When You're 'Winning' You Become a 'Target'
Microsoft is in trouble. Don't believe the Wall Street schemes and bubbles. The mass layoffs are due to financial problems, not just "greed".
Windows is in disarray, Microsoft tries to vandalise Linux (because to Hell with "Microsoft loves Linux" pretences), the government bailouts are being called off, and Microsoft fakes its finances some more (to hide the massive losses).
So, what one should expect to happen is a lot more sabotage targeting whoever brings about change. They will defame Richard Stallman (also Eben Moglen, Linus Torvalds etc.) and they will disrupt from within, i.e. the usual. This is all they have left. Is this going to work? Not really. Last night we showed that the FSF is expanding (some time soon we'll have photos from the office in Boston), so if they attack one person or one activist, many others will fill the gap and come to replace or at least complement that person. See how the assassination of Alexei Navalny backfired. Did that stop dissent or opposition in Russia? Hell no! So now Putin goes after lawyers who represented Navalny, charging them with "extremism" (even if in absentia). We put that in Daily Links yesterday. It does not scale because assassinating an idea is exceptionally hard; it makes martyrdom.
Movements like Navalny's exist because there is popular demand for them and they don't go away with character assassination or actual assassination/s. In the case of Free software, demand has long existed for it and it is in fact growing because technology becomes more oppressive over time and more NGOs want to do something about it, even if the way they formulate/express the issue may not mention software freedom (they articulate similar ideas, albeit differently).
Keep on fighting. Keep them on the retreat. █
"Everyone says corruption is everywhere, but for me it seems strange to say that and then not try to put the people guilty of that corruption away."
-Alexei Navalny
"Consistency for me is everything."
-Alexei Navalny
"People don't believe in positive changes anymore."
-Alexei Navalny