PSA: Microsoft Shill, Troll and Astroturfer Infiltration

Astroturfing is the practice of masking the sponsors of a message or organization (e.g., political, advertising, religious or public relations) to make it appear as though it originates from and is supported by a grassroots participant(s). It is a practice intended to give the statements or organizations credibility by withholding information about the source's financial connection.

[full disclosure: I am a mainline Linux kernel contributer, GNU/Linux and FreeBSD developer, FOSS advocate, EFF member, Democratic Socialist, oldf4g and /b/tard.]We're starting to see a lot of widespread activity in OSX/Linux support request threads from troll accounts focusing on undermining future support for non-MS operating systems.The content of the majority of these posts seems to be providing some kind of statistical proof (often skewed), anti-Linux editorials or copypasta rhetoric, that Linux support is a bad idea.Moreover, the notion that Linux support would be a bad investment and be unprofitable.This isn't a discussion for users, it's deliberately targeting the mindset of the developer when they presumably read OS request threads, such as these.Again, the real damage being done is to toe the Microsoft anti-competition party line by making competition appear irrelevant and/or scare developers away from them. ["Developers! Developers! Developers!"]Why? Because MS is worried.- Windows 10 is implementing GNU/Bash.- AMD took Mantle to Kronos and MS 'stole' Mantle to make it proprietary.- Windows mobile device market share sucks with ~3% and Android has ~62%.- A Stack Overflow Developer Survey predicts a less than 50% desktop share next year.- Windows has a massive lead on Desktop share... and desktop sales are falling.- Windows has a massive lead Games...- And developers who support iOS, Ardroid, Linux and OSX are rising...- The gaming market is the strongest glue they have to keep the desktop majority share.Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, et al.what keeps people buyin into them:What does M$ do when exclusivity is threatened?Enter Microsoft Technology Evangelist:Microsoft directly employs an army of trolls to do exactly this.These are real positions at MS known as Technology Evangelists (TE's) or Developer Evangelists (DE's):These people are literally paid by MS to troll Mac/Linux users in hopes to injure adoption rates of [percieved] competitor products. This is commonly known asThis is not a conspiracy theory. I work in the industry, I've lived near the Redmond/Bellvue area, I've even met some of these assholes in person. They've infiltrated mailing lists and occationally show up to GNU/Linux conferences just to disrupt productivity.Microsoft has spentif not over aof USD to try to disrupt Linux growth. Remember the SCO lawsuit? MS financed that with overMicrosoft TEs and DEs have been called "unethical" by the media more than once. And they've been doing this for nearly two decades.If you buyfrom Microsoft, you're helping to pay these guys salaries.The best strategy here is to expose these guys, but don't directly engage them. Don't give them that legitimacy.If you DO want to respond in some way, let the devs know what their agenda is and that they're at the end of a multi-million dollar effort to be manipulated into sustaining the monopoly a multi-billion dollar corporation.> inb4 Linux shill> inb4 Greenlight troll> inb4 sjw> inb4 Stallman> inb4 private profile> inb4 Vitriol means [...] ofc