Slashdot Mirror
Campaign for Free Software in the Bundestag
mpawlo writes: "According to Swedish IDG.se, the president of Microsoft Germany is outraged over the Bundestux campaign. The campaign aims to put Linux in the Bundestag (German Parliament). He has sent a letter to the campaign workers - some of them members of the German parliament - stating that Microsoft is not a threat to democratic values (as argued by the campaign). Kurt Sibold also states that the only thing achieved through the campaign is a public slander of Microsoft." Also reported by the Register, if you prefer English.
Governments should be using software they can trust, and trust is earned, never gained.
Windows has some good technology in it, and it is nowdays a halfway-decent product. The problem isnt windows, its Microsoft.
You just plain cant trust Microsoft, one bit. You dont evven have to ascribe to malevolence. I'm not saying they are nessesarily evil, I am saying they are unreliable. Their attitude to fixing their broken and insecure software (whatever proportion of it you think fits that description) is poor to non-existant, and getting worse. And if they arent going to take the US government seriously (DoJ) then we know they dont even care about any other government, once the licence fees have been paid up.
Anyone who considers arithmetical methods of producing random numbers is, of course, in a state of sin.-John von Neumann
Take the usecase that I encounter. I need to send sometimes a nicely formatted document to someone else, for them to edit, and send back to me (ruling pdf out). What do you suggest I send it in, if not *.doc, etc? HTML? As far as I am aware, the only standards are quite inadequate, such as RTF or the like.
Perhaps some focus on what the standard actually is, rather than the fact we should use it would be useful.
dominionrd.blogspot.com - Restaurants on
The biggest threat to a democracy is not that the most commonly used operating system is not open source. The biggest threat is that all information on which parliaments and governments base their decisions on, is locked in a proprietary and undocumented fileformat (MS-Word).
My first real experience with LINUX came at the Uni of Stuttgart. Almost every lab/computer pool is running linux. I am sure other Unis here in Germany are doing the same. I dont want to flame but i recall the remarks of one German that a **** system like Windows would never be made in Germany, its too unstable. I can only agree with him as i see the Germans's passion for precision, stability and quality. You decide which OS come naturally to their minds.
Voltaire: God is dead.
God: Voltaire is dead!
Er, yes, and if I found out my competitors were slandering my name and calling me undemocratic, I'd complain.
Except many of the signitories are actually the client, not a competitor. I think most suppliers would act differently in this situation.
or do you find it a bit difficult to step back from problems and look at them with an open mind?
Since you are insinuating things about me, I'll do the same for you. I suggest that you've not been in the situation of being directly responsible for a major client account when that client is seriously considering alternatives.
Swedish government? Porting the Mac to x86? Huh?
s /i ndex_45450.html
8 02 42,00.html
8 09 33,00.html
2 -0 04/
First off, the first link points to a Swedish news site (instead of German newswires like Stern or Heise), but the debate is raging in Germany. Microsoft was taken off guard by this petition, and by the amount of support it has been receiving. Thus the "wounded bear" attitude in Microsoft's open letter.
Second, this is about Linux on existing computers, a market Apple definitely does NOT want to enter. Apple makes hardware, and writes its own interface above Darwin/FreeBSD. In Apple's eyes, the OS is only there to sell its own hardware, not for profit. But this isn't the place to beat THAT horse carcass.
Third, AFAICT the only one seeing this as a War is Microsoft. Microsoft is playing a Monopoly/Risk sort of game, where the winner drives all other players from the board. Apple is playing a totally different game, one where you win by being the best/coolest/owning the McGuffin. Linux advocates are sometimes playing one game, sometimes playing the other, but rarely do Linux users/advocates all play the game, or the same rules, or share the same goals.
I personally find the goal of the petition worth supporting. My personal taste runs towards Apple, but I'm willing to see the massive benefits of using existing hardware (if for no other reason than to save landfill space). And Linux is, at the moment, the best option.
