Recently, we reported on LibreOffice, accusing Microsoft of intentionally using complex file formats as a tactic to lock in users to Microsoft Office, hindering open source alternatives like LibreOffice. Now, Microsoft has banned LibreOffice developer, Mike Kaganski, from using its services, citing an “activity that violates [its] Services Agreement”.
According to Mike, this happened last Monday when he tried to send a technical email to the LibreOffice dev mailing list, which is a normal part of his routine, but Thunderbird returned an error saying the message couldn’t be sent. His account was blocked upon retry, and he found himself completely logged out of his Microsoft account…
Wasn’t there recently a ban on Distrowatch and certain Linux topics on a bigger social network? And Who was the owner of that network again?
Looks like Big Tech fell out of love with FLOSS after it looked at the GNU manifest and found that their profit interests do not align well any more with a digital civil rights movement. All what they want is people’s work for free, to sell it as theirs.