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why blame Microsoft? Have they been knowing for astroturfing here before?

Just a little...

http://lists.essential.org/1998/am-info/msg01529.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/27/microsoft_ie8_chain_letter/
http://www.1pstart.com/mercury-news-writer-accuses-microsoft-of-bribery/
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/87901
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57345892-94/microsoft-nokia-linked-to-comments-on-negative-lumia-review/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing
http://linkprimer.com/internet-marketing/microsoft-encourages-reputation-management
http://www.velocityreviews.com/forums/t568832-microsoft-well-take-the-astroturf-supreme-please.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/30/business/smallbusiness/30reputation.html?_r=1
http://www.clickz.com/clickz/news/1698666/microsoft-tests-social-media-monitoring-product
http://www.informationweek.com/news/220200062
etc
etc
etc
etc

Only if that piece of paper is urgent enough:

http://www.boogieonline.com/revolution/express/techno/postal/express.html
http://lists.essential.org/1998/am-info/msg07200.html

Not only can a company be shut down for competing with the USPS, the post office can fine you for using UPS and FedEx for mail they think isn't "URGENT" enough.

http://www.boogieonline.com/revolution/express/techno/postal/express.html
http://lists.essential.org/1998/am-info/msg07200.html

My understanding is that the main argument in favor of medical patents is that the cost of FDA approval is so insanely high compared to the production cost once things are approved.

While the research and development to bring a drug to the market may be expensive, pharmaceutical businesses spend more on marketing and sales than on research.

This is a sore spot for me, the National Cancer Institute spent $183 Million to develop Taxol yet Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) only paid $35 Million for exclusive rights to Taxol. By 2000 it "achieved global sales of almost $1.6 billion". BMS was saying the wholesale price for Taxol was $6.09 per milligram yet a generic maker was able to make it for $.07 per milligram. That is more than $6 per milligram profit.

Falcon

just throwing pork at privately owned companies is pretty far from socialism, and calling it that is a sign either of confusion or dishonesty.

No, that's called corporate socialism.

Falcon

Giving shit-tons of money to the nation's largest corporations is not quite socialism.

I call that corporate socialism.

200 billion could have bought a LOT of fibre and routing gear, but instead it bought a bunch of hookers, yachts and bonuses.

As is typical in the US government gives away billions of taxpayer dollars without any oversight.

Falcon

And no, I am not an astroturfer for MS. In fact, I'm not sure despite how often that term is thrown around that MS actually hires any astroturfers, or at least I have not seen any direct evidence of this.

This should do it:

• http://lists.essential.org/1998/am-info/msg01529.html

Yaz.

Where the have you been all these years? Nothing stopping hardware OEMs from selling hardware with non-Windows OSes my ass. Jean-Louis Gassée found that one out when he first began to try pitching BeOS to hardware OEMs. He wrote an article on why PC manufacturers won't sell non-MS products (more info on this here and here). The Windows monopoly is reinforced by anti-competitive agreements that Microsoft has with all of the major hardware OEMs. If one of these OEMs violates the agreement, they lose the OEM discount on all the other Windows PCs they sell, and consequently their Windows-based computers wind up costing much more than those vendors that decided to abide by the agreement. You can guess what that would mean to a major OEM.

In a way, this move by Dell is interesting since it shows to what lengths they've gone to avoid violating the contract. They could have used the same CPU to run the Linux firmware here, but no, they had to include a full ARM SoC to do the same instead. Granted, that has some advantages (given that the x86 CPU is much too overpowered and would eat the battery alive), but perhaps the agreements they have with Microsoft may also have something to do with it.

The NYT coverage and their analysis are both news from the Vista capable dissaster. With a jerk around like that, it's no wonder that the whole industry has revolted and it's nice to see the word getting out to a wider audience via papers like the NYT. Their analysis is also interesting, though I'd love to see where "Otter" beat them to the punch. Didn't happen did it?

