Bonum Certa Men Certa

EFF Has Been Hijacked, and Just Like Mozilla and the Linux Foundation It Doesn't Fight for What It Was Originally Made to Achieve

Video download link | md5sum 3dcd8fde06e9f18238d3e50f3a9252c5



Summary: Institutions too frightened or hesitant (or simply compromised) to pursue their original goals are doomed to perish; EFF seems to have "joined the club"

IT really pains me to say this, but the EFF isn't an organisation I feel safe to support anymore as it is culling the people who I've long argued keep the EFF honest, sometimes. It looks like "reformist" (mainstream/conformist) elements are taking over, turning revolutionary collectives into corporate shills.



Take for example the Microsoft-serving Linux Foundation; it's all about money and it's good at losing money. It pays massive salaries to people who undermine Linux itself. They just use the "Linux" brand to enrich themselves.

These are the same people who had Linus Torvalds sent to therapists and forced to write an apology (on the face of it this was imposed, not really willful, as a condition to him getting back to his very own project!) and we're meant to think this is perfectly normal because of corporate trolls.

"They just use the "Linux" brand to enrich themselves."At the same time, as we noted here back in April, today's EFF is shilling Microsoft proxies, giving EFF awards to Microsoft employees, and viciously attacking Richard Stallman for political reasons. Several hours ago Dr. Stallman wrote: "Cancellationists seek universal support for their political stances, not by convincing everyone that they are right, but by bullying everyone who states any doubts."

They don't even attack their target based on technical grounds; they look for some phony pretexts and sometimes distort the facts to get people online riled up, demanding removal based on misunderstandings, misinterpretation, or selective (narrow) focus.

To me, personally, the last straw was the EFF removing its co-founder John Gilmore with face-saving spin like "Board Member Emeritus". They're fine with truly troubling people inside the Board, but not the person who founded the whole thing! In the Linux Foundation pretty much every single Board member is an employee of a proprietary software company!

"In the Linux Foundation pretty much every single Board member is an employee of a proprietary software company!"In the video above I use Mozilla/Firefox as an example or as an analogy that's timely. They've used similar tactics. Cancellationists (to borrow Stallman's term) removed a technical leader for political reasons, putting in his place the people who abandoned Mozilla's "open Web" vision, choosing instead to put DRM in the browser (Brendan Eich openly opposed this) and putting people from Microsoft inside their board. If Google wanted to slowly diminish Mozilla to nothing (that's cheaper for Google, which pays based on the number of Firefox users), that would be beneficial to Google.

People like Jim "Open Source loves Microsoft" Zemlin and Mrs. Baker aren't geeks, but they're being put in positions of power, just like the EFF's Cohn. The EFF's IRS filings in the coming years (after the death of Barlow) will be interesting to read. Their donors gave them a lot of money, but whose agenda will be served?

To quote our Ryan, who is gay, "homophobe turned also proprietary browser vendor with DRM based on Chromium pushing crypto to crackpots."

"Google sees this thing of making Mozilla rely on them as attrition. Every year they pay them a ridiculous amount of money to keep them hooked on the money while they lose more users. Eventually they just stop paying them any money and let what's left of Mozilla die off. If they defy Google, they get cut off now. So they keep doing what Google wants and feeding on the trough, knowing Firefox is a dead end. It's possible someone can come and fork the state of Firefox when Mozilla goes under and turn it back into a community project. It used to operate more like one. What scares the hell out of companies like Microsoft and Google, although they would never admit it openly, are communities. Because it's easier to corrupt a corporation. You just go to the corporation and talk their language, money."

Recent Techrights' Posts

Professor Eben Moglen on How Social Control Media Metabolises Humans and Constrains Freedom of Thought
Nothing of value would be lost if all these data-harvesting giants (profiling people) vanished overnight
Debian Left Twitter (MElon "X"), We Think the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Should Do the Same
What would the FSF really lose if it stopped posting there?
 
