06.19.15
Posted in Microsoft, Patents at 6:46 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Will sue for income

Phil Hartstein, CEO of Finjan (Photo credit: Courtesy), via Times of Israel
Summary: The patent aggressor known as Finjan Holdings (originally subsidised by Microsoft) is celebrated by one of the most overzealous sites of patent lawyers as it continues to sue practicing companies
WE previously wrote about a firm called Finjan, which does much of its business by suing companies, not actually creating much of its own. A lot of people do not know that Finjan is Microsoft-connected (in the ownership sense), as we noted here before.
“Microsoft has many tentacles, including patent trolls. Finjan Holdings is one of several to keep an eye on.”We were rather disgusted to see this public relations parade (press releases [1, 2] from various parties), all citing the highly-biased Intellectual Asset Management (IAM), which we criticised here before. These are patent maximalists with little shame or dignity. See the latest appalling propaganda from IAM (patent extremism one might call it). What they are basically doing is framing Finjan and its CEO, Phil Hartstein, as some kind of heroic subjects.
Please note that this article from earlier this month reminds us that Finjan (now known as “Finjan Holdings”, apparently) is still attacking practising companies like Symantec.
Microsoft has many tentacles, including patent trolls. Finjan Holdings is one of several to keep an eye on. One day it might choose to pick on (harass or sue) Free/Open Source software (FOSS) actors.
Another Microsoft-connected entity, Black Duck, is now amplifying the “FOSS is not secure” message with this plugin for its proprietary software (covered by software patents). To quote the press release:
Free Jenkins plugin empowers developers to rapidly identify known open source security vulnerabilities
Yesterday we wrote about the campaign to characterise FOSS as not secure, using misleading branding of FOSS bugs [1, 2, 3] (often branded by partners of Microsoft if not Microsoft itself). Black Duck has been using these bug “brands” to sell its services in the media, including in the IDG network. █
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Posted in Deception, Microsoft at 6:12 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Microsoft has truly hijacked Slashdot
Summary: Dice is milking Slashdot to death (just as it presently does with SourceForge) in order to sell some Microsoft lock-in and proprietary software
“I am done with Slashdot,” told us a reader. “Did you see this?”
The reader in question was not the only one pointing to the latest .NET promotion from Slashdot and Dice (second in just a couple of days, as we first noted it yesterday). Several other people have pointed out that it comes to show how shameless Dice has become, essentially deciding — without readers’ consensus — that selling Microsoft Nick’s agenda (second day in a row) is more important than the site’s credibility. It extends to Dice’s own site. It’s a suicidal move.
“Yes,” wrote to us iopkh, “but the destruction of a (the?) major FOSS site was really the original goal IMHO. Microsoft has been aiming at it for over a decade.”
“Nick Kolakowski has a long career doing this, promoting Microsoft’s agenda while pretending to be delivering news.”This is like vendor capture, just as we worried when Dice hired Microsoft Nick, a longtime booster and propagandist of Microsoft. They are really milking Slashdot to death, perhaps quite consciously for the sake of selling some Microsoft propaganda, just as they are milking to SourceForge to death (c/f GIMP fiasco).
As Dice continues to prostitute itself to Microsoft, even so shortly after the latest .NET and Mono ads, we do at least have an explanation. It is Nerval’s Lobster (Microsoft Nick) again. Nick Kolakowski has a long career doing this, promoting Microsoft’s agenda while pretending to be delivering news. SourceForge/Dice previously also bought (i.e. hired all the staff of) Ohloh. These were all people from Microsoft (later bought/hired by Black Duck) and the hiring had the expected effect, resulting in .NET/C# promotion. We wrote about this quite a lot at the time.
The latest sellout from Slashdot is Microsoft Nick linking to himself (Nick Kolakowski) and attracting a lot of comments (i.e. audience). He uses a dramatic headline to actually do .NET promotion:
Is the .NET ecosystem really headed for long-term implosion, thanks in large part to developers devoting their energies to other platforms such as iOS and Android?
He is using it to counter dissidents from Microsoft who say that .NET is on the decline. This is more like Microsoft ‘damage control’, delivered by Microsoft Nick, who is now "Senior Editor" at the site.
