Bonum Certa Men Certa

Journalists Should Stop Spreading Baseless Speculations That Microsoft Makes Billions From Android

Summary: Secret deals and racketeering techniques elude journalists who are passing allegations as 'facts', damaging Linux for the most part

SOMETHING fascinating has been happening in the corporate press over the past few years (starting 2010 with HTC). Unlike with the Novell deal (Microsoft SUSE), when it comes to Android the press seems eager to push the "Android is not free" line. Even some pro-FOSS journalists are doing it, only to face opposition. To quote Pogson's response to one of them: "I don’t often disagree with SJVN but I think his argument that M$ makes $billions from Android/Linux taxes is extreme. If that were happening, there would be some mention of it in M$’s SEC filings."



Not only is this not happening based on any concrete evidence; the sources which make these claims are quoting some arbitrary analysts with Microsoft connections or Microsoft boosters/lobbyists who cite such people. Trace it all back to the source and it looks like make believe. It's like a big lie that needs to die, at least until or unless there's some kind of proof.

Those of us who see journalists perpetuating and spreading the claims that Microsoft makes billions of dollars from Android should respond to the authors/editors by equating them with so-called 'conspiracy theories' who throw around unsubstantiated claims. Microsoft has long been manufacturing dirt and lies, only to be caught some time later, after much damage had been done to the subject of libel. Bribed journalists often play a role in such big lies and nobody demonstrates this as well as the Gates Foundation, which is basically a lobbying and investment shell (masquerading as a charity and bribing the press to maintain this illusion). As Jamie Love put it yesterday: "The few reporters that have written about the trade disputes over cancer patents are not on the Gates payroll. [...] Gates has effectively aligned itself with Merck, Novartis and others, against cancer patients. Sometimes, discretely. [...] WHO is quite cautious on the IPR issues these days, because of fears that Gates will complain. [...] Gates Foundation funding of health news reporters, most health NGOs, contributes to lack of criticism of Obama's actions on cancer patents" (we wrote about cancer patents before, including their impact on death). Remember that Gates received got a huge amount of money last year from this patent profiteering (gains of about 15 billion dollars). He is still all about patents and monopolies. Gates is also investing in patent trolls and collaborating with the world's biggest patent troll, which he helped create (the head of this trolling entity is one of Bill Gates' best friends).

As Joe Mullin put it the other day, frivolous litigation with baseless patents is still worthwhile in the US because the plaintiff never assumes the financial burden of the cases. This works well for trolls such as Microsoft, Bill Gates, and the world's biggest patent troll which he created. It's deterrence against defence. As Mullin puts it: "The American judicial system has long held to a general principle that each party in a dispute should pay for its own legal fees, win or lose."

Microsoft is a patent troll based on its actions, signing secret deals using useless patents, knowing that the burden of a legal case would be put on the victim. As long as this kind of system prevails the corruption of the industry and the media (which cannot gain access to these secret deals) will continue.

Microsoft corruption is an immensely powerful phenomenon which now transcends the software industry. One way to address this issue is to work on changing the patent system (which is hard).

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Even LKML Subjected to Slop/SPAM by Guardian Digital, Inc (linuxsecurity.com)
They're really awful
What Makes RMS Such an Attractive Target ('Discreditisation' Campaigns)
Don't be so easily fooled
The Biggest OEMs or Vendors of GNU/Linux Stopped Competing With Microsoft (Which Pays Them to Promote Windows, Too)
Where are the competition authorities (or regulators for that matter)?
Would You Trust a Liar?
Why lie about the authorship?
Sanctions Cause Fragmentation in Software
some Chinese Linux developers are already subjected to restrictions similar to Russians'
 
