03.25.16

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IDG Publishes an ‘Ad’ For Black Duck, But it Looks Like an Article and It’s Inflammatory for Hits (Click Bait)

Posted in Free/Libre Software, FUD at 4:52 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Still stabbing FOSS in the back

A stabbing

Summary: Black Duck, a company that came from a Microsoft guy, continues to generate negative publicity for Free/Open Source software (FOSS) in order to attract business

YESTERDAY afternoon I was sent this bizarre article with a rather bizarre headline. Upon closer inspection it was from IDG and I immediately suspected (based on the headline alone) that Black Duck had something to do with it. It turned out that I was right.

IDG’s Maria Korolov apparently got used by Black Duck for shameless self-promotion, weeks after all that ‘future’ of Open Source PR/publicity stunt [1, 2, 3] (all the articles about it were listed in our daily links without further comment) or the ‘rookies’ stunt [1, 2, 3]. We tried hard to ignore Black Duck, but Black Duck sure isn’t ignoring FOSS. It’s acting like a parasite feeding off FOSS news, in order to sell its proprietary software of course!

“IDG’s Maria Korolov apparently got used by Black Duck for shameless self-promotion…”As usual, Black Duck, a proprietary software company and false prophet for FOSS, interjected itself into articles about FOSS; this yielded FOSS-hostile headlines in IDG, for example “Public concerned about security flaws in government open source code.” (in CSO)

This article contains Black Duck talking points: “In addition, open source code poses two additional security problems, said Mike Pittenger, vice president of security strategy at Black Duck Software. “Open source projects are often ubiquitous, so if there’s a vulnerability it creates a target-rich environment for attackers,” he said.”

“They are trying to sell proprietary software by piggybacking FOSS.”There is also pure marketing there: “Black Duck is currently tracking more than 1.5 million different open source projects, he added.”

Remember the time Black Duck told the media that it can cost $25,000 to fix a bug in FOSS? That was just months ago. Why does the media keep entertaining these propagandists at all? They are trying to sell proprietary software by piggybacking FOSS. █

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