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
- IBM Eliminating Over 20,000 IBM Workers by Year's End, Insiders Claim
- the layoffs are silent
- The Register MS Publishes More Word Salads Promoting "AI" Because It's Paid to Do So
- Hype, name-dropping, and scaremongering
- Linux Foundation is Plagiarism Hub, Linux is at Risk From It
- Torvalds never looked weaker and more compromised
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- Like Uber, Paypal's Debt Has Shot Up 2.5 Billion Dollars in 3 Months, Now the Mass Layoffs Come to India
- even reducing the salaries by offshoring isn't enough to save the company
- Microsoft "engineers who aren’t critical are let go" this week/month (silent layoffs)
- "stack ranking"
- Is Microsoft Trying to Kill What's Left of XBox by Year's End?
- How many people will still bother purchasing these consoles by the end of the year?
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 170 Out of 200: Downtimes
- Yesterday traffic skyrocketed here
- Gemini Links 03/09/2026: Google Maps, Gemini's Early History, and Suppressing Slop Plagiarists
- Links for the day
- Links 03/09/2026: Unsafe Skies, Thunderbird Adopts Proprietary / Vendor Lock-in Traps, "Xbox Live Down Again"
- Links for the day
- Growing Thirst for Free Software, the LibreOffice Edition
- LibreOffice is in "high demand"
- Links 03/09/2026: John Ternus Enters Apple Amid Mass Layoffs, Journalist İrem Delice Arrested
- Links for the day
- Stallman.org Down Due to Virtual Machines Issue, "Senior Engineers are Investigating the Issue" Since Saturday
- RMS site down due to virtual machines issues upstream
- Gemini Links 03/09/2026: Back in Japan, Another New Year, Reasons to Avoid Have a "Smart" "Phone", and Rant About Built-in Batteries
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, September 02, 2026
- IRC logs for Wednesday, September 02, 2026
- Identi.ca is Practically Dead, Just Like All Social Control Media (Eventually)
- All Social Control Media is a waste of time
- Gemini Links 02/09/2026: Intentions, Publishing on Workstations, and Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA)
- Links for the day
- GNU/Linux Reaches 6% in Nepal
- Today I checked GNU/Linux in Nepal again
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 169 Out of 200: Calling People "Nazis"
- 'Cancel culture' in action
- GNU Turns 43 This Month, GNU/Linux Turns 35 Next Year
- It seems like no area of computing has not been impacted by the GNU/Linux revolution
- Uber Debt Grew 2.5 Billion Dollars in 3 Months, Company Lays Off at Least 10% of Workforce
- The media repeats the "official" numbers
- Links 02/09/2026: The Machine Stops, AuraSearch, and DOOM 1/2
- Links for the day
- 1-1 Meetings at IBM This Week, PIPs Expected, Maybe RAs Too
- As usual, we invite whistleblowers to tell us what's going on
- Links 02/09/2026: Germany Blames Russia for Leipzig Airport Drone Attack and China Gains Power as US Faces Humiliation in the Midst of Presidential Cover-up
- Links for the day
- Quit Talking About "AI Layoffs" and Talk About How Chatbots and Other Bots Broke Recruitment Processes by Cheating
- Bots talking to other bots isn't HR; it's a catastrophe
- It's Inevitable Anyway, So...
- of course blame Chinese Communists for the "anti-AI" messages
- Robotics Isn't "Hey Hi", Robotics Isn't New Either
- Is the official Arduino blog becoming shilling platform for Qualcomm's "hey hi" [so-called 'intelligent'] chips?
- Giving 'Free Publicity' to the People You Hate and Attack
- Be careful what you wish for in social control media
- Today We'll Focus on Growth of GNU/Linux
- We've meanwhile noticed that Clownflare statistics for north American nations show 19% of requests (CDN) originating from GNU/Linux
- IBM Secret (or Silent) Layoffs in September 2026
- We need whistleblowers
- Gemini Links 02/09/2026: GAFAM's E-mail Cartel, ROOPHLOCH 2026, and Homeworlds
- Links for the day
- Not Only Microsoft and IBM Hide Layoffs (Secret Layoffs) and Fail to Follow the Law (or Bypass It)
- Microsoft's tactics are not so unique
- People Who Participate in the Slop Plagiarism Pyramid Scheme and the Moral Dilemma (What's Acceptable for a Salary?)
