Bonum Certa Men Certa

IDG Helps Sell the Illusion of Microsoft as 'Friend' of Open Source

IDG Communications



Summary: More of IDG's shameless spin explained and the straight dope regarding the CentOS news

IDG, which controls a lot of technology news sites and gets paid by Microsoft through IDC and though advertising, still insists on deceiving using the pattern which can only be excused when they call it a "blog". And this spin which we wrote about many times before should not be easily excused, as IDG should be more responsible/liable than any other media outlet for doing this. The hiring of writers affects their convictions and biases.



Free/Open Source software proponent are very much able to see the reality-bending, but IDG might be appealing to the village fools and maybe some bosses who do not understand technology. They can in fact be the target audience and find themselves on the receiving end of a reality distortion field.

IDG, IDC and MicrosoftSo, what is the latest example that we speak of? The sites we follow link almost exclusively to IDG regarding stuff like this. It is whitewash from IDG's Microsoft boosters, designated to the "blog" or "Subnet" area. One booster says: "OSBC 2011 also gives Microsoft another opportunity to declare its love for open source with a keynote on vendor collaboration around cloud computing."



As we showed some years ago (and got confirmation for that), the person who brought Microsoft to OSBC was Mac Asay, who recently posted an article saying that Google goes proprietary and Microsoft goes "open". It is truly baffling. He parroted the Microsoft spin that they have been trying to propagate. "Matt Asay Tweets Re Microsoft and CentOS," writes Groklaw, listing some examples of his recent tweets, e.g

Microsoft just announced at #osbc that CentOS is now a first-class citizen on Windows Server R2 Hyper-V platform.

Microsoft supporting CentOS is a first-class capitalist move. Red Hat's #1 competition is non-paid Linux, now Microsoft accentuates it.

I think it's a bold, bold move, and one that threatens Red Hat in a way that Oracle's own Linux never could.


"Makes me wonder what side Matt is on," Groklaw remarks. Well, when OSBC becomes a Microsoft showcase, then it has clearly jumped the shark. But it was the same in previous years (they needed the money [1, 2, 3]).

Just in case, let it be clarified that this is not what the IDG spin has suggested. There is no goodwill here, just self interest. Microsoft tries to make PR out of selfish acts, just as it is infiltrating Linux conferences, trying to pretend it gets along (or that Linux proponents are intolerant). But actually, Linux proponents and GNU users can get along just fine with Microsoft. The problem is that Microsoft won't leave them alone. It is spitting at their work and taxing their Linux gadgets using even blackmail and lawsuits against TomTom, Motorola, and Barnes & Noble.

"The problem is that Microsoft won't leave them alone. It is spitting at their work and taxing their Linux gadgets using even blackmail and lawsuits against TomTom, Motorola, and Barnes & Noble."Another one of IDG's Microsoft boosters, Jon Brodkin, has moved on from just Microsoft advertising to Microsoft whitewashing (which can be even worse because it distorts reality in retrospect). Here is the spin on the news, where patches that only help sell proprietary software from Microsoft are somehow compared to "love". Very cheeky. And this author goes further than that as he has been pushing it into Linux sites like this one, setting the ground/scene to misunderstanding by the site's followers.

There is yet more of that fluff which fills aggregators.

The problem is that unlike Windows sites that mock GNU/Linux these days (see the editor's remark here), IDG pretends to be objective news and sometimes it's even labelled "open source" when it fact all it does is distort the values of open source and sell us Microsoft as a "Open Source Hero" (as Microsoft sometimes uses as a slogan of sorts [1, 2]). To be fair to Brodkin, the Microsoft booster of The Register did the same, so it does not seem as though IDG is the only culprit.

In summary, while Microsoft is extorting and suing Microsoft hires 'geishas' of sorts to give gifts and compliments to reports, whose role then becomes to whitewash Microsoft for more rewards and "access" to staff. It is then them -- not their victim -- who claim to be "hated" and claim to be victim of "hatred". It's amazing reversal and a well-funded PR campaign might actually be able to achieve this.

As we said it before, IDG is like the Fox News of the IT World, assuming proprietary giants are the GOP. Guess where advertising money and analyst contracts typically come from.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Microsoft's "FUD-as-a-Service" (Against Linux) Not Functioning Well
This is the kind of contribution companies like Microsoft and Google have to offer to society
Betanews Becoming a Slopfarm is "Betanews Growing Alongside You", According to Betanews
Their first 'article' in over two weeks is 52% "AI-generated" (slop), 33% mixed (edited slop), 18% human-written, says an advanced scanner.
Double-Dipping the Docket for Microsoft Glory and Censorship of Microsoft Critics
same lawyer, same barrister, all US, all Microsoft
 
Slopwatch: BetaNews, Linuxsecurity, and Other Prolific Slopfarms
name and shame the sites that establish such proliferation of slop
Gemini Links 18/06/2025: Birch Lake and Loon Pond
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, June 17, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, June 17, 2025
Links 17/06/2025: "The Grift Economy" and Kubernetes Does Proprietary
Links for the day
Coffee Day and LLM Sloppers
The LLM slop "bros" are a lot like fake-money bros; they lie to people, they boast that they lie to people, and they're generally bad people, BS artists in colloquial terms
TheLayoff Censorship of IBM Threads Has Gone Truly Ludicrous
we do not argue that TheLayoff should not cull LLM slop
More Stallmanites Added to FSF Board and Summer Fundraiser Commences
There's some good news from the FSF
Gemini Links 17/06/2025: Consistency and Notes About NixOS
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, June 16, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, June 16, 2025
July 2 2025 Would Not be First Big Wave of Microsoft Layoffs Before Major National Holiday
July 2 or 3 mark the start of a very long weekend in the US
IDG's NetworkWorld Seems to Have Just Become LLM Slop
If IDG (now controlled by China) does that in at least one site, why not the rest? Only a matter of time?
Gemini Links 16/06/2025: Free Lunches and Bookmarklet for Mastodon
Links for the day
Gemini Protocol Turns 6 on Friday
Active (online) Gemini capsules are estimated by Lupa at over 3,000
IBM: Less Than a Month's Severance for Each Decade of Service
Yes, decade!
Taking a Lesson From Denmark and Greenland? Iceland Shows New Lows for Windows, All-Time Highs for GNU/Linux
If Microsoft sabotages systems of judges at the Hague (in order to appease the insane man who wanted to invade Greenland), why won't its neighbour Iceland take note?
BetaNews Has Just Deleted Its Latest 'Article' or Got Cracked Again and Restored From Outdated Backup Again
BetaNews seems to be in some serious trouble right now
Software Freedom is "Activism" Because the Corporate Agenda Revolves Around Bribery, Deceit, and Betrayal
At the end Software Freedom will win because it's on the same side as truth and lawfulness
The EPO, Europe's Largest Patent Office, Admits Outsourcing to Microsoft Slop
Their sole goal is to make more money
Links 16/06/2025: EchoLeak and NASA Teaming up With India
Links for the day
The Better the Understanding or the More Nations Understand the Threat Posed by Microsoft, the Faster It'll be Eradicated
We believe that the thing to advocate is self-hosting and Free software... A lack of simplicity or absence of alternatives is a form of vendor lock-in
A Week of Sunlight
They say transparency is like sunlight to a vampire
"Linux" Sites That Went Astray
there are even worse things than shutdowns
Links 16/06/2025: Climate, Wildfires, Breaches, and Monopolies
Links for the day
Links 16/06/2025: Summer in Finland and Misunderstandings
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, June 15, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, June 15, 2025