07.14.08
Posted in Microsoft, GNU/Linux, FUD, Deception, Marketing, IBM at 2:50 am by Roy Schestowitz
Great man, beautiful mind
M
r. Barr, an excellent writer and Free software evangelist, passed away a few days ago. The news about him was very sad as he was not only a great man but also huge asset to the GNU/Linux community. Among his legacy was this page about Microsoft Munchkins. He understood very well how Microsoft had been operating. It is, without a doubt, a must-read.
By Joe Barr
Originally published September, 1996
SLIME 1. Spin, Lies, and Insults by Microsoft Employees. The extension of Microsoft’s corporate ethic to online community.
One place that’s been SLIME’d is Canopus, the forum on CompuServe
that had become my regular online habitat. At one time it was a
bastion of independent thought, consisting of contrary but
industry-wise regulars who were never afraid to criticize the
powerhouses in the industry, be they IBM or Microsoft or anybody
else.
[…]
I think the change began about the time Win95 debuted. For one thing,
honest debate and sincere conversation began to decline with the
arrival of Arnold Krueger. Whatever it is that brought him to
Canopus, or keeps him there, it is definitely not honest discourse.
Arnold is a one-man propaganda machine, boosting Win95 and dis’ing
everything else. He is the kind of guy who belongs in one of the
comp.os.___.advocacy newsgroups. And no where else. Since the first
day he arrived, his message has been simply this: Win95 is it, if you
don’t use it you are stupid, if you computer won’t run it, it’s a
piece of crap.
One unfortunate reality of Microsoft’s reputation for dishonesty is
that its employees can immediately gain credibility by claiming not
to be MS employees. Steve Barkto and Bill Diamond are two of the best
known examples.
[…]
And spin he does. He is easily the most gifted liar the forum has
seen. He is not a buffoon-like bozo like Arnold Krueger who puts out
so much crap that it is laughable. No, Richard Shupak does it with
style. He mixes truth, fact, and bullshit in amounts calculated to
bring the most believability a spin-doctor can hope for. He uses
inuendo like a scalpel. Almost always his goal is to deceive.
A couple of days ago, Groklaw thanked Mr. Barr for this gutsy response to Rob Enderle.
Not many people have the experience of going deep down into Microsoft’s dirty tricks. The same type of slimy tricks live on to this date. We have accumulated some examples in:
Ever seen a company withdrawing GNU/Linux from its store shelves? Check this one out.
Two weeks ago a startling post by a Canadian Canopian claimed that
London Drugs, a chain of stores, had an agreement with Microsoft that
prohibited them from displaying OS/2 on their shelves. I knew it
couldn’t be true. Microsoft is hard at work trying to have Sporkin
removed as the presiding judge at the hearings on their consent
decree. This sort of restraint of trade would blow up in their face
at just exactly the wrong time. Still, I decided to track it down.
I got the phone number for the store in Edmonton, Canada, and called
and asked for the computer department. Color me surprised when the
clerk told me that it was true, that they could not display Warp,
although they kept it in the stockroom and sold it on request. I
asked to speak to a manager. Said manager repeated the same thing,
that for ‘certain considerations’ from Microsoft, they kept OS/2 off
their shelves. This was too hot to hold for the next issue of
Tech-Connected, so I passed it on to a well-known and highly
respected newspaper man.
Joe Barr will be sorely missed. His more technical writings have always been superb.
OOXML too received its “In Memoriam”.
So swiftly moving on, I really don’t think OOXML is worth wasting much time over any more. Even M$ it seems doesn’t really want IS29500. The rest of us really care little about it, especially now there are so many other avenues for preservation of our data and the world is finally starting to “grok” what Open really means.
No matter how pointless or tedious it gets, it would be wrong not to talk about OOXML because the level of abuse needs to be shown, especially in the face of endless denials and disinformation. Moreover, the OOXML fiasco has taught us a lot about sources of corruption and led to the departure of some people. █
“Microsoft has announced the “Microsoft BlogStars” contest, to Hunts for Developer Bloggers in India. After feeling the power and increase of the Bloggers community in India, Microsoft tries to trap and hunt Bloggers in India to buildup the blogging community, for writing blog posts supporting towards Microsoft Technologies.”
