06.05.12

Gemini version available ♊︎

Microsoft’s Monopolistic Abuses Continue as Red Hat and Fedora Tax Are Put in Place

Posted in GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Novell, Red Hat at 3:27 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Werewolf


Credit: beranger.org

Summary: Microsoft puts an unjust ‘feature’ in place and then uses it to blackmail Red Hat into paying for ‘permission’ (from Microsoft) to boot

THE anti-competitive behaviour of Microsoft is thoroughly documented in this Web site. Our item of focus has been the deal of Microsoft and Novell, but Microsoft had a much longer history of systematic abuse and violation of laws.

Recently, with the likely end of Oracle's tactless attack on Android, Groklaw returned to focusing a bit on Microsoft antitrust, as it applies to the company’s abuses against Novell. To quote Pamela Jones:

The trial ended in a mistrial, because one juror held out for Microsoft on the issue of damages, after the entire group of twelve agreed that Microsoft was guilty of anticompetitive behavior.

Apologists of Microsoft love to pretend this is just something from the 1990s and that the so-called “new Microsoft” is all reformed. But this is utter nonsense; Microsoft just got more of its cronies inside the most dominant government (some are funded by Microsoft), which gives this convicted monopolist yet more leeway.

Microsoft spent some more buying the competition out some years ago (Novell) and now it uses SUSE to tax GNU/Linux under the pretence of “community”. Some bloggers fall into the trap and assess it only on technical grounds. Quoting one of them:

I have installed it on pretty much everything around here, and it looks good.

What Microsoft is doing with SUSE — patents-wise — does not look good at all. The ultimate goal is to tax most GNU/Linux users. Fedora/Red Hat is the latest victim of those types of schemes, with Phoronix providing a roundup about the subject. Here is an article which puts it as follows:

Future versions of Fedora could come with a bootloader that is signed by Microsoft, a move that would ensure that the Linux distribution is easy to install on computers with the secure boot mechanism. The proposal was described in a blog entry this week by Red Hat kernel developer Matthew Garrett.

What a bad idea it is to become complicit. “UEFI signing won’t affect security,” said a contributor of ours, “except for market share security” (he cited this news as proof and another contributor gave this link).

The H labels it “support” and the original/main post about this UEFI stupidity gathered well over 200 comments. It’s from a well-known Red Hat developer who wrote:

Fedora 17 was released this week. It’s both useful and free, and serves as a welcome addition to any family gathering. Do give it a go. But it’s also noteworthy for another reason – it’s the last Fedora release in the pre-UEFI secure boot era. Fedora 18 will be released at around the same time as Windows 8, and as previously discussed all Windows 8 hardware will be shipping with secure boot enabled by default. While Microsoft have modified their original position and all x86 Windows machines will be required to have a firmware option to disable this or to permit users to enrol their own keys, it’s not really an option to force all our users to play with hard to find firmware settings before they can run Fedora. We’ve been working on a plan for dealing with this. It’s not ideal, but of all the approaches we’ve examined we feel that this one offers the best balance between letting users install Fedora while still permitting user freedom.

IDG’s coverage of this emphasises that Red Hat is paying for it (can small distributors afford it also?) and calls it “capitulation”. To quote:

In order to get its Linux distribution to run on the next generation of secured desktop computing hardware, the Fedora Project will obtain a digital signature from Microsoft, a developer from the project announced Wednesday.

“This isn’t an attractive solution, but it is a workable one,” wrote Matthew Garrett in a blog post on Wednesday. “We came to the conclusion that every other approach was unworkable.”

Microsoft’s new antifeatures are a bad scenario to software freedom and given that Vista 8 is not guaranteed to gain ground (Microsoft boosters do not like it either) Red Hat’s actions represent a surrender; instead of surrendering, Red Hat should have filed an antitrust complaint about Microsoft. Not that a systemically-corrupt regime would be able to stand up to a large corporation, but sometimes one needs to stick to principles.

We also wrote about this a few days ago, having covered UEFI for quite some time [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]. To accept and work around UEFI is not the solution; it sends out a message of defeatism.

