"Gates knows darn well that the "intellectual property rights" laws such as TRIPS -- which keep him and Melinda richer than Saddam and the Mafia combined -- are under attack by Nelson Mandela and front-line doctors trying to get cheap drugs to the 23 million Africans sick with the AIDS virus.
Gate's brilliant and self-serving solution: he's spending an itsy-bitsy part of his monopoly profits (the $6 billion spent by Gates' foundation is less than 2% of his net worth) to buy some drugs for a fraction of the dying. The bully billionaire's "philanthropic" organization is currently working paw-in-claw with the big pharmaceutical companies in support of the blockade on cheap drug shipments.
Gates' game is given away by the fact that his Foundation has invested $200 million in the very drug companies stopping the shipment of low-cost AIDS drugs to Africa. Gates says his plan is to reach one million people with medicine by the end of the decade.
Another way to read it: he's locking in a trade system that will block the delivery of cheap medicine to over 20 million."
I find it curious they offer no way to use the old menu system.
It's not that mysterious really... just another tactic to increase lock-in:
1) Add new, idiosyncratic interface to commoditised application 2) Use monopoly to compel market to 'upgrade' to new version 3) Wait for users to accept the new interface as the default 4) Use IP laws to prevent FOSS competitors from cloning interface 5) Switching to FOSS suddenly becomes much more difficult
If there is ethnic cleansing and tens or hundreds of thousands killed in internecine war, it's not as if the US population is going to sit down and say, "well hell, our President is responsible for that."
You have to remember that most of the world's population don't get their facts from the US media, and hence weren't as susceptible to the pre-war propaganda campaign.
They would definitely abandon Europe sales to save the company.
Of course.
Linux threatens the company, now very seriously.
Perhaps. I don't think that things will change as quickly as you predict.
The Novell deal is certainly an aggressive move on the patent front. Whether this is arrogance or desperation is hard to know.
The problem, and Microsoft has not yet seen it, and will not see it even after it's killed their company, is that management in today's IT is made up of post-1970 geeks, which means the remnants of the mainframe management has now completely retired (in the past 10 years).
This is definitely an underestimated factor.
I still think the Asian market will drive the biggest changes though. There are a lot of potential FOSS customers/contributors out there.
If you're based in Europe, it might be useful to make contact with the Free Software Foundation Europe's "Freedom Task Force". The FTF have been specifically set up to help businesses deal with the legal issues surrounding free software.
If Microsoft wanted to sue Linux companies for patent usage, he could do it without injecting any "poison pill".
The point is that Microsoft doesn't want to sue at this time.
MS (like most of the big patent-pushers) does not want a Big Patent War before they get software patents passed in Europe - because the chances of getting software patents passed after a Big Patent War are slim-to-none.
The fact that he comes from a majority Muslim country, his anti-jewishness, his misogyny and his un-western, 'peasant' attitudes are all clearly designed to present a Muslim stereotype.
Of course, Cohen has been careful to provide himself with 'plausible deniability'.
If the satire was entirely on middle America, then why is the main character an East European Muslim?
The fact is that RMS is loaded, and he hangs out with other such people (you know the kind.... they come up with a concept, hype it to venture capitalists, run the company into the ground or simply never produce a product, but they walk away with millions)
RMS might be a pain in the arse sometimes, but is not loaded.
He also makes a point of avoiding the kind of people you describe above.
If you ever met him you would realise that he doesn't give a crap about money (which might be part of the problem).
he is completely and totally out of touch with those of us poor souls that (God forbid!) have to WORK in order to earn money and pay our bills.
I doubt anybody reading this works harder than Richard Stallman.
The difference (between RMS and most people) is that he works not to increase his wealth, but to promote his ideas.
The article quoted is by Craig Murray - an ex-ambassador to Uzbekistan, who gained notoriety by blowing the whistle on the UK's support for Uzbekistan's torturers.
Needless to say, Mr Murray paid a heavy price for his candour.
If you believe for an instant that millions of years of predatory survival competition with other species, during which evolution has allowed the strongest genetics to survive, hasn't coded violence into our species then I have a bridge in New York for sale.
It's got nothing to do with genetics.
Generally speaking, human wars are a means to an end - eg, power, wealth, reputation.
And the same logic applies - if he cancels his holiday because he knows there will be an anti-terror swoop, then you just tipped off the baddies quite well. The whole press corps would want to know what the emergency is going to be, and he won't be able to provide an answer. Which the press will assume means that there's a classified reason, which probably means an imminent terror attack.
The PM had already postponed his holidays due to the Middle East crisis. Why would it have been suspicious to postpone it for another few days?