– Microsoft Traps and Hunts for Bloggers in India !!
“Two Microsoft employees threatened to sue me if I wrote about their behavior online, so I not only wrote the story, I mailed each of them a personal copy.”
–Joe Barr, Free Software Hero
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07.04.08
Posted in GNU/Linux, Novell, SLES/SLED, Marketing, Xen, xandros, Linspire at 6:56 am by Roy Schestowitz
In previous coverage of the surprising acquisition [1, 2, 3, 4, 5], we showed that not everyone was pleased. Well, it’s getting uglier now. The money-obsessed Kevin Carmony asks Michael Robertson where the cash is and also retaliates with this post.
Michael Robertson finally broke his silence about what the 100 Linspire shareholders can expect from the sale to Xandros. No, this didn’t happen in a shareholder meeting, but to a reporter. Apparently reporters matter more to Michael than shareholders.
There’s a video there, too. The tensions are seen by reporters too they pick up the issues.
The new company will be named Digital Cornerstone Inc. Financial terms of the deal were kept secret.
His comments follow bitter remarks made by the firm’s ex-CEO and Linspire shareholder Kevin Carmony, who revealed earlier this week that a deal between the two Linux companies was underway.
Carmony laid into the takeover by accusing Robertson of being a sell-out and abandoning a “sinking ship”.
Watch what Dana Blankenhorn said:
One outlet described the deal as Linspire founder Michael Robertson deserting a sinking ship, but others will claim that it was sunk last June when it agreed to join Microsoft’s “IP Protection Racket.”
In The Inquirer it’s summarised as: “struggling Linux distributions huddle together.”
So, it’s not so fruitful to sell out to Microsoft, is it? Others are hopefully watching this and learning from it. Deals with Microsoft lead nowhere. Remember what an Acer VP boldly argued in public, according to this good new article from Free Software Magazine.
Gianpiero Morbello, Acer’s Vice President of Marketing and Brand, interviewed by vnunet, said, bluntly, that Acer “has shifted towards Linux because of Microsoft”.
He didn’t elaborate but went on to say, perhaps more importantly, that “Microsoft has a lot of power” which could make things difficult for them but they were nevertheless “determined to develop the Linux market”. That’s pretty bold talk but as the saying goes, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. We’ll have wait and see if they have the stomach for a showdown with Microsoft when the threats start to come. Perhaps they might start backsliding like Asus. In the real world, Microsoft has real power and it has never been slow or afraid to wield it when its commercial interests are threatened.
Further, says the same article:
The HP 2133 is another well spec’d contender but it chose to install SUSE, a Novell product that is being currently boycotted by many in the Unix community because of its link up with……Microsoft.
There are other new examples at arm’s distance. Remember the Xen story? Watch this new interview. Linux is not even mentioned. Wasn’t XenSource an open source and Linux-oriented software company before the Microsoft capture? Mind this bit:
GigaOM: But will Hyper-V compete with the Citrix server virtualization business anyway?
Crosby: You should look forward to interesting announcements of products to add value to Hyper-V. We’re going to sell into that footprint much like Citrix has always extended the use cases of Microsoft products.
Overall, the latest Xandros-Linspire move will go down in history as a bizarre one which is difficult to explain. It’s an indication of a total loss of direction.
As the famous saying goes, “Linux is not Windows.” Moreover, GNU/Linux cannot succeed with Microsoft’s help. It mustn’t depend on its fierce ideological rival. It’s a shame that Kevin Carmony failed on both counts and he may not realise that Linspire’s assets had been ’sold’ to Microsoft before they were sold to Xandros, so it’s truly his own fault. He is now happy with the not-so-Windows-esque Ubuntu. What does that teach us? █
“Based on years of conversations, I am convinced that part of the cause of the problem is the tendency to call the system Linux [Ed: let alone “Lindows”] rather than GNU, and describe it as open source rather than free software.”