Oh, some links to other reports, in German:
Stern:
http://www2.stern.de/computer-netze/news/topnew
Spiegel:
http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/politik/0,1518,1
http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/politik/0,1518,1
Heise Online:
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/odi-01.02.0
The chances may be slim, and a conspiracy theory involved, but still, this is a good reason not to trust Microsoft.
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
What's that old cliche`..what's good for the goose is good for the danger?
I find it interesting MS is going so far as to be saying they're being discriminated against by comments made about Microsoft.
Wasn't it fairly recently Ballmer and those of his ilk in the MS empire were saying Linux / open software was 'unamerican' and 'communist'?? They oviously don't mind criticizing when they're playing hardball or violating antitrust laws but if they're on the end of the comments, they're so offended and being discriminated against.
Speaking of anti-trust laws. Though convicted, have they yet said 'gee, guess we did it.' or so much as 'sorry'. I don't believe they yet acknowledge it, even to themselves. Guess that's why I have little use for them.
You know what annoys me about this is that MS has "conviently" forgotten the original context. You see what originally happened is that there was a debate on what software to use. This started out tame enough.
BUT then one of the members of parliament made a few comments on how to "decide" the best software. People would have thought, hmm, sounds interesting. UNTIL you figure out what is going on in the background. You see while this member of parliament is working for the state he was actually receiving steady income from a Microsoft solution provider. He said, but I am working for that company 1 day a month. (BTW his income was some absurd amount for 12 days of work)
While the parliament did not understand what was going on the IT industry did. As a result the LINUX community went on the offensive and declared war! (right so!) They had to do something otherwise the members of parliament would make a decision that seemed "democractic" when in fact it was not.
Hence why I am annoyed at this Microsoft Yahoo and his calls for "democracy" and doing everything correctly!!!!
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
Exactly. Word is an excellent word processor, if not the best word processor around. It can read or write documents in RTF, HTML, Text, or a number of proprietry formats (including those developed by Corel, and Lotus, for example)
.doc format, which single-platform, secret, and can contain malicious code. If you write a document in word's native format, there's a good chance you won't be able to read it after a few years.
The problem people have is with the
There is a reasonably easy way to fix this-- email all the Word users you know with a file containing an "OnClose" function which changes the default file-save-format to RTF or HTML.
I can't remember the exact code I use, but the basis is to use VBA's inherent insecurity to change people's default file format.
Source is open, no sneaky CIA or Microsoft or script kiddies spying on formative legislation, intelligence, etc.
Saves big zorkmids on license fees (the tender spot for M$, government is a HUGE customer and can establish the trend for business and education software standards used, see all those zorkmids departing the pocketbook)
Costs some zorkmids for support and mods, but you actually get support and mods you want, rather that support and mods the closed vendor feels like providing you, creating competition in the support market (a GoodThing)
Built-in extortion of government having to "upgrade" (and shell out really big zorkmids) every few years for upgrades because M$ announces it will no longer support Windows n
Customer driven market. What the customer wants/needs isn't anticipated (and turned out in an incarnationof one-size-fits all), but tailored to the needs of the customer. If the Bundestag says "we want x that does y, in z way, then someone can step up and do it, it may take time, but of course others can benefit as it adds to open source.
As to suggestions that open source isn't good quality or pracicable (muchly as part of M$ whispering campaign against Linux, Open Source, etc.), much of that would be addressed by an expanding market.
If it succeeds, props to the Bundestag, way to show some moxie!
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I think nobody can state this with certainty. There are too many variables in the 'equation'.
So to speak.
For once there is the .NET campaign.
While the idea of a common development
platform accessible by almost any language
(that has a compiler for it) is brilliant; --
The thought of Microsoft controlling the
Intermediate Language (some sort
of Esperanto for developers, only one-way)
gives me the shudders. I mean: instead of
processor manufacturers giving out
C-compilers for their architectures, Microsoft
could dictate to processor manufacturers,
which instructions would be supported or
not. Okay, this is only a worst case scenario.
