It doesn't matter how well Vista sells at the moment. It's inevitable that all new computers will sell Vista, just like it was inevitable that new computers sold XP. We had exactly these same stories when XP came out. After Vista achieves a critical mass and everyone is used to it, everyone else will slowly upgrade..
Ah, but the point is that Vista is not inevitable or even probable. XP took years to take up 50% of the M$ market and Vista is not doing as well as that. While XP had a minority share, it was safe to ignore. Vista is so disappointing that even the fanboys are ignoring it and sane people are forbiding it in their work places. No commercial software is inevitable and all of it dissapears in time. Only free software has long term credibility. Vista is a flop and will soon be replaced by something else, just like ME was replaced by W2K and W2K was replaced by XP.
This is good for everyone but M$. The more market rejection they face, the more fragmented their market is, the less power they have over the rest of us.
Keep at it, however, I hear3 the Hugo Chaves has a gigantic anti-US propaganda machine just firing up. You could do worse than earn decent money in a decent climate, all for doing what you love.
No thanks, I like the US constitution better and think that it can be enforced.
Remember the ongoing "net neutrality" debate? What ATT and friends want for their networks is exactly what is needed to censor the internet. It's costly, stupid and unAmerican but you and me are going to pay for it. They started building the wiretap part before 9/11 2001. Shaping comes after listening.
If you want evidence of government censorship of the internet, look no further than Iraq. There websites are blocked to US servicemen and reporters are treated like spies. The US government has already used it's broadcasting ownership to censor TV and radio, so there's abundant evidence of their intent.
I call BS on your claims of FF being "nimble" on a 233MHz Pentium II. I don't doubt it runs, but I'm going to guess it's not a pleasant experience. Just a wild guess.
With free software, there's no need to guess or convince yourself without evidence. Install for yourself or just boot Knoppix, Mepis or something easier like a 40MB Austrumi image. Austrumi FF works about as fast as regular Debian Iceweasel installed. It works well, thank you.
I run IE on XP and that's nowhere near your mythic 10GB. Hell, even if it were I can get a 320GB hard drive for under $90. It's up to me to decide if I think that's excessive or not. Certainly not to you.
I don't have a gun to your head, Bungi, and you are free to sell yourself all day long. It brings me some pleasure to think of you sitting around watching your disk thrash, but you might be more pleasant if that did not happen to you so often. You won't convince me to waste my hard drive space and time on Vista or XP. Let me know when you can get XP, Firefox, GIMP and other useful programs into a 40 MB live image.
Movement I: There is no such problem, it's all FUD - Allegro assai
Movement II: Look over there, it's crappy hardware - Grave larghetto
Movement 2.5: The problem is the user - Crasho the Immueblos
Movement 2.6: The problem is the hackers - Crasho the Immueblos
Movement 2.7: The problem is the drivers - Crasho the Immueblos
Movement 2.6: The problem is the user - Crasho the Immueblos
Movement IV: The next version is "fixing" it and does everything Linux/Mac/OS2/VMS does - Lentissimo non tropo
Movement V: Microsoft is undeniably superior to everything - Andantino grazioso
Movement VI: This doesn't work, but the new version does not cost much - Moderatto con brio
Step 9 Version Inflation??? Collect fees.
GOTO I
Bravo maestro! but Vista still requires 10GB and everything free is slim next to it. Cue failure of Vista, end of above goto and beautiful lacrimosa for the robber barons of Redmond. Got MSFT stock? Sell it or join the chorus of tears.
I'll consider Firefox "bloated" when it requires a 10 GB OS and a supercomputer to run the latest version. They still port Firefox to Win 98, don't they? Sans Adobe Flash and Windoze, it's still slim and responsive on my 233 MHz PII. The community is constantly cleaning the code and it shows.
The free world, comes with choice as well as code sharing. I prefer Konqueror which is also slim and there's always Dillo or Opera to play with. There are also "slimmer" versions of Firefox like Galeon.
Behold the M$ party line and how it contrasts with reality:
Microsoft hasn't stood in the way of ODF at all. They just think there's room for more than one standard.
You forgot to tell me about how "open" the M$ "standard" is.
