muckrights-sans-merde
bonum fabula frat
### muckrights-gets-sentimental-over-osi
other pages:
=> muckrights-isnt-largely-skewed-to-the-right.html muckrights-isnt-largely-skewed-to-the-right
*originally posted:* sep 2021
muckrights has spent the past year or more talking about open source being taken over (its actually being used to take over free software) but right now they really have their fingers crossed for osi: http://techrights.org/2021/09/08/stefano-maffulli-statement/
actually muckrights probably has its fingers crossed behind its back, because i dont believe for a second that they trust osi, but they still want to suck up to them for a minute. shall we come along for the ride, or hit eject?
> Things have not been rosy since OSI started taking Microsoft money (Simon Phipps, for example, stopped condemning Microsoft for its patent blackmail)
wow, muckrights REALLY. REALLY, REALLY believes in second chances. also 19th and 20th chances-- phipps and simmons both signed the anti-stallman letter, osi was acting corrupt long before sfc (i consider both organisations to be traitors, but osi is more like a scam) and osi started off on such a bad footing that bruce perens resigned the year after it was founded, saying that open source had "overshadowed" free software and that this was never right.
free software believing in osi in 2021 is a bit like native americans believing in the american government in the 21st century. if only we could go back and do it over, im sure we would learn from our mistakes. but arent there enough already? in any vote of no confidence that matters, muckrights typically abstains. roy even thought the name "boycott novell" was too negative. it was about a boycott, of novell. maybe it should have been called "NOVELL SHOULD CHANGE!"
> There are positives in today's announcement about new OSI leadership (or full-time member of staff), but time will tell if promise turns into concrete results
i asked time, and it told: osi fucks us again. how do i know? they always do.
with all the times muckrights has written about microsoft-driven "charm offensives" (the corporate equivalent of "narcissistic hoovering") im a little surprised (but not a lot) that they are being suckered or pretending to be suckered by this one. ibm and osi have both done a lot of "restructuring" (sacking) lately, and if you make it look like a GOOD thing, you can do even more of it and look less like the titanic.
dont get me wrong, osi SHOULD sack everyone. and fold. and apologise to the world for ever being founded in the first place. but its beside the point, because when corporations do bad things (and osi is a corporation and acts like one, regardless of what type) they always try to spin it to look like a public good.
i dont think roy is really suckered by this, but hes either being played as a sucker or playing his readers for suckers. its at least mildly offensive to promote such a corrupt institution at this point, but muckrights is still free to do so. the thing is, its based on lies either on his side or theirs-- the question then isnt of offense or not, only which party deserves the bulk of the complaint.
> The new chief/leader at the OSI (some press release/ media/coverage we've found so far is rather shallow, as were congratulatory "tweets") deserves the benefit of the doubt.
seems like a pretty easy way to reputation-wash isnt it? just chuck out a nasty president and replace with someone less offensive? i wonder if ibm could fool muckrights the same way. probably not...
> He didn't sign the defamation letter against RMS and over the years he was mostly decent.
and under maffulli, we can even speculate that osi will suck just slightly less! but since theyre fucking hideous, this will make them what? slightly less sold out to microsoft? slightly less at war with free software? slightly less corrupt? get out those chequebooks, folks! the fsf has stopped fighting for your freedom and osi made a point of avoiding it from day 1, but its still tax-deductible!
> I've followed him for many years and I've seen no reason to question his integrity or his sincerity.
id say the fact that hes willing to lend it to osi is a bad sign for both, really.
> His contacts/connections are also decent people. Can the OSI still be redeemed? We certainly hope so
you DO? dont stop there, maybe you can get bigfoot and the loch ness monster in as gold sponsors.
> , having witnessed an influx of proprietary software interests in the Board and the management.
yes, its called selling out. it doesnt generally happen in reverse, particularly when the selling out started more than two decades ago when the organisation was founded, and has only grown to take over and further co-opt free software ever since. but i do want to know what roy was high on when he wrote that. (asking for a friend).
> The OSI clearly needs to change;
osi and sfc can both make a substantial and positive change by closing their doors and dissolving their charters, since they have forever abandoned their mission.
this is like that article about ibm changing. seriously? theyve been the same since the 1940s. this is ridiculous...
> but not in the direction/trajectory it has been changing in recent years.
slash, decades.
> Go back to your roots/goals (they amended their mission statement very recently and announced that earlier this week).
so... back from no longer pretending to give a shit about free software to still pretending they give a shit?