About which the PM can do absolutely nothing, as he's not involved in the operational aspect.
And claiming that the PM has no input into operational decisions in a matter like this is transparent nonsense. Why do you think COBRA exists?
the country is being run by his deputy; the guy ought to be able to run the country (even in a time of a minor emergency) in the absense of Mr Blair.. if he can't, then he's got not business being deputy PM.
This is being claimed as an "imminent threat" of "mass murder". Air travel in the UK is almost completely frozen at the moment. If this is a "minor emergency" then what does a "major emergency" look like?
What would it take for the PM to give up his holidays?
There isn't a great deal any politician can do right now.
This is all currently being run at an "Operations" level, whereas politicians work more at a "Strategy" level.
Heads of State typically control things at an "Operational" level when they become high enough priority. An example of this would be Thatcher's control over the Iranian embassy operation in 1980.
Apparently this attack would have had a much greater impact than even that particular incident.
So maybe not such an "easy" question to dismiss after all?
Slashdot Mirror
Greg Palast wrote an article about this a while back...
Killing Africans For Profit and PR
"Gates knows darn well that the "intellectual property rights" laws such as TRIPS -- which keep him and Melinda richer than Saddam and the Mafia combined -- are under attack by Nelson Mandela and front-line doctors trying to get cheap drugs to the 23 million Africans sick with the AIDS virus.
Gate's brilliant and self-serving solution: he's spending an itsy-bitsy part of his monopoly profits (the $6 billion spent by Gates' foundation is less than 2% of his net worth) to buy some drugs for a fraction of the dying. The bully billionaire's "philanthropic" organization is currently working paw-in-claw with the big pharmaceutical companies in support of the blockade on cheap drug shipments.
Gates' game is given away by the fact that his Foundation has invested $200 million in the very drug companies stopping the shipment of low-cost AIDS drugs to Africa. Gates says his plan is to reach one million people with medicine by the end of the decade.
Another way to read it: he's locking in a trade system that will block the delivery of cheap medicine to over 20 million."
Killing Africans for Profit and PR
I find it curious they offer no way to use the old menu system.
It's not that mysterious really... just another tactic to increase lock-in:
1) Add new, idiosyncratic interface to commoditised application
2) Use monopoly to compel market to 'upgrade' to new version
3) Wait for users to accept the new interface as the default
4) Use IP laws to prevent FOSS competitors from cloning interface
5) Switching to FOSS suddenly becomes much more difficult
It's all about increasing switching costs.
this is a significant part of what globalization was supposed to do... improve the economy of the nations that are the worst off economically.
Yes, of course.
Because globalisation was driven by the desire of the powerful to re-distribute their wealth.
Please stop laughing at the back...
If there is ethnic cleansing and tens or hundreds of thousands killed in internecine war, it's not as if the US population is going to sit down and say, "well hell, our President is responsible for that."
Well, maybe they should.
According to the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, "to initiate a war of aggression...is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."
No, I'm serious.
You have to remember that most of the world's population don't get their facts from the US media, and hence weren't as susceptible to the pre-war propaganda campaign.
Dividing Iraq along ethnic lines has been considered as a strategic option since before the war:
U.S. 2002 Pre-invasion Plan to Divide Iraq Into Three Separate States
They've been calling the war a "quagmire" since, what, week 2?
The fact that this "war" was unwinnable was obvious to the majority of the world's population before it even started.
We might be 100-1000 years ahead of ourselves technologically by now...
Why would you assume that this was device was unique?
It seems much more likely that this kind of object was rare (ie, difficult and expensive to build) rather than unique.
It is important to remember that the ancients were just as intelligent as we are. In many cases they were also civilised and well-educated.
The Second Life marketing department have been very active recently.
This story smells funny.
They would definitely abandon Europe sales to save the company.
Of course.
Linux threatens the company, now very seriously.
Perhaps. I don't think that things will change as quickly as you predict.
The Novell deal is certainly an aggressive move on the patent front. Whether this is arrogance or desperation is hard to know.
The problem, and Microsoft has not yet seen it, and will not see it even after it's killed their company, is that management in today's IT is made up of post-1970 geeks, which means the remnants of the mainframe management has now completely retired (in the past 10 years).
This is definitely an underestimated factor.
I still think the Asian market will drive the biggest changes though. There are a lot of potential FOSS customers/contributors out there.
If you're based in Europe, it might be useful to make contact with the Free Software Foundation Europe's "Freedom Task Force". The FTF have been specifically set up to help businesses deal with the legal issues surrounding free software.
