Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Dislikes Nations Trying to Escape Lock-in
Johnny Mnemonic writes "Reuters, link to C|Net, is reporting that Microsoft considers a possible collaboration among three Asian nations to produce their own OS "unfair". You just can't make this stuff up. Shouldn't Asian nations also have the Freedom to Innovate? Or is this merely a dodge by Microsoft to demonstrate that they really do face competition? Will they hire Boies to prosecute their case?"
Microsoft are either off their heads, or someone at the State Dpt has given them a wink and they know they can get away with acting like two-year olds.
"Governments should not be in the position to decide who the winners are," Robertson said.
:)
Of course not; Microsoft likes to be in that position
Alan Perlis once said: "A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing"
Mmmmmmm...
Microsoft's only comeback I can think of is that, at least, they patented ones and zeroes.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
Looks like MS is facing more competition than they'd like. They can change their ways, improve their products, or falter and die. My bet is they'll try to get their systems in these places at a price cheaper than dirt, as they've tried before with Munich and the rest. Interesting to see how this will revolutionize the software industry in the long run.
A blog like any other.
so that is what the sound of over a billion people laughing sounds like.
Will they hire Boies to prosecute their case?
Or will they hire Rumsfeld?
From the article: "You would have to look at what a government does--whether it's a protectionist issue," Robertson said, "As with any trade-related issue, Microsoft would look to its peers and colleagues in the information technology community for guidance."
Who exactly are Microsoft's "peers"? IBM, Sun, Sony, the Open Source "community"? On one hand MS wants to create a "government security program" that it defines and implements, on the other they want their "peers" to say that doing anything else is unfair?! Good luck!
MS are simply copying the line of the US government (and a lot of US companies and even /. users).
Look at steel, farm goods, coding out-sourcing, skilled immigrants etc, etc.
In all these fields the US or a lot of its citizens are actively seeking to halt global competition and seeking to privilege US companies, producers and citizens.
MS are simply trying to get their piece of the action, though of course than means that they are already on a downward slope (ask any Pensylvannia steel worker about how effective trade sanctions have been at protecting the long term health of their industry).
Microsoft has hindered a lot of other companies when it comes to free competition so I find this complaint somewhat childish.
:)
And whats fair? There's no free trade. The US give large amounts of money to their own steel manufactures so they can compete with the EU. The EU on the other hand is doing the samen with their large importtaxes on foreign, cheaper farmer products.
My point is; there's no real free market although a lot of people strive to it. There isn't and this article is just another example of how things go along
Alan Perlis once said: "A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing"
According to Rob Enderle, Microsoft is hated because it's misunderstood.
So please, try to understand their side -- those poor, misunderstood folks in Redmond need your support. Really.
It hurts their feelings when we make fun of them, and talk about the methods they use to achieve their goals in unkind ways.
C'mon, lighten up. They're good guys.
</not>
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
As a foreigner working in Japan for a tech company, I have realized that the expectations of quality and service here are MUCH higher than in the rest of the world.
People in my company really cant understand how thing like MSBLAST happen and there is nobody from MS on TV the next day apologizing (or committing seppuku =).
Now that things in the computer industry are settling down, they will slowly push Microsoft out of the picture.
Wait and see.
Apparently the Asian triad wants to go as far away from Microsoft as they can. The bigger question, will open source innovation be shared.
Bill's got you guys working Saturdays, now?
Shit, I feel kind of guilty. Maybe if I acted like I believed your astroturfing bullshit during the week, he'd give you a day off every now and then.
But ultimately governments making software isn't a whole lot better than governments making airplanes or computer chips.
How about governments paying people to make airplanes because the government needs airplanes? Governments pays lots of people money to produce things. That includes producing software to meet their needs (as well as airplanes and computer chips). I think you need to be a little clearer as to what the problem is in this case. Governments want a better operating system, governments pay for it to be produced.
So would it be "unfair" for, say, the Pentagon to announce it wanted to use software developed in the USA in preference to overseas products?
It's actually perfectly fair for a government to assist in creating a market for a product they need (or want), especially if existing products don't meet its needs.
Similarly, I think critical software is as much a national security issue as defence hardware; and in a world where the US is trusted less and less, and Microsoft hardly at all, it makes sense for other countries to ensure that they have a homegrown alternative that they can rely on.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Lol and your email adress is hotmail?
Anyway.
Awh, how sad. Poor little MS gets some competition. Except that it is not some tiny startup who can be easily kept out but a trillion dollar part of the world. It sounds like you are feeling sorry for the school bully who suddenly finds himself getting beaten senseless by a 400 pound gorilla. Personally I am going hope this is going to be like any decent western. MS doing the .45 dance.
MS screwed BeOS now they are going to get screwed. Bees should not complain about being stung, thiefs should not complain about things being stolen and MS should not complain about facing competition with a bottemless warchest.
MS has had for the last decade more then enough money and resources to make themselves popular. Instead they have opted to get more and more money and make themselves hated and despised. Now they are reaping the rewards. More and more people and even whole countries are refusing to deal on their terms anymore.
It is sad that it takes goverments to put up some serious competition but that is the way it works. With small companies it is possible but with say the car industrie competition came only about with goverment sponsored companies. Japan and korea spring to mind but also europe were the marshall plans, US money after WWII, was used to setup factories that would have been very hard to do with private money. For the current steel wars, the dutch "hoogovens" got its start from US money :)
Sometimes it takes goverment intervention to dictate changes in the market. Don't forget that in the rest of the world politics are not entirly decided by corporate sponsors. Goverment sponsored promotion of certain products over established products are hardly new. Eco-tax on petrol while subsidising natural gas. Tax breaks for enviromental production, coupons for low power consumption electronics.
