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
- Techrights and Tux Machines Subjected to Cyberattacks for Several Weeks
- In the past I spoke to the cybercrime unit of British Police. Maybe it's time to do so again.
- Microsoft Under Investigation for Breaches of Law in the UK
- Just like the Microsofters
- GAFAM is Connected to Misogyny, Almost All Founders Divorced
- They're not good people, even if they pay the media to pretend otherwise
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 83 Out of 200: Religion is Still Alive, But for Many This Religion is Monetary (Greed, Monopolies, Corporate Power)
- If all you keep boasting about is being able to afford a hotel room and some domestic flight, then maybe you have no real accomplishments and are more like a "Facebook serf" with a credit card
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- Links 21/05/2026: "Declining America" and Why Slop 'Code' is Made to Fail
- Links for the day
- The Register MS Has Become a 'Content' Farm Promoting Slop for Hostile Corporations
- Now they call it "PARTNER CONTENT" - not "SPONSORED" - as if semantics make the difference
- Latest Example of Widespread Fake Assertions (False News) About "Hey Hi"
- The false narrative of "Hey Hi layoffs"
- Links 21/05/2026: Facebook Rewarded With Tax Breaks to Destroy the Environment and Cause Global Warming, Shortages, Pollution; SpaceX (SPCX) Continues Losing Billions of Dollars
- Links for the day
- Codecs and Software Patents - Part VIII - GNU Audio/Video Team Has Chosen the AV1 Video Codec and It Explains Why (They've Researched Their Options)
- AV1 video codec will be used to encode and share GNU videos online
- Dr. Stallman Helps Establish Free Software Advocacy Outside the Free Software Foundation (FSF) as Well
- The ideals or principles of Free Software needn't be centralised or monopolised; they can be federated
- 22 Years of Tux Machines and a Community Stronger Than Ever Before
- We've already received some feedback from the community and improved it accordingly
- More Microsoft Layoffs on the Way (June and July 2026)
- with or without PIPs
- LWN Sponsored by the Linux Foundation (Monopolies)
- We must be able to casually point this out
- The Corrupt Lecture the Non-Corrupt - Part XXIX - European Patent Office (EPO) Tells Staff "Speaking up" is Good, But Not When the "Brother-in-law" of EPO's President Does Cocaine
- Do we still have a functioning democracy and potent press?
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, May 20, 2026
- IRC logs for Wednesday, May 20, 2026
- Gemini Links 21/05/2026: Immigration, Slop, and Slop 'Code' Suggestions Infesting Code Repositories
- Links for the dayGemini Links 21/05/2026: Immigration, Slop, and Slop 'Code' Suggestions Infesting Code Repositories
- Oracle Seems to Have Popularised Overnight Layoffs, Now GAFAM Does the Same
- layoff emails at 4 a.m. local time
- A Lot of Fake News About Microsoft's LinkedIn Today, Some Comes From Slopfarms, Some Relies on Those Slopfarms
- As usual, slopfarms make the Web a huge pile of garbage
- IBM's Kyndryl is Circling Down the Drain, Say Kyndryl Insiders
- "IBM Dinosaurs who were recycled and catapulted into the orange trash heap by IBM"
- A Lot of Coverage Adding Hype Factor to Slop Bug Reports... is Made by LLM Slop
- Local Privilege Escalation [...] the slop motivates some actual people to keep writing about it
- Links 20/05/2026: Mass Layoffs at NPR (Bought by the Ballmers and Bill Epsteingate), Starbucks Korea CEO Fired Over ‘Tank Day’ Ad
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 20/05/2026: Advantage of CD Collections, Geminaut's View of Nostr, and SSL / TLS Certificates
- Links for the day
- IBM is Becoming a Pile of Expired Patents and Abandoned Buildings, Assets of Little Actual Value
- Having laid off a ton of people, borrowed lots of money to fake growth (by acquisition), and sent some jobs to low-paid regions where innovation isn't done
- Links 20/05/2026: Looting of Americans for "White Grievance Reparations Fund"; "Mark Zuckerberg Used Shell Companies to Bully Native Hawaiians"
- Links for the day
- Web Browsers Are for Rendering Web Page, They Shouldn't Become PDF Editors
- Linus Torvalds is quickly learning and speaking about this
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 82 Out of 200: British Government Intervenes in the SLAPPs by Brett Wilson LLP
- At this stage our matters are dealt with by a layer below that of the Prime Minister (adjacent to it)
- LinkedIn Communications Reveal That LinkedIn - Like GitHub - Will Vanish Inside the Belly of Microsoft
- This is definitely going to happen.
- In Wall Street, Financial Difficulties Drive Shares Up
- Wall Street doesn't work that way
- The Corrupt Lecture the Non-Corrupt - Part XXVIII - European Patent Office (EPO) Guidebook Says Report Crimes Committed on EPO Premises. Some Did, But President Campinos Covers up for the Culprits.
- The staff has long been on strike and the union (SUEPO) organised an enhanced day of action just two days ago
- Gemini Links 20/05/2026: Fall of an Empire, "High Tech is a Social Exercise", and Big Cameras
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, May 19, 2026
- IRC logs for Tuesday, May 19, 2026
- LinkedIn Layoffs at Microsoft: Probably Well More Than 5% of Staff
- In short, it's difficult to believe only 5% are impacted
- It's Not Just a Widespread Theory, It's Apparently a Verified Fact: Home Appliances Not Made to Last Long
- Washing machine repair man asserts that the machines sold a decade ago could maybe last a decade; now they last barely 5 years.
- Torvalds Capitulated on Rust and Slop, Now He's Paying the Price
- they are pushing Microsoft and slop for grifters and scammers
- Whistleblowers Needed: We Are Seeing Many Layoffs in Red Hat (Not Just in China), We Want to Know More
- Last week we learned about some people who said they had left Red Hat or are leaving Red Hat
- Links 19/05/2026: More Obituaries for Peter G. Neumann, Taiwan Abandoned by Cheeto House for Don's Personal Gain
- Links for the day
- Links 19/05/2026: Online 'Storage' (Surveillance) Accounts Lower Thresholds (Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Photos), Slop Debacles Expand (False Promises Made to Staff Regarding Compensation)
- Links for the day
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 81 Out of 200: SLAPP Censorship Does Not Work If Your Sole Strategy is Revenge (and You Attack the Family)
- Both yours and others'
- Techrights at 20 (Soon)
- It does not seek popularity or affirmation from "Establishment" outlets
- We Pay More for Less, for Things That Last Less Time and Are Almost Impossible to Repair
- Ever noticed how "modern" or "smart" TVs come with dumber and dumber (worse) controllers?
- Vista 11 Turns 5 in a Couple of Months. Not Many People Use It.
- It is the only supported version of Windows; many people move elsewhere
- Head of GitHub Recently Left, Microsoft Need No Longer Report Mass Layoffs There (User Activity is Declining)
- We've long said that LinkedIn and GitHub, which Microsoft bought, would likely end up like Skype
- The Slop Bubble is Already Bursting
- Slop is not desirable and the general public is growingly impatient, seeing that slop has improved nothing for them
- Gemini Links 19/05/2026: Reliable Old Tech, Collection of Essays
- Links for the day
- The Corrupt Lecture the Non-Corrupt - Part XXVII - European Patent Office (EPO) Became a "Toxic Work Environment" When Cocaine Addicts Put in Charge
- They are putting at risk colleagues by abusing them
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Monday, May 18, 2026
- IRC logs for Monday, May 18, 2026
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.