'Corporate Linux' Will Not Protect Software Freedom

Dr. Roy Schestowitz

2019-10-19 09:22:12 UTC
Modified: 2019-10-19 09:22:12 UTC

A token of appreciation and PR/lip service is all we should expect

Red Hat - Microsoft
So-called 'market sharing' agreements (fake competition) are illegal and sometimes boil down to price-fixing cartels, or collusion

Summary: The corporate model is inherently not compatible with software that users themselves fully control (or Software Freedom in general), so we must rely on another model of sovereignty over code and compiled code (binaries)

A reader has sent us this very interesting forum thread. It seems apparent that nobody trusts or believes Microsoft. Heck, they barely even trust the "large" companies that develop "parts" of GNU/Linux and have "large" distros, notably Red Hat, SUSE and Canonical. Never mind monolithic "parts" such as systemd.

"If Software Freedom was a company, the likes of Microsoft (proprietary software companies) would have put in a bid for a takeover already. Even a hostile takeover."Software Freedom is not the same as GNU/Linux or even GNU and Linux apart. Software Freedom is a concept or a condition. Linux is a project licensed under a Free software licence and GNU is a large collection of such projects or programs. systemd too is licensed under a Free software licence, but several of our readers would argue that it reduces Software Freedom or at least choice. It makes swapping components in a GNU/Linux system a lot harder, a lot more complicated if not impossible.

Software Freedom must never be associated with a company or even a set of companies. Publicly-traded companies have one single goal: maintain and perpetually increase profits, by all means possible (even if by liaising with Software Freedom foes such as Microsoft). These companies will only 'support' Software Freedom as long as it's beneficial to their public image.

If Software Freedom was a company, the likes of Microsoft (proprietary software companies) would have put in a bid for a takeover already. Even a hostile takeover. Remember that Red Hat welcomed a bid from Microsoft (to buy Red Hat) and Red Hat is perfectly happy to be financially controlled by Microsoft regardless (shades of Novell between 2006 and 2010). Suspicion of Red Hat does not imply lack of support for GNU/Linux or Software Freedom. ⬆

