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







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]