If they were in anyway serious about ODF, the new Office would be using it and there would be "patches" for users of older version s of M$ Office. Instead, they have graciously sold Novel enough information to create a partial implementation to import the text portions and called that interoperability. They expect the whole community to wade through their insane 7,000 page spec which tells them to look at 10 year old printed material! Can you really tell me that M$ is not playing the same old format war games because they did not exercise a vote in an obviously abusive way?
Nice straw man, especially from the wipe-and-reload-the-distro-of-the-day types. Most people don't care about compiling their own code to target different architectures or word sizes or endianess. You're making the argument that it's somehow important to be able to support the 8088 for commodity consumer software until the mountains crumble into the sea. Other than a few isolated niche cases - who the hell cares.
Indeed, that is a nice straw man, Bungi. The argument that I'm making is that hardware choice is nice. You know, there is a world of computing outside of x86. Alpha, PowerPC, Cell, ARM and others all come to mind. That there are distros to run all of these which can, yes, be wiped and reloaded without loss of user data, is a good proof of that demand. But it's more than that, Debian runs on a dozen or so platformsso you don't have to do everything yourself. That's the power of free software - when one person has solved a problem, everyone has the solution.
M$ has managed how many platforms again? How much do SDK's cost per platform? And you like it that way? Dude, the lack of choice is a serious failure of the non free software model. Even judged within the selfish limits of non free software's world view, being forced to move from one platform to another is a PITA that's going to cost you time and money. Bend over Bungi, Bill Gates has got a few software deals for you.
Besides doing research and emails, obviously, what do you use computers for on campus these days?
Besides research and paper writing, what else is there to do? Sure, math and engineering classes still require hand calculations, but even those are better organized as images. We are all on one long curve between doing everything on paper and everything electronically, the end point is inevitably electronic. Movies and music are also tools of self expression that will be taken seriously by any student in the future that wants to make a point.
A networked computer has become a indispensable tool. In short, your computer is your text, your library, your entertainment and your communication system. A student that is removed from the network suddenly loses all of the important things a computer does at school, including the ability to protest the loss.
As a programmer I've been waiting for this. I was actually disappointed that Vista would support 32-bit CPUs
Yeah, it's really cool when compiler switches go away. I love it when that happens.
Having one architecture to support will make things much easier, as well as get people to actually update their legacy code.
I know M$ thinks of developers as "Pawns" but does anyone really think that being forced to recompile code is a good thing? What happened to the famous "backward binary compatibilty" M$ is supposed to be good for?
Now if MS could get them to actually fix all the problems due to generally crappy code
Now you almost make sense. Wouldn't it be nicer if you could just compile it yourself to whatever platform fit your needs? So that YOU could make hardware choices and do all of the above when it was in YOUR best interest?
Chances are there are plenty of public terminals and computers in labs around campus which can be used for network access even if your personal computer can't be connected.
What a PITA. Are you really going to be able to do your work standing around public terminals at the food court?
If they do it by logon id, you are screwed wherever you are. It's pointless to turn off a dorm connection if the same person can use the wireless, so eventually this will become a total ban. Most of these schools will throw you out if you get too many of these letters anyway. It might be easier to flunk them out instead.
that we'll see 32 bit computing for another 20 years?
32, 16 and 8 where it's useful. In the free world, it's just a compile option. Even M$ can't be so stupid as to disregard embedded and low power platforms.
This is just M$ psycho-hype along the lines of "DOS is dead" they used to move Win3.1, 95, 98, W2K and XP as they slowly and painfully compiled their little system to 32 bits. That took them 20 years, not because it was hard but because they wanted to charge you for every "upgrade". Such stuff makes less sense in a world full of free alternatives that already offer the same things.
Society pays more for music and movies than they do for education. To cement their position, it seems that the MPAA/RIAA thinks they can get away with putting people in jail and taking their houses and life savings. The IRS got a little carried away like that back in the 1970's, the result was the election of Ronald Reagan. While society values entertainment, it's unlikely they will put up with this kind of harassment for long and copyright law is about to get a serious re-calibration.
Just roll Stanford down in your list of preferred colleges/universities.
What and just let the MAFIAA have Stanford and everything it does? NFW. It is outrageous that people can be thrown off their network, fined and out of school without a trial on the word of a big dumb company that's got a reputation for suing innocent people. This needs to be fought at every level. We can't let big dumb publishers destroy public institutions over their pop proffits. Pop music and movies are not worth this. Lawrence Lessig must be furious. Do you think he's going just leave? Where will you go that can't be screwed over?
