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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."
but what is the "B" word? Blackmail?
I'm not even sure that Nigeria is a real country. I keep sending government officials there money - and they keep saying I'll be rich but it never happens. How do you bribe people like that?
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
There are those who are going to say that what Microsoft did isn't wrong and that it's 'just business'. If Bob's Concrete Construction paid the government $1 million to get the contract to build a new major freeway bypass, you guys would be calling it bribery. But when it's Microsoft paying the government to use Windows you call it business.
Someone with this viewpoint -- please explain this fanboy logic to me.
My blog
But they will only only be able to pay for the rest of the Windows licenses after Ballmer sends the first 1000 licenses upfront, which will enable them to free up the treasury money.
Fishy things have been going on in Classmate PC Vs OLPC. Recently I read that Microsoft & Intel have already begun shipment to Libya of their classmate PCs. Libya had agreed to buy 1.2 million OLPCs but, of course, they aren't available yet.
... and not for the technological reasons that they should be concerned with.
What's really strange is I can't find anything on this from Microsoft or Intel. You're providing 150,000 laptops at only $200 each to a developing nation for the purposes of education and you don't have a press release outside of that country? Maybe they're just being humble? Or maybe someone was leveraging their ex-boss's many donations to African medicine & development to convince the Libyan government to take a different route?
You know, it's great that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is donating all that money to research and aide but if word gets out that they're using that to influence who those countries do business with, I don't think anyone's going to be impressed anymore. There's something fishy going on here, I'll bet you start to see many more countries make the switch to Classmate PCs over OLPCs
My work here is dung.
REDMONT, WASHINGTON.
ATTENTION: THE PRESIDENT/DICTATOR
DEAR SIR,
CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS PROPOSAL
HAVING CONSULTED WITH MY COLLEAGUES AND BASED ON THE INFORMATION GATHERED FROM THE MICROSOFTIAN CHAMBERS OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY, I HAVE THE PRIVILEGE TO REQUEST FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE TO TRANSFER THE SUM OF $47,500,000.00 (FORTY SEVEN MILLION, FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND UNITED STATES DOLLARS) INTO YOUR ACCOUNTS. IF YOU ARE ABLE TO REPLACE THE LINNEX SOFTWARES ON THE PC COMPUTER LAPTOPS YOU HAVE PURCHASED WITH WINDOWS, WE WILL BE ABLE TO GIVE YOU A KICKBA--CONSULTING FEE FOR YOUR TROUBLED ASSISTANCE.
YOURS IN MAMMON,
WILLIAM (BILL) GATES.CX
frickin' lameness filter, that's what the scams look like, how else am I supposed to write them? Don't mess with my joke. Defeat the filter, clog the filter, replace the filter with genuine GM parts....
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Shouldn't we wait for some more specific information/evidence before we accuse Microsoft of bribery? If Mandriva stops short of this, perhaps we should too - after all, it's a serious charge.
I'm sure Microsoft had something to do with their decision, but *maybe* it simply came down to convincing Nigeria that its product was better. It sounds like they are giving Windows out for free, that may have impressed the Nigerian government, and does not constitute bribery.
From one perspective (although undoubtedly an unpopular one here on /.) a free copy of Windows is worth more than a free copy of Mandriva. If MS came by later and offered free, or heavily discounted copies of Windows, I could see how Nigeria would accept it. After all, it vastly increases the range of applications that are now available for them to use. It's a great deal for Microsoft. Get those Nigerian kids entrenched in the Microsoft camp at a young age.
Like I said, it may not be popular here, but I can see how this deal could be viewed as good for both parties by both parties...
Quote:but what is the "B" word? Blackmail?
I do not have mod points but the parent's question is legitimate.
Actually articles that got phrases like "b,c,etc words" should not get to the front page. Besides there being hundreds of words that start with b, it's just bad journalism to write in such a childish way. If you don't want to say the word because it's rude or inappropriate there are most likely synonyms in the English language.
I'm not an english native speaker and i can find a lot of meanings for "b word".
Mod parent underrated
Hugs and kisses
From the comments:
Wow, I can't imagine where that post might have originated from?