Slashdot (Dice) is truly disgusting. After hiring a well-known (based on his track record) propagandist of Microsoft the site became his Microsoft PR platform. Expect a lot of Vista 10 advertisements quite soon, especially when the release is imminent (the advertisements will be in the news section, embedded as articles, as usual).
It’s probably time to just boycott Dice, which has clearly turned Free software-hostile. It will be sad to see Slashdot going down the chute, but given what the site is used for (or repurposed for) these days, we might be better off this way. █
“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]
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06.18.15
Posted in Europe, Patents at 10:37 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Paragraphs critical of Battistelli and his EPO buddies are mysteriously removed (after publication) by leading French media
Les Echos is not an entirely terrible newspaper, or at least it wasn’t always the case (ownership has changed). It didn’t refuse to cover some important stories, such as this scoop about Microsoft lobbying French politicians for OOXML. When Les Echos covers the EPO it involves defending the EPO from perceived critics like a judge who said the truth about Željko Topić. We are once again seeing Les Echos carrying water for Battistelli.
Battistelli is undoubtedly an amazing president. It is amazing that he gets to keep his job (for now) after all these scandals at the EPO, including him breaking laws and his refusal to obey court rulings against him. Only a vain elitist would be capable of defending ones like Battistelli and considering the new ownership of Les Echos, it all seems to make sense.
“So it turns out that the EPO is now censoring newspapers, or that the newspapers are self-censoring for fear of the EPO’s thugs.”A reader has told us about the “European Inventor of the Year Award,” an article from the 11th of June, 2015.
“The report of the European Inventor of the Year Award,” says the reader, “which took place in Paris on 11 June 2015, might be of interest.
“It seems that the party was spoiled for Battistelli by the French State Secretary for Digital Economy, Axelle Lemaire who made some comments expressing the French government’s concern about the ongoing social conflict at the EPO.
“It also appears that the French newspaper Les Echos subsequently censored its report by eliminating an earlier mention of Ms. Lemaire’s comments. By a stroke of good fortune, somebody was quick enough to capture the earlier version of the report.”
Days ago we alluded to a Huffington Post article in French, noting that French politicians are getting fed up with Battistelli. He has become a national embarrassment to France, not a source of pride or respect. Some politicians openly speak about this, but will the media inform the French public? See this commentary [PDF]
with hyperlinks, highlighting the latest scandal involving media censorship (or self-censorship):
LES ECHOS…. DE LA JOURNÉE DU PRIX DE L’INVENTEUR EUROPÉEN 2015
June 11th, 2015 was the day of THE party. Not the excellent Blake Edward’s 1968 film with Peter Sellers but Mr Battistelli’s lifetime’s achievement in the somptuous Palais Brogniart in Paris. The moderator paid him “the gracious Benoît Battistelli”… Etat de grâce? Well not quite.
The party was spoiled by none other than the French State Secretary for Digital Economy, Axelle Lemaire sent in replacement of the French Minister of Economy, Emmanuel Macron, who had
diplomatically declined the invitation.
First, according to sources among the organisers, Mr Battistelli did not want Ms Lemaire to speak but simply to hand out an award. Obviously, she refused. In her speech [1], she never mentioned the name of Mr Battistelli and dared to mention “the social conflict in the EPO and her concerns for the rights of EPO staff”. Bravo Madame!
“Les Echos”, a French newspaper acting as communication partner for the Office, had first reported on the event in the following way:
“Axelle Lemaire mentionne enfin les conflits sociaux qu’a connu, ces derniers mois, l’Office européen des brevets et rappelle son souci du bien-être des collaborateurs de l’Office.”
Colleagues of the EPO, who have a long tradition and solid expertise of finding quickly pertinent information found it (click here [2]) – just before the publication was censored (click here [3]) to suppress this “affront” to Mr Battistelli.
It does not end there.
Reliable insiders reported that at the end of the ceremony Ms Bergot (PD 43) rushed to the State Secretary to complain about her attitude, boldly stating that the Secretary had no idea how many great things were done at the EPO lately. The tone was such that Ms Lemaire had to remind Ms Bergot that she was addressing an official representative of France. Finally, no one had the courtesy to bid farewell to Ms Lemaire.