Here are some older examples of the same kinds of behavior:

• Apple and Lotus 123
• The DRDOS Case, 1991. Court proved malice and PR lies to cover it.
• Backup software. There's a reason it's hard to back up M$ systems.
• OS/2, software they helped make and then killed because it was better than what they owned.
• Netscape, 1995. Court proved malice and lies to cover it. People still claim Mozilla suffers from "memory leaks".
• Word Perfect. Another victim of the DOS/Win3.1
• Audio players, software and hardware

The list goes on and on. On the chopping block today are ODF, Linux distros, AV makers and a host of competitors that just won't die like iPod, Play Station and Mozilla. The only way out is to avoid Windows and stay away from M$ and other non free software vendors. The further away you are, the better off you are.

Journalists: Beware! San Jose Mercury technology reporter Dan Gilmore recently discovered he's been assigned a special "owner" at one of Microsoft's public relations firms, Waggener-Edstrom. These spin-masters are attached to troublesome journalists like Gilmore who have the temerity to write uncomplimentary articles about the company or its products. The really irksome reporters, according to documents spirited from the Waggener-Edstrom offices, are also assigned "buddies" at Microsoft itself. John Dodge, the editor of PC Week, has a special buddy at Microsoft, and Mary Jo Foley at Smart Reseller, is the subject of a "Mary Jo six month plan."

HEY, BUDDY: I learned today that I have an owner at Microsoft Corp.'s primary public-relations agency. The Mercury News received a copy of a document created by someone at the Waggener-Edstrom firm, in which various media reports (at least the ones perceived as having anything negative to say) about Microsoft are analyzed, with recommendations on how to deal with the journalist in question. Mary Jo Foley, of the trade journal Smart Reseller, may be intrigued to learn that she's the subject of a ``Mary Jo six month plan.'' The document provides more evidence, if anyone needed it, that Microsoft spares no expense in marketing. Every problem article has an ``owner'' at the PR agency; the owner works with the reporter either to correct errors or put a more positive spin on the situation. Some reporters also have a ``buddy'' at Microsoft; for example, PC Week's John Dodge has an unnamed buddy who is supposed to ``send mail ---- `John, that's random' '' in response to a Dodge column. My own recent piece, in which I described a messy and unsuccessful attempt to install Windows 98, caught Microsoft's attention. My Waggener-Edstrom owner is working with Microsoft ``to send letter inquiring about Dan's problems and emphasizing MS commitment to quality products.'' It appears, however, that I don't have a buddy at Microsoft. I am devastated.

Some companies "compete" that way. They break other people's things and conversations because they don't have anything better to offer.

If you want a particular function, app, service, etc to be completely GPL, WRITE THE FUCKING THING YOURSELF!

That might not be so hard with free code sitting in front of you. That's the beauty of free software. As easy as it may be, it's a duplication of effort and it kind of makes the dual licensing look silly.

What exactly is a dual license if the GPL provisions don't apply or have force because of the BSD portion? There's a fundamental difference in licensing philosophy that can't be ironed out by using both. People who strongly believe in the gpl don't want people using their code the way bsd allows and will never be able to "give back" in any other way than with gpl'd code of their own.

At the same time, what's the big deal with people stripping out the bsd portion? If the bsd people are really OK with the software being distributed as binaries by people who will NEVER give back anything, why would they be so angry at people who will only give them gpl'd code?

It all looks like a tempest in a teapot from lists that have have been played by the usual suspects in Redmond. When someone is an implacable ass, there's often a reason.

GPL and BSD people can live and let live. While it might be argued that BSD code can be used directly by the enemies of software freedom, no one would seriously propose that either the BSD or GPL camp would like to eradicate or subjugate the other.

As an amateur psychologist and observer of human nature I'd guess anyone who thinks "lulz" is cool isn't a very sophisticated thinker; this bunch are probably just alienated kids.

Alienated? Is that the nice word for asshole? The world is full of them. Most grow out of it.

You don't have to go very far to find paid assholes. M$, telcos, the RIAA are all engaged in some very rough and ugly astroturfing and cracking.

They people raising the alarm over ACs are those who want an exclusive power to harass. Broadcasters, telcoms and software companies are used to having these powers and backing them up with the entire legal system. They want to exert and extend that centralized control over the internet and anonymity is incompatible with that. Eliminating our privacy and freedom to hamper assholes won't limit those who control the switches. They will continue to harass those who annoy them. When the rest of us have lost our freedom and privacy, the assholes will act with impunity.

