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It depends on how many Windows desktops you are able to replace with Macintosh OS X, Solaris or Linux. Seriously. Windows isn't around because of it's technical merits.

I have worked in help desk environments in the past for a Windows / Macintosh / Solaris computing environment. The Solaris users largely took care of themselves, but contacted us for some settings information, like establishing the right settings for Kerberos, LDAP, AFS, or SMTP. The Mac users outnumbered everyone else by at least 4 to 1. However, it was the Windows users that wasted about 80% of our time for drop in help. Even cloned setups on identical hardware had different problems. Drivers were a big one. For phone calls, it was a bit higher in number of Windows user contacts but a bit shorter in duration for each one.

I did family tech support for years until I had enough and bought anyone who was willing new Apples. Only my mom took me up, but her support calls dropped off to nothing within days and now we can talk about other things for a change.

I've visited and toured libraries and schools using LTSP. One of those was stuck with some windows machines. The effort to keep the few Windows machines going was about, from their statistics, about 14:1 compared to LTSP. That ratio would probably been higher if they had even higher ration of Linux stations. The others cited even more favorable rates.

Getting rid of Windows is mostly a psychological problem. First, users have to become familiar enough with computers to be able to do their daily tasks. Having knowlegeable staff on the spot to nudge in the right direction is essential, as is encouraging peer support. Then they need to keep access to the Windows machines and try to do on Windows what they can do on computers. Then they eventually decide on their own, 'fuck it' regarding the Windows use and drop it without looking back.

The real question is are you always constantly working your ass off, fixing stupid problems - and therefore unable to do anything more productive? If so, then it seems you don't have enough people.

Setting the 'right' staffing levels, then depends on how much you can clean up the computing environment. I for one am offended that so much money and time is wasted just trying get the M$ stuff to work as well as its competitors. I would much rather see the same number of staff hours used not for support but for improvement and making things faster, easier, more productive. Before Windows, IT used to save effort rather than a live demo of the Red Queen's Race!

'Conlin recounted how Microsoft developed a program called EDGI (Education Government Incentive) to respond to Linux and fight low cost or no cost competitors in these developing areas, to keep Windows pre-installed and stop the shipping of naked machines (machines without an OS). Microsoft, Conlin related, has represented that this a charitable program but internal Microsoft documents reveal it was exclusively a way to prevent these developing countries from using Linux instead of Microsoft products'

Check the tables at the end of this Comes exhibit, its Linux/OO (when it was still StarOffice) in every region. Because the target is future developers and government contracts, obviously.

Yeah, it looks like that to me too. But a team leader position with a group of OSS bashers is probably the wrong way to go. Probably involves some input to the scripts for the blog center in Bangalore. I hope they get somebody good for that - the astroturf has been pretty weak the last few years.

They really need several people for this gig. A cuddler or two to get up close to the community, a handler to dump their data, some "perception change agents" (PCAs) to pump the results to their pets in the press. Maybe a blogging coach to fly to Bangalore and teach people not to paste all of their talking points into every post or ask obviously knowledgable people to cite. They're probably trying to hire the handler, but don't know what they need.

I'd probably add to that a whole herd of temps from the local LUGs in focal regions as focus groups to laugh at the pitches the PCAs come up with and so refine them -- you could probably get those guys for pizza and Bawlz, and a tour of the Campus of Serene Giving.

If they don't structure this so that some of these folks are consultants who provide input as "consultancy" under their own corps and deliver the rest gratis, they're going to get outed through lack of plausible deniability and a few years from now the next version of the Halloween Documents or Comes Documents will burn them yet again. They're really flailing up there. Since BillG left the subtlety just isn't there, which is probably why the stock is flat over the last decade.

Hey, maybe I'd be good at this - except for the whole dancing with the devil part.

For sure the HR department needs a performance review - "MICROSOFT NEEDS A MACHIAVELLIAN JERK TO BEAT OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE" isn't really the type of job ad you want to hang out there where everyone can see it.

Groklaw has it.