Un malheur n’arrivant jamais seul, in the “Huffington Post” (partly owned by “Le Monde”), three members of the French Parliament, three members of the French Senate, and a Member of the European Parliament published a tribune titled L’Organisation européenne des brevets, une zone de non droit en Europe? which reports on the troubled social situation at the EPO.
If one considers that according to members of top management speaking to us on confidential basis, about 2 Mio EUR of applicants’ money were spent (wasted?) this year for this “event”, we hope that the lunch served was at least good.
References:
[1] European Inventor Award 2015, Intervention of Axelle Lemaire, French State Secretary for Digital Economy, 11 June 2015, 12H45
Video available from :
European Commission A/V Services
starting from 109m40s
SUEPO archive
starting from 6m30s
« L’innovation c’est un impératif, un impératif économique. Et ce qui est vrai pour la technologie, l’est aussi pour l’innovation publique, les modes de gouvernance, l’innovation sociale. Et à ce titre, même si ce n’est pas l’objet de notre rencontre ce matin, le gouvernement français connaît les difficultés sociales qui s’expriment au sein de l’Office Européen des Brevets et à ce sujet, l’office a un devoir d’exemplarité, de transparence absolue dans le respect des droits des agents qui y travaillent. »
[2] Les Echos, “Deux Français vainqueurs du Prix de l’inventeur européen” published on 11 June 2015, at 13:10
[3] Les Echos, “Deux Français vainqueurs du Prix de l’inventeur européen” updated on 11 June 2015, at 14:43
The snapshot here [PDF]
shows the difference. Here it is as a PNG file:
So it turns out that the EPO is now censoring newspapers, or that the newspapers are self-censoring for fear of the EPO’s thugs. Don’t forget that Željko Topić, Battistelli’s key thug, took people to court (costing them a fortune using highly notorious SLAPP), claiming “defamation” only to lose the case at the end, and not even pay for emotional damage, stress, etc. It’s an effective intimidation tactic — illegal in some US states — that ultimately results in deletionism (out of nervousness and terror). Another censorship scandal from a supposedly scientific institution?
Thankfully we received some enormously valuable information, including snapshots, showing Battistelli’s special treatment in the French media. This guy is a never-ending scandal.
Some tell us that they “don’t know exactly what caused Les Echos to alter its story-line but the following facts may give some clues:
Les Echos belongs to the French luxury goods conglomerate LVMH (Louis Vuitton – Moët Hennessy).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LVMH
The chairman and CEO of LVMH is the french “oligarch” Bernard Arnault:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Arnault#LVMH
At the time of the acquisition, the staff of Les Echos protested:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7080079.stm
Arnault stated that he would respect the paper’s editorial independence if his company LVMH bought it:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/07/05/industry-arnault-les-echos-dc-idUSL0416454220070705
According to French press reports Arnault is close to former French President Nicolas Sarkozy:
http://lexpansion.lexpress.fr/actualite-economique/bernard-arnault-et-nicolas-sarkozy-proches-depuis-longtemps_1158948.html
In the context of French politics, Battistelli is a member of Sarkozy’s party (formerly UMP, recently re-branded as “Les Républicains”): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_for_a_Popular_Movement
As a UMP member, Battistelli has some minor local political role on the town council of St. Germain-en-Laye:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beno%C3%AEt_Battistelli#Local_political_life
In the past, Les Echos has published the occasional “puff piece” about Battistelli and his role as President of the EPO.
For example:
http://www.lesechos.fr/30/09/2014/LesEchos/21782-159-ECH_benoit-battistelli-president-de-l-office-europeen-des-brevets–oeb-.htm
Against this background, it’s probable that Battistelli has some “hot line” to Les Echos which enables him to get unfavorable coverage pulled in the twinkling of an eye…
The source wishes to “stress that [there is] no information about what exactly happened behind the scenes here, but it’s possible to speculate…”
When I worked as a journalist for an external site with clients (advertisers) and corporate politics I saw entire paragraphs of mine removed. This is usually done by another person, e.g. an editor. Perhaps Battistelli has some powerful connections in the Les Echos offices. █
Update: “In the mean time,” quite fortunately and in a very timely fashion, “IPKat has covered this incident” (to paraphrase a reader). According to this, European taxpayers’ money is wasted not only on self-glamourising events for the EPO’s public image but also media distortion, or yet more paid ‘placements’ (corrupting the media). Les Echos journalists wrongly assumed that they were in the business of journalism and attended the event to give fair coverage. Not so! Not allowed!