> For those who rush to judge the OSI, be patient;
tolerating 20 years of nearly-100%-pure bullshit is more than patient, "fucking daft" might be a better way to put it. (if we are being charitable, then at least "naive").
> we've not seen any evidence yet of the new chief doing something bad.
relevance?
> It's unfair to judge proactively.
muckrights is selling out free software to open source, not for the first time. i would go as far as to say that muckrights was always about "open source" and only pretends to be about free software-- but then, thats exactly what open source does.
> One reader of ours wrote to say "OSI staff driven -> dependent" (on sponsors), but that's the sort of challenge they need to tackle.
keeping up appearances. osi talking about tackling corporate sponsors is as fake as ibm talking about diversity, or muckrights talking about osi changing.
> They sort of sold out in recent years
decades...
> as they became more than 95% dependent on corporate cash, not individual supporters, as per their IRS filings.
NINETY FIVE PERCENT! its practically 100, with a margin of error for "maybe, maybe we give a shit!"
osi: "we give five percent of a fuck"
microsoft: "we give them more than that!"
microsoft founder: "five percent should be good enough for anybody" (misquoted for parody)
> The salary of the new chief thus depends on the corporate sponsors (same problem in the Linux Foundation ),
whats FUNDAMENTALLY hilarious about the official statement from muckrights is-- they took the one thing osi was hoping to prove didnt even matter anymore (ie whoever the chief is) and turned it into the reason we can trust them (maybe, this time) again.
osi: we have a new chief, but now the board and leadership matter less!
muckrights: the new chief (the one that doesnt even matter, says osi) is probably okay! lets wait and see!
so really, muckrights-- relevance?
> which will be harder to challenge/criticise without risk of retaliation. But it needs to be done every now and then.
for show.
> To be very clear, Stefano is historically not on Microsoft's side.
he is now.
> Here is what he wrote last year compared to 14 years ago (responding to the FSFE). Stefano was the Italian Chancellor of the FSFE back when the FSFE wasn’t a front group for monopolies like Google with Microsoft cash on its lap. FSFE might be beyond redemption. Can Stefano correct/undo the OSI’s mistakes?
all 20-something years of them? is that really meant as a serious question?
> As a matter of priority, let's hope that the OSI's boosting of GitHub will come to an end.
that would be interesting-- if while the fsf continued to drift towards github, osi, out of all possibilities, was the one to take a firm stance.
i wouldnt believe it though. i mean literally, i wouldnt believe it. everything osi does is for show, its bullshit. if they came out against github it would be for 5 minutes, and publicity. open source is a bait and switch scam: bait with free software, switch to more proprietary bullshit.
> Let’s hope Stefano will realise that devoting more than half of the OSI’s budget to proprietary software ( ClearlyDefined budget, according to Josh Simmons) is a mistake.
it wouldnt matter if he did realise that. hes not going to change the very essence of open source, which is to co-opt free software.
> He needs to question this misuse of funds and then change the OSI’s direction.
what part of osi demoting its own leadership positions did muckrights not get? (granted thats probably bullshit too, but hardly an indication that one person can just come in and "redeem" corruption that comes from several megacorporations). this isnt even a muckrights fluff piece, fluff is less ridiculous than this.
> We certainly hope he's not falling for any of that "Microsoft loves Linux" nonsense (lie).
oh, okay. dont worry folks, roy knows theyre bullshitting. but if you skip the conclusion, you might think hes serious.
> Just to be very clear, Microsoft's patent blackmail carries on, but it is better disguised (secret deals, Azure “IP” “advantage” etc.) and journalism is pretty much dead by now, so any actual facts get drowned in an ocean of PR (like "Microsoft loves Linux").
seriously though, why does muckrights write a "statement on" anything, and save the true statements for the last paragraph?
> Microsoft isn’t reviled in the Free software world because of “hatred” or due to envy; it’s reviled in many circles for its deeply criminal behaviour, which has not changed .
oh, wait, back to bullshit:
> It includes entryism and the OSI must recognise this. The sooner, the better.
honestly, you can tell roys phd isnt in engineering. you cant anchor that much crap to a couple of lines that are true and expect it not to fall over. theres reality, theres bullshit, and once again muckrights takes things we ought to know better about by now and blurs the lines between the two.
i guess thats how muckrights fights for your freedom-- the same way the tax-free software foundation does these days-- by seeing how much bullshit they can throw onto one page, and how much of it you can manage to take seriously.
its too late for april 1. did i get suckered by a parody article the same way roy believes the leader of joseon and the pussycats is doing lines of coke off the statue of liberty these days? muckrights is the tech blog that makes parody obsolete.
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