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Microsoft Sues Brazilian Official for Defamation
The Importance of writes "Larry Lessig is reporting that Microsoft is threatening a defamation lawsuit against Sergio Amadeu, President of the National Institute of Information Technology (ITI) of Brazil, for comments he has made about Microsoft's business practices, "accusing the company of a 'drug-dealer practice' for offering the operational system Windows to some governments and city administration for digital inclusion programs. 'This
is a trojan horse, a form of securing critical mass to continue constraining the country'." Additionally, "To Amadeu, this will be a decisive year to win the 'strategy of fear, uncertainty and doubt', as he classifies the business model of Microsoft." Microsoft's complaint claims that this is "an excess in freedom of speech and freedom of thought, by means of the dissemination of information." Read a translation of the complaint [PDF] and the original article, "The Penguin Advances [PDF]." Lessig notes that this may be defamation in Brazil, but would not be considered defamation in the United States."
"...for offering the operational system Windows..."
Calling windows "operational" HAS to be a crime somewhere.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
I hereby designate Microsoft's lawsuit Operation Footbullet.
P.S.
Maybe Brazil will even fix the broken law.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
This is simply an accurate description of MS business practices. But MS were never shy of making fools of themselves.
Anyway, I'm posting this as Anonymous Coward, after all, you never know...
>Suing and threatening to sue ARE NOT equal!
;-)
Just like announcing a product and actually releasing one.
It's just a vaporware lawsuit.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
They should rename it "Linus/GPL", since, after all, it's getting the most press coverage from Linux. ;-)
May we never see th
It's just like a camp fire. We can all sing some heartening songs now.
Really, if someone calls you on your business practices because they're considered nasty... is the best reaction to threaten them?
As SCO have taught us - if they're customers or potential customers, the best business practice is to sue them. I think the logic is that if they're too scared to speak out about you, then that's one step towards buying product from you. isn't it?
1. Sue customers.
2. ???
3. Profit.
We should rename it after GNU/linux. We could call it the GNU GPL. Oh wait....
Only in Brazil. The US doesn't look to Brazil for legal precedence very often.
Microsoft's complaint claims that this is "an excess in freedom of speech and freedom of thought...
only microsoft would try to sue someone for having a thought...
Better mod this one down before the editors get "sued" :-)
Isn't it...
1. Sue customers.
2. Make it known you can't win lawsuits.
3. Short your own stock.
4. Profit.
But that sounds like a pump & dump scheme, which I seem to recall hearing is illegal, and no company would EVER think of breaking the law in the name of profit....
Y'know, you blow up one sun and suddenly everyone expects you to walk on water.
Drug dealers are going to sue Sergio Amadeu for defamation.
Can't wait for the drug dealer association to sue him for defamation for comparing them with Micosoft ;)
If MS sue'd this brazilian guy and succeeded wouldn't that create legal ground for RedHat (or some other linux company) to sue MS over the cancer statement?
And then cancer kill drug's dealer...
Q) How is that like anything Microsoft has ever done?
A) Introduce new "stronger" product...
Linux is a cancer? Damn! I don't think my hard drive is gonna take to the chemotherapy too well...
and saying "Linux is a cancer" is just an objective observation.
I'm sure they meant "cancer" in a good way.
You can say whatever you like about Linux, and there's not a lot anyone can do about it.
Which would be freedom, as in, ummmm, speech.
Go figure.
KFG
But there's an awful lot of integration with .NET and DirectX. Does that count?
You cannot truly appreciate Dilbert until you read it in the original Klingon.
It's like including a stone of crack in the school enrollment fee.
The crucial difference being that a stone of crack will make its user feel good for at least a short time.
"Please explain how Microsoft is like a drug dealer!"
They are right, you know... they are nothing alike. Drug dealers won't sue for defamation being compared to Microsoft.
my computer first got hooked on crack (microsoft), it barely survived that, but has made a full recovery thanks to fdisk.
but now the poor thing has cancer (linux)...and it's not looking good.
it looks like there's only one alternative - death (freebsd, it's dying you know)
longlive freebsd!
As a US law official just confirmed, Microsoft Corp. has now filed a libel lawsuit against Microsoft Corp., stating that their own legal actions against Sergio Amadeu will hurt their reputation much more badly than any of Mr. Amadeu's statements ever could.
I love C++
Drug dealers should sue over being compared to Microsoft!
I say, these entities deserve every bit as much protection as any human, because attacking them results in the same hurt feelings by OS users as the family of a defamed human would feel.
I saw an episode of Iron Chef recently where the translated captions called it the "Piglet Battle", but the announcers clearly called it the "Suckling Pig Battle". I'm sure the reason was that they didn't want children in the US freaking out because the Iron Chefs are cooking and eating the lovable cartoon pig they've been reading about in Winnie the Pooh! Linux deserves at least as much respect as Piglet!
std::disclaimer<std::legalese> sig=new std::disclaimer; sig->dump(); delete sig;