Why are so many posts starting with disclaimers like "This likely will get moderated down because of the slashdot bias, but it must be pointed out...."?
Is the point to cultivate points through moderator guilt (and they're a stone-hearted bunch) or to get one last defiant dig in before the ship sinks (due to bias, naturally)?
The illogic of "this likely will get moderated down" is that if it is, then no one will read the disclaimer. Perhaps someday an internet archeologist will discover its prophetic remains.
Now, I realize that this will get modded into oblivion by nincompoops who fear the contagion of righteous criticism and sedition; yet the Mod Squad might see the error of its ways, showering "insightful" points on this post and its parent, then resigning as penance.
All in fun. Some of my best friends are moderators. Really.
Actually, natural selection proposes that the fittest prevail. Fitness changes with circumstances. Anyway, the adaptation of biological evolution to social darwinism is an oversimplification and would have pissed Darwin off.
Microsoft it might be argued is not the fittest competitor but the strongest. Lacking fitness (and adaptibility), the distortion it imposes on the market will in time pass. Analogously, if man, the self-proclaimed pinnacle of evolution, isn't careful he will become extinct and the quite adaptable bugs will "take over."
** Antitrust legislation allows private actors to bring their own lawsuits. When a corporation first brings its proposed lawsuit to the Dept. of Justice, and the DOJ in turn asks, well, why aren't you bringing this? In the Microsoft lawsuit, the primary reason the feds and states filed suit, aside from perceived merit, was the titanic legal resources of the company backed by a nearly inexhautible war chest.
Having the gov't sue is kind of a last resort, and usually not the best one because the taxpayer foots the bill, and they're susceptible to political pressure -- witness the radically different approaches to the recent case by the Clinton and Bush Administrations. It is also likely to be less technically sophisticated than the parties involved, and may be influenced by lobbyists and other peripheral players.
Sun will have the enormous advantage of not having to prove monopoly. They've already sued MS and won over Java. Sun is also more likely to seek effective terms in a settlement.
Oddly enough, the court will decide the case not looking at how it benefits the parties, but the consumer. Courts are reluctant to create their own terms, so the judge in this case simply chose between two proferred plans. Perhaps if there had been a more moderate position she would have chosen that.
I'm not an antitrust lawyer, but I think this may yet result in some interesting results. If you think MS is a blameless "tough competitor," you'll disagree; but the rest of us would still like to see their practices further corralled.
Note that this miscreant's first call was to his lawyer, who ultimately saved his butt.
Maybe lawyers aren't all so bad, at least when they're your lawyer, especially in a criminal case.
IAAL and POI.:) "I fought the law and the law won."
(Why exactly were they arrested "with guns drawn"? I don't think that's standard procedure, and what were they worried about, that some might throw a monitor at them?)
To my opinion education is the only way your users will know what to do.
Putting a size limit on your e-mail server doesn't learn them anything exept that their e-mail administrator is a complete *ss (in their view).
E-mail size limits only help if you explain to your uses why they shouldn't send files by e-mail if there is another way and, how they should share documents....
I know proofreading is a lost art, but if "education is the only way," then your "uses" may be confused why you're trying to "learn" them.
I won't mention punctuation.....:)
Good points, though ambitious. I had trouble explaining to users, even ones with advanced degrees, the difference between memory and disk space, no matter how purple my face got.
Of course I've visited their site. And I've talked to engineers who work in the field. The point isn't whether they can do neat stuff, but the bang for the buck. If we'd put the energy into automation that we have manned spaceflight, I bet we'd be doing far more with robots or remote control. Hey, we recently achieved the first long-distance surgery!
I was pretty surprised that the Russians used unmanned ships to resupply Mir, I don't recall the US having that capability. (Yes, there was that one that rammed Mir.) I bet they did it to save money.
ISS is a cool program, but a lot of good science is being sidelined.
The force of gravity a few hundred miles above the surface is about 90% that of sea level -- not minuscule. The massive Earth (core more metallic than most) is about 8,000 miles in diameter, so a few hundred miles is proportionally small.
The Shuttle doesn't fall to Earth because it "misses" by orbiting so fast that its fall trajectory is ahead of its orbit. So it falls into its orbit, until slowed by friction the orbit decays.
The Shuttle, although in free-fall, does not quite experience zero-G. We've actually gotten closer to zero-G (like.003) on Earth, but only for 5 seconds -- visit the NASA Microgravity Center. See also the falling penny myth.