Freedom Task Force
If Microsoft wanted to sue Linux companies for patent usage, he could do it without injecting any "poison pill".
The point is that Microsoft doesn't want to sue at this time.
MS (like most of the big patent-pushers) does not want a Big Patent War before they get software patents passed in Europe - because the chances of getting software patents passed after a Big Patent War are slim-to-none.
European Patent Wars Heat up Again
Open Source does not merely mean that you give the customer access to the source code.
Open Source has a clear technical definition that includes the right to re-distribute.
Check out www.opensource.org.
The fact that he comes from a majority Muslim country, his anti-jewishness, his misogyny and his un-western, 'peasant' attitudes are all clearly designed to present a Muslim stereotype.
Of course, Cohen has been careful to provide himself with 'plausible deniability'.
If the satire was entirely on middle America, then why is the main character an East European Muslim?
In other news today, Swift advocated cannibalism as a solution to poverty in Ireland. What a monster.
Swift posed as an ignorant Englishman to satirise English culture.
Cohen poses as an ignorant Muslim to satirise Muslim culture.
If Swift had pretended to be an ignorant Irish peasant to entertain bigoted Englishmen, then your analogy would have been appropriate.
Unfortunately you have it completely bass-ackwards.
The fact is that RMS is loaded, and he hangs out with other such people (you know the kind.... they come up with a concept, hype it to venture capitalists, run the company into the ground or simply never produce a product, but they walk away with millions)
RMS might be a pain in the arse sometimes, but is not loaded.
He also makes a point of avoiding the kind of people you describe above.
If you ever met him you would realise that he doesn't give a crap about money (which might be part of the problem).
he is completely and totally out of touch with those of us poor souls that (God forbid!) have to WORK in order to earn money and pay our bills.
I doubt anybody reading this works harder than Richard Stallman.
The difference (between RMS and most people) is that he works not to increase his wealth, but to promote his ideas.
Some people find this difficult to understand.
Who would have believed that before it happened?
Personally I don't believe anything until I see it on TV.
The article quoted is by Craig Murray - an ex-ambassador to Uzbekistan, who gained notoriety by blowing the whistle on the UK's support for Uzbekistan's torturers.
Needless to say, Mr Murray paid a heavy price for his candour.
If you believe for an instant that millions of years of predatory survival competition with other species, during which evolution has allowed the strongest genetics to survive, hasn't coded violence into our species then I have a bridge in New York for sale.
It's got nothing to do with genetics.
Generally speaking, human wars are a means to an end - eg, power, wealth, reputation.
If you don't, I'd suggest you stop making unfounded allegations.
What allegations?
And the same logic applies - if he cancels his holiday because he knows there will be an anti-terror swoop, then you just tipped off the baddies quite well. The whole press corps would want to know what the emergency is going to be, and he won't be able to provide an answer. Which the press will assume means that there's a classified reason, which probably means an imminent terror attack.
The PM had already postponed his holidays due to the Middle East crisis. Why would it have been suspicious to postpone it for another few days?
About which the PM can do absolutely nothing, as he's not involved in the operational aspect.
And claiming that the PM has no input into operational decisions in a matter like this is transparent nonsense. Why do you think COBRA exists?
the country is being run by his deputy; the guy ought to be able to run the country (even in a time of a minor emergency) in the absense of Mr Blair.. if he can't, then he's got not business being deputy PM.
This is being claimed as an "imminent threat" of "mass murder". Air travel in the UK is almost completely frozen at the moment. If this is a "minor emergency" then what does a "major emergency" look like?
What would it take for the PM to give up his holidays?
There isn't a great deal any politician can do right now.
That's not what the Home Office think:
" The Home Office confirmed there had been meetings overnight and on Thursday morning of the Cabinet's emergency committee, Cobra, chaired by Home Secretary John Reid, to discuss the terror alert"
I see somebody has labelled my post as a 'Troll'.
So apparently he or she thinks that calling for scepticism is Trolling?
It's amazing how much even moderate dissent frightens some people.
This is all currently being run at an "Operations" level, whereas politicians work more at a "Strategy" level.
Heads of State typically control things at an "Operational" level when they become high enough priority. An example of this would be Thatcher's control over the Iranian embassy operation in 1980.
Apparently this attack would have had a much greater impact than even that particular incident.
So maybe not such an "easy" question to dismiss after all?
I'm a bit confused about the 'alert levels'
Me too. If there was a critical threat to the UK today, surely there was a critical threat for the last few days.
So how come the PM flew out on holiday two days ago?
And how come he's still not back?