A thistle is a fat salad for an ass's mouth...
begin troll: ... windows NT, 95, 98, me, xp, with some linuxes, redhat, slackware, etc in the middle and then i finished my OS evolution in Mandrake, that latter became Mandriva.
So I began in DOS 3.3, then i upgraded to 5.0 , 6.0 windows 3.1
I paid for all the hardware/software from my pocket in between all those evolutions. And now those ugly, poor, ignorant, future scammers africans kids will get a free laptop that would come with the best OS i found until today for free ?!?!? NO WAY !!!! Make them known that evolution doesn't come for free ! GIVE THEM VISTA !!! Make them know that evolution has a path and a price ! Leave them to suffer with Vista light with DRM and crippleware, don't forget to install norton antivirus and WGA. After that when they think that they can live well without computers offer them slackware linux, them give them gentoo, and when they understand the evolution of the OS finally let them install Mandriva. :end troll
Accusing the Nigerian Government of corruption is like accusing the sun of shining. I can't help thinking he'd have had a far better chance of keeping Linux on those boxes if he'd simply told the Nigerian Govt. that those discount Windows licences that Ballmer was bribing them with could be sold on at a big profit.
He'd even get bonus points for getting round the EULA by hinting heavily enough that it really ought to be illegal under Nigerian law.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
The world needs more people who speak their minds and tell the truth with complete disregard for other people's "feelings". It's very refreshing, especially coming from a CEO since most of what big business says to the public and to other businesses and the government is so watered down and devoid of meaning that it doesn't actually say anything at all. I applaud this guy for having the stones to do what he did. The sad thing is, there aren't enough people who respect this kind of behavior, so people that act like this don't tend to get very powerful (or stay powerful for very long). It's sad we live in a time when bullshitting is a more profitable skill than being right--the only thing that should matter.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
But I'll give you another perspective, by necessity pure fiction, of how it could work. Suppose there is this small Eastern European country, nevermind which one. It has a minister in charge for the state administration. He could be a small, nerdy guy with heavy glasses on a big nose. His salary isn't great, and he has a lot of expenses.
... for now. Finally, there is the government. First, they gotta be legal. They have reputation to mind, besides, there are always those "free trade" incentives the vendor can play. Besides, there is the Z - Y thingy.
So, what has he gotta do? He's gotta make some money on the side. But how? Well, he figures, he'll get a "commission" on what his department pays. He doesn't know much about IT, he doesn't care much about his department. But he knows how much his expenses are. So, he makes a calculation. He needs X. His commission rate is Y. The total budget he needs is Z = X/Y or thereabouts. Then, he goes shopping.
What does shopping look like? He has some people he trusts, very few. They make some calls, private. They talk about lotsa things, but one thing is repeated. "We have budget Z, and we need an offer". The people being called of course know what Y is, so they figure out they got Z-Y. They make some offers. The minister picks his candidates. Then real work begins.
The suppliers can only be chosen by winning a bid. So, the already agreed offer is then carefully drafted into the conditions for the bidding, in such way that only the chosen can win. Then, after all preparations, the bid is announced, applications are gathered by all -- suckers and winners, and, after a procedure, a winner is announced.
Sometimes suckers try hard. Real hard. They do a lot of work (including some trash-digging and what you not), and even manage to win. But they win the public auction. They never win the one the minister has set up, because they have never had the minister's offer -- it is not for everyone. So, if they win, the minister loses.
That is why even if they win, they never win. There is always a change afterwards, and they kicked out. On a technicality, or a new rule, or just on a whim -- it doesn't matter. They can't win, because they don't even compete. That's how it could work on one side.
Consider the other side now. A big software company is determined not to let go of the market in that country. But what is the market there? First of all, there are the home installs. These are all pirated, and collection is not possible. So, the software vendor scratches them out. For now. There is the business sector. They are also kinda semi-legal, and need to be squeezed, but for that the vendor needs the helping hand from the government. So, the vendor scratches em out
So, the vendor invests a (small) amount in an office, hires some very shrewd local staff. Pays big salary, taxis, etc. All they need to do is get the government deal. So they do. The vendor doesn't want to know how, of course. So they play the "we're so blind" game. Somehow someone in the vendor's office gets the call. Then they are on it. They give the offer. They win.
