Bonum Certa Men Certa

Attacking FOSS by Ignoring/Overlooking Issues With Proprietary Software

Dan Goodin



Summary: The biasing strategy which continues to be used to demonise Free/Open Source software (FOSS) along with some new examples

SEVERAL days ago several people told us about this article from Matt Asay. Ignoring the issues with proprietary software (EULAs, back doors, etc.) the article makes the bizarre claim that "we're living in a post-open source world", as if Free/libre software does not matter anymore. One reader told us that Asay had been "trolling for Black Duck". Well, looking at the licensing strategy of Asay's current employer, this position is easy to explain.



Unfortunately, however, the problem is this case is what Red Hat staff called "Asayroll" (troll) and we often call Mac Asay (he does not use FOSS himself). He used to be a fan of the GPL but then turned against it. Black Duck is just one among several data points he uses to bash the GPL now. Other data points (at least two) were partly Microsoft-funded as well; they're good at hiding it. It's information war, striving to change perception and kill the GPL with words.

It is not a surprise that Asay attacks the GPL and this is actually IDG's second article in just about a week which attacks the GPL, citing Microsoft-connected entities. They must be terribly afraid of copyleft, or maybe their clients (like Microsoft) are doing lip service.

In other FUD, Dan Goodin with his provocative images continues to attack FOSS security, focusing all his attention on bugs in FOSS rather than back doors in proprietary software. "Researcher uncovers "catastrophic failure" in random number generation," he says. Well, actually, in LibreSSL there is much better randomness than in Intel's hardware-'accelerated' RNGs (which are likely facilitating back doors by keeping entropy low) and proprietary software, which uses weak (by design) encryption. "Dan is the Security Editor at Ars Technica," says the site, which really says a lot about where Condé Nasty (owner of Ars Technica) stands on security. It only trash-talks FOSS and GNU/Linux. This is systematic bias, usually by omission.

In more relevant news, watch the article "Embedded Windows XP systems targeted by new Chinese malware". It says:

"It is exceedingly hard to protect against malware when it ships pre-installed from the factory. The average business, even a large enterprise, simply isn't set up to perform this kind of due diligence on incoming hardware with embedded systems, whether it's Windows, Linux or another platform. If an organisation wants to ensure privacy for itself and its customers, it must bear the cost of security somewhere in the supply chain, whether that's in increased cost of a higher assurance supplier, or in post-purchase testing," he explained.


Why is Linux dismissed as an option? Windows has back doors, so it can never be suited/deemed suitable for financial transactions. Why insinuate that this kind of issue is inherent (to the task)?

They should call out Windows and Microsoft's connections with the NSA. which in is in turn connected to US banks. No country other than the US can ever trust Windows for use in ATMs. That's a fact.

We are disappointed to see incomplete, biased, vengeful 'reporting' with agenda tied to companies/friends/employers of the writers/publishers. This is not journalism. It's trash talk disguised as "news".

Recent Techrights' Posts

Rewriting Things in Rust
How far would you go?
What Microsoft Reputation Laundering (With a Weaponised Law Degree) Looks Like in a Foreign Continent
You would expect this in uncivilised and primitive countries
Slopwatch: LLMs 'Write' Fake or Distorted 'News' About "Linux"
LLM slop disguised as news
 
