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1. Fabio Manganiello (blacklight@social.platypush.tech)'s status on Sunday, 17-Jul-2022 08:17:33 UTC Fabio Manganiello

   UEFI is a technological disaster that has stifled innovation and competition for years just to let Microsoft hold a monopolistic position on x86 hardware, while providing basically ZERO added value when it comes to additional user security.

   And #Microsoft requiring Lenovo tablets to ONLY boot Windows proves that, behind of all their "Microsoft ♥ open-source" marketing bullshit, Microsoft remains a deeply evil and parasitic company with no added value to the world, a filthy wolf disguised as a sheep, and a cancer that needs to be eradicated from this planet.

   Seriously Microsoft, you first ask the FLOSS community to forgive you for being absolute greedy monopolistic jerks for three decades, you promised that you were a different company now, you even managed to convince many of us that you've changed, and then you come up with this shit? How can Microsoft employees even sleep at night without feeling guilty for working for one of the greatest parasites in the tech world?

   https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/60248.html

   • Bernie (codewiz@mstdn.io)'s status on Sunday, 17-Jul-2022 08:17:31 UTC Bernie

     in reply to

     @blacklight I largely agree, and would boost this post if it didn't throw around "parasite" in this hyperbolic manner.

     They're still resorting to anti-competitive tactics, yes.

     This doesn't benefit consumers, yes.

     I know where you're coming from, but using more measured terms would make our point sound much more agreeable to people who use Windows exclusively and don't care about Linux.

     "rent-seeking behavior", perhaps?
     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking

   • Bernie (codewiz@mstdn.io)'s status on Sunday, 17-Jul-2022 08:20:35 UTC Bernie

     in reply to

     @blacklight Oh, and btw... I also agree that UEFI is an enormous annoyance with zero added value over the classic BIOS.

     For example:
     https://mstdn.io/@codewiz/108143768740573488

   • Bernie (codewiz@mstdn.io)'s status on Sunday, 17-Jul-2022 18:49:36 UTC Bernie

     in reply to

     @blacklight You're describing a number of negative behaviors that have better names:

     Benefiting from open source code while disparaging it is hypocrisy.

     Bundling products with Windows to sabotage competitors and open standards might be "predatory" and "anti-competitive" behavior, but why parasitic?

     Using code hosted on Git Hub to train a model is fair game: anyone can do it under the same open source licensing terms. Looking forward for a neovim copilot plugin 🙂

   • Fabio Manganiello (blacklight@social.platypush.tech)'s status on Sunday, 17-Jul-2022 18:49:38 UTC Fabio Manganiello

     in reply to

     • Bernie

     @codewiz I don't think that the term parasite is an exaggeration. If you look at the history of Microsoft, from Gates' initial letter to the hobbyists, to the BSD code that they got into the NT kernel, to their multiple attempts to cannibalize JavaScript and the web's open standards in order to ensure IE dominance, to that great theft of FLOSS code that is the WSL, to the acquisition of Github just to use years of open-source projects just to train their models and offer products that no other competitors can offer, you'll see the history of a company modeled around the embrace-extend-exterminate principle, a company that greatly benefits from open code and open standards, and used them to get where they are today, but doesn't want to give anything back - on the contrary, they make their best to ensure the demise of the projects and tools that ensured their success.

     To me, this is the textbook definition of a parasite: it can't exist without a host environment feeding it, but at the same time it contributes to the destruction of that environment.