02.21.11

Promoting OpenSUSE is Not the Same as Promoting Mono

Posted in GNU/Linux, Mono, OpenSUSE at 7:36 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Response to weak defence of Banshee’s monetisation plans (which can help the project increase its influence inside GNOME)

In case anybody wonders about OpenSUSE, there is not much to say about it. Last night we looked at 4 months of OpenSUSE news (planet syndication) and there was nothing major there. Joe Brockmeier from the OpenSUSE project (he was the community manager) pushes this into the news because other than more OpenSUSE Weekly News (preaching to the converted), there is little going on at OpenSUSE and the current community manager of OpenSUSE now defends Mono pushers (Banshee lobby) who are also his colleagues. It’s done using an analogy which misses the point:

Needed for…
openSUSE is in the process of setting up a Foundation (or e.V. or…). Once there is a Foundation, it will be on the lookout for funding. Obviously my employer will support it, we are a stakeholder in the future of openSUSE. And provided we support the Foundation’s goals. But the Foundation will also want to explore other ways of generating income.

What doesn’t work?
Donations and merchandising don’t seem hugely profitable in other communities. Sure, openSUSE did well at FOSDEM, selling 16 crates of openSUSE beer and donating the money to FOSDEM. But we’re still talking about a few hundred euro’s and that’s including the t-shirts we also sold for FOSDEM. That wouldn’t keep the openSUSE Foundation running. So I understand that the $10.000 that Banshee brings the GNOME Foundation each year is interesting from a distro point of view. But ethics and common sense should play a role here too. I guess it might make sense to take a 20 or 30% cut in discussion with the projects – not 75 or 100%. So it might bring some revenue. Not enough still.

This is not a good comparison because Banshee promotes Mono and Microsoft, whereas OpenSUSE spreads GNU/Linux (there are now requests to spread it further using DVDs while there are service interruptions Pascal Bleser discloses). To suggest that making money the way Banshee does should be comparable to foundations is simply misleading. █

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Due to Novell, Microsoft Still Profits From the London Stock Exchange and From Watson in ‘Jeopardy!’

Posted in IBM, Microsoft, Novell, Patents, Servers, SLES/SLED at 7:23 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: The inclusion of SLE* in some large, high-profile deployments enables Microsoft to profit from its competition

IBM’s continued SLES preference in mainframes and some supercomputers is not helpful. “Novell server powers ‘Jeopardy!’ computer” says one headline among several others (some of which we mentioned before and criticised). Tell IBM to stop stocking SUSE. It’s Microsoft-taxed, it’s Ballnux. Dell recently started doing the same thing; its new SUSE-supporting server offers more avenues from which Microsoft can raise a profit, mostly at Red Hat’s expense. Novell is rather notorious for its reliance on Red Hat’s work which it then releases prematurely and adds Microsoft tax to. Watch this new FT article that says: “The deal is quite a coup for Novell, which supplied its Suse Linux Enterprise Server product modified with a real-time “kernel” to reduce latency times.”

To many people’s surprise, it is actually Ballnux at the London Stock Exchange (LSE), not Red Hat. Among Novell’s raves about IBM’s role in SLE* deployments there is this new press release with similar text which is based on it. The bottom line is, Microsoft paid Novell a lot of money to create a precedence and a trap; thanks to Novell, Microsoft is not profiting from code it has nothing to do with. █

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Voluntarily Promoting User-Hostile Proprietary Software Vendors

Posted in Apple, Microsoft at 7:02 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: A theoretic look into the minds of people who promote Microsoft and Apple (not as a job)

THERE is something rather astounding about what Murdoch and Koch have managed to do with their billions of dollars. By using PR tactics they managed to rally millions of gullible people (e.g. Tea Party) who now do their bidding and further promote their causes — causes which are of course harmful to those who promote them. We wrote about this a couple of hours ago, also in relation to the Gates Foundation — that which has got the people cheering for an operation that robs them; it even prevents Bill and Warren from having to pay tax.

“The PR industry seems to have mastered some skills which are required for putting the abused over at the abuser’s side.”In a similar vein, there are many people out there who associate their character with some brand name/s such as Facebook, Apple, or NASCAR. For Microsoft, there is this competitive thing called the MVP programme, which is just exploiting people and not giving them anything of value in return (says a Microsoft MVP this year). The PR industry seems to have mastered some skills which are required for putting the abused over at the abuser’s side. It’s really disturbing to see this.

As new examples of this, consider the sad reality behind Vista 7 and watch how a Microsoft booster that the company compensates in all sorts of ways (the gentle bribes) spins product defects and even helps Microsoft guard its image:

As I mentioned last week, Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 is in the midst of full public release.

The reader who mailed us this pointer added: “Service Pack 1 released with defects. This show that there must be public testing 100%.” Why would anyone voluntarily test Vista 7 SP1, which only Microsoft executives will benefit from financially?

