08.29.09

Gemini version available ♊︎

Microsoft and Its Followers Compare Free Software to Terrorism

Posted in FSF, FUD, GNU/Linux, GPL, Kernel, Microsoft at 5:58 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

“Open source is an intellectual-property destroyer [...] I can’t imagine something that could be worse than this for the software business and the intellectual-property business. I’m an American; I believe in the American way, I worry if the government encourages open source, and I don’t think we’ve done enough education of policymakers to understand the threat.”

Jim Allchin, President of Platforms & Services Division at Microsoft

Summary: How Microsoft incites the public against those who are critical of its behaviour

THE title of this post is no news. It has carried on for quite a long time. The same strategy happens to be used by the media/content industry, which insists that file sharing encourages terrorism. More recently, this very same industry argued that giving something away for free was “unamerican”. It’s an insult to Americans when this argument is being made. Whenever scrutinised by regulators outside for US for breaking the law, companies like Intel and Microsoft use the “anti-American” label as well. But again, that’s not news and it is a well-understood technique where one polarises and daemonises the competitor or the law enforcer. Yes, Microsoft has done everything to show that it polarises and incites people against Free software; hypocritically enough, Microsoft accuses others of doing this and since Microsoft has greater control over the media, many people may actually be lured into this false impression.

The following new article from the Indian press speaks about the loadable module [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8] that Microsoft gave after failing to comply with the GPL. Here is the person this article quotes:

From Linux side Greg Kroah-Hartman, Linux Driver Project Lead, said “Microsoft’s contribution is a good move for Linux. I’m pleased to see Microsoft working to build a better relationship with the Linux community. I think that this will be good news for users and organizations who want to see better interoperability between Windows and Linux.”

The article fails to mention that Greg Kroah-Hartman is actually a Novell employee too and it’s also a Novell project, part of the patent deal with Microsoft. Quoting Torvalds to justify this, the article proceeds to dismissing the possibility that Microsoft is acting to promote its own interests against Linux.

In another new article we find a former Microsoft intern comparing “open source” to religion and taking cheap shots at Microsoft’s competition using words like “fundamentalist” and “religious”. It is very telling. He is pushing the typical myths that he may have heard about while at Microsoft. Elsewhere, in the Microsoft press itself (the same one that offers sympathy to SCO), the author is trying to characterise the FSF’s new campaign efforts [1, 2, 3] as “anti-capitalist” while ignoring that Microsoft is unique in the sense that it commits crimes. Is this capitalism? Was it established on violating laws? In other articles we find weasel words like “Linux fanatic”. Much of this was fueled by the FSF’s latest campaign.

“It is a case of artful terminology which seeks to associate Free software advocates with terrorists.”Adherence to law, ethics and democracy apparently makes one a “fanatic”, a “fundamentalist”, even “religious” (never mind if many Free software supporters are atheists). Needless to say, many of these characterisations arrive from Microsoft itself or from the Microsoft-sympathetic crowd. It is a case of artful terminology which seeks to associate Free software advocates with terrorists. I know from personal experience that Microsoft is trying to achieve this and the quotes appended at the bottom strive to demonstrate this.

As some readers may already know, Microsoft TEs lurked in Boycott Novell for quite some time before going above water — so to speak — and then attacking me, spamming some forums with those attacks on me, and even comparing me to a serial killer, Unabomber (by quoting known trolls and even anti-Linux Web sites). There are also firms like W-E and Visible Technologies. They have full-time staff doing this PR stuff that includes monitoring Web sites. Anything imaginable is being done to publicly discourage critical persons and incite others against the ‘problematic’ messengers. To them, it is another game of hypocritical spin and reality-warping. Novell employees have done the same thing to Boycott Novell, but this is a separate subject.

“Linux is a cult that captures the best-and-brightest kids.”

Jim Gray (Microsoft Research)

“There’s no company called Linux, there’s barely a Linux road map. Yet Linux sort of springs organically from the earth. And it had, you know, the characteristics of communism that people love so very, very much about it. That is, it’s free.”

Steve Ballmer

“Thanks to Mr. Gates, we now know that an open Internet with protocols anyone can implement is communism; it was set up by that famous communist agent, the US Department of Defense.”

Richard Stallman

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.

DecorWhat Else is New


  1. Links 29/03/2023: Parted 3.5.28 and Blender 3.5

    Links for the day



  2. Links 29/03/2023: New Finnix and EasyOS Kirkstone 5.2

    Links for the day



  3. IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, March 28, 2023

    IRC logs for Tuesday, March 28, 2023



  4. [Meme] Fraud Seems Standard to Standard Life

    Sirius ‘Open Source’ has embezzled and defrauded staff; now it is being protected (delaying and stonewalling tactics) by those who helped facilitate the robbery



  5. 3 Months to Progress Pension Fraud Investigations in the United Kingdom

    Based on our experiences and findings, one simply cannot rely on pension providers to take fraud seriously (we’ve been working as a group on this); all they want is the money and risk does not seem to bother them, even when there’s an actual crime associated with pension-related activities



  6. 36,000 Soon

    Techrights is still growing; in WordPress alone (not the entire site) we’re fast approaching 36,000 posts; in Gemini it’s almost 45,500 pages and our IRC community turns 15 soon



  7. Contrary to What Bribed (by Microsoft) Media Keeps Saying, Bing is in a Freefall and Bing Staff is Being Laid Off (No, Chatbots Are Not Search and Do Not Substitute Web Pages!)

