03.16.09

Gemini version available ♊︎

Microsoft Wants War: Starts Blatantly Attacking Critics with Cowardly Attacks via Employers

Posted in Free/Libre Software, Microsoft at 2:53 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Microsoft’s Latest Smear Campaigns Against FOSS Proponents

Man gets angry

Summary: National Microsoft CEO attacks critic, contacts boss too (part of a pattern)

IF you write critically about Microsoft, then Microsoft may be ‘kind’ enough to contact your boss and try to get you in trouble (maybe even fired). We know this from a couple of new victims, whose names and nationalities we keep off the record so as to not aggravate it further.

“One person suspects that Vivek Kundra may be the latest case of high-level retribution.”The first story story is that a national manager of Microsoft has threatened, personally, a critic of the company’s policies and attacked the person through the employer. We have actually heard a similar story from 2 people in the past week, but not in both cases was a Microsoft manager (local CEO) directly involved.

Having written critically about Microsoft, writes one person to us, “this got me in a world of shit… but it was worth it. Or I hope it was. It remains to be seen.

“The CEO of Microsoft [country name omitted] called me up on [...] and had a very long talk with me about how naughty I was. The first fifteen minutes he was all, “this is lies!” .. then he slowly changed the tone to “you shouldn’t underestimate what good we’ve done” [...] and then, at the end of it, I managed to pin him to the wall, and he kind of backed off after that.

“And then [he] called my boss.”

Remember Peter Quinn? One person suspects that Vivek Kundra may be the latest case of high-level retribution. “This looks like it might be worse retribution than what happened to Peter Quinn,” wrote a reader to us one hour ago. But in this particular case, no proof exists.

Anyway, this would be typical Microsoft behaviour. For details, see for example:

More examples (external links):

There is another incident we had reported to us, but the details are too sensitive and would lead to a risk of exposure.

What is Microsoft so scared of? Well surely, as one reader explains, “here’s some old news, but maybe worth bringing up again. Deploying FOSS, would be the functional equivalent of a major double-digit billion dollar economic stimulus plan:

“In the case of Fedora, it would be the equivalent of $ 11 billion USD,” says the reader. This is a lot of money and Microsoft is set to lose the most. But for Microsoft to turn to personal attacks against critics is utterly disgusting. And it’s part of a long, ongoing pattern.

Novell bumper sticker

Share in other sites/networks: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • Reddit
  • email

Decor ᶃ Gemini Space

Below is a Web proxy. We recommend getting a Gemini client/browser.

Black/white/grey bullet button This post is also available in Gemini over at this address (requires a Gemini client/browser to open).

Decor ✐ Cross-references

Black/white/grey bullet button Pages that cross-reference this one, if any exist, are listed below or will be listed below over time.

Decor ▢ Respond and Discuss

Black/white/grey bullet button If you liked this post, consider subscribing to the RSS feed or join us now at the IRC channels.

10 Comments

  1. G. Michaels said,

    March 16, 2009 at 3:00 pm

    Gravatar

    So… you have no proof of this. None whatsoever?

    And of course your “readers” are sure up there in the credibility index.

  2. David Gerard said,

    March 16, 2009 at 8:16 pm

    Gravatar

    G. Michaels – as listed in the links, they have a track record.

    (A G. Michaels comment? This article wins a point.)

    And to think this is the sort of behaviour Scientology is better known for.

  3. G. Michaels said,

    March 17, 2009 at 1:30 am

    Gravatar

    David Gerard. What a rare pleasure. A rare pleasure indeed. Still canvassing wannabe sysops to pay for play at AxD? Oh, no. No, you’re past that now, of course. How silly of me. ArbCom and all that, the hollowed halls of power and beyond. Haven’t seen your user page in a while, I assume you’re still flaunting your princely powers there? The go-getter behind the throne of Wales, lots of name dropping, WP:THIS and WP:THAT, inside jokes about the cabal and so on. What a hoot, as always. Making sure one of the most precious resources in the history of humanity is well stuffed with bureaucratic idiocy and petty power struggles – because that’s what makes us feel superior to the unwashed masses, eh? :)

    As for track record, of course. No need for accuracy when you are Right (TM) and the evildoers have a track record. How silly of me.

