What Free Software, Linux and Microsoft Have Taught Us

“Starting with the second kind of lesson, Microsoft in
particular has taught us a lot about how the world works. We’ve
seen that when profits are threatened, corporations will not limit
themselves to “competition in the marketplace”, but will try
whatever tactics they can get away with to crush the threat. We’ve
seen that among these tactics, propaganda and misinformation can be
mobilized very effectively in ways that are hard to counter even
with a very vigorous grassroots community communication effort.
That has given Free Software proponents a view of the media that
many people are unaware of: the depth of the influence money has on
what is typically said, the ways columnists and similar speakers
can be paid off or themselves deceived, the impact of advertisers
on the coverage of many media outlets. But this isn’t a lesson
about Microsoft or the computer industry, this is a lesson about
society as a whole: Any time you see media coverage of an issue and
some opinion seems to be rapidly becoming the conventional wisdom,
you can ask yourself–who could make money from that position? Who
has media clout and needs to stave off a threat? Who’s the
Microsoft here?”

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