Slashdot Mirror
Ballmer Sees Free Software as Enemy No. 1
geekinexile writes "Bloomberg is running this Microsoft vs. Linux article as a top story on the Bloomberg system. Not so notable for what it says about Linux, but rather for the fact that the financial community is starting to actually get open source."
from the no-comment-on-enemy-number-two dept.
Would you talk negatively about your own company?
Quit Slashdot Movement.
Research has yet to show that people are replacing Microsoft products with free programs, analysts said.
"Just because the research doesn't show it, doesn't mean that it's not happening", said wiresquire, from his former MS box, now Linux box running Mozilla and StarOffice.
So does Anonymous Coward have good karma?
He must be new ...
Let's inform him on some of the "innovating" that Microsoft has done in the past ... shall we?
DOS ... Nope, they bought it ...
... Nope, got it from the Mac ...
... Nope, got it from NCSA (Mosaic) ... in fact, they almost missed the Internet ...
... Nope, WordPerfect was already around ...
... Nope, got it from the RIAA ...
Windows (UI)
Internet Explorer
Word
DRM
Hmmm ... seems that Micrsoft needs a little improvement for innovating ...
BTW, don't miss the Dancing Monkey
Karma? Karma? I don't need no stinkin' karma.
Unixes. (Is that the correct plural?)
No. The correct plural is Eunuchs.
A quote that didn't make the article:
In other news, Balmer has admitted publically that it is currently easier to move Unix apps to Linux than to Windows. May the mass porting begin!
F-bacher
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
1) First they ignore you,
2) then they laugh at you,
3) then they fight you,
4) then you win.
5) ???
6) Profit!!
C - A language that combines the speed of assembly with the ease of use of assembly.
Slashdot is a quoted news source being used by Google News.
Be afraid, be very afraid
>Microsoft sponsored a booth for the first time >at the LinuxWorld trade show in August in San >Francisco. The company argued that Windows is >cheaper to maintain because it has more >compatible programs and comes with better >support. Using the same type of reasoning, Microsoft went on to argue that Windows is more stable because it costs more and has little animated paperclips.
On *this* article the half-screen ad that shows up is for visual studio.net?
Oh my..
Never trust an atom. They make up everything.
This conversation overheard outside Steve Jobs' Cupertino office...
MINION: Master, your plan is unfolding nicely, Microsoft and the Free Software community are locked in mortal combat!
THE INSANELY GREAT ONE: (Steepling his fingers) Yes, this is perhaps my most diabolical plan ever, while these fools argue, I shall take over the world!!! (Maniacal laughter). Now, leave me...there is much to do...
"That naive cube! How long must I suffer this!" --Sheldon J. Plankton
Yeah. Stupid cultures. We dun won no stinkin' people we cant understand becus there difer-ent to us.
An' Billy-joe, pass me the moonshine now yer hear?
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
I've always considered Microsoft my #1 enemy... I'm glad they feel the same way...
What is this 1962 you speak of? I thought the world started on January 1, 1970...
``I don't know what you do to protect your shareholders and preserve your market capitalization except to out-innovate the Linux community.''
Did he actually say 'out-innovate'?
I can't make up my mind whether you live in Vancouver or Markham.
Let's just hope they get this message across on the People's Daily: "Leave open port 25 to spammers and you will be executed as a dangerous COUNTER REVOLUTIONARY!"
Who's the bigger idiot: The one who is placed in a position of making decisions for a corporation, or the one who has posted over 1600 slashdot comments?
Actually it is enemy #10. It is just that enemies 1 thru 9 have already been squashed. This one is just different because their money cannons are not working against it very well.
Table-ized A.I.
that is 40 in octal: 2002 - 40 octal (32 decimal) = 1970
cpeterso
Odd that they would use the acronym N.O.I.S.E. -
Netscape, Oracle, IBM, Sun, and Everyone else...
The article says they don't talk much about Netscape
anymore, or Sun, or Oracle. They still talk about
IBM and Everyone else, plus Linux. I guess that
means that their new acronym is L.I.E.
They're taking their dog to get its two shots before it's too late. You're taking your dog there too, right?
.... as compared to the USA where the democratic regime is always truthful........ um...... hang on....
... and before I get flamed to somewhere where really flamed people go..... here in AU, our government is no better....
----- One piece short of Legoland
First they help you,
then they ignore you,
then you invade your neighbor,
then they skunk you,
then they ignore you,
then they threaten to skunk you even harder
-Saddam Hussein
First they ignore you,
then they change channels.
-Carrot Top
First they listen to you,
then they get screwed,
then you get fired,
-Neville Chamberlin
Now for the serious side: Passive resistance only works when the enemy holds itself out to be civilized and cares what other people think. It worked against the Brittish in India for these reasons. Ghandi knew that; I don't know if he ever explicitly elucidated that, but he was able to make enough people understand so that they followed him to success.
Neville Chamberlin worked opposite a force that was neither civilized nor concerned with world opinion. Passive resistance against the nazis was doomed to fail. They saw people as raw meat to be consumed.
MSFT does not hold itself out to be "civilized" in any way analogous to the way a nation holds itself out to be civilized. MSFT is a business, and as such it regards cut-throat competition as a positive ideal. Any appeal to MSFT to be "nice" because "it's the right thing to do" understandably falls on deaf ears.
The "caring about what others think" aspect does come into play in the form of advertising and public relations. Both sides have their wins and losses in that arena.
Therefore, it makes sense to compete ruthlessly with MSFT in the business world, and try to change people's minds as much as possible. This is exactly what's happening, but neither side appears to have moral superiority as in Ghandi vs. the Brittish. Instead, this is more a fight of Liberal vs. Conservative where both sides have a different moral base and therefore arrive at different conclusions.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
... if everyone who used Linux bought a copy of XP =)
Under communism, man exploits man. Under capitalism, it's the other way around...
Sometimes the best solution to morale problems is just to fire all the unhappy people.
Yes, I *know* that Bill told you last month that security was our absolute number one priority here at Microsoft. That was last month. This month, destroying Open Source is our absolute number one priority. Open Source threatens our revenue stream, whereas nobody cares about security - we can just bolt that on later if we need to.
And ends in 2038.