GNU/Linux as "piracy" again

Summary: The nastiness of Microsoft knows no bounds as even its assault on GNU/Linux and dirty tricks against Free software adoption are characterised as the fault of 'pirates'

Last week we wrote about Microsoft boosters and Microsoft-friendly sites saying that Microsoft is loving Linux simply because Nadella says so. It is a lie, but if repeated often enough some people might believe it. Nadella is now saying that stuff acquired for free (like Windows) was "forced upon it [Microsoft] by pirates" although it could not be further from the truth.

Nadella got caught lying again or maybe he just doesn't know Microsoft's lies and therefore he repeats these lies. Either way, these are lies. Bill Gates once said (in public): "They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade."

"It's easier for our software to compete with Linux when there's piracy than when there's not" Microsoft was quoted as saying on another occasion.

As a reader of ours put it the other day: "Microsoft does not make its money off the software, it makes its money off the rents on the software. There's a big difference. Rents depend on market share, not sales alone."

As I learned only a couple of days ago at Currys/PC World (apparently to other people's interest too), Microsoft is essentially forcing all PC buyers to get Windows; there's hardly any other option and there is punishment for people who remove Windows from their new PC. These "rents", as our reader called it, are now ending in parts of Europe, but not in the UK. As the FSF stated last night: "The Italian Supreme Court (Corte di Cassazione) issued a judgment1 that bans the "Microsoft tax," a commercial practice that discourages users from converting their PCs to GNU/Linux or other free operating systems by forcing them to pay for a Windows license with their PCs. PC producers in Italy now cannot refuse to refund the price of the license to purchasers that will not run Windows."

I may soon register a complaint with the British authorities.

Here is Nadella lying in public:

New comments from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella suggest that luring people in with zero-cost products is of great interest to the company. However, while services such as OneDrive are free with premium options by design, Nadella says Microsoft has long had a freemium business model, but one that was forced upon it by pirates.

Over at The Register, which receives money from Microsoft through some deals, the Microsoft booster Gavin Clarke now portrays Steve Ballmer and Microsoft as friendly to competition. This propaganda or revisionism, casting Microsoft as a role model for playing nice with competition, is worse than insulting. It's a disgrace and a shame to British journalism. ⬆