Microsoft Impresses Itself Upon the Press
Roy Schestowitz has some astonishing documents up on his site that detail Microsoft's attempts to bend the press to its will:
Stephanie/Kate/Chuck, please find attached the PR response plan for the anticipated OSDL announcement. As discussed in our PR meeting this morning. David & I have spoken with Maureen O’Gara (based on go ahead from BrianV) and planted the story. She has agreed to not attribute the story to us. WaggEd actions include reviewing the positioning, review the proposed buddy mail, review Q&As, etc.
As well as the details of this "planting", there's also a fascinating list of journos and whether they are "negative" or "neutral" towards Microsoft. I'm not included in the list, so it looks like I'll never know what Microsoft think of my writing....
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10 comments:
Think McCarthy era, but instead of democracy vs communism it's pro-corporation, pro-monopoly vs pro-individual, pro-liberty.
"Either you're with us, or we need to think about internment."
Perhaps, like Shostakovich, I should keep a suitcase of clothes ready under my bed, then....
The tricky question though is where will you go?
China?
Corporate reach is pretty extensive, and its grip rather fierce.
I meant it more in the sense of having a suitcase prepared for when they come *to take me away* - just poor old Dmitri did for most of his later life...
Richard Stallman may have unwittingly prepared for the prospects of exile in a visit to Cuba some time ago...
http://blogs.computerworld.com/stallman_on_cuba
For many of the corporate mindset - Free Software = Communism.
But, that's to mistake 'no monopoly'='no property'. Not quite the same as 'no monopoly'='liberty'.
One presumes that people unused to liberty do not see its loss, and so cannot understand the perspective of those who need it.
I saw a lot of Rupert Murdoch's tactics used in promoting Vista. When I came out in late '06 with the claim that it was so bad I was switching full-time to Linux, I was kicked about pretty good. When I followed that up with a review of word processors that concluded that MS-OOXML would be a terrible mistake, I've had nonstop attacks since.
I wouldn't mind so bad the bad coding. But it's long (long!) been Microsoft's hypocrisy that makes you laugh at their facade.
@zaine: you were a pioneer, but today there's an increasingly number of people saying the same, happily.
Stephanie/Kate/Chuck, please check out and register this "Glyn Moody" fellow in the "Negative" -- correction -- "First up against the wall" category.
Stephanie/Kate/Chuck
Oops. I think I typed that in the wrong box.
@Roger: well, I'd certainly demand to be first on the list...
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