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Tux Works for Microsoft?!

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the someone-will-pay-for-this dept.

Jadecristal writes: "From the contact info on the USB group contact page under Microsoft's record, one might get the impression that Tux worked for Microsoft. Perhaps he is being held against his will ... " Would any Microsoft employees care to disclose the whereabouts of a certain "Mr. Tux the penguin," and perhaps say which freezers he favors while in Redmond? Better yet, would any Microsoft employees like to comment on how many internal-to-Microsoft servers Mr. Tux currently powers?

9 of 212 comments (clear)

  1. I've got a slack-7.0 box at Microsoft... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5

    For obvious reasons, I'm posting this as AC... :)

    I have to admit that the evil empire helps pay my rent on the 1st and the 15th of every month, but as I haven't seen anyone else step up and admit it, I will admit that I have a Slackware 7.0 box running on MS's network. The smb packages are your friend for connecting to domains and actually being able to get to all those nifty shares. :) People actually stop by my cube to talk Tux every now and then. MS isn't so anti-penguin as everyone leads everyone else to believe.

    MS even has a "Linux User Discussion" public folder in Outlook where the occassional question about "how do I get my box on the LAN, etc." gets fielded by several of us. If any other MS employees are running a box, we'd sure love to hear from you! :)

  2. Hmm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5

    Remember the last story about the USB Forum? The one where people figured out various username/password combinations that had not been changed from the defaults...

  3. SCREENSHOT by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5
    I didn't think to mirror the content, but I did capture my Netscape window while viewing the unmodified Microsoft vendor page.

    http://pangaea.dhs.org/tux.gif

    You can also get the TIFF file if you really want to see it in 24 bpp color.

    ---
    chahast at pangaea dot dhs dot org

  4. Rescue Planning Already in Progress by Skyshadow · · Score: 5
    Fear not, citizen. The all-stars of the OSS movement are already planning how to save Tux from the clutches of Microsoft.

    Here's Plan 0.8:

    Jon Katz will disable the guards at the perimeter of the Microsoft compound, putting them to sleep with a lengthy rant about how the internet will end tooth decay. Bob Young and Michael Coupland will steal past the security cameras in the main lobby, which will be looking for long-haired, hippie-looking OSS hacker types rather than guys in suits. Once Young and Coupland have breached building security, they will ssh out and irc with Eric Raymond, who will be providing fire support from a hill overlooking the MS campus. ESR will use his first-hand knowledge of the buildings (gained in his visit last year) to guide Young and Coupland to the central security office. Once at the security office, Young and Coupland will release Jamie Zawinski, who will entice the guards to leave by offering them free passes to his nightclub (years of working at MS will ensure that they look angstful enough to get in). The three will then attempt to do something useful on the W2k-based security system, causing it to come to a screaming halt. When the building is secured, Linus Torvolds will be brought in to locate Tux (after all, Linus has the uncanny ability to always move in the right direction). While Linus and his henchman search for Tux, Richard Stallman will move into position to cover the escape with an rant which will cause money-grubbing shrink-wrap licensing capitalists to burst into flames. When Tux is located, he will be hustled into the parking lot where John Carmack will be waiting to speed away to safety at speeds well in excess of 140 mph. When the last OSS Team member has evacuated the building, the Slashdot contributors will be brought in to flame the building to cinders, finishing it off with a corosive layer of hot grits. The confusion this will cause, combined with Carmack's rather insane mode of driving, will hopefully buy enough time to secure Tux at an undisclosed (but happily fridged an herring-filled) base of operations.
    Possible bugs with this plan include both the possibility that Coupland isn't actually serious about the OSS movement and will bail at the first sign of trouble and the chance that JWZ will bail before the operation is concluded. Patches to these problems are welcome.

    ----

    --
    Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
  5. I'm forming a commando squad. Who will join me? by root · · Score: 5
    Ok men, here's the deal. The FreeBSD guys will create a diversion by staging a protest near the main gate demanding a port of MS Office to their platform. Second, Slashdot's main page will have all links pointing to random locations within *.microsoft.com. The masive /. effect will keep the MS IT goons off balance, and distract corporate management. Third, every Best Buy store nationwide will be simultaneously littered with flyers caiming "Free copies of Windows 2000 to the first 100,000 callers to 1-800-MICROSOFT". This will saturate all communications lines into the complex.

    Now while MS is busy, the Linux team will enter the compound, crash the WinCE running microsoft's security alarms and door locks by setting the date back to 12-31-99 and letting the clock roll over again, or by installing Explorer 5.0 or better yet, AOL Titanium. We will then move to the freezer section where the penguin is being held, free him, and get out before the crashed windows machines catch fire and fill the building with smoke. Stallman, (yes sir!) if there's time, you will go to the legal dept's office and replace the MS EULA with a copy of the GPL. And Young (yes sir!) you swap out the Win2K master CD on the assembly line with a Red Hat 6.3 distro cd.

    Ok, break!

  6. Mail? But Tux doesn't power their BSOD service by Morgaine · · Score: 5

    Well, some mail does actually make it out of Redmond, so clearly not all their servers run NT.

    But alas the Penguin just can't deliver the goods when it comes to really demanding services like BSOD. And, contrary to the usual bad press about Windows availability, the NT-based BSOD service boasts a 99.9% availability record over 5 years, totally unparalleled in the industry. Try beating that, Tux!!

    ;-)

    --
    "The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
  7. He's Free! by dysprosium · · Score: 5

    Looks like someone managed to rescue Tux. And replace him with Mark Williams.

  8. The light begins to dawn... by zeke · · Score: 5

    So Gates has been misquoted all these years.

    "64K (bugs) should be enough for anybody."

    - B. Gates

    zeke

  9. Shhh! Quiet!! by Harvey · · Score: 5

    Who do you think was responsible for the 65,000+ bugs in Win2K, fools??? And now you've blown his cover!!!

    Harvey