Then the fun begins. The vendor's formula is usually setup so that from the first (Z - Y) they get enough to finance their operations in that country for a decade. Then another deal comes. And another. The more, the merrier. Until the budget is used up, it is all Z - Y. Relations improve. Then, the government starts to squeeze on the businesses. Then on the home users. And the vendor keeps profiting. The relationship can expand publicly -- and it could be "free" sometimes. Like, all government employees receive "free" licenses for home use. Or some schools get "free" licenses. Or some instiutions. There maybe some protests from other interested parties.
But, whatever happens on the surface, the game is the same. There is always the Z - Y equation in the background. Those who don't compete in that auction never win. Even when they do. And so it goes.
Most of what you say stopped being true in the late 90s.
If MS came by later and offered free, or heavily discounted copies of Windows, I could see how Nigeria would accept it.
For it to even start to break even, M$ is going to have to pay to have it installed as well as providing all of the required software free of charge. Note that M$ does not own all of the software required, like Adobe Reader, Flash and countless other must have software packages.
[Windows] vastly increases the range of applications that are now available for them to use.
The only thing increased by Windows is the rage of stuff you need to buy. The free software world gives you a choice of quality applications that are cost free and easily modified to suit any particular purpose. Bits in a box will never be as good a match for your needs and they often come with additional and costly restrictions. There are very few upsides left to M$ domination.
Like I said, it may not be popular here, but I can see how this deal could be viewed as good for both parties by both parties.
We can be sure that the deal was great for the parties directly involved but the users have been sold.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Considering MS's war of extermination - I all Linux users do what we can to make Linux absolutely perfect hardware issues permitting. I mean, I want Linux distributions that are truly superior in every way possible to Windows. I want to make these people sorry they were every born. Mandriva is my distributor and my Linux of choice. While I support all things Linux and would never pose one Linux user against another, I am willing to learn C and C++ forwards and backwards. I will code solutions and drivers for Linux myself if I have too.
We should stop waiting around for others to do our work for us and stand on our own merits. Let me give an example.
We are closer to an Exchange solution than everyone thinks. If eGroupware and Kontact supported Kerberos over XML-RPC, Exchange would be finished. eGroupware and Kontact replicate all the features of Exchange and has a technologically superior advantage of funneling everything over HTTP. But it doesn't support Kerberos so it becomes a total nuisense to configure. The fact that Evolution does not support XMLRPC at all is just insane.
On the Open Office Front. Continue to support ODF, if changes need to be made to ODF to support more features, extend the features. Create versions of ODF backward and foreward compatible. And do whatever it takes to reverse engineer OOXML so that OO.org can read them, and resave them as ODF. Lets start really getting serious and making the bastards pay.
So they had a computer loaded with a bunch of apps and an OS, all tuned for the device. Then they wipe that off and put some version of Windows with write, paint and Outlook Express on it? Hopefully they got minesweeper and solitaire too, with the promise of porting Freecell with the next service pack.
Further businesses too will realize their negotiating power with MSFT will increase if they could bluff that they are switching to Linux. Again if MSFT calls their bluff and they could not switch, then they would be a deeper hole. So at least a few businesses would realize that the best way to negotiate a deal with MSFT is to reduce their switching cost to Linux as low as possible. Those companies will eschew deep ties and multiple levels of dependency on MSFT tools. This is how monopolies crack in free markets. Illegal acts by the monopolists can prolong, sometime by very long time, the cracks. But if the monopoly the Church had over the affairs of Europe for 1000 years cracked, why not MSFT's control over businesses for just 2 decades?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
To everybody who thinks that the only reason that Nigeria would switch to Windows is bribery, I offer another possible explanation (note that I have no more evidence for this than anybody else has for bribery allegations):
Nigeria is one of the few countries in Africa where the economy is not a complete basket case. These countries (particularly South Africa, Botswana, Egypt, Kenya and Nigeria) are currently setting up call centres and have stated long term goals to become off-shoring destinations. While there is some off-shoring in the open source world there is a huge market for off-shoring in the Microsoft world. Perhaps the government of Nigeria is looking at that market and thinking that they could take a chunk of India's off-shoring revenue in a few years. If so, training their people to use Windows machines instead of Linux could be considered an investment in the future.