Obnoxious M$ Fanboy dedazo asks an amusing question:

Why do you keep using the same [link about DRDOS]?

I like that link because it shows a clear pattern of behavior and the author is credible. It was written by a former MicroSoft fan who read now destroyed court records. Those records proved that M$ planned not only a technical sabotage of DRDOS, they also planned a PR attack on it. This is behavior they continue today.

I also like pointing to the case of Steve Barkto, when showing how old M$'s astro turfing efforts are.

If they are not paying you to be so annoying, you need to find a more productive hobby. This one is getting you nowhere.

Right, by paying firefox (and others) to default to google search.

If this is false and you know it and M$ paid you to put it here, you have just libled Google on M$'s behalf. That's nothing new to M$, which is a good reason to take a large grain of salt along when anyone starts defending M$ about anything.

I mean, really. Does Google pay KDE to make them the default search engine in Konqueror? Do they then pay Debian to do the same thing to Iceweasel and Konqueror? Do they pay me? No, I just know that Google rocks and no one is even close when it comes to quick and accurate searches. The same logic walks back up the free software chain though distributions to the actual coders. When a better search engine comes along, it's going to replace Google as the default or it will be easier to chose between them.

Software patents are not on any candidate's radar this election cycle. There is the war, there is health care. A hundred other issues that draw more passion then anything the geek can offer.

IT is one of the most stressful things people have to deal with. Computers are part of everyone's daily lives and the suck of non free software is too. A politician that does not realize this is out of touch. One that can't harness it is not a leader.

How can I convince you that software patents are important? Easy, it's your freedom, wellbeing and prosperity. The war is important. Declining standards of living is important and healthcare is part of that. Computers touch on these and all 100 of your other issues, but the bigger connector is run away corporate power and greed. Your computer needs to be free if you are ever to learn the truth about wars, healthcare and standards of living. Without a free press to inform you of your leader's dirty work, you will continually suffer unjust laws, wars and declining standards of living.

Laws like the DMCA and other crazy copyright attacks are both a symptom and a cause of corporate power. They are a symptom because free people would never knowingly vote their rights away. People voted that way because they were lied to. They were told that copyright and patent laws were "enablers." We understand the lie because our computers and the internet are a relatively free place. They are a cause because they can be used to take your freedoms away, which will leave you ignorant. Make no mistake you can worse off even than people before the internet if the internet is made non free. Before the internet, people had printed newspapers but you will only have broadcast and non free internet.

It'd be silly if the PR people would ignore Slashdot. They don't. [We are just like you, dear reader ... and we care about you ... sleep.]

Oh, that and Slashdot has a larger readership than Wired. Quit bullshitting.

Your PR goal, as is evident to your Wired target, is to make others carry your message. You dedicated 5,000 pages to that little spin how to. Your company's efforts here are just what they were for BBS's where you slammed and FUDed OS/2 and DRDoS. Your company also considers developers as pawns to be lied to, and slashdot gives you both - how convenient. The same tricks and bullshit are in play here today, but on a much larger scale.

It's not working. We know you for what you are and your "products" are things we'd rather avoid. The bottom line is that a billion dollars a month can't replace actual product. Zune, Vista and Office are second or third rate. Try as you might, the industry is liberating itself and the end of your monopoly is near.

Did the author even read the article, or is his knee twitching after a cursory skim-over?

Anonymous Reader said: The U.S. is also pushing for reviving a 1962 treaty (never ratified) that would give the large cable distributors (like Discovery, Sci-fi, Spike, etc) ownership of even public domain content if they carry it.

The actual article said: One faction in the negotiations wants to revamp provisions in a 1961 treaty (one that the United States and 80 other countries never signed), with new or expanded intellectual property rights for anyone who "broadcasts" third party content.

Yes giving ownership of public domain content would be insane, but from the article I don't see the U.S.A. proposing that (and apparently they didn't like it in 1961 either).

