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The 'Hairy Guys' Vs. Microsoft
Jeremy Allison - Sam writes "The IHT is running the best write-up I've seen on the Microsoft vs EU Anti-Trust case, featuring quotes from tridge (Creator of Samba) and Carlo Piana (the FSFE lawyer). Nicely contrasts the difference between the Microsoft legal Team and the resources the FSFE has to work with. I was the FSFE witness for the initial hearing and the first trial, and this article nicely explains what it's like to be there." From the article: "The settlements left a group of computer programmers and activists, united under the banner of the Free Software Foundation Europe, with a bigger-than-expected role in supporting the EU's goal of loosening Microsoft's grip over the software industry. Only half-joking, one observer at the court this past week called some members FSFE and allies 'the hairy guys' - in contrast to the well- groomed legal teams fielded by Microsoft."
The last paragraph is rather telling of the reason why Microsoft is in this mess in the first place. I remember when I found out that they were bundling a Firewall with Windows XP. Did they think that going to a more "root" oriented system would cause too many headaches for the end user? I imagine it was more along the lines of "We'll do something about it in the next version" syndrome. Regardless, that was the day I decided to start looking at an alternative operating system.
Good luck Hairy guys...
Is there heaven? Is there Hell? Is that a Tuna Melt I smell?-Primus
Microsoft likes to present itself as well groomed and well mannered. It's a nice cover for their back alley tactics (which contine to this day, and will for all time). They appear like the Don polishing his favorite apple which he took from the poor lady on the street (without paying for it). "HOW DARE YOU CHARGE ME" would be his reply if she asked for compensation. He might just tip over her cart and knock her to the ground instead. Microsoft has wrung protection out of millions. Now a group from the community is banding together. The internet ties them. Microsoft and it's BSA brute squad can only kick down so many doors before a large group starts kicking down the BSA's (and Microsoft's) doors. You can call that collected community group hairy if you want to, but unlike Microsoft, they are respectable and non-crimminal.
...our hirsute, bespectacled overlords.
*OR*, have other interests than selling products through 'selling themselves'. Make no mistake, 'the hairy guys' are the people who truly love what they do. More often than not, these are also the people who give birth to new technologies. The suits just take their innovation and sell it as their own. All-time classic: 'who do you trust, me or that guy who doesn't even care about his haircut?'. The right answer is 'Never trust a suit'...
Bill Gates doesn't have money for haircuts either - that doesn't stop him from cutting it himself.
Hi Sam, if you or tridge are still around Luxembourg, and want to kill some time, some of us LiLux'ers would love to offer you a beer or something. For contact data, just check the LUGs website on www.linux.lu. Anyway, thanks for the fight in court!
Well, FWIW, I know one of the "smooth suited professionals" that Microsoft employs. And his opinion? That the arguments that Microsoft wanted deployed in court were, in summary "We are so important and so essential to the IT world that you must allow us to do whatever we want." Unfortunately, judges do not take warmly to this kind of argument. Judges like John Cooke have a clue about things like Firefox (and now knows a lot more about how kernels work and that Windows Embedded means that the Microsoft kernel need not be monolithic). They are also used to academic expert witnesses, and European academics can be very unusual indeed. I don't know what the outcome will be, but it is far from clear that the FOSS movement will lose, at least in the Eurozone.
Pining for the fjords
Microsoft can't be let off the hook twice, both the US and EU cases have cost US and EU tax payers a lot of money.
The US case was largely dropped due to a change of US leadership and a short sighted attitude that it's best to have a big US IT monopoly than let things go abroad.
The EU case could easily disappear for similar reasons, the EU commissioners aren't democratically elected and have been known to take backhanders in the past.
... if computer makers were prohibited from bundling Windows with every Intel-based PC.
Having to pay a premium to get a box without Windows is the definition of arm-twisting.
Marks' proposal for international uniting gives important insight to developers' situation here as well... But the human kind proved that this is not going to happen with too many examples.
Well, actually...
the same EU Commission is pushing for EU software patents. Effectively, if they succeed your argument would become "no one is twisting your arm to use computers", because the currently unenforceable EU software patents microsoft holds would become valid, so the only choice would be computer+microsoft software or computer with no software. And you try living in europe without a working computer and a mobile phone these days, it's a bit similar to the problems someone who can't drive in suburban USA has, only worse.
You could look at this fine another way - it's the EU's fee to microsoft for granting microsoft control of the EU's computers. A fee microsoft is presently understandably unwilling to pay since the EU commission was blocked in its attempt to steamroll the legislation Microsoft wanted in the EU through. I'd say microsoft would just shut up and pay the "fine" on an ongoing basis if it got the EU legislation it wanted.
The "I'm too busy to care about personal hygiene and appearance" pose is usually a cover for deep seated feelings of self loathing, usually brought on by an overbearing mother and distant (or absent) father during childhood.
We're not talking about wearing a suit and obsessing over your nostril hairs. Nobody expects a geek to be a metro. But would it kill you to get your haircut every six weeks, or wear a shirt with a collar? The answer is, no, it wouldn't kill you. In fact, it might even feel good, instead of staying up all night coding and drinking mountain dew, or worse, taking drugs.
That's where this dressing like a slob and not getting your haircut leads you to, in case you didn't know. Drug addiction, insanity, and no date on a Friday night.