Why doesn't Slashdot ever get slashdotted?
*checks Wikipedia*
Yes, you are mistaken. The Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba languages use the Latin alphabet.
Circumcision is child abuse.
Even for non linux-enthusiastic users, replacing linux by windows on this offer cant be a choice based on a technical and unbiased decision. First, the hardware (i will assume the intel site is updated and match this offer) : http://www.classmatepc.com/classmatepc-system-hardware.html "DDR-II 256M SO-DIMM" Last time i tryed to use windows XP with 256mb ram, it wasn't exactly fast... Add any word processor on the top of it, and you can be sure scrolling on a reasonably small document with images will be a very frustrating XPeriance. With linux on a reasonably light window manager, it run just fine. Then, the software... Mandriva can come packaged with all the program a student need, and with easy "system + program" update mechanisms, while upgrading applications on windows require at least manual install (if picking freesoftware on the top of windows) or more money. Upgrading the OS : how does Nigeria plan to move to the more recent versions of microsoft windows when XP will be unsupported ? It's a 2001 operating system, and every new MS-OS double the hardware requirements. The failure of vista will mitigate the "end of life" timing of XP, but that's just for a time until microsoft can "persuade more people that Vista is good for them". I can understand mandriva guys to be disoriented by this biased fight. Could Nigeria consider dual booting... Or is more important for ballmer to delete linux than to install windows ?
Um, I hate to be the one to point this out, but this story is not about the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project.
Nigeria, in it's infinite wisdom, chose not to participate in the OLPC project. Instead, they opted to go for the Intel Classmate PC, and were originally convinced to use a model supplied with Mandriva Linux and some fairly extensive regionalization and software customization developed and preloaded. I submit that it was this same customization which must have been the deciding factor in selecting this platform to begin with.
The issue at hand is that now, after they agreed to a initial contract for 17,000 units, they have suddenly and without any apparant rationale, decided to take delivery of this order as committed and then pay to have Microsoft Windows installed on every system. There has been no reasonable explanation put forward, either by the Nigerian Government, Microsoft or and third party as to why Nigeria would choose to incur the non-zero costs of acquisition and deployment of Windows on these systems.
It is not a matter of comparing the costs of Linux vs. Windows, as the cost of the Mandriva licenses are embedded in the acquisition and are thus a sunk cost. Even if Microsoft agreed to give away the Windows licenses for free, there would still be a costs to customize and install Windows on the 17,000 target machines. There is no way to get around the fact that this is a real, after-the-fact new cost that either the Nigerian Government is paying out of pocket (with no explanation to it's taxpayers as to the reason), or is being footed by Microsoft for some improper purpose (Microsoft shareholders are not in the business of thrid world charity). As well, there has been no discussion as to any possible customization and/or regionalization of the target platform (Classmate PC with Windows XP), much less any comparison to the work committed to by Mandriva.
Lest that last argument be discounted, allow me to argue that there is no demonstrable reason to have selected a Classmate PC running Mandriva for (or any other Linux) for $200 over the OLPC XO platform (with customized, pre-installed Linux) at $100 per unit, unless it has to do with the customization and/or suitability to task of the specific bundled platform. Please note that in his open letter, Francois clearly stated that this was an open process that Microsoft fought long and hard against, and still Mandriva managed to beat out both the Classmate + Windows and OLPC + Linux options, only to suffer a very odd reversal at the 11th hour.
If any Microsoft apologist here can invent a reasonable explanation for this situation, I suggest you save posting here and instead apply to Microsoft PR for an immediate position.
-- People who think they know it all, really annoy those of us who do!
It certainly wasn't to promote MS Windows to the developing world or to lock them into proprietary standards. Plus, I think, a certain amount of thought went into tailoring the Linux distro and user interface for the target market.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
Clearly the open letter was written in an emotional state of mind. Just short of calling names, François insinuates that something fishy went on (and something very well may have), but it doesn't seem he did his homework to figure out if this suspicion was justified. As there is no proof, it rests on only assumptions. Those assumptions may very well be justified, and even correct- but until he has proof, they are just that: assumptions.