According to http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/a2k/2007-Janu ary/001971.html (linked from the article), the U.S.A. is apaprently in favor of the narrower signal-based treaty that does NOT give exclusive rights to broadcasters.

Well, tell that to Jean Louis Gassée.

SUSE drops ReiserFS just about the same time Microsoft starts promoting SUSE.

To think that Hans Reiser once tried filing an anti-trust suit against Microsoft on the grounds that they were preventing him from redistributing his file system.

Is anyone else thinking 'gee, maybe contacting people who are writing that they hate Microsoft aren't exactly feeling BETTER that they got contacted about it too?' Just remember, Big Brother IS watching and is scouring the net for you - whew, I'm glad they cleared that up to make me feel better!

If only they would confine their bullshit to their own blogs. They are famous for astroturfing other sites too. One of the earliest recorded attacks is Steve Barkto against OS/2. A famous and court proved case is the attack on DRDOS, where they made sure Win3.1 would not run on DRDOS and then spammed compuserve message groups with posts that blamed DRDOS. The pattern is repeated again and again with various permutations. Hiring a firm to fake letters to Congress, the Apple Switcher, and so on and so forth.

Of course their apologists swarm here too. There's always someone out there promoting M$ junk as "teh best evar" and we can be sure they are using every available trick to game Slashdot's moderation system. While I can't be sure some M$ PR firm is behind it, I am sure that there's at least one person dedicating a significant amount of their life harassing me personally. Here are just a few of the accounts they have set up or purchased:

• kieth russell
• jb.hl.com
• twatter
• tvvitter

Thier effort goes beyond the usual fanboy stuff. For about a year the attacks have been personal and nasty, as all Microsoft's name calling generally is. They even took the attack to my local LUG, which promptly dismissed their efforts. All this over a Slashdot user? Clearly, Microsoft is running scared.

Bruce Perens warned us the attack would come. As they noted in their 1998 Halloween document, free software is not a company they can destroy, it's a community they must destroy. How else can they do that but massively spam every free software group in existence?

So, if we are supposed to rely on education, technology and research and development to keep our edge as a country, we are already in trouble, especially when one considers that even if we were to turn things around tomorrow, we have likely done enough damage that it will take a decade to recover.

Industrial recovery is not possible while we trade with non free China and your government/corporate masters have you screwed out for RD too.

GE, Microsoft and others have already started moving their research offshore. I'm talking about basic industrial research, like turbine design. "First World" Physics, no longer viable, so forget it. Brains are cheaper, and theoretically free, in Russia and India. The situation is worse in China, where people really are not free.

Our trade was supposed to set the Chinese free, but it's working the other way around. It's just business, right?, and China is just another big company. Not quite. Our big dumb companies might have you by the balls, read your email, and sell it all to big brother, but they can't put you in jail yet. That will take another dissaster like NorthWoods so that everyone is really paranoid and ready for rationing and a WW2 style command economy.

The only way out is lots of wealth creation to raise everyone's standard of living, but it's not happening. With all the mergers, wealth will continue to move to the already very rich owners of those companies. The mergers are the ultimate result of government favoritism of large companies. IT was supposed to be the poster child of new competition and robust US Performance. It has not happened because incumbent companies were allowed to crush new comers, so that "just enough" competition would be left. Now, we all sit under the M$ monopoly, two big media companies, two "broadband" companies, one electric company and a merged OPEC/ExxonMobileRoyalDoubleDutchFuck and wonder where the jobs are and why service sucks. If we can't help ourselves, we will never be able to help anyone else.

Eventually, this will get the rich too. A real depression is no fun for anyone, but those happen when wealth concentration reaches a critical level. When power is concentrated enough, the American Empire will go to war with China, kind of like the great Royal Fuck Festival that was the first World War.

Snotman wants evidence of social gaming. Evidence of past behavior abounds. First, let's reiterate the potential problem. From the Fine article:

Register them on Digg. Have them randomly digg 5 stories a day. Then scrape the top 100 users on Digg, and add them randomly across the 100 fake users. Simmer for a week or 3, and then *bam* - start reporting any story dugg by the top 100 users as inaccurate.

