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You are a stupid troll. I didn't say they said "music sharing" was legal, I said they basicly said it was okay for the "fans" to do it. I can't find the specific article, but this one talks around it. In the article, their lawyer says: "But I don't think Metallica is going to sue fans, period, unless there's been wholesale infringement."

In the article I was looking for, someone from the RIAA said they didn't want to prosecute any "fans", but go after universities (for merely providing internet access!) and Napster. It's apparently much older, because it was before Metallica even sent names to Napster. (and just getting people banned from one service doesn't do much to stop the illegal activity.)

If they really wanted the blatant copyright infringement to stop, they could've sent letters threatening to sue. It worked for Verison when they did it to webmasters of Star Trek fan web sites. The RIAA's inaction against the people actually doing the crime has led to such myths that it is "fair use" to copy entire CDs and movies over the internet without permission as long as one doesn't profit. Plus many of the people know it's illegal don't care because they think no one will try to punish them.

The backhanded methods of DMCA complains, suing service providers, distribuing trojaned CDs, flooding the networks with crap, &etc have just made the problems worse. Many people don't respect them or their copyrights anymore. If they would have acted resonably and appropriately, some people would have probably even helped by reporting infringers. Even if they started suing and prosecuting those who are actually doing the infringing, they won't do much good, and they'll have an uphill battle.

Most of those service providers they sued or tried to sue didn't even do anything wrong. Just think if this mess happened ten or twenty years ago. We wouldn't have HTTP, FTP, email, or any other networking protocols, (or probably even hard drives / CD burners) because they may potentially be used to infringe copyrights.

I suppose the arrest of those cadets at the US Naval Academy for sharing music was a sign of music publishers "approval" of file sharing.

They were arrested? Where was that story? The one I read said they were kicked out of school, and it was very recent. See above why it isn't effective at this point. Most people who read it probably didn't care--even if they were hardcore Napster users hosting Metallica songs.

Unless you are completely delusional, there is no way that you can assert and signifigant percentage of Kazaa traffic is used to distribute material other than pirated music, porn, and software.

For a while the same could be said about HTTP. You are using that protocol to download the pages off this site. Do you think we should make the web illegal too?

What's wrong with porn? Maybe in Taliban infested areas they'll arrest you or kill you for possessing it, but I see nothing wrong with it, and in areas the Taliban is weak, it is perfectly legal.

Here's a better link to story, sans linkspam:

http://news.com.com/2102-1001-984202.html

COE? Here's the link to their homepage:

http://diicoe.disa.mil/coe/

Admins! Get your fucking heads out of your asses and check to see if something is linkspam before posting it. This isn't the first time. Someone is making money from the click through.
Fuck them.

Saying there isn't going to be a lawsuit

Figure I'd toss in my 1/50 of a Euro at current exchange rates.

The "accidentally stumbles" argument is bullcrap.

Remember "Whitehouse.com"?

:)

-T

Here too.

None are available right now, but Sony announced that they will make "future Clie handhelds" with USB On-The-Go capability. Sony has a history of introducing new models every few months, so a USB On-The-Go Model might be available this year.

The real depressing thing about this is that I have been planning to develop on .NET. I don't know about anyone else, but I have been happy with the way Microsoft has been pursuing its .NET strategy (at least the development environment, the framework, and so on), namely working towards standards.

I like developing on Windows as long as the tools are good, and despite the early bugginess of VS .NET, I have been pretty happy working with it and the .NET framework. I was planning on rewarding Microsoft for doing the right thing with their .NET strategy through paying for their software in future projects (I have been training on it for a while now). I understand their aim to have domain over some of their ideas, but IIRC they were working to make this beast an international standard, not to close competition. I think this is a step backward. Of course, it is hard for me to understand the entire patent request, so maybe they are not requesting too much. Nonetheless, why would they even do this? It just seems like a bad PR move given the fact that people are already pissed off enough to migrate toward Linux, and are getting more aggravated. Alas, may the USPTO use some wisdom.

Which is why we over at OSNews had a conversation about what was basically a database over a filesystem. The pieces are there, scattered over different filesystems, from VMS to ReiserFS. Novell,Unix, and Windows. A lightweight database, transparent by workings, but not by power. Why worry about a seperate database, when it's integrated into the system proper?
---
.Net patent could stifle standards effort

Looking further at the troubles with the e-gov-os conference and after reviewing the opinions of Bruce Perens, Richard Stallman, David Sugar, Jay Sulzburger, David Wheeler, Stanley Klein, Chalu Kim, Claus Srensen, Jason Faulkner, Russell McOrmond, Louis Suarez-Potts, David A. Hammond and others, comments which have expanded over 10 mailing lists, and which have generated a few hundred private emails to me in my private email box, I'm forced to draw several conclusions.

First, as President of NYLXS and President of New Yorkers for Fair Use, my primary concern is two fold:

First, in my role as President of NYLXS, my primary goal is to cater to the needs of the membership, and the extended constituency of the organization, the Free Software development community and users in the New York City area. In truth, all organizations have a primary responsibility to their constituencies. It is time for others to look at their constituency and see how they are serving them. An organization which doesn't serve a constituency is an organization in name only.

Secondly, as an individual citizen and active member of the Free Software movement, I'm concerned with broad policy decisions of others in regards to individual rights with in our digitalized communications network. I'm focused on practical activities which protect the freedom of individuals and empower individuals and communities in education, government and business.

These are the only two prisms in which I can view the planned events of EgovOS conference.

I tend to be very thorough and deliberate in my conclusions. When I work through the process of developing activities and actions, or when I write in regard to issues of importance in a proper fashion for publication, or when I give a formal opinion piece representing any of our organizations journals, radio shows, public speeches, or other formalized media outlets, I bring to bear on that presentation, not only thorough research of the issue and much consultation, but also my 30 years of political and practical experience in affecting positive political and social outcomes.

I bring this same effort to this current letter, which I am opening up to the public and which will be published on http://fairuse.nylxs.com and which will be included in the coming NYLXS Journal.

First, let's look at the stated goals of the sponsored event. As listed on htttp://www.egovos.org/, the goals of this conference is:

Open Source for National and Local eGovernment Programs in the U.S. and EU

Goals:

1. the presentation of best practices

2. raising awareness

3. sharing of experiences among policy makers, donors, users/consumers, universities, and industry specialists in Open Source, e-Government and related fields.

NYLXS has, for a couple of years, worked to sell Free Software on both the local, New York City Level and in the Federal Government. We'll had a variety of experiences in this regard, many of them very negative. As such, this conference seems to be important to the economic and political health of the NYLXS membership, including The Free Software Chamber of Commerce, our Public Educational initiative in New York City Public Schools, and New Yorkers for Fair Use. Our direct prosperity as a community is tied to the stated goals of the conference, and in fact, members of the Free Software Chamber of Commerce had prepared to make presentations at the conference. It was the concerns of members of the Free Software Chamber of Commerce which brought the problems which have enveloped the conference to my attention.

The main problem is the participation of Microsoft as a speaker and presenter at the conference. In a previous email, I have already listed the problems that Microsoft presents. But for the sake of making this a complete document, I will reiterate them and expand upon the Microsoft issue.

