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Microsoft to Give Away Software
dptalia writes "In an attempt to suck up to the European Union, Microsoft has announced that it will give away software allowing multiple operating systems to run simultaneously. Microsoft says this is part of their strategy to make more software available through OSS." From the article: "Georg Greve, president of the Free Software Foundation Europe, said he had not seen the details of Microsoft's giveaway but cautioned against assuming it was motivated only by pragmatism or a new spirit of cooperation. 'If Microsoft were doing this for altruistic reasons, it would be a first,' Greve said. 'I think they are probably trying to get more machines on the Windows platform, and they may also be trying to improve relations in Brussels.'"
UHHH
Its giving away (if you believe that) the data layout for its virtual hard disk (VHD) format used by VirtualPC and Virtual Server products.
I don't see anything about giving SOFTWARE away
announcing Tuesday that it would give away software to enable computers to run multiple operating systems at the same time.
So now they're going to do to VMWare exactly what they did to Netscape and others?
For one, VM Ware is really tight. The people who use VMWare are more technically oriented than the general browsing public. Netscape was big when it was attacked, but it was far from bug free.
Yes, they will try the triple E tactic. It is what they know. If they knew how to write good quality software and did that, this would be a different sort of competition.
Fox is anti democrat. They are against half of the population of america.
/. lean anti MS? I don't think so. There are a dozens if not hundreds of MS trolls, astro turfers and shills here on /. Take a survey of the highest ranked posts and you will see that most of them are pro MS. Pro MS comments always get upmodded especially if the take the edge of by saying "sure they are unethical but.....".
Slashdot LEANS anti MS (It's debatable and I'll get back to that) so they are against one corporation.
What's wrong with being against a corporation which everybody, even their defenders acknowledge acts unethically? Not one person who defends MS stands up and says "MS is a beacon of light and hope to the world" it's always "Sure they have done some crappy things in the past, but they are doing this one thing OK" or "sure they acted unethically but all businesses do" or "sure they acted unethically but they should not have been prosecuted because the anti-trust laws are bogus". Nobody, not even the most ardent defender of MS disputes the fact that the company is unethical.
Why do you get so worked up MS anyway? It's just another corporation, there are thousands of corporations. If I said Nissan, maytag, or rockport was a crappy corporation or made crappy products would you have a knipshiin about that?
Now does
Finally.
So what? I am sick of hearing this complaint. If you don't like people critizing MS then go to gotdotnet or any one of hundreds of web sites where people dance around singing holy holy holy about MS and Bill Gates. It's a big internet, there is room for everybody.
evil is as evil does
The day the contracts between MS and the big PC manufacturers are such that PCs are priced without an OS and Windows is an extra option with it's own cost is the day MS will have done enough.
... continuously - so don't expect most of us around here to give any big kudos for whatever small moves they take here and there to make the whole "get screwed my MS" process slightly less painfull ("Pull your pants down and prepare to take it again. Don't worry, this time you get a cookie").
Until then they're just taking advantage of their monopoly position to screw us all up
The other replies bring up lots of reasons we technical people don't like Microsoft. I don't like having to fix other people's computers all the time due to the whole spyware/virus weakness of Windows. Nor do I like it when my rather well taken care of machine at work needs to be restarted for no good reason. No, Linux and its applications aren't bug free. Yes, there's plenty of crappy software in the OSS world. Thankfully, distros like Debian and Ubuntu get rid of a lot of them, so its less often that one finds software that doesn't work right. On these points and more, the Linux crowd is right to complain, and no "free software giveaway"s or donations to various causes is going to change that.
Me, I'd start off by asking for less lying and bullying, which seem to be almost uniquely Microsoft's in the software world:
* No more saying "we can't remove the browser from the OS", when they have more than adequate resources to rewrite vast parts of the operating system.
* No bullshiting the EU saying they'll create thousands and thousands of jobs by releasing a piece of software which isn't that monumentally different from the one already out there.
* No more using the "user error" excuse whenever a user complains.
* No more purchasing of false research saying Windows is "cheaper" than Linux. It's not always cheaper. Sometimes it will and part of the time it won't. I know it's "just marketing" to say that you're the "#1 product", but these false studies are well beyond reasonable marketing.
* No more pushing businesses out of the market by buying their competitors and dumping their product, by attaching it to Windows for free. Healthy competition, actual innovation, and acquiring other companies is fine. Abuing a monopoly isn't.
* No illegaly funding rediculous lawsuits against IBM for Linux.
* Since the big builders like Dell are not allowed to sell lower priced computers (and don't tell me they don't want to- Wallmart sure did when Linux became ready for its customers) by not having to pay for a Windows license. Hardware manufacturers have no trouble ignoring Linux because there's no financial incentive to spend the extra few bucks. It's all very convenient for Microsoft, but not for me.
On that last note, when my computer's power supply fails, I get "you need to have the original operating system installed" from my very large warranty provider. On the day I get a different answer, that will be the day when I'll start hating Microsoft.