Good thing François didn't actually call names because that would have been slander (please excuse my English Legalese if I used the wrong term).
Now if I would be Steve, and almost be called names based on nothing but assumptions after winning a round fairly, I don't think I would care much. The taste of victory would just be too strong.
If I *would* have bribed someone, I'd probably care even less. The letter doesn't tell me anything I don't already know.
If I would be Steve, had bribed someone and someone could prove it- Now that might make make me throw around a chair or two.
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
And exactly what is Microsoft going to be able to do to a sovereign Government that pirates their products? Sue them in the United States District Court?
About the only thing I could see happening is they push the US Government to push the WTO to punish them, but this assumes that Nigers economy isn't already in the shitter and that are a member of the WTO (are they?) to begin with.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Neither, the point of OLPC was to provide hardware, software, and content support for a particular model of education around which the XO's hardware and software and associated content have been developed. Openness, in the OSS sense, supports both flexibility for the user of the system and the model of education that the OLPC is centered around (though it is neither strictly necessary to nor sufficient for that model.)
The Classmates with Mandriva that Nigeria purchased were not from OLPC, and arguably are less well suited to that model (perhaps because Nigeria had a different educational model in mind), and switching them to Windows makes them even less suited to the model the OLPC project is centered around. OTOH, if it doesn't work out, it will be cheaper to replace Mandriva -- and possibly even a build of the OLPC software stack with slight customization to address the different hardware -- than to replace the laptops with new laptops, though it would be a major headache.
The "supposed benefits" OLPC laptops are intended to deliver are not entirely independent of the software, as you suggest here. However, the OLPC project and laptops aren't more than tangentially relevant to this discussion anyway.
The Mandriva sale has nothing to do with the OLPC project. The OLPC laptops are not Classmates, and they aren't sold with Mandriva, but with a customized version of Fedora with Sugar. The letter from Mandriva might suggest that the entire point of the Mandriva effort in Nigeria was to promote their software and increase its exposure, which would make sense. It might also be the point of the letter to draw attention to possible corruption in the government of Nigeria.
And...so, what? If there is an appearance of corruption in a move such as that, whether it favors Microsoft of some competitor, why shouldn't their be a complaint?
First, the OLPC project has little to do with this, since the Intel Classmate hardware effort and Mandriva and Microsoft's software efforts in the developing world are all alternatives to the OLPC's hardware/software stack, and none of them are part of the OLPC project.
Second, people who are interesting in helping people are always promoting their own beliefs in doing so, and often have strong beliefs about what are the best ways to help people. Those aren't competing goals as you suggest; they are goals that are always interlinked.
Come on, who'd be dumb enough to fall for a cock and bull story like that?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Microsoft has for a long time targeted youth in an attempt to create lifelong customers. I bet Nigeria got a sweet deal. Even if MS loses money on this venture how much do they stand to make in the long run? I know many corporate types that follow the creed, "Winning isn't everyting, it's the only thing." I'm sure Steve B. is not losing sleep over having deprived the school children of Nigeria the opportunity to use Linux (in this instance).
Bribery and corruption is just a fact of life in most of the world. I have been living in a developing nation for over a year now, and I can say from experience that most Slashdotters who are writing from the U.S. or Europe have no idea how endemic, and even accepted, corruption is outside the West. If the allegation were true, it would not be the least bit surprising to the average Nigerian.
Microsoft would not bribe the Nigerian government. They would bribe a few well-placed officials, then charge the Nigerian government enough to cover both their costs and their bribes and earn a tidy profit.
Supposing the alleged allegation is true, the winners would Microsoft and a few Nigerian decision-makers. The losers would be the Nigerian taxpayers and/or, if costs were passed on to the schools that use the computers, the children.
However, if a bribe were given, under the FCPA (Foreign Corrupt Practices Act), someone at Microsoft would be criminally liable. U.S. citizens who bribe overseas government officials are subject to prosecution at home.
-- My choice of computing platform is a symbol of my individuality and belief in personal freedom.