Next you wont be able to graduate unless you pay your unpaid DMCA notices.
Most schools require a zero balance to graduate.
Being denied net access is one of the principle wrongs of the right to read story. Even today, that is fatal. Witout network access, you can't register for classes. If Stanford has special policies for computers within their network which they deny to computers outside their network all of those services are denied for those "disconnected".
you can always say Stallman and the FSF are scared shitless of Microsoft so they're feverishly rewriting their license.
Well, yes they are afraid of M$ dirty tricks. M$ would charge people money for free software, something most non free people would call "piracy" and "theft." This kind of lock down is worse than traditional copyright infringement, which actually spreads information.
Yes, I'm going through your posting history looking for all the dumb things you have said. I told you I would.
Yeah, but weren't they just patting themselves on the back about Vista being the fastest-selling OS ever?;)
and it's been debunked because of time scale games - they have been selling "vouchers" for more than a year - and statistical problems, like the market has doubled in size since the introduction of XP. They need to have twice the sales they don't actually have to beat XP which was a really slow starter. Does it get worse than that?
Finally, if they are not just squeezing their suppliers to get whatever results they claim, the suppliers will also be doing well but they are not. Gateway is actually losing money and Dell has ended it's Vista only policy because of it's impact on sales. I'm not sure how HP is doing but I am sure that Vista is harmful to all.
Linus is obviously going to call it FUD just as Gates will obviously say it isn't. You're not going to get an unbiased response from people who have so much to gain or lose,
Linux is GPL, so it does not have owners. Ten cents and the sum total of what Linux has in Linux licensing revenue will get you a chicklet. The only thing he and the rest of us have to lose is software freedom. The rest of the world is not going to let M$ walk away with that one, no matter how many empty threats M$ can cook up.
This is the last FUD M$ has, it's all downhill for them now. The truth is out so they have already lost.
Schwartz is talking about not being able to sue free software out of existence. Sure, he might be alluding to M$ encouraging Sun to sue their own customers, that's a small part of the picture. After extolling the value of free software for Sun, he concludes:
no amount of fear can stop the rise of free media, or free software (they are the same, after all). The community is vastly more innovative and powerful than a single company. And you will never turn back the clock on elementary school students and developing economies and aid agencies and fledgling universities - or the Fortune 500 - that have found value in the wisdom of the open source community. Open standards and open source software are literally changing the face of the planet - creating opportunity wherever the network can reach.
M$'s current party line was made to directly counter this opinion. As delivered by Fortune, M$ has made agreements with the Fortune 500 to sell free software M$ style - with M$ as the owner. The core of Schwartz's message is that strategy won't work. Even the Fortune article caught that much, despite missing so many other problems like checking Ballmer's source for numbers. Fortune also caught the GPL3 changes that will further sink M$'s ill advised power grab.
M$'s approach is not only wrong headed, it has no foundation. It's pure FUD and even M$ has to know it. The only reasonable explanation is that Vista is a flop and they will try anything to generate further sales.
Back in November 2004, Dan Ravicher complained to Steven Vaughan-Nichols that Ballmer had misread his patent study, so I'm not sure that this is 'new' news.
This looks recent to me. I journaled the interesting parts of the Register article. The statements were presented as recent and are identical to those running in the stories you point to:
Dan Ravicher, says that is not what the report said, and that it did not claim that open source software faces legal problems. "Open source faces no more, if not less, legal risk than proprietary software," Ravicher told technology news site eWeek. "The market needs to understand that the study Microsoft is citing actually proves the opposite of what they claim it does.
The Register article also quoted Ballmer citing a paper published "last summer" by a nameless "Open Software" group so this is not a rehash of the 2004 events, other than committing the same offense. Microsoft is like that. When a lie does not stick, they tell it again.
Back in November 2004, Dan Ravicher complained to Steven Vaughan-Nichols that Ballmer had misread his patent study, so I'm not sure that this is 'new' news.
