11.19.07
FUDMeister Back in Action — Bill Hilf Spreads Lies and Myths About Linux and FLOSS
”He is said to have left his role recently, but the FUD continues, so shame on him.“Over in HackFUD, Bill Hilf’s latest arguments are torn apart systematically and effectively, proving yet again (fourth time in this Web site) that he is nothing more than a FUD-generating machine. It’s not the first time that he spews subtle threats, either. He is said to have left his role recently, but the FUD continues, so shame on him. He is not a popular man anywhere, especially if SUSEBlog is anything to go by (warning: strong content).
Be sure to go through the whole thing and see how subtle Microsoft sentences — if they are readable at all — can be used to create uncertainty. There must be a handbook of “quick facts” somewhere (there are actually several of them) from which these cheap-shot attacks on Free software and Linux get extracted time after time to make the Big Lie persist.
The article concludes with the following statement:
Really, the best model that would work best for the software business, would be to get rid of software patents. It’s that simple. Oh, sorry, but that would take away a MAJOR method of threatening everything else which isn’t part of the “Microsoft Stack”, wouldn’t it.
We are left wondering. Where is Novell in all of this? Shouldn’t Novell condemn Microsoft’s actions, given its insistence that Linux does not really infringe on Microsoft patents? Novell’s relationship with Microsoft/Windows is actually more important now than its relationship with other (collaborative) Linux distributors, which is revolting. Novell has picked the wrong side based on popularity criteria, It also sidled with the company that wants it destroyed and constantly spreads lies to achieve this. █
Highlight: Novell was the first to acknowledge that Microsoft FUD tactics had substance. Novell then used anti-Linux FUD to market itself. 
Highlight: Xandros let Microsoft make patent claims and brag about (paid-for) OOXML support. 
Highlight: Linspire's CEO not only fell into Microsoft arms, but he also assisted the company's attack on GNU/Linux. 
Highlight: Microsoft craves pseudo (proprietary) standards and gets its way using proxies and influence which it buys. 
Highlight: The invasion into the open source world is intended to leave Linux companies neglected, due to financial incentives from Microsoft. 
Analysis: Xen, an open source hypervisor, possibly fell victim to Microsoft's aggressive (and stealthy) acquisition-by-proxy strategy.
Kevin Cave said,
November 19, 2007 at 5:00 am
“FUDMesiter” - should be FUDMeister
;)
I do have one problem with your article though, and that’s the link to that SUSEBlog article - I personally find that kind of thing distasteful, and it’s that kind of rather - in my opinion - childish stuff which /could/ give people the wrong impression of Linux and/or FOSS users. I truly think them doing stuff like that is completely counteractive, and has a negative effect on FOSS.
Best regards,
Kevin.
eet said,
November 19, 2007 at 5:14 am
Roy ‘FUDMeister’ Schestowitz with all his persona and his writing is a one-man anti-Linux campaign.
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Roy Schestowitz said,
November 19, 2007 at 5:21 am
Oops. That was a type, Kevin. I spotted and fixed a few more as I reread this.
About SUSEBlog, I agree with you. I wanted to just drop that link altogether, but eventually just added a gentle warning instead.
The point of that link — however disgraceful the content may be — was to show that others acknowledge the disdain Bill Hilf has earned. Martin Taylor seems to have quit the company when he realised that the FUDMeister role is no easy role to have. Microsoft should just drop the FUD.
eet said,
November 19, 2007 at 5:25 am
Yes, drop the FUD, Roy.
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Roy Schestowitz said,
November 19, 2007 at 5:44 am
Unlike Hilf et al, I’m not associated with a company and I market nothing. I am a GNU/Linux and I don’t wish to see a group of companies making it their property by excluding everyone that does not pay Microsoft for Linux (yes for Linux). This is a big scam that is intended to hurt and even eliminate freedom (libre and gratis).
eet said,
November 19, 2007 at 6:04 am
Roy, you would be well advised to read this article:
http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/3711871
The first page is titled ‘It’s time to get over Microsoft’; meaning some FOSS advocates’ obsession with this company.
The second page is named ‘It’s time to grow up’, and it means people exactly like YOU, Roy.
The author comments on a reply to a previous article - that could well have been a reply by you - and I feel that it could have been a comment on your blog, Roy:
“To which I can only reply, “Will you listen to yourself?”
