Links 21/02/2008: Lots on Open Source, Lots of Trouble at Redmond, WA
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2008-02-21 15:12:17 UTC
- Modified: 2008-02-21 15:16:19 UTC
Recent Techrights' Posts
- "Today's [Red Hat] is run by a cabal of vultures."
- it seems safe to assume Red Hat too will languish away
- Microsoft Layoffs in 2026 Can be Bigger Than 2025 Microsoft Layoffs (30,000+ Workers Laid Off)
- "Is there going to be any reorg or Microsoft layoffs?"
- The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Represents People, Not Corporations
- FSF isn't in the "business" of appeasing oligarchs
- IBM: We Can't Make 'AI' (Voice Recognition) Do the Work of a McDonald's Teenager, So Let's Try the Same on Saudi Planes
- IBM is lost. It's truly lost.
- The General Public License (GPL) Inspired the Web's Original Openness/Freedom, According to Tim Berners-Lee
- "During the preceding year I had been trying to get CERN to release the intellectual property rights to the Web code under the General Public License (GPL) so that others could use it."
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- Beyond the World Wide Web (WWW)
- We continue to treat Gemini Protocol as a first-class citizen
- Serbia: GNU/Linux Rises, Windows Down to All-Time Lows
- According to statCounter
- "Wrestling With Pigs"
- "Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty, and the pig likes it."
- Productive Year and Better Access to Techrights' Archives Going Back to 2006
- we've long needed and wanted native, local, independent search facilities
- Linux Abandoned by Linux Foundation
- It speaks for Microsoft and for so-called 'AI' companies
- Microsoft Has Practically Given Up on XBox Already
- Expect many XBox related layoffs when 2026 starts (Q1)
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, December 21, 2025
- IRC logs for Sunday, December 21, 2025
- Gemini Links 21/12/2025: Solstice, Chaos of CSS, and Program Interpreter Fun
- Links for the day
- Why?
- Why write articles?
- Microsoft-Connected Publisher Spinning XBox's Death Spiral (It's Dying Fast) as a Strength and Something Deliberate
- "Microsoft’s big gaming pivot"
- Slop is Rare by Now
- A year ago slop was so abundant that we did a whole series about it, and it was daily
- Links 21/12/2025: U.S. Strikes in Syria, "Epstein Files Photos Disappear From Government Website"
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 21/12/2025: Labrador Retriever of Lagrange's Developer Dies From Cancer, Political Philosophy, and "Getting to Inbox Zero"
- Links for the day
- Microsoft is Becoming Irrelevant: The Case of Georgia
- Not Georgia Tech
- Sirius Open Source is Now Imminently Dead (Struck Off)
- compulsory strike-off
- Dr. Richard Stallman, Invited by LibreTech Collective, is Giving a Public Talk in Georgia Tech Next Month (Scheller College of Business)
- They can probably squeeze about 400 people into this room
- 25 Years of Activism for GNU/Linux
- My passion for GNU/Linux brought a lot of contentment
- Africa, Where Microsoft Used De Facto Slaves to Pretend to be "AI", Chatbots Usage is 0.2% of Measured Online Traffic
- Judging by recent trends in Africa, many "Windows PCs" are being converted into GNU/Linux computers
- New Drone Footage Shows IBM is Dead (Parts of It)
- The people who participated in IBM when IBM actually mattered probably have boasting rights, unlike people who work for IBM today
- Michael Larabel Adds Slop Category to Phoronix, Quickly Realises That It's Worthless
- Phoronix nowadays gets carried away; it made a new category to talk about slop and it decided to call it "intelligence" with some caricature of a brain (that's misleading)Phoronix nowadays gets carried away; it made a new category to talk about slop and it decided to call it "intelligence" with some caricature of a brain (that's misleading)
- After 35 Years the World Wide Web, HTML, and HTTP Are Proprietary
- HTTP/2 added a lot of complexity (it's just a Google protocol, based on SPDY originally), many image formats are proprietary and patented, HTML got 'replaced' by Java-Scripts [sic], and many URLs (the URL system was created in the early 90s) are just long strings for proprietary 'webapps'
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, December 20, 2025
- IRC logs for Saturday, December 20, 2025
- The Register MS Has Lowered Its Standards Considerably
- Incidentally, we've only just noticed that "US editor for The Register since July 2025" has not been active for 4 weeks already
- Scamfarms, Spamfarms, and Slopfarms in "Linux" Clothing
- Today, Linux searches in Google News produced no slop at all. That's an improvement.
- Did Bill Gates Lobby to Blur the Face of the Young Woman He Openly Braces (and Who Isn't His Wife)?
- "This photo of of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates with a woman whose face is blurred out is just one of 68 more photos and documents released today."