–Richard Stallman
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06.26.08
Posted in Microsoft, Novell, SLES/SLED, Marketing at 1:04 pm by Roy Schestowitz
Marketing: an art of twisting facts, sometimes lying
A few month ago, Bruce Lowry left Novell. It happened around the same time that the company’s General Counsel, Joseph LaSala, left as well. A week after the departure of a Vice President, the belated replacement of Bruce Lowry finally arrives.
Quick, late introductions – I’m Ian Bruce, the new director of PR at Novell. I’ve taken over from Bruce Lowry (being called ‘Bruce’ is a requirement for the job), who held the position for over 8 years and did amazing work driving visibility and awareness for Novell.
Mr. Bruce will need to get used to preaching about the wonderful relationships between Microsoft and GNU/Linux (or Novell), which essentially means lying . Mr. de Icaza could kindly teach him.
Speaking of PR, be careful what you read about SUSE and Novell at the moment. Novell recruits boosters and it also has talking heads in the media. █
“Our partnership with Microsoft continues to expand.”
–Ron Hovsepian, Novell CEO
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06.23.08
Posted in Microsoft, GNU/Linux, Steve Ballmer, Deception, Marketing, Bill Gates, GPL, FOSS at 7:31 am by Roy Schestowitz
Microsoft: From “People-ready” to “Free the People”
“There’s free software and then there’s open source… there is this thing called the GPL, which we disagree with.”
–Bill Gates, April 2008
Some time ago we warned that Microsoft was been stealing “Open Source” [1, 2] at least in the sense that, as time goes by, it redefines and ‘dilutes’ it. Using the term out of context or out of place is a very convenient imposition that sets precedence.
The quote at the top gives you an idea of what Microsoft possibly — just possibly — has in store. More information about it you can find here:
The actual news that we approach comes from Mary Jo Foley. Remember that Microsoft is all about marketing (even AstroTrufing) and now comes this preview of things to come.
Microsoft earmarks another $200 million for Windows advertising
[…]
Fortune explains Microsoft’s image makeover plan, codenamed “FTP168 (with FTP being “Free the People”)…
Microsoft? Freeing the people? Need people be reminded of the hugely-DRM-’enabled’ Windows Vista, WGA, software lock-ins, forced upgrades and other type of menaces?
It’s too early to tell much beyond this, but there might be an obnoxious marketing push on its way — one that will further confuse those who hear about “Open Source” and “Free software”.
Some days ago we complained about the marketing-class ‘articles’ and inaccurate coverage from the BBC. It was all about Gates and Microsoft [1, 2]. Our criticism of Gates glorification is far from unique. Here is what Sam Varghese has just published:
The BBC, Gates and revisionism
[…]
What was appalling about the programme was the lack of any apparent preparation on the part of the interviewer, Fiona Bruce. Gates was able to paint a wonderful revisionist picture of the past and Ballmer actually got away with describing Microsoft as an ethical company.
It is fitting that the BBC decided to feature Gates on its Money programme and not on its Technology programme; after all, Microsoft is first and foremost a marketing company. Technology comes a distant second.
Speaking of marketing, David Kirkpatrick, who is personally close to Microsoft, seems to be doing yet another Microsoft-sympathetic piece over at Fortune.
“Steve Ballmer was sobbing. He repeatedly tried to speak and couldn’t get the words out. Minutes passed as he tried to regain his composure. But the audience of 130 of Microsoft’s senior leaders waited patiently, many of them crying too,” David Kirkpatrick reports for Fortune.
Make no mistake. Yes, they were crying because leaders of the company essentially abandon the ship (even a director left last week), but the article is a portrayal of a humane Microsoft — one you can feel bad for.
In another Wall Street-type publication, the Financial Times, Steve Ballmer has just implicitly acknowledged that Microsoft cannot compete with Free (libre) software in terms of cost and maybe even quality. Watch what he said. (highlight in red is ours)
I’ve got to tell you, in every - other than the battle with Open Source, every other competitor, I love being able to come into a room and saying we’re better and we’re cheaper. We’re going to try to say we’re better and we’re cheaper basically. I don’t think this is sort of the end of the story by any stretch of the imagination, but I think it tells you we’re going to do things a little differently.