First of all, Microsoft is a reckless company which operates above the law. It has recently been convicted twice for antitrust activities, and has been guilty of numerous other illegal competitive practices which have gone without prosecution. http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/ms_index.htm is a rundown of the current conviction of Microsoft for antitrust actions which is still going through the courts. Microsoft was not only determined have acted illegally in regard to browser technology, but they have also had their CEO, Bill Gates, lie under oath. The testimony can be searched here:

http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/video/gates/

http://www.broadcast.com/news/billgates/

investigation of his perjury is here:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/24990.html

http://news.ft.com/ft/gx.cgi/ftc?pagename=View&c=A rticle&cid=FT3MLEDHF0D&live=true&useoverridetempla te=ZZZUGORQ00C&tagid=ZZZNSJCX70C&subheading=global

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/tech/DailyNews/msdo j991107.html

They even doctored their prepared testimony which got much press:

http://www.idg.net/crd_microsoft_67162.html and to quote:

Chase's testimony last week struck a note similar to the previous week's fiasco over a Microsoft videotaped demonstration. Government attorney David Boies had scored by pointing out inconsistent details in a videotape, submitted by Microsoft as evidence, that showed that Microsoft had used multiple PCs to film a demo the company first implied was a seamless segment filmed on one computer. U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson said he did not believe that the Microsoft witness who had testified to the truthfulness of the tape lied about it, but trial observers said the incident undermined the defense's credibility.

Further discussion of the Gate's Perjury includes http://groups.google.com/groups?q=Bill+Gates+testi mony+Perjury&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&selm=nobody-060200 2327560001%40adsl-209-233-20-69.dsl.snfc21.pacbell .net&rnum=5

In fact, this reprint of the original Ziff Davis Net article with a John Hall interview is in my private archive of resources. The article quotes Mad Dog Hall as properly urging the government to jail Bill Gates for his illegal activities:

http://www2.mrbrklyn.com/resources/johnhall-ms.h tml

Microsoft has competed unfairly with Borland, FoxPro, Netscape, Sun, Apple among others. They have actively pursued a business plan designed to strip individuals and organization from the fruits of their efforts by tweaking the desktop making others products function worse than Microsoft's products. They have repeatedly hindered the empowerment of people and prevented the empowerment of individuals, especially negatively impacting disenfranchised communities, such as those that NYLXS represents in Brooklyn, and the City of New York. 60 minutes even broadcast a show which showed to fear that developers have of Microsoft and the expectations of these developers to be damaged by their 'Partner'

Of the many corporations in the global economy, Microsoft alone has distinguished itself as a proactive opponent to Free Software.

Things began to heat up with the Halloween Papers.

http://www.opensource.org/halloween/

Microsoft then made a frontal attack on the Free Software Foundations GPL, the most potent tool which protects the community from hostile activities by businesses and individuals who wish to destroy our ability to collaborate.

This article by The Register at http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/25891.html

looks at how DRM (trusted computing) attacks the GPL.

This certification scheme will rip the guts out of the GPL. That is, the minute I begin tinkering with my software, my ability to interface with the Great PKI in the Sky will be broken. I'll have a Linux box with a GPL, all right; but if I exercise the license in any meaningful way I'll render my system 'unauthorized for Palladium' and lose business. So instead, I imagine I'll be turning to my vendor for support, updates, modifications and patches. And I'll be dependent on them for support services at whatever price they can wheedle out of me because I dare not lose my Palladium authorization. I wonder if the cost of ownership of an open-source system will actually be lower than the cost of a proprietary system under such circumstances.

Prior to this, Microsoft's Craig Mundie made several false statements against the GPL at New York University.

Some of the most successful OSS technology is licensed under the GNU General Public License or GPL. The GPL mandates that any software that incorporates source code already licensed under the GPL will itself become subject to the GPL. When the resulting software product is distributed, its creator must make the entire source code base freely available to everyone, at no additional charge. This viral aspect of the GPL poses a threat to the intellectual property of any organization making use of it. It also fundamentally undermines the independent commercial software sector because it effectively makes it impossible to distribute software on a basis where recipients pay for the product rather than just the cost of distribution.

Microsoft had mailed to every IT director in the US brochures which vilified the GPL, the Free Software movement, and by extension, the Open Source advocates. These mailings contained blatant lies about the contribution of Free Software to the economy and threatened IT directors and developers with unfounded negative consequences if they deploy or use Free Software. The recent GPL FAQ, for example, has the following excerpt:

1. Have your lawyers read the GPL (and the LGPL)? Because the GPL is so frequently misunderstood and because it attempts, under certain circumstances, to impose significant obligations on licensees and their intellectual property rights, no responsible business should use GPL software without ensuring that its lawyers have read the license and explained the business rights and obligations. They should also review and explain the Lesser General Public License, or LGPL, a related license that is sometimes used with open source libraries.

Businesses every day uses Microsoft Software and the software of others which contain intrusive and abusive licensing which is directly in conflict with logical business practices. They would never be accepted by legal teams if the process was open to genuine contract negotiation. The contracts with Microsoft foists on businesses through its abusive monopoly powers constrains segments which allow the disabling of the software and intrudes on the private ownership of data and systems by businesses which purchase Microsoft products today. This is in addition to the clauses which waves them from any responsibility for damages done to business through security violations or the failure of products to perform according to their expectations. And then they sponsored UCITA to make sure that downloaded software from Free Software vendors can not get the same level of protection in a blatant effort to damage efforts of distributors of Free Software to comply with the GPL.

Microsoft has been such an aggressive enemy of Free Software, and the general public that they have used the BSA to do witch hunts against users and business.

They have threatened lawsuits against those who have reversed engineered their document formats They moved their free font access because users downloaded them for Free Software systems. They have proposed a DRM system designed to circumvent the freedom of Free Software development. They have fixed benchmarking studies versus Free Software systems. They have obstructed the legally required refund for operating systems which are forced on consumers with preinstalled systems. They built spyware into their multimedia players, twisted the Java programming language to be incompatible with the implementation on other platforms, refused to release products on Free Software platforms, which includes Microsoft Internet Explorer, introduced in NT4 service pack 3 changes to the SMB protocols to make it break with the Free Software SAMBA product, built back doors into in it's CryptoAPI, deliberately broke the Opera Web Browser when used with the MSN network, have brought down the internet through viruses TWICE in the last year, supported DRM in concert with Record Labels

( http://rss.com.com/2100-1023-983017.html?type=pt&p art=rss&tag=feed&subj=news ),

broke basic TCP/IP protocols with IE5 and IIS

( http://grotto11.com/blog/slash.html?+1039831658 ), advertised recently for advanced Free Software administrators to work for Microsoft in order to create a strategy to force businesses off of Free Software, and more.

Overall, Microsoft alone as a corporation has distinguished itself as an entity which, as a core business policy, is set to enslave Free Software and the general population. Their mission is to dehumanize and embarrass our membership, and to impoverish our community.

This body of evidence would be enough to reject out of hand the entry of Microsoft to the conference. But NYLXS and NY Fair Use has a growing new concern which is pushing it to action. In the face of the growing threat by the Microsoft Corporation to the well-being of Free Software developers, a threat that can be seen by Microsoft hiring GNU/Linux experts in the effort to undermine the business efforts of our community through lies and falsehoods, as well as technically breaking the beneficial integration of mixed environments, and which can be further seen by the 'shared source' media campaign which lies about the foundation of a free society and the stake of businesses in the promotion of both Open Sourced and Free Software legal foundation, there is an increasing knee jerk reaction by organizations supposedly representing the communities interests to give Microsoft a platform and a business advantage at conferences and shows which are designed to promote the community's effort in establishing digital rights and economic development. This started at 'Linux World Expo' in San Fransico and has moved into the New York 'Linux World Expo', where it directly damaged the well being of my membership through the winning of an award which rewarded them for creating a program only could properly write if you have the Windows code base, and it is now making its way to the egov-os conference.

