Bonum Certa Men Certa

IDG Gives a Platform for Microsoft's Familiar Attack Dogs (and Former Employees) to Smear GNU/Linux

IDG, IDC and Microsoft



Summary: Formerly-paid Microsoft employee and technical evangelist Michael Gartenberg belittles GNU/Linux again, this time through IDG

IN OUR PREVIOUS post we showed that the market share of GNU/Linux can easily be misrepresented due to quiet deployments that receive no proper attention because Linux and GNU have no public relations departments with advertisements and such conventional means of mind control.



Another vector of mind control (promotion and ridicule) consists of paid marketing people and pushers whom Mirosoft labels "technical evangelists" (TEs for short) and pays full wages. We covered these before [1, 2] (with concrete proof and confirmation) because Boycott Novell was among their victims.

A regular basher of GNU/Linux makes his appearance again. He is no stranger to us because we gave an example of his mischiefs in:



That is former Microsoft employee (evangelist) Michael Gartenberg, who merely does that "anti-Linux" job once again (as he does every now and then, using similar arguments). He also pretends to care about GNU/Linux, by starting with "I'd love to see viable alternatives to the current mainstream operating systems."

“It's not reporting, it's opinionated placements in disguise, daemonising one's professional rival.”This is the equivalent of "I like Linux, but..."

It's a lie with which the author tries to gain some credibility to begin with. It was only yesterday (or earlier today, depending on geography) that we wrote about the Microsoft-affiliated "Linux curious" persona attacking more often than before.

"Linux on the desktop: Still not happening," says the former Microsoft TE over at ComputerWorld today. Shame on IDG for publishing this nonsense despite the obvious yet undisclosed conflict of interests. It's either malicious or IDG was bamboozled again (IDG relies on Microsoft as a large revenue stream [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]). IDG might as well pass over some writing responsibilities to Microsoft's many PR agencies. It's not reporting, it's opinionated placements in disguise, daemonising one's professional rival.

Last week we wrote about how big statistics firms produce and spread lies that benefit those who pay them [1, 2]. Here is a decent new post which explains the role of money.

Oh Linux, how shall I count thy installs?



[...]

I have also heard it said that 76.3% of people believe that you put a percentage sign behind any random number they will believe it to be true.

Research and marketing companies especially love statistics. That is how they make their money by providing the numbers to make their paying customers feel good. Yet there is the old adage GIGO, which means Garbage In, Garbage Out. It seems to me that just about all of the numbers regarding operating system installs fall into that GIGO category.

Of course bloggers, journalists and article writers take those numbers and spin them into fanciful stories for their readers to eat up like so many cream puffs. These fevered outpourings of fanatical minds are often used to show how their operating system has the most market share and consequently is the bees knees and of course everyone should be using it.

Where do these statistics come from? Most of the time it comes from sales data provided by the companies supplying the operating systems and this is where the problem lies. This is because while companies of proprietary operating systems actually rent their products, open source operating systems are not. So any statistics regarding operating system market share are automatically bogus and can only be used for FUD campaigns.


What about Web sites that are not included in those Microsoft-sponsored aggregations of logs, such as this new one?

Operating System 	on WWWUSE 	on W3Counter
Windows XP 		28.00% 		53.60%
Linux 			20.00%	 	1.55%
Windows 7 		18.00% 		10.66%
Windows Vista 		16.00% 		20.07%
Mac OS X 		13.00% 		8.12%
Unknown 		3.00% 		under 1%
Windows 2003 		1.00% 		1.01%
iPhone OSX 		0.60% 		0.75%
Android 		0.20% 		0.10%
Windows 2000 		0.10% 		0.43%
All Microsoft 		63.10% 		85.77%
All no Microsoft 	36.80% 		14.23%


As a side note, Alex Brown, Jesper Lund Stocholm, and Microsoft employees are flirting at the moment in Twitter, promoting their agenda for Microsoft lock-in. We won't go into it on this occasion. The important point to remember is that Microsoft is getting very desperate. It relies on known allies attacking GNU/Linux with lies that they repeat over and over again. Lies need to be rejected. Tolerating them only helps them spread.