It's very hard not to agree with the court that Microsoft wilfully infringed. Furthermore, it seems they expected to be caught, and to lose the inevitable suit - and didn't care either. Not hard to see why: The damages awarded are equivalent to just two days' revenue for Microsoft (although they infringed for five years). As a commenter pointed out, that's why such cases are unlikely to change their posture on software patents; even when they lose in that arena (and they are serial infringers, frequently losing such cases) - they have already made a huge profit on the whole dirty business. Same old Microsoft.

The way damages were calculated is detailed by the document linked (and was upheld by appeal, as it most likely substantially underestimated the real damages).

The relative merits of Windows and Linux have nothing to do with the fact that Microsoft did in fact hire the Hypno-Toad.

This behaviour is in Microsoft's DNA from the first dealings with Gary Kildall to the current i4i debacle. It didn't mysteriously originate at the moment that Microsoft turned the corner from logarithmic growth to slow decline in January of 2000. For that radical course correction we need look no further than the appointment of Steve Ballmer to the helm on that day.

Obviously Ballmer isn't responsible for the culture that established these behaviours - he inherited that. We should just be thankful he's not as good at executing it.

Hmmm....

Microsoft has also pledged not to pursue patent claims against individual open source developers or non-commercial efforts, as well.

As was (once again) pointed out on Groklaw recently, this sort of language is a restriction that is incompatible with the GPL. (GPLv2 section 6, much more explicit about patents in GPLv3 section 11.)

Far safer to avoid Microsoft patented technology than to rely on such a promise.

Psystar infringed Apple's exclusive right to create derivative works of Mac OS X. It did this by replacing original files in Mac OS X with unauthorized software files. Specifically, it made three modifications: (1) replacing the Mac OS X bootloader with a different bootloader to enable an unauthorized copy of Mac OS X to run on Psystar's computers; (2) disabling and removing Apple kernel extension files; and (3) adding non-Apple kernel extensions. These modifications enabled Mac OS X to run on a non-Apple computer. It is undisputed that Psystar made these modifications (Def. Opp. 6-7).3

No they will not. I dare you to buy a copy of Mac OS X from Fry's, Best Buy, or even an Apple Store and then break the seal and try to return it. They will not allow you to return open software ever. They only permit an exchange if the media is defective. That return policy is pushed on the retailers by the vendors to prevent piracy.

Since you seem to have read the Groklaw article you'll note that the judge's order had nothing to do with licensing and everything to do with copyright and the DMCA. Allow me to quote Groklaw for you:

[The] injunction includes forbidding Psystar from intentionally inducing, aiding, assisting, abetting, or encouraging any other person or entity to infringe plaintiff's copyrighted Mac OS X software. (Groklaw empahsis mine)

Is Windows sold or licensed?

From November's ruling:

[MacOS...] are covered by software license
2 agreements that provided that the software is “licensed, not sold to [the user] by Apple Inc.
3 (“Apple”) for use only under the terms of this License” (Chung Exh. 26 at 1). Apple’s license
4 agreements restricted the use of Mac OS X to Apple computers, and specifically prohibited
5 customers from installing the operating system on non-Apple computers.

Monty is a liar, Groklaw caught him in the lie and he shouldn't be trusted.

As a techie who built a RDBMS competing with Oracle, I would pay anytime Monty much more attention than some over-religious zealots over at Groklaw.

If you're going to attempt to argue from authority and trash Groklaw, you'd better have a better argument than 'cause I said so'.

I say this as someone who used to work for an also-ran Oracle competitor. /snark.

Groklaw has made some very specific claims that point to the conclusion that Monty, in fact, is a liar. Others (including me) have come to that conclusion as well, while noting facts about his self-dealing that lead one (well, at least me) to consider him in an even more negative light than Groklaw is willing to paint. Trashing Moglen, for instance, is an absolute dick move. Call it "business is business, not black and white" if you like, but that doesn't protect anyone, Monty or otherwise, from being called a dick for doing it, nor for being remembered as doing it next time he reaches out for help from "the community". People remember things.

groklaw quotes from his submission to the EC, pointing out things that he had specifically denied previous to this disclosure.

Is that RMS is somehow batting against the GPL on this one (as covered by Groklaw).

