Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft's President Elop is Allegedly Killing Linux Inside Nokia/Intel, Just When MeeGo Gets Android Compatibility (Updated)

"Where are we on this Jihad [against Linux at Intel]?"

--Bill Gates



Summary: The sociopaths from Microsoft seem to be harming Intel's and Nokia's main Linux push (MeeGo) by abolishing its development

THE SITUATION seems rather familiar. Big hardware companies are moving towards Linux and people from Microsoft soon intervene, trying to stifle further development of this kind. A few days ago we wrote about the Mono issue that the FSF recognises and explained how Microsoft/Novell put Mono inside everything Linux-powered, including MeeGo (which is planned for in-car systems, sub-notebooks, phones, and just about everything compact). A new interview which we linked to yesterday has Richard Stallman elaborating on Mono:



Question: Many see Mono with its patent issues as possibly a big problem for GNU/Linux and Free Software; do you think using, developing and contributing Free Software written in Mono is better or worse in the long run for a user's freedom than using proprietary software?

Stallman: That's a comparison between growing apples and eating oranges. Instead of responding in those artificial terms, I will explain the issues of C# and Mono.

Mono is a free implementation of C#. Programs can't be "written in Mono"; they can be written in C#. If you have a program written in C#, it is better for you to run it using Mono (free software) than to run it using Microsoft .NET (proprietary software).

When you write a program, I recommend that you choose a language other than C#. If you write it in C#, then its use in the free world could be threatened by Microsoft's patents. So write in some other language, and avoid the problem. This is true whether your program is meant for release as free software, or meant just for private use as private software. (If it is meant for release as proprietary software, you should refuse to participate regardless of the language used.)


MeeGo's Mono problem is now the main issue right now. A lot has also been said about the role of Microsoft's President, Mr. Elop, who is now the CEO of Nokia. See for example the following posts:

  1. If You Can't Beat Them, Hijack Them (Microsoft Joins Nokia and It Already Shows)
  2. Linux Battle in Mobile Phones Becomes Primarily Legal, Not Technical, Due to Software Patents
  3. Taking Over Linux, by Proxy
  4. Microsoft Passes More of Its Executives to the MSBBC. What About Nokia?
  5. Microsoft President Quits, But is Nokia the Next Victim?
  6. Microsoft Insiders Galore: BBC, Nokia, Others Already Damaged by Microsoft Hires
  7. Linspire/Ballnux in Tablets; HP Possibly Experiments With Vista 7 in Slate After Abandoning It, Then Hiring From Microsoft
  8. New Article Says Nokia Might be Bought by Microsoft After Appointing Microsoft President as CEO
  9. Entryism Watch: Yahoo! Keeps Being Abducted by Microsoft Executives, HP Cancels Android Projects After CEO Appointment From SAP
  10. As Expected, Nokia and HP Betray Linux Under Microsoft-sympathetic New Leadership
  11. Head of Microsoft Romania Quits, Entryism Revisited
  12. Microsoft's Favourite 'Reporters' Are Attacking Nokia, Pushing it Into Microsoft's Arms
  13. Will Elop Choose the Future (Linux) or His Past (Microsoft) for Nokia?
  14. Analyst Wants Microsoft's Elop (Now Nokia CEO) to Shoot Down Linux Programmes


According to yet another update, the 'new Nokia' (which is run by Elop) suddenly feels different about its crown jewels and its behaviour becomes suicidal. It sure seems like Yahooism (giving all traffic to the Google scraper called Bong [sic]). Will Elop adopt the rubbish Vista Phony 7 [sic] or will he carry on with the current direction, along with Intel? The former editor of Linux Today asks: "Nokia: Losing Faith in MeeGo?" Elop losing "faith"? Well, no. He has Microsoft "faith". It's a mindset system. The piece says:

Topping the rumor list: that Nokia may drop the MeeGo platform in favor of another operating system.

If true, this would be a huge blow to the MeeGo project, which has not enjoyed much progress in the mobile sector. Nokia contributed its Maemo platform to the MeeGo initiative, along with Intel's Moblin operating system, so if effectively one-half of the founding team abandons MeeGo for another OS, that could spell the end for MeeGo's future chances of success.

Fueling this rumor is Elop's direct mention of MeeGo as one source of Nokia's troubles.

