03.26.15
Gemini version available ♊︎Microsoft Won’t Let People Wipe (Off) Windows But Happily Wipes Android, Wipes Android Apps Through Cyanogen and Blackmailed ‘Partners’
Summary: Microsoft’s obscene double-standards leave Android and Linux between a rock and a hard place
IS IT true that Microsoft loves Linux? What a silly question, but some people and even GNU/Linux vendors actually entertain the possibility that Microsoft loves GNU/Linux, even in the face of heavy and overwhelming contradictory evidence (we gave plenty of evidence to the contrary on Saturday, in a 6-part “Microsoft Hates Linux” series).
As Zacks put it earlier today, “Microsoft has come up with a way for Android users to install a Windows 10-based ROM on Android devices that would take them over and offer Windows-based software offerings (Cortana, Office and Skype).”
For Microsoft, wiping Android from inside Android is "OK", but wiping Windows is not allowed or even possible in some cases. Microsoft actively works to prevent it. As this new article reminds us, “Microsoft tightens Windows 10′s Secure Boot screws” to prevent GNU/Linux from booting (let alone being installed). There are borderline apologists of this — those who try to spin that as “good news” because people can now avoid such machines or buy GNU/Linux preinstalled instead. Either way, Microsoft has made life very hard for GNU/Linux users and one comment I received earlier today said: “I want to buy the hardware I like and I want to install the software I like onto it. Why is there a company (read: a devil) who decides what my options are? Why aren’t there any independent hardware builders? So the Linux community is depending on the mood of angry corporations?”
Well, Microsoft is now relying on vendors to help it reduce options and prevent people from exercising real choice. It’s like an assault by proxy — one to which antitrust laws apply. There is patent blackmail in the mix, as Microsoft coerces vendors into betraying their customers, at legal gunpoint.
Bridget Carey from CNET (part of CBS) said that “Microsoft is getting friendly with Android.”
Apparently then, patent extortion and bribes is “friendly”. We are very much annoyed to see Microsoft-friendly media (paid by Microsoft) characterising extortion and bribes as Microsoft “getting friendly” or “playing nicer” with Android. It’s a massive lie. There is also no mention of what Microsoft is really up to in the article “Microsoft’s Android and iOS assault”. It mentions nothing about coercion using patent extortion. Microsoft decided to sue over software patents (mere claims) with their lawyers (e.g. against Samsung), that’s how they strike so-called “deals” for “select Android devices”. Tools of blackmail are not about “deals” but about abuse. Three years ago Pegatron was extorted by Microsoft, so no wonder it too got ‘co-opted’. Pegatron, Samsung and so on (even the Microsoft-connected Dell) are not surprising members of this blackmail-driven ‘pact’; Microsoft likes to target large distributors of Android using lawsuits. It’s Microsoft’s new strategy, there is no newly-found love.
Then there is the Cyanogen case, which nicely shows how Microsoft works by proxy. The Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal misleads on Google ‘antitrust’ while Murdoch himself now openly invests in this anti-Google and pro-Microsoft company called Cyanogen. We wrote about it earlier this week. There is a new article titled “Why people are wrong about the world needing an Android that Google can’t control” and what it fails to mention is that Cyanogen sells Android users to Microsoft. That’s the business model. Cyanogen is now a tool of Microsoft and this article says that “[a]ccording to sources familiar with the matter, future devices taking advantage of Cyanogen OS might actually ship out with Microsoft Bing and Office apps instead of Google Search Drive.”
eWeek has got a misleading series of articles right now. One is titled “Cyanogen Aspires to Become Open-Source Android Alternative to Google”. Well, preinstalling Microsoft’s proprietary software is not “Open-Source Android Alternative to Google” but a proprietary alternative to Android. Todd Weiss, writing another article for eWeek, is also wrong. The headline says “Android Open-Source Vendor Cyanogen Veers Off Google’s Android Path”. However, Cyanogen is not “Android Open-Source Vendor” but a Microsoft tool replacing FOSS (for the most part) with Microsoft proprietary software which sucks up data (documents, audio, etc.) to be relayed to the NSA.
In our IRC channels MinceR wrote that “Cyanogen shows its true colors as yet another front for Microsoft,” citing this article. The goal is to destroy Android and to make it another Windows. Microsoft will try to make it less visible by changing the terms of financing, keeping Cyanogen at a short distance to save face. Microsoft is now paying them handsomely but secretly, as an applications (via OEMs) partner rather than an investor. Here at Techrights we wrote about 4 articles about it in the past 1.5 weeks alone and prior to that we warned about Cyanogen for its proprietary software agenda, which is also apathetic towards privacy. Cyanogen has nothing to do with control, privacy, freedom etc.; it just tries to turn Android into Windows in exchange for cash. Bill Gates’ friend Rupert Murdoch now funds it personally and Microsoft was going to fund it too before Murdoch’s media published an exclusive article about it, drawing criticism rather than glee.
Mark said that Cyanogen is “a colorless, toxic gas,” according to Wikipedia. “Cyanogen is a highly toxic compound” “Lethal dose through inhalation typically ranges from 100 to 150 mg. [...] cyanogen is very toxic, as it readily undergoes reduction to cyanide, which poisons the cytochrome c oxidase complex, thus interrupting the mitochondrial electron transfer chain” (see Wikipedia for more).
“Why in the world,” remarked Mark, “would anyone name their software product after a deadly poison? Perhaps their subconscious mind is warning people.”
In part 6 of our "Microsoft Hates Linux" series we wrote about Microsoft’s manipulation of the press, which causes proprietary software from Microsoft to be characterised as “open”. Even Linux Magazine fell for it; it’s part of the effort to paint Visual Studio “open”, “free”, or whatever.
India’s Government, as we mentioned at the time, currently formulates policy on adoption of open source software (several more articles are appearing right now to cover this right now) and that’s why Microsoft pretends to be “Open Source”. It doesn’t want to be left excluded, so it needs to pretend to be part of the Open Source crowd. It’s achieved by means of hijack/capture/infiltration and unless the public antagonises this, Microsoft will get its way. █
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