Bonum Certa Men Certa

Obsession With Branded Bugs in Free Software, Not Bugging by Proprietary Software

Discussions revolve around brands, not objectivity

Rebranded



Summary: The bogus 'debate' about bugs, where built-in bugs (like wiretapping, bugging, and back doors in proprietary software) are conveniently overlooked

DESPITE acknowledging that Free software is more secure than proprietary software, Veracode recently turned opportunistic. It was using bugs with "branding" to promote itself and it wasn't alone.



"FOSS has some bugs, whereas proprietary software is a bug."Several opportunistic firms, including Black Duck, are appearing in the press again, exploiting "branding" of few bugs in FOSS to sell proprietary stuff. Veracode is again doing it and Black Duck's latest FUD piece is resurfacing yet again, as very recently noted by us after its placement had been pushed by IDG -- an extensive network which gives this proprietary firm a platform as author on FOSS matters. "Black Duck Software presents 5 tips for a secure enterprise relationship with open source," says IDG, but since when is Black Duck an authority in the area? It's a proprietary software firm.

FOSS has some bugs, whereas proprietary software is a bug. It's bugging. We recently wrote about Outlook being ousted as a surveillance platform and amid revelations about the NSA's spying on EU Parliament Outlook (the 'app') is reportedly banned. To quote a British report: "The EU Parliament has blocked politicians from using the Microsoft mobile Outlook app in the wake of security and privacy concerns centred on the siphoning of corporate credentials to a third party, according to reports.

"The Parliament's IT department, DG ITEC, has reportedly told staff to delete the app and reset corporate email passwords if it was used."

Nevertheless, the jingoistic Microsoft Peter (Peter Bright) tries to paint Microsoft as "cool" while it is "shutting down a[nother] competitor" as a source put it to us, citing this article:

Microsoft on Wednesday confirmed its purchase of mobile calendar app Sunrise.


This will immediately become a PRISM-included surveillance app. Reading reports about it helps show that the security issue is proprietary software, especially Microsoft's (the NSA's top ally). It oughtn't be so shocking that Black Duck, which is strongly connected to Microsoft, would hastily and repeatedly overlook Microsoft's ill effect on software, turning software into bugs, wiretapping everyone.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Microsoft: Work Weekends Too
Microsoft literally working its workers to death
Stallman Has Explained Slop is "Marketing Hype Campaign" and Torvalds Agreed. The Difference is the Bribes.
So be like Stallman
SLAPP Censorship - Part 167 Out of 200: The Court of Appeal Might be the Next Step
Today is our last vacation day
 
