Bonum Certa Men Certa

Michael McLoughlin, Kevin McBride, and Florian Müller

Common fiends, common goals

Meeting



Summary: Some loose connection claimed to have been found between SCO's boosters, Microsoft's staff, and Microsoft Florian

Microsoft cannot compete against Linux, so it is trying to destroy Linux instead. Microsoft Florian helps 'pull a SCO' using lies right now [1, 2, 3] and somebody helps show a connection between him, Microsoft, and Darl McBride's lawyer brother, who some months ago also helped 'pull a SCO' by making false claims [1, 2]. Anyway, here is the comment of relevance:



Mueller: what is your relationship with M. McLoughlin

Direct question for F. Mueller, will you describe your relationship with MSFT's M. McLoughlin:

I did a screen cap in Feb. 2010 of twitter friends of Kevin McBride (the lawyer brother of SCO's Darl McBride).

He had 2 friends: you (Florian Mueller) and Microsoft's McLoughlin.

McLoughlin's bio is:

Michael McLoughlin. McLoughlin is

* Director, Enterprise Markets, Office of Strategic Relations at Microsoft

* Board Member atOpen Computing Alliance


It is curious to say the least. Pamela Jones also lays out a theory in Groklaw:

So is it not at least possible that a Microsoft operative deliberately tried to poison the well?

If I were Florian, I'd put out an over the top article about it, but being me, thank heaven, I'll just note that we should be alert for such tricks.

Incidentally, I see Florian has posted a request for info from the community on any infringement they notice in their projects, promising them anonymity. First of all, NOBODY from the community will respond to his request, I'm sure. I suspect he knows that too, just from reading the comments on Slashdot and here. So, I have a suspicion that this is just a cover for future "revelations" by Florian, and he will refuse to identify by source with the excuse that he is protecting them. But in reality, would that not be a perfect cover to feed the media insider info actually handed him by proprietary parties who wish to kill Android?

Just asking. I noticed that he claimed it was some guy on Twitter who told him about the German filing showing who make up CPTN. But the person disappeared that very day from Twitter. But on the internet, you leave breadcrumbs. So I followed them. The person who allegedly handed him the information had an online persona as a guy who wrote about only one topic online that I could find, a particular football team in Florida.

Now, you tell me. How likely is it that this is the guy who found an esoteric legal filing in Germany and then told Florian about it?

I find that story impossible to accept, particularly because I tried to track the guy in real space, and it was impossible.

So here's my working theory: someone thought it would be a great idea, since parties to lawsuits can't normally safely discuss litigation in public, to have a "son of Groklaw" -- an imitation of what we did, but for the proprietary side, and just as those dudes assumed, incorrectly, that Groklaw was paid to be a public mouthpiece, they hired Florian to pretend to be just some blogger who just happens to be interested in these topics.

It's a funny theory, if true. And if true, it will eventually become known as to whether or not it's true.

But Florian, as we see in this recent event, is in over his head. Plus, as the song says, ain't nothing like the real thing. And he doesn't have the benefit of a community of coders to help him, as we do. Even the media won't find his oeuvre helpful over time, if any of them still believe a word he says, because he will make mistakes over and over. He won't be able to help it. And his malice shines through everything he writes. He clearly is no expert on US law, for starters. And if he suddenly seems to understand it, we'll all know he has a lawyer advising him behind the scenes. This mistake he made will have lasting effects, in other words. The community had him pegged already. Now the media is learning. He should, in my view, tell who he is working for, because he's ruining his reputation this way. And it can only get worse. Look at what happened to Enderle and MOG and Lyons.


Watch the followups.

Recent Techrights' Posts

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
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 of says can be trusted
 
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
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
Slopwatch: Plagiarism, Fake Articles, and FUD About Linux
not a day goes by without Google News feeding FUD from slopfarms
Gemini Links 01/10/2025: Chat Control and End of Life
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: Long Covid Risk Reiterated, "Bitcoin Queen" Caught
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: EA $55 Billion Deal is Debt and Slop "Raises Vishing Risks"
Links for the day
Bluewashing at Red Hat Means Redundancies
The man who sold Red Hat to IBM meanwhile became a Microsoft Mono booster
After Killing OpenSource.com, IBM ('Red Hat') and OSI Told Us OpenSource.net Would Replace It (But That Didn't Happen)
Now it's time to move on, perhaps tarnishing the "Open Source" label some more (for whatever sponsor wants this)
Linux is Not a Community Project, It's a Wall Street Product
The core goal should be freedom
Bad Actors Abusing the Free Software Community, Vandalising It Using Rogue Politics and Old Tactics
Oil giants have long attempted to do this; now, the digital equivalent of Big Oil does this in technology
Social Control Media Isn't the Future, The Federation or Fediverse Isn't Growing, People's Accounts Vanish for Good
users' accounts will get deleted, not just become inactive
IBM is Failing, This Helps Show Wall Street is Entirely Detached From Actual Commercial Performance
IBM is unable to grow, it's just constantly shrinking
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 30, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Clerical Aspects of Publishing and Development
In Free software, the management aspects are considerably reduced
Slopwatch: Fake Articles and Google News Promoting "Linux" Spam or Bot-Generated Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
These slopfarms help misplace blame
Third Wave of Microsoft Layoffs in September, This Time Many in Liverpool Affected
Be ready for more waves of layoffs ahead of the so-called "results" in late October