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Jeremy Allison Calls Microsoft Dangerous Elephant

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the tell-us-how-you-really-feel dept.

oranghutan writes "At the annual Linux.conf.au event being held in Wellington, NZ, one of the lead developers for the Samba Team (and Google employee) Jeremy Allison described Microsoft as 'an elephant that needs to be turned to stop it trampling the open source community.' Allison has been an outspoken critic of the vendor since he quit Novell over a deal it did with Microsoft that he saw as dangerous to open source intentions. And now he has evolved his argument to incorporate new case studies to explain why Microsoft's use of patents and its general tactics on free software are harmful.

7 of 306 comments (clear)

  1. It wouldn't be a problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    It wouldn't be a problem if the FLOSS community would stop stealing from legitimate patents holders. I know you FLOSS developers are busting your ass, writing code, and what not and not getting paid for it, but.....God! What a bunch of losers!

    How about inventing something of your own instead of stealing ideas from others!

    If you were any good you'd be getting paid for what you're doing.

  2. African or Asian? by jgardia · · Score: 3, Funny

    sorry, there are no European elephants....

    1. Re:African or Asian? by Z00L00K · · Score: 3, Funny

      I would rather compare Microsoft with a Komodo Dragon.

      Poison and infection in a single bite causing a painful death for the victim.

      --
      If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
  3. A rebuttal by Monkeedude1212 · · Score: 4, Funny

    And I - being no one of significance, am going to call Microsoft a small, fluffy, harmless kitten that needs to be petted.

    Take THAT.

  4. Random anecdote by Entropius · · Score: 4, Funny

    I teach a computational physics class for freshmen.

    When I was going over our syllabus, I said: "Email your homework here. Don't send us Microsoft Word documents. My TA and I don't have Word, we're probably not on a computer that does when we grade your homework, and we can't be arsed to go find a decoder for whatever the newest obscure Microsoft format is."

    The students were shocked -- you don't have Word? Really? How is this possible? (Answer: LaTeX.)

    (Except for the one guy with the Ubuntu laptop, in the back, who chuckled...)

  5. Payroll? by RulerOf · · Score: 4, Funny

    But then, I'm not on the MS 'turfing payroll

    Do you happen to have any idea how I can get on the MS Apologists' payroll?

    I'm too broke to keep doing this for free :(

    --
    Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
  6. Re:Flamebait of a story by cwrinn · · Score: 4, Funny

    What's .NET?

    A TLDN, duh.

    --
    Here's a cookie... *psst* it's MAGIC