Links 05/07/2025: Dalai Lama Succession as 90th Birthday Approaches, 40 deg C in China
Links for the day
Links 05/07/2025: Hungary and US Defecting to Russia, "Google's Hotseat Hypocrisy"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/07/2025: 4th of July 2025 and "Zig Roadmap 2026"
Links for the day
How to Combat the Exploitation and Abuse by Microsoft GitHub
Not to mention corruption and crimes against women
Bryan Lunduke is Actually Sending His Audience to Attack People
"[Lunduke] is actually sending his audience to attack people."
Even The Right Wing is Rejecting Bryan Lunduke
no wonder he became so irrelevant and marginal
Microsoft's MSN Helps Microsoft Spread Lies About the Layoffs' Scale (Well Over 25,000 People Laid Off This Year)
There seem to be monopolies on lies and on truth
The Death of X Has Been Greatly Exaggerated (by Compromised Media)
X.Org Server is alive and well
In 2025 Everything is "AI". Remember Blockchains?
Talk about what companies and things (services, products, software) actually do, not the labels they use
Julian Assange Has Been Free for a Year
Julian Assange and I disagreed on some things
Monopolies and Scalping
Monopolies gravitate towards price hikes
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 04, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, July 04, 2025
Microsoft's August Layoffs Wave: "August is Confirmed for Additional Performance Based Cuts"
"August is confirmed for additional performance based cuts from the recent connects along with additional organizational cuts."
Links 04/07/2025: Google Replaces the Web With Slop, "AI Might Kill Us All"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/07/2025: Mindfulness and F1
Links for the day
Weeks After Microsoft Bankruptcy in Russia the Company Shuts Down in Pakistan, Too
Last month Windows' share in Pakistan fell to an all-time low
Rob Musial's June 2025 Additions of Malware in Proprietary Software
Via the GNU Web site this week
Links 04/07/2025: Microsoft's H-1B Visa Applications Show Another Crisis Unfolding, Many More Deep Cuts and Shutdowns Revealed, Complete Microsoft Exits
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/07/2025: A Day To Remember and "Stop Killing Games"
Links for the day
Crime and Corruption at Microsoft GitHub Cannot be Covered Up by SLAPPs in Another Continent
We'll write about this for a long time to come
Slop Videos Are Disappointing Garbage, Nothing New, Just Brute Force up on Display or a Pedestal of Slop
Slop videos aren't a new thing
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 03, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, July 03, 2025
The War on Local Storage (People Hosting Their Files Locally and Privately)
There's nothing wrong with controlling one's computing
What Digital Independence Means
Independence in the digital realms means abandoning platforms like GitHub, not just rejecting proprietary software
NVidia is a Bubble
they temporarily see fortunes and wrongly assume perpetuity thereof
Fedora Does Not Care About Diversity and Inclusion, It's About Optics (Corporate Image)
any notion of inclusion is superficial and misleading
Don't Buy the Excuses for Microsoft's Mass Layoffs
Back in the 90s, Microsoft bought a lot of companies to get and stay ahead
Happy Independence Day to Our American Readers
Maybe tomorrow will be a good opportunity to explain to American people - in terms of concepts, not brands - which tools respect their independence
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Linuxsecurity, and Google News Getting Even Worse (More Slopfarms Added Which Attack Linux With Bruce-Force SPAM)
Google News is part of the same problem
Links 03/07/2025: More Cuts and Cancellations at Microsoft Revealed
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/07/2025: Favourite Child and Launching WikiGem
Links for the day
GNU/Linux is Replacing Microsoft Windows. But We Need to Eradicate Microsoft, It's a Hub of Crime.
I have been writing about Microsoft since the 1990s when I was in school
Mystery Surrounding the PCLinuxOS Sites and PCLinuxOS Magazine
Let's hope this isn't something major
People and Companies Do Learn Some Lessons From Their Mistakes (Stubborn Ones Don't)
Brett Wilson LLP is an example of one that would rather drown in mistakes
Links 03/07/2025: 'Hey Hi' Slop Ridiculed Some More and Microsoft's Layoffs Tally for 2025 Reaches About 29,000 in Just 6 Months (Almost 5,000 Per Month)
Links for the day
Microsoft Staff Harassing Women, Strangling Women, Telling Women to Kill Themselves and Worse? Not a Problem!
Two women have left Brett Wilson LLP
The Slopfarms Are Losing the Plot (and Google is Propping Up Rogue Sites)
Google is part of the attack on the Web, on information, and on technology
New BetaNews Realises There's No Potential or Future in Slopfarms, Prior Editor Wayne Williams is Back
They realise that slop (so-called "AI") cannot replace humans
Claims That Microsoft Looks for Staff That Works More and Gets Paid Less (or Can Only Code by Grabbing Other People's Code, Under the Guise of "AI")
People can form their own opinion
Richard Stallman Was Right About Reasons Not to Use Microsoft
last updated 2017
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, July 02, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, July 02, 2025
Gemini Links 03/07/2025: No to Cloudflare and Small Web July
Links for the day