Similarly, amid the push for Apple antitrust we keep seeing that a lot of Apple customers are scrambling to defend the company. We are talking about Apple apologists like Daniel Eran Dilger and MG Siegler, who find ways to spin an abuse as benefit to the market and not just to Apple’s bottom line. CNN gives that coverage too (CNN loves promoting big American brands, just like itself). To quote part of the spin:

These new rules will put many developers between a rock and a hard place. So why is Apple doing this? There are three reasons, all related.

The reasoning is so weak that one may easily assume that it’s repetition of Apple’s PR staff. Talking points. Why are people promoting abusive companies? Are they basing their own image on the image of those whom they buy from? Affiliating oneself with ideas (or even a political party) would make far more sense, although both political parties and corporations now use the same tactics and often the very same PR agencies. They turn companies into some kind of sects or sets of ideology, at least perceptually, adding concepts like “loyalty” (to a brand, not a person), “love” (e.g. T-shirts with the trademarks alongside hearts in them), and social status (see Apple’s advertisements). █

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At Novell, Free Sometimes Means Free Trial, Not Libre

Posted in Deception, Free/Libre Software, Marketing, Novell at 6:30 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Novell is disseminating proprietary software under the proposition that it’s “free”

This new press release from Novell uses the word “free” to mean gratis, not libre, and merely a sort of trial version. Accompanying coverage [1, 2] pretty much repeats Novell. Is this what Novell calls “free” now? Proprietary software? █

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One Last Sellout From Novell (MPEG-LA, Microsoft Patent Traps)

Posted in Microsoft, Novell, Patents at 6:19 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Weeks before its death (as a public company), Novell announces continued plans that favour MPEG-LA and Microsoft, not software freedom

THE DIMINISHING presence of Novell does not prevent the company from promoting Microsoft, which funnelled perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars into Novell in order to receive this kind of treatment. It’s a bit like a bribe — somewhat like the money Microsoft gave to Nokia, which then decided sell out without being acquired [1, 2, 3, 4].

The usual suspect is making some noise about Moonlight, which brings Mono and proprietary codecs with it (hello, MPEG-LA). The FSF’s new call for a boycott against MPEG-LA supporters is another subject we’ll deal with shortly. Moonlight is just a surrogate of Silver Lie, which would never support WebM. Microsoft is in complete control.

“Moonlight is just a surrogate of Silver Lie, which would never support WebM.”The ‘Microsoft press’ is of course promoting this, but it’s not alone [1, 2]. An entity called Telerik, which we mentioned in [1, 2, 3], is also helping this promotion, which is of course invaluable to the monopolist. Some Linux sites fail to highlight the drawbacks [1, 2] and also give coverage to future releases of Mono, which include Microsoft code and patent traps. Novell has been actively trying to pollute Android with Mono, using a product called MonoDroid [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15]. It is speculated that Moonlight too will try to pollute Android, not just with Microsoft patents but also with MPEG-LA patents (Google is currently the main opponent of MPEG-LA and Microsoft is trying to increase the cost of Android, using lawsuits and extortion a la MPEG-LA).

Based on comments that we found in Identi.ca over the weekend, the Mono bullies or Mono lobby continue to act like Scientology. The usual suspects are harassing anyone who dare to say a negative thing about Mono and/or Moonlight, as always. Among the bullies in these discussions we find some Novell employees like this gentleman (who also hangs out in Reddit, smearing Techrights). Hypocritically enough, Mono bullies like to say that they are the victims; they should take a look at their own behaviour. Mono boosters must come grips with the fact that merely naming those who do the pro-Microsoft coding is reasonable for the same reason an attacked party often blames the attacking troop if not the general (people like Microsoft MVP de Icaza) who start this attack, sometimes embodied by a project with the funding of the ‘state’ (Novell or Microsoft in this case). To quote the Novell/Ximian trooper:

Attacking someone’s project often results in that person feeling personally attacked. I should know this as well or better than anyone because I’m one of the authors of the most widely attacked projects in the Free Software community: Evolution, Mono, and Moonlight.

Mono and Moonlight are ‘attacked’ because they are harmful. They help Microsoft, not Free software. The ‘attacks’ on them are not personal attacks, unless Mono and Moonlight are two people with feelings to be hurt. Trying to personify them is missing the point. █

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JP Rosevear Quits Novell, Joins Mozilla

Posted in Novell at 5:47 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Will the last person to leave switch off the lights?

Summary: Novell’s JP Rosevear is leaving, which puts the company’s Ballnux operations at greater risk

WHAT we occasionally call the Novell exodus is an ongoing process which we carry on covering. Rosevear is the latest major departure. From the blog (Friday):

Today is my last day at Novell which I arrived at by way of Helixcode and then Ximian in 2003. Both these companies enabled me to work in and around open source first as a hacker and then later as a manager and director. Perhaps future posts will have some more reflections on this time. It has been a great and I learned so much over the years, but it is now time to move on.

