Bonum Certa Men Certa

Monopolies Cannot 'Decapitate' a Movement

Monopolies will run out of money trying to kill off (or privatise) the movement

Novell, Microsoft, Red Hat

Red Hat, IBM, Debian / Ubuntu

Canonical, Microsoft, Arch / Valve

Summary: Despite the 'theft' or the mass plunder of projects (e.g. GitHub takeover), even at the expense of billions of dollars (with ongoing losses, both financial and logistical), we keep coming back again and again like a hydra

"Microsoft is not a question of technology, since it is a cult backed by politics," an associate of ours asserted this morning. "Decisions to deploy Microsoft are not technological decisions. See Munich as one of many large examples, but the same thing happens on a smaller scale, too. In Munich, Microsoft was able to override technological factors with politics and cult loyalty."

"15 years ago we wrote a lot about how Microsoft was infiltrating everything, including Novell/SUSE."Alas, and in spite of all these setbacks, we've been making a lot of measurable progress over the years.

15 years ago we wrote a lot about how Microsoft was infiltrating everything, including Novell/SUSE. Microsoft had been doing this for about 20 years, so it's nothing new! Half a decade ago it planted a flag inside the Linux Foundation.

Over 10 years ago Apple joined the litigation club, in effect resorting to many lawsuits on several fronts. Oracle did the same.

In 2014 we began focusing on the EPO (up until that time we mostly focused on the US) and a few years ago we explored the state of Free software amid corporate coups, including the 2018 announcement from IBM (taking over the largest GNU/Linux company).

"Over 10 years ago Apple joined the litigation club, in effect resorting to many lawsuits on several fronts."Last week Valve shook things up a bit and we're cautiously optimistic about the future, seeing that some steps are made towards sharing, whereas reactionary steps are taken by dying companies that defraud their shareholders, violate the GPL, and try to own everything by unbridled aggression. It is a losing strategy. The community is a lot more agile and can endure these attacks, just like it endured SCO.

There are some exciting projects and initiatives in the making. Some of them we've partly or fully embraced. Some we advocate regularly, Gemini for instance...

The best weapon we have is patience and perseverance. We don't have misled shareholders to appease every quarter; we don't need to beg for government subsidies/bailouts, either. Keep morale high and keep coding. But still... know the enemy to understand the attacks.

"Mind Control: To control mental output you have to control mental input. Take control of the channels by which developers receive information, then they can only think about the things you tell them. Thus, you control mindshare!"

--Microsoft, internal document [PDF]



Recent Techrights' Posts

Links 10/06/2025: Jaws at 50 and US Democracy Crushed Very Rapidly (Martial Law Seems Imminent)
Links for the day
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part VII: Washing Their Hands After Corruption and Abuse
"Tragedy or comedy?"
Culling Bad RSS Feeds of Bad Sites
Not throwing out the baby with the bathwater
Live as You Preach
technology is fast becoming dysphoric
 
Links 10/06/2025: Apple Hype and Physical Attacks on Bloggers
Links for the day
Gemini Links 10/06/2025: Loon Lake, Farming, and Forth
Links for the day
If 'Microsoft v Techrights' is Dealt With by a 'Microsoft Court' (or a Court Outsourced to Microsoft)
More on that later
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, June 09, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, June 09, 2025
Gemini Protocol Turns Six in 10 Days From Now
If you haven't tried it yet, then give it a go today
Gemini Links 09/06/2025: Addition Addiction and Nitride
Links for the day
Links 09/06/2025: Science, Hardware Projects, and Democracy Receding
Links for the day
Computers Got Smaller, So GNU/Linux Got Bigger
Many people here recognise the lack of urgency (or need) to get expensive new laptops
BetaNews is a Plagiarism and LLM Slop Hub, the Chief Editor Isn't Addressing This Problem Anymore
SS Fagioli is basically a parasite leeching off or exploiting other people's work
Links 09/06/2025: Chaos in Los Angeles and Hurricane Season
Links for the day
GNU/Linux Grows at Windows' Expense and Microsoft Trolls Infest and Maliciously Target Articles About It
Microsoft is - and has long been - organised crime
They Say I'm Mr. Bombastic
They didn't take good lawyers
Links 09/06/2025: Windows TCO and Many Data Breaches
Links for the day
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part VI: Political Stunts by Former President Edyta Demby-Siwek and the Connection to Profound Corruption at EUIPO
it's like a money-laundering operation where one politician rewards another at taxpayers' expense
Gemini Links 09/06/2025: Pipelines and Splitgate
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, June 08, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, June 08, 2025
Links 08/06/2025: Tiananmen Carnage Censorship Persists, North Korean Goes Offline
Links for the day
Gemini Links 08/06/2025: Love as an Ethnographic Method and Monitorix Gemini-Frontend v0.1
Links for the day
Links 08/06/2025: Exposure of More GAFAM Surveillance and Social Security Records Compromised
Links for the day
Linux Foundation is a Mediator for Microsoft et al, Not for Small Companies That Support Rather Than Attack the GPL
Many people still wrongly assume that because it is called "Linux Foundation", then it is pro-Linux and represents the same mindset
This Past Friday, Confirming What We Said All Along About Brett Wilson LLP: It's Shrinking, Has Considerable Debt, Loss of Net Assets Despite the Microsoft SLAPP Money
The documents only became publicly available less than 2 days ago
Some of the Many Reasons We Sued Microsofters for Harassment
perpetrators of harassment
For 20 Years Many People Were Sharecropping for Canonical's Oligarch, Now He's Deleting All Their Contributions
"Ubuntu has erased instead of archiving the trove of material at Ubuntu Forums"
There Was Always Too Much 'Crazy Stuff' Going on Around Freenode
What many IRC users lost sight of
Exposing Crime is Not a Crime (It Never Was)
In the eyes of rich and powerful people, those who speak about their crimes are the "criminals"
GNU/Linux Distros Abandoning Microsoft GitHub
Will curl be next to leave Microsoft GitHub?
Expect More XBox Mass Layoffs Soon If the Rumours Are True
From a Microsoft media operative
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, June 07, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, June 07, 2025
Europe Needs to Move Away From GAFAM; The Sooner, the Better
Europe - not just the EU - must abandon GAFAM as soon as possible
The Issue Isn't GNOME's Promotion of Diversity But GNOME Corruption, Abuse, Censorship, and Worse
So-called "Conservative" (republican, pro-Trump, bigoted) people want you to think the problem with GNOME is politics
When the News Sources Become Scarce and Increasingly Full of Polluted/Contaminated 'Content' (With LLM Slop and Slop Images)
Integrity matters
"Linux" Sites That Spew Out LLM Slop
We're lacking enough material for another "Slopwatch"
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part V: Breaking the Law, Just Like EPO
We'll hopefully cover some of the pertinent details later this year