The ease of creating a botnet of Windoze machines eliminates all evidence. Instances of actually catching a company hired troll like Barkto are rare. Even obvious astroturf, like the M$ PR created Apple Switcher are hard to detect. If that's not proof enough for you that some dishonest companies are abusing the net for there advantage, I'm not sure what is. Oh yeah, you can look up the court proven public disinformation campaign against DRDOS by M$.

As for evidence of gaming sites like Slashdot, visit these these losers one day. Use a text browser and a condom or you might walk off with more than you want.

Yes, it's pathetic but people do that kind of thing.

What if only Fox or CBS has the footage of a particular public event? Do we let the broadcaster eviscerate the ideas of fair use, prohibiting other networks from showing fragments so as to comment on the events, or criticise the original coverage?

of course it would be almost impossible to enforce at the individual level

Maybe or maybe not. Perhaps a desire for a public image would keep them from a broad harrassment campaign, although the penalties for copyright violation are so stiff that the cost of doing this would be paid by the penalties:

Statutory Damages. ... the copyright owner may elect, at any time before final judgment is rendered, to recover, instead of actual damages and profits, an award of statutory damages for all infringements involved in the action, with respect to any one work, for which any one infringer is liable individually, or for which any two or more infringers are liable jointly and severally, in a sum of not less than $750 or more than $30,000 as the court considers just. ... In a case where the copyright owner sustains the burden of proving, and the court finds, that infringement was committed willfully, the court in its discretion may increase the award of statutory damages to a sum of not more than $150,000.

That is a truckload of power to offer a copyright owner, but I've always said it makes sense in the existing cases of things like authoring stories, books, etc. because you need strong protection to keep Big Business from taking control of the works of the Little Guy. What I don't understand is why we need to empower Big Business further. They already seem to be making a healthy business even in the presence of piracy. If they lose money, they seem to just jack their rates to compensate and there's little any of us can do because there's so little competition. So why do they need more protection? Rights should be offered in order to create an incentive for action that might be threatened absent the action; having strong copyright to protect our individual blogs, etc. makes sense. Strong copyright to protect the people already making a healthy living serving those blogs seems worse than stupid--outright dangerous.

As to precedents, the case of WestLaw and its control of the court transcripts for a large part of the nation through the use of copyright (not asserted on the original work, but rather, if I understand correctly, asserted on the page and line breaking algorithms--because some courts have required citations to page and line numbers generated by those algorithms!) is probably worthy of study for anyone who thinks extreme cases don't happen because no one would ever be so bold.

It's nice to see another attempt that's free. Free speech requires anonymity.

We shall continue to disseminate these pearls of wisdom ... No matter how many fake email address, no matter how many open proxies - we shall prevail!

The goal is to make the lists look as described, unfriendly and rude. They do this with their own rude posts and heckling.

They also aim at self censorship. By calling people rude all day long, they hope to keep people from unfavorably describing their crap. Describing Windoze as second rate is not rude, it's an overwhelming statement of fact and it's easy to present in a way that does not insult the user.

These efforts are co-ordinated and they have been from the very beginning. Microsoft knows the power of word of mouth and seeks to influence it:

http://web.archive.org/web/20050313031916/http:/ /www.kickassgear.com/Articles/Microsoft.htm

Bullshit floated on those lists is usually echoed by shills in the Wintel press. Their "ambassador" program at universities is another extension of this program. Given their technical inferiority to most competition, hype, deception and insults are all M$ has to work with. They are losing traction.

It does not work on the local lists, of course, because free software is all about sharing and they still don't have enough resources. Rude people are ignored, technical questions are still answered and newbies are directed to anwsers. The LUG has two newbie efforts, it's own list and volunteers at the local computer club where classes are offered once a month. Those classes are filled and growing.

The end result for Microsoft is a loser in any case because lying does not work. Everytime they get caught doing it, they undermine their reputation further. This is why they have one of the worst reputations in world. Everyone knows they are a bunch of dishonest bullies with second and third rate software.

1) This is a UK-only thing.

