Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft Management Contacted Sirius Open Source CEO to Complain About My Writings in Techrights Years Before Bill Gates Paid Him

Video download link | md5sum 0b5cee9f48792260e28e59272e7fbb14 The Very Ugly Collapse of Sirius Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0



Summary: The Sirius 'Open Source' series is now dealing with the more interesting "stories from the trenches"; with over 20,000 views of the Wiki alone after less than 40 days (see above) it seems clear that people are interested in the 21 years of experience my wife and I had inside a company that claims to be "Open Source" (things changed for the worse, so we must investigate/examine why, knowing this can happen to other companies including large ones such as Red Hat)

THIS week the series entered its final phase. We shall be gathering remaining material/stories and explain them in a more generalised context, seeing that some readers (whom we heard from) experienced similar things in present or past workplaces. There are things here that people can relate to even if they worked for other companies in other countries.



"Funny how Microsoft likes to complain about you behind your back... to your boss."Some time this month we shall cover a likely illegal contract-signing 'ceremony' and explain the context of Sirius 'expanding' to the US (because it was failing in the UK and the marriage of the CEO was collapsing). The above video explains how both my wife and I were being bullied by management just weeks or at most a month after a shell was created in the US after the Gates Foundation had secretly (under NDA) offered money to the CEO. Only a few years prior to that he told me (face to face in Alton Towers) that Microsoft had contacted him over the phone to complain about me (regarding things I wrote in Techrights). Funny how Microsoft likes to complain about you behind your back... to your boss. I only found out and wrote about it years later. It was risky to even mention this, but I did it anyway.

Therer's a lot more information in the above video -- stuff that wasn't covered in the text earlier on. We're far from done here and there's still an ongoing fact-finding investigation.

"Those with long memories might suggest a parallel between Rick’s position and mine when in 1997, I was sitting on the XML Working Group and co-editing the spec, on a pro bono basis as an indie consultant. Netscape hired me to represent their interests, and when I announced this, controversy ensued. Which is a nice way of saying that Microsoft went berserk; tried unsuccessfully to get me fired as co-editor, and then launched a vicious, deeply personal extended attack in which they tried to destroy my career and took lethal action against a small struggling company because my wife worked there. It was a sideshow of a sideshow of the great campaign to bury Netscape and I’m sure the executives have forgotten; but I haven’t."

--Tim Bray



Recent Techrights' Posts

Cannot Speak About IBM Wrongdoing or Jobs Being Sent Overseas (Lower Salaries)
IBM has long attacked the media, the whistleblowers, and even online forums
European Patent Office (EPO) Series: The CIA-Funded Centre-Left in Portugal
In the political turmoil which followed the fall of the old regime, the communists seemed to be acquiring a dominant position and there was a very real risk that Portugal could end up aligned with the Eastern Bloc if they were not stopped
Yesterday Afternoon The Register MS Published a Fake Article That Says "AI" 31 Times Because It Got Paid to Do This
What will happen when all those loans for slop (Ponzi scheme) stop and companies' marketing budgets - which include media bribes for hype campaigns - are no more?
Extraordinary General Meeting of Staff Union of the European Patent Office Ahead of Intensifying Strikes
We will, in the meantime, run a series about EPO corruption, which is now connected to corruption in Portugal and to corruption inside the EU
European Patent Office (EPO) Series: The Brotherhood of São Bento
The Palácio São Bento – or São Bento Palace – is the seat of the Portuguese National Assembly in Lisbon
 
Links 09/06/2026: "Smartphones Broke Dating" and "EU Open Source Strategy"
Links for the day
This Coming Friday
Richard Stallman (RMS)
Several Slopfarms That Target "Linux" Seem to Have Died
Or perished severely
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, June 08, 2026
IRC logs for Monday, June 08, 2026
Gemini Links 09/06/2026: Tanana River, Cassette Beasts, and Emacs
Links for the day
IBM's Quantum Bubble Already Deflating
Shares down over $55 in a few days
SLAPP Censorship - Part 101 Out of 200: Women Come to Realise They Don't Wish to Participate in Attacking Vulnerable Women
It relates to another topic that we shall be covering in the coming weeks
Links 08/06/2026: Proprietary Loaded With Security Holes, Armenia Defies Russia
Links for the day
Gemini Links 08/06/2026: NetHack 5.0.0 and Slop as Cannibalism
Links for the day
Links 08/06/2026: "Rising Emissions, Depleting Water" Due to the Pyramid Scheme of Slop; "Canada Needs to Rebuild Public Telecoms"
Links for the day
Brett Wilson LLP Reported to Police for Trying to Throw Large Parcel Into Our Home
This morning the campaign of intimidation...
GAFAM Bots Are Not "Good Bots"
There's nothing "Good" about Google
Links 08/06/2026: Criticism of Microsoft Trying to Criminalise Pointing Out Bug Doors, TikTok Now "Climate-Denying Social Media App"
Links for the day
Slop Has no ROI, an Economy Built on False Assumptions of Slop is Doomed
we're all going to suffer from this Ponzi scheme
The Cyber Show Has "Exciting Guests Coming" and a Gemini Capsule
"Site development is ongoing but now settling into a more stable form"
GNU/Linux Measured at 10% in Liechtenstein This Month
it seems like statCounter wrongly classified some GNU/Linux clients as Mac clients and is now issuing a correction
Communicating With Freedom - Part III - Quibble Envisioned as a New and Easily Accessible Communications Platform Based on LibreJS
the FSF really needs to become more active if not proactive in promoting those sorts of things
Clownflare Says Majority of Web Traffic is Now Bots, But the Net is Another Story
Bots are to Clownflare what lawsuits are to lawyers
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, June 07, 2026
IRC logs for Sunday, June 07, 2026
The Strikes at the European Patent Office Planned to Carry on for the Entire Year, Maybe Future Years as Well
There's a cautionary tale somewhere
Number of Patent Grants Has Plunged 23% Amid Strikes at the European Patent Office, Today There Are More Strikes (Strike Participation at Over 3,000, More Than Doubled Since Winter)
There is a growing crisis at the European Patent Office
E.E.E. Still Ongoing, the War on Copyleft/GPL Enables That
It also imperils security.
Gemini Links 07/06/2026: Lynx in the 'Modern' Web and 'Overcooked' (Plagiarised by LLM) Code
Links for the day
Links 07/06/2026: Java Needs Seawall, Egypt Blasted for Arbitrary Detention of Activists
Links for the day
SLAPP Censorship - Part 100 Out of 200: Interlude and Outline of the First Half, 3+ Months That Got Us Death Threats Connected to Brett Wilson LLP (and Cyber Attacks That Are Difficult to Attribute)
This week we plan to have a good time
Banning Things Versus Teaching People the Reason/s to Shun/Boycott Those Things
Prohibition has its limits
Links 07/06/2026: NASA's Mars Maven Declared Dead, Telegram Founder Pavel Durov Bemoans Russia's Crackdown
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, June 06, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, June 06, 2026
Gemini Links 07/06/2026: How to Train Your Dragon (2010) and "Six Days of Play"
Links for the day