PIPocalypse at IBM
Silent layoffs
Spending Over a Million Bucks on Lawsuits Abroad When There's a Big Mortgage to Pay in America
Priorities, priorities...
Gemini Links 31/08/2026: Announcing ROOPHLOCH 2026, smol.pub Discussion, and LLM Plagiarism Engines Target Geminispace
Links for the day
Richard Stallman's GNU Turns 43 in 4 Weeks, FSF Growing
In a few weeks GNU turns 43
IBM's Cuts Are Worsening Security in GNU/Linux
IBM is still run by the same idiot who proposed taking over Red Hat
Links 31/08/2026: Anthropic Sued Again for Copyright Infringement of Massive Scale, 'Tokenmaxxing' Shows Slop is a Worthless Liability
Links for the day
Links 31/08/2026: "Teslas Are Still Driving Into Oncoming Freight Trains" and "LLM Moats Quickly Evaporating"
Links for the day
Debian Project Discards About 25% of the Votes on LLM Slop, Microsoft Votes in the General Resolution (GR)
"[t]he rules of the vote saw community members asked to rank each of the eight proposals. Just under 600 people voted, but Debian’s election team rejected many for unspecified reasons, leaving almost 450 valid votes to count."
Essentiality of Rest and Killing Oneself for Vicious Companies
Working for Microsoft is foolish
In the UK, Bing (Microsoft) Down to Lowest Level Since January
our tax money being passed to Microsoft via MoUs (back door deals with kickbacks)
German Government Sponsors IBM Because of GNU/Linux
Flatpak is sponsored by, run, and controlled by IBM
Richard Stallman Speaks to Christine Hall of FOSS Force, stallman.org is Down for Over a Day
interview does a good job addressing the hype about LLMs too
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, August 30, 2026
IRC logs for Sunday, August 30, 2026
Gemini Links 31/08/2026: Holidays, Stream of Consciousness, and Posting Online
Links for the day
Anniversaries Next Month
The month should be otherwise quiet and uneventful for us
Coding is Not Obsolete
we drown ourselves in chaff to meet "LOC" objectives while ignoring everything else
Microsoft Layoffs Perpetual But Silent, People Pushed Out Using Pressure or Incentive Schemes
Earlier this month we named some of the programs
Links 30/08/2026: Apple Rant and LLM (Slop) Scrapers Target Gemini Protocol and Gopher
Links for the day
Salaries Are Counted in Money, Not in Participation in the Employer's Scheme
articles greatly exaggerating GAFAM salaries
Walls in Free Software
mind your own business and move on
Even Linux Cannot Cope With Slop
Bots on the Web are truly obnoxious
What a Summer!
Tomorrow is the last day of this month
Links 30/08/2026: Soldiers in Niger Attack Presidential Palace and Airport, Nepali City Struggles to Handle the Many Dead Bodies
Links for the day
Clownflare Sees GNU/Linux Rising to 11% This Past Week
Is it the year of "Linux in China"?
Links 30/08/2026: Russian Strike on a Ukrainian Warehouse and Rhetoric Escalations
Links for the day
Gemini Links 30/08/2026: Photography, Paper Books, Linux Kernel and the Debian Projects Permitting Slop Plagiarism
Links for the day
Imagine a World Where Nobody Fights for Software (and Computing) Freedom
The community keeps fighting back, so some of these ambitions are delayed or watered down
FSF Has Grown (More Staff) After a Year of Financial Growth
On October 4 the FSF turns 41
GNU/Linux Has Become More Mainstream in the United Kingdom
It's a long weekend here and we guess some people dabble in GNU/Linux migrations, at least at home
SLAPP Censorship - Part 166 Out of 200: Garrett Wasn't Found Innocent Per Se, the Court Wanted More Evidence of Who Was Behind Particular Accounts Using Tor
It's complicated
Criminals Don't Obey Laws, California Does Not Enhance Online Safety
It has been a while since we last mentioned so-called 'age-verification' laws
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, August 29, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, August 29, 2026
Links 29/08/2026: Stop the Hate, Goldfish Myths, and xmpp.nz
Links for the day
Links 29/08/2026: Wave of Social Control Media Bans, Suno Data Breach Class Actions
Links for the day
Links 29/08/2026: Microsoft GitHub Outage (Again), "Displaying Ads Directly on Your Monitor", and "Election Deniers Could Soon Control Elections"
Links for the day
IBM is "Taking the PIP" (Piss), People 'Retire' 'Voluntarily' to "Focus on Family"
IBM has a billion bucks for 'the butcher', but not a million dollars for critical projects and initiatives in Free software
It Should be Uncontroversial to Say That Social Control Media is a Weapon
Democracy is not compatible with the likes of Kapo-Berg and MElon controlling public discourse of billions
Misuse of Bots (Now Sold as "Agents", "Hey Hi", "Automation", and "Efficiency")
They even try to rebrand robotics as "hey hi" and try to sell slop as "work"
Debian: Plagiarism OK, Just be "Responsible" About It
The result isn't the worst, but it's not good either
Don't Let Them Kill Activism
Are the oligarchs shutting the lid on activism and whistleblowers?
SLAPP Censorship - Part 165 Out of 200: Two Years Since My Wife and I Sued
In early September 2024 we hit back
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, August 28, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, August 28, 2026
Gemini Links 29/08/2026: Death Notice, Systems Biology, and Gopher
Links for the day