The inclusion of Microsoft at this event directly threatens the health of the Free Software Chamber of Commerce in New York City. There are places for an academic style debate for Free Software versus Sun's community license and Microsoft's Share Source' . A conference whose stated goals is to raise awareness of Free Software and Open Software benefits, to present the best practices for government, and to share experiences about the benefits of using Free Software in government, is not such a venue. This venue is about selling Free Software and the community's efforts to the government. It is hoped to and create a much needed stable economic pipeline for free software vendors with government, based on its technical and political merits. Microsoft's goals are in direct conflict with the stated agenda of the conferences. Allowing them to participate, based on the sole attribute that they are Microsoft and feel that they have something to say, is not enough reason to allow them a platform which will be used to hurt members of the community.

• Microsoft has never contributed any code to the community.

• Microsoft has never advocated any benefits of the use of Free Software or Open Source Software

• Microsoft has never financially contributed to any Free Software development or promoted the education of people about Free Software

• Microsoft has not, in any way, befriended the community.

• Microsoft has positioned itself as an enemy of the community and has threatened it on numerous occasions. In fact, Microsoft has singled out the Free Software and Open Source community for abuse.

Because of the growing misconduct of those who are presenting Free Software and Open Sourced Software to the public, first IDG and now egovos, NYLXS and New Yorkers for Fair Use is now contemplating action, not so much directed against Microsoft, but those wolves in sheep closing who are more directly hurting my membership and the community at large.

In considering actions to take, we are looking at a number of possibilities.

First, it is the opinion of Jay Sulzburger that we can use a hour of time to counter the arguments of Microsoft. My experience is that this will not work. On July 17th, I lead NY Fair Use to Washington to argue against the inclusion of DRM. Despite the fact that our presence was the most important part of the conference, to the point where we engaged productively from the audience both Jack Valenti and Philip Bond, we got no mainstream press. This was despite the presence of the New York Time's Amy Harmon and others. But our action was famous on Capital Hill. When we went back for the Peer to Peer/Berman Bill hearing two months later, several congressional staff members sought me out to ask what we did and to give us compliments. Simply, in regard to Jay's suggestion, nobody will attend such a session outside of the choir, and it will receive no press. On the other hand, Microsoft will get much press.

It has been suggested that egov-os is better to concede a place for Microsoft to allow an open debate. This will not be affective, and the alternative of being tongue whipped by Microsoft in the press is far better since they simply don't qualify for a placement at the conference, and it will allow us to present to the government administrators without interference. It is not NY Fairuse's policy to play 'whack the mole' with DRM issues. Instead, we focus on specific actions which will have broad affect and undermine the ability of our political foes to bring endless action again and again through the governments entire alphabet soup of bureaucracy and congressional committees. If Microsoft objects to being excluded, NY Fair Use (http://fairuse.nylxs.com) would be all to happy to provide a forum for both Microsoft and Richard Stallman, and others, for the benefit of academic debate. It would be a good fund raiser for the Free Software Institute in the coming months. My guess is that Bill Gates has no interest in such a real debate. His company is only interested in marketing and damaging the community. Therefore, participation by any Free Software advocates, or Open Source advocates, in this egov-os conference is highly damaging to the community if it includes Microsoft. And we are therefor calling on a boycott for this event.

It has been said that nobody is stupid enough to believe that Microsoft's 'shared source' promotes Open Source software. Unfortunately, this is very wrong. On the Open Office.org website, every day people ask if they can use and distribute the products. While I wouldn't say people are as dumb as rocks, I will say that they've been so conditioned to think out software as a super-restricted, crash inducing, virus ridden products, that they often have trouble thinking straight about what they should expect from business and software providers.

NY Fair Use is now looking to organize a protest of the event in Washington. A protest will at least give those genuinely from the community an uninhibited outlet. However, NY Fair Use, in general, dislikes protests as a vehicle of change, as we feel they mostly are ignored by a public besieged by 'the protest of the day'.

As a result, we are looking at a more organized campaign against this convention and those who would put events like this one together without considering the moral imperative of not harming the community by giving those who wish to destroy use a platform such as this. Egov-os supposedly advocates Free Software usage in business and government. It should do so without constraint and without apologies.

We are calling for an investigation of the egov-os organizers for misconduct. I've spoken with Tony Stanco many times and it's not possible that he doesn't grasp the basics of the issues outlined here, or how including Microsoft will negatively affect our community. Therefor, the invitation of Microsoft to this conference must be either a direct payoff, or self promotion. Since they are moral equivalents, they are both both equally condemnable.

We insist that Microsoft should not be given any platform at this event, because it is their purpose to undermine the community and its efforts. Since this is not being promoted as an academic debate, but instead is a marketing tool for Open Source and Free Software, we reject any arguments which are based on the concept that we should open the floor to them in order to dispel Microsoft corporate lies. This venue does not have the most basic format to handle this problem.

If, for contractual reasons, it is impossible to remove them from the conference, we ask the organizers to give NYLXS's subcommittee, New Yorkers for Fair Use, both the keynote and the Microsoft slot in the speaking arraignments. David Sugar will represent NYLXS, and I will represent NY Fair Use.

Finally, the website for the event needs to have on the front page a clear statement that it has determined that Microsoft's 'shared' code' program to be directly in opposition to both Free Software and the Open Source ideals, in that it does not promote the empowerment of the community through the freedom of innovation and digital systems ownership by individuals, the government or businesses.

I do not expect that these suggestions will be taken by Bruce Perens, or the other organizers of the egov-os events. So I expect that we will have to work to oppose the event.

Ruben Safir

President New Yorkers for Fair Use

http://fairuse.nylxs.com

Looking further at the troubles with the e-gov-os conference and after reviewing the opinions of Bruce Perens, Richard Stallman, David Sugar, Jay Sulzburger, David Wheeler, Stanley Klein, Chalu Kim, Claus Srensen, Jason Faulkner, Russell McOrmond, Louis Suarez-Potts, David A. Hammond and others, comments which have expanded over 10 mailing lists, and which have generated a few hundred private emails to me in my private email box, I'm forced to draw several conclusions.

First, as President of NYLXS and President of New Yorkers for Fair Use, my primary concern is two fold:

First, in my role as President of NYLXS, my primary goal is to cater to the needs of the membership, and the extended constituency of the organization, the Free Software development community and users in the New York City area. In truth, all organizations have a primary responsibility to their constituencies. It is time for others to look at their constituency and see how they are serving them. An organization which doesn't serve a constituency is an organization in name only.

Secondly, as an individual citizen and active member of the Free Software movement, I'm concerned with broad policy decisions of others in regards to individual rights with in our digitalized communications network. I'm focused on practical activities which protect the freedom of individuals and empower individuals and communities in education, government and business.

These are the only two prisms in which I can view the planned events of EgovOS conference.

I tend to be very thorough and deliberate in my conclusions. When I work through the process of developing activities and actions, or when I write in regard to issues of importance in a proper fashion for publication, or when I give a formal opinion piece representing any of our organizations journals, radio shows, public speeches, or other formalized media outlets, I bring to bear on that presentation, not only thorough research of the issue and much consultation, but also my 30 years of political and practical experience in affecting positive political and social outcomes.

