Dr Crispin Cowen, who for many years was a vocal Linux security guru and Microsoft critic, recently started working for the Redmond-based software giant. His talk on the first day of AusCERT 2010 was titled "Stranger in a strange land: Reflections of a Linux guy in Microsoft Windows".
“It is very typical for Microsoft employees to mischaracterise the criticism of Microsoft, not speaking about the real issues, such as bribery, collusion, and racketeering.”We wrote refutations of the same points before, in response to Microsoft employees who tried to suggest that Microsoft was disliked because "it's big" or because of its logo (and other petty, imaginary 'problems').
These tactics whereby all/most criticism of Microsoft is mischaracterised makes sense to those who use these tactics. It makes them feel good about their decision (and choice) to work for Microsoft when they put things in terms that portray critics as deluded and irrational. These are not victims of circumstance (unlike cases where race or gender get involved as these are immutable). They actually chose to work for Microsoft, knowing damn well what Microsoft had done, or maybe fooling themselves about what Microsoft had done before getting convicted three times. There is a difference between Microsoft's products and Microsoft the company.
To give one example of Cowen's disinformation:
"Linux communities are shockingly hostile to women and newbies, attack failures to conform to norms and God help you if you top post," Cowan said. "Everyone is a butt-head.
Comments
Agent_Smith
2010-05-20 05:18:50
your_friend
2010-05-19 23:27:08
So, Microsoft does not just accuse the GNU/Linux community of these bad things, it actively creates and encourages them. They will suck up to people they think make decisions but the purpose, of course, is to destroy things that are useful to others:
The author of the above also talks of infiltrating news journals that are not directly controlled by Microsoft to do the same kinds of things, and boldly admits to blanket control of Microsoft friendly conferences in the same two documents:
This is the kind of toxic mess and distraction that Microsoft people love to create. They distract from Microsoft's larger crimes and waste "enemy time" by creating petty fights for them among themselves.
Novell efforts like Mono make a lot more sense in this light. They get to inject Microsoft into the GNU/Linux community and stoke huge rude fights that make everyone look bad. "Turn off" is exactly what Microsoft aims to do. The uglier and more hostile their monkey friends are, the greater the distraction and havoc.
The key to deflecting these kinds of attacks is to realize that Microsoft has nothing a competent developer would want. Why debate "cross platform" when Windows is so second rate as to be worthless? There is no value to Microsoft developer tools, SDKs and all that other bait the TEs like to throw around. Even being established as an expert in various Microsoft tech is something of a disgrace when everyone knows that Windows is a dead end that should be abandoned as quickly as possible.
Dr. Roy Schestowitz
2010-05-19 23:34:13
It's also known as "killing with kindness".
your_friend
2010-05-20 01:20:17
Dr. Roy Schestowitz
2010-05-20 01:32:21
dyfet
2010-05-20 12:00:03
dyfet
2010-05-19 20:37:17
your_friend
2010-05-19 23:35:44
dyfet
2010-05-20 00:24:03
Dr. Roy Schestowitz
2010-05-20 00:29:40
your_friend
2010-05-20 00:50:37
Thanks for the great parody. I was just thinking about that movie as a source of a cartoon parody of the downfall of Microsoft. Everyone in the Gates Foundation Bunker as the empire crumbles and the tax man comes knocking ... the conquered lands of Yahoo and other Axis powers failing ... SCO murder suiciding their children (developers and customers) ... Novell doing the same thing with exactly the same pictures when SCO's demise fails to fix things ... Microsoft's customers and developers huddled in subway stations ... TEs run around hanging people who say the wrong thing ... the victorious iPhone toting hoards rushing in from the heavily GNU subsidized East while Allied forces of Freedom from the West tear things up from the air ... secret super weapons like Miguel, Mono, Zune, Bing, XBox and others failures bing hurled to destruction with no effect. The EFF beat me to the punch, good for them!