I have opposed the ISS all along (gasp) much as I did the shuttle. The manned space program in general, including or perhaps especially Apollo, has been hard to justify. (The foundation of Apollo was not so much science as the Cold War. Note we haven't been back in 30 years and have no plans of doing so. Yes, it was really cool and as a symbol continues to inspire; perhaps that's the best part. But out failure to return suggests we're really not all that interested in voyaging in space.) Manned spaceflight has a great gee-whiz factor which I share and circularly develops our understanding on how to sustain humans in space -- in others words, men in space help put more in space. Yippee.
Unmanned probe programs from Cassini back to the ancient Mariner, on the other hand, have produced reams of data for a fraction of the cost and danger. The 25 y.o. Voyager program is still working, and they were done on a shoestring compared to ISS. That sort of thing makes me go "wow!" more than several people orbiting the Earth in a claustrophobic tin can.
Congress cries poverty at unsexy robotic probes, yet relatively easily goes for the big-ticket man-in-space programs. This is due to the public as much as the politicians; it's hard to care about a ream of data as much as pictures of an astronaut. Yet I know people in the industry who talked a great deal of how the expensive Shuttle devastated virtually all other programs, in a period when our interplanetary probes were at their zenith -- Voyager, Viking, etc.
This is just to speak of pure research. The greatest practical application of spaceflight has been the launching of satellites for communications, weather observation, and so on. If anything the U.S. lags in this area, as more and more launches go to rockets from France, China, and Russia. My engineer friend's American company has several launches planned on Russian rockets of ancient but reliable technology.
Certainly the people who frequent this site appreciate the power of technology. We're moving to a level of computational power, AI, robotics, etc. whose primary emphasis is to relieve humans of repetitive, demanding, or dangerous tasks. And if our technology fails with a probe, we lose a machine and not a life. Why not apply our emphasis here?
I don't discount the amazing achievements of manned spaceflight -- and it's a cheap part our trillion+ budget with lots of bang for the buck -- but I do question the allocation of these funds. I think we are many years behind what we could have achieved, and what the space program might have driven our engineering to achieve. As for interplanetary travel, I would love to see humans do it but know that unmanned missions can get there much sooner and return more information for less money and without the compromises forced by life support. Ultimately, who cares whether man of machine collects the data?
What NJ needs to do is come up with lots more good Manhattan jokes. They're where most of your abuse originates, and believe they need you. Without you, they're nothing, just another parochial island, they might as well sink into the water.
I dated someone who defected to NYC (Manhattan of course) and got tired of "The City" religion quick.
Of course it is important to have a good sense of humor about bad humor... better than no humor at all.
I used to do a lot of flying and can attest that high-frequency navigation signals travels maybe 70 miles line-of-sight at 2000 feet -- the height of some broadcast antennas -- and farther at higher altitudes. But reflections were weak or nonexistent.
Communication frequencies, and this is aviation only, numbered some 720 (it's been a few years). Police communications are probably just as narrow and could be slotted any number of places, and being low-altitude would not cause much town-to-town interference. But instead they plant it in a frequency spread reserved for TV? (TV channel bandwidth is astonishing, dominating most of the available spectrum to deliver Gilligan's Island reruns and professional wrestling.)
I know some people are excited by the advent of digital programming -- no, wait, actually I don't know any, though most agree it looks neat -- but the way the equipment manufacturers and FCC colluded to ram digital down the throats of consumers and broadcasters stinks. I for one will hang onto my analog set until the picture is no more than a faint flicker.
IAAL (how often do you see that) and am impressed by the speedreading skills of y'all. Seriously, law needs people like you.
The court's ruling is what was expected, it is rare for courts to reject a settlement in the interest of public policy. No court wants to be saddled with the economic success of her decision to break up or hamstring a company, an area where they lack expertise. It also gets them branded "activist."
The revised settlement has been analyzed extensively already, and this decision appears to add just a few footnotes. Remember that the responsibility for the shape of the settlement lies with the Bush Administration; it moved aggressively on this. Let them know your thoughts (hey, someone figured a way into Saddam Hussein's email -- how about W's?).
Personally, I don't want to see Microsoft die. I just don't want them or anyone to be the 800-lb. gorilla. Microsoft sort of slipped into IBM's shoes -- remember the later was the subject of an extremely long antitrust suit, dropped because it had become irrelevant. IBM didn't die, but it sure changed, and is still a successful company.