No its not, read here:
http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/random-bits/2 000-October/000405.html
This is a snippet from the orginal Microsoft memo that has somehow ceased to exist on thier web site.

Here is another link from 2000:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/11/23/ms_how_pcs _shipped_without/

Slashdot even had one (yes this one is a dupe),
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/10/10/145245

I've been called a thief by Microsoft since 2000 for buying Windowless PCs.

Enjoy,

Do you have anything to back that up? Wikipedia (for one) disagrees. Googling for Gates Expelled doesn't back you up (you'd think something like that would be everywhere). I've read a few histories that go over the whole Basic / Altair story and none of them state that Gates was expelled. Perhaps what you are thinking about is this: http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/random-bits/2 002-October/000952.html

Don't want to learn from history? Let's go straight to the source:

"The software will run the bulk of the command and control systems in the three "decision centers" being designed into the CVN-77s architecture" - Brian Roach, Lockheed Alliance manager for Microsoft Federal.

It could just be Steve and Bill, smoking out unhappy employees. I'm sure the Microsoft heads are paranoid and convinced that they've been infiltrated by bad seeds, stirring up discontent, and if they could just purge those bad folks, they'd be a nice happy company again.

It's not like Microsoft hasn't (ab)used online forums before.

Not even the NIH which seeds most scientific research in the US will fund a project to completion.

The NIH or at least the National cancer Institute, part of the NIH, funds to completion or at least most of the way. An example is Taxol. Taxol was developed by the NCI from the Pacific Yew tree for the treatment of breast cancer and is being looked at for others as well. The NCI spent more than $50 million to develop it and yet sold the rights for a mere pittance to Bristle Myers Squib, BMS. Though the price of it has gotten down to $.07 per milligram BMS sales it for more than $180 per milligram and has made $Billions from the sales of Taxol. Quite simply both taxpayers and cancer patients are getting ripped off. Here's an article from the Wall Street Journal on it, U.S. Recovers Only $35 Million Of $183 Million Spent on Taxol.

Yeah, it's worth looking back at the proclamation of bittorrent as the source of all evil that ails M$ platforms:

"This is the marketing campaign to end all marketing campaigns," said Boyd, the Microsoft Security MVP (most valuable professional) known throughout the security industry by the "Paperghost" moniker.

How fitting! He might as well have been called "barkto". There's more vapor flying out of M$'s ass now than ever.

--| Richard Stallman on How to Deal with Microsoft |-----

The following is Mirrored from: http://linuxtoday.com/stories/4999.html

Richard Stallman proposes three remedies that would help enable free
software operating systems such as GNU/Linux compete technically while
respecting users' freedom. These three remedies directly address the three
biggest obstacles to development of free operating systems, and to giving
them the capability of running programs written for Windows. They also
directly address the methods Microsoft has said (in the "Halloween
documents") it will use to obstruct free software. It would be most
effective to use all three of these remedies together.

1. Require Microsoft to publish complete documentation of all interfaces
between software components, all communications protocols, and all file
formats. This would block one of Microsoft's favourite tactics: secret and
incompatible interfaces.

To make this requirement really stick, Microsoft should not be allowed to
use a nondisclosure agreement with some other organization to excuse
implementing a secret interface. The rule must be: if they cannot publish
the interface, they cannot release an implementation of it.

It would, however, be acceptable to permit Microsoft to begin
implementation of an interface before the publication of the interface
specifications, provided that they release the specifications
simultaneously with the implementation.

Enforcement of this requirement would not be difficult. If other software
developers complain that the published documentation fails to describe
some aspect of the interface, or how to do a certain job, the court would
direct Microsoft to answer questions about it. Any questions about
interfaces (as distinguished from implementation techniques) would have to
be answered.

Similar terms were included in an agreement between IBM and the European
Community in 1984, settling another antitrust dispute. See
http://www.essential.org/antitrust/ibm/ibm1984ec.h tml.

2. Require Microsoft to use its patents for defense only, in the field of
software. (If they happen to own patents that apply to other fields, those
other fields could be included in this requirement, or they could be
exempt.) This would block the other tactic Microsoft mentioned in the
Halloween documents: using patents to block development of free software.