Links 07/02/2025: Amazon’s Stock Collapses and US Government Being Dismantled (Still)
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/02/2025: Mid-level Details and Simple Code
Links for the day
Links 07/02/2025: US 'Demolition Crew', e-ID Loopholes, and Sanctions
Links for the day
Social Control Media is Narcissism
Nowadays there's a lot more literature and even press coverage explaining the harms of Social Control Media
statCounter Sees GNU/Linux Share Doubling in China Over the Past Year
It'll be interesting to see what data in the coming months shows
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, February 06, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, February 06, 2025
Richard Stallman (RMS) Confirms Next Week's Talk in Europe
He gave at least 2 talks in Europe last month
Nationalism As A Service (NaaS) by Microsoft Azure, Gutting the US Government for Profit
Will Microsoft be receiving bailouts as a reward for all this?
Rumours of IBM Layoffs Apparently Confirmed Yesterday, IBM Canada Consulting Impacted (as Rumoured)
when IBM has layoffs we must also read it as Red Hat layoffs
Tons of Anti-Linux 'Articles' Published by Bots (LLMs), Maybe Microsoft's
Upon closer inspection, all this FUD turned out to be LLM garbage
Gemini Links 06/02/2025: Voicemail Sucks and Night of Lights
Links for the day
Ubuntu Desktop Director of Engineering Has Only One Blog Post. It Promotes Microsoft Windows.
Remember that even 15 years ago (more or less, maybe 16 years ago) Canonical appointed a a 'former' Microsoft manager (Spencer) to lead Ubuntu on the desktop
Links 06/02/2025: YouTube Takedowns Out of Control, 'DOGE' Breaking Laws
Links for the day
IBM Red Hat on "era of cloud computing", pushing "hey hi" (AI) hype in Microsoft Azure
LLM slop might actually be more benign than Microsoft promotion
Corruption and Rule-Breaking Prevail at the European Patent Office (EPO), Europe's Second-Largest Institution
The law does not really exist at the EPO; it can be perceived as merely a "recommendation"
statCounter: More Countries Where Windows is Around 1% "Market Share" (People Have Moved to Android/Linux)
in some nations Windows is already 1% or less
404 Media Says "Workers at NASA Told to Drop Everything to Scrub Mentions of Indigenous People, Women from Its Websites" But There's Also Accessibility in the Firing Line
In the case of abandoning accessibility, everyone stands to be hurt and proprietary software can be brought in to replace standards
When BetaNews Writes Real Articles About "Linux" They Promote Windows
The Web is in a bad state. We need to at least try to correct this.
Gemini Links 06/02/2025: Cynicism and "Real Magic on the C64"
Links for the day
Links 06/02/2025: New Sanctions, Layoffs, and Executive Orders
Links for the day
Distros and Desktop Environments, Devices
GNU/Linux focused
New Rumours of IBM Layoffs in 2025, IBM Consulting Still Struggles, Based on Management
"Hey hi" (AI) has been a common excuse for business failure
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, February 05, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, February 05, 2025
Links 05/02/2025: Kessler Syndrome and News Online
Links for the day
statCounter: Monaco Now 7% GNU/Linux ("Proper")
GNU/Linux, not counting Chromebooks, is on the rise
Many Parts of Google Lose Money
It's quite apparent that many parts of Google - even some that rely on ad revenue or push ads - aren't profiting
European Internet Forum (EIF) is Dominated by American Corporations and Microsoft Lobbyists, Staff Take the Lead
Should the officials over here or the European Parliament pay attention to these people?
Links 05/02/2025: Connection without Connectivity and Unionised Grocery Workers
Links for the day
Just Because People on Top of the Microsoft Pyramid Made a Lot of Money Doesn't Mean Microsoft is Wealthy
The bigger they are the harder they fall
Gemini Links 05/02/2025: Learning, Madman Ruling a Mad Country, Back in Geminispace
Links for the day
statCounter Shows "WIntel" Chasing a Dying Market
Microsoft acts as if it's running out of money
Free Software Foundation, Inc. (FSF) Still Raising Money, Richard Stallman Contributes
total exceeding $430k
A Lot of Stuff About "Linux" in Google News is LLM Slop, Fake 'Articles'
It seems to be getting worse
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, February 04, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, February 04, 2025