I bring this same effort to this current letter, which I am opening up to the public and which will be published on http://fairuse.nylxs.com and which will be included in the coming NYLXS Journal.

First, let's look at the stated goals of the sponsored event. As listed on htttp://www.egovos.org/, the goals of this conference is:

Open Source for National and Local eGovernment Programs in the U.S. and EU

Goals:

1. the presentation of best practices

2. raising awareness

3. sharing of experiences among policy makers, donors, users/consumers, universities, and industry specialists in Open Source, e-Government and related fields.

NYLXS has, for a couple of years, worked to sell Free Software on both the local, New York City Level and in the Federal Government. We'll had a variety of experiences in this regard, many of them very negative. As such, this conference seems to be important to the economic and political health of the NYLXS membership, including The Free Software Chamber of Commerce, our Public Educational initiative in New York City Public Schools, and New Yorkers for Fair Use. Our direct prosperity as a community is tied to the stated goals of the conference, and in fact, members of the Free Software Chamber of Commerce had prepared to make presentations at the conference. It was the concerns of members of the Free Software Chamber of Commerce which brought the problems which have enveloped the conference to my attention.

The main problem is the participation of Microsoft as a speaker and presenter at the conference. In a previous email, I have already listed the problems that Microsoft presents. But for the sake of making this a complete document, I will reiterate them and expand upon the Microsoft issue.

First of all, Microsoft is a reckless company which operates above the law. It has recently been convicted twice for antitrust activities, and has been guilty of numerous other illegal competitive practices which have gone without prosecution. http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/ms_index.htm is a rundown of the current conviction of Microsoft for antitrust actions which is still going through the courts. Microsoft was not only determined have acted illegally in regard to browser technology, but they have also had their CEO, Bill Gates, lie under oath. The testimony can be searched here:

http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/video/gates/

http://www.broadcast.com/news/billgates/

investigation of his perjury is here:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/24990.html

http://news.ft.com/ft/gx.cgi/ftc?pagename=View&c=A rticle&cid=FT3MLEDHF0D&live=true&useoverridetempla te=ZZZUGORQ00C&tagid=ZZZNSJCX70C&subheading=global

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/tech/DailyNews/msdo j991107.html

They even doctored their prepared testimony which got much press:

http://www.idg.net/crd_microsoft_67162.html and to quote:

Chase's testimony last week struck a note similar to the previous week's fiasco over a Microsoft videotaped demonstration. Government attorney David Boies had scored by pointing out inconsistent details in a videotape, submitted by Microsoft as evidence, that showed that Microsoft had used multiple PCs to film a demo the company first implied was a seamless segment filmed on one computer. U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson said he did not believe that the Microsoft witness who had testified to the truthfulness of the tape lied about it, but trial observers said the incident undermined the defense's credibility.

Further discussion of the Gate's Perjury includes http://groups.google.com/groups?q=Bill+Gates+testi mony+Perjury&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&selm=nobody-060200 2327560001%40adsl-209-233-20-69.dsl.snfc21.pacbell .net&rnum=5

In fact, this reprint of the original Ziff Davis Net article with a John Hall interview is in my private archive of resources. The article quotes Mad Dog Hall as properly urging the government to jail Bill Gates for his illegal activities:

http://www2.mrbrklyn.com/resources/johnhall-ms.h tml

Microsoft has competed unfairly with Borland, FoxPro, Netscape, Sun, Apple among others. They have actively pursued a business plan designed to strip individuals and organization from the fruits of their efforts by tweaking the desktop making others products function worse than Microsoft's products. They have repeatedly hindered the empowerment of people and prevented the empowerment of individuals, especially negatively impacting disenfranchised communities, such as those that NYLXS represents in Brooklyn, and the City of New York. 60 minutes even broadcast a show which showed to fear that developers have of Microsoft and the expectations of these developers to be damaged by their 'Partner'

Of the many corporations in the global economy, Microsoft alone has distinguished itself as a proactive opponent to Free Software.

Things began to heat up with the Halloween Papers.

http://www.opensource.org/halloween/

Microsoft then made a frontal attack on the Free Software Foundations GPL, the most potent tool which protects the community from hostile activities by businesses and individuals who wish to destroy our ability to collaborate.

This article by The Register at http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/25891.html

looks at how DRM (trusted computing) attacks the GPL.

This certification scheme will rip the guts out of the GPL. That is, the minute I begin tinkering with my software, my ability to interface with the Great PKI in the Sky will be broken. I'll have a Linux box with a GPL, all right; but if I exercise the license in any meaningful way I'll render my system 'unauthorized for Palladium' and lose business. So instead, I imagine I'll be turning to my vendor for support, updates, modifications and patches. And I'll be dependent on them for support services at whatever price they can wheedle out of me because I dare not lose my Palladium authorization. I wonder if the cost of ownership of an open-source system will actually be lower than the cost of a proprietary system under such circumstances.

Prior to this, Microsoft's Craig Mundie made several false statements against the GPL at New York University.

Some of the most successful OSS technology is licensed under the GNU General Public License or GPL. The GPL mandates that any software that incorporates source code already licensed under the GPL will itself become subject to the GPL. When the resulting software product is distributed, its creator must make the entire source code base freely available to everyone, at no additional charge. This viral aspect of the GPL poses a threat to the intellectual property of any organization making use of it. It also fundamentally undermines the independent commercial software sector because it effectively makes it impossible to distribute software on a basis where recipients pay for the product rather than just the cost of distribution.

Microsoft had mailed to every IT director in the US brochures which vilified the GPL, the Free Software movement, and by extension, the Open Source advocates. These mailings contained blatant lies about the contribution of Free Software to the economy and threatened IT directors and developers with unfounded negative consequences if they deploy or use Free Software. The recent GPL FAQ, for example, has the following excerpt:

1. Have your lawyers read the GPL (and the LGPL)? Because the GPL is so frequently misunderstood and because it attempts, under certain circumstances, to impose significant obligations on licensees and their intellectual property rights, no responsible business should use GPL software without ensuring that its lawyers have read the license and explained the business rights and obligations. They should also review and explain the Lesser General Public License, or LGPL, a related license that is sometimes used with open source libraries.

Businesses every day uses Microsoft Software and the software of others which contain intrusive and abusive licensing which is directly in conflict with logical business practices. They would never be accepted by legal teams if the process was open to genuine contract negotiation. The contracts with Microsoft foists on businesses through its abusive monopoly powers constrains segments which allow the disabling of the software and intrudes on the private ownership of data and systems by businesses which purchase Microsoft products today. This is in addition to the clauses which waves them from any responsibility for damages done to business through security violations or the failure of products to perform according to their expectations. And then they sponsored UCITA to make sure that downloaded software from Free Software vendors can not get the same level of protection in a blatant effort to damage efforts of distributors of Free Software to comply with the GPL.

Microsoft has been such an aggressive enemy of Free Software, and the general public that they have used the BSA to do witch hunts against users and business.