    Chatbots/chaffbot media noise (chaff) needs to be disregarded; Microsoft has no solid search strategy, just lots and lots of layoffs that never end this year (Microsoft distracts shareholders with chaffbot hype/vapourware each time a wave of layoffs starts, giving financial incentives for publishers to not even mention these; right now it’s GitHub again, with NDAs signed to hide that it is happening)



  8. Full RMS Talk ('A Tour of Malicious Software') Uploaded 10 Hours Ago

    The talk is entitled "A tour of malicious software, with a typical cell phone as example." Richard Stallman is speaking about the free software movement and your freedom. His speech is nontechnical. The talk was given on March 17, 2023 in Somerville, MA.



  9. Links 28/03/2023: KPhotoAlbum 5.10.0 and QSoas 3.2

    Links for the day



  10. The Rumours Were Right: Many More Microsoft Layoffs This Week, Another Round of GitHub Layoffs

    Another round of GitHub layoffs (not the first [1, 2]; won’t be the last) and many more Microsoft layoffs; this isn’t related to the numbers disclosed by Microsoft back in January, but Microsoft uses or misuses NDAs to hide what’s truly going on



  11. All of Microsoft's Strategic Areas Have Layoffs This Year

    Microsoft’s supposedly strategic/future areas — gaming (trying to debt-load or offload debt to other companies), so-called ‘security’, “clown computing” (Azure), and “Hey Hi” (chaffbots etc.) — have all had layoffs this year; it’s clear that the company is having a serious existential crisis in spite of Trump’s and Biden’s bailouts (a wave of layoffs every month this year) and is just bluffing/stuffing the media with chaffbots cruft (puff pieces/misinformation) to keep shareholders distracted, asking them for patience and faking demand for the chaffbots (whilst laying off Bing staff, too)



  12. Links 28/03/2023: Pitivi 2023.03 is Out, Yet More Microsoft Layoffs (Now in Israel)

    Links for the day



  13. IRC Proceedings: Monday, March 27, 2023

    IRC logs for Monday, March 27, 2023



  14. Links 27/03/2023: GnuCash 5.0 and Ubuntu 20.04 LTS on Phones

    Links for the day



  15. Links 27/03/2023: Twitter Source Code Published (But Not Intentionally)

    Links for the day



  16. IRC Proceedings: Sunday, March 26, 2023

    IRC logs for Sunday, March 26, 2023



  17. Links 26/03/2023: OpenMandriva ROME 23.03, Texinfo 7.0.3, and KBibTeX 0.10.0

    Links for the day



  18. The World Wide Web is a Cesspit of Misinformation. Let's Do Something About It.

    It would be nice to make the Web a safer space for information and accuracy (actual facts) rather than a “Safe Space” for oversensitive companies and powerful people who cannot tolerate criticism; The Web needs to become more like today's Gemini, free of corporate influence and all other forms of covert nuisance



  19. Ryan Farmer: I’m Back After WordPress.com Deleted My Blog Over the Weekend

    Reprinted with permission from Ryan



  20. Civil Liberties Threatened Online and Offline

    A “society of sheeple” (a term used by Richard Stallman last week in his speech) is being “herded” online and offline; the video covers examples both online and offline, the latter being absence of ATMs or lack of properly-functioning ATMs (a growing problem lately, at least where I live)



  21. Techrights Develops Free Software to Separate the Wheat From the Chaff

    In order to separate the wheat from the chaff we’ve been working on simple, modular tools that process news and help curate the Web, basically removing the noise to squeeze out the signal



  22. Links 26/03/2023: MidnightBSD 3.0 and FreeBSD 13.2 RC4

    Links for the day



  23. IRC Proceedings: Saturday, March 25, 2023

    IRC logs for Saturday, March 25, 2023



  24. Links 26/03/2023: More TikTok Bans

    Links for the day



  25. Links 25/03/2023: Gordon Moore (of Moore's Law) is Dead

    Links for the day



  26. Links 25/03/2023: Decade of Docker, Azure Broken Again

    Links for the day



  27. [Meme] Money Deducted in Payslips, But Nothing in Pensions

    Sirius ‘Open Source’ has stolen money from staff (in secret)



  28. IRC Proceedings: Friday, March 24, 2023

    IRC Proceedings: Friday, March 24, 2023



  29. The Corporate Media is Not Reporting Large-Scale Microsoft Layoffs (Too Busy With Chaffbot Puff Pieces), Leaks Required to Prove That More Layoffs Are Happening

    Just as we noted days ago, there are yet more Microsoft layoffs, but the mainstream media gets bribed to go “gaga” over vapourware and chaffbots (making chaff like “Bill Gates Says” pieces) instead of reporting actual news about Microsoft



  30. Sirius 'Open Source' Pensiongate: Time to Issue a Warrant of Arrest and Extradite the Fake 'Founder' of Sirius

    Sirius ‘Open Source’ is collapsing, but that does not mean that it can dodge accountability for crimes (e.g. money that it silently stole from its staff since at least 12 years ago)


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