Between the self-importance, the fanaticism, and the either-or logic of such a comment, an outsider could only conclude that the speaker’s motherboard had popped a few capacitors. Such crusading rants are going to scare many people, and the few it attracts will be scary folks to have hanging around.”
Grow up, Roy!
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Roy Schestowitz said,
November 19, 2007 at 6:57 am
Bruce wrote this article after we had some disagreement (I’m not sure it’s a direct response though). Mine is a direct response to his.
eet said,
November 19, 2007 at 7:09 am
Ah, indeed! Seems there aren’t so many fanatics around after all.
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Roy Schestowitz said,
November 19, 2007 at 7:39 am
Who are you anyway? Care to post under you real name? Are you associated/affiliated with SuSE or Novell? All you do here is troll endlessly.
eet said,
November 19, 2007 at 7:58 am
I’m a SUSE-user, no more. And as a Linux user I take offense in ‘high-level trolling’ by the likes of you. If you feel like being religious about something, go to church. FOSS is the wrong place for that because it requires thinking, not worship of the ‘only true and pure Linux’. We need thinkers, not believers.
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eet said,
November 19, 2007 at 8:04 am
Did I say ‘believers’? I meant ‘religious extremists’.
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Victor Soliz said,
November 19, 2007 at 9:11 am
eet, you are just delusional, It would be foolish to ignore Microsoft’s attempts to consume Linux, mostly because we are Linux users, that’s what truly pragmatic people do, they protect themselves and are alert, ignoring a problem is not going to make it vanish .
eet said,
November 19, 2007 at 11:58 am
You - well especially Roy Schestowitz - suffer from delusions of grandeur if you think that Linux’ survival depends on you lot. Linux’ survival now is IBM’s, Novell’s, Red Hat’s and countless of their big clients’ (BMW, Deutsche Bank, Peugeot etc. etc.) problem.
Face it, what you write here is utterly unimportant for the survival of Linux; the only objectives it serves are a) satisfy your own desire to feel righteous; b) alienate prospective new Linux-users. The latter part is the one I hold most grudge against you for.
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eet said,
November 19, 2007 at 12:48 pm
Well, actually no; the part that bothers me most is alienating already existing Linux-users and trying to split the community.
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tracyanne said,
November 19, 2007 at 3:51 pm
The content of the SuSE Blog link is simply childish, it achieves nothing where it really matters, but then this blog achieves the same effect, where it matters. The HAckFUD article, on the othe hand, does a well reasoned job of dismantling Bill Hilf’s lies half truths and inuendoes.
Roy Schestowitz said,
November 19, 2007 at 4:51 pm
Just ask Corel, Netscape, RealNetworks and dozens of other large companies which thought that ignoring anti-competitive tactics will be fine, and that justice will prevail.
eet said,
November 19, 2007 at 5:27 pm
For a FOSS-advocate you have remarkably little understanding about what makes FOSS remarkable…
FOSS is only successfull because it is NOT the product of a single company but the product of collaboration between all companies and unpaid helper involved. It reduces development-costs drastically. That and the price-tag of the software (zero, if no support is involved) are the reason Linux could become a success. But this goes also for OpenOffice and many other projects.
Time that you try to understand it: We are talking about a fundamentally different business-model when we are talking about FOSS. Single companies can go bottom-up, a dozen of them are unlikely. Single companies can be ruined in a court of law, a dozen of them can’t - especially if IBM is one of the parties involved.
The thing called FOSS has become to big to suppress, thus M$ is now participating in this new business model and adapting. Money is money, after all; whether it comes from proprietary or free software.
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Kevin Cave said,
November 20, 2007 at 3:59 am
eet,
It’s not the price-tag which makes Free and Open Source Software remarkable. It’s the very fact that the software is Free-as-in-Freedom. It’s remarkable that you can actually see the full source code to the Linux kernel. It’s remarkable that you can see the source code to OpenOffice. Ditto goes for all the GPL’ed software you can download and install on your computer.
It’s remarkable that you can /change/ the source code as you see fit. It’s remarkable that you can redistribute the software quite Freely (as in Freedom) - the only “restriction” to that being that you also have to license the software with the exact same licensing terms as the original source that you got it, but as you are probably well aware, that’s remarkable too.
Regards,
KC.
eet said,
November 21, 2007 at 4:09 pm
I know that being free as in ‘freedom’ make its remarkable but being free as in ‘beer’ and open as in ‘open source’ makes it a commercial success.
Please don’t preach to the already-converts.
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