09.26.21

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Regrettable Acts of Self-Harm: OpenMandriva and Mozilla Being Outsourced to Microsoft Proprietary Software and Monopoly

Posted in Free/Libre Software, GNU/Linux, Microsoft at 8:16 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Video download link | md5sum afbb4bfd50a72a8df166274fd7774de9

Summary: In another blow to software freedom, OpenMandriva and Mozilla decide to abandon their own systems and use proprietary software from Microsoft instead

MICROSOFT is paying projects to move to GitHub. This is monopoly abuse and today's biggest threat to software freedom. The GitHub acquisition was never supposed to be allowed, but when was the last time a major takeover was blocked by the US government? Incidentally, the other day Wired published “Microsoft is heading for a new antitrust showdown” (it’s well overdue but Microsoft used diversion tactics).

Anyway, it’s not a secret that Microsoft wants to control the competition through GitHub and it pays money to accomplish this (or gives ‘freebies’ like CPU cycles in “Actions”). We have long covered examples and names of projects/companies like these. The payments aren’t always direct, but the correlation is shallow enough to see.

Now, with Microsoft inside Mozilla's board, we should not be too shocked to see reports about Mozilla testing censorship engine Bing as the default ‘search’ engine in Firefox. Mozilla considers letting Microsoft spy on Firefox users whilst also diverting those users to Microsoft products.

“This is how projects die and Mozilla needs to urgently replace its management.”Yes, Microsoft — the very same company that fought Firefox for many years and corrupted officials to undermine Mandriva contracts until Mandriva dissolved. Stockholm Syndrome all over this…

The reason we bring up Mandriva is this morning’s appalling news. It seems like OpenMandriva has entered the lion’s den and put its head inside the jaws of the lion. Who on Earth came up with this decision and was there any prior consultation with the community? They move away from Bugzilla to Microsoft’s proprietary software — a similar trend to what we see in Mozilla itself. It’s outsourcing itself, piece-wise, to Microsoft, while Microsoft pays slush funds for it. And where does the money go? Millions of dollars for a failing CEO and based on these press reports a bunch of PR firms that convince Mozilla to act like a political party instead of tech company/community. This is how projects die and Mozilla needs to urgently replace its management. Otherwise it cannot survive and users will flee faster than ever before (no, they don’t want to use Bing). █

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