That's one of the reasons we have open source licenses. So we can fork if we have to.

He did already - it's called MariaDB. He just doesn't like the fact that his fork has to be GPL only - he can't integrate any commercial code like he did when he owned MySQL AB. I don't think I can put it any better here than I did at Groklaw (see this comment. Basically:

• Monty made MySQL; licensed it under a dual license (GPL + MySQL Commercial License)
• dual license structure worked well for MySQL AB - prevented commercial competitors, fostered community around GPL version
• Monty sold MySQL AB to Sun for $1B without changing the license. No compliants; he worked for Sun.
• Sun seems to be under the gun and going to get sold off - Monty quits, tries to fork MySQL as MariaDB. Wants to build a new "MySQL AB" under another name; but the dual license prevents it.
• See opportunity to force Sun to change the license so he can keep his money from the sale, while still getting all the code, possibly also the commercial code, and redo MySQL AB
• Monty's looking to do a "rinse-repeat".

Monty just doesn't like the hand that he dealt himself - one he had every opportunity to change while he owned MySQL AB, probably even would have been able to influence while he was a Sun Employee too; but never complained (that we know of while he was at Sun) and never did (when he had the chance himself - he could of done it as part of the sale to Sun).

Yeah - he could just setup a services-oriented company around MySQL; but he doesn't want that - he wants his MySQL back, as well as the money he took from Sun. It's all about his wallet; nothing else.

Then why does he have to lie?

Why does he want to have the EU retroactively invalidate the GPL grant-back?

We would like to draw attention to the fact that some major concerns about the effects of the proposed transaction could be somewhat alleviated by requiring that all versions of MySQL source code previously released under the GPLv2 license (whether in a General Availability, Release Candidate, Beta, Alpha release, or as public bazaar or bitkeeper revision control trees) must be released under a more liberal open source license that is usable also by the OEM users and would also create an opportuity for other service vendors to compete with offerings comparable to MySQL Enterprise. A good candidate is the Apache Software License.

We believe this could be a FOSS-specific approach to addressing the ownership of some of the key assets involved, as an alternative to conventional conditions imposed on such transactions.

Section 5.5 of the supplementary document discusses this possible measure.

In other words, he wants to be able to use and distribute GPL'd code without having to distribute the changes. Greedy pig indeed.

Or this:

The "copyleft/infection" principle of the GPL license represents a particular obstacle not only to revenue generation by the fork vendor but also to the overall adoption and market penetration of MySQL, MySQL forks and MySQL storage engines....

Under such open source licenses as the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) license and the Apache license, proprietary derivatives are legal. The only obligation might be attribution.

Where else have we heard about the GPL being an infection?

What's worse is that he is attempting to make the EU commision require forcing oracle to change the license from the GPL I guess this will become typical of codeplex foundation members...

And in addition to all his whining that people here are jumping on, he flat-out lied about his activities with the EC. More discussion on groklaw, the gist is that he has asked the EU to force MySQL to be released without the GPL, then denied having done so. Releasing MySQL back to the community is not enough; he wants a version that he can take proprietary in the future, and that is why a fork is not sufficient.

No single entity controls the source of mysql either. It's GPL. If you want to fork it, fork it. You guys are missing the point.

The point is Widenius wants to start a new company, and wants to work off of what mysql, the company (and thousands of volunteers who have contributed to the project) have created over the past N years. He does not care if it goes to Oracle, Microsoft, some made-up nonprofit-ish foundation, or dies. He could really care less about that. He wants to build a company that will make a proprietary product and will make him money.

The thorn in his side, however, is the fact that he can't take the code that was once released as GPL and use it in his proprietary software. He either has to open up his software (which he does not want to do), or else not be able to benefit from all those years worth of effort by mysql AB and others who have contributed to the project.

If the license was just about anything but GPL (apache, BSD, whatever), he could do just that. But he can't.

What, you really think it's all about evil Oracle taking over mysql, and it's not really the license that's a thorn in Wideniuses side? Read a more in-depth analysis by someone who understands the issue a _whole lot better_ than I or just about any of you folks do. Here: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20091208104422384

I encourage anyone who mistakes Monty for a friend of Open Source to do a little reading...

