Credit: Netcraft

Summary: A propagandist's claims of Microsoft gains in servers miss the reality of diversification among FOSS Web servers and continued decline of Microsoft in active Web sites

TRUTH is not relative and facts are not opinions. There is currently some nasty attack on Google, alleging that the company is in bed with the NSA when it's actually Microsoft that's in bed with the NSA. This has "Scroogled" all over it, so we won't entertain it all that much. Several rebuttals have been written about it.

What we wish to address today is a piece of propaganda that's circulating on the Web right now. Linux Today published it and then removed it, perhaps realising that it was serving a propaganda against FOSS (now that it's removed it's hard to tell is someone in the comments pointed out the obvious). The propaganda links to Netcraft, which Microsoft likes to game and even though the latest server survey states clearly what active domain/site means, someone in Slashdot is twisting it (same headline as the one Linux Today pulled down), stating that "Microsoft [is] Closing In On Apache Web Server Lead" (which is untrue).

We already wrote about this last month and before, emphasising that Microsoft seems to be gaming statistics by taking over millions of parked domains, perhaps using some manipulative secret deals.

So to summarize, both Slashdot and IDG (Microsoft-connected) currently push false Microsoft propaganda by counting parked domains. They deserve to be publicly shamed for it. They're in the business of misinformation. ⬆