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Software Libre: DoHS Switches, Commerce Slights
An anonymous reader writes "Some excellent Pigdog investigative journalism: Apparently, The state department is trying to block international support of OSS and Free (Libre) Software. See also this InfoWorld article." Contrast that with this NewsForge report of a switch from Windows 2000 to Linux+Oracle at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. They picked a good week for it.
What a sick joke.
.. by buying 4 or 5 stores (they admit to going specifically after trying to buy the leases out of already-existing entrenched local coffee shops) in a 3 or 4 span block, you couldn't escape them.
.. or as pure evil for somehow getting my fellow man into thinking they made it based on the merit of their product.
Starbucks employed the most agressive expansion strategy in the history of retail.
They themselves are responsible for the term 'clusterbombing' neighbourhoods
It was only people's desire to think they had control over their little universe that led them to think Starbucks multiplied in size a zillion times over the span of 5 years because they innately discovered a better coffee than all existing coffee shops.
What a joke. Anybody that takes an interest in corperate strategy either revears Starbucks as a hero, for successfully expanding faster than any retail gig in known history, for pioneering a few new coperate-expantion strategies like clusterbombing, for gutlessly buying out the leases of local favorite coffee shops (despite protests by local populations and local celebrities and dignataries)
I wont even touch on what they did to international coffee prices. Now, 0.5% of their coffee beans are bought, in their words, "at a fair price." This was to silence those who rallied valiently to save the livings of coffee farmers the world over.
"Old man yells at systemd"
Eluding tariffs
We can see the same thing elsewhere, with copyright, the DMCA, softwood tarrifs(designed to increase logging profits in the US which is faced with Canadian competition) and the like.
The essence of mercantilism is to reward your cronies with government favors (corporate welfare, monopolies, tax breaks) while harming their competitors, and anyone else who happens to get in their way.
It shouldn't surprise anyone that Microsoft has secured its position as a beneficiary of "honest graft"
I mean, I hope no one thinks it was in the interests of justice that they got a slap on the wrist in the anti-trust case.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
The apparent bias of an author changes neither the seriousness nor the importance of an article. Often, the most telling evidence is reported in the most biased journals.
/. . However, some of this conversation will impact someone, somewhere, probably without either of us ever knowing.
This is the face of new journalism: everyone is a journalist. The most important effect of the internet is also one of the most subtle. You and I are communicating, in a rather disjointed way; moreover, we are communicating in public. This elevates our words beyond mere conversation.
Since 99% of everything is crap (used to be 90% before the internet), most of our public conversation will amount to nothing but an archive on
So, this "report" is still important (in a minor sort of way), even without the sterling stamp of unbiased reporting. Hell, it's nothing more than a blog entry. It serves at least on major purpose: it helps us realize we are not alone, that there are others who feel and think some of the things we feel and think. This alone is worth the time cost of reading it. The fact it is entertaining helps.
Anyway, I'd rather see blatant bias than the subtle bias most respected news sources employ -- the small censorships, the subjective language disguised as objective, the stern seriousness with which they present the most trivial garbage, the dumbing-down of gut-shot-serious current events.
Just my $.02, sure, and biased to boot. But intelligent bias is a hell of a lot better than idiotic objectivity.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Reasons for success of a company:
1. good/unique product
2. consistent product
3. well adverstized product.
4. addictive product
5. monopoly on product
Starbucks is 2,3,4
Coke/Pepsi is 2,3,4
McD's is 2,3
Microsoft is 3,5