The case against the case against Oracle-MySQL

MySQL and a tale of two biases

Monty Program AB's Suggestion to EU Commission to Get Rid of the GPL on MySQL

How Many Times Can Monty Sell MySQL?

Gates in public:

In fact, Microsoft goes out of its way to make early copies of API and protocol specifications available,

Gates inside Microsoft:

I have decided that we should not publish these extensions.

"In the face of strong competition, Evangelism's focus may shift immediately to the next version of the same technology, however. Indeed, Phase 1 (Evangelism Starts) for version x+1 may start as soon as this Final Release of version X."

All software is math, no exceptions.

You can't patent math.

Well, in the current state of things, you /can/ patent math, and that's something a lot of people are hoping is revoked.

Imagine if something like calculus had been patented, or the quadratic equation?

We'd be fucked, as a species.

For a concise, well written and much elaborated explanation, see "An Explanation of Computation Theory for Lawyers": http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20091111151305785

Now, that's written specifically for lawyers, but it should be clear enough, perhaps more clear because of that, for most of the Slashdot crowd to get it - all software is math, no exceptions, and math should not be patentable.

Indeed. I though TFA was very weak. His points were:

1. If you can do it in electronics, you can do it in hardware: the electronics would be patentable
2. Software patents can make a shitload of money for someone
3. I think software patents are pretty neat!

Only the first point is anything resembling an argument, and that one we've heard a dozen times before.

If anyone wants a soild exploration of what should and should not be considered software, and why it ought not to be patentable, I'd recommend PoIR's An Explanation of Computation Theory for Lawyers" over on Groklaw. It's well-researched, well-argued, and informative.

I'm not sure we'd have had a Shakespeare if ihe lived in a age in which something like modern copyright had been enforced considering most of his works are based on the works of others.

King Lear
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20090621124054133

There are others but I have to get back to work instead of googleing them for you.

Clearly Groklaw isn't a straight news site

Of course it's not. Who said it was?

it has an agenda. That's OK, but let's not pretend it's objective.

Of course it's not. Who said it was?

the Bush administration had documents to support the Iraq war as well, they just excluded the ones that didn't support their case

Do you have some documents that show Comes vs Microsoft didn't happen?

I don't think you really gave much thought to the subject before you commented. That's OK - we all do that sometimes - just spout off with no idea what we are saying. I don't care - doesn't matter to me. That's what Slashdot is for - a forum to spout off in. Feel free!

If you've been following Groklaw over the last few years, you probably have a bias against MS already.

Agreed - because everything discussed on Groklaw is backed up with documentation. Therefore, if you read Groklaw, you will have followed the links to the Comes vs Microsoft material or the links to hundreds of other documents sufficient for any thinking person to come to their own, negative conclusions about Microsoft's business conduct.

Now you will also find conspiracy theories in abundance on Groklaw as well, as was pointed out in a comment above yours. It you are looking for entertainment, you may find them amusing, but an independent thinker will not pay much attention to this kind of discussion if he want to be informed. He will go straight to the documentation and make up his or her own mind.

If you've been following Groklaw over the last few years, you probably have a bias against MS already.

Agreed - because everything discussed on Groklaw is backed up with documentation. Therefore, if you read Groklaw, you will have followed the links to the Comes vs Microsoft material or the links to hundreds of other documents sufficient for any thinking person to come to their own, negative conclusions about Microsoft's business conduct.

Now you will also find conspiracy theories in abundance on Groklaw as well, as was pointed out in a comment above yours. It you are looking for entertainment, you may find them amusing, but an independent thinker will not pay much attention to this kind of discussion if he want to be informed. He will go straight to the documentation and make up his or her own mind.

If you've been following Groklaw over the last few years, you probably have a bias against MS already.

Agreed - because everything discussed on Groklaw is backed up with documentation. Therefore, if you read Groklaw, you will have followed the links to the Comes vs Microsoft material or the links to hundreds of other documents sufficient for any thinking person to come to their own, negative conclusions about Microsoft's business conduct.