"I'd put the Linux phenomenon really as threat No. 1."

--Steve Ballmer, 2001

Recent Techrights' Posts

Explaining (in Length and Depth) the Damage Matthew Garrett Did to Linux and to GNU/Linux Users
no matter how many threats we receive
 
CoC Gone Wrong: Celebrating Murder OK, Complaining About the Celebration Gets You Banned
Hopefully the NixOS Foundation will have a word with (maybe replace) the moderator/s
Gemini Links 12/09/2025: Familiarity and Secondary Dominants
Links for the day
Links 12/09/2025: "Bad Reviews" as Extortion Weapon, "Free Speech At Risk in America’s Schools" According to ACLU
Links for the day
Only One Speaker Does Not Do Sharecropping for MElon (in X.com)
The man who puts principles before PR/optics
The Mind of the 'Hulk Hogan of UEFI'
in a nutshell
A Day After "UEFI 9/11": UEFI Secure Boot Bypass
In the news today (right now), as published in the past few hours
Links 12/09/2025: Slop Code as Liability, Microsoft Outlook Down for Many
Links for the day
It's Still Not to Late to Turn Off "Secure Boot"
If people reboot their PC or server today, and it relies on "Secure Boot" on Sept. 12 or later, then depending on the firmware there may be trouble ahead
Links 12/09/2025: Shira Perlmutter is Back, “Software Per Se” Patent Rejections in In re McFadden
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Linux Plagiarism, Slopfarms Still Infesting Google News, Many Images Are Fake
Google is promoting plagiarism
"This Morning Might Turn Out to be an Interesting One for System Admins Who Haven't Updated Their Devices' Secure Boot Certificate" (If They Reboot)
Who asked for this anyway?
Gemini Links 12/09/2025: Metric System, Dumping Windows, and Software Architecture is Dead
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, September 11, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, September 11, 2025
Microsoft Admits the Workers Have Lost Trust (Endless Layoffs, 12-13 Rounds of Layoffs This Year), So Now It's Trotting out Its Peter Bright-Like Media Prop Jordan Novet
What they don't want people to pay attention to right now
Links 11/09/2025: Windows TCO and Russian Drones Invading Poland (EU/NATO)
Links for the day
Gemini Links 11/09/2025: xkcd, misfin, and Alhena 5.3.2
Links for the day
Repetition of Last Summer (Microsoft Breaking Dual-Boot Systems)
UEFI 9/11 is about to kick in
UEFI 'Secure Boot' Boiling Frogs (Cannot Turn Off 'Secure Boot')
"MSI laptop is locked on Secure Boot and doesn't allow me to turn it off"
UEFI 9/11 Aftermath - Part IV: The 'Hulk Hogan of UEFI' and His 'Hideout' Holiday (Retreat From Reality)
Let's keep an eye on what matters
UEFI 9/11 Aftermath - Part III: Mr. 'Secure Boot' (Shim) and His Fake 'Holiday' (Sending My Wife and I Threatening E-mails on 9/11)
despite being on holiday, according to him, he finds time to instruct lawyers to contact my wife
UEFI 9/11 Aftermath - Part II: "The SecureBoot Thing Got Out of Hand."
The next few weeks might be... interesting
UEFI 9/11 Aftermath - Part I: "I Believe This Affects Thousands of Devices... Because Multiple Devices I Checked, Whether Client or Server [...] Affected."
Most people aren't even aware that this is happening or about to happen
The UEFI 9/11 - Part X - An Outline of the Series About Microsoft Sabotaging GNU/Linux (With Ramifications to Unfold Online in Coming Weeks as People Reboot)
Today is UEFI 9/11 (9/11/2025)
Ron Wyden: Microsoft Should be Held Accountable for Security Breaches (He Has Said This for Years Already, It Never Happens)
Negative media coverage isn't a fine and it does nothing to compensate Microsoft's billions of victims
Culture of silence: Ubisoft harassment convictions, Mozilla, Sylvestre Ledru & Debian make no comment
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Disable 'Secure Boot' (If It Lets You)
