Bonum Certa Men Certa

Update on a Microsoft-loving BBC (Now Grilled in the Parliament)

"If you agree that Windows is a huge asset, then it follows quickly that we are not investing sufficiently in finding ways to tie IE and Windows together."

--Jim Allchin, top Microsoft executive



During the weekend we intend to publish a fairly comprehensive coverage of issues that surround government establishments in the United Kingdom. Many of them are directly or indirectly controlled by Microsoft and concrete evidence of this cannot escape without comment. In the mean time, further to our recent coverage of the BBC fiasco, some action appears to be have finally been taken:

BBC Director General grilled by MPs on iPlayer



[..]

During the meeting there is discussion of iPlayer’s total cost to the licence fee-payer - the BBC representatives are unable to give a figure, but start the bidding at €£20m, excluding staff costs. Thomson gives incorrect information - that Mac and Linux versions of iPlayer have the same functionality as Windows versions - and has to change his evidence at the end. Perhaps it was this confusion that prompted Dr John Pugh MP to follow up the encounter with a letter direct to Mark Thomson today discussing platform neutrality in greater detail. A copy of this letter has been passed to the Open Rights Group.


The BBC is not alone. The British Library and now the Library of Congress (reported yesterday) fell into the very same trap of platform discrimination. They have become what FSFE once referred to as "agents of monopolisation".

More on this will certainly come within a few days because there is more such stuff than we can capably cover given time limitations. Another item in the pipeline is about the use of Exchange 2007 as a tool of browser and platform discrimination. The folks at Redmond seem desperate for new lock-ins and they use government- or state-owned bodies to spread venom like Silverlight (.NET) and Microsoft/Windows DRM. Open standards and real cross-platform solutions hurt them dearly.

Further references, for those who do not know what this has to do with Novell:

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Drug Addiction is a Real Problem, It Destroys Families
a rather sensitive matter
 
Links 07/06/2025: More Rumours of Mass Layoffs in Microsoft's XBox Division, New COVID Variant
Links for the day
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part IV: Political Scrutiny and Errors/Inconsistencies in Official Documents
When such organisations receive scrutiny they start focusing on cover-up and muzzling of facts (or crushing people who say the truth)
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, June 06, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, June 06, 2025
Slopwatch: LinuxTechLab, Planet Ubuntu, Anti-Linux FUD, and Microsoft SPAM
It's not easy to altogether avoid take articles these days
Gemini Links 06/06/2025: "MBA Tear" and Slop ('AI') as Plagiarism
Links for the day
Links 06/06/2025: "Convicted Felon and MElon Trade Insults" and Europe Snubbed by US Again
Links for the day
Links 06/06/2025: Microsoft XBox Bracing For More Mass Layoffs, Climate Disaster, Fake 'Money' Tokens From US President
Links for the day
Gemini Links 06/06/2025: Vanishing Cultures and MElon Implosion
Links for the day
Extortion is a Crime, Even If You're Based in Another Continent and Work for Microsoft
reported to British authorities
We're in 6/6 Now, Almost Halfway in 2025
2025 was probably the best year for us
South Americans Are Saying Goodbye to Microsoft
We're hardly even "Cherry-Picking" or conveniently singling out one South American nation
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part III: Data Protection Failures, Just Like at the European Patent Office (EPO)
Just less than a decade ago we showed that the EPO had illegally shared staff data with third parties
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, June 05, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, June 05, 2025
Pushing Microsoft's Proprietary Trash/Trap as "Open" and "Linux" (Windows is 'Linux' Now?)
Maybe it's time to just stop saying "FOSS". The people who use that term are promoting Microsoft.
Slopwatch: Comparing Linux to Vermin, Attacking BSD With LLM Slop, and Helping Microsoft Demonise Linux/OpenBSD/SSH Over Weak User Passwords
Microsoft must be laughing its arse off, seeing how a bunch of Serial Sloppers (no skills, no comprehension, no integrity, no creativity) and slopfarms use Microsoft LLM to flood the Web with anti-Linux FUD
Links 05/06/2025: US Poised for Another $2.4 Trillion to Debt, Cops Want GAFAM Kill Switches
Links for the day
Links 05/06/2025: First US Spacewalk 60 Years Ago, GNU Octave 10.2.0 is Out
Links for the day
Scandinavia Saying Goodbye to Microsoft
The Danes have had enough of Microsoft
GNU/Linux Measured at 6% in Bangladesh, According to statCounter
Windows isn't growing, it's going away
Nat Friedman Had Left Microsoft GitHub Exactly One Week Before Matthew Garrett Sent His First SLAPP (Which Was an Empty Threat, He Was Abusing the Legal System of Another Continent to Terrorise Critics Who Had Just Unearthed Major Microsoft Scandals)
And it was likely talked about by his lawyers around the exact same time Nat Friedman was packing up
Gemini Links 05/06/2025: Loop Earplugs Review and ANS Forth
Links for the day
Armenian Adoption of GNU/Linux
Russian influence in Armenian must be worrying to Microsoft
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part II: Turning a Once-Respected Patent Office Into a Circus and Laughing Stock
It's not legal, but administrators who don't care about the law and don't fear the law would just go ahead and turn things to junk
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, June 04, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, June 04, 2025