Microsoft can be trusted: NOT!

How do you know you've written a good blog? Well of course, a high number of comments and talkbacks are a nice indication, but it only means that many people like what you've written. "News story of the day" is nice too, but that is still not what I want. No, I know I've written a good blog when I keep on adding links. That means to me that I'm really on to something.

The kinds of blog that interest me less are those where I keep on flogging dumb or corrupt editors. And there are just too many of them. One reader of my blogs suggested we should create a "Razzy Award" for worst editor of the year. My nominee of the week is Neil McAllister, given his line of recent articles with Microsoft FUD ridden titles like:

1. Open source is entangled in .Net
2. Open source needs a profit motive
3. Forget about open source at Apple
4. Can't open source and Microsoft just get along?

Fortunately, DC Parris saved me by writing a better article than I could ever have done. You are dumb if you still don't catch the drift of the FOSS community. We are not swallowing our pride, we are not taking backseats and we won't stop doing what we've been doing so far. You're corrupt if you're letting yourself be used by the Dark Force to spread FUD disguised as editorials.

Speaking of the Dark Force, it seems that Neil is really hooked on satanic stuff (this is his homepage). Note that these 'Black Metal' guys are not your average metal fan: they burn churches, promote suicide, and are generally racist and anti-Christian! Well, I must admit, his personal ideas are ideologically very close to those of the FOSS community! NOT!

Corruption of computer magazines? Far-fetched? I don't think so. Correction. I know it is not far-fetched. If you happen to live in Europe, you may have seen many computer magazines this summer that included the Microsoft Office 2007 test suite on CD. You may have bought such a magazine and wondered why they were so friendly to Microsoft.

Well, that is not an accident. Those magazines signed an agreement, that they would offer their articles to Microsoft for "proof reading and comment". And in order to make these stupid editors understand what they should write, Microsoft sends them a "manual for editors" so they can produce "allowed contents". If Microsoft proposes any "changes" concerning "incorrect information on the product", those editors should "cooperate" with the software giant. It stresses that it just wants to "avoid misrepresentation of Microsoft and/or its products". Needless to say, that Microsoft will not allow any other software on the free CD, let alone abominations like Open Office.

"You're kidding me". No I'm not kidding you. This is the company that recently stated that they are "people (..) with unwavering integrity", and a "collective commitment to ethical business practices". "These Standards of Business Conduct provide information (..) to help you make good, informed business decisions". Emphasis added.

That was even too much for "Computerbild", part of the (sic) right wing Springer concern. The editors didn't sign the contact and consequently didn't bring the Office 2007 CD. Instead, they made the scandal public. "This agreement is a huge intervention in the editorial freedom." said Hans-Martin Burr, editor in chief "It's like signing the death sentence of independent journalism".

I must say, I've been researching my "Hasta la Vista" series for almost a year now, and only too many links have disappeared from the web. You will say that is not unusual. True. But especially where large, online magazines are concerned, you'd expect the oldest articles to disappear first. Untrue. Even some individual pages have been altered, some comments withdrawn or modified. I don't have any real proof for this – I really have to stress this – but it is suspicious to say the least.

I've been forced to delve into Google's cache in order to retrieve some articles or fragments of articles. Nowadays, I copy the entire article and its link in order to be safe. I'm convinced these are no incidents or coincidences. May be one time a Microsoft employee will come forward and confirm this story. "You can fool some people all the time, you can fool all the people for some time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time." Abraham Lincoln said and I still believe that to be true.

Another reader wondered whether I got paid for writing blogs like this. No, I do not get paid. This is right from the heart. If somebody offers me money to write a blog one time or another, I probably stop writing at all, do the final payments on my mortgage and retire. Yeah, Neil – my dear anti-Christ – you were so right: Microsoft can be trusted.. NOT! Excuse all the blood. ;-)

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[coin]

Good eye-opener.
Reminds me of the Halloween documents, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_documents

Also makes me wonder whether Nikolai Bezroukov's attacks on Open Source (as expressed within CatB) in his http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue4_12/bezroukov/ were somehow blessed by Microsoft.

[Winston Smith]

"InfoWorld editor and MS apologist worships Satan and advocates the burning of Churches".

I couldn't have made that up in a million years.

What else does this guy do? Does he eat babies, too?

Encore!

Cheers,

Winston

[d0nk3y]

Oh....my.....goodness! That's just freaky with the whole Satanic thing. Good grief!

What an eye opener that was...