More memorable words came from CNET back in February. They will fight GNU/Linux at all costs. █
“[If I ask you who is Microsoft’s biggest competitor now, who would it be?] Open…Linux. I don’t want to say open source. Linux, certainly have to go with that.”
–Steve Ballmer (CNET Interview)
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06.14.08
Posted in Red Hat, Novell, SLES/SLED, Marketing at 5:00 am by Roy Schestowitz
It has been fairly quiet as far as SUSE is concerned. There was this little rave about 3G in SLED 10 SP2 though.
For enterprises wanting to roll out SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 on notebooks, the lack of 3G, or UMTS, wireless broadband card support was an annoying hole compared to the available Windows support.
With the May 21 release of SLED 10 SP2 Novell included a graphical applet and plug-and-play support for wireless broadband in addition to improvements to Network Manager, and support for new hardware devices.
Read the rest of this entry »
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06.04.08
Posted in Law, Microsoft, FUD, Marketing, GPL, FOSS at 7:04 am by Roy Schestowitz
What Brian at Linux Today once labeled “how not to treat your readership [or audience]”
One particular article that was highlighted by Slashdot yesterday serves as a brilliant FUD piece against the GPL. It made the front page. While its aim is to shed light on what becomes an integral part of almost every software, it politely ‘misunderstands’ a few important concepts. Rather than view to the article again, consider reading the following rebuttal.
Irreconcilable conflict between $ and Open Source ?!
[…]
I guess this particular attorney has never heard of Red Hat (aiming for $1 billion in revenue), Oracle (runs its own infrastructure on open source software), Cisco (world’s largest networking vendor that is now backing Linux) and many other for profit vendors that all have somehow RECONCILED open source and profit
But that’s not all. As you may already know, Microsoft sponsors SourceForge Awards. It takes pride as ‘the’ one company which is seemingly running the show with Visual Studio and FUD-invoking ‘prizes’ (the awards of shame). That is still the case. Remember that only Microsoft is listed among the/as a sponsor (nothing has changed since the last time) and now comes even worse FUD from Slashdot (same owners as SourceForge), which portrays open source as potentially illegal.
Nominations Open For “Most Likely to be Shut Down By Government”
The corporate overlords at SourceForge asked me to name a Slashdot category for their upcoming Community Choice Awards and to let you guys select the winner. I have named my category “Most Likely to be Shut Down by a Government Agency.” We’re going to run this like we do an Ask Slashdot call for questions — post your nominations into the comments here. Use moderation to send up good ideas. In the upcoming days we’ll post another story where you can vote on the actual winner. Nominations need to include the project name, a link to some sort of official website, and a paragraph of why you think they deserve to win. The project that wins will gain fame, notoriety, and maybe a cease and desist order that they could print out and frame if they had that kind of time.
It’s funny that Rob Malda begins with “The corporate overlords at SourceForge.” Who are they? Who runs the show? Is it not the sponsors?
Overall, by reading Slashdot, what can one conclude? That open source is anti-profit-making corporations and that any day it might be “shut down by government”? Maybe it’s just flamebait, but it’s happening far too frequently these days. It definitely does not encourage Free software adoption. █
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05.05.08
Posted in Microsoft, GNU/Linux, Novell, Marketing, Patents, Ubuntu at 3:21 am by Roy Schestowitz
As we discover time and time again, Novell sells snake oil not only in countries where software patents are invalid and Microsoft’s claims remain totally unsubstantiated, but also in countries where none of this has any legitimacy. Novell helps Microsoft spread misconceptions and uses these to market itself. It makes it a direct opponent of Free software.
“Novell helps Microsoft spread misconceptions and uses these to market itself.”As Matt Asay repeatedly stresses, consumers did not require Novell’s imaginary ‘protection’, not even if they chose SUSE. It was all just a sales tactic to Novell: create fear out of nothing and then use it to market SUE Linux [sic] while mocking the rest (the competition), along with Microsoft. It’s an appalling strategy.
Jason Brooks has just published an article about this issue of indemnification and he concludes by saying that it is hardly necessary.