    But anyhoo, fancy seeing you here, although not entirely surprising given the kind of company BoycottBoy keeps. I should stop by one of these days and say hi, look over what they’re deleting, what guidelines they’re rewriting to help the non-existent cabals (how are those Israel articles doing, btw… Slim and Jayjg still pounding away or did they manage to finally obliterate everyone?), who’s being lovingly shafted by ArbCom, when are we getting the next Essjay, etc. Anyway, I really should stop by. It’s been a while. Well, best regards as always.

  4. David Gerard said,

    March 17, 2009 at 8:50 am

    Gravatar

    And this echoes Slashdot comments. Looks like I’m on the radar. w00t!

  5. G. Morons said,

    March 17, 2009 at 9:54 am

    Gravatar

    G. Michaels, you’re a moron.

  6. Roy Schestowitz said,

    March 17, 2009 at 11:42 am

    Gravatar

    He’s here only to cause trouble. It’s a vandal.

  7. Eruaran said,

    March 18, 2009 at 8:09 am

    Gravatar

    If G. Michaels wants evidence, I suggest he risk his own job (if he even works in IT at all) rather than expect others to risk theirs to flatter his ego.

    Go on then, get to it. Promote FOSS, give people a real choice, put it in your advertising, openly criticise Microsoft in publicly available material.

    I guarantee you’ll get your evidence soon enough.

  8. Needs Sunlight said,

    March 21, 2009 at 8:04 am

    Gravatar

    G. Michaels and his ilk are simple there to make noise and try It looks like it to drag others down to his level and forget the topic in favor of sqwabbling.

    In review, it looks like it was a smear, after all:

    http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/17/chief-information-officer-is-quietly-reinstated/?hp

  9. G. Michaels said,

    April 6, 2009 at 12:59 am

    Gravatar

    I guarantee you’ll get your evidence soon enough.

    As I have continually asked your hero, I would eat my crow and like it if I were *ever* shown a *single* shred of evidence that Eeevil Microsoft is now or has ever specifically targeted him or any of you in any way, shape or form.

    Isn’t it fascinating that none of you can come up with something like that? A request so simple, considering the fact that all of you make those claims a central part of your decidedly unpalatable advocacy efforts? Roy’s nymshifter friend from Slashdot has the exact same problem. It’s uncanny, really.

    And David. Please understand that I don’t dislike you personally. I think you are a rather bright and intelligent person. In reality I consider you a symptom of the disease that affects Wikipedia, nothing more. Perhaps I was a bit overboard there, so I was actually going to offer a belated apology until I saw your response. I don’t know what kind of problem you might have on Slashdot, but I’m sure you’ll be disappointed to learn that I didn’t even know you had an account there until tonight when I went looking for it. I’m not sure what kind of comments you’re referring to, and I wouldn’t care to speculate on who is posting them, but I wouldn’t be surprised that someone over there would insult or attack you, given how much disruption and bad blood people like you have wreaked on Wikipedia. But the idiotic “oh you see how they’re after me” cop-out in the style of BoycottBoy and twitter and his whole cadre I honestly did not expect from you.

    Sorry for the lag here, by the way. Apparently Microsoft doesn’t pay me enough to post during the week, so it’s only Sundays once the kid has been put to bed. I should really ask for more money :)

  10. Dave said,

    April 6, 2009 at 4:50 am

    Gravatar

    Is this the story again of the guy who told a Microsoft representative that he wanted a free sample (zune?) article and if het would not get one het would write a negative article on Microsoft ?

    People like that should be fired

DecorWhat Else is New


  1. Do Not Assume Pensions Are Safe, Especially When Managed by Mr. EPOTIF Benoît Battistelli and António Campinos

    With the "hoax" that is the financial assessment by António Campinos (who is deliriously celebrating the inauguration of illegal and unconstitutional kangaroo courts) we urge EPO workers to check carefully the integrity of their pensions, seeing that pension promises have been broken for years already



