WE HAVE come a long way since the days of "join us now and share the software". Now we have a red bait (Red Hat) saying to us, "pay us to share the code" and the FSF has issued no comment on this matter. It certainly seems like the tail wags the dog. In fact, yesterday's video mentioned that many people in GNU developments are redhat.com because they got hired by Red Hat. GNU not only inspired Wikipedia and the World Wide Web; it also inspired Creative Commons.

"Remember when they tried "RMS" for DRM too?"As a reminder, the Red Hatters already made up an alternative acronym for "GNU", in effect trying to 'steal' the project (thankfully it did not quite take off) and yesterday we noticed how IBM staff -- among others -- made up a new "CC". So now CC is Confidential Computing (DRM and outsourcing). This isn't just an IBM thing but also very typical Microsoft, as they always rewrite acronyms. It's a tactic they have used for several decades now.

Remember when they tried "RMS" for DRM too?

We need to highlight acronym-jacking (hijacking well-recognised acronyms) because this becomes so commonplace that the originals get forgotten. More recently Microsoft did this to MAUI and this "Confidential Computing (CC)" ploy, in this case attributable to Fabian Kammel (Edgeless Systems), Mikko Ylinen (Intel), and Tobin Feldman-Fitzthum (IBM), certainly needs attention. One person reminded us that they are trying to steal CCC (Chaos Computer Club) too.

Here we go, further down the same page:

"Outsourcing is not confidentiality; it's just a recipe for trouble."Confidential Computing is the opposite of sharing; it's about misplacing trust while outsourcing sensitive data. It's about mass surveillance disguised as improved confidentiality and it's being promoted by Microsofters like 'Gulagboy'.

In yesterday's Daily Links, under DRM, we put these two links [1, 2], reminding readers of the companies pushing in this Orwellian direction. Outsourcing is not confidentiality; it's just a recipe for trouble. ⬆