it doesn't put you in control
Links 11/09/2025: "Hey Hi" Ponzi Schemes at Oracle (Unpaid Contracts) and Cindy Cohn is Leaving the EFF
Links for the day
Longtime Red Hat Staff: Maybe Just Disable 'Secure Boot'
A refreshing take from Adam Williamson
Gemini Links 11/09/2025: Playdate Console, Dichotomy between the Real and the Digital
Links for the day
A Dozen Observations About "UEFI 9/11" Deflections
What we are expected to see, tentatively
The Microsoft AstroTurfing and Microsoft-Led Blame-Shifting Tactics Are Ahead of Us
Of course it has nothing to do with security, it's about control, i.e. them controlling everything
Celebrating Assassination is Bad Because It Legitimises Assassination of the People You Like, Too
Condoning or even celebrating political assassinations is bad optics (and taste)
The World's Richest Ponzi Scheme (Faking Value Using Net Waste)
The higher they go the harder they fall
We Could Dual-Boot Back in the 1990s, Why Has This Become So Difficult?
And prone to breakage
Being Conditioned to Accept Unreliable Computer Systems That Fail With Black Screen of Death (BSoD)
Welcome to 2025
Slopwatch: Google News is Still Promoting Many Fake Articles About "Linux", in Effect Rewarding Misinformation and Plagiarism
things continue to deteriorate
New Series: The Coup Against GNU/Linux Has Begun
today, this year in particular, we shall also focus on Secure Boot, which is sold based on a lie and tortures many computer user
New Paper on "BYOVD, but in firmware. Signed UEFI shells, vulnerable modules offer new paths for Secure Boot bypasses."
One might say digital "security theatre"
Links 11/09/2025: Oracle Layoffs, Drunk Pilots in Japan Airlines, US-Korea Tensions Grow
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, September 10, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, September 10, 2025
Xubuntu Site Compromised
Let's hope it is not a security breach
Links 10/09/2025: Retaliation at Facebook and Microsoft Reveals Almost 100 Security Holes
Links for the day
Gemini Links 10/09/2025: Annihilation of Self, The Future Eaters, and Leaving Academia
Links for the day
They Say That People Are Afraid of or Worried About "Hey Hi", But the Worriers Should be the Fools Who Invested in It
At the end of the day nobody should worry more than those who invested their money in this bubble
Harassment evidence: franceinfo's Clara Lainé report on Ubisoft prosecution
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 10/09/2025: Microsoft Layoffs in "RTO" Clothing and Windows TCO, GitHub TCO
Links for the day
Blaming Everything on China
TikTok works for China. GAFAM works for fascists.
People Get Tired of "Hey Hi" (AI), Unlike the Subservient Money-Obsessed Media That Gets Paid to Pretend This Bubble Still Matters
"crash will be way bigger than dot.com burst in 90s. and that was Internet, actually transformative technology, not this expensive AI toy with direct dependency on the energy input which is not scalable"
Brett Wilson LLP Accepts That the Serial Strangler From Microsoft Filed a Case That Also Implicates My Wife (Everything is Connected)
They used to pretend that there were two separate cases
10 Reasons to Disable (or Enable) UEFI Secure Boot
Tomorrow the "trusted corporation" Microsoft will see a certificate expire
Gemini Links 10/09/2025: Hospital and Large Feeds
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 09, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 09, 2025
The Bluewashing of Red Hat is Being Completed, Many Staff Understand They'll be Made Redundant
Jim AllowHurst (Whitehurst) is meanwhile promoting Microsoft's agenda from within other companies
Throwing Away "Old" Computers (Mozilla and Other Climate Deniers)
Mozilla is not leftist