This looks recent to me. I journaled the interesting parts of the Register article. The statements were presented as recent and are identical to those running in the stories you point to:
Dan Ravicher, says that is not what the report said, and that it did not claim that open source software faces legal problems. "Open source faces no more, if not less, legal risk than proprietary software," Ravicher told technology news site eWeek. "The market needs to understand that the study Microsoft is citing actually proves the opposite of what they claim it does.
The Register article also quoted Ballmer citing a paper published "last summer" by a nameless "Open Software" group so this is not a rehash of the 2004 events, other than committing the same offense. Microsoft is like that. When a lie does not stick, they tell it again.
What is the point of all this hyperbole and creative spelling?
You'll have to be more specific to get an answer to that.
The rest of your questions are mostly bullshit and flamebait that I'm not going to bite and I suspect you are some kind of paid PR drone. If you don't like free software the only reason you can be here is to harass others. You seem to be good enough at the game that you can moderate stuff like the above as something that people should read. This indicates some sophistication, perhaps a botnet to game the system. In any case, your motives are just as sad as what you do. I'm tired of the deadzo account, so I'm going to catalog some of your more outrageous insults to the free software community and that will be the last you will hear from me.
Holy crap! a complete newbie installed a complete 64 bit system and it worked with a few minor problems with non free software not found in 32 bit versions. She had trouble with DVDs, Nvidia drivers, Flash and Picasa, and did not like the GDM login fonts. She was able to solve the Nvidia problem without too much trouble and seems to have made DVDs and Adobe Flash work. All of this with less effort than she would have put into a Windoze box. One reboot and everything "very automatic".
Her comments about non free software are scathing:
Adobe's Flash video player was extremely difficult to install. I have a 64-bit microprocessor, and installed 64-bit Ubuntu. Although 64-bit Linux has been available for more than five years, Adobe hasn't bothered to develop 64-bit version of Flash for Linux yet. My live-in geek tracked the problem down for me, and Adobe is reportedly working on 64-bit software.
The [Picasa] problem is Google, not Ubuntu. Instead of writing real Linux software, all Google did was take their Windows version and wrap it in WINE (fake Windows) to make it work in Linux. I expected Google to do better than that.
This is really cool and shows a good grasp of what free software is all about. She figured out that the non free parts were the problem, not the free parts. This kind of enlightenment from a non programmer is great to see.
Her conclusion is an uncompromising endorsement:
I think Ubuntu Linux is definitely ready for almost anyone with a Windows system who is tired of havig their computer infested with spyware and viruses. It is also a way to avoid Microsoft's "activation" demands. It's free! It's good! It works!
The more I think about it, the nicer the article is. This is a picky user and she's been satisfied. Many of her fears, such as the complete loss of data and OS overwrite, came from M$ use, so her opinion is likely to improve.
Slashdot Mirror
It doesn't matter how well Vista sells at the moment. It's inevitable that all new computers will sell Vista, just like it was inevitable that new computers sold XP. We had exactly these same stories when XP came out. After Vista achieves a critical mass and everyone is used to it, everyone else will slowly upgrade..
Ah, but the point is that Vista is not inevitable or even probable. XP took years to take up 50% of the M$ market and Vista is not doing as well as that. While XP had a minority share, it was safe to ignore. Vista is so disappointing that even the fanboys are ignoring it and sane people are forbiding it in their work places. No commercial software is inevitable and all of it dissapears in time. Only free software has long term credibility. Vista is a flop and will soon be replaced by something else, just like ME was replaced by W2K and W2K was replaced by XP.
This is good for everyone but M$. The more market rejection they face, the more fragmented their market is, the less power they have over the rest of us.
Keep at it, however, I hear3 the Hugo Chaves has a gigantic anti-US propaganda machine just firing up. You could do worse than earn decent money in a decent climate, all for doing what you love.
No thanks, I like the US constitution better and think that it can be enforced.
Remember the ongoing "net neutrality" debate? What ATT and friends want for their networks is exactly what is needed to censor the internet. It's costly, stupid and unAmerican but you and me are going to pay for it. They started building the wiretap part before 9/11 2001. Shaping comes after listening.
If you want evidence of government censorship of the internet, look no further than Iraq. There websites are blocked to US servicemen and reporters are treated like spies. The US government has already used it's broadcasting ownership to censor TV and radio, so there's abundant evidence of their intent.
