Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft Playing Hardball and Talking 'Double Dutch' to Undermine the Free Software Community

The disturbing attack on Free software carries on, characteristically led by Microsoft

Tough Game



Summary: The betrayal in the Free software community is partly caused by monopolies that bribe people to defect and, in effect, attack the community by promoting proprietary software

SOME people have already found this disturbing new message from Guido van Rossum, who decided to defect instead of retiring. Microsoft offered him lots of money.



"We've long warned about Microsoft infiltrating Python and seeing that van Rossum (van Icaza) was willing to work for the Condy Rice-connected DropBox, maybe we should not be surprised that he's already shilling Microsoft's proprietary software (which is basically what Microsoft pays him to do)."Python is dead now. Just to be sure, we've checked that it's not a satirical account and proceeded to deleting all Python from our RSS feeds. We've long warned about Microsoft infiltrating Python and seeing that van Rossum (van Icaza) was willing to work for the Condy Rice-connected DropBox, maybe we should not be surprised that he's already shilling Microsoft's proprietary software (which is basically what Microsoft pays him to do).

"RIP python," MinceR wrote in IRC, knowing that it's all about money now. Many people will undoubtedly be upset by this, especially those who invested in learning and coding in Python. Python taking more bribes from the monopolists isn't exactly news (Google also). It's all about money and selling expensive stuff or "computer time"; Python has even copied Microsoft in making newer versions not compatible with older ones, rendering perfectly fine code obsolete. Just like that, for little or no reason...

Dagger and appleAre we shocked? A bit. But it was already getting disturbing when they took Microsoft bribes and they advertised Azure for that money. Python was packed up and sold maybe 2 years ago and van Rossum confirms that he lacks principles; his Twitter timeline is shilling bad stuff with surveillance, in effect rendering himself little but a Microsoft marketing rep, repeating their talking points and enticing people to enter proprietary traps.

Things like these continue to happen (e.g. Stormy Peters) and some people tell us we're not under attack, we're just being 'absorbed' by those looking to crush and destroy software freedom (while they pay loads of money to recruit people to defect). Over the years we heard about Microsoft approaching other high-profile people of his calibre, offering them jobs to trouble communities and remove their leaders. Those strategies help attack our community projects and generally echo much of what we saw in the Bill Gates deposition.

As a side note, this isn't the only high-profile person who has been doing suspicious things. Days ago someone wrote to us regarding Werner Koch, saying something not right was going on. "The issue arises from one of the names in the Guix petition," we were told. "Werner Koch. He's one of the main people behind GPG and the OpenPGP specification. I haven't noticed any hostility from Koch towards the Yubikey threat that we are faced with today. In fact, Werner accommodates Yubikey considerations into GPG development. It's impossible that he's not aware of the threat to user security posed by products like Yubikey; yet he's happily making GPG embrace potential spyware products." (Evidence)

On it goes: "This is a topic of much concern to GPG users. The link is to the GPG development tracker site. You might want to keep that site (dev.gnupg.org) on your radar and search for keywords that have to do with security abusers. GPG is in everything from Git to Debian. You can imagine the threat closed hardware like Yubikey poses. Embracing closed hardware like Yubikey sends a concerning message to GPG users. Of all the things that GPG users want, putting their private PGP keys into potential spyware is about one of the worst practices imaginable.

"The fact that Koch was part of the coup against RMS, added to all this, is immensely disturbing."

"...this isn't the only high-profile person who has been doing suspicious things.""The Raspberry Pi Zero W still has networking," an associate of ours noted, and "the plain Raspberry Pi Zero could work as key dongle if a USB module is tacked on top. More ambitiously, KiCAD could be used to design a better USB add-on to include a few capacitive buttons, whether GPIO or I2C. Maybe (only maybe) one of the newer Arduino models such as the Every would have the processing power and RAM to deal with a key." [1, 2]

"There are also a few off-the-shelf open alternatives to closed hardware. The Nitrokey is the only one I can recall for now, but there are others. Not surprisingly it is very difficult to find the names of the others.

The associate noted that Yubikey costs $650, calling that "Crazy." We recently wrote about other issues associated with that product. Is it 'snakeoil'? Is encryption being undermined along with the Free software community? Are there no people with backbones anymore? Why does the man who created Python promote NSA back doors?

Recent Techrights' Posts

The "Cool Kids" Are Already Using GNU/Linux, Microsoft is Just Cheating
The future and the present are Linux
IBM Going International (and India)
It's Monday and a national holiday
Microsoft Lunduke Belongs in 4Chan
Assuming Microsoft Lunduke is aware of the full context, he is now trolling not one but two decent organisations
 
IBM's Chronic Neglect Won't Save Anything and It Might Even Get IBM Sued
The problem is likely a lack of manpower, not deliberate shoddiness
Gemini Links 17/02/2025: Ideal OS, AuraRepo Alpha, and Simple Code
Links for the day
Links 17/02/2025: War on Dissent and Bloggers, Nationalism a Growing Theme
Links for the day
GeekWire: Microsoft Bribes Us While We Cover Microsoft Affairs (Spin Doctoring), Hence We Are "Independent"
What good is a "journalist" sponsored by the very same company he or she writes about?
The Attacks on LinuxQuestions.org
Going to Clownflare only worsens the problem
The GNU Manifesto Turns 40 Next Month
The guardian of Free software (definition, licences, philosophy, hosting and so on) has managed to endure and persevere for 40 years. Very few others can say the same.
In Europe and in India Richard Stallman Need Not Duck Anymore, People Trying to Cancel His Talk Have No Sway
the last time a talk by Dr. Stallman got canceled was about a year ago
Back From a Short Break
We can now resume and try to stick to the usual pace
Links 17/02/2025: LLMs Failing and Patreon Support Becoming a Burden to Bloggers
Links for the day
Links 17/02/2025: Blogroll Conundrum; Research, Scientists Under Siege
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, February 16, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, February 16, 2025
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
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: "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