They have threatened lawsuits against those who have reversed engineered their document formats They moved their free font access because users downloaded them for Free Software systems. They have proposed a DRM system designed to circumvent the freedom of Free Software development. They have fixed benchmarking studies versus Free Software systems. They have obstructed the legally required refund for operating systems which are forced on consumers with preinstalled systems. They built spyware into their multimedia players, twisted the Java programming language to be incompatible with the implementation on other platforms, refused to release products on Free Software platforms, which includes Microsoft Internet Explorer, introduced in NT4 service pack 3 changes to the SMB protocols to make it break with the Free Software SAMBA product, built back doors into in it's CryptoAPI, deliberately broke the Opera Web Browser when used with the MSN network, have brought down the internet through viruses TWICE in the last year, supported DRM in concert with Record Labels

( http://rss.com.com/2100-1023-983017.html?type=pt&p art=rss&tag=feed&subj=news ),

broke basic TCP/IP protocols with IE5 and IIS

( http://grotto11.com/blog/slash.html?+1039831658 ), advertised recently for advanced Free Software administrators to work for Microsoft in order to create a strategy to force businesses off of Free Software, and more.

Overall, Microsoft alone as a corporation has distinguished itself as an entity which, as a core business policy, is set to enslave Free Software and the general population. Their mission is to dehumanize and embarrass our membership, and to impoverish our community.

This body of evidence would be enough to reject out of hand the entry of Microsoft to the conference. But NYLXS and NY Fair Use has a growing new concern which is pushing it to action. In the face of the growing threat by the Microsoft Corporation to the well-being of Free Software developers, a threat that can be seen by Microsoft hiring GNU/Linux experts in the effort to undermine the business efforts of our community through lies and falsehoods, as well as technically breaking the beneficial integration of mixed environments, and which can be further seen by the 'shared source' media campaign which lies about the foundation of a free society and the stake of businesses in the promotion of both Open Sourced and Free Software legal foundation, there is an increasing knee jerk reaction by organizations supposedly representing the communities interests to give Microsoft a platform and a business advantage at conferences and shows which are designed to promote the community's effort in establishing digital rights and economic development. This started at 'Linux World Expo' in San Fransico and has moved into the New York 'Linux World Expo', where it directly damaged the well being of my membership through the winning of an award which rewarded them for creating a program only could properly write if you have the Windows code base, and it is now making its way to the egov-os conference.

The inclusion of Microsoft at this event directly threatens the health of the Free Software Chamber of Commerce in New York City. There are places for an academic style debate for Free Software versus Sun's community license and Microsoft's Share Source' . A conference whose stated goals is to raise awareness of Free Software and Open Software benefits, to present the best practices for government, and to share experiences about the benefits of using Free Software in government, is not such a venue. This venue is about selling Free Software and the community's efforts to the government. It is hoped to and create a much needed stable economic pipeline for free software vendors with government, based on its technical and political merits. Microsoft's goals are in direct conflict with the stated agenda of the conferences. Allowing them to participate, based on the sole attribute that they are Microsoft and feel that they have something to say, is not enough reason to allow them a platform which will be used to hurt members of the community.

• Microsoft has never contributed any code to the community.

• Microsoft has never advocated any benefits of the use of Free Software or Open Source Software

• Microsoft has never financially contributed to any Free Software development or promoted the education of people about Free Software

• Microsoft has not, in any way, befriended the community.

• Microsoft has positioned itself as an enemy of the community and has threatened it on numerous occasions. In fact, Microsoft has singled out the Free Software and Open Source community for abuse.

Because of the growing misconduct of those who are presenting Free Software and Open Sourced Software to the public, first IDG and now egovos, NYLXS and New Yorkers for Fair Use is now contemplating action, not so much directed against Microsoft, but those wolves in sheep closing who are more directly hurting my membership and the community at large.

In considering actions to take, we are looking at a number of possibilities.

First, it is the opinion of Jay Sulzburger that we can use a hour of time to counter the arguments of Microsoft. My experience is that this will not work. On July 17th, I lead NY Fair Use to Washington to argue against the inclusion of DRM. Despite the fact that our presence was the most important part of the conference, to the point where we engaged productively from the audience both Jack Valenti and Philip Bond, we got no mainstream press. This was despite the presence of the New York Time's Amy Harmon and others. But our action was famous on Capital Hill. When we went back for the Peer to Peer/Berman Bill hearing two months later, several congressional staff members sought me out to ask what we did and to give us compliments. Simply, in regard to Jay's suggestion, nobody will attend such a session outside of the choir, and it will receive no press. On the other hand, Microsoft will get much press.

It has been suggested that egov-os is better to concede a place for Microsoft to allow an open debate. This will not be affective, and the alternative of being tongue whipped by Microsoft in the press is far better since they simply don't qualify for a placement at the conference, and it will allow us to present to the government administrators without interference. It is not NY Fairuse's policy to play 'whack the mole' with DRM issues. Instead, we focus on specific actions which will have broad affect and undermine the ability of our political foes to bring endless action again and again through the governments entire alphabet soup of bureaucracy and congressional committees. If Microsoft objects to being excluded, NY Fair Use (http://fairuse.nylxs.com) would be all to happy to provide a forum for both Microsoft and Richard Stallman, and others, for the benefit of academic debate. It would be a good fund raiser for the Free Software Institute in the coming months. My guess is that Bill Gates has no interest in such a real debate. His company is only interested in marketing and damaging the community. Therefore, participation by any Free Software advocates, or Open Source advocates, in this egov-os conference is highly damaging to the community if it includes Microsoft. And we are therefor calling on a boycott for this event.

It has been said that nobody is stupid enough to believe that Microsoft's 'shared source' promotes Open Source software. Unfortunately, this is very wrong. On the Open Office.org website, every day people ask if they can use and distribute the products. While I wouldn't say people are as dumb as rocks, I will say that they've been so conditioned to think out software as a super-restricted, crash inducing, virus ridden products, that they often have trouble thinking straight about what they should expect from business and software providers.

NY Fair Use is now looking to organize a protest of the event in Washington. A protest will at least give those genuinely from the community an uninhibited outlet. However, NY Fair Use, in general, dislikes protests as a vehicle of change, as we feel they mostly are ignored by a public besieged by 'the protest of the day'.

As a result, we are looking at a more organized campaign against this convention and those who would put events like this one together without considering the moral imperative of not harming the community by giving those who wish to destroy use a platform such as this. Egov-os supposedly advocates Free Software usage in business and government. It should do so without constraint and without apologies.

We are calling for an investigation of the egov-os organizers for misconduct. I've spoken with Tony Stanco many times and it's not possible that he doesn't grasp the basics of the issues outlined here, or how including Microsoft will negatively affect our community. Therefor, the invitation of Microsoft to this conference must be either a direct payoff, or self promotion. Since they are moral equivalents, they are both both equally condemnable.

We insist that Microsoft should not be given any platform at this event, because it is their purpose to undermine the community and its efforts. Since this is not being promoted as an academic debate, but instead is a marketing tool for Open Source and Free Software, we reject any arguments which are based on the concept that we should open the floor to them in order to dispel Microsoft corporate lies. This venue does not have the most basic format to handle this problem.

If, for contractual reasons, it is impossible to remove them from the conference, we ask the organizers to give NYLXS's subcommittee, New Yorkers for Fair Use, both the keynote and the Microsoft slot in the speaking arraignments. David Sugar will represent NYLXS, and I will represent NY Fair Use.

Finally, the website for the event needs to have on the front page a clear statement that it has determined that Microsoft's 'shared' code' program to be directly in opposition to both Free Software and the Open Source ideals, in that it does not promote the empowerment of the community through the freedom of innovation and digital systems ownership by individuals, the government or businesses.