  2. Links 04/06/2023: Why Flatpak and Wealth of Devices With GNU/Linux

    Links for the day



  3. Gemini Links 04/06/2023: Rosy Crow 1.1.3 and NearlyFreeSpeech.NET

    Links for the day



  4. IRC Proceedings: Saturday, June 03, 2023

    IRC logs for Saturday, June 03, 2023



  5. Links 04/06/2023: Azure Outage Again (So Many!) and Tiananmen Massacre Censored

    Links for the day



  6. Links 03/06/2023: Qubes OS 4.2.0 RC1 and elementaryOS Updates for May

    Links for the day



  7. Gemini Links 03/06/2023: Hidden Communities and Exam Prep is Not Education

    Links for the day



  8. Links 03/06/2023: IBM Betraying LibreOffice Some More (After Laying off LibreOffice Developers)

    Links for the day



  9. Gemini Links 03/06/2023: Bubble Woes and Zond Updates

    Links for the day



  10. Links 03/06/2023: Apache NetBeans 18 and ArcaOS 5.0.8

    Links for the day



  11. IRC Proceedings: Friday, June 02, 2023

    IRC logs for Friday, June 02, 2023



  12. The Developing World Abandons Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux at All-Time Highs on Desktops/Laptops

    Microsoft, with 80 billion dollars in longterm debt and endless layoffs, is losing the monopolies; the media doesn’t mention this, but some publicly-accessible data helps demonstrate that



  13. Links 02/06/2023: Elive ‘Retrowave’ Stable and Microsoft's Half a Billion Dollar Fine for LinkeIn Surveillance in Europe

    Links for the day



  14. Linux Foundation 'Research' Has a New Report and Of Course It Uses Only Proprietary Software

    The Linux Foundation has a new report, promoted by Clickfraud Spamnil and others; of course they’re rejecting Free software, they’re just riding the “Linux” brand and speak of “Open Source” (which they reject themselves)



  15. Links 02/06/2023: Arti 1.1.5 and SQL:2023

    Links for the day



  16. Gemini Links 02/06/2023: Vimwiki Revisited, SGGS Revisited

    Links for the day



  17. Geminispace/GemText/Gemini Protocol Turn 4 on June 20th

    Gemini is turning 4 this month (on the 20th, according to the founder) and I thought I’d do a spontaneous video about how I use Gemini, why it's so good, and why it’s still growing (Stéphane Bortzmeyer fixed the broken cron job — or equivalent of it — a day or two after I had mentioned the issue)



  18. HMRC Does Not Care About Tax Fraud Committed by UK Government Contractor, Sirius 'Open Source'

    The tax crimes of Sirius ‘Open Source’ were reported to HMRC two weeks ago; HMRC did not bother getting back to the reporters (victims of the crime) and it’s worth noting that the reporters worked on UK government systems for many years, so maybe there’s a hidden incentive to bury this under the rug



  19. Our IRC at 15th Anniversary

    So our IRC community turns 15 today (sort of) and I’ve decided to do a video reflecting on the fact that some of the same people are still there after 15 years



  20. IRC Proceedings: Thursday, June 01, 2023

    IRC logs for Thursday, June 01, 2023



  21. Links 02/06/2023: NixOS 23.05 and Rust 1.70.0

    Links for the day



  22. Gemini Links 02/06/2023: Flying High With Gemini and Gogios Released

    Links for the day



  23. Links 01/06/2023: KStars 3.6.5 and VEGA ET1031 RISC-V Microprocessor in Use

    Links for the day



  24. Gemini Links 01/06/2023: Scam Call and Flying High With Gemini

    Links for the day



  25. Links 01/06/2023: Spleen 2.0.0 Released and Team UPC Celebrates Its Own Corruption

    Links for the day



  26. IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, May 31, 2023

    IRC logs for Wednesday, May 31, 2023



  27. Tux Machines Closing the Door on Twitter Because Twitter is Dead (for a Lot of People)

    Tux Machines recently joined millions of others who had already quit Twitter, including passive posting (fully or partly automated)



  28. Links 31/05/2023: Inkscape’s 1.3 Plans and New ARM Cortex-A55-Based Linux Chip

    Links for the day



  29. Gemini Links 31/05/2023: Personality of Software Engineers

    Links for the day



  30. Links 31/05/2023: Armbian 23.05 Release and Illegal UPC

    Links for the day


RSS 64x64RSS Feed: subscribe to the RSS feed for regular updates

Home iconSite Wiki: You can improve this site by helping the extension of the site's content

Home iconSite Home: Background about the site and some key features in the front page

Chat iconIRC Channel: Come and chat with us in real time

Recent Posts