I think Microsoft is now weakening before the free market, because of its bad publicity, the flaws of some of its products, and the general disenchantment with high-tech -- people who believed Gates' image of capitalist hero are now skeptical, troubled by things like his Clintonesque deposition.
Face it, when was the last time they had a real coup like the days of DOS, from which Windows was bootstrapped? You can buy a Lindows machine at a mass retailer like Wal-Mart. Apple didn't die. The reasons for most consumers to upgrade computers and OS's are evaporating, hence MS's aggravating licensing strategy (for the smaller users). Can you anticipate the boom of.NET's demise? Even MS's quite decent Internet Explorer is coming under credible attack (I'm using Chimera). Give it time, say 7 years.
And... the court is retaining jurisdiction, which means MS can be rapidly hauled before a judge already familiar with the facts should they step out of line. That's lightyears more effective than initiating a lawsuit. Also, by leaving Micorsoft (excessively?) strong, this decision actually boosts the cause of Linux et al. to swipe the king's crown, operating in his shadow.
Who the heck puts things on paper first any more, especially a software company? Didn't the Microsoft docs all start out as electronic docs, which Caldera should have demanded rather than paper? If the docs were all created on paper rather than MS Word, or whatever, what does that say about MS?
A missed opportunity for insight into the Microsoft,. Presumably Caldera at least indexed the material. Now if the documents are not sealed, there's nothing to stop Caldera from giving them away FOB. To someone with a really big truck and a lot of time on their hands.
Speaking of gambling, won't it be great when elections are turned over to computers. People honestly think things like online voting will deliver them from human vices like cheating in or just disrupting elections, by hackers or insiders.
I can't imagine making an informed decision about such a titanic decision without spending some money. Imagine the cost if they mess up!! And I don't think I've ever seen a feasibility study this cheap in the States, not by several orders of magnitude.
By comparison, the EU gov't already is Linux, and the US Microsoft.
I think it is important to at least consider the % of one's icome or worth to figure how charitable one is being. Bill can give away a billion dollars as easily as one of us pays for a weekend out of town. Would it change his life in the slightest? Also, many of us question the way he came into those riches -- that monopoly thing.
Considering how much more he has than he could possibly use, and the PR problems he faces, I view his charity with some skepticism, as much as I welcome it. (Yes, he could do nothing, but we don't have to flatter him for merely being more than a complete Scrooge.)
Maybe there are too measures of charity -- how much good it does for others, and how much good it does your soul.
All that aside, what MS did in the present discussion sounds like just plain old bad attitude, not parsimony.
If MS didn't want to give anything -- not even the paltry lunch money asked for -- they should have offered nothing, rather than insult the intelligence of the Namibians. But this was NOT a token offer; MS clearly hoped to gain bragging rights for converting these school districts to their side.
Perhaps MS thought there will be no PR repercussions from being duplicitous -- who the heck cares what happens to Namibians? Oh yeah, slashdotters among others.
This is not about MS's freedom to choose whether to be charitable. It is about their obligation to deal fairly. No matter how much or little MS has been "bashed" elsewhere, they dropped the ball here and should be called on it. Even by their defenders.
Now, in addition to "jumbo shrimp," "military intelligence," and other legends, we have "Microsoft charity."
What is it with these guys? Are they crazy like a fox, arrogant, or just dumb? Is Microsoft really that worried about market share in impoverished Africa, and is it this inept at promoting itself?
Well, three cheers for Linux, which doesn't even have a promotional budget.
Slashdot Mirror
Bravo!
Re the film, one word:
o oo oooooo!
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
For when you absolutely, positively need that chemistry problem solved by the next day.
Why are so many posts starting with disclaimers like "This likely will get moderated down because of the slashdot bias, but it must be pointed out...."?
Is the point to cultivate points through moderator guilt (and they're a stone-hearted bunch) or to get one last defiant dig in before the ship sinks (due to bias, naturally)?
The illogic of "this likely will get moderated down" is that if it is, then no one will read the disclaimer. Perhaps someday an internet archeologist will discover its prophetic remains.
Now, I realize that this will get modded into oblivion by nincompoops who fear the contagion of righteous criticism and sedition; yet the Mod Squad might see the error of its ways, showering "insightful" points on this post and its parent, then resigning as penance.
All in fun. Some of my best friends are moderators. Really.
Actually, natural selection proposes that the fittest prevail. Fitness changes with circumstances. Anyway, the adaptation of biological evolution to social darwinism is an oversimplification and would have pissed Darwin off.
