05.16.08
Dennis Byron Loses It (Updatedx2)
Once again, the Dennis Byron ‘analyst’ [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6] is trying to characterize FFII (or derivatives) as a front group for Google, IBM, Red Hat and Sun. Oh, he forgot to lump some others like Oracle into this, did he not?
To quote some comments from Dennis himself:
JohnMurphy, interesting analysis. Do you think that English has been somehow influenced by Europeans and terrorists? This worries me. If they attack the language Jesus spoke, who knows what they would do next. Do you think Linux is funded by a vast left-wing anti-business conspiracy? It seems the only plausible explanation to me. What do you suggest?
[...]
BTW, if those Eurolinux fanbois suggest I’m a Microsoft lover, they’d be wrong. It’s true that I run Vista but only because Linux sucks. I tried to plug in a mouse and I had to spend an hour on the forums finding out how to rebuild the kernel with mouse support. It’s ridicolous, and a waste of tax paeyers money. If I owned MSFT stock, which I don’t, I’d sell it all and buy AAPL. I mean, have you seen the iPhone? So, you see, I am not a Microsoft astroturfer.
[..].
time2money: I’m a eurolinuxfanboi and I’m offended by your post. If that’s the best you can do, you’re no better than a fascist terrorist yourself. Anyway I think you’re a windows troll, I’ve seen you on other forums and you always claim to be a linux user yet you can never get your mouse working. C’mon.
[...]
Please stop these posts, thank you.
Gosh, what a self exposition. “Eurolinuxfanboi”? I’m still laughing. Even worse than Rob Enderle [1, 2, 3], who too has implicitly compared Linux users to 9/11 terrorists and zealots. More hilarity at Linux Today. It’s too embarrassing to link to directly.
Amanda McPherson [1, 2] (Linux Foundation [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]) fell for an invitation from him a couple of weeks back. Fortunately, some editors appear to be gradually finding out who he really is.
For actual news from Digistan, see the following announcement about the Hague Declaration:
The Hague Declaration calls on governments to:
1. Procure only information technology that implements free and open standards;
2. Deliver e-government services based exclusively on free and open standards;
3. Use only free and open digital standards in their own activities.
Thanks for the laugh, Dennis. █
Update: The FFII folks have just countered with “Alpha-lunatic attack on Digistan and the Hague declaration.”
Update #2: More here from Glyn Moody. It’s quite funny and insightful. He pays attention to the use of the term “anti-Microsoft”, which substitutes “anti corruption”, conveniently enough. We have been through such use of negative labels before.
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.
twitter said,
October 20, 2008 at 11:05 am
This article should reference this new insanity from the man. RMS is an IBM sleeper agent?!! LOL. Mr. Byron has been added to my poison pen collection.
Roy Bixler said,
October 20, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Is this guy even worth the time? He makes so many glaring errors, it’s hard to credit much to anything else he may say.
Roy Schestowitz said,
October 20, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Here is another long rebuttal to his attack:
http://www.computerworlduk.com/toolbox/open-source/blogs/index.cfm?entryid=1411&blogid=14
The Real Story Behind GNU/Linux
“According to the post questioning GNU/Linux’s origins, the Linux kernel was “forked” by Linus from some other code while he was in college.” Although the post doesn’t say so, presumably that “other code” was Minix, another Unix-like operating, which had been created by Andrew Tanenbaum for teaching purposes. But Linux was never forked from Minix. Linux actually began life as a very simple newsreader that grew out of some very basic code. Here’s what Linus told me in 1996:”
[...]
“So, in fact, IBM only really got fully involved with open source – and GNU/Linux – in 2000, hardly while Linus was still in “short pants”. By then, the system had evolved hugely from the fairly rough and ready code Linus released in the early 1990s; IBM’s input was then – and remains – relatively modest, even if it now has thousands of engineers who work on the general area of open source code.
“The same is true of HP and DEC, who were even slower than IBM to pick up on the possibilities of GNU/Linux. HP, for example, made its first open source announcement in January 1999. As Wayne Caccamo, who was HP’s strategic planning manager at the time, and the person who gently nudged the company towards free software, put it, far from being some deep, Machiavellian plan to fight back against Microsoft, GNU/Linux was simply:
“on the list of nuisance issues that kept popping up on our radar screen, and something that seemed like an opportunity.
“In retrospect, what is striking is not how this conspiratorial band of IBM, HP and DEC have been secretly pulling the levers that control open source, using a few “nominal” creators as decoys, but how amazingly blind they were to what was happening out in the open, before their very eyes. In fact, it took them all a long time to appreciate free software’s true significance and its implications for their business. Of course, what is even more remarkable is the fact that after 25 years, Microsoft *still* doesn’t get it.”