Wafaa may be tired of the suggestions that Novell, SUSE & OpenSUSE are in a bit of a mess, but it is true. We will show this in some of today’s remaining posts. █

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AstroTurfing Businesses Not Just a Theory

Posted in Deception, Marketing at 5:38 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: New links of interest, highlighting a phenomenon to be aware of

• More HBGary Federal Fallout: The Government Wants To Buy Software To Fake Online Grassroots Social Media Campaigns

  The latest in the long line of revelations from the HBGary Federal email leak, is that HBGary Federal wanted to create software that could make it easy for staffers to create and maintain a massive number of fake online social network personas, allowing them to control virtual armies of totally fake people, whose only mission is to spy on others and spew paid-for propaganda. But, what’s even more amazing is that not only did the emails reveal HBGary Federal employees talking about building a platform for letting people more easily manage an army of fake personas, but that the US government put out a request for exactly that kind of software last June, with its request for “Persona Management Software.”

• HB Gary ‘puppets’ FAIL to convince

  It looks like we should all learn Homer Simpson’s sock-puppet phobia.

  If this blog post is accurate, then corporates aren’t just briefing social media teams to “manage” their reputation on services like Twitter. They’re creating armies of software-driven sock-puppets to gang up on bloggers and commenters to swamp negative comment.

  The Daily Kos poster is particularly offended that HB Gary, the company that embarrassed itself by taking on “hacktivist” group Anonymous and being hacked in return, would be deploying such tactics against its critics.

  The technique is based on creating a kind of meta-manager of online personae, to make sure (as the HB Gary document puts its) that the person hired to massage their employers’ online reputation doesn’t “accidentally cross-contaminate personas during use”.

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Fox ‘News’: Serving Koch Brothers, Serving Bill Gates

Posted in Bill Gates, Deception, Google, Microsoft, Search at 5:32 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Picture by Zil

Summary: Amidst allegations and reports that Fox misleads the public on purpose [1], a close look is taken at GOP agenda [2, 3] and the probable reason for the anti-Google vendetta

Yesterday we wrote about Murdoch's role in Microsoft's ruthless fight against Google. Murdoch’s role in it goes a long way back [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14] and it’s no secret that Murdoch meets Gates when he hangs out with Microsoft executives and other billionaires like himself, including those who distort the record about climate science and those who run PR/investment operations disguised as a charity (Bill Gates and Warren Buffett). A reader informed us that Glenn Beck’s recent anti-Google rhetoric may have something to do with his boss, Rupert Murdoch. There is also this new article about it in alternet.org — an article which is summarised as follows:

Beck has a Google conspiracy theory. What he doesn’t tell you is that his boss, Rupert Murdoch, has it in for the search-engine giant.

Microsoft has already destroyed Yahoo! and it then took its search userbase. It’s a bit like Nokia; Microsoft would rather destroy companies and take their market share because it cannot create something better. History is full of many examples like this, e.g. Borland, WordPerfect, Netscape. Yahoo! keeps sacking employees just like Nokia in the post-Elop era [1, 2, 3, 4].

Truthfully, we do not endorse Google for its proprietary search services, but for those who do not trust Google, here is another decent option:

Do you want a better, more secure, more private search engine? Give Duckduckgo a try. I’ve been using it almost exclusively for several months now. It’s great. Also, their !Bang feature is awesome and extremely useful.

I tried it earlier this year and I was pleased. But it would be nice to have a truly free/libre algorithm on which to build and combine many search engines of a vast scale. What we have today is insufficient. █

References from the latest news:

1. FCC investigating Fox over its operation of WWOR-TV

   The Federal Communications Commission is investigating News Corp.’s Fox to determine if the company misled the regulatory agency with regards to the operations of its television station WWOR-TV in Seacaucus, N.J.

   In a letter sent to Fox on Thursday, the FCC said it needs to determine if Fox and WWOR intentionally provided “material factual information that was incorrect” or is guilty of “intentionally omitting material information.”

2. In Defense of Mockery

   I read with profound weariness a piece in Salon by Michael Lind entitled Hey, liberals: Time to give the Beck bashing a rest. Lind is apparently under the impression that (a) Rachel Maddow and Chris Matthews engage in “constant mockery” of bloviating right-wing demagogues such as Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann and Glenn Beck, and that (b) this would somehow be a bad thing, because it is likely to backfire on “liberals.”

   He could not be more wrong.

3. What the Right-wing Assault on Women, Unions, the Environment, Health Care and PBS Is All About

   The individual issues are all too real: assaults on unions, public employees, women’s rights, immigrants, the environment, health care, voting rights, food safety, pensions, prenatal care, science, public broadcasting, and on and on.

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