We should give Microsoft the option of using either self-defense or mutual
defense. Self defense means offering to cross-license all patents at no
charge with anyone who wishes to do so. Mutual defense means licensing all
patents to a pool which anyone can join -- even people who have no patents
of their own. The pool would license all members' patents to all members.

It is crucial to address the issue of patents, because it does no good to
have Microsoft publish an interface, if they have managed to work some
patented wrinkle into it (or into the functionality it gives access to),
such that the rest of us are not allowed to implement it.

3. Require Microsoft not to certify any hardware as working with Microsoft
software, unless the hardware's complete specifications have been
published, so that any programmer can implement software to support the
same hardware.

Secret hardware specifications are not in general Microsoft's doing, but
they are a significant obstacle for the development of the free operating
systems that can provide competition for Windows. To remove this obstacle
would be a great help. If a settlement is negotiated with Microsoft,
including this sort of provision in it is not impossible -- it would be a
matter of negotiation.

This April, Microsoft's Ballmer announced a possible plan to release
source code for some part of

you took it out of context... "until recently"

microsoft didn't pay until 2003! and THAT's only after Nader started making noise. Thats over 20 years of no ROI. See wired.

thanks for the shass tho

Open letter to Bill to pay a fekn dividend.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is costly For university faculty, RHEL is very inexpensive. Our IT person put RHEL on my AMD64 box even though I use Gentoo almost exclusively. (The department's laptop I took to Australia had Fedora Core 2++ (essentially 3) and it worked very well.)
My history may be incorrect but my impression is that Red Hat started with Linux and tried to find a business model that worked; I do not think they looked over the available software and picked the "best" (w.r.t. making money) one. This is interesting:
Interesting quote from Red Hat's June 4 SEC S-1 filing:
WE RELY ON THE SUPPORT OF LINUS TORVALDS AND OTHER PROMINENT LINUX DEVELOPERS
Our ability to release major upgrades of Red Hat Linux is largely dependent upon the release of new versions of the Linux kernel by Linus Torvalds, the original developer of the kernel. The Linux kernel is the heart of the operating system. Mr. Torvalds and a small group of engineers are primarily responsible for the development and evolution of the kernel. If this group of developers fails to further develop the Linux kernel, we will have to either develop it ourselves or rely on another party to develop it. This development effort could be costly and time consuming, and could delay our product release and upgrade schedule. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that the kernel would be available from a reliable alternative source. In addition, any failure on the part of the kernel developers to further develop the kernel could also stifle the development of additional Linux-based applications. Moreover, if Mr. Torvalds or other prominent Linux developers, such as Alan Cox, David Miller or Stephen Tweedie, were to join one of our competitors, or if they were to decide to no longer support us and our products in particular, or Linux in general, our business, operating results and financial condition could be materially adversely affected.
--
James Love
Consumer Project on Technology
http://www.cptech.org
love@cptech.org
202.387.8030; fax 202.234.5176

Yankee Group analyst Laura DiDio agrees. "There's a dearth of skilled Linux administrators, by comparison to the more-mature Windows, Unix, NetWare, and Macintosh environments," she says. And what happens when too much demand meets too little supply? "They can command a premium," DiDio says. "They get a 20% to 30% salary premium in the large metropolitan markets."

Mature? Please. When you consider that one good Unix guru can do the work of five Winblows admins, the 30% "premium" for higher skills is worth it and that's why people pay it. But surprise, surprise, you won't cost yourself any more if you don't hire new people but let the ones you have do what they have been recommending for years.

This is the kind of stellar logic we can expect from the person who actually signed SCO's nasty NDA and came out blithering about what a strong case SCO had, when in fact SCO has nothing. Her shilling knows no bounds and we can expect her to faithfully echo whatever M$ is saying at anytime. Why do people ask her anything anymore?

Yeah, some people are so stupid they name themselves after shadows.

Enforcement is nice, but cleaning up this one group of morons does little to solve the root cause, buggy M$ junk. The costs and skills to do the job are so low that we can be sure that no real difference will be made.