As IP Kat puts it right now, “the French newspaper Les Echos, chosen by the EPO as its media partner, acted like a newspaper rather than a “media partner” and initially released a report of the event including Ms. Lemaire’s criticisms. That quickly changed. The story was pulled and re-released in a more anodyne (and acceptable) form within hours, Ms. Lemaire’s comments disappearing from the edited report. Winston Smith would have counted it as a good day’s work.”
Wow! The EPO is once again paying big and influential newspapers to produce fake ‘coverage’. What a misuse of public money.
“Merpel feels sorry for the EPO management,” she says. “After all, if you’re spending about €2 million of applicants’ and patentees’ money on a showcase event, you’d expect everyone to know their place and bow the knee, non? More seriously, it is a very welcome sign that one of the major EPO member states is now publicly calling the EPO to account, and is publicly reminding the Office of its duty to uphold the rights of staff. Will other member states be as courageous, she wonders?”
To quote a reader of ours: “It seems that Les Echos was acting as a “media partner” for the EPO in providing coverage of the European Inventor of the Year Award.”
This means that Les Echos has effectively been reduced to articles for sale. The stakeholders even get to shape these articles as they see fit (post-publication).
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Posted in Deception, Microsoft at 10:02 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Stephen Elop has a long track record of corporate destruction (his expertise)
Summary: Lesser-explored aspects of Microsoft’s corporate sinking, which the company disguises as ‘shakeup’ while releasing (yet again) its demolition man, Stephen Elop
THIS post tackles various issues that the corporate media overlooked. First, Elop’s exit merits more analysis and retrospection; second, Microsoft’s state is much more revealing right now, as well as Microsoft’s stance on Google and Android; finally, comments are needed about Elop’s legacy, which makes the world a much more dangerous place for Free/libre software.
The big news isn’t Elop being fired but Microsoft setting itself on fire after a misguided strategy which revolved around destruction rather than creation (giving Nokia’s patents to patent trolls, killing Nokia’s multiple Linux efforts, and so on). Many executives are leaving in droves right now and we are hardly surprised. There are certainly more layoffs on the way, but puff pieces like this new one from Microsoft sympathiser Mark Hachman (of the shameful IDG) serve to distract from that. More “restricted boot with uefi” is Microsoft’s last hope, assures us a reader, basically ensuring it is exceptionally hard to remove Vista/7/8/10 from PCs after OEMs were bribed to preinstall it.
Tackling the media’s narrative in this case, let’s look at the repetition of deceptive terminology. The media repeats Microsoft’s words, but here is the basic rule (based on history): when Microsoft says “reorg” it means layoffs and “shakeup” means key managers are fleeing/abandoning. We wrote about this for nearly a decade. Common euphemisms like “shake-ups” (with or without a dash) or “reorg” (for layoffs) are very frequent an utterance at Microsoft and it’s all damage control. Corporate journalists don’t do their job; they don’t look any further or any deeper.
What we really have here is a departure of Mark Penn, Microsoft’s anti-Google guy [1, 2, 3, 4] (and by extension anti-Android guy). He is out, so Microsoft’s strategy to incite against Google must have failed pretty badly. Quoting damage control from Microsoft’s booster, “Eric Rudder, whose Microsoft bio indecisively describes him as both Vice President of Advanced Technology and Education, and Vice President of Advanced Strategy, is also leaving.” Rudder, a longtime thug from Microsoft (see and recall his role in dirty tricks [1, 2, 3]), was probably essential to Microsoft’s abusive monopoly. They are attacking GNU/Linux behind the scenes. They are top-level executives — people who rally the troops and pressure (or bribe, or blackmail) other executives, even politicians. Their departure is probably a news bigger than Elop’s ‘departure’ (more on that later).
