Bonum Certa Men Certa

Now It's Groklaw's Turn

Groklaw criticises Novell VP. Awaiting response in 3... 2... 1...

Army drill versus Groklaw



Summary: Groklaw comes under fire for speaking about taboo areas; More examples that are given here are a case of spin and authors not sticking to facts.

Discrediting Groklaw is a convenient tactic for those who want to bury its latest analysis of Mono, Miguel de Icaza, and Microsoft. The same thing happened when Groklaw 'dared' to criticise Novell for its fork of OpenOffice.org*. GreyGeek wrote in response to Groklaw's analysis:



PJ shows that de Icaza is NOT ignorant of patent law, or the patent status of the many components of MONO. In fact, as I pointed out in another talkback, in a 2004 interview he was asked about the patent problems of the GUI components of MONO and reported that he was aware of them and was removing IP tainted code from MONO. In July of this year, when it was revealed that those very same components were STILL IN MONO and not covered by ECMA 334 & 335, he said he was putting the MONO team to work "removing them into a non-free repository". Apparently de Icaza is going to depend on using GTk2+ bindings to give MONO visual appeal, but that raises the question of why using MONO at all since GTK supplies all the tools necessary to build native Linux applications, as de Icaza's own GNumeric and Evolution, have proven.


There are many other interesting bits in that comment. Many people support Groklaw's point of view, whereas others choose to mock it (or mock the messenger). We choose not to link to these, for obvious reasons. But how so very typical! Someone who admits doing work for Microsoft at the moment joins OStatic and the very first item on his agenda (first post ever) is an amateurish attack on Boycott Novell. How predictable, much like those Microsoft TEs who smeared us here without disclosure [1, 2].

Anyway, there are other items of deception or FUD worth noticing out there today. Here are some lies that compare Microsoft dumping (gratis, short-term illusion of savings) to FOSS. We addressed this stunt the other day. It's actually an anti-FOSS move.

A publication called "The Big Money" (from Slate Magazine and therefore with Microsoft/Gates influence [1, 2]) mocks rivals of Microsoft Office despite the fact that Office is losing ground (smaller margins, lost market share) and there is other possible propaganda at Forbes Magazine, which uses "crowdsourcing" opinions to dismiss the business models of mass participation, despite many success stories (e.g. Wikipedia).

So what's my problem? Why does it bug me that people think crowdsourcing is something it is not? Why do I care that people think a crowd is capable of individual virtuosity? What bugs me is that misplaced faith in the crowd is a blow to the image of the heroic inventor. We need to nurture and fund inventors and give them time to explore, play and fail. A false idea of the crowd reduces the motivation for this investment, with the supposition that companies can tap the minds of inventors on the cheap.


The article is filled with fallacies and it is hostile to whatever threatens existing business franchises. Well, that's just Forbes being Forbes. The author is also using "open source" and Linux as examples to downplay. ____ * When Richard Stallman spoke about Mono the same thing happened, namely attempt to diminish the messenger's impact.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Michael “Monty” Widenius: It Started in 1983 With Richard Stallman (RMS)
The other co-founder of MySQL is a bit notorious for confronting RMS rather viciously
For the Second Time in a Few Weeks Microsoft Lunduke Makes False Accusations Against Senior Red Hat Staff to Incite a Despicable 'Troll Army'
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims of says can be trusted
 
Links 03/10/2025: Lawyers Caught Using LLM Slop Explain Why They Did It, LibreSSL 4.1.1 and 4.0.1 Released
Links for the day
FSF Board Grew 50% Since Last Year, Has New President, Turns 40 in Two Days
It's a good move for the FSF and - by extension - for software freedom
Links 03/10/2025: Conflicts, Death of TypePad, and TikTok/CheeTok Gives a Boost to Far Right Groups in Europe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 02, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 02, 2025
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: 'Open' 'AI' Resorting to Gimmicks and Fake Funding, Europe’s ‘Drone Wall’ Discussed
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: Brave Passes 100M Users Milestone, Kodak Selling Its Own Film Again
Links for the day
su lisa && rm -rf /home/ibm/power
Novell was ruined by another person from IBM, Ronald Hovsepian
A Record Demand at Microsoft: Demand to Cancel
What we're witnessing is a very ungraceful destruction of XBox
Microsoft is Losing Europe
Hence all the "support" and "discount" offers that are limited to Europe
The Free Software Foundation Starts Fund-raising for 40th Anniversary
New pop-up 2-3 days ahead of the 40th anniversary event
Systemd Breaks Networking in Debian and Microsoft Staff Rushes to Make Face-Saving Excuses in LWN
Microsoft's bluca is already there in the comments, his Microsoft money pays for LWN to let him leave comments early
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 01, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 01, 2025
What the End of XBox Will Look Like: a Fiery Crash
XBox is the next Skype. It won't last much longer. Expect many more layoffs.
Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
A day later he speaks in Sweden
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: SMTP Pipelining and End of ROOPHLOCH 2025
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Plagiarism, Fake Articles, and FUD About Linux
not a day goes by without Google News feeding FUD from slopfarms
Gemini Links 01/10/2025: Chat Control and End of Life
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: Long Covid Risk Reiterated, "Bitcoin Queen" Caught
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: EA $55 Billion Deal is Debt and Slop "Raises Vishing Risks"
Links for the day
Bluewashing at Red Hat Means Redundancies
The man who sold Red Hat to IBM meanwhile became a Microsoft Mono booster
After Killing OpenSource.com, IBM ('Red Hat') and OSI Told Us OpenSource.net Would Replace It (But That Didn't Happen)
Now it's time to move on, perhaps tarnishing the "Open Source" label some more (for whatever sponsor wants this)
Linux is Not a Community Project, It's a Wall Street Product
The core goal should be freedom
Bad Actors Abusing the Free Software Community, Vandalising It Using Rogue Politics and Old Tactics
Oil giants have long attempted to do this; now, the digital equivalent of Big Oil does this in technology
Social Control Media Isn't the Future, The Federation or Fediverse Isn't Growing, People's Accounts Vanish for Good
users' accounts will get deleted, not just become inactive
IBM is Failing, This Helps Show Wall Street is Entirely Detached From Actual Commercial Performance
IBM is unable to grow, it's just constantly shrinking
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 30, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Clerical Aspects of Publishing and Development
In Free software, the management aspects are considerably reduced
Slopwatch: Fake Articles and Google News Promoting "Linux" Spam or Bot-Generated Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
These slopfarms help misplace blame
Third Wave of Microsoft Layoffs in September, This Time Many in Liverpool Affected
Be ready for more waves of layoffs ahead of the so-called "results" in late October