used browser in the world, most experts believe that this is not a lead that it can maintain for long.

[...]

As monopolies often do, this had the unfortunate effect of virtually ensuring that Microsoft didn’t really bother putting out a good product. IE was famously buggy, had numerous security flaws and vulnerabilities, and was a system resource hog. And, when you think about it, Microsoft had to work really hard to push a product that was completely free. It was so bad; they couldn’t even give it away.


Only 4 headlines (or clusters thereof) about Vista 7 were found in one week. That's just embarrassing as that's approximately one in two days, only half a year after the launch of this muchly-hyped product. Has Microsoft run out of the huge marketing budget for it? Just 4 items including advertisements from Mary Jo Foley is not much at all. Vista is history and the the biggest news for Windows seems to be the death of XP Service Pack 2. Here is some coverage:



The pro-Microsoft monopoly blogs seem happy to suggest that "Microsoft [is] pushing XP users to upgrade" (because one of Microsoft's liars for hire from Forrester Research chooses to wave this claim around the Internet and pressure companies to buy Vista 7).

“Is it news or is it just more PR disguised as news (like an estimated 60% of so-called 'news')?”The latter article explains that businesses will be better off using another Web browser (not Internet Explorer) or another operating system which is also offering respect and security to the user. Daniel Nations at least has the brains to analyse this properly.

In the previous post we wrote about how Microsoft controls segments of the press, so we were not shocked to find more Microsoft spin from the unofficial 'Microsoft press', which is supporting and covering up Microsoft's position on silent patches, which we last mentioned some days ago. Shame on them. Is it news or is it just more PR disguised as news (like an estimated 60% of so-called 'news')? It comes from the network of "Redmond"-labeled sites that are deeper in Microsoft's pocket than even NBC is (or ever was).

Microsoft's bad behaviour in Malaysia, where we frequently see the press (the English version of it at least) used as a marketing vehicle for dumping of proprietary software in a country with richer and broader use of Free software, is at it again. Why don't they properly cover BizSpark [1, 2, 3, 4] and explain that it's a lock-in trap? Why don't they ignore mere PR?

Recent Techrights' Posts

Promoting Microsoft Windows With LLM Slop
What is the policy at BetaNews regarding LLM slop?
Alex Oliva, the Potential 'Successor' of RMS, Has a New Web Site
More freedom for Alex Oliva
 
Links 16/02/2025: Nostalgia for Physical Media and the US Government Actively Promotes Pro-Kremlin Politicians in the EU
Links for the day
Gemini Links 16/02/2025:Life, Cynicism, and languages
Links for the day
Links 16/02/2025: Oligarchs "Collect Your Data and Control Your World", Global Temperatures Shoot Up
Links for the day
Links 16/02/2025: "Microsoft Is Laying Off Employees" and Internal Dissent Brewing at Facebook Over Regime Complicity
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, February 15, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, February 15, 2025
Links 15/02/2025: Harms to Health, Public Domain, and More
Links for the day
Gemini Links 15/02/2025: On Autistic People, AuraGem Over HTTPS
Links for the day
The Cyber Show (C|S) Speaks of the "Rise of the Nerd Reich."
This 'Valentine Episode' is quite good
Azure is Turning 17 This Year, Still Losing Money and Staff
Hallmark of pyramid schemes, deriving "value" out of things that do not really exist?
Strong Momentum for the Free Software Foundation (FSF) as Winter Approaches Its End in Boston or in the Northern Hemisphere
FSF's founder, Richard Stallman, gives another talk in Italy in 9 days from now
The 'Drunken Plagiarists' Are Harming Journalism About GNU/Linux
They lessen the incentive to do real journalism abut GNU/Linux
Female Nazis and racist Swiss women
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Richard Stallman on RISC-V and Free Hardware
Invidious is under attack by Google
Links 15/02/2025: Erasing of American Science and Tesla SLAPPing Critics
Links for the day
IDG 'Reviews' of GNU/Linux Now Contain LLM Slop
It's typically ads or commercials... or sometimes spin disguised as news
Gemini Links 15/02/2025: Spectacles and "Before Sunset", Moving Domains Out of the US
Links for the day
Microsoft Has Only $17,482 Million Left, "Cash on Hand" Sank 40 Billion Dollars in 2 Years
Microsoft runs low on money in the bank
YouTube Layoffs Mean That YouTube is Still Losing a Lot of Money (Net Income or Profit Almost Definitely Negative)
In more recent years Google defunded many vloggers
In Gopher and Gemini Protocol People Abandon Services Based in the United States
There's no resistance whatsoever
Python and Microsoft: Pandas Should Have Known OpenDocument Format (ODF) and Microsoft Excel Are Different and Competing Things
now we're meant to think that in order to open ODF files we need some functions with "Excel" in their name
Not Only Windows, Surface, and "Hey Hi" PCs; Microsoft's Hardware Ventures Are a Dumpster Fire; HoloLens Mixed Reality Hardware Now Axed Altogether and Staff is Miserable
Microsoft is in a terrible state
Certificate Authority (CA) Let's Encrypt Now Down to TEN (0.3% of the Whole) in Geminispace
The number of capsules that use Let's Encrypt is, according to Lupa, about to fall to single-digit figures
Links 15/02/2025: University Price Hikes and Copyright Action Against Slop Companies
Links for the day
Slopwatch: All Those New 'Articles' Are Fake and Crafted by Chatbots (LLM Slop)
Google News is promoting these as "Linux" news; they're not even made by humans
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, February 14, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, February 14, 2025
Gemini Links 14/02/2025: Mysterious Friend and "Eight by Eight"
Links for the day
They Will Never Leave Linus Torvalds Alone, Rust is Just Another Way to Cause Instability and Infighting in Linux
We already identified the Rust "community" as troublemakers more than 5 years ago and we wrote about the evidence
Apple: Social Justice or Social Nationalism?
Remember to buy Apple, folks
Links 14/02/2025: Mass Layoffs at Sophos, Chatbots Failing Very Badly, "DOGE as a National Cyberattack"
Links for the day
Moving Away From Certificate Authorities (CAs) Like Let's Encrypt Means Taking Away From the US Government the Power to 'Censor' Sites by Revoking Certificates
Gemini capsule is cheap to run and easy (easier than a Web site) to maintain. More people disillusioned and frustrated with social control media flock to it.
BetaNews' Managing Editor Wayne William Took Charge of GNU/Linux Articles and His Articles Are Real (He Actually Wrote Them)
We are frankly relieved to see that Wayne William recognised the problem and did something about it
Links 14/02/2025: Publicity Rights Violated (ByteDance), Bribes to Trump Passed via Social Control Media 'Settlements' Again
Links for the day
Gemini Links 14/02/2025: Constitution, Cosmic DE, and More
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Anti-Linux Articles Published by Bots, Dominating Google News
So a lot of the Web is Microsoft chatbot-generated anti-Linux FUD
Links 14/02/2025: Measles Outbreak in Texas, Zelensky Warns Russia Will Attack a NATO Country
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, February 13, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, February 13, 2025