I'm probably way off here.. hopefully. ;)
Windows will not go away so easily. If Microsoft is successful pushing .NET, maybe they could also introduce
their own version of a network protocol stack,
that could gradually replace IP. Again, this
is wildly speculative. But none the less, it
could be possible.
Back to Topic:
Bundestux.de has made some quite bold statements. I don't know if this will help them. On the other hand, if they act too timid they'd be ignored for sure. While I like the idea. If they reach their goal, it could backlash: dedicated MS Windows users will feel discriminated. That's for sure.
Unfortunately I don't know a solution. Maybe they should leave the choice to the members of parliament themselves. If some decide to use Windows, or Linux, or MacOS in their own offices, let them.
What do I hate about Microsoft? And why do I hate Microsoft? I mean, I bought (legally, no pirating) licenses for DOS5, DOS6, DOS6.22, Win3.1, Win95, Win95b, Win95OSR2, Win98, Win98SE! I have the handbooks and keys to prove it! In the last 10 years I assembled about five PCs and installed all these OS's by hand. Granted, I've also installed FreeBSD and got a stack of FreeBSD versions (from 1.0 till 3.1). And the computer I'm typing this on is an iMac (not the new one) running OSX.2.
But I'm a sucker for computer games, especially for the PC, and Windows is the platform where most of my coveted games are running on.
So why do I hate Microsoft?
Because they almost force me to 'upgrade'! Which is a misnomer, because I have to acquire a new license each time. As I perceive it, they use their OS and their applications as leverage. Like a knife where its handle and blade is replaced turn by turn.
They introduce new features in their next office package. Because Windows has to run this, they introduce a new Windows version to cope with these new features. Then they have to improve the new Windows version, because it is always buggy on a new release. This, of course, leads to a new Office version, which interfaces with the improved Windows version better. And nobody can stay behind. Everybody has to keep the pace, because newer versions of MS Word have a hard time reading documents written with older versions of MS Word.
This is especially true with environments like parliament offices, where I think document exchange is important. It is certainly possible to exchange documents between different versions of MS Word, but I think MS is speculating on lazyness and peer pressure here. ("please upgrade, I'm sick of manually converting your old stuff to read it ...")
And I have to tag along. Despite not even using any Office package! I'm using my PCs for gaming only! To make matters worse, the next big thing is published by Microsoft itself: Dungeon Siege. ARRGH!
Why "pseudo"? Just because we don't make the looser of an election president doesn't make a democracy "pseudo" (Sorry, couldn't resist).
The differences in IT between the US and the german market are quite subtle but strong. There is more technical competence at the reseller level and we have therefor fewer consulting companies.
Espescially the price isn't that much important here as in the US. Trust in the reseller or manufacturer on the other hand is more important. If you've done a good job you usually get the next deal too, even if you're more expensive (up to certain level). Companies and government agaency prefer to make the deal with someone they know.
CU, Martin
a lot of governments consider using OpenSource in different areas.
Microsoft fears, that once a government (especially Germany, which is a very large IT-market) "falls" to
Linux et.al., others might soon follow.
And they know that people don't return very often to Windoze. Governments even less so.
cheers,
Rainer
Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
Without the source how can a government be sure that the software cannot be used to spy on them
w s. nsa.02/
p pi ngPlanet_RS.html
9 8. html
e &q =_NSAKEY+Key+Microsoft+CryptoAPI&btnG=Google+Searc h&meta=
They cannot, indeed there is plently of evidence the Microsoft have already installed a backdoor in the CryptoAPI, as part of the US Government Echelon project.
NSA key to Windows: an open question
http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9909/03/windo
Eavesdropping on the Planet
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Blum/Eavesdro
Microsoft collaborating with US spymasters
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/65
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&safe=activ
A German Member of Parliament replied to Microsoft Germany's letter.
Original (German)
Google translation