- giant pyramid scheme
- State of the Slop, Linux Edition
- Whether slop about "linux" becomes rarer by the end of this year, well... time will tell
- Links 02/09/2026: 'Open' 'AI' (Proprietary Slop Plagiarism) Destroying Evidence, "Data Center Backlash Has Officially Rattled Scam Altman"
- Links for the day
- Andrew Lee Has Turned Freenode Into a Slopfarm (Because Who Needs IRC Anyway?)
- The site is churning out slop all day long
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 01, 2026
- IRC logs for Tuesday, September 01, 2026
- FSF Staff Uses 'CoC' to Stop Conversation About Autistici/Inventati in Relation to Free Software
- The list is already heavily moderated
- IBM Allegedly Stopped Hiring (This Tends to Coincide With Mass Layoffs)
- Is a hiring freeze an echo of layoffs? Yes, definitely.
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 168 Out of 200: When Choosing Clients Recklessly and Poorly Self-Harm is Inevitable
- "If you're doing something hard and nobody hates it, you probably aren't doing it. If the right people hate it and those people happen to be some of the worst people alive, so much the better."
- Something Big is Happening at IBM This Week/Month
- Some people at IBM (and Red Hat) are panicking
- Gemini Links 01/09/2026: Biscuits, Epstein Files, Power Users, and Alhena 5.6.8
- Links for the day
- Links 01/09/2026: Almost 5,000 Missing/Dead in Nepal-China Flood and Marijuana Factory Explodes
- Links for the day
- September at IBM: Silent Layoffs on Day 1
- PIPocalypse at IBM
- Last Month IRC Entered Its 39th Year and It's Still Growing (New IRC Networks)
- There are 511+ known IRC networks
- Links 01/09/2026: Climate, Disinformation, Microsoft Overworking People
- Links for the day
- Richard Stallman's Site Still Offline (Third Day), But Richard Stallman is Active Online
- he is busy online despite his site not being accessible so far this week
- PIP Layoffs at Microsoft, Even in India
- Microsoft is trying to hide the true scale of the layoffs
- Layoff Trackers Are a Sham, They're Like US 'Unemployment Data'
- Layoff trackers are similarly misleading as they only measure what companies openly admit and register with WARN notices
- The Peculiar Case of OSNews, Which Experiments With Slopfarming
- It wasn't published in error. It has been there for two months.
- Russian Federation is Removing Windows From Computers
- Windows is going "out of fashion"
- XBox CEO Has No Clue What She is Selling
- Some people believe Microsoft will parcel and offload the whole "gaming" unit to some other companies
- analognowhere.com and xkcd.com Selling Physical Copies of Webcomics
- That's one way to support their work
- PIP/GVSA at Microsoft: Mass Layoffs Disguised as Something Else
- Microsoft is trying to cheapen the workforce because the numbers don't add up
- Microsoft Lunduke Uses Twitter ("X") Because It's Algorithmically Designed to Boost His Worldview/s, He Ignores What "X" Is
- Maybe all those people really deserve one another
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Monday, August 31, 2026
- IRC logs for Monday, August 31, 2026
- Censorship by Threats
- It should be noted that the Web site of Richard Stallman will soon enter its third day of downtime
- In Romania, GNU/Linux Reaches 6%, According to Clownflare
- Tomorrow we'll see the latest data from statCounter (for September)
- Gemini Links 01/09/2026: Denali Park Train Trip, Crafts, and Community-Building in smol.pub
- Links for the day
- Microsoft Workers Doing 80 Hours a Week After Microsoft Culled Their Colleagues
- there are days when they work 17 hours a day (barely any time left to sleep and eat) and work starts at 5AM
- IBM Defrauds Shareholders With Fake News (Bribed Press) About "Quantum"
- That says a lot about the state of "Tech Giants" and also the utterly shameless state of the media
- Record Highs for GNU/Linux, Especially in the United States of America
- the "market share" of GNU/Linux is about 9%, still about a third of what Vista 11 stands at
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.