Considering that open-source software and processes are serving an increasingly prominent role in the IT industry landscape, and that actual lawsuits against open-source end users haven’t been materializing, I don’t think that companies or individuals running open source without service-fee-based indemnification are in any particular danger.
Maybe I’m wrong–if I get served for running Linux without an annual service contract, I’ll be sure to write about it.
While on this particular subject, it’s worth adding that irregularities are being spotted in the USPTO. As expected, it’s likely to be controlled by various peripheral interests, just like other government-tied establishments such as the DOJ, FTC, FCC and others.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office may have a major problem on its hands — the possibly unconstitutional appointment of nearly two-thirds of its patent appeals judges.
Such a constitutional flaw, if legitimate, could call into question the hundreds of decisions worth billions of dollars in the past eight years. The flaw, discovered by highly regarded intellectual property scholar John Duffy of George Washington University Law School, could also afflict the appointment of nearly half of the agency’s trademark appeals judges.
A petition raising the issue has just been filed in the U.S. Supreme Court by a company whose patent was rejected by a three-judge Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences panel. That panel decision was subsequently affirmed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which set aside an $86.5 million infringement verdict won by the company.
This problem is not unique to or affecting only technology. In absence of proper regulation, it’s only to be expected. █
“Fat operating systems spend most of their energy supporting their own fat.”
–Nicholas Negroponte, MIT Media Lab, rediff.com, Apr 2006
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05.04.08
Posted in Microsoft, GNU/Linux, FUD, Deception, Marketing, OpenDocument, Open XML, Site News at 11:58 am by Roy Schestowitz
Rant alert
We sometimes hear from people who suspect that their Web site or forum’s community is getting poisoned by companies. The following is not necessarily related to the previous post about Microsoft ‘evangelism’, but one we received a couple of hours ago from a known and reliable source reads: “Do you have any way of finding out more about who is employing this shill on behalf of Microsoft?”
“Åtkomst nekad Du har inte behörighet till denna sida,” the request for this page returns, meaning that details are unavailable except for subscribers. LinuxPortalen’s sysadmin would have to provide details about user “plun” somehow, based on what we were told.
In a short conversation that soon developed it came up that Microsoft employs by proxy. “If I understood correctly Waggener Edstrom is [only] one of several (many) marketing firms, but the main one though.”
Watch the news in their front page at the moment:
“Yankee Group Chooses WE [Waggener Edstrom] as its Communications Partner”
Remember the Yankee Group, which we last wrote about just a fortnight ago? The apple doesn’t fall so far from the tree. Increased disinformation activity has been noticed not just here.
A reader points out that “though Microsoft is famous for lobbying / marketing, it isn’t even good at that. Those functions are outsourced. So, Microsoft is good at … well … nothing, except outsourcing.”
We had our share of problems too. This nymshifting troll (mind the comments) caused a lot of pain and hours of lost time. He keeps changing names and he harasses Beranger also.
In previous correspondence said the same reader: “It would also be useful to shoot down the Microsoft “talking points”, the blog entries [on ODF] can help compensate for Microsoft functional ownership of the media. I’d also like to know how Microsoft is gaming Google’s page rank.” (c/f ODF smear campaign, akin to “The Slog”)
“Earlier attempts to hire veterans from firms like Microsoft had awful results. “Google is so different that it was almost impossible to reprogram them into this culture,” says CEO Eric Schmidt.”
–Google Goes Globe-Trotting (2007)
Microsoft was caught spamming (the ‘proper’ way) search engines before and it still does that. It has no guilt or shame. It’s the beautiful naked emperor in its own eyes.
“Microsoft has warned Google to steer clear of corporate search, declaring that the market is “our house”.
[…]
“Those people are not going to be allowed to take food off our plate, because that is what they are intending to do.”"
–Microsoft warns Google off business search (2006)
Further says our reader: “I would appreciate if you could send [share] the link. Since 2004 and onward I’ve mentioned a few times to Google staff about the problem of developing toxic shock. I see former Microsoft employee as largely unreformable and unemployable inside of high-technology for the rest of their careers. However, be that as it may, taking them without a cooling off or acclimitization period at another company means that all the problems at Microsoft transmigrate to Google.”
