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[Video] LinuxFest Northwest is Letting GAFAM Take Over (and Why It's Hard to Resist)

posted by Roy Schestowitz on May 14, 2024,
updated May 14, 2024

Video download link | md5sum 68dcb6477323bc6372b0bff4b5cf601f
Microsoft and LinuxFest Northwest
Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0

Preview for Microsoft and LinuxFest Northwest

TODAY's video was recorded over a day ago, but it is still relevant and not so time-sensitive.

The video deals with a little controversy or a controversial subject. It's not unprecedented.

Jephthahs Vow by Edwin Longsden Long RA 12 July 1829 - 15 May 1891 Public Domain Painting

Let's be clear that Microsoft is selling Windows and pushing Windows. Now that "The end is nigh for Windows 10 21H2" we might expect a lot of GNU/Linux advocacy/marketing, but we're not quite seeing that. "Canonical and IBM ought to be all over this," an associate said, "but they are not."

See, Microsoft infiltrated rival events and rival companies, so now we're meant to think that "bashing" Microsoft isn't OK. Even if it's constantly attacking us and promoting Windows.

Unlike Southeast Linuxfest, it seems like LinuxFest Northwest (LFNW) got a 'soft' spot for Microsoft. To a certain degree, for Google too...

As the video explains, LinuxFest Northwest gave Microsoft some slots, under the guise of "Linux" in proprietary Azure. "I am surprised it [Linux] is as low as 60%," an associate said, but remember that Azure is failing, it has mass layoffs (it's still ongoing), so there's no real growth there (Microsoft 'buying' computer time from itself) and only the Microsoft faithfuls still choose Microsoft for hosting. LinuxFest Northwest, one might guess, is worried it would be both racist and sexist to say "no!" to Microsoft. The video explains why.

There's another issue. The talks are only shared through YouTube. "The YouTube LinuxFest Northwest is filled with ads for East European girlfriends," an associate told me, "I hardly looked at YouTube in recent years, for the most part."

"It's sad that LFNW has put all its videos there and apparently nowhere else."

As an aside, it should be noted that LFNW let in some more nonsense. "Another Microsoft spammer promoting "security as a service" bullshit" was noticed by the associate, but we're omitting the link (it's called "Zero Trust Security In the world of hybrid workforce"). Microsoft has hijacked and is nowadays abusing the term "Zero Trust", as we covered here before... another FUD pattern is "supply chain". There are other talks we can criticise, such as this one which "does not actually make a case, let alone a compelling case, for containers," according to the associate.

I worked with containets (not just at work) and I think they're not "bad" per se, but they are also overrated. We used them in this site for a few years, but they have downsides, too. So we no longer use them, we can live without them. We try to keep things simple. Apropos, KDE is adopting static site generators (not what it used before), so it seems like a trendy thing. A war on simplicity is a war on security, among other things.

I sort of apologise for not linking to the videos in question, but it's better this way. "Microsoftfest in the northwest" is what psydruid has dubbed it in IRC. It's a shame that they didn't just tell Microsoft to go away, take a hike.

"I’ve killed at least two Mac conferences. [...] by injecting Microsoft content into the conference, the conference got shut down. The guy who ran it said, why am I doing this?"

-Microsoft's chief evangelist

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