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Following Bill Gates' Linux Attack Money
UnderScan writes "After researching this material for about three years, Tom Adelstein tracks Microsoft's anti-Linux lobbying money: "Microsoft has unparalleled influence throughout the Federal government. On the cover of a recent edition of VarBusiness Magazine dated June 26, 2005 the editors presented a large headline which read: 'It's A Microsoft World. Five years after running afoul of the Feds, Microsoft is as powerful as ever. Pushing a platform instead of products could make it stronger still. Why nothing seems to stop it.'""
Nothing seems to stop it because people act like sheep when it comes to technology. Try selling OSS solutions to a non-profit group when companies are in thier ear about how OSS is evil.
Give the local company gives them a free copy of Office and they are sold that OSS is the devil.
It's only a matter of time before MicrSoft seceeds from the Union, forming a technocracy that will rule the internet and unleash Clippy v2.0, the Terminator edition. Unstoppable, blob-like, indefatigable, only Mr. Peabody and the Way Back machine can stop it now. May the Gods have mercy on our souls.
"I drank WHAT?!"--Socrates
who else read as 'attack monkey' ?
Don't tell me you actually believed that the "GNU/Linux revolution" would somehow change the rules of the game and that future business would be conducted on the basis of competence/performance alone instead of politics and money?
The fact is that competence and performance can never compete with politics, lock-in and big money. IBM, Sun and a few other corporations like Red Hat are adapting Free/Open Software in the way that actually matters. Cash in on that success, stop whining about the "Microsoft World", play the backstab/lobbying-game to the end and you just might win.
Here in .br, while the whole world sees us as a big case for FLOSS / Linux, the results of this so greatly announced program are yet to be seen. I've been involved in a government project or three, and I've seen things like they throwing away perfectly working Linux-based applications and changing them to Microsoft just to realize that it won't work.
In the end, more money goes to hire dozens of different software houses just to duct'tape the system to hell so that it half-assed works.
And I'm not even talking about the USA, where the market holds potentially more money for MS than here.
I know this was not exactly on-topic, and I've RTFA, but I had to say it.
Microsoft has unparalleled influence throughout the Federal government.
If by unparalleled they mean, 'a lot, but not so much as oil and pharmaceuticals', then I might agree.
Anyway...
Not as much substance as I hoped as the article 'follows the money'. More conspiracy theories than anything else.
It certainly shows Microsoft repenting of its earlier mistake for not paying off politicians like all the other major corporations did so they didn't get investigated for violating laws. I'm sure all these wonderful contributions will keep it safe from further litigation and give it more power to manage the law making process as time goes on.
Microsoft has unparalleled influence throughout the Federal government.
Oh puh-lease. There are plenty of companies with that kind of clout; there are plenty with a hell of a lot more. Compared to Halliburton or McDonnell-Douglas or Boeing, Microsoft is strictly amateur hour.
Are you using Windows every day? Did you set up a Windows computer for your parents, grandparents, or other friends because FreeBSD/Linux/NetBSD/MacOS is "too complicated"? Then you are the problem...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
You know, I find it odd that these people (Who likely tried Fedora) have all these problems (when the distro is supposed to configure everything for you), while when I install a "Geek Distro" like Slackware or Gentoo on my system, just about everything works perfectly (and my system's a Toshiba laptop, on which a clean install of WinXP has almost no functionality).
I don't know what these people put in their computers that make them work so poorly. (But i presume they're Dell or Gateway boxes, with lots of sketchy child-labour manufactured components).
I agree, BUT 95% of these problems stem from Microsoft having a stranglehold. Think about it. If you were a soft/hardware developer and you are trying to make a profit, you're going to develop your product on the most ubiquitous platform and only consider secondary platforms if market share (potential profit) warrants this. It's simple economics.
Linux/BSD variants have come a LONG way considering most of the functionality/drivers has been either creatively engineered by the community or obtained by lobbying vendors (resulting in drivers that only provide the most basic functionality).
Boost the installed base and provide demand for functionality in your OS, and vendors will respond.