I call BS on your claims of FF being "nimble" on a 233MHz Pentium II. I don't doubt it runs, but I'm going to guess it's not a pleasant experience. Just a wild guess.
With free software, there's no need to guess or convince yourself without evidence. Install for yourself or just boot Knoppix, Mepis or something easier like a 40MB Austrumi image. Austrumi FF works about as fast as regular Debian Iceweasel installed. It works well, thank you.
I run IE on XP and that's nowhere near your mythic 10GB. Hell, even if it were I can get a 320GB hard drive for under $90. It's up to me to decide if I think that's excessive or not. Certainly not to you.
I don't have a gun to your head, Bungi, and you are free to sell yourself all day long. It brings me some pleasure to think of you sitting around watching your disk thrash, but you might be more pleasant if that did not happen to you so often. You won't convince me to waste my hard drive space and time on Vista or XP. Let me know when you can get XP, Firefox, GIMP and other useful programs into a 40 MB live image.
The Concerto for Luser in Five Movements, M$235:
Movement I: There is no such problem, it's all FUD - Allegro assai
Movement II: Look over there, it's crappy hardware - Grave larghetto
Movement 2.5: The problem is the user - Crasho the Immueblos
Movement 2.6: The problem is the hackers - Crasho the Immueblos
Movement 2.7: The problem is the drivers - Crasho the Immueblos
Movement 2.6: The problem is the user - Crasho the Immueblos
Movement IV: The next version is "fixing" it and does everything Linux/Mac/OS2/VMS does - Lentissimo non tropo
Movement V: Microsoft is undeniably superior to everything - Andantino grazioso
Movement VI: This doesn't work, but the new version does not cost much - Moderatto con brio
Step 9 Version Inflation??? Collect fees.
GOTO I
Bravo maestro! but Vista still requires 10GB and everything free is slim next to it. Cue failure of Vista, end of above goto and beautiful lacrimosa for the robber barons of Redmond. Got MSFT stock? Sell it or join the chorus of tears.
I'll consider Firefox "bloated" when it requires a 10 GB OS and a supercomputer to run the latest version. They still port Firefox to Win 98, don't they? Sans Adobe Flash and Windoze, it's still slim and responsive on my 233 MHz PII. The community is constantly cleaning the code and it shows.
The free world, comes with choice as well as code sharing. I prefer Konqueror which is also slim and there's always Dillo or Opera to play with. There are also "slimmer" versions of Firefox like Galeon.
Behold the M$ party line and how it contrasts with reality:
Microsoft hasn't stood in the way of ODF at all. They just think there's room for more than one standard.
You forgot to tell me about how "open" the M$ "standard" is.
If they were in anyway serious about ODF, the new Office would be using it and there would be "patches" for users of older version s of M$ Office. Instead, they have graciously sold Novel enough information to create a partial implementation to import the text portions and called that interoperability. They expect the whole community to wade through their insane 7,000 page spec which tells them to look at 10 year old printed material! Can you really tell me that M$ is not playing the same old format war games because they did not exercise a vote in an obviously abusive way?
Nice straw man, especially from the wipe-and-reload-the-distro-of-the-day types. Most people don't care about compiling their own code to target different architectures or word sizes or endianess. You're making the argument that it's somehow important to be able to support the 8088 for commodity consumer software until the mountains crumble into the sea. Other than a few isolated niche cases - who the hell cares.
Indeed, that is a nice straw man, Bungi. The argument that I'm making is that hardware choice is nice. You know, there is a world of computing outside of x86. Alpha, PowerPC, Cell, ARM and others all come to mind. That there are distros to run all of these which can, yes, be wiped and reloaded without loss of user data, is a good proof of that demand. But it's more than that, Debian runs on a dozen or so platformsso you don't have to do everything yourself. That's the power of free software - when one person has solved a problem, everyone has the solution.
M$ has managed how many platforms again? How much do SDK's cost per platform? And you like it that way? Dude, the lack of choice is a serious failure of the non free software model. Even judged within the selfish limits of non free software's world view, being forced to move from one platform to another is a PITA that's going to cost you time and money. Bend over Bungi, Bill Gates has got a few software deals for you.
Besides doing research and emails, obviously, what do you use computers for on campus these days?
