Bonum Certa Men Certa

Raspberry Pied in the Face -- Part III: Eben Upton's Response and Its Significance

Video download link



Summary: The founder of the "Pi" could tackle (and should have tackled) the issue swiftly and with great determination; sadly, however, his early reaction suggests passivity and a miscalculation of the harm caused

IN Part I and in Part II we explained there was no rush or urgency covering this issue, as new information emerges over time. We put accuracy first. There has been too much speculation, which was exploited by Microsoft apologists to insult the critics (e.g. "Microsoft bashing").



What we're planning to do is, we'll present one chunk of facts each day for at least a week. The following "Twitter RPI thread," as a reader put it, shows the founder of the whole thing responding to the scandal when it was still rather young (5 days ago). Maybe back then they thought the whole blunder would just go away and "age gracefully" within a day or two, at most (we keep track of some media coverage in this page; it's still in the news this morning).

The tweet does not show us a worrying/worried Microsoft apologist (the video above says more about that), as we don't suppose he cares much for Microsoft personally, but judging by context, he underplays the severity of what was done, maybe even behind his own back.

Eben Upton



"Sorry," he said, "I can't understand why you think this was a controversial thing to do."

It doesn't sound like this troubles him; he's even defending what they did, even though we thought (or hoped) he'd be the one to get them out of this mess. We broke this story a week ago. Better responses would have been something along the lines of, "we're going to look into how that happened, investigate, etc etc..."

"I gather he has not made a statement for more than a few days," an associate of ours noted. "So his position in that statement might (hopefully) be outdated. [Either way,] Twitter is blocked by JavaScript." (Since December)

"I presume he's in massive denial about making a mess of things. Whoever was behind the decision to allow microsofters into RPT and RPF set this up and cost him massively in the area of reputation. It will be very, very hard to earn it back especially with the unapologetic denial. It's to early to say what the economic impact will be for RPT and RPF but it will be felt on top of Brexit. They probably have just lost far more than the paltry >= 500k that Microsoft bribed them with."

The source of that figure will become more apparent later in this series. We're still verifying a number of things.

One noteworthy comment:

"€£500,000 – €£999,999" https://www.raspberrypi.org/about/supporters/ I would be very surprised if there was not both a non-disparagement clause and a non-disclosure agreement or other similar limitations attached to the money; didn't Microsoft Frontpage used to have a license prohibiting its use in making web pages critical of Microsoft? see: http://www.microsoftvolumelicensing.com/userights/Downloader.aspx?DocumentId=1095 scan for 'disparage'


"The discussion about Microsoft attack on RPF seems to focus on gathering information for possible advertising purposes," our associate said, having been scanning a large number of online comments. "That's lame. Microsoft use to have the EDGI programme to assault institutions that were found to not be using Microsoft products or considering abandoning them. The real danger is that Microsoft uses the geolocation data to identify institutions to attack. Advertising is the least of the worries that the tracking can incur."

We also don't know how the inclusion of a repository can extend (as in "E.E.E") into something yet worse over time.

"After almost a decade of gaining trust," to quote someone from Hacker News, "Raspbian has now lost a huge amount in a single bad decision. It's yet even clear they even understand the depth of the mistake."

We've seen people very angry about this, even people who did not themselves buy and use such a device. The change in question can be traced back to someone from XECDesign, who certainly did not follow proper procedures and practices. The way this was done was technically shady and "whoever this microsofter's supervisor is, plus whoever signed off on the deal itself, all need to go," one reader told us. If there's someone who probably has enough clout to do this on the spot, it is Eben Upton. Hence the importance of the otherwise-meaningless tweet. It doesn't seem he has the courage to address the blunder 'head-on'.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Law Firms Facing the Consequences for Patently Abusive Litigation on Behalf of Microsoft Employees Who Got Arrested for Strangulation and Had Done Even Worse Things
Having spent 1.5 years bullying me with patronising letters on behalf of Microsofters, last week they got served a massive bill and, in effect, lost the Hearing
LLMs Breaking Everything
Computing and the Net became a playground for scammers and "bros", like people who "invented" fake currencies and also try to tell us that LLMs spewing out things will have some real value
1989: Free Software as "Open" Software (OSI Didn't Coin "Open Source", It Also Predates Linux)
"One man's fight for Free software"
 