Now you will also find conspiracy theories in abundance on Groklaw as well, as was pointed out in a comment above yours. It you are looking for entertainment, you may find them amusing, but an independent thinker will not pay much attention to this kind of discussion if he want to be informed. He will go straight to the documentation and make up his or her own mind.

Thjis is the guy who did the "Fake Steve Jobs" blog, bitching about Yahoo "lying" about how long Yang was going to be CEO
http://valleywag.gawker.com/5091609/newsweek-reporter-yahoo-pr-lying-sacks-of-s+++

Dan Lyons is shocked, shocked that Yahoo's PR team lied to him about how long CEO Jerry Yang would stay in the job. PR people routinely lie; it's part of the job description. But the good ones don't get caught. Lyons, Newsweek's tech columnist, interviewed Yahoo chairman Roy Bostock less than a month before Monday's announcement that Yang would step down, and Bostock loudly declared Yang was here to stay. One would think no one would be more cynical about the world of tech PR than the man who savaged Apple's spinmeister when he impersonated CEO Steve Jobs in a satirical blog.

Groklaw archive of all the pro-sco fud from Lying Lyns: http://www.groklaw.net/quotes/showperson.phtml?pid=30

The guy is scum. He also has no clue when it comes to the inner workings of technology (sort of like a lot of the "analysts" that you see getting it wrong all the time).

Interix was created solely for the reason of destroying UNIX

Do you have any proof?

You ask as if I was accusing Microsoft of being especially evil. This isn't another big secret like the the way they carefully arrange APIs to disadvantage other companies that develop for Windows. In fact let's just ask them.

from an MS press release>:

It allows users with UNIX environments to take advantage of the benefits of the Windows environment without having to rewrite critical applications. In addition, users can immediately use the full Windows-based application development environment to develop native Win32® API-based applications.

In other words we'd like UNIX customers to move to Windows and abandon UNIX.

from the same MS press release:

Interix 2.2 brings Microsoft customers one step closer to its vision of a single desktop computer for all uses by providing a complete enterprise platform to run all Windows-based, UNIX and Internet applications.

In other words, we'd like you to only use Windows.

In fact there is nothing wrong with this as such. The normal way the free market works is by competition in which one company tries to destroy another companies products by getting people to use their own. What could easily be wrong is if they were, for example, ensuring some of their own software in a market where they had used illegal tactics to become a dominant player were only available on their own platform so that their competitors could not try to do the same to them.

It interests me why the MS astroturfers are so touchy about this topic? Could it be that MS has something to hide on this topic?

What would you consider the SUA community?

People who are neither working for the good of the "Open Source Community" nor Microsoft? Possibly, in part, Useful idiots? People who would be better to spend their time improving Debian or CentOS? Is Microsoft contributing or not? I know little of this and would be honestly interested to analyse it.

I think this is the target audience: organizations who want to run UNIX applications on Windows in a supported way. It's probably not indented for people who want a complete GNU system. (Recent packages ship with GCC and GDB, but otherwise come with BSD or SVR4-derived utilities.)

Agreed.

Surely the BSD lawsuit had something to do with Linux taking off instead of BSD?

That is what many people say. However the SCO probably lawsuit hasn't really had that much influence on Linux. I'm not convinced that it's true. Certainly this doesn't apply to Minix or many of the other BSD situations. It certainly doesn't explain the success of Mozilla (copyleft) over Mosaic (not).

[...] But some organizations that do use Linux and GNU software don't contribute much back - consider many of the consumer electronics devices that run GPL software, such as consumer broadband routers. Some provide the source as required by the GPL, but not much else - for example, the Linux source used might be available, but the wifi driver might be a binary module.

The source they do provide means that any major feature they implement in Linux its self is available to others. That's key. That means that competitors who release features into Linux can do so with the knowledge that major improvements to their features will be available to copy back.

As far as the binary module thing goes; this is an exce

I'm not sure why these smaller companies keep trying to take on the big boys, though, when they know they'll get crushed, like a nut.

Check out the Groklaw article on the case. It appears that getting sued by Apple was part of Psystar's business plan from the get-go. They actually marketed the idea to VC outfits as a reason to invest in the company.

