Summary: Example of hypocrisy and misrepresentation, using stereotypes [1, 2, 3]

AFTER character assassination [1, 2, 3] of Richard Stallman, the following probably ought to be quoted (comments are equally informative):

I was really sickened the other day to see an investigative blogger whom I respect and admire get attacked so unfairly. I am speaking of Roy Schestowitz, of BoycottNovell fame. Far beyond the original purpose described by the URL, Roy has focused with laser-beam intensity on all of the dirty dealings of proprietary technology. I have often been amazed to check a Boycott Novell article and discover hard evidence, before my very eyes, of things I'd only half-guessed and suspected before.

The attack was from Open Source to Go!, so it seems to be from a source within the community. Beside the point of who's right on that one, David Schlesinger, in the post on Open Source to Go!, uses the little spat as an example of zealotry.

[...]

Now, at last, the point: Boycott Novell has intercepted real, actual, hard evidence of asstroturfing by a Microsoft employee. What pisses me off the most is that, without the Roy Schestowitzes of this world, if I try to say that Microsoft asstroturfs, I get called "paranoid."

Do keep in mind that Microsoft has declared "jihad" against Linux. There is the hard evidence. Microsoft hires "evangelists".

But check the rest of Armchair Theorist. If you didn't know, you'd think it was a personal blog just like mine, wouldn't you? But it's not! It's a soapbox for a corporation. A corporation that hires... "evangelists." Definition of "evangelism" courtesy of Wikipedia:

"Evangelism is the practice of attempting to convert people to a religion. The term is used most often in reference to Christianity and Islam, since those two religions mandate that their followers make efforts to recruit as many people as possible into their faith..."

How many of these "Microsoft evangelists" are there, anyway? To take Microsoft's own word for it, we can visit the MSDN page with the folksy-sounding title of "Meet Your Local Microsoft Evangelists." With a map of the USA. I just clicked on my home-state of Iowa, and counted nine profiles. For Iowa. Which isn't exactly saturated with computers to begin with. It's that important that the fly-over state of Iowa, home to more hogs and cornfields than computers, has nine "evangelists."

Yesterday came the formal complaint, but Microsoft AstroTurfing in this Web site has not stopped since. ⬆