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

    Links for the day



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

    Links for the day



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

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



  4. IRC Proceedings: Friday, March 24, 2023

    IRC Proceedings: Friday, March 24, 2023



  5. 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



  6. 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)



  7. Links 24/03/2023: Microsoft's Fall on the Web and Many New Videos

    Links for the day



  8. IRC Proceedings: Thursday, March 23, 2023

    IRC logs for Thursday, March 23, 2023



  9. Links 24/03/2023: Social Control Media Bans Advancing

    Links for the day



  10. Links 24/03/2023: GNU Grep 3.10 and Microsoft Accenture in a Freefall

    Links for the day



  11. Links 23/03/2023: RSS Guard 4.3.3 and OpenBSD Webzine

    Links for the day



  12. Experiencing 15 Years of LibrePlanet Celebration Firsthand as a Volunteer: 2023 - Charting the Course

    Article by Marcia K Wilbur



  13. [Meme] Grabinski the Opportunity

    Reports of European Patents being invalidated (judges do not tolerate fake patents) have become so common that a kangaroo court becomes a matter of urgency for the EPO‘s Benoît Battistelli and António Campinos; will the EU and the EPO’s Administrative Council go along with it, helping to cover up more than a decade of profound corruption?



  14. Union Syndicale Fédérale Cautions the EPO's Administrative Council About Initiating an Illegal Kangaroo Court System for Patents (UPC) While EPO Breaks Laws and Sponsors the Ukraine Invasion

    Union Syndicale Fédérale (USF) is once again speaking out in support of the staff union of Europe's second-largest institution, which lacks oversight and governance because of profound corruption and regulatory capture



  15. Investigation Underway: Sirius 'Open Source' Embezzled/Stole Money, Robbed Its Own Staff

    In light of new developments and some progress in an investigation of Sirius ‘Open Source’ (for fraud!) we take stock of where things stand



  16. [Meme] Sirius 'Open Source' Pensions: Schemes or Scams? Giving a Bad Name to Open Source...

    What Sirius ‘Open Source’ did to its staff is rightly treated as a criminal matter; we know who the perpetrators are



  17. Sirius 'Open Source' Under Investigation for Pension Fraud, Several Pension Providers Examine the Facts

    2 pension providers are looking into Sirius ‘Open Source’, a company that defrauded its own staff; stay tuned as there’s lots more to come. Is this good representation for “Open Source”? From a company that had many high-profile clients in the public sector?



  18. Links 23/03/2023: Sparky 2023.03 Special Editions and SUSE Changes CEO (Dirk-Peter van Leeuwen)

    Links for the day



  19. Links 23/03/2023: Linux 6.2.8 and XWayland 23.1.0

    Links for the day



  20. IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, March 22, 2023

    IRC logs for Wednesday, March 22, 2023



  21. Apple 'Porn' Filter

    Guest post by Ryan Farmer: Apple and US State Governments Developing System to Require People to Report Themselves for Watching Porn.



  22. 3.5 Years Later Gemini Protocol and Geminispace Are Still 100% Community-Controlled

    Community-centric alternatives to the World Wide Web have gained traction; one of them, Gemini Protocol, continues to grow in 2023 and we're pleased to report progress and expansion



  23. Windows Falls to 16% Market Share in India (It was 97% in 2009), Microsoft Layoffs Reach India Too

    This month’s picture from the world’s most populous nation does not look good for Microsoft (it looks good for GNU/Linux); anonymous rumour mills online say that Microsoft isn’t moving to India but is actually firing staff based in India, so it’s a case of shrinking, not offshoring. When even low-paid (much lower salaries) staff is discarded it means things are very gloomy.



  24. Links 22/03/2023: GNOME 44 “Kuala Lumpur”

    Links for the day



  25. Microsoft Has Also Infiltrated the OSI's Board of Directors After Rigged Elections

    Weeks ago we warned that this would happen and for the third or fourth time in 2 years the OSI’s election process broke down; today the Open Source Initiative (OSI) writes: “The polls just closed, the results are in. Congratulations to the returning directors Aeva Black…” (Microsoft employee)



  26. Links 22/03/2023: Official Thunderbird Podcast Starts

    Links for the day



  27. IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, March 21, 2023

    IRC logs for Tuesday, March 21, 2023



  28. Many More Microsoft Layoffs Later Today

    Yesterday we shared rumours about Microsoft layoffs being planned for later today (there were 3 waves of layoffs so far this year). There are several more people here who say the same. How much noise will Microsoft make in the “media” in order to distract? Will the chaffbot "ChatGPT" help create enough chaff?



  29. Links 21/03/2023: JDK 20 and GNOME 43.5

    Links for the day



  30. Germany's Lobbyists-Infested Government Sponsors the War on Ukraine via the European Patent Office (EPO)

    The chief UPC ‘judge’ is basically seeking to break the law (and violate constitutions, conventions etc.) to start a kangaroo court while dodging real courts, just like Vladimir Putin does


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