The FSF Board and FSF Beard
So the FSF's Board has grown
New Report From the EPO's Staff Representatives in The Hague (LSCTH) Reveals Many Unsolved Issues
Local Staff Committee The Hague (LSCTH) wrote to staff just before the weekend
Links 22/06/2025: More Slop Lawsuits (Copyrights) and "America’s Oligarch Problem"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/06/2025: Gigantic Toolchest and Annoying Bots
Links for the day
The Calling
Persist and persevere, justice will come your way
So Far Every BetaNews 'Article' is LLM Slop, So BetaNews is Officially Just a Slopfarm
They just don't seem to value what they have
IBM Rumour: Mass Layoffs (RAs) Lists Being Made for Consulting, With Effect in July 2025
Bogus companies with no viable products and no world-leading (in their field) staff are doomed to perish
Links 21/06/2025: Data Breach With 16 Billion Passwords, Dutch Government Recommends Children Under 15 Stay off TikTok and Instagram
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/06/2025: Notes about Typst (and LaTeX) and Opos
Links for the day
Microsoft's Competition Tactics: Sabotage GNU/Linux Installs, Block Chrome
Edge is dying
The Microsoft OOXML Modus Operandi: Throw 1,000 Pages of Other People's Work for a Judge to Read Ahead of a One-Hour Meeting
No time to discuss this - that's the point
Formalities Officers (FOs) at the EPO Are in Trouble, Reveals Internal Report
We already know, based on an HR pattern we saw at IBM and elsewhere, that reallocating roles can be prerequisite for dismissal and those who do so expect many to resign anyway
The Web is Slop and FUD, Let's Go to Gemini Protocol
Lupa sees self-signed capsules at 92.4%
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, June 20, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, June 20, 2025
Links 21/06/2025: Phone Bans for Concerts, Tensions in Taiwan Strait
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/06/2025: Spoilers, Public Yggdrasil Node, Changes to AuraGem Search
Links for the day
"Six years of Gemini!"
From gemini://geminiprotocol.net
Gemini Links 20/06/2025: Summer Updates and Hardware Failures
Links for the day
Links 20/06/2025: Google Shareholder Sues Google and Google Sued for Defamatory Slop ('Hey Hi') Word Salads ('Summaries')
Links for the day
Linux Journal Might Have Become the Latest Slopfarm Targeting "Linux", the Trends Are Concerning for Dying News Sites
They tarnish the Web with junk and then die
On "Learning to Code"
quality may suffer, plus things get bloated
Quick Points Regarding This Week's Court Hearing
it paves the way for us to squash all the SLAPPs from Microsofters
Common Mistake: Believing Social Control Media Will Document Your Writings/Thoughts and Search Engines Like Google Will Help You Find These
Many news sites wrongly assumed that posting directly to Twitter would be acceptable
The Manchester Bees and This Hot Summer
We have had a fantastic week so far this week
Gemini Protocol Enters Its Seventh Year, Growth Has Accelerated!
Maybe in June 20 2026 there will be over 3,500 active capsules?
Mastodon and the Fediverse Have an Issue: Liability for Content (Even in Other Instances) and Costs
self-hosting is the only logical path forward
Why Microsoft and Its 'Hey Hi' (Slop) Frenzy Fail While Sinking in Deep, Growing Debt
Right now, like Twitter around the time it was sold to MElon, "open" "hey hi" is a big pile of debt with a lot to pay for that debt (interest payments)
Europe is Leaving Microsoft, the Press Coverage Isn't Sufficiently Helpful
The news is generally positive, but the press coverage leaves so much to be desired
Slopwatch: Linuxsecurity, BetaNews, and Linux Journal
slippery slope
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, June 19, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, June 19, 2025
Gemini Links 20/06/2025: Gemini Protocol Turns 6!
Links for the day