Links 07/11/2024: Political Angst and Laptop Issues
Links for the day
Links 06/11/2024: BPF in RFC 9669, More Facebook Fines for Privacy Abuses
Links for the day
Gemini Links 06/11/2024: Political Shock and Hermaic Encouragement
Links for the day
Planet Debian Allows Politics (But It Depends on Your Opinions and Debian's Big Sponsors)
Planet Debian is OK with politics... as long as all your political opinions are the "correct" ones and you add cute animals
Let's Encrypt Falls to a New Low of Only 0.6% of Gemini Capsules Known to Lupa
In Gemini Protocol, certificates for encryption are required, but centralised Certificate Authorities (CAs) aren't needed
Computer-Generator Crap Flooding the Web, the Latest Example About "Linux"
Here's today's example
Links 06/11/2024: Election Disinformation and Legal Actions
Links for the day
Gemini Links 06/11/2024: Stargazing and Death on Hallowe'en
Links for the day
Mass Layoffs at Mozilla Announced During US Elections
Maybe nobody will notice?
[Meme] Announcing "Results" Before Everyone Even "Played"
There is a "tech" angle to otherwise political news
US Polls Close in One Minute (Social Control Media Does Not Care, Will Not Wait)
US election results will be known in about 2 days
Concentration and Centralisation Versus Aggregation or Syndication
KDE has a history of burying old sites
Social Control Media, Even Hours Before Polls Have Closed
Has social control media controlled by CPC (TikTok) and the Trumpmobile guy (Musk's "X") done enough to convince people not to even vote (based on presumptive "results", presented a long time before all polls have closed)?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, November 05, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, November 05, 2024
Wayland Pains in Community-Led Distros of GNU/Linux
Few people and companies use Wayland; there's hardly any technical or practical reason to choose it
IBM Still Conflating Microsoft With 'Security'
As a meme
Web Failing With Slop, Even in 'Linux' Sites (LLM Spam)
Add SEO prompting to the mix and the Web becomes a pool of slop, not knowledge
[Meme] State of the World Wide Web and Online Journalism
Technically a failure (DRM) and cannot even get basic things right
Trump's signature policy, building a wall, copied from Irish-Australian student politician
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Linus Torvalds' self-deprecating LKML CoC mail linked to Hitler's first writing: Gemlich letter
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
[Meme] Turning 18 in One Day
just one more day
Birthday Tomorrow
Many cakes and drinks are ready; we're one day away now
The Internet is Failing to Protect Democratic Processes and Human Knowledge
Amplifying lies, rewarding plagiarists
Links 05/11/2024: Criminal Referrals Regarding Patent Trolls and Disinformation About the Election Process (Already)
Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/11/2024: 'App' Needed for Parking, NNCP, Gomphotherium
Links for the day
How Voting Does Not Work
You cannot vote from an "app"
Saving the Planet With Honesty, Transparency, and Sharing (Not Only of Computer Code)
GAFAM is destroying the only habitat humans and other animals have and it'll only get worse
Disinformation About Election Outcomes Even Before Any Election Outcomes (or Election/Voting!)
seeding doubt about election outcomes
Links 05/11/2024: Bluesky and Enshittification, Pugad Baboy, and Lots of Disinformation Flooding the Web
Links for the day
[Meme] Sweaty Under the Belly
"OK, my critics are 'spam'"
Microsoft Bribing Canonical (to Stop Competing) and Bribing Users to Shun the Competition
Canonical is worth shunning
[Meme] The 2024 'Info Bros'
And prehistoric googling
Computers Getting Worse (for the User) Over Time
This is like Windows-ism coming to "Linux" through the hardware
[Meme] How NOT to Vote
Another form of (mostly-unspoken-of) election interference
An LLM Inside a 'Search' Engine Means That Companies Tell You What They Want, Not What Web Pages to Visit
The future of 'googling' things might be as unreliable as using Social Control Media as a source of information
Google's Debt Has Increased and 'Cash on Hand' Fell by 22.27% This Past Year
These are the numbers that the corporate media intentionally leaves out
Against Outsourcing of Sites and E-mail
Software Freedom is great, but it is not enough if you let someone else do it 'for you'
Drew DeVault: People Talking About My Attack Site (Against the Founder of GNU/Linux) is "Spam"
"Spam on sr.ht mailing lists"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, November 04, 2024
IRC logs for Monday, November 04, 2024
There's a Reason Why Techrights is Turning 18 and Tux Machines Will Turn 20.5 Next Month
I started advocating GNU/Linux when I was a teenager
"Oppose the Fascist"
what the founder of GNU/Linux said
Techrights Has a Long History of Fighting to Expose 'Team Mono' or Microsofters Inside GNOME
Never downplay the malice of Microsoft and its operatives
Halloween, All Saints Day & Swiss citizenship
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 05/11/2024: Halloween Over, Intention and Implementation, Bookmark Syncing
Links for the day