I do not expect that these suggestions will be taken by Bruce Perens, or the other organizers of the egov-os events. So I expect that we will have to work to oppose the event.

Ruben Safir

President New Yorkers for Fair Use

http://fairuse.nylxs.com

They change all the time anyway!

GM has been looking to spin off DirecTV for years now. They want to pare down to a core business (cars), that's why they sold the satellite division of Hughes. They were at first reluctant to let go of the rest, though many of us (I'm a stockholder) think the division wouild do much better on its own. It's certainly not doing well with GM; the stock has fallen for 2-3 years now. GM has appeared indecisive -- a problem with big automobile companies and another reason to pare down.

Bummer the Echostar thing didn't fly. I think that honestly would have been good for consumers. It was the rural customers without cable alternative that were the primary snag, though you'd think something could have been worked out. I don't like the idea of one company owning both cable and satellite businesses.

Some time ago, Rupert's News Corp wanted to buy GM (the whole thing!) as a way to get to DirecTV. The price wasn't right IIRC.

That doesn't mean any old buyer is a good idea ... depending on whether one wants to stay with the company longterm. I hope they don't screw their subscriber base that has taken so long to build. Murdoch does have a rep for greed.

What did the article author mean by "government monopolies"? I missed the gov't element here.

After all, anything written by a group called "The Cyberknights" has GOT to the authoritative!

The "group" in question is a business. Perhaps it's a slightly flippant name for a business, but given that I've done business with GODGames, Two Men and Truck Moving, and a host of other businesses with silly names, I don't hold it against them too much. No, they're not the most polished looking company, but having worked for a number of small businesses it's very typical. Most of the local consulting companies here look for less professional.

His educated reference to Star Trek really helped me to understand the situation, and make an informed decision.

I trust that Microsoft's educated reference to the classic video game Pac-Man helped your decision making process just as well? How about labelling the GPL, a license that only affects you if you chose to let it, as viral? Labelling Linux as a cancer? Implying that the GPL is un-american?

Just because the document lacks the the meaningless business jargon of typical whitepapers doesn't invalidate it. It certainly doesn't justify your smear tactic of suggesting that the author is twelve and not worthy of consideration.

Flaw weakens Linux security

Programmers have found a vulnerability in Linux (news - web sites) that could allow protective firewall software to grant malicious computer users access to protected networks.

The flaw, which affects versions 2.4.14 through 2.4.18-pre9 of the Linux kernel, is in a component of the Netfilter firewall software. The component is involved when two computer users chat directly with each other using the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) system.

Information sent across the Internet is broken up into tiny "packets," each with "from" and "to" addresses, indicating who's sent the information and where it's intended to go. So-called firewall software transmits or screens out these packets based on the address of the sender.

Netfilter, among the new aspects of the 2.4 version of the Linux kernel, is software that runs within the kernel to filter out unwanted packets. But its IRC helper component configures firewall settings too broadly, potentially allowing communication from IP (Internet Protocol) addresses that should be blocked.

Programmers working on the Netfilter firewall software project reported the problem Monday.

Versions 7.1 and 7.2 of leading Linux seller Red Hat's product are vulnerable. The Durham, N.C.-based company issued a patch Thursday that corrects the problem. The flawed software isn't installed by default on the Red Hat versions, the company said, but some users may have added it.

Security is a nagging concern for the computer industry, which must juggle new features with the risk that they open up new problems. While the firewall problem the Netfilter programmers discovered is limited to a few versions of Linux, a more serious problem emerged earlier this month affecting numerous operating systems using standard network management software.

Troll 56 of 208 from the annals of the Troll Library .

Sun Microsystems will overhaul most its server line and cut prices Monday in an effort to show that it's got enough research power to stay competitive, even with today's depressed spending.

http://rss.com.com/2100-1001-983913.html?type=pt&p art=rss&tag=feed&subj=news

All of the Congressmen now carry BlackBerries.

I hope they won't keep ignoring the problem until some Saddam conspires with major (North? :-/ ) Korean spamhouses, e.g. bulk-"un"subscribing the pagers of U.S. government by "opting out" on their behalf as a reprisal for Operation Desert Spam.

I was about to suggest my favorite on-screen keyboard until I remembered that installing programs on public computers started this whole thing.

According to the attorney general's office, Boudreau began to install key-logging software around April 2002 and used intercepted information to add money to a stored-value card used in the campus dining and bookstore system. Boudreau is not, however, accused of misusing credit card numbers or profiting from selling any private information he allegedly gleaned.
A person at Boston College with knowledge of the situation said the attorney general's office exaggerated Boudreau's accomplishments in its press release, in an attempt to tout this prosecution as a high-visibility test case. "I feel bad for this kid," the person said. "He's not the appropriate test case. He's feeling bad. He has all these issues. He's been depressed."

• Some of the highlights
• April 6, 2001 - "On 4/4/01, Morgan Freeman and Lori McCreary appeared onstage in Chicago at Comdex (for an Intel presentation) to show the audience samples of the computer-generated cylinder-world and the spider-like monster. They can rotate it and zoom in from hundreds of feet in the air. Freeman crossed his fingers and said it would be released in 2003."
• February 18, 2002 - You can read the full review of the Rendezvous With Rama screenplay by clicking here.
• July 22, 2002 - ZDNet Article about I.L.M. switch from RISC to Intel, and their work on the Rendezvous with Rama movie.

Copyright infringements and DMCA violations are not felonies.

It's not under the DMCA, and you are incorrect about copyright infringements on peer to peer networks.

link1

link2

Anger over broadband limits

Why's my cell phone melting?

NCTA Weighs In on IP Telephony

FBI Seeks Hacker of eBay Users' Info

Labels battle to hold onto DMCA win

Western Digital to Launch 10,000rpm Desktop HDD 11th Feb

On the trail of a stolen Tablet PC

Game on for cable

Mail-order drug suppliers under gun

Two panels to monitor Pentagon's spy project

In Europe, Microsoft faces tough sell

Intel to discuss Manitoba and GPS efforts at IDF

More unrest seen among tech workers

Anger over broadband limits

Why's my cell phone melting?

NCTA Weighs In on IP Telephony

FBI Seeks Hacker of eBay Users' Info

Labels battle to hold onto DMCA win

Western Digital to Launch 10,000rpm Desktop HDD 11th Feb

On the trail of a stolen Tablet PC

Game on for cable

Mail-order drug suppliers under gun

Two panels to monitor Pentagon's spy project

In Europe, Microsoft faces tough sell

Intel to discuss Manitoba and GPS efforts at IDF

More unrest seen among tech workers

Anger over broadband limits

Why's my cell phone melting?

NCTA Weighs In on IP Telephony

FBI Seeks Hacker of eBay Users' Info

Labels battle to hold onto DMCA win

Western Digital to Launch 10,000rpm Desktop HDD 11th Feb

On the trail of a stolen Tablet PC

Game on for cable

Mail-order drug suppliers under gun

Two panels to monitor Pentagon's spy project

In Europe, Microsoft faces tough sell

Intel to discuss Manitoba and GPS efforts at IDF

More unrest seen among tech workers

Once again, /. editors posted story of outdated stuff (I have been seeing this Sony computer at local CompUSA for at least 3 months now. The last time I checked, it had a celeron processor!!).