"We have some brilliant sources of innovation inside Nokia, but we are not bringing it to market fast enough. We thought MeeGo would be a platform for winning high-end smartphones. However, at this rate, by the end of 2011, we might have only one MeeGo product in the market," Elop's memo read.

[...]

But if one of the project's founders has lost faith in the platform, how can anyone else but their faith in MeeGo?


MeeGo is actually a wonderful, standards-based platform which could soon inherit all the applications from Android, so what's the matter? MeeGo is a lot more compatible with desktop GNU/Linux than Android will ever be and hypePhone [sic] after Steve Jobs' departure is starting to suffer from "fragmentation", which is the term Apple and Microsoft used against Android. To quote the new allegations:

Today may be remembered as the day the iOS platform became fragmented like Android. The announcement today by Telenav that its GPS app has been released for the Verizon iPhone may carry unexpected ramifications for apps on the iOS line of products.


MeeGo can beat hypePhone and Android now that it can inherit all applications from Android and be a lot more free/open than both. Only a Linux-hostile CEO would conceivably depart from MeeGo now that there is a new announcement about the Android-to-MeeGo bridge (we posted links about it last night and today).

Meanwhile it turns out that Nokia is cancelling Linux/MeeGo phones while Wafaa says the netbook plans too are off:

Sound a bit morose? Well in a way it is. Basically by all accounts MeeGo is stopping all work on the Netbook UX. Yup, all our hard work is now almost for nothing :-(


Here is another article/post about it.

Well, that was fast. Nokia has reportedly killed the N9-00 MeeGo phone before most people even knew it existed.


It sure looks like our suspicion that Elop will ruin Linux at Nokia gradually becomes more substantiated. That's how Microsoft's sociopaths work: either they tilt the competitor towards Microsoft (e.g. Novell, Corel) or they simply take them out of business. Who benefits from such a behaviour? This is not capitalism, it's entryism.

Update: A Microsoft booster says that "Former Nokia Exec Claims CEO's "Burning Platform" Memo a Hoax," but this may not change some of the other references above. Here is another sceptic.

Recent Techrights' Posts

More on "Lunduke is Actually Sending His Audience to Attack People"
"pepe the frogs"
Dalai Lama Succession as Evidence That Determined, Motivated People Can Reach Their Nineties
And we need to quit talking about their death all the time
Many Lawyers (for Microsoft) and 1,316 Pages to Pick on a Litigant in Person Who Exposed Serious Microsoft Abuses
Answers must be given
Layoffs and Shutdowns at IBM, Not Just Microsoft
Same as Microsoft
With Workers Back From a Holiday Weekend, Microsoft Layoffs Carry on, More Waves to Come
Now it's Monday and people are bad to work, even some journalists
You Need Not Wave a Rainbow Flag This Month to Basically Oppose Arseholes Looking to Disrupt and Divide the Community
Don't fall for it
What Miguel de Icaza and Microsoft Lunduke Have in Common
Similar aims, different methods
 
