Bonum Certa Men Certa

There's Life After (Death of) Microsoft

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Oct 29, 2023

Bamboo Wall

THE overwhelming majority of people I speak to like to believe or to oversimplify things to the point where "end of Microsoft" means "GNU/Linux has won!"

This is a late 1990s mindset.

In reality, it is not that simple. Google does its own nefarious things that resemble Microsoft and in some ways Apple can be worse than Microsoft. Mr. Kuhn from SFC once said that the FSF, where he had worked, "did some anti-Apple campaigns too. Personally I worry more about Apple because they have user loyalty; Microsoft doesn't."

On a separate occasion he correctly noted that "Microsoft is unique among proprietary software companies: they are the only ones who have actively tried to kill Open Source and Free Software. It's not often someone wants to be your friend after trying to kill you for ten years, but such change is cause for suspicion."

I disagree with Mr. Kuhn on a lot of things, including the back-stabbing (SFC is a copycat of SFLC and FSF, just like the FSF-EEE that it is conniving with), but the observations above (more than a decade old) remain valid.

Microsoft is getting smaller and smaller. There many are Microsoft layoffs (contractors) that the media only reluctantly speaks about and buying a large gaming company might have more to do with Microsoft's rapidly-growing debt (far higher than the bidding price for Activision), which it wants to offload to another subsidiary while committing tax crimes.

Microsoft will not exist forever (no company ever does) and we need to focus on the underlying issues, concepts, methods... not just the brands. The brands just come and go.

We try to perpetually speak of Software Freedom. If more people did that, people who walk away from Microsoft won't end up with Google and Apple instead. Swapping masters is not the same as emancipation/liberation.

Other Recent Techrights' Posts

Topics We Lacked Time to Cover
Due to a Microsoft event (an annual malware fest for lobbying and marketing purposes) there was also a lot of Microsoft propaganda
 
Links 23/11/2024: Celebrating Proprietary Bluesky (False Choice, Same Issues) and Software Patents Squashed
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, November 22, 2024
IRC logs for Friday, November 22, 2024
Gemini Links 23/11/2024: 150 Day Streak in Duolingo and ICBMs
Links for the day
Links 22/11/2024: Dynamic Pricing Practice and Monopoly Abuses
Links for the day
Microsofters Try to Defund the Free Software Foundation (by Attacking Its Founder This Week) and They Tell People to Instead Give Money to Microsoft Front Groups
Microsoft people try to outspend their critics and harass them
[Meme] EPO for the Kids' Future (or Lack of It)
Patents can last two decades and grow with (or catch up with) the kids
EPO Education: Workers Resort to Legal Actions (Many Cases) Against the Administration
At the moment the casualties of EPO corruption include the EPO's own staff
Gemini Links 22/11/2024: ChromeOS, Search Engines, Regular Expressions
Links for the day
This Month is the 11th Month of This Year With Mass Layoffs at Microsoft (So Far It's Happening Every Month This Year, More Announced Hours Ago)
Now they even admit it
Links 22/11/2024: Software Patents Squashed, Russia Starts Using ICBMs
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, November 21, 2024
IRC logs for Thursday, November 21, 2024
Gemini Links 21/11/2024: Alphabetising 400 Books and Giving the Internet up
Links for the day
Links 21/11/2024: TikTok Fighting Bans, Bluesky Failing Users
Links for the day
Links 21/11/2024: SpaceX Repeatedly Failing (Taxpayers Fund Failure), Russian Disinformation Spreading
Links for the day
Richard Stallman Earned Two More Honorary Doctorates Last Month
Two more doctorate degrees
KillerStartups.com is an LLM Spam Site That Sometimes Covers 'Linux' (Spams the Term)
It only serves to distract from real articles
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, November 20, 2024
IRC logs for Wednesday, November 20, 2024