Microsoft it might be argued is not the fittest competitor but the strongest. Lacking fitness (and adaptibility), the distortion it imposes on the market will in time pass. Analogously, if man, the self-proclaimed pinnacle of evolution, isn't careful he will become extinct and the quite adaptable bugs will "take over."
**
Antitrust legislation allows private actors to bring their own lawsuits. When a corporation first brings its proposed lawsuit to the Dept. of Justice, and the DOJ in turn asks, well, why aren't you bringing this? In the Microsoft lawsuit, the primary reason the feds and states filed suit, aside from perceived merit, was the titanic legal resources of the company backed by a nearly inexhautible war chest.
Having the gov't sue is kind of a last resort, and usually not the best one because the taxpayer foots the bill, and they're susceptible to political pressure -- witness the radically different approaches to the recent case by the Clinton and Bush Administrations. It is also likely to be less technically sophisticated than the parties involved, and may be influenced by lobbyists and other peripheral players.
Sun will have the enormous advantage of not having to prove monopoly. They've already sued MS and won over Java. Sun is also more likely to seek effective terms in a settlement.
Oddly enough, the court will decide the case not looking at how it benefits the parties, but the consumer. Courts are reluctant to create their own terms, so the judge in this case simply chose between two proferred plans. Perhaps if there had been a more moderate position she would have chosen that.
I'm not an antitrust lawyer, but I think this may yet result in some interesting results. If you think MS is a blameless "tough competitor," you'll disagree; but the rest of us would still like to see their practices further corralled.
Note that this miscreant's first call was to his lawyer, who ultimately saved his butt.
:) "I fought the law and the law won."
Maybe lawyers aren't all so bad, at least when they're your lawyer, especially in a criminal case.
IAAL and POI.
(Why exactly were they arrested "with guns drawn"? I don't think that's standard procedure, and what were they worried about, that some might throw a monitor at them?)
To my opinion education is the only way your users will know what to do.
:)
Putting a size limit on your e-mail server doesn't learn them anything exept that their e-mail administrator is a complete *ss (in their view).
E-mail size limits only help if you explain to your uses why they shouldn't send files by e-mail if there is another way and, how they should share documents....
I know proofreading is a lost art, but if "education is the only way," then your "uses" may be confused why you're trying to "learn" them.
I won't mention punctuation.....
Good points, though ambitious. I had trouble explaining to users, even ones with advanced degrees, the difference between memory and disk space, no matter how purple my face got.
Yep, and B5 had the same kind of thing on Mars, an elevated transport of cars in clear tubes. So we know it is practical.
No, it would never work with the El. Those cars are too damn leaky. Take it from me, I'm commuted on them during the winter.
(OK, so this is pretty off-topic -- you have to admit it's kind of moving, for those of us old enough to remember the Classic Simpsons :)
Lyle Lanley: Well, sir, there's nothing on earth
Like a genuine, Bona fide, Electrified, Six-car Monorail!
What'd I say?
Ned Flanders: Monorail!
Lyle Lanley: What's it called?
Patty&Selma: Monorail!
Lyle Lanley: That's right! Monorail!
[crowd chants `Monorail' softly and rhythmically]
Miss Hoover: I hear those things are awfully loud....
Lyle Lanley: It glides as softly as a cloud.
Apu: Is there a chance the track could bend?
Lyle Lanley: Not on your life, my Hindu friend.
Barney: What about us brain-dead slobs?
Lyle Lanley: You'll be given cushy jobs.
Abe: Were you sent here by the devil?
Lyle Lanley: No, good sir, I'm on the level.
Wiggum: The ring came off my pudding can.
Lyle Lanley: Take my pen knife, my good man.
I swear it's Springfield's only choice...
Throw up your hands and raise your voice!
All: Monorail!
Lyle Lanley: What's it called?
All: Monorail!
Lyle Lanley: Once again...
All: Monorail!
Marge: But Main Street's still all cracked and broken...
Bart: Sorry, Mom, the mob has spoken!
All: Monorail! Monorail! Monorail!
[big finish]
Monorail!
Homer: Mono... D'oh!
and 4) vacuum is too difficult for most of us to spell. :)
Of course I've visited their site. And I've talked to engineers who work in the field. The point isn't whether they can do neat stuff, but the bang for the buck. If we'd put the energy into automation that we have manned spaceflight, I bet we'd be doing far more with robots or remote control. Hey, we recently achieved the first long-distance surgery!
