08.30.08
Microsoft Fights GNU/Linux and Brazil with Lies
Pratinha - Chapada Diamantina
Brazil’s education system has already decided to embrace Debian GNU/Linux with KDE. It will be served to approximately 52 million children and adolescents. A reader of ours from Brazil recently estimated that GNU/Linux is already used by about 8% of the population in Brazil and by watching the following new article, a shift in momentum becomes rather evident.
Universities that do not use Free Software: Time for a boycott?
I received an email recently from a young man in Brazil who wanted me to come to his university and talk to the students and faculty about using Free Software. I am normally happy to advise universities to use Free Software, but usually this is done in conjunction with some large conference held at the university or some other venue. I just do not have the time to visit each and every school. But I did investigate the university of the student and found that Microsoft was indeed a sponsor of the University. In fact, the university had a large banner on the front page of their web site talking about Microsoft as a partner. It was the first time I saw a university advertising a commercial firm on their home page.
I started doing a little more investigation of the student’s city and found that there was another university in the same city that was very active with Free Software. In fact, they had a mirror of Debian software and were actively promoting Free Software.
[…]
Ten years ago a boycott might not have been possible. There were too few universities that had access to enough really good Free Software to ask the students to make a “sacrifice” in forsaking a university that only used proprietary software to teach. Now, with the range of Free Software that is available, and with the marketplace crying out for new programmers trained in Free Software development techniques, and with many more good universities using Free Software to teach courses, the university “marketplace” is ready for the boycott.
Microsoft rarely responds to such threats directly. It might anger people, whose freedom is taken away by a fraudulent multi-national, so it operates by proxy instead.
“As for IDC, they twist figures or prepare definitions that are biased by design. They are engineered to deceive.”Ina Fried, a known ‘Microsoft mole’ from CNET, is doing a batch of articles with photos of Brazil’s slums and articles about “Linux” (forget the GNU philosophy of freedom). Fried is therefore encouraging the view that only poor people would ’settle’ for “Linux” and that it’s all about cost.
Remember that CNET was funded by Microsoft’s co-founder and it’s only a small part of the corporate sponsorship maze in the press.
At the same time, CNET is citing ZDNet (also known as “Ziff/Gates” to some) with the usual bogus numbers from IDC. It’s the servers FUD all over again (a quarterly or bi-annual occurrence). We covered this just a few days ago.
As for IDC, they twist figures or prepare definitions that are biased by design. They are engineered to deceive. We saw it and remarked on this before. in reality, Windows servers are claimed to actually be on the decline. Says one reader in Linux Today:
They go to great lengths to mask some numbers.
Windows market share is down almost 2% from 38.4% to 36.5%.
Another article is suggesting that GNU/Linux is losing because of mainframes. The source? IDC. In a nutshell, IDC continue to sling mud at Linux by biasing, just as Al Gillen did about a year ago (the rebuttal stays the same).
It’s sheer dishonesty, which is typically paid for those with vested interests in lies (or gymnastics in statistics) [1, 2, 3, 4]. It even says “Linux sales”. GNU/Linux need to be sold? Since when? In fact, as time goes by and Free software improves further, it’s easier to deploy without buying anything. They try to make technical arguments (maybe even correct ones) to only highlight statistics of no interest or value.
All in all, Ina Fried and Matt Asay continue to participate in Microsoft’s propaganda against Brazil and Linux, respectively. There’s also intersection between them now, but Asay is probably doing this naively and accidentally. Here is one remark from the comments:
Bravo. Good corporate lackey.
Ina Fried gets a fluff job from the Microsoft head liar in Brazil and she runs with it THREE times and now you jump on it.
Bravo.
The above surely is rude, but it’s true. █
“There’s a lot of Linux out there — much more than Microsoft generally signals publicly — and their customers are using it.”
–Paul DeGroot, a Directions On Microsoft analyst (a fortnight ago)
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.
lyle howard seave said,
August 30, 2008 at 6:45 pm
Rude?
I say you are letting them off the hook easily. Or you’ve seen this so often since youve started youre sight that you might have lost that indignation.
I totally agreed by the way: how can you NOT talk about 50million kids using Linux/KDE?
>but Asay is probably doing this naively and accidentally.
Look, Asay is an ‘open source’ suit.
He is NOT a Linux guy, he is NOT a GPL guy and NOT a KDE/GNOME/XCFE guy.
He likes open source development models to make money. Nothing wrong with that but dont confuse him with someone who supports or even cares if Linux succeeds past his business needs.
We have this bad habit of thinking and wishing that people who support some form of open source will be fighting our battles with us.
Get over it, it aint happening.
A few weeks ago, Randall Schwartz who took over TWIT FLOSS from Chris Debona caused a little brouhaha when he claimed then retracted his Linux bashing and I said the same thing: he has nothing in common with us apart from the large and generic open source term (Microsoft is an open source company too, so you know that this has lost all meaning) why should we care or even hope that he would speak for us?
He says he doesnt use, like, know or even care about Linux and despises the GPL and the whole mentality of copyleft. So why should I listen to him? Because he might talk about something approaching his open source view of things?
The TWIT network should instead have a Linux TWIT show to do what Schwartz cant and WONT do.
FLOSS is a porte manteau that tech media love using because whenever you ask for Linux content, they can reply “But we do open source”.
Do Rev3, CNET, TWIT, ZIFF or any other have a Linux podcast, or even a guest columnist who talks about Linux (ZDnet, Computerworld and a few other written sites do)?
When you ask them, the answer is “we covered Firefox 3 weeks ago or Patrick once reviewed Ubuntu”
Asay and Schwartz are open source guys, not free software guys and especially not Linux guys. Hell, listen to Asay and his talking monkeys on their open source show and you’ll hear more Linux bashing than on Mac shows (the sheer level of imbecility from the Inhatko, Merlin Manns and others Macbois are minblowingly stunning). The bottom line is always, Linux is no good or doesnt work.
And Asay and Schwartz are supposed to be on our side?
Id rather get fingered by Jack the Ripper than have those two represent me. Rude but true.
I think that blaming Asay’s writing and podcast ramblings on naivete is well… naive.
Roy Schestowitz said,
August 30, 2008 at 8:24 pm
You’re probably right. I’ve spent a lot of energy trying to get him to stop echoing the anti-Linux rhetorics.
But…
It’s better to keep these people as our friends. It helps more than it harms.