Showing headlines posted by schestowitz

Don’t fall for the whole “Open Source has won!” spiel; You know we’ve lost the battle (and were in effect gradually conquered) at OSI and elsewhere when those who speak for the OSI are Michael Cheng (Facebook), Max Sills (Google), and Chris Aniszczyk (Linux Foundation); they say “Open Source Under Attack” (FOSDEM talk) but their employers are the ones attacking and they downplay openwashing

The so-called ‘Linux’ Foundation (LF) nowadays helps Microsoft cement its monopoly — the very opposite of what ages ago it said the LF would do

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is rotting away as an advocate against software patents; Patents on algorithms are still being granted (even when courts repeatedly reject these) and Red Hat’s Chief Patent Counsel remains Manny Schecter, one of the loudest proponents of such patents (citing the likes of Adam Mossoff this week, in effect Koch operatives); this is a very big problem because Free software projects come under a barrage of lawsuits, using patents like those IBM lobbies ferociously to legitimise

The “OS war” may be over (Linux — typically with GNU — as de facto standard in most technical sectors including Microsoft's), so the war on this inevitable paradigm change has shifted to licensing and GitHub is a major attack vector

Microsoft’s decades-long modus operandi has been forgotten by far too many (possibly unknown to the younger generation); it’s worth reminding ourselves how it works

Free software” is a confusing name/term. The “free” here means freedom. So it is freedom software. But to exercise freedom you need something more. What is that? You have to own the software. Therefore, free software is about ownership of software.

We continue to see additional evidence which serves towards reinforcing our view that the so-called ‘Linux’ Foundation is actually hostile towards many things that are associated with Linux (unlike those looking to exploit/hijack Linux for proprietary ends)

Thomas Grzybowski’s explanation of why GitHub poses a risk to software freedom and what can be done about it

New letter to the founder of GNU and the FSF; the authors “wish to have it published as an open letter as well.”

Microsoft keeps buying ad space in magazines, compromising their integrity and tarnishing brands such as "Linux" (making it look like merely a component available with Vista 10)

Packages such as systemd (“packages” would be an understatement — that’s like calling Linux a “package”) present a new kind of threat, which some in the community have dubbed “Open Source Proprietary Software” (or “OSPS” for short); we need prominent groups and projects to highlight the nature of this threat, which serves to promote monopolies (open gateway into complexity, aided by silence and complicity)

Faking of “openness” in the LMS space; the case study [pun intended] of Latitude Learning

The media mostly stopped talking about Bill Gates using Jeffrey Epstein as his 'mule' (passing millions of dollars to MIT) the moment the police was contacted for all the information pertaining to pedophilia at his home; shortly afterwards Richard Stallman was ejected from MIT (forced resignation)

Why the best name for the best operating system would be “GNU”, not “Linux” (media has twisted the words so as to marginalise GNU and its politics/philosophy)

We need to stand for the freedom to not use the software — we need to enjoy that freedom without giving up the rest of the existing Free software ecosystem.

"From now onwards we have to think from a user’s rights perspective and mobilise users of Free software. They should know what rights they ought to get."

Richard Stallman (RMS) is not in charge of the FSF anymore (it’s Stallman who created the FSF) and there’s risk the decisions will be made by people who don’t share Stallman’s ethics or the FSF’s spirit

OpenChain Specification/OpenChain Project and Automated Compliance Tooling (ACT) are yet more examples -- the latest of many -- of the Linux Foundation being outsourced to Microsoft, not only for code but also documentation and hosting

Microsoft and its boosters (and media partners) haven’t grown tired of spreading falsehoods to stigmatise and take control of GNU/Linux by creating their own versions and traps for it

The Winux Foundation: One can leverage the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine to better understand how, over time, the Foundation called “Linux” deviated or diverged away from its mission statement for the sole purpose of raising corporate funds and selling influence to corporations (passing the community’s hard work to them — a form of tacit privatisation)