The Chaos Theory

Dr. Roy Schestowitz

2021-05-09 12:13:03 UTC
Modified: 2021-05-09 12:18:48 UTC

CentOS users rushing to Rocky/Alma
Keep users running around in a panic until they settle on IBM subscriptions?

Summary: Making GNU/Linux less stable and less predictable isn't good for GNU/Linux users; but it certainly helps sell Red Hat support contracts and vexation inside the community weakens Red Hat's competitors

IN the context of mathematics, what we're dealing with is a high level of uncertainty or lack of predictability (animation shown to the right, having been 'stolen' from Wikipedia). IBM pioneered the FUD tactics, then to be adopted by Microsoft, the "love child" of IBM. They're still not done, they just make slight adaptations/refinements as their FUD tactics evolve somewhat... they're readjusting as they rally a mob of misled people.

Double compound pendulum Earlier this year (just before the cancel mob had a go at RMS yet again) we explained what IBM was doing to community-led distributions. Distro developers reach out and tell us about it. This morning I spoke to one distro developer who said "some have retracted their signature from the RMS open letter due to their revision of it [and] I am considering doing so as well..." (it has not been updated in 12 days now; last update 12 days ago).

"I used to love what IBM did for us, especially back in the days of the OOXML/ODF battles."As we explained numerous times before, IBM (et al) sought to destabilise the Free software community and it sort of backfired in a major way. Instead it destabilised IBM, which sees Red Hat engineers fleeing (IBM is anxious about people pointing that out). The brand of IBM is losing lustre. Developers no longer feel comfortable about Red Hat stuff, either. As one developer told us, regarding the Linux Foundation (LF) in particular: "IBM mostly gives money to LF so that they can try to buy their projects into LF initiatives [...] IBM shows up and tries to cram their [expletive] and it gets rebuffed because nobody wants it [...] so really, IBM is spending money and still losing [...] IBM ruining GNU/Linux with systemd and other [expletive] being a big one..."

I used to love what IBM did for us, especially back in the days of the OOXML/ODF battles. But the tide is turning when IBM starts laying off GNU/Linux developers and attacking/defaming the founder of the operating system. IBM isn't in good hands anymore (Palmisano was the end of that rosy era) and Red Hat is flailing by driving away its largest userbase (CentOS) or community of volunteers/contributors (Fedora). Who will be left to package stuff and report bugs? ⬆

Move fast and break things; systemd release every 8 weeks
Hurry up and break things