But back to your post. MS facing competition from huge goverments is unfair. Small business facing competition from huge MS is fair. "Call for Mr Kibo. Bill Gates wants you to report for his 4 o'clock asslicking."
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
And whats fair? There's no free trade. The US give large amounts of money to their own steel manufactures so they can compete with the EU
And this is controversial. It leads to arguments in GATT, possible trade wars, whatever. In principle, that sort of thing is generally agreed by governments to be a bad thing.
MS would be delighted to get this Asian software initiative considered to be the same kind of thing, but in fact it's not the same kind of thing at all, because this is the governments choosing domestic producers over foreign producers for government systems.
My conjecture is that they're realising that they cannot win against Free Software unless they manage to create the impression of Free Software such as GNU/Linux being "un-American" and "a threat from Asia against our economy".
Of course they'll consider it an added bonus that maybe they can get US dimplomats involved in putting pressure on foreign governments in areas like
Q:How many Microsoft programmers does it take to change a lightbulb?
A:None, they get Bill to declare darkness to be the international standard
Look, as an example, at the *BSD world. They have lots of talented people, many of the finest minds in the *nix world, and started with a good product. Yet a "college kid" in Finland started a product that kicked their collective arses in market penetration. Why? Linux mostly avoided the bueracracy and political infighting that has plagued *BSD. (neither an opinion of the technical merits of *BSD, nor a "BSD is dying troll)
What the nations should be doing is sponsering programmers, giving them a mandate to 1) contribute to open source, 2) spend a significant fraction of that contribution making open source more available to asians. Then let those programmers participlate wherever they want. I could imagine an army of programmers working with OpenOffice.org, for instance, improving the word processing software overall, and its ability to deal with asian character sets. Others would contribute to Debian and Gentoo, creating asian language documentation and binary versions of those distributions.
Right. In fact the US government is, by allowing software patents and tolerating that companies like SCO destroy other people's business without having to prove that they have a point, influencing the market much more than a government that stimulates the development of free software.
wow. Thats the most Wishful thinking I've seen all year!
Get this man a cookie!
several other recent MS aquired warships due to a sneaky clause in the license for Windows 2003 .NET server for the US navy
Correction - Secretary of the Navy John H. Dalton admitted that the clause was not acutally sneaky. "We never actually read the EULA. We needed to install it so we just clicked 'OK'."
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Catching up with Bill Gates of Microsoft outside his $600 million dollar home this morning, he declared "I strongly believe it is unfair to use any software but ours, and to come up with your own so you're not totally reliant on us is just wrong on so many levels. And if they're worried about all the NSA backdoors in Windows, tell them to suck it up and live with it like everybody else. Privacy is dead. Now screw off, peasant. I've got a tee-off at ten."
Similarly, a press release from Orville Reddenbacker this morning claimed that "when you buy no-name popcorn, you're buying terrorism" and immediately demanded the abolition or bombing of all popcorn makers but them in order to defend America against this terrible low-priced threat. "The time for competition is over", the deceased Reddenbacker stated, the national anthem playing gloriously in the background, "We are an American institution now and must be protected from any loss of sales resulting from people buying other brands. Choice is the true enemy here. Remember this when you're voting, kids, there should be limits on freedom - especially the freedom to buy popcorn other than our new Maple Salmon flavored EZ-Popp(TM) Microwaveable popping corn, on sale now at better grocery stores near you."
The RIAA, MPAA, and SatelliteTV vendors all agreed. "Look, we all know that you'd all have bought all those 400,000 CDs, movies, and tv channels anyway if it weren't for piracy, so just cough up the money and we'll call off the dogs. Making 'mad money' is a guaranteed right that is protected by law since Dubya's been in power. It's the American Way. You love America, don't you? If you don't buy more stuff from us, we WILL press charges." Jack Valenti took it one step further. "These goddamn Chimese terrorisms ain't de worst part of dis trend either. What I tink we should do is outlaw 'playing outside'. Yup, jes tink about it. All dem little rats playing outside when dey could be enjoying a good movie or copy-protected Celine CD. De children is de REAL Boston Stranglers here, dose unAmerican little gooks. Wasting their lives playing outside in de goddam sun when dey could be supporting our economy? I don't understand kids dese days. De world is goin' straight to hell, I tell ya. Goddam nature. We'll sue God next, yeah, go for de REAL deep pockets." At this point, SCO's Darl McBride quickly took out a notepad and started scribbling furiously and then ran off, his villainous humpback swaying in the wind.
Despite the overwhelmingly good evidence the corporate shills of America had barfed forth, I thought I'd see if another view existed. So I sought out some elusive hippie culture leaders. When asked for his views, the uber-influential Richard Stallman said, "My name is GNU/RMS! Why can't you people get that right!" and starting making clucking noises and playing a flute like that little centaur guy off the Hercules cartoon. His arch-enemy Linus Torvalds quipped, "I don't get involved. Sorry.", dismissed us with a wave of his hand, and went back to his penguin burrito. Eric Raymond could not be reached for comment, as he has been at the gun club since July and is apparently not ever coming out until people start using Python to write device drivers.
Microsoft's arguement is simple. It is bad policy for govts. to run businesses that compete with industry. A govt. that cares about individual rights has no business taking taxpayer money and using it to develop products that compete with industries. A govts. only job is to defend individual rights. It shouldn't be wasting taxpayer money on social engineering by messing with the free market. I certainly would object to the US govt investing in software that wasn't directly related to national security or other govt. functions. A govt developing software to compete directly with commercial software is taking a step towards communism. Let Redat, Mandrake, and free orgs. like FSF develop Linux, but don't force taxpayers to pay for it by turning it into a govt. project unless you have a really good reason. I won't even get into the practical problems of who's in charge of development when govts. get involved.
Vote for Pedro