Here are some better stories:

Invisible man - using optical camouflage technology

Wireless networked DVD player to play your PC media

It's most definately not marketing speak and reflects sales of it's servers. Check out
a recent cnet article which states "The product overhaul comes at a critical time for Sun, a company striving to maintain its No. 1 ranking in the marketplace for Unix servers."

Cnet has posted articles reflecting actual sales and Sun is (barely) #1. I can't seem to find the article with the figures, however it's definately not simply "marketing speak."

Nope, nope, nope. According to Opera, "Opera6 handles the pages sent to MSIE6 just fine." The "fix" for the +30 bug isn't even applied to the version of Opera that allegedly had the bug. Besides, do we really think M$ is going to go out of their way to fix a bug for another browser? If M$, out of the kindness of their heart, wanted to fix poor little Opera's bug, you would think they'd do it for the version that actually HAD the bug. This look more like plausible deniability to me - "...well, Opera USED to have this bug that we thought we were fixing..." So, to recap, Microsoft has gone to the trouble to create a page that fixes the +30 bug in Opera, but they didn't go to the trouble to test it. In fact they are feeding the "fix" to the wrong version of Opera, while the version that had the alleged bug renders MSN just fine. All this from a company who has a history of such kind accomodations...

"Sam's Club, the members-only branch of retail giant Wal-Mart, has entered the budget PC race with a $299 system running Red Hat's version of the Linux operating system.

Microsoft has been losing the battle of the mobile phones, both in OS implementation for SmartPhones and in the specific browsers carried. If you look here or here, you can read further about the success Opera has been having in the field. Damaging the reputation of Opera, even in so petty, small and childish a manner, would help Microsoft in their eyes.

Opera: Microsoft is hurting our style

according to this cnet article the faulty style sheet sent to opera 7 doesn't work w/ ie either! the style sheet sent to ie works just fine w/ opera. so there's a style sheet that works w/ ie and opera but its only sent to ie. there's another style sheet that doesn't work w/ either ie or opera and its only sent to opera!

imo opera has every right to cry foul.

..if there's an innocent explanation for this, it wouldn't be the first example of paranoia from Opera's general direction this month.

1. Are you sueing Apple too?

2. Is this covered under APP (Apple protenction plan)?

AirPort antenna, dude, AirPort antenna.

Okay point granted. But I contend then that including this antenna is useless because no one knows about it, and even if they do I highly doubt it's a compelling reason to shell out the price premium for a Mac.

First, market share is irrelevant. Has been for years. Nobody cares what the ratio is of Macs to PC's in the world.

Unless your name is Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. Apple's Switch campaign, plus their recent efforts to increase specs and lower prices (at the cost of profit margin) is directly targeted toward increasing market share. They are trying to hit 5%. Market share matters, my friend. If Apple's market share continues to decline, they are going to have trouble convincing vendors to write apps for their platform. The Mac versions of many popular programs are known to have less features, cost more, come out later, and have more bugs than their Windows counterparts. Patches are also released less often. There is a direct correlation between market share and vendor support for your platform.

Second, and more important, Apple's market share continues to fall because more people buy PC's than Macs.

This is true, the total pie of computer owners is getting bigger, but as Mac's share of that pie gets smaller, their relevance declines along with it.

This demonstrates that people are not price-shopping when they buy Macs.

Everyone price-shops when they buy anything. I would have loved to get the DP 1.25 Ghz machine with a 23" Cinema display, but I got the one I did because it was within my budget.

Which, as a shareholder, makes me very, very happy.

Didn't Merill Lynch just recommend you sell your Apple shares? ;)

The answer is obvious. High profit margins are the key to corporate health.

This is patently false. How does Dell make money? Their margins are crap. How do any of the thousands of companies with thin margins make money? They leverage economies of scale. Taking the previous example of the extra memory, if Apple makes $20 less per computer they sell, but the machine now has 256 MB of memory, they would end up making more money because at the end of the day they've sold more machines. I think part of the reason Apple's margin are so high is because they can't afford not to charge those margins because they don't move enough units.

High margins means Apple can afford to spend money on their OS and their bundled-- and unbundled-- applications

Making a profit means they can afford to do this, and they have reported losses the last two quarters.

Apple doesn't build low-end machines. Every machine they ship, for example, includes a built-in AirPort antenna.

Wrong. I own the dual G4 PowerMac for $1700 and did not get an AirPort card in it. Not only that, but you don't get AirPort in a PowerBook until you spend at least $2799.99. That is a joke.

Apple really doesn't care about the low-end market. They care about selling high-end machine for good profit margins.

This is a highly debatable point. But assuming you're correct, this is precisely the reason Apple's market share continues to fall. As the article points out, Apple has to refrain from "its policy of keeping prices high to boost margins." Apple's cheapest machine with a DVD burner is $1299. Sony's is $799. The article further states that Sony's machine "is priced at the sweet spot of the market, which at retail is around $750 right now."

PC companies like Dell sell their computers to consumers with tiny margins; they make their money with add-ons and warranties. Apple sells computers to consumers with a 20% profit margin. If you do that, people who buy your machines will get less computer while paying more money. Thus less people will buy your products. It's not rocket science.

I want Apple to succeed. I love the platform and would love to see their market share hit 5%. But they will not do that as long as they continue to charge too much for their hardware, especially in this economy.

> Has anyone here tried running Jag with 256mb?

You mean Jaguar? Yes. It runs just fine. If you run too many memory-hungry programs at once, you'll start swapping, but that's to be expected.

You completely missed his point. What he was trying to say was instead of offering up low end machines with only 128 MB of memory, why doesn't Apple just take a negligible ($20 I believe was the price quoted) hit on their inflated profit margins and sell the computer with 256 MB of memory. This way they make the machine more attractive, and in the process actually make their OS usable. At least that's what I think he was trying to say.

Well, I found something that talks about making Linux more compatible with Solaris, but it doesn't mention Sun wanting to phase out Solaris in favor of Linux. Maybe I'm confusing this article with one I read where IBM really does intend to replace AIX with Linux instead.

Read about it here

One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered Google community when IDC confirmed that Google market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all web searches. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that Google has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Google is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by Yahoo's failure to renew its exclusive deal with Google.

You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict Google's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Google faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for Google because Google is dying. Things are looking very bad for Google. As many of us are already aware, Google continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.

Google search is the most endangered of them all, having lost most of its core affiliates. The sudden and unpleasant departures of Yahoo and AOL only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: Google is dying.

Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

Google.com founder Sergey Brin states that there are 7000 users of Google. How many users of Verity are there? Let's see. The number of Google versus Verity posts on USENET is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 Verity users. AskJeeves posts on USENET are about half of the volume of Verity posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of Inktomi. A recent article put Teoma at about 80 percent of the search engine market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 Google users. This is consistent with the number of Google USENET posts.

Due to the troubles of Google News, abysmal sales and so on, Google is going out of business and will probably be taken over by idealab! who operate another troubled search engine. Now Inktomi is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.

All major surveys show that Google has steadily declined in market share. Google is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If Google is to survive at all it will be among search engine dilettante dabblers. Google continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, Google is dead.