I'm free of false drugs. When I want to get high, I get my hair cut, shine my shoes, fill up the tank, clean the windshield and hit the open road. I swear to God that there's nothing that beats the feeling of having shiny shoes.
So, get your hair cut. It'll make your mother happy.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
From the point of view of the incoming administration, Microsoft has been very successful, and was being punished for their success. They simply stopped what they thought was a wrong.
The logic is at least partially self-consistent. The best and brightest people are those who have succeeded at the American Way - ie, the richest and most powerful. It's not right to punish success, success should be rewarded. View the Bush Administration's domestic actions in this perspective, and it all makes sense. It also makes a kind of sense on the morality front. Jesus Christ wasn't so hot on the wealthy, so the rich and powerful have to take a moral stand, and what easier moral stand is there to take than against the marginalized.
This of course presumes you agree with this perspective. Others of us have no problem with success, as long as you get there fairly. Some of us also believe that having been raised on the parent's silver spoon says nothing at all about your superior skills and wit - it just says you handed a better shot at success. Then again, read the 4 Gospels, and see the group who attracted the greatest contempt from Jesus Christ - the rich and powerful who look down on others' sins.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
> No one is twisting your arm to use Microsoft products..
...
... you guessed it.
Then why does it hurt?
1. My kids go to school, where they run - guess what. They come home and insist they need MS Word, or Publisher, or Powerpoint, etc.. They don't say "I need to do so and so", because that isn't what they are taught. Oh, and guess who volunteered early on in the term of the present British government to provide IT training for teachers.
2. I do Unix support, and the machine I'm given to do it with runs - guess what. My working life is spent going through Win-to-Unix kludges to get needlessly limited access to the systems.
3. The kids come home, and want to play games. These come in versions that run on various proprietary consoles and
freedom, n. Allowing people you don't like to do things you disapprove of.
That's where this dressing like a slob and not getting your haircut leads you to, in case you didn't know. Drug addiction, insanity, and no date on a Friday night.
That's so totally not true. I used to be a smelly shaggy IT guy with a cruel wife and a ton of self loathing, and my drug use was restricted to a little pot now and then. Now that I'm rid of the ol ball and chain and dressing nicely, my drug use has ballooned like mad. Now I'm doing things like taking esctacy and dancing till 7 in the morning or snorting coke with groups of naked hot blondes at house parties.
Trust me... stick with the shaggy look and stay away from showers. Showers lead to women, and women lead to drugs. Just say no.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Right on. The REAL issue is not bundling. That legal strategy was designed by Real, Netscape and others to yield compensation dollars. The real issue is Inter Process Communication (IPC). A file is a form of IPC. A network message is IPC. If the details of the various forms of IPC are widely available products can interoperate and that is good. I believe that a product that is completely dominant in a market the details regarding it's IPC should be made available so as to reduce the liability associated with using that product. In this particular case that liability is the unfair business practice of forcing other companies out of a market by leveraging undisclosed IPCs. Secondarily there are a number of other very good reasons for having alternative programs that understand the same IPCs but it's not clear that they have legal bearing.
I suspect that you're trolling, but in doing so (or not) you really come across as one sick mutherfukker, so ...
Here're you're labelling individuals who (arguably) are as successful in pursuing their chosen goals as you - perhaps more so (you're claiming the best high you can get is from a pair of shoes, after all - sounds like you might get along in law enforcement or the military, but amongst real people, that's just kinda freaky) - and you call their chose presentation(s) of themselves a "pose". Right off you're showing your own lack of depth, here...
Actually, we were, but you apparently didn't like the direction the conversation was going?
That's just an ignorant statement. You obviously either a) don't get out much, or b) have never been a geek. Microsoft corporation is still labelled "geeks" by the mainstream (the non-geeks) and the dumbasses (apparently including you) still expect geeks to be able to conform to some portion of the socialist regimen imposed by yourselves on non-geeks. It is two different societies, and I have not known anyone, ever to be able to move back and forth between the two. If you really think it's possible to exist simultaneously in both, it just means you don't.
There are many who have tried to establish a liason to geek society - including Bill Gates, himself - and they have had varying degrees of success, but in the end they all fail - using the same sorts of arguments you present here.
You insensitive dirtbag - what do you care if the next person cuts their hair or wears a shirt with a collar? Why don't you mind your own business, do your own job, and leave people who actually know what they're doing alone?
Clearly any one stupid or weak enough to have fallen for the training they were give as a child - "cut your hair", "shine your shoes" - is just rotely following orders and cannot possibly be capabale of having a real life.
That's where this dressing like a slob and not getting your haircut leads you to, in case you didn't know. Drug addiction, insanity, and no date on a Friday night.Sounds to me like you're addicted to your car (and everything that implies) and your shoe polish. Prohably can't get laid without them... Give me drugs and insanity any time - but you forgot the "firearms" part (I think there's a Hunter S Thompson quote in there somewhere, but my drug-fogged, dateless brain can't quite pull it out, right now)
Really? How about a tattoo? Or maybe getting yourself pierced? Or just plain old sex? In know, I know, your mom told you that if your shoes were shiny you could get sex... whatever - I think barefoot is better.
In short, you need to learn something about Individualism and why it is a Good Thing even if the Society in question leans towards Socialism, in which everyone looks the same and talks shit about how other people look and act - like you're doing.
"The Internet is made of cats."