Official SUSE Blog Still Uses LLM Slop (Bots) to Make Fake Articles (Marketing): The company is all about sound bites
Companies Realise That Slop Doesn't Work as Advertised, Accordingly Dump It: "Hype dims as a country-wide survey of US corporations shows a sudden drop-off in AI use among firms with more than 250 employees."
Microsoft-Funded Lawsuits Against Critics of UEFI 'Secure Boot': Remember that no company (or law firm) ever survives collaborations with Microsoft
It's Only the Second Week of September and Already Two Waves of Layoffs at Microsoft, Slopfarms and Microsoft-Funded Sites Spin It as "AI Investments" Rather Than Commercial Failure: A very large third one expected next week
If Your Machine Still Has "Secure Boot" Enabled, Then Microsoft Has a de Facto Kill Switch (Even If Your Machine Doesn't Have Windows and Never Had Windows): It is not incorrect to call UEFI 'secure boot' a "kill switch"
Reddit is Corporate Propaganda: To make matters worse, Reddit ousted many original moderators
Jeff Geerling Shocked to Discover Many Metrics in YouTube Are Fake (His Audience Turns Out to be Much Smaller): Maybe self-host all videos, don't rely on Google's "FOMO" cheating (addiction based on false assumptions)
EPO Workers Point Out that the EPO is Destroying the Planet Under the Guise of "Hey Hi" (It Also Grants Many Invalid Patents Illegally: On 12 March and 16 June 2025, staff representation met with the administration in the Local Occupational Health, Safety and Ergonomics Committee (LOHSEC) in Munich
Google News (Not Just Google Search) Lets Itself by Gamed by One Slopfarm - to the Point Almost Half of "Linux" News is Bot-Produced Plagiarism (LLM Slop With Slop Images): That says a lot about what Google thinks of quality, even in Google News
Bill Gates-Funded Media Inadvertently Refutes the Microsoft Lie That in 2025 Microsoft Had Just Two Waves of Layoffs: There were about 12 rounds of layoffs so far in 2025
From theregister.co.uk to theregister.com (US) to The Register MS (Run by Microsoft Operatives) and theregister.ai: The best way to break this racket (or cycle of hype and harm) is to break the chains of funding
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Culture of Censorship Necessitates More Speech: The OSI bans dissent or people who merely point out that the OSI is abusive
How to Reach Us Discreetly (Other Than Encrypted E-mail): We're still managing to maintain a 100% source protection record. We soon turn 19.
LLMs Are Vastly Worse Than a Waste of Energy and the Externalities Are Huge: Worse than just higher power bills for everybody
LLMs Versus Search (Not Replacing Search But Engaging in DDoS Attacks Against Web Sites That Permit Searching): The state of the Web isn't just bad; it's utterly terrible
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, September 08, 2025: IRC logs for Monday, September 08, 2025
The UEFI 9/11 - Part IX - Shunning Old Computers (in 2023 the Certificate Was Updated/Overridden, Underlying Aim May Be Herding/Forcing People to Get TPM and Other 'Novel' Restrictions): the "upgrade treadmill"
Rumour: Second Wave of Microsoft Mass Layoffs in September to Commence Third Week of September: That basically answers questions like, "Any specific date or time of the month?"
Gemini Links 08/09/2025: Reality, ROOPHLOCH 2025, and Writing Another Gemini Client: Links for the day
Updating Firmware is Not the Solution But Only Additional Risk, Disable "Secure Boot" Today: firmware blobs are buggy, secret, impossible to audit, and barely tested
Microsoft Tim's DevClass (Part of The Register MS/Situation Publishing) is Full of Slop: Looking at many sites that are full of slop images is becoming an eye sore and hallmark of text too likely generated by LLMs or 'assisted' (tainted) by them
Microsoft Trying to Fake Demand for Slop. At What Cost?: That's a giant demotion and broken promises
Sunlight is the Best Disinfectant and Kryptonite/Garlic to Vampires: Transparency (sometimes described by words like "Sunlight" or "Truth") is paramount
The Register MS Uses Slop in Articles About Slop: we are fairly certain it's slop or CG based on other people's work
Visiting a Web Page or a Public URL Should be Safe, Predictable, and Benign: It's probably too late to "fix" the Web
The Register MS (Situation Publishing) is Paid to Spread Mindless Hype for the "Hey Hi" Ponzi Scheme and That's a Serious Problem: "Sponsored by Zoom."
Links 08/09/2025: Burger King Cracked, Cox v. Sony Analysed: Links for the day
Gemini Links 08/09/2025: Socialist Computer Museum and GAFAM/ByteDance/TikTok-Dominated Net: Links for the day
Links 08/09/2025: Tim Crook Disappoints Apple Faithfuls and Zuckerberg Lies (Financial Fraud) for Cheeto King: Links for the day
Turn Off Microsoft's Restricted Boot ("Secure Boot"): We're still running a series on this issue
Social Control Media Sites Have Become Bot Farms (Not Limited to LLMs and Automation): linkedin.com was nothing but trouble and losses for Microsoft
Deep in Debt With the Magnitude of Losses Quickly Growing, Microsoft "Open" "Hey Hi" Now Uses Broadcom for Vapourware, Pretending It'll Do OK Next Year: At some stage it'll collapse
You Can Tell Microsoft is in Trouble When Its Own Fans and Staff Blast it: "Microsoft sinks billions into chasing artificial intelligence fads to hype up its share price."
Multiple Undersea Cable Cuts and We're Still OK: Microsoft customers experience problems
Lawyers Who Think They Are Online Assassins Don't Deserve a Licence to Operate: they've become a laughing stock in their "sector"
Microsoft Windows Fell to 3.9% "Market Share" in Bahamas: Based on statCounter
How the European Union (EU) Fell Out of Love With Free/Libre Software: Lots of bribery
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, September 07, 2025: IRC logs for Sunday, September 07, 2025
Gemini Links 07/09/2025: Scanner, Slop, and Chadobear: Links for the day
The UEFI 9/11 is 3 Days Away: Nobody denies that bad things will happen
Google Versus Journalism: Google played a big role in the demise of news sites
Gemini Links 07/09/2025: Advertising, Decentralized Archival, and Outsourcing to Bezos: Links for the day
Certificate Authority Let's Encrypt Has Almost Gone Down to Zero, Nearly Totally Extinct in Geminispace, the Few Capsules Still Using It Are Spam/Dead/Stagnant: This represents another decrease for Let's Encrypt; the last decrease was last week
Not Much Left in News Cycles: To be very clear, this does not describe "Linux" anything; it's true in just about every facet of news, except the paid-for fake "journalism" about "hey hi" (sites getting paid explicitly to maintain or rekindle hype)
Trying to Silence Techrights Was a Huge Mistake: Peter Thiel attacked a publisher for asserting, correctly, that he was gay. Now everyone knows it.
Throwing Away "Old" Computers (Mozilla and Other Climate Deniers): Mozilla is not leftist
The UEFI 9/11 - Part VIII - Denial of Service and Selling Us WSL (Windows) Instead of "Risky" (Prone by Breakage by Microsoft) GNU/Linux: Restricted Boot (so-called 'SecureBoot') does not improve security. It is nothing but trouble. It's meant to trouble non-Windows users. In dual-boot setups, SecureBoot is a recipe for disaster because Microsoft keeps erasing or tampering with the boot sector, to paraphrase an associate
Slop is Extremely Rare in Geminispace, Slop Images Are Unheard Of (Despite Images Being Supported): As long as Geminispace grows in terms of domains it's safe to predict the protocol will still be used in 2029 and hence Geminispace will turn 10
Links 07/09/2025: Robodebt Class Action, Fines, and Copyright Settlement: Links for the day
Links 07/09/2025: Yle Impersonated in Social Control Media, Boat-Attacking Orcas, Midjourney Sued Again: Links for the day
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, Linux Journal, and the Serial Slopper: Google won't tackle the issue because Google participates not only in relaying slop but also in generating lots of it
Links 07/09/2025: Google Fines in EU and "Your Internet Access Is at Risk": Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/09/2025: Little Brother and Corporate Theatre: Links for the day
Links 07/09/2025: More Harms of Slop and Anthropic's Nightmare Scenario (Huge Legal Liabilities for Slop): Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, September 06, 2025: IRC logs for Saturday, September 06, 2025

'Corporate Linux' Will Not Protect Software Freedom

Recent Techrights' Posts