Much like the Cult of Apple

I find the attitude of many within the Raspberry Pi community to be strange and offensive.

I first discovered this odd phenomenon (odd because it contradicts the ethos of the project's academic foundations) back when it first started, as many within the Raspberry Pi community took an extremely hostile attitude toward academic freedom, apparently in defence of various parties' highly dubious intellectual monopolies (Broadcom and MPEG-LA, for example).

I pointed out the irony and hypocrisy of their attitude at the time, explaining that they were more than happy to leech Free (as in freedom) Software for their own benefit, but then balked at the prospect of freely sharing the results, and in particular this contradicted their stated academic goal of facilitating better computer education in British schools, an environment that rightly demands open access to knowledge.

In the wake of the death of Joe Barr, Linux.com's editor, I've been reacquainting myself with his work, and his insights into Microsoft's earlier "dirty tricks". I was vaguely familiar with some of this, but it's worth remembering that Microsoft's racketeering techniques are hardly new ... they've been doing this stuff since day one.

I may end up adding this to the collection at Grokdoc's Dirty Tricks History wiki pages, but for now - here's a sample: