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Summary: How assimilation and deception are being used by Microsoft to make both sides of the competition look similar, even inseparable

MICROSOFT IS still using gratis versus libre. Sam Dean has typed up a follow-up to his good post about Linux and software freedom in robotics and now he mentions Microsoft's response to it, which is essentially dumping and advertising. Microsoft also misuses the word "free", whose "zero-cost" definition only comes around 7^th in an English dictionary. "Free" is more like a statement of independence, which is exactly the opposite of what proprietary software gives. Similarly, Microsoft distorts the word "choice" (see the video at the top for a demonstration of the false premises).

“"Free" is more like a statement of independence, which is exactly the opposite of what proprietary software gives.”Over at NetworkWorld (IDG), where "Open Source" does not mean what we commonly know as "Open Source", the Microsoft-boosting DotNetNuke (also holding a leading role in CodePlex) gets named "Winner and Still Champ" (the author neglects to warn that DotNetNuke is a Trojan horse for proprietary software from Microsoft) and in another IDG Web site we find Bill Gates' old FUD in the form of wrong classifications, where "Free" is seen as the opposite of "Commercial" rather than complementary to it. This old pattern of deception won't be phased out any time soon.

Complaints aside (many complaints are being made about proprietary software by Microsoft clients), here is YiChun Chen, a moderator from Microsoft who was publicly recomending Firefox. The post is from January but a reader brought it to our attention this afternoon.

Thank you for your post.

Could you please try the following tricks:

- Try another default browser - like Firefox

[...]

Best regards, Yichun Chen

But according to Microsoft, Firefox is not "commercial" and is even akin to communism. Is Microsoft recommending "communism"? Or is it just playing with words to serve its agenda as it sees fit? ⬆

"Thanks to Mr. Gates, we now know that an open Internet with protocols anyone can implement is communism; it was set up by that famous communist agent, the US Department of Defense."

--Richard Stallman