Bonum Certa Men Certa

Did Novell Contact You As Well to Manipulate News Coverage?

I want you for money
Novell wants volunteers for code, time, Novell's self-glory
Top KDE developer not happy with the Microsoft/Novell deal



We have already seen this many times before. If and when someone becomes a critic of Novell, the company tries to shut him or her up. If someone can produce good coverage about Novell, then the company greases him or her up. It's just like Microsoft, only at a smaller scale.



We highlighted incidents where journalists or bloggers came under pressure after they had denounced Novell. It's Novell seniors who often contact them 'behind the scenes' (Dragoon for example [1, 2])

Aaron Siego, who is probably the best-known KDE developer (he's one of their public figures), does not like the Novell/Mirosoft deal and he tells the story we already know about -- th story of Novell messing with people's mind for positive coverage. They probably did this with Matt Asay, which is why he had a 'sudden' change of heart. How widespread is this phenomenon?

So I read this latest announcement, thought about the implications of it and then moved on .. until I was spammed by Novell's marketing department asking what I thought about the press release. They said that if I wanted, I could even ring up their director of marketing via instant messenger and chat about it! This is a good example of public opinion management: they evidently know that it's a sensitive area and so are trying to head off any problems by engaging people in the community directly and early on. Very early on in fact: I received my email just a few minutes after the press release was sent out and they attached a PDF of the press release to the email for my reference. Well done! (I mean that: it was a well executed plan.)


Who else did Novell contact like this? It's supposed to be hush-hush.

Aaron continues:

And since they asked, I thought, "Sure, why not share my thoughts!" However, I thought I'd do it here instead of over AIM or Yahoo! Messenger with Justin S., partly because I don't like being managed by other people's marketing departments, but mostly because too many of the people who do speak in non-positive terms about this deal tend do so with argumentation that is too easy to discount by simply playing the "let's be reasonable" card.


“Novell has already muted some of the possible 'trouble makers'.”He too is beginning to realise that it's about software patents. He should be furious. Novell's message to him is something along the lines of: "please carry on coding for us, don't bother with the details, we'll just make some money with Microsoft and only we can offer peace of mind."

Aaron closed this item, preventing comments from being added. What's to be afraid of? That people might utter the truth, which seems misappropriate for a blog that represents opinion of a lead Plasma developer? Remember that Novell pushes money into this (Akademy funding, for instance) and it's hard to slam your backer, no matter how selfish it may be.

We won't be hearing much criticism, will we? Novell has already muted some of the possible 'trouble makers'.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Not Only Windows, Surface, and "Hey Hi" PCs; Microsoft's Hardware Ventures Are a Dumpster Fire; HoloLens Mixed Reality Hardware Now Axed Altogether and Staff is Miserable
Microsoft is in a terrible state
Links 15/02/2025: University Price Hikes and Copyright Action Against Slop Companies
Links for the day
Slopwatch: All Those New 'Articles' Are Fake and Crafted by Chatbots (LLM Slop)
Google News is promoting these as "Linux" news; they're not even made by humans
They Will Never Leave Linus Torvalds Alone, Rust is Just Another Way to Cause Instability and Infighting in Linux
We already identified the Rust "community" as troublemakers more than 5 years ago and we wrote about the evidence
 
Python and Microsoft: Pandas Should Have Known OpenDocument Format (ODF) and Microsoft Excel Are Different and Competing Things
now we're meant to think that in order to open ODF files we need some functions with "Excel" in their name
Richard Stallman on RISC-V and Free Hardware
Invidious is under attack by Google
Certificate Authority (CA) Let's Encrypt Now Down to TEN (0.3% of the Whole) in Geminispace
The number of capsules that use Let's Encrypt is, according to Lupa, about to fall to single-digit figures
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, February 14, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, February 14, 2025
Gemini Links 14/02/2025: Mysterious Friend and "Eight by Eight"
Links for the day
Apple: Social Justice or Social Nationalism?
Remember to buy Apple, folks
Links 14/02/2025: Mass Layoffs at Sophos, Chatbots Failing Very Badly, "DOGE as a National Cyberattack"
Links for the day
Moving Away From Certificate Authorities (CAs) Like Let's Encrypt Means Taking Away From the US Government the Power to 'Censor' Sites by Revoking Certificates
Gemini capsule is cheap to run and easy (easier than a Web site) to maintain. More people disillusioned and frustrated with social control media flock to it.
BetaNews' Managing Editor Wayne William Took Charge of GNU/Linux Articles and His Articles Are Real (He Actually Wrote Them)
We are frankly relieved to see that Wayne William recognised the problem and did something about it
Links 14/02/2025: Publicity Rights Violated (ByteDance), Bribes to Trump Passed via Social Control Media 'Settlements' Again
Links for the day
Gemini Links 14/02/2025: Constitution, Cosmic DE, and More
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Anti-Linux Articles Published by Bots, Dominating Google News
So a lot of the Web is Microsoft chatbot-generated anti-Linux FUD
Links 14/02/2025: Measles Outbreak in Texas, Zelensky Warns Russia Will Attack a NATO Country
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, February 13, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, February 13, 2025
Gemini Links 13/02/2025: gwit and Restart
Links for the day
Links 13/02/2025: Algorithm Bots and 'Teleport' Breakthrough
Links for the day
EPO Staff Representatives Confront the President Who Says 'F--king' in Front of Female Workers Over Measurable Discrimination Against Female Colleagues
Central Staff Committee versus Lukashenko's sponsor
IBM Layoffs in 'RTO' Clothing Reported by Thomas Claburn
This "hey hi" (AI) nonsense is just a go-to excuse that IBM and GAFAM (and many others) use
Still Waiting for the EU to Abolish the Illegal and Unconstitutional Court Linked to EPO Corruption and Lobbyism by the Patent Litigation Industry
Sadly, all the blogs that used to talk about those issues have been infiltrated and then completely hijacked by the very perpetrators of the illegality
Social Engineering of the Free Software Movement is a Corporate Takeover With Code of Conduct (CoC) to Drive Out or Expel Dissent
Richard Stallman (RMS) covered "cancel culture"
Links 13/02/2025: Mass Layoffs at Google (Disguised as "Buyouts"), Telecoms Price Hikes as Collusion/Price-Fixing
Links for the day
[Video] Richard Stallman Questions and Answers Session in Google's YouTube or Invidious
From last night
Gemini Links 13/02/2025: Broken Watches and Naming Types
Links for the day
Corrupt Bill Gates Worming His Way Into Richard Stallman Videos in Google's YouTube
Reputation laundering riding other people's names?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, February 12, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, February 12, 2025