Slashdot Mirror
Mandriva's Open Letter To Steve Ballmer
An anonymous reader writes "An entry on the Mandriva Blog, written by Mandriva CEO François Bancilhon, says that the Nigerian government, after ordering thousands of Classmate PCs with Mandriva Linux installed, has suddenly decided that they will instead install Windows. They will pay for the pre-loaded Mandriva Linux on the low-cost computing devices intended for children in the developing world, but immmediately replace the OS. The blog doesn't quite use the 'B' word but does suggest that this was not a decision that the Nigerian government made on its own."
The U.S. lifted the last of those sanctions in 2004. If you had spelled the name of the country correctly, you probably would have found it more easily.
Um, the crap that you're spreading was about *Paramount* dumping Blu-Ray, not "Panasonic". (Panasonic still supports BR (foolishly IMO, since 95% of BR players sold are Sony PS3s, while Panasonic and the others are left to fight for the remaining 5%).)
I skimmed your link but didn't find any reference the NYT story that you say "the NY Times is sticking to". Rather, I saw a bunch of BR fanboys in tears, blaming Microsoft for their troubles. The NYT story to which you refer is Two Studios to Support HD-DVD Over Rival
The story cites two unnamed Viacom execs as saying that Paramount received 150 million dollars in financial incentives to dump BR for HD-DVD, but they don't say who the source of the financial incentives is. The same story goes on to *quote* *named* Microsoft VP Amir Majidimehr as denying speculation that Microsoft was the source of any such financial incentives (he said that while it may be that someone paid off Paramount, it wasn't Microsoft). The NYT "sticking to its story" doesn't say much, since the NYT didn't accuse Microsoft of anything. One could just as easily say that the NYT is sticking to its story that Microsoft didn't pay off Paramount, since their story has nobody accusing Microsoft of such and has Microsoft denying speculation of such.
Besides Microsoft VP Amir Majidimehr, Microsoft's Kevin Collins also went on the record saying that Microsoft made no payments to get Paramount to dump BR.
Microsoft Responds to Bill Hunts claims of a buyout
Microsoft's version of the story has since been proven correct.
Blu-Ray fanboy Bill Hunt, the primary spreader of the "Microsoft paid off Paramount" story, admitted that he was in the wrong:
Oopsie! Bill Hunt does a mea culpa. Now can the conspiracy theories stop?
The idea that Microsoft paid Paramount to dump BR was something that BR fanboys grasped onto (glossing over the fact that Sony did pay off Target to cease stocking HD-DVD players on the shelves).
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000