Besides research and paper writing, what else is there to do? Sure, math and engineering classes still require hand calculations, but even those are better organized as images. We are all on one long curve between doing everything on paper and everything electronically, the end point is inevitably electronic. Movies and music are also tools of self expression that will be taken seriously by any student in the future that wants to make a point.
A networked computer has become a indispensable tool. In short, your computer is your text, your library, your entertainment and your communication system. A student that is removed from the network suddenly loses all of the important things a computer does at school, including the ability to protest the loss.
As a programmer I've been waiting for this. I was actually disappointed that Vista would support 32-bit CPUs
Yeah, it's really cool when compiler switches go away. I love it when that happens.
Having one architecture to support will make things much easier, as well as get people to actually update their legacy code.
I know M$ thinks of developers as "Pawns" but does anyone really think that being forced to recompile code is a good thing? What happened to the famous "backward binary compatibilty" M$ is supposed to be good for?
Now if MS could get them to actually fix all the problems due to generally crappy code
Now you almost make sense. Wouldn't it be nicer if you could just compile it yourself to whatever platform fit your needs? So that YOU could make hardware choices and do all of the above when it was in YOUR best interest?
Chances are there are plenty of public terminals and computers in labs around campus which can be used for network access even if your personal computer can't be connected.
What a PITA. Are you really going to be able to do your work standing around public terminals at the food court?
If they do it by logon id, you are screwed wherever you are. It's pointless to turn off a dorm connection if the same person can use the wireless, so eventually this will become a total ban. Most of these schools will throw you out if you get too many of these letters anyway. It might be easier to flunk them out instead.
that we'll see 32 bit computing for another 20 years?
32, 16 and 8 where it's useful. In the free world, it's just a compile option. Even M$ can't be so stupid as to disregard embedded and low power platforms.
This is just M$ psycho-hype along the lines of "DOS is dead" they used to move Win3.1, 95, 98, W2K and XP as they slowly and painfully compiled their little system to 32 bits. That took them 20 years, not because it was hard but because they wanted to charge you for every "upgrade". Such stuff makes less sense in a world full of free alternatives that already offer the same things.
Does this mean that MS are going to inflict another operating system on us in the near future?
They think they are about to own a GNU operating system. Vista's a flop and shows how out of steam WinDOS really is.
Society pays more for music and movies than they do for education. To cement their position, it seems that the MPAA/RIAA thinks they can get away with putting people in jail and taking their houses and life savings. The IRS got a little carried away like that back in the 1970's, the result was the election of Ronald Reagan. While society values entertainment, it's unlikely they will put up with this kind of harassment for long and copyright law is about to get a serious re-calibration.
Just roll Stanford down in your list of preferred colleges/universities.
What and just let the MAFIAA have Stanford and everything it does? NFW. It is outrageous that people can be thrown off their network, fined and out of school without a trial on the word of a big dumb company that's got a reputation for suing innocent people. This needs to be fought at every level. We can't let big dumb publishers destroy public institutions over their pop proffits. Pop music and movies are not worth this. Lawrence Lessig must be furious. Do you think he's going just leave? Where will you go that can't be screwed over?
Next you wont be able to graduate unless you pay your unpaid DMCA notices.
Most schools require a zero balance to graduate.
Being denied net access is one of the principle wrongs of the right to read story. Even today, that is fatal. Witout network access, you can't register for classes. If Stanford has special policies for computers within their network which they deny to computers outside their network all of those services are denied for those "disconnected".
Feeling left behind in the new propaganda wars, the US military is working hard to catch up. I already thought the Air Force mission required the domination of cyber space, but it seems that's not enough. A newly minted "war czar" is going to expand and unite the mission for all branches. Czar? how fitting for this conversation. I'd prefer the title "war lord of mind fuck".
you can always say Stallman and the FSF are scared shitless of Microsoft so they're feverishly rewriting their license.
Well, yes they are afraid of M$ dirty tricks. M$ would charge people money for free software, something most non free people would call "piracy" and "theft." This kind of lock down is worse than traditional copyright infringement, which actually spreads information.
Yes, I'm going through your posting history looking for all the dumb things you have said. I told you I would.