What Psystar was more than anything else--certainly more than a computer manufacturer--was a case of investor fraud. Standby for shareholder lawsuits in 3...2...1...

The claims of removing Gimp are just smoke and noise to hid the damage the monomaniacs are doing elsewhere in Debian and Ubuntu.

Microsofters always try to present their schemes as a done deal. It's documented in their bag of tricks. The relevant trick is from plaintiff's exhibit 3096 from the court case Comes v Microsoft. Microsoft appeared prepared to ignore the last state, Iowa, indefinitely in the last unresolved class action case for over-charging. Roll down to page 45 and start reading. Or download the song version.

Regardles, Ubuntu 10.4, Lucid Lynx is just starting. There are several channels through which the mistake can be corrected. One is through brainstorm: Idea #110: No Mono by default in Ubuntu can use your vote.

Nah, they are still the same.

The thing is, you have to have trust in version control to be prepared to use it. You are putting your business in its hands, so it had better not break or introduce errors on purpose. Trust depends upon your reputation. Reputation matters.

Would you put your trust in the safety of your product in the hands of a company to whom the continued life of your product represented part of a competitive threat to their platform?

This would be a more meaningful point if the EC's objections were founded in preventing a majority market share. But that isn't the case.

The EC thinks that Oracle will acquire MySQL and use its position to force users onto its own proprietary databases, thus acting in an anticompetitive manner (the assumption being that MySQL and Oracle DB are competing products). Check out Groklaw's take on the issue for a breakdown as to why this is pure FUD.

This merger wouldn't be an issue if MS didn't covet MySQL and SAP wasn't a European company.

I get modded "Flamebait" for speaking the truth, in response to a shameless plug for Microsoft's latest operating system that gets modded "+5 Interesting"? Please tell me what is so damn interesting about someone's desire to see Microsoft achieve massive domination with Windows 7. We see plugs for Microsoft planted everywhere on the internet and I don't see anything interesting about that. A moderation of "+5 Disgusting" would be more appropriate. What in the world is going on here, when we can no longer speak the truth on Slashdot for fear of upsetting the shills? I will continue to call a spade a spade. For now, I have karma to burn. When my karma runs out - I'm gone, and I'll happily leave Slashdot to the shills and they can have all wonderful conversations between themselves and their sock puppets without my protests. As long as I have enough karma to be visible, however, I'll continue to fight the good fight.

The conspiracy theory is that Psystar is funded by "other companies." Even Apple has claimed this in their complaint against them in court :

"18. On information and belief, persons other than Psystar are involved in Psystar’s unlawful and improper activities described in this Amended Complaint. The true names or capacities, whether individual, corporate, or otherwise, of these persons are unknown to Apple. Consequently they are referred to herein as John Does 1 through 10 (collectively the “John Doe Defendants”). On information and belief, the John Doe Defendants are various individuals and/or corporations who have infringed Apple’s intellectual property rights, breached or induced the breach of Apple’s license agreements and violated state and common law unfair competition laws."

I don't think I have to spell out who the usual suspects are.

Aside from the detail that Apple is busy suing them into a deep hole...

Welcome to legal systems. Whether or not you think justice is being rendered, the rendering takes time.

Any comments about this? http://www.groklaw.net/comment.php?mode=display&sid=20091021164738392&title=Whois%3A++Monty+Widenius&type=article&order=&hideanonymous=0&pid=795299#c795327

Groklaw has an interesting take on this, full of conspiracy theories.

See, for example, this comment, where PJ is talking about Monty, and says:

I have come to suspect he's a double agent.
And I believe the beneficiary will be Microsoft.

Wow

Groklaw is turning into the Troofer site for the realm of technology law.

PJ did great work on shining the light of day on SCO, but damn, Groklaw is turning into the professional athlete that played about a decade too long in a futile search for former glory.

Groklaw has an interesting take on this, full of conspiracy theories.

See, for example, this comment, where PJ is talking about Monty, and says:

I have come to suspect he's a double agent.
And I believe the beneficiary will be Microsoft.

Wow

Groklaw is turning into the Troofer site for the realm of technology law.

