07.15.08
Attacking the Messenger and Rewriting/Forgetting History
The ‘history rewrite’ phenomenon is all too common
Two like-minded crooks, Carl Icahn and Microsoft, continue to bully Yahoo. In the process, they are trying to rewrite an embarrassing history.
Rewriting of stories about atrocious behaviour is dangerous. It permits criminals to persist with old practices without getting reprimanded or a disturbing patterns be identified to justify severe punishment. It means that many will be harmed in an unstoppable path of destruction.
“It means that many will be harmed in an unstoppable path of destruction.”Joe Barr published a variety of very interesting (albeit old) articles that are worth exploring. He brought up a lot of truth during the course of his career. Amid the overrhyped departure of Gates, others do the same. Some who even cite Barr call it a case of rewriting history.
We criticised Slashdot before, taking into account a variety of reasons, notably the promotion of Microsoft technologies that try to sway open source developers away from GNU/Linux and the GPL. If anything, Slashdot has become less biased over the years, but the Microsoft-sympathetic crowd continues to dislike it.
Remember Microsoft Jack? He is once again attacking the messenger, in this case Slashdot, USENET and other sources of information that are not funded or sheltered by Microsoft.
Slashdot: ‘The downside of nerdy sites is that they attract lots of nerds’
[…]
Unfortunately, one of the downsides of nerdy sites is that they attract loads of nerds. These are the people who don’t have girlfriends or proper jobs; who live on pizza in their parents’ basement, and rarely see the sun; who have an encyclopedic knowledge of Star Wars but no common sense.
[…]
Slashdot’s standard nerd hypocrisy is another running gag. Everyone knows that anything related to Apple/Linux/open source is innovative and cool, whereas if Microsoft had done exactly the same thing, it would be evil and monopolistic. Double standards rule.
How is it a double standard?
He sees nothing wrong with a company which does all these things. █
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.