- Links 20/12/2025: Microsoft Ruins Televisions, 'Epstein Files' Deeply Sanitised (to Protect Particular Culprits)
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 20/12/2025: Merry Christmas 2025 and Running a Factorio Headless Server on FreeBSD with the Linuxulato
- Links for the day
- With 10 Days Left, the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has Already Raised Close to $300,000 This Winter
- they're besieged by despicable corporations and very despicable people
- The Real Problem With Rust is Not "Wokeness" (It Never Was)
- Don't feed the trolls who attack "Rust People" on political grounds
- 2025 in Numbers
- What was very good about this year is that we truly got "into the rhythm" of publishing
- More Microsoft Layoffs Coming Soon
- When I spoke about Microsoft layoffs (routinely) I got very viciously attacked by Microsoft boosters
- My Humble Assessment of the Future of Red Hat, A Company That IBM is Flushing Down the Loo
- GNU/Linux will be OK without Red Hat, but shaping the future of it matters because we don't want companies like Valve (DRM) to set the agenda
- Probably the Least Useful Gadgets, Ever
- as if a "smart" thing worn on the wrist is the "new Rolex"
- Former Manager at IBM Research (Yorktown) Says Why IBM is Doomed and the Anonymous Tipline (Speak Up) is a Trap
- IBM isn't willing to change or to address internal issues
- Links 20/12/2025: Fentanylware Becomes CheeTok and "Why Roomba Died"
- Links for the day
- Linux Foundation: Richard Stallman Developed Only a Software Licence
- We already criticised this report several times last night
- Impulsive Writing, Quotas, and Keeping Things as Concise as Feasible
- A 10-word sentence being read by a million people can have the same impact or magnitude (exposure-wise) as a million-word book being read by just 10 people
- Gemini Links 20/12/2025: Christmas Songs, Storms, and Old Web
- Links for the day
- Coming to Grips With a Lack of Future at IBM
- Red Hat's future doesn't look bright under the auspices as they seem right now
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, December 19, 2025
- IRC logs for Friday, December 19, 2025
- Links 20/12/2025: Media Layoffs, a Third of Online Traffic is Bots
- Links for the day
Comments
CoolGuy
2008-02-21 16:45:45
steve got pwned by larry.
seriously i think M$ is loosing out and steve has lost control over what he is doing. this is a guy who has zero technical knowledge, has never written a single line of code, cant make out any difference between a asp or php code...lol. i dont know if any m$ executive has advised steve over the technical hurdles of moving yahoo to m$ technology.
rofl.i think no one will dare to go near the chair throwing ninja.
entire blame of M$ doom will be on steve and bill has side stepped out of this mess really easy.
by doing a hostile take over - this is really going to blow out of proportion. everyone is making fun of m$ so openly, they have become a joke of what m$ used to be a decade back.
look at the action figures / toys stuff m$ is doing lately. everyone is laughing at them. they are trying so hard to be like google. haha.
just cant stop laughing.
CoolGuy
2008-02-21 16:49:00
BoomBoom
2008-02-21 18:28:35
- A BB for a brain in an empty head. Shake him and hear him rattle! - A pile of stolen patents for things someone else invented! - Extra sweat! - Awesome monkeydance action! - Developers developers developers developers! - Buggy software that doesn't work! - Buggy patches for buggy software that *still* doesn't work! - A fake sense of security! (along with thousands of exploits and weaknesses) - An EULA written by the Ghost of Stalin and the RIAA! - MONO! (Both the poisonware and the disease) - Office chair grenades! - FUD machinegun! - Arrogance out the wazoo! - Megalomaniac world domination plans! - And not a snowball's chance in Hell of ever having a clue.
:P
Roy Schestowitz
2008-02-21 22:39:12
This VNUnet article dovetails nicely with the recent piece on Groklaw[1]
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2210121/microsoft-engages-proxy-fight
I wonder if a deep-cutting summary or analysis can be written to Slashdot without using the M-word.
The plan seems to be to lobby and intrigue behind the scenes to replace the board with a more obedient set. Before that happens, Yahoo should re-license Zimbra as GPL. Also, how big a contributer is Yahoo to open source development in general and BSD in particular? That could be one of the main motivations for hostile take over.
I also notice that the astroturfers have returned to slashdot in droves since about Monday or so and, probably related, there is article after article of advertising.
[1] http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20071023002351958
Also, about the last attempts to save the cash cow :
Houston, we have a problem ... ... when trying to paint a nice face before the BRM ...
Google News Alert for: (OpenDocument OR ODF) AND ("Ecma 376" OR OXML OR OOXML OR "office open xml" OR "open XML")
Microsoft pledges not to sue over open source CNet News.com Blog - USA The company does not natively support the alternative Open Document Format, or ODF, standard in Office 2007. Although it does not mention ODF specifically ... See all stories on this topic
MS to publish free APIs for Windows, Office Electronista - Santa Clara,CA,USA Office 2007 has been a particular subject of investigation and has been criticized for its switch to the Microsoft-made Office Open XML (OOXML) standard, ... See all stories on this topic
Microsoft Promises Interoperability Digitaltrends.com - Lake Oswego,OR,USA Microsoft also says it won't sue open source developers who build or distribute non-commercial implementations of its protocols, although developers who ... See all stories on this topic
Microsoft is fighting. Don't give it too much room for manipulation.