I was pretty surprised that the Russians used unmanned ships to resupply Mir, I don't recall the US having that capability. (Yes, there was that one that rammed Mir.) I bet they did it to save money.
ISS is a cool program, but a lot of good science is being sidelined.
The force of gravity a few hundred miles above the surface is about 90% that of sea level -- not minuscule. The massive Earth (core more metallic than most) is about 8,000 miles in diameter, so a few hundred miles is proportionally small.
.003) on Earth, but only for 5 seconds -- visit the NASA Microgravity Center. See also the falling penny myth.
The Shuttle doesn't fall to Earth because it "misses" by orbiting so fast that its fall trajectory is ahead of its orbit. So it falls into its orbit, until slowed by friction the orbit decays.
The Shuttle, although in free-fall, does not quite experience zero-G. We've actually gotten closer to zero-G (like
Must ... get ... antidote ....
I have opposed the ISS all along (gasp) much as I did the shuttle. The manned space program in general, including or perhaps especially Apollo, has been hard to justify. (The foundation of Apollo was not so much science as the Cold War. Note we haven't been back in 30 years and have no plans of doing so. Yes, it was really cool and as a symbol continues to inspire; perhaps that's the best part. But out failure to return suggests we're really not all that interested in voyaging in space.) Manned spaceflight has a great gee-whiz factor which I share and circularly develops our understanding on how to sustain humans in space -- in others words, men in space help put more in space. Yippee.
Unmanned probe programs from Cassini back to the ancient Mariner, on the other hand, have produced reams of data for a fraction of the cost and danger. The 25 y.o. Voyager program is still working, and they were done on a shoestring compared to ISS. That sort of thing makes me go "wow!" more than several people orbiting the Earth in a claustrophobic tin can.
Congress cries poverty at unsexy robotic probes, yet relatively easily goes for the big-ticket man-in-space programs. This is due to the public as much as the politicians; it's hard to care about a ream of data as much as pictures of an astronaut. Yet I know people in the industry who talked a great deal of how the expensive Shuttle devastated virtually all other programs, in a period when our interplanetary probes were at their zenith -- Voyager, Viking, etc.
This is just to speak of pure research. The greatest practical application of spaceflight has been the launching of satellites for communications, weather observation, and so on. If anything the U.S. lags in this area, as more and more launches go to rockets from France, China, and Russia. My engineer friend's American company has several launches planned on Russian rockets of ancient but reliable technology.
Certainly the people who frequent this site appreciate the power of technology. We're moving to a level of computational power, AI, robotics, etc. whose primary emphasis is to relieve humans of repetitive, demanding, or dangerous tasks. And if our technology fails with a probe, we lose a machine and not a life. Why not apply our emphasis here?
I don't discount the amazing achievements of manned spaceflight -- and it's a cheap part our trillion+ budget with lots of bang for the buck -- but I do question the allocation of these funds. I think we are many years behind what we could have achieved, and what the space program might have driven our engineering to achieve. As for interplanetary travel, I would love to see humans do it but know that unmanned missions can get there much sooner and return more information for less money and without the compromises forced by life support. Ultimately, who cares whether man of machine collects the data?
Thoughts?
What NJ needs to do is come up with lots more good Manhattan jokes. They're where most of your abuse originates, and believe they need you. Without you, they're nothing, just another parochial island, they might as well sink into the water.
... better than no humor at all.
I dated someone who defected to NYC (Manhattan of course) and got tired of "The City" religion quick.
Of course it is important to have a good sense of humor about bad humor
I used to do a lot of flying and can attest that high-frequency navigation signals travels maybe 70 miles line-of-sight at 2000 feet -- the height of some broadcast antennas -- and farther at higher altitudes. But reflections were weak or nonexistent.
Communication frequencies, and this is aviation only, numbered some 720 (it's been a few years). Police communications are probably just as narrow and could be slotted any number of places, and being low-altitude would not cause much town-to-town interference. But instead they plant it in a frequency spread reserved for TV? (TV channel bandwidth is astonishing, dominating most of the available spectrum to deliver Gilligan's Island reruns and professional wrestling.)
I know some people are excited by the advent of digital programming -- no, wait, actually I don't know any, though most agree it looks neat -- but the way the equipment manufacturers and FCC colluded to ram digital down the throats of consumers and broadcasters stinks. I for one will hang onto my analog set until the picture is no more than a faint flicker.