PJ did great work on shining the light of day on SCO, but damn, Groklaw is turning into the professional athlete that played about a decade too long in a futile search for former glory.

--dave

Groklaw has an interesting take on this, full of conspiracy theories.

See, for example, this comment, where PJ is talking about Monty, and says:

I have come to suspect he's a double agent. And I believe the beneficiary will be Microsoft.

Wow

Groklaw has an interesting take on this, full of conspiracy theories.

See, for example, this comment, where PJ is talking about Monty, and says:

I have come to suspect he's a double agent. And I believe the beneficiary will be Microsoft.

Wow

Actually it's our favorite monopolist, who's been identified on Groklaw as one of the complainants.

And MS now employs Monty Widenius(sp?), and is making a push before the EC against the GPL: see http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20091021164738392

I see it as astroturfing the EU: dredging up simulated public support for a bogus problem to distract the commission from it's own bad behavior. With luck, they can distract the EC until the current head leaves, then make a deal for reduced penalties...

And, of course, get back at Sun for all the uncomplimentary things Scott's said about them!

Me? I want the deal to go through, in part because Sun and Oracle customers often hire capacity planners (;-))

And also because Microsoft doesn't deserve to get away with it.

--dave

> It's all speculation propagated by the AT&T Artificial Turf(TM) fanclub.

You're absolutely right, but you didn't give any citations. So I'll dig up a few of them for you. It seems like getting people to call something "racist" or to claim that it will "harm the disabled" are some of the most popular current lobbyist tactics. Why? Because no politician wants to be branded a racist.

Here are some places where corporate lobbyists have pulled this exact same trick:

* Critics of Rep. Conyers called "racist" ... because they're against radio performance royalties which "exploit black musicians" even though the RIAA types pushing for these royalties are going to pocket most of them and exploit the artists far more than anyone else. (citation) This was in an NAACP resolution, incidentally.

* Lobbyists fearing a loss of Microsoft leverage stir up a bunch of disabled people who don't even know the difference between a file format and an application to protest ODF as harmful to the disabled. They also create a bogus story calling Peter Quinn "corrupt" (with the retraction to be printed later, in a place most people won't see it). (It's harder to find good links any more, but try this and this).

As you can see, this is a common trick being used by lobbyists. These groups aren't, incidentally, usually controlled by the lobbyists directly. They just get told what to think about some issue they don't fully understand by someone who happens to donate money to them. If you tell people that somebody is out to screw them, they'll be biased against it no matter what.

And it's funny on Net Neutrality, because if you remember, the one thing that everyone from the ACLU to the Christian Coalition protested was the idea that an ISP (I think it was AT&T) could pick any high-traffic website and say to them "we're going to throttle access to your website unless you pay up." Nowadays, people are all saying "what IS Net Neutrality, anyhow?" because they've forgotten what we're all against. Or they're worried that the government will try to create some rule against doing exactly what I just said and end up banning QoS, end-user traffic shaping, etc.

Part of the "confusion" is due to highly-paid lobbyists. Suppose there's some popular outcry against something a business wants to do. As with smoking and laws banning it in public. Then you do a few things:

* Find people who are naturally against this law (e.g. smokers) and convince them their rights are being "trampled." These are your allies. Fund them if need be. Create them if need be.

* Find out why people oppose smoking (it's deadly) and counter this with disinformation. First, they said that smoking hadn't been "proven" to cause anything, it was only "linked" to dozens of diseases, cancer, etc. but not "proven." After that failed, they did exactly the same thing with second-hand smoke. There's no doubt in the scientific community that cigarette smoke is harmful, even if you're not actually smoking. Someone will probably show up shortly to claim otherwise.

* Lobby politicians. As seen with Mr. Quinn, if you can find alleged dirt, even if it's bogus, you can use that to threaten them by "exposing" them to the press. You can also get your allies, especially if they're groups of minorities/disabled/whoever, to decry the move as somehow racist/homophobic/whatever if there's any possible way to make this mistake. No politician wants to be a racist or to have a group of disabled people protesting them.