The Nokia angle was covered the most (as the leading story), but almost nobody mentioned that Elop got a massive bonus for destroying Nokia and passing it to Microsoft. He is a very rich man, having made a lot money from demolition.
Nokia expert Tomi Ahonen wrote:
So the Elop nonsense and destructive managment methods lasted only 15 months under Satya Nadella’s watchful eye at Microsoft. He is effectively fired from Microsoft. The company realigns handsets into one division under Windows headed by Exec VP Terry Myers. And Elop plus two other senior execs are kicked out with the press release out today.
Good riddance. Stephen Elop was the worst CEO in corporate history. He clearly was at fault on the top, when he went to Microsott, that same ex-Nokia handset unit with Lumia running on Windows Phone never did any better. Today we’ve seen new Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella examine Elop’s performance of the flagship future division – you remember Nadella’s introductory remarks to his employees were all about mobile and the cloud – now Elop is gone. And look at the text of the press release. Not one word about ‘mobile’ or ‘handsets’ or ‘Lumia’ in the actual announcements (only one mention on the bottom from the description of Microsoft the company being a ‘mobiile-first’ company). What a huge shift away from the failing Lumia unit to ‘Windows and Devices’ ie Surface will do fine, Xbox is doing fine. Lumia is dead.
Now someone will be running the Lumia unit under Exec VP Myers for a while, and then when they see it is irretrievably dead, they will quietly shut down that business. This is a VERY clear sign of the writing on the wall. And sadly for any ex-Nokia employees, expect more layoffs to come in the aftermath of this announcement and the ‘consolidation’ within that new business unit. I think the ex-Nokia handset unit has no more than 24 months ahead of this point, and may be shut down far faster than that. Clearly Nadella knows how to read mathematics and the math about Elop’s business was brutal. Elop is gone! A day of somber celebrtaions in Finland and all who were fired by that clown will think – at least he also got fired.
Finally good news from Microsoft because it shows that it’s dying, much like its efforts to derail Android. As iophk put it: “none, not even Ahonen, remind us that Elop was a mole and fulfilled the sale to Microsoft as a requirement for receiving his 25m bonus.”
Nadella’s hogwash of corporate collapse (in his E-mail) is hilarious if properly dissected. To quote the British media, “Nadella said in an email to employees: “We are aligning our engineering efforts and capabilities to deliver on our strategy and, in particular, our three core ambitions.
“This change will enable us to deliver better products and services that our customers love at a more rapid pace.””
Nadella is talking complete nonsense. It was probably written by someone else (PR) and just signed by Nadella. Nilay Patel asks (in his headline), “What company will Stephen Elop steal for Microsoft next?”
He dubs Elop “Trojan Horse, King of Thieves” and says: “So now that Elop is free to roam the badlands once again, it’s only fair to ask what new company he might infiltrate as part of an elaborate Microsoft M&A strategy. Here’s a quick list.”
Watch how Elop destroyed companies before he even joined Microsoft. He is a very evil Trojan horse and it’s important to check where he goes next. He is a demolition man, not a manager. Therein lies the real story. █
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Posted in Deception, Free/Libre Software, Microsoft at 9:23 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Slash.dot.net

Slashdot just a shadow of its former self, and for good reasons
Summary: Slashdot is corrupted to the same degree as SourceForge, not too long after the hiring of Microsoft boosters; the commenters in Slashdot bully Free software proponents — a complete reversal of what the site used to be like
The SourceForge malware scandal as we’d like to call it (turning a GNU program into a Windows blob with malware) was mentioned only in our daily links for it was self-explanatory, it was crystal clear (no room for ‘damage control’), and articles about it didn’t need further comment or significant correction. It is time to highlight a different problem, which is the Slashdot bias (editorial control) and the steering of that site. Some blogs accused Slashdot of not covering the SourceForge scandal because it’s a sister site, also owned by the same company (Dice Holdings).