Yeah, those people calling free software a "cancer", unAmerican, and free software users "thieves". The people who put up Steve Barkto and continue their efforts with people like you. They are constantly going on about "fairness", "balance" and all that while themselves post the most vile garbage and run shakedowns like the BSA and SCO, which threaten and ruin people and businesses. They have even sued school systems. Not content to look bad in the media, they have purchased NBC! That's some of the most self righteous stuff out there. If that's not fanatically committed, what is?

Yet you would compare greedy jerks like that to people who expect no financial reward for their code or those who notice that free software is generally better than non free software? OK.

Of course, it does not work. People and companies are judged by what they do, not what they say.

It's here

It tells a lot about India's and other developing world countries needs, and sensible approaches to technology-based development.
See also the statement by the Delegate from Brazil

It's here

It tells a lot about India's and other developing world countries needs, and sensible approaches to technology-based development.
See also the statement by the Delegate from Brazil

I hope SCO won't claim copyright on 'Astroturfing' as there is a prior art

Probably none.

Microsoft did try to hire Alan Cox though.

Well, IIRC, Ballmer has done as much....

And Ballmer is his right hand man....
And here is a short article about Craig Mundie, a MS VP for sales, acting in an official manner, where he says that OpenSource is un-American, ruins your company, and destroys intellectual property.
MS Blather
This is an official viewpoint, and I'm sure Gates sees things the same way-----

They actually are fairly good mirror images....One of them just has a better PR department

In fact, here is a link where Gates says that 'Open Source' and the GPL "destroy the ecosystem" that is the world of software.

And all that Jazz

Boo-hooo, i'm teh soo smartestest becuase i cann qote some obskure reference to somme incident that happen in fucking 1998 as proof that im teh smartestest!!!1! Get a fucking life you worthless loser.

That was real sweet and deserves to be elevated from it's AC 0 rating. It's a story everyone should know along with Microsoft's other PR gaffs, like forging letters to Congress criters, the apple switcher and other nice fat lies.

It never ceases to amaze me how much time people waste on flames like that. Keep it comming, your time must be paid for but mine is free. You can't be paid much and you're not worth it but I'm happy you are wasting money that could be spent really harming free software.

Get a fucking life you worthless loser.

Ha! Apple should be happy if they aren't sued because of patent infringement. The australians patented the wheel before them.

Sorry, but how does a heavy chunck of plutonium remove the need for a rocket? I am not sure how an RTG could get you off the earth.

It doesn't. A reactor does (see Tuesday's story on a Nuclear drive). I was just pointing out that nuclear is the only good solution for space exploration.

Also I think there are problems with nuclear solutions other then just fear. Don't under play the risks, plutoniun can be highly toxic. Wastes have to be dealt with even in space.

Plutonium *can* be dangerous, but so can most of the materials used in making batteries. Anything high energy has dangers associated with it. Even rocket fuel has all kinds of nasty chemicals mixed in that you don't want to breath. I've had people tell me that plutonium is the most toxic chemical known to man. Not only is that not true, but plutonium is only toxic when ground up and inhaled. Otherwise it poses no danger whatsoever. You can even safely hold it in your hand.

US Cruiser Dead At Sea Because of Blue Screen of Death

Not exactly nullified, but many corporations are already finding ways to avoid paying their taxes.

"companies would have the right to vote"

In a sense, companies do vote... through political contributions, lobbyists, political favors, etc.

"environmental protections would go away"

With the passage of NAFTA, we already see this happening. From Global Exchange:

NAFTA includes unprecedented ways for corporations to attack our laws through so-called "investor-to-state" lawsuits. Such suits, established by NAFTA's Chapter 11, allow corporations to sue governments for compensation if they feel that any government action, including the enforcement of public health and safety laws, cuts into their profits. Already, Chapter 11 lawsuits have been used to repeal a Canadian law banning a chemical linked to nervous system damage, and to challenge California's phase-out of a gas additive, MTBE, that is poisoning the state's ground water. Negotiators want to include these anti-democratic lawsuits in the FTAA.

Why, it's Union Carbide! Haha, take that, jobtakeing Indian scumbags.