It is a worrying thought, surely, but it doesn’t quite ring a bell. There was another recent example where Microsoft escorted a Microsoft-to-Google defector out of campus like he was a criminal. It was only mentioned in Microsoft blogs, but not in the mainstream media. Microsoft’s Google envy has spun a little out of control, which brought out vanity as we showed before. It’s a hard problem to solve.
“They use lies, insults, extreme libel and bury everything (comments, submissions) they want to intercept.”Going back to the problem with manipulation of content and search, the reader added: “Google and others could deal with the problem. Rather than let it slide. Google did announce a change in policy a few years back and said that it will interfere with pages and groups gaming their ranking system.
“Back to Slashdot. On Slashdot, for example, there has been a lot of offensive text (coprophilia, homophilia, etc) posted prominently in discussion of articles which strike at the core of the issues. Some of it is more low key, for example towards the bottom of the wiki page on codes, there is a link to a problem in Australia.”
Speaking from personal experience, the same tactics seem to be used in particular newsgroups in USENET, namely the use of vile language that drives readers away. It happens in forums that are focused on Linux or — more broadly — on Free software. The very same people (from the same newsgroups where they have harassed for over a decade) came to Digg.com where they systematically insult me in the same obscene way using libel (see this, for example, because the problem recurred just a couple of days ago). Memories of a recent article spring to mind because it’s not an unusual tactic (even outside technology):
“The activities uncovered by Wikileaks include deleting Guantanamo detainees’ ID numbers from Wikipedia, posting of self-praising comments on news websites in response to negative articles, promoting pro-Guantanamo stories on the Internet news focus website Digg, and even altering Wikipedia’s entry on Cuban President Fidel Castro to describe him as “an admitted transexual” [sic]…
The proof Wikeleaks assembled includes the IP address and whois ownership record for public.jtfgtmo.southcom.mil, which is Guantanamo’s Internet gateway server, google hits on that IP address, a traceroute through a satellite downlink, the whois ownership record for that downlink, links to the defaced Wikipedia entries, links to comments posted at news websites, records of approximately 140 promotions of news articles at Digg, links and quotes about three alleged US military propagandists who are stationed at Guantanamo, and fourteen links to other Wikileaks articles about Guantanamo.”
–US military propaganda team busted (2007)
The personal attacks that you can find in Digg (in my case, from users with the names “kretik”, “flatfish”, “harlowmonkeys” and several more) come from the same people who have harassed advocates of Free software for many years (in some cases for over 8 years with victims re-chosen until they give up or flee). They use lies, insults, extreme libel and bury everything (comments, submissions) they want to intercept. They lurk in Slashdot too and post anonymously sometimes, for a fact (it’s permitted in Slashdot, but not in all popular sites, whose reputation companies attempt to ruin if they dislike the message or topical focus they change).
An interpretation of this broad phenomenon comes from a reader: “That creates several problems, one of which is to turn new people off from both the topic and the site. Another, is that in regions or institutions using corporate censorship products, the site will eventually ease its way into the banned category. Yet another is that it tries to piggyback one issue onto another, unrelated, topic.”
There is a lot more to this and the issue was raised before, e.g. here. In addition, false accusation were made against my Web sites, saying they are the source of DDOS attack. Shades of Sys-Con and Groklaw. Then, my sites got blacklisted by Websense (Groklaw likewise).
“‘Riders’ are not any more appropriate in technology than they are in congress,” concludes the reader. It’s an interesting thing to explore, overall. █
“Ideally, use of the competing technology becomes associated with mental deficiency, as in, “he believes in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and OS/2.” Just keep rubbing it in, via the press, analysts, newsgroups, whatever. Make the complete failure of the competition’s technology part of the mythology of the computer industry. We want to place selection pressure on those companies and individuals that show a genetic weakness for competitors’ technologies, to make the industry increasingly resistant to such unhealthy strains, over time.”
–Microsoft, internal document [PDF]
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« Previous entries ·
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.