Links 08/07/2025: "Cyberattack Deals Blow to Russian Firmware" and "Cash Remains King"
Links for the day
FSF40 T-shirt message
by Alex Oliva
Gemini Links 08/07/2025: Creativity, Gotify with NUT Server, and Sudo Bugs
Links for the day
Links 08/07/2025: Sabotage of Networking Infrastructure, Microsoft XBox Game Pass Deemed “Unsustainable”
Links for the day
Gemini Links 08/07/2025: Ancillary Justice and Small Web July
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 07, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, July 07, 2025
The FSF's (Free Software Foundation, Inc.) 2025 Summer Fundraiser Already Past Halfway Line
This is where GNU/Linux actually started
Mozilla Had No Good Reason to Outsource Firefox Development to Microsoft
What does Mozilla plan to do when GitHub shuts down?
Mozilla Firefox Did Not Die, It Got Killed
To me it'll always look like Mozilla got killed by its sponsors, especially Google, which had a conflict of interest as a sponsor
Dan Neidle, Whom Brett Wilson LLP SLAPPed (on Behalf of Corrupt Rich Tax Evaders), Still Fighting the Good Fight
Neidle fights for the poor people
Wayland Should Start by Dumping Its Very Ugly Logo
Wayland wins the "ugliest logo" award every year
Stop Focusing on Hair Colours, Focus on Corporate Agenda
If someone commits a crime, it does not matter if his or her hair was mostly white or there was no hair or a wig or whatever
Links 07/07/2025: Science, Conflicts, and a Fictional K-pop Group
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/07/2025: Being a Luddite and Announcement of Gotify
Links for the day
Links 07/07/2025: XBox Effectively 'Dead', DMCA Subpoena Versus Registrar
Links for the day
The 'Corporate Neckbeard' is Not the "Good Guy"
Works for IBM
The Nasty Smear (and Stereotype) of "Neckbeard" or "Greybeard" is Ageism
This is the sort of stuff they might try to volley at critics of Wayland
Why Many of Us Use X Server and Will Continue to Use It For Many Years to Come
Don't make this about politics
Microsoft's Nat Friedman Became Unemployed the Same Time the SLAPPs Against Techrights Started Coming From His Friends (Weeks After We Had Exposed Scandals About Him and the Serial Strangler, His Best Friend, Who Got Arrested a Few Days Later)
Nat Friedman is not "Investor, entrepreneur"
Brett Wilson LLP Uses Threats to Demand Changes to Pages or Removal of Pages Without Even Revealing Which Staff Member Does That (Sometimes People From Another Firm!)
This has been in the public for years
Dan Neidle Said "It Really Then Became a Job of Tormenting" Lawyers Like Brett Wilson LLP (Who Threatened Him for Exposing Crimes, Just Like They Threatened My Wife a Few Months Later)
he and his wife decided to take on the evil people and their evil lawyers
Large Language Models (LLMs) Externalise Their Cost to the Free Software Foundation (FSF)
"The forty-sixth Free Software Bulletin is now available online!"
Weeding Out Extremism in Our Community
To me it seems like Microsoft Lunduke is rapidly becoming like a "hate preacher" who operates online, breeding an extremist ideology or trying to soften its image
Censorship Versus Fact-Checking and Quality Control
It's not censorship but a matter of quality control
Reinforcing the Allegations Some More, Bryan Lunduke Digs His Own Grave
In his latest episodes he merely repeats his own lies, which I debunked using evidence right from his own mouth
Global Warming and Free Software as a Force of Mitigation
we'll need to think about Software Freedom, not just brands like "Linux"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 06, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, July 06, 2025
Gemini Links 07/07/2025: BaseLibre Numerical System and TUI Rant
Links for the day
[Video] "Copyleft Isn't a Bug."
"Copyleft isn’t a bug. It’s a feature. GNU GPL forced the world to treat code like a public good."
Being in Social Control Media Means Exposing Oneself to Heckling
Richard Stallman does not (either himself or directly) post to any social control media
Links 06/07/2025: Airlines Perils, Scams, and Breaches
Links for the day
Two Risks to Companies: The Microsoft Culture and the Microsoft Tools
Novell was killed by a form of "social engineering" by Microsoft
It's Hard to Trust People Who Worked - Not Only Those Who Still Work - at Microsoft
Bryan Lunduke is just what people would call an "arsehole of a person"
For the Second Time, Bryan Lunduke From Microsoft is Siccing Racist Trolls and Vandals at Me
You're only reinforcing the point we made yesterday
Links 06/07/2025: End to End Encryption at Risk, Reuters Twitter ("X") Account Withheld in India
Links for the day
Gemini Links 06/07/2025: Tinylog and Certification Rotation
Links for the day
Links 06/07/2025: Climate Change and "The Right to Criticise"
Links for the day
PCLinuxOS Sites Coming Back, Gradually
let's just be patient
Social Control Media, Even If Based on Free Software, Still Has Many Problems
a distraction from what actually mattered and still matters
IBM is Not Your Master
IBM makes friends with people who exclude the majority of the population: women
Help Fund the Free Software Foundation (FSF)
If you have some dollars to spare, go support the FSF
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 05, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, July 05, 2025
A Short History of Attacks on Techrights (and Boycott Novell Before That)
good opportunity to tell again the story of several (not all) attempts to silence us
The Mainstream Media Took 4 Days to Realise Microsoft Shut Down Its Operations in Pakistan and Fired Everybody
We estimate that Microsoft has had about 29,000 layoffs since January
Leadership in Free Software
Don't let IBM lead. It's a terrible flag bearer.