Fact: Google is dying

The biggest problem with the Mac user base, is blind loyalty.

here is source one

source two

this was a great move as well

this is a classic

another example of Apple's fine legal department

I can link to countless other tales as well and just a little friendly advice, recounting X amount experience comes off as foolish and condescending. Personal experience with anything is not an accurate benchmark. Apple has a great product with OSX, as a tibook owner, I'm very happy, but Apple the company is not as great as their user base perceives it to be and somehow they think buying an Apple product makes them part of a movement, which is completely ludicrous, but a marketing success nonetheless for Apple

The biggest problem with the Mac user base, is blind loyalty.

here is source one

source two

this was a great move as well

this is a classic

another example of Apple's fine legal department

I can link to countless other tales as well and just a little friendly advice, recounting X amount experience comes off as foolish and condescending. Personal experience with anything is not an accurate benchmark. Apple has a great product with OSX, as a tibook owner, I'm very happy, but Apple the company is not as great as their user base perceives it to be and somehow they think buying an Apple product makes them part of a movement, which is completely ludicrous, but a marketing success nonetheless for Apple

When the FTC decided to try filtering

IDC expects that Linux will become the No. 2 desktop OS in the next year or two, surpassing the Mac OS, and will continue to hold this rank for the remainder of the company's five-year forecast.

Adoption rate

The truth hurts.

News.com is reporting that IBM has won a $290 million contract with the federal government to build what are expected to be the world's two fastest supercomputers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The other machine, the Linux powered Blue Gene/L will be 10 times faster than the current #1 , NEC's Earth Simulator with a speed of 360 teraflops, according to IBM.

News.com is reporting that IBM has won a $290 million contract with the federal government to build what are expected to be the world's two fastest supercomputers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The other machine, the Linux powered Blue Gene/L will be 10 times faster than the current #1 , NEC's Earth Simulator with a speed of 360 teraflops, according to IBM.

News.com is reporting that IBM has won a $290 million contract with the federal government to build what are expected to be the world's two fastest supercomputers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The other machine, the Linux powered Blue Gene/L will be 10 times faster than the current #1 , NEC's Earth Simulator with a speed of 360 teraflops, according to IBM.

News.com is reporting that IBM has won a $290 million contract with the federal government to build what are expected to be the world's two fastest supercomputers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The other machine, the Linux powered Blue Gene/L will be 10 times faster than the current #1 , NEC's Earth Simulator with a speed of 360 teraflops, according to IBM.

1. 
   Pentium Floating-point division bug (it's close enough, isn't it?)
   Invalid Operand Instruction crashes original Pentiums Pentium crash codes
   Pentium Pro/II still having problems with floats Unable to convert to int
   Pentium III can't even start up You went faster with an 8088
   SSE is great for when you want your PIII to crash Pretty blue screens abound.
   PIII Xeon, quality you can count on, except at high CPU usage Watch the task manager, Phil.
   Yay, PIII MTH crashes! Does MTH stand for Meth?
   Total Recall 2: PIII@1.13GHz Fastest crashes ever.
   Total Recall 3: PIII Xeons@800/900Mhz More Xeon quality in a box.
   Total Recall 4: CC820 How many defects? Can't recall...
   Pentium 4 overwriting data Hope it wasn't something important.
   Pentium 4 chipset bug Fast video performance? Naaa.
   P4 Oracle/Sun problems More workarounds than work
   Itanium shipments halted That's an expensive oops.
   

1. 
   Pentium Floating-point division bug (it's close enough, isn't it?)
   Invalid Operand Instruction crashes original Pentiums Pentium crash codes
   Pentium Pro/II still having problems with floats Unable to convert to int
   Pentium III can't even start up You went faster with an 8088
   SSE is great for when you want your PIII to crash Pretty blue screens abound.
   PIII Xeon, quality you can count on, except at high CPU usage Watch the task manager, Phil.
   Yay, PIII MTH crashes! Does MTH stand for Meth?
   Total Recall 2: PIII@1.13GHz Fastest crashes ever.
   Total Recall 3: PIII Xeons@800/900Mhz More Xeon quality in a box.
   Total Recall 4: CC820 How many defects? Can't recall...
   Pentium 4 overwriting data Hope it wasn't something important.
   Pentium 4 chipset bug Fast video performance? Naaa.
   P4 Oracle/Sun problems More workarounds than work
   Itanium shipments halted That's an expensive oops.
   

1. 
   Pentium Floating-point division bug (it's close enough, isn't it?)
   Invalid Operand Instruction crashes original Pentiums Pentium crash codes
   Pentium Pro/II still having problems with floats Unable to convert to int
   Pentium III can't even start up You went faster with an 8088
   SSE is great for when you want your PIII to crash Pretty blue screens abound.
   PIII Xeon, quality you can count on, except at high CPU usage Watch the task manager, Phil.
   Yay, PIII MTH crashes! Does MTH stand for Meth?
   Total Recall 2: PIII@1.13GHz Fastest crashes ever.
   Total Recall 3: PIII Xeons@800/900Mhz More Xeon quality in a box.
   Total Recall 4: CC820 How many defects? Can't recall...
   Pentium 4 overwriting data Hope it wasn't something important.
   Pentium 4 chipset bug Fast video performance? Naaa.
   P4 Oracle/Sun problems More workarounds than work
   Itanium shipments halted That's an expensive oops.
   

1. 
   Pentium Floating-point division bug (it's close enough, isn't it?)
   Invalid Operand Instruction crashes original Pentiums Pentium crash codes
   Pentium Pro/II still having problems with floats Unable to convert to int
   Pentium III can't even start up You went faster with an 8088
   SSE is great for when you want your PIII to crash Pretty blue screens abound.
   PIII Xeon, quality you can count on, except at high CPU usage Watch the task manager, Phil.
   Yay, PIII MTH crashes! Does MTH stand for Meth?
   Total Recall 2: PIII@1.13GHz Fastest crashes ever.
   Total Recall 3: PIII Xeons@800/900Mhz More Xeon quality in a box.
   Total Recall 4: CC820 How many defects? Can't recall...
   Pentium 4 overwriting data Hope it wasn't something important.
   Pentium 4 chipset bug Fast video performance? Naaa.
   P4 Oracle/Sun problems More workarounds than work
   Itanium shipments halted That's an expensive oops.
   

Xbox is the #3 system.

Sony Playstation: 50 million units
Nintendo GameCube: 16 million (or 10-12 million depending on who you believe)
Microsoft Xbox: 8-9 million

Microsoft is not doing so well. Microsoft says sales of Xbox are on track. Yet what did Microsoft project they would sell? 9 million to 11 million. How many did they sell? 8 million, and they hope to sell 1 million more by June 30. Therefore Microsoft might possibly meet the low end of their projections.

Sources...
CNet: PlayStation 2 shipments top 50 million

CNet: Microsoft says Xbox sales on track ("We expect to finish our fiscal year with just over 9 million units sold worldwide," Koch said.)

And finally, for the Microsoft shills that think Xbox will take the world by storm...
Suppliers dim Xbox sales picture

Xbox is the #3 system.

Sony Playstation: 50 million units
Nintendo GameCube: 16 million (or 10-12 million depending on who you believe)
Microsoft Xbox: 8-9 million

Microsoft is not doing so well. Microsoft says sales of Xbox are on track. Yet what did Microsoft project they would sell? 9 million to 11 million. How many did they sell? 8 million, and they hope to sell 1 million more by June 30. Therefore Microsoft might possibly meet the low end of their projections.

Sources...
CNet: PlayStation 2 shipments top 50 million

CNet: Microsoft says Xbox sales on track ("We expect to finish our fiscal year with just over 9 million units sold worldwide," Koch said.)

And finally, for the Microsoft shills that think Xbox will take the world by storm...
Suppliers dim Xbox sales picture