Summary: Sheela (yes, wife of the nontechnical Linux Foundation chief, who equates Microsoft critics with people who kick puppies) has a history working with several companies that are closely connected to Microsoft (not just Bakkt); can that be reconciled as not a conflict of interest?
Phoronix’s Michael Larabel ramped up the AMD coverage by about 50% when AMD sent him some very expensive gifts (just as we suspected would happen [1, 2]); Here are the raw numbers (as OpenDocument Format) or HTML with hyperlinks:
May 2022: 63
April 2022: 91
March 2022: 77
February 2022: 56
January 2022: 69
December 2021: 47
November 2021: 38
October 2021: 48
September 2021: 64
August 2021: 68
July 2021: 44
June 2021: 53
May 2021: 44
April 2021: 61
March 2021: 38
February 2021: 45
January 2021: 67
Summary/method: An attempt to measure the impact of ‘gifting’, putting aside tweets, pictures etc.; we’re assessing the number of mentions of AMD in headlines and summaries (number of string matches or mentions of “amd” in the monthly archives); nearly 50% of the articles in the site so far today are about AMD, a company with about 15k workers (for comparison’s sake, Intel is almost 120k). What Phoronix does not tell us does matter because just like in social control media, things are not quite how they seem on the surface (sometimes the site even posts AMD job ads as “articles”, even for just one single role)
Redmonk
OSI
Summary: Bribery is the main modus operandi of Microsoft; don’t fall for the lie/delusion of GitHub being a separate company
“Analysts sell out – that’s their business model… But they are very concerned that they never look like they are selling out, so that makes them very prickly to work with.”
–Microsoft, internal document [PDF]
Video download link | md5sum c83f2a0ddc92e4afdf54559e35db974a
Twitter Agenda-Setting
Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0
Summary: Twitter makes it hard to follow what you’ve actually subscribed for; instead, Twitter increasingly tells you what to follow (following the footsteps of GulagTube and Facebook)
THIS morning, after many days, I decided to check if I got some notifications in Twitter after I had quit the platform at the start of this month. This is what I got. I never saw this before. Ever.
This sort of unwanted “plug” (screenshot from LibreWolf) — in the notifications area — has reaffirmed my decision to quit posting in social control media. They’re basically funnelling the remaining/shrinking traffic (what they still have on the site) towards few accounts — usually celebrities and politics — that still attract some attention and drive some particular agenda. It’s all curated. Twitter is basically a fake or distorted scope for the world. It warps worldviews and events to suit some private agenda. We ought not participate in this. As noted the other day, they try to reinvent themselves in pursuit of a business model. They’re looking to become another Facebook.
“They get to define what is true and what is false (or what’s allowable/permissible speech) based on their financial resources and ideological objectives.”In case someone claims that this isn’t new, a clarification is in order. The ICYMI spam inside the notifications area is new, not just with ads (usually limited to search pages, timelines etc.) but also “promoted” stuff. Who gets to decide what to promote? It is a propaganda engine. And the slant is up for sale. The is a guarantee of the rich and powerful few controlling speech and limiting the range of “permissible” views. They get to define what is true and what is false (or what’s allowable/permissible speech) based on their financial resources and ideological objectives. █
Video download link | md5sum 662916830e05e4ba120348a6b683afbb
Microsoft Coverage in Linux-Centric Sites
Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0
Summary: We are unfortunately seeing sites that focus on “Linux” falling into the hands of Microsoft with its marketing operations; if we cannot understand or cannot agree that such software should be rejected, that’s a very big problem
IT is always unfortunate that sites called “Linux” something (or CNX Software or Phoronix) end up helping Microsoft, e.g. in pushing non-standards and proprietary software of Microsoft to us. Some go as far as suggesting to users that they add proprietary software repositories of Microsoft, in effect giving Microsoft (and the NSA) root access to the machine. Sometimes they advertise password stealers.
“Free software cannot win if proponents of Software Freedom get brainwashed by Microsoft and outsource systems to Microsoft.”The above video concerns one new example, a response made just minutes after an hour-old post had been observed in Phoronix. No doubt Phoronix is not the biggest problem out there, but it is becoming more problematic over time. It may seem innocent to Michael, but even if he’s shilling Microsoft for his sponsor, AMD, that hurts all of us. The situation can be described as follow: he takes money from companies other than Microsoft (which he only takes small gifts from) but since they’re Microsoft partners — in Pluton and more — he ends up shilling Microsoft.
Free software cannot win if proponents of Software Freedom get brainwashed by Microsoft and outsource systems to Microsoft. █
Video download link | md5sum d425539ef6512488c988d70cdb87db50
EPO Milking Crises
Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0
Summary: The EPO’s handling of the Russian invasion can be summed up in one word: opportunism
THIS post concerns a sensitive political issue, so I’ve chosen to address it in the form of a video (along with long form videos). The video’s title is intentionally terse and the article it discusses can be found here (warning: epo.org link).
We previously wrote about how EPO management had capitalised on the Russian invasion to distract from its own crimes [1, 2]. This is what happens when a patent office is run by politicians instead of scientists. █
“The European Patent Office is an executive organisation, it deals especially with patent applicants, as such, its view of the world may be biased. As an executive organisation, its interpretative powers are very limited. The European Patent Convention excludes computer programs, it is outside the EPO’s power to change this. The exclusion of computer programs is a political question. [...] The core task of a computer is to process data. So at least the processing of data is not patentable.”
–Ante Wessels, FFII
Some background: It Smells Like Marketing — Not Journalism — When Almost 100% of the ‘Articles’ From Jason Evangelho, Senior Contributor at Forbes, Are About the Same Topic | ‘Influencers’ Gaming the Web of Videos (GulagTube) | YouTube is Becoming Mostly SPAM
Video download link | md5sum e6881adf158390b4ef966e7e4952a595
Gamers of the Algorithms
Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0
Summary: The images above, explained in the video below them, hopefully sum up the state of the Web, the state of ‘You’Tube (GulagTube), and the state of journalism; online cabals — and sometimes corporate mobs — are running ads as “content” and it’s getting hard to distinguish fiction (advertising) from reality; the problem is not limited to videos or to videogames
Same with "The Linux Gamer" (they’re even doing videos together)
Summary: Jason Evangelho, who used to cover GNU/Linux at Forbes and then vanished, has made a comeback. But pay attention to this publication pattern (above).
Dr. Roy Schestowitz
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