There's more, but if you look around, you'll see the same fact pattern. The advice to "follow the money" has always been golden. It works on tobacco lobbyists, Microsoft lobbyists, RIAA lobbyists... ever

> It's all speculation propagated by the AT&T Artificial Turf(TM) fanclub.

You're absolutely right, but you didn't give any citations. So I'll dig up a few of them for you. It seems like getting people to call something "racist" or to claim that it will "harm the disabled" are some of the most popular current lobbyist tactics. Why? Because no politician wants to be branded a racist.

Here are some places where corporate lobbyists have pulled this exact same trick:

* Critics of Rep. Conyers called "racist" ... because they're against radio performance royalties which "exploit black musicians" even though the RIAA types pushing for these royalties are going to pocket most of them and exploit the artists far more than anyone else. (citation) This was in an NAACP resolution, incidentally.

* Lobbyists fearing a loss of Microsoft leverage stir up a bunch of disabled people who don't even know the difference between a file format and an application to protest ODF as harmful to the disabled. They also create a bogus story calling Peter Quinn "corrupt" (with the retraction to be printed later, in a place most people won't see it). (It's harder to find good links any more, but try this and this).

As you can see, this is a common trick being used by lobbyists. These groups aren't, incidentally, usually controlled by the lobbyists directly. They just get told what to think about some issue they don't fully understand by someone who happens to donate money to them. If you tell people that somebody is out to screw them, they'll be biased against it no matter what.

And it's funny on Net Neutrality, because if you remember, the one thing that everyone from the ACLU to the Christian Coalition protested was the idea that an ISP (I think it was AT&T) could pick any high-traffic website and say to them "we're going to throttle access to your website unless you pay up." Nowadays, people are all saying "what IS Net Neutrality, anyhow?" because they've forgotten what we're all against. Or they're worried that the government will try to create some rule against doing exactly what I just said and end up banning QoS, end-user traffic shaping, etc.

Part of the "confusion" is due to highly-paid lobbyists. Suppose there's some popular outcry against something a business wants to do. As with smoking and laws banning it in public. Then you do a few things:

* Find people who are naturally against this law (e.g. smokers) and convince them their rights are being "trampled." These are your allies. Fund them if need be. Create them if need be.

* Find out why people oppose smoking (it's deadly) and counter this with disinformation. First, they said that smoking hadn't been "proven" to cause anything, it was only "linked" to dozens of diseases, cancer, etc. but not "proven." After that failed, they did exactly the same thing with second-hand smoke. There's no doubt in the scientific community that cigarette smoke is harmful, even if you're not actually smoking. Someone will probably show up shortly to claim otherwise.

* Lobby politicians. As seen with Mr. Quinn, if you can find alleged dirt, even if it's bogus, you can use that to threaten them by "exposing" them to the press. You can also get your allies, especially if they're groups of minorities/disabled/whoever, to decry the move as somehow racist/homophobic/whatever if there's any possible way to make this mistake. No politician wants to be a racist or to have a group of disabled people protesting them.

There's more, but if you look around, you'll see the same fact pattern. The advice to "follow the money" has always been golden. It works on tobacco lobbyists, Microsoft lobbyists, RIAA lobbyists... ever

Wow, that presentation is superb.

There's all kinds of good stuff in that one. It's especially interesting when you see that M$ started its jihad (yes, the movement leadership's own words) back in the 1990's. It sure looks like a political / ideological / religious movement that uses illegal means to push its agenda and at the cost of billions of dollars of damage. Isn't DHS suppose to be protecting us from people like that?

MS-CC-RN 000001089959
HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL
MGB 2003
7/7/2005 10:52 AM

Assume Linux is in your account Someone is doing some research

Find and Lean on your insider friend, 'the fox' Having a trusted MSfriend in the account is critical. Some people (unix Bigots) can think of lots of reasons not to have a MS solution. MS folks may not be the strongest voice but they are true believers (Protect them, make them look good)

http://antitrust.slated.org/www.iowaconsumercase.org/011607/9000/PX09346.pdf

We've all seen these saboteurs in action.

If CCIA is a MSFT shill, then why did they support ODF? http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20060616162232582