The Word About the Upcoming Talk by Richard Stallman - Scheduled for Friday This Week - Has Spread ("The Cost of Freedom," Lausanne, Switzerland): So the word is spreading
Microsoft Front Group Starts the Year by Championing Underage (or Child) Labour: the fake 'FSF'
Chatbots Are Not Data-Driven, They're Human-Censored and Rely on Wage Slaves (and Sometimes Unpaid Volunteers): This is the Microsoft wage slavery
Gemini Links 12/01/2025: No Country For Old Men, Burned Homes, and "Planet P is Clean": Links for the day
Angola: Microsoft Windows Falls Below 10%: Microsoft has a really bad 2024 in Africa
[Meme] Twitter ("X") Has Been Grooming Radicals Since 2022: Musk's very own "grooming gang"
[Meme] What Free Speech Ought to Mean: It does not sound like RMS suggests anything other than quitting social control media
Gemini Links 13/01/2025: RestFest, Yule, and Deedum: Links for the day
Modern Web Browsers as Web Censorship Software: We continue to recommend Geminispace
Two Weeks From Now Dr. Richard Stallman Speaks at The Summit of Future 2025 (India): he will be giving a "Keynote Address" in India
Microsoft is Tight With Money: It's About the Salaries ('Cost' of the Workers): a question of cost, not skill
Google Got People Sort of Addicted to Android So It Can Cash in (Services, App Store, Advertising) Decades Later: This is not software freedom
The Free Software Foundation Reaches 370k Dollars in Funding, Due Date is January 17th When Richard Stallman is Guest of Honour in Lausanne (Switzerland): Even fellow board members seem unaware of it
Record Lows for Windows (Microsoft) in Botswana: The market share of Vista 11 is seen as going down
Preserving Deleted Articles About Bill Gates Talking Like a Drug Dealer About Computer Users: Now it's 2025. Different challenge.
Links 13/01/2025: Disinformation, Social Control Media Actively Promoting Nazism, and Catchup With Ukraine: Links for the day
TPM Boosters Inside Debian (TPM Isn't About Security, It is About Control Over Users and Their Machines): We're not rushing to any conclusions
Aaron Swartz Died 12 Years Ago After a Vicious Government Campaign to Stop Him: The Aaron Swartz story is a reminder of the importance of having verifiable/verified information out there for the general public to see
Links 13/01/2025: GitLab Enshittification and Minimalism and Efficiency with Gemini Protocol: Links for the day
Links 13/01/2025: Hardware, Health, and Conflicts: Links for the day
Microsoft Appears to Have Fallen to Only 15% in Maldives: This is a problem for Microsoft
Rumours of IBM Canada Layoffs: We'll keep a vigilant eye on this
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, January 12, 2025: IRC logs for Sunday, January 12, 2025
Bots Covering Debian Releases: It would be quite safe to guess that chatbots were at least partly leveraged for that text
Slopwatch: Brittany Day and Brian Fagioli Are Still at It, Googlebombing "Linux" With LLM Slop (Taking Away Traffic From the Articles They're Plagiarising): Some more sites that used to cover GNU/Linux have turned into slopfarms
Links 12/01/2025: Microsoft Admits It's Laying Off Staff Only Where Staff is "Expensive" (Race to the Bottom): Links for the day
[Meme] Being High on Drugs Isn't Happiness (Likewise, Being a "Star" in Social Control Media is Temporary): Many entities - or people - will regret telling everybody "follow me on Twitter"
[Meme] They Say That RMS Says the "F" Word (Freedom) Too Much...: About 32.7k US dollars are now left for the FSF to raise (in 6 days)
Links 12/01/2025: More Sanctions Against Russia, SCOTUS Signals Fentanylware (TikTok) Ban Will Stay: Links for the day
[Meme] A Jihad Against Servers the User Controls: We need to strive for and work towards greater control by users over "their" servers
Microsoft Azure-Only Bugs in "Linux" Can "Compromise the System.": From ubuntu.com and linux.org a few days ago
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, January 11, 2025: IRC logs for Saturday, January 11, 2025
Gemini Links 12/01/2025: DHL Express Does Not Deliver, Oddmuse Update: Links for the day
Links 11/01/2025: Social Control Media Facing Sanctions, Carter Respected at Funeral: Links for the day
If TikTok (China) Has the Rights of American Persons, Then ByteDance Can be Sentenced to Death: TikTok - like Julian Assange - does not enjoy any protections of the First Amendment and since it's not a person it would lack these protections as an American company, too
After a Year of Layoffs in Microsoft Nigeria (and Microsoft in Africa at Large) Windows Falls to New Lows and Bing Falls to 0.46% "Market Share": Of course Microsoft gave bribes in Nigeria to suppress GNU/Linux adoption
An Important Lesson About Patents and Patent Maximalism (They Drive People and Companies Away): This previously happened in Texas, where companies perceived their presence (in any form) to be a liability as patent trolls could drag them to friendly courts and win "damages"
When It Comes to Fentanylware (TikTok), a Digital Weapon of a Hostile Entity, Common Dreams is Jumping the Shark Again (Years After It Ran Out of Steam or Money): Or maybe it likes the agenda promoted (curated) by Fentanylware (TikTok) and its parent company, Bytedance or Chinese Community Party (CPP)
BetaNews is Now Officially a Spamfarm With Phantom Authors and Fake Text (SPAM and Linkspam Made With LLM Slop): That's it, the site is virtually dead now (maybe that was the plan all along)
Hazem Abbas of medevel is Ruining His Site With LLM Slop: Some of his articles are original, but now everything is suspect
[Meme] Real and Fake (or "several influential "open source" organizations [which] have come to be dominated by large companies"): The Free Software Foundation has not sold out
Free Software Foundation: Anchoring the FSF in its values: Original by Free Software Foundation
GNU/Linux Surges to All-Time Highs in Greenland, Windows Sinks to All-Time Lows: a lot of GNU/Linux gets detected there lately
Microsoft's "Donald Trump First" Doctrine: national deficits growing
Microsoft in Trouble as Azure Breaks and Only Days After Promising Investment in "Datacentres" Construction of Actual Datacentres Paused (Expect More Azure Layoffs Very Soon): No wonder many people who got trapped inside Azure quit Azure, which keeps bleeding (losses and layoffs)
Gemini Links 11/01/2025: Wildfire, Militia and the Mole, IRC vs Social Control Media: Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, January 10, 2025: IRC logs for Friday, January 10, 2025

The Chaos Theory

Recent Techrights' Posts