Bonum Certa Men Certa

Raspberry Pied in the Face -- Part I: What is Known About the Relationship Between Microsoft and the Raspberry Pi Foundation

Last week: Microsoft is Like a Cult, According to Former Microsoft Insider

Bill Gates Pied in the Face



Summary: The backlash against the Raspberry Pi Foundation is growing, not only from customers but also developers and partners; we'll try to explain what happened and why, based on verifiable information rather than hypotheses, face-saving PR, and mindless gossip

AS PROMISED, we're still drilling deep into the facts surrounding a scandal that even Microsoft sites now weigh in on. This article is not an extensive or exhaustive list of references (most do not even cite the original source, which is us, and in Wikipedia people keep removing links to Techrights, sometimes replacing those links with links to Microsoft sites). "Microsoft bashing" is the new term for opposing serial abusers.



"Readers are encouraged to send us additional information; the research has thus far been collaborative as it helps get the pertinent facts right..."As a little bit of background, the Raspberry Pi Foundation was already 'targeted' by Microsoft several years ago (they tried to shoehorn Windows into the Raspberry Pi, causing backlash if not fury in the Raspberry Pi community; we wrote about this at the time, e.g. [1, 2]). Last year we outlined the Microsoft modus operandi as follows (in relation to many companies, not the Raspberry Pi Foundation). To quote the core part:

a. Partner with a company (“we’ll pay you for every version sold”).

b. Get a close look at their original work.

c. Then bring out a ‘free’ version with Windows (“oh, we were just working on something similar”).


Tomorrow, in part two, we'll share our findings, which are based on extensive research (including input from readers and people in IRC). There's quite a lot to say and show, so we've decided to turn this into a series, whose length is unknown at this point. We'll also make use of video, so it'll take longer to produce. The objective is to produce at least one part per day for at least one week. Readers are encouraged to send us additional information; the research has thus far been collaborative as it helps get the pertinent facts right (there's some more raw information in our IRC logs). We're not a fake community, we're a real community with a strong sense of trust among those who value truth. That's why we've been targeted for years (with threats and smear campaigns). That's why there have even been attempts to incite RMS against us lately, albeit those attempts fell flat on their face. RMS speaks to Mr. Raspberry Pi about moving further towards software and hardware freedom; Microsoft must really, really hate that.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Michael “Monty” Widenius: It Started in 1983 With Richard Stallman (RMS)
The other co-founder of MySQL is a bit notorious for confronting RMS rather viciously
For the Second Time in a Few Weeks Microsoft Lunduke Makes False Accusations Against Senior Red Hat Staff to Incite a Despicable 'Troll Army'
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims of says can be trusted
 
Links 03/10/2025: Lawyers Caught Using LLM Slop Explain Why They Did It, LibreSSL 4.1.1 and 4.0.1 Released
Links for the day
FSF Board Grew 50% Since Last Year, Has New President, Turns 40 in Two Days
It's a good move for the FSF and - by extension - for software freedom
Links 03/10/2025: Conflicts, Death of TypePad, and TikTok/CheeTok Gives a Boost to Far Right Groups in Europe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 02, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 02, 2025
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: 'Open' 'AI' Resorting to Gimmicks and Fake Funding, Europe’s ‘Drone Wall’ Discussed
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: Brave Passes 100M Users Milestone, Kodak Selling Its Own Film Again
Links for the day
su lisa && rm -rf /home/ibm/power
Novell was ruined by another person from IBM, Ronald Hovsepian
A Record Demand at Microsoft: Demand to Cancel
What we're witnessing is a very ungraceful destruction of XBox
Microsoft is Losing Europe
Hence all the "support" and "discount" offers that are limited to Europe
The Free Software Foundation Starts Fund-raising for 40th Anniversary
New pop-up 2-3 days ahead of the 40th anniversary event
Systemd Breaks Networking in Debian and Microsoft Staff Rushes to Make Face-Saving Excuses in LWN
Microsoft's bluca is already there in the comments, his Microsoft money pays for LWN to let him leave comments early
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 01, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 01, 2025
What the End of XBox Will Look Like: a Fiery Crash
XBox is the next Skype. It won't last much longer. Expect many more layoffs.
Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
A day later he speaks in Sweden
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: SMTP Pipelining and End of ROOPHLOCH 2025
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Plagiarism, Fake Articles, and FUD About Linux
not a day goes by without Google News feeding FUD from slopfarms
Gemini Links 01/10/2025: Chat Control and End of Life
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: Long Covid Risk Reiterated, "Bitcoin Queen" Caught
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: EA $55 Billion Deal is Debt and Slop "Raises Vishing Risks"
Links for the day
Bluewashing at Red Hat Means Redundancies
The man who sold Red Hat to IBM meanwhile became a Microsoft Mono booster
After Killing OpenSource.com, IBM ('Red Hat') and OSI Told Us OpenSource.net Would Replace It (But That Didn't Happen)
Now it's time to move on, perhaps tarnishing the "Open Source" label some more (for whatever sponsor wants this)
Linux is Not a Community Project, It's a Wall Street Product
The core goal should be freedom
Bad Actors Abusing the Free Software Community, Vandalising It Using Rogue Politics and Old Tactics
Oil giants have long attempted to do this; now, the digital equivalent of Big Oil does this in technology
Social Control Media Isn't the Future, The Federation or Fediverse Isn't Growing, People's Accounts Vanish for Good
users' accounts will get deleted, not just become inactive
IBM is Failing, This Helps Show Wall Street is Entirely Detached From Actual Commercial Performance
IBM is unable to grow, it's just constantly shrinking
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 30, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Clerical Aspects of Publishing and Development
In Free software, the management aspects are considerably reduced
Slopwatch: Fake Articles and Google News Promoting "Linux" Spam or Bot-Generated Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
These slopfarms help misplace blame
Third Wave of Microsoft Layoffs in September, This Time Many in Liverpool Affected
Be ready for more waves of layoffs ahead of the so-called "results" in late October