Unfortunately these problems are difficult to solve because they are both a cause and a symptom of themselves. Not to mention the very active efforts of Microsoft to thwart any meaningful attempts at the adoption of alternate systems.
Just my 0.02$
Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
If your DSL connection is running into your router, there's no reason for your provider to have stated that 'linux is not supported'.
And I hate to break this to you also, but I've owned a couple machines (with nothing wierd in them) that only Linux would install and boot up. My parents' last computer wouldn't run Win95, 98, or NT. But Mandrake 6.1 installed onto it fine, found all the hardware (including the unusual printer they have), and ran fine. (It was a 400Mhz K6-II with 256M RAM.)
I've set up Linux for a bunch of 'real average Jane' students, and they don't even notice a difference. After getting one set up with Mandrake, Firefox, and GAIM, her roommate came in and asked "oh, is that a new version of AIM?" not "what happened to windows?".
My roommate MS work centered around using Linux machines with video capture cards, so I don't know what you were trying to do that you couldn't. the All In Wonder cards from ATI are pretty popular, and have extensive driver support.
So, I'm calling complete bull on you. I'm not an ultra fanatical linux geek, either. I just use it, and it works. It takes no longer to boot than XP, and has far more useful application to me (lack of viruses, ease of ssh access to other machines, higher granular control over individual resources) than Windows ever has.
antipaucity
See Jeffrey Vernon Merkey's court complaint against, well... everyone.
An excerpt from the "FACTS COMMON TO ALL CAUSES OF ACTION" section:
I have a golden crayon. Can I make a rule?
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
I tried switching the family over to JSF attack jets over the summer
vacation and the wails of terror, utter anxiety, and lack of any flight training whatsoever was enough to crash the jets straight into the ground.
So why all the troubles?
Afterall JSF pilots love to tell stories of how the JSF is so
much better than a donkey cart with a broken wheel and they would never try to fly across the ocean in one.
My conclusion after seeing real people in a real average Jane setting
crash and burn after being dropped in the pilot's seat midair is that the JSF advocates are just plain lying
because the JSF is really a step backwards for people used to using
technology several centuries behind what it should be.
To make this short and simple, virtually NOTHING worked properly in the JSF.
Telling the JSF to turn left and swatting it with your hand did nothing, it would not listen.
Stuffing oats and barley into the fuel tank did not refuel it. In fact, the jet technician said I caused 100s of 1000s of $$$ worth of damage!
I tried to nail a proper shoe onto the jet turbine, but the jet-grade aluminum just gouged.
I applied salve to where we attached the harness, but the weird metallic lesions would not heal.
We then took the JSF to a vetrinarian, but he said he did not treat JSFs.
I was unable to tie the reins up to the hitching post.
And it goes on and on for pages,but the bottom line is that the JSF lasted about 3 days in my house before I ditched it and went back to
my donkey cart with a broken wheel.
Conclusion is that the JSF is a birds nest of confusion. The JSF seems
like it might be good until you actually try and fly it and then it
shows it's ugliness, slowness and instability.
Why on earth ANYONE would use the JSF for personal transportation is beyond me.
Parent post is not a troll.
I was wondering. But I'm now convinced it is actually a troll (and won't therefore answer him) : how would an AC have written so much in about two minutes ?
Either he had access to the news before, which implies a suscriber account, then posting as AC, or he just copy-pasted a pre-written text. In both cases, I can't see how it couldn't be a troll.
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
"Where men are men, women are women, and young 14y old girls are FBI agents"
...or something like that.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Used Ubuntu Linux to switch my sister's notebook PC to Linux and it worked like a charm.
But why does she use Linux? Simple newbie like reason. It comes with more preinstanned simple little games then Windows. In XP she had the abilty to play, mine sweeper, pineball, and solitare...
Now she and my mother are constantly playing gnome same game, any of the multiple flavors of tetris, and majong. (oh god if I could spell)
Burn.
I don't mean to discourage the notion that our leaders sell out cheaply, they certainly do. But documented campaign contributions are the tip of this iceberg, dive down below the surface with me.