Their lips move
Yeah, but weren't they just patting themselves on the back about Vista being the fastest-selling OS ever? ;)
and it's been debunked because of time scale games - they have been selling "vouchers" for more than a year - and statistical problems, like the market has doubled in size since the introduction of XP. They need to have twice the sales they don't actually have to beat XP which was a really slow starter. Does it get worse than that?
Finally, if they are not just squeezing their suppliers to get whatever results they claim, the suppliers will also be doing well but they are not. Gateway is actually losing money and Dell has ended it's Vista only policy because of it's impact on sales. I'm not sure how HP is doing but I am sure that Vista is harmful to all.
Linus is obviously going to call it FUD just as Gates will obviously say it isn't. You're not going to get an unbiased response from people who have so much to gain or lose,
Linux is GPL, so it does not have owners. Ten cents and the sum total of what Linux has in Linux licensing revenue will get you a chicklet. The only thing he and the rest of us have to lose is software freedom. The rest of the world is not going to let M$ walk away with that one, no matter how many empty threats M$ can cook up.
This is the last FUD M$ has, it's all downhill for them now. The truth is out so they have already lost.
Schwartz is talking about not being able to sue free software out of existence. Sure, he might be alluding to M$ encouraging Sun to sue their own customers, that's a small part of the picture. After extolling the value of free software for Sun, he concludes:
M$'s current party line was made to directly counter this opinion. As delivered by Fortune, M$ has made agreements with the Fortune 500 to sell free software M$ style - with M$ as the owner. The core of Schwartz's message is that strategy won't work. Even the Fortune article caught that much, despite missing so many other problems like checking Ballmer's source for numbers. Fortune also caught the GPL3 changes that will further sink M$'s ill advised power grab.
M$'s approach is not only wrong headed, it has no foundation. It's pure FUD and even M$ has to know it. The only reasonable explanation is that Vista is a flop and they will try anything to generate further sales.
Back in November 2004, Dan Ravicher complained to Steven Vaughan-Nichols that Ballmer had misread his patent study, so I'm not sure that this is 'new' news.
This looks recent to me. I journaled the interesting parts of the Register article. The statements were presented as recent and are identical to those running in the stories you point to:
The Register article also quoted Ballmer citing a paper published "last summer" by a nameless "Open Software" group so this is not a rehash of the 2004 events, other than committing the same offense. Microsoft is like that. When a lie does not stick, they tell it again.
Back in November 2004, Dan Ravicher complained to Steven Vaughan-Nichols that Ballmer had misread his patent study, so I'm not sure that this is 'new' news.
This looks recent to me. I journaled the interesting parts of the Register article. The statements were presented as recent and are identical to those running in the stories you point to:
The Register article also quoted Ballmer citing a paper published "last summer" by a nameless "Open Software" group so this is not a rehash of the 2004 events, other than committing the same offense. Microsoft is like that. When a lie does not stick, they tell it again.
What is the point of all this hyperbole and creative spelling?
You'll have to be more specific to get an answer to that.
The rest of your questions are mostly bullshit and flamebait that I'm not going to bite and I suspect you are some kind of paid PR drone. If you don't like free software the only reason you can be here is to harass others. You seem to be good enough at the game that you can moderate stuff like the above as something that people should read. This indicates some sophistication, perhaps a botnet to game the system. In any case, your motives are just as sad as what you do. I'm tired of the deadzo account, so I'm going to catalog some of your more outrageous insults to the free software community and that will be the last you will hear from me.
Holy crap! a complete newbie installed a complete 64 bit system and it worked with a few minor problems with non free software not found in 32 bit versions. She had trouble with DVDs, Nvidia drivers, Flash and Picasa, and did not like the GDM login fonts. She was able to solve the Nvidia problem without too much trouble and seems to have made DVDs and Adobe Flash work. All of this with less effort than she would have put into a Windoze box. One reboot and everything "very automatic".
Her comments about non free software are scathing:
This is really cool and shows a good grasp of what free software is all about. She figured out that the non free parts were the problem, not the free parts. This kind of enlightenment from a non programmer is great to see.
Her conclusion is an uncompromising endorsement:
The more I think about it, the nicer the article is. This is a picky user and she's been satisfied. Many of her fears, such as the complete loss of data and OS overwrite, came from M$ use, so her opinion is likely to improve.