IAAL (how often do you see that) and am impressed by the speedreading skills of y'all. Seriously, law needs people like you.
.NET's demise? Even MS's quite decent Internet Explorer is coming under credible attack (I'm using Chimera). Give it time, say 7 years.
... the court is retaining jurisdiction, which means MS can be rapidly hauled before a judge already familiar with the facts should they step out of line. That's lightyears more effective than initiating a lawsuit. Also, by leaving Micorsoft (excessively?) strong, this decision actually boosts the cause of Linux et al. to swipe the king's crown, operating in his shadow.
The court's ruling is what was expected, it is rare for courts to reject a settlement in the interest of public policy. No court wants to be saddled with the economic success of her decision to break up or hamstring a company, an area where they lack expertise. It also gets them branded "activist."
The revised settlement has been analyzed extensively already, and this decision appears to add just a few footnotes. Remember that the responsibility for the shape of the settlement lies with the Bush Administration; it moved aggressively on this. Let them know your thoughts (hey, someone figured a way into Saddam Hussein's email -- how about W's?).
Personally, I don't want to see Microsoft die. I just don't want them or anyone to be the 800-lb. gorilla. Microsoft sort of slipped into IBM's shoes -- remember the later was the subject of an extremely long antitrust suit, dropped because it had become irrelevant. IBM didn't die, but it sure changed, and is still a successful company.
I think Microsoft is now weakening before the free market, because of its bad publicity, the flaws of some of its products, and the general disenchantment with high-tech -- people who believed Gates' image of capitalist hero are now skeptical, troubled by things like his Clintonesque deposition.
Face it, when was the last time they had a real coup like the days of DOS, from which Windows was bootstrapped? You can buy a Lindows machine at a mass retailer like Wal-Mart. Apple didn't die. The reasons for most consumers to upgrade computers and OS's are evaporating, hence MS's aggravating licensing strategy (for the smaller users). Can you anticipate the boom of
And
-- ad
Who the heck puts things on paper first any more, especially a software company? Didn't the Microsoft docs all start out as electronic docs, which Caldera should have demanded rather than paper? If the docs were all created on paper rather than MS Word, or whatever, what does that say about MS?
A missed opportunity for insight into the Microsoft,. Presumably Caldera at least indexed the material. Now if the documents are not sealed, there's nothing to stop Caldera from giving them away FOB. To someone with a really big truck and a lot of time on their hands.
Speaking of gambling, won't it be great when elections are turned over to computers. People honestly think things like online voting will deliver them from human vices like cheating in or just disrupting elections, by hackers or insiders.
Beware!
Sorry, I couldn't resist.
Wouldn't Linux waddle or swim in migration?
I can't imagine making an informed decision about such a titanic decision without spending some money. Imagine the cost if they mess up!! And I don't think I've ever seen a feasibility study this cheap in the States, not by several orders of magnitude.
By comparison, the EU gov't already is Linux, and the US Microsoft.
I think it is important to at least consider the % of one's icome or worth to figure how charitable one is being. Bill can give away a billion dollars as easily as one of us pays for a weekend out of town. Would it change his life in the slightest? Also, many of us question the way he came into those riches -- that monopoly thing.
Considering how much more he has than he could possibly use, and the PR problems he faces, I view his charity with some skepticism, as much as I welcome it. (Yes, he could do nothing, but we don't have to flatter him for merely being more than a complete Scrooge.)
Maybe there are too measures of charity -- how much good it does for others, and how much good it does your soul.
All that aside, what MS did in the present discussion sounds like just plain old bad attitude, not parsimony.
If MS didn't want to give anything -- not even the paltry lunch money asked for -- they should have offered nothing, rather than insult the intelligence of the Namibians. But this was NOT a token offer; MS clearly hoped to gain bragging rights for converting these school districts to their side.
Perhaps MS thought there will be no PR repercussions from being duplicitous -- who the heck cares what happens to Namibians? Oh yeah, slashdotters among others.
This is not about MS's freedom to choose whether to be charitable. It is about their obligation to deal fairly. No matter how much or little MS has been "bashed" elsewhere, they dropped the ball here and should be called on it. Even by their defenders.
Now, in addition to "jumbo shrimp," "military intelligence," and other legends, we have "Microsoft charity."
What is it with these guys? Are they crazy like a fox, arrogant, or just dumb? Is Microsoft really that worried about market share in impoverished Africa, and is it this inept at promoting itself?
Well, three cheers for Linux, which doesn't even have a promotional budget.