There are golf trips, and trips to las vegas, or other places this senator needs to check out for him to be able to properly understand Microsoft and the plight of the industry regarding the federal government.
There are the neices and nephews with a different last name, that need a job out of college, that Microsoft hires.
There are the flights on corporate jets. The introductions to other powerful industry people, that both junior and senior senators need.
There's the promise of a cushy job if and when they do retire out of Congress.
The promise of indirect contributions come next election.
And once you consider that the $5000 is more like roughly $100,000 all things considered, and that it only required an hour here, and hour there throughout the year, never interfering with others giving him more or less the same benefits... would you pass over one more free grab at $100,000, when you're already selling out 5 times a day, and #6 won't be all that more difficult?
"Better yet, you idealists should all just die now. The world has no room for people who strive to make it a better place."
No thanks. At the end of my life, I'd like to not be remembered as a back-stabbing cheat, but as someone who strove to make the world better. And today you're in luck: I can take your ridicule. My heart is full of love.
This notion of clean installs on Windows is such a bloody myth. At this very moment I'm in an upgrade hell with Office 2000. I upgraded it to SR1 due to security concerns, and now, whenever some users try to log on to the machine, it's starts this post-install process and gives me an ugly error about not being able to find source media. I've put the Office 2000 CD in, it doesn't like it. I'm faced with uninstalling and then reinstalling and hoping it works. Let's face it, if the Windows install system is any better, it's only marginally better. I still have a phantom of Netscape 4 on one computer (yes I know, go into the registry blah blah blah, but that only proves my point).
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
I thought you were kidding. Then I looked, and you are not at all. Insanity.
46. The beheading and murder of United States Citizens in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and other countries have been videotaped, converted to MPEG and other images for viewing on the public Internet through the use of OSS and Linux software and computer technology developed and purloined by Linux and OSS members and illegally exported from the United States.
47. Companies which sponsor, endorse, and support OSS and Linux, and those acting in concert as their advocates have been unwitting participants in wholesale technology theft of United States developed technology and sponsors of domestic and international terrorism.
48. Companies which sponsor, endorse, and support OSS and Linux, and those acting in concert as their advocates have been unwitting participants in wholesale technology theft of United States developed technology and sponsors of efforts to undermine the Government of the United States and the economic stability of computer technology development and industry within the United States.
49. Companies which sponsor, endorse, and support OSS and Linux, and those acting in concert as their advocates have been unwitting participants in wholesale technology theft of United States developed technology and sponsors of the creation of weapons of mass murder and mass destruction by the enemies of the United States.
49. Companies who attempt to protect their rights to their intellectual property by filing lawsuits against members of Linux and OSS are attacked publicly on the public Internet through a variety of means, including identity theft, defamation, interference in their business and cultural relationships, violation of their rights of expressive association and freedom of speech, threats to murder them, intentional infliction of emotional distress to the extent they take their own lives, and Internet postings advocating they commit suicide.
50. Many of these methods employed by OSS and Linux Community members to oppress and suppress public viewpoints they do not agree with, do not differ in any way and in many cases resemble the same methods employed by international terrorists to promote their causes, in that they advocate through the posting of messages, emails, and public statements to Internet websites: murder, violence, death, oppression, mob mentality, intentional infliction of emotional distress, terror, defamation, identify theft, character assassination, threats to murder or firebomb the homes of individuals, and threats to overthrow governmental systems.
51. Although OSS and Linux both state goals and ideals which are attractive, such as freedom to innovate, freedom to develop new technology, and free access to software and computer technology, efforts by competing open source efforts to develop or create new development communities are routinely attacked publicly by OSS and Linux members through a variety of oppressive means over the public Internet, such as threats of: murder, violence, death, oppression, mob mentality, intentional infliction of emotional distress, terror, defamation, identify theft, character assassination, threats to murder or firebomb the homes of individuals, and threats to overthrow governmental systems.
52. Many of these activities fall within the definitions under the Patriot Act and other Federal Legislation designed to protect the American People as acts of domestic terrorism.
Is this come kind of joke?