Dice Holdings is now taking its shameless tactics further. Having turned Free software into malware (by hijacking accounts), it now uses Slashdot to push Microsoft propaganda and promote Mono, calling it “Insight”. It should be noted that the pro-Mono/Microsoft article from Slashdot was pushed by Nerval's Lobster, i.e. Microsoft Nick, who joined two years ago as "Senior Editor". It’s like a coup. Dice is a joke. What it does here is shameless because it reads like an advertisement for Mono and Xamarin, Microsoft’s Trojan horse and close partner (almost subsidiary, funded in part by Microsoft veterans). Here is how Slashdot (apparently Microsoft Nick) put it:
In the eleven years since Mono first appeared, the Linux community has regarded it with suspicion. Because Mono is basically a free, open-source implementation of Microsoft’s .NET framework, some developers feared that Microsoft would eventually launch a patent war that could harm many in the open-source community. But there are some good reasons for using Mono, developer David Bolton argues in a new blog posting (Dice link). Chief among them is MonoDevelop, which he claims is an excellent IDE; it’s cross-platform abilities; and its utility as a game-development platform. That might not ease everybody’s concerns (and some people really don’t like how Xamarin has basically commercialized Mono as an iOS/Android development platform), but it’s maybe enough for some people to take another look at the platform.
Dice Holdings has zero credibility not just when it comes to SourceForge; people oughtn’t trust Slashdot either. One reader told us that there is now an anti-Free software mob there (in the comments) and showed us extensive evidence. We swapped dozens of E-mails about it and observed threads that we would rather not share as that might feed (and help) the trolls. So, Slashdot has become somewhat of a cesspool both in the content/story section and the comments.
Congratulations, Dice Holdings, for destroying valuable Free software resources that you’ve viewed as assets to be milked to the point of implosion. █
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Posted in Free/Libre Software, FUD at 8:56 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Many Free/libre software-hostile articles from IDG (worsened this past week) exploit public miscomprehension or misunderstandings about computer security
TECHRIGHTS readers are advised to treat with great caution the output of IDG, perhaps the biggest network writing in a variety of languages about technology on the Internet (the paper publications of IDG are mostly defunct by now).
Readers may still recall the regular FUD from Sonatype [1, 2, 3, 4, 5], a firm which is not itself anything like a Free software firm but sure likes to talk about Free software (negatively). Sonatype’s shameless and self-promotional talking points are now being masqueraded as media articles (in the IDG network) and for extra FUD they are reposted it in many sites of IDG, even rarely-accessed ones. It smacks of misuse of media resources. They are also modifying the headline for extra reach (SEO in the news aggregators) with this same FUD that is based on/derived from a self-promotional Sonatype press release.
“If Edward Snowden’s NSA and GCHQ leaks taught us anything, it’s that proprietary software is not secure and Free software should not tolerate proprietary blobs or hardware (e.g. in hard drives).”Sonatype should issue/produce a study on how many proprietary systems are not being patched. Or worse: say how many don’t get fixed by the vendor; how many bits of proprietary software have severe flaws with never even fix issued? How many flaws are not being revealed to the public? See how Microsoft admits hiding flaws. What about back doors (intentional flaws)? Abandoned software with secret code is almost guaranteed to be Swiss cheese. These debates are mostly missing from corporate media. Only yesterday security guru Bruce Schneier wrote: “One of the biggest conceptual problems we have is that something is believed secure until demonstrated otherwise. We need to reverse that: everything should be believed insecure until demonstrated otherwise.”
Glancing at another IDG piece from the past few days, it looks like there is agenda, maybe the editor’s or publisher’s (Microsoft and Apple are big clients, e.g. with advertising and IDC contracts). The piece is a one-sided attack on Free software security; flaws in Free software aren’t any worse (or more in quantity) than in proprietary software, developers are just not hiding them. That’s not hard to understand, is it? IDG likes to promote this ‘New Illusion’ of Free software being not secure (part of the latest FUD wave/strategy), using bugs with “branding” [1, 2, 3], irrespective or real severity.
If Edward Snowden’s NSA and GCHQ leaks taught us anything, it’s that proprietary software is not secure and Free software should not tolerate proprietary blobs or hardware (e.g. in hard drives). Don’t let IDG change the consensus. Surely IDG has the budget to hire some technical journalists who can challenge myth makers, but would that ultimately suit the agenda and appease existing customers? █
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