07.22.08

IRC: #boycottnovell @ FreeNode: July 19th-21st, 2008

Posted in IRC Logs at 5:43 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

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schestowitz	“Although there are two flavours with slightly different specifications — a Windows XP model for AU$699 and a Xandros Linux model — only the Windows XP model is currently available in Australia.” (from http://www.zdnet.com.au/reviews/hardware/lapto… ). The excuses they make in the UK are probably worthless. Microsoft offered them money/discounts, for a fact.	Jul 19 05:13
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RogerBacon	HIIIIIIIIII	Jul 19 07:28
schestowitz	Hey there.	Jul 19 08:06
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schestowitz	PetoKraus: where is that claim about error bar in the benchmarkss? Was it Phoronix quoted?	Jul 19 10:40
PetoKraus	that’s my own conclusion	Jul 19 14:26
PetoKraus	i did like 20+ tests on the same machine	Jul 19 14:26
schestowitz	Nice to meet other PTS users. It’s probably experiment-dependent though (the error bars).	Jul 19 19:07
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schestowitz	Heh. I like this one: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=… “Now, when it looks like the world really does want ODF instead of OOXML, surrogates are sending a dual message — first, that ODF has won, so OOXML isn’t worth fighting any more (and anyone who does is an “extremist” anti-Microsoft whiner)”	Jul 19 20:16
PetoKraus	schestowitz: @ PTS – it’s very dependant on the system state as well (fresh boot, 7 day long run, mouse/keyboard/net usage)	Jul 19 20:36
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schestowitz	That’s why it requires repetition and statistics on possible sources of interference (it’s not deterministic with network switched on).	Jul 19 20:38
PetoKraus	hm	Jul 19 20:46
PetoKraus	i’ll do a bit of self-ad	Jul 19 20:46
PetoKraus	http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/11293/	Jul 19 20:47
*schestowitz looks		Jul 19 20:47
schestowitz	Seems like a well-received suggestion so far. You know, the site exceeded 1000000 voted recently.	Jul 19 20:48
PetoKraus	it’s a good thing, this Brainstorm	Jul 19 20:48
PetoKraus	yes, i know	Jul 19 20:48
PetoKraus	right. Now i should go to sleep…	Jul 19 20:48
schestowitz	A friend of mine suspects that it could (and might already) be gamed maliciously.	Jul 19 20:48
PetoKraus	cya later	Jul 19 20:48
PetoKraus	schestowitz: everything can.	Jul 19 20:48
schestowitz	He is a professor who has watched this since the early GNU days. He worries about the Mono/OOXML fanboism.	Jul 19 20:49
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schestowitz	OpenLogic’s blogroll ( http://www.openlogic.com/blogs/ ) has some interesting links to existing and former Microsoft employees. It seems like its committed to ‘both sides’, so to speak.	Jul 20 06:21
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schestowitz	I have a detailed item coming about Microsoft’s relatively stagnant state.	Jul 20 09:26
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tessier	“The Microsoft Office division numbers were a disappointment. Operating earnings there only grew a disappointing 12% for the period.”	Jul 21 00:33
tessier	I still don’t see how this is bad news for MS.	Jul 21 00:33
tessier	Sales are growing. That’s never bad news.	Jul 21 00:33
tessier	Why is it surprising that MS has invested in mortgages? Not even sub-prime. That would seem to be good news.	Jul 21 00:37
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schestowitz	tessier: Office is independent from the Vista disaster and it has always been one of the best-performing divisions (along with Windows it accounted for almost all of Microsoft's profits, according to Microsoft Watch). The criticism of the growth came from Forbes. As for the mortgages, it's not about their existence; it's about "the issue".	Jul 21 04:51
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tessier	Yes, Office has always been one of the best performing due to their lockin	Jul 21 06:11
tessier	I don't see Forbes really criticizing the growth as much as saying it didn't grow as much as they thought it would.	Jul 21 06:11
tessier	I don't understand what "the issue" is with respect to mortgages.	Jul 21 06:12
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kentma	schestowitz: take a peak here - this is not live yet, but will be soon - http://www.osmosoft.com/bt/	Jul 21 09:21
*schestowitz looks. BTW, good news about the fiber.		Jul 21 09:21
schestowitz	Thumbs up to "Free and Open Source Software". Most business neglect the "Free" (libre) on purpose.	Jul 21 09:22
kentma	indeed - there's a lot of thought gone into this. You'll find me under "people", somewhere, I think...	Jul 21 09:23
schestowitz	I found this interesting quote the other day...	Jul 21 09:23
*kentma waits...		Jul 21 09:24
schestowitz	Alan Cox to Eric Raymond: "That would be because we believe in Free Software and doing the right thing (a practice you appear to have given up on). Maybe it is time the term 'open source' also did the decent thing and died out with you."	Jul 21 09:26
schestowitz	http://www.osmosoft.com/bt/ Decent photo, interesting background.	Jul 21 09:27
*schestowitz wonders if BT will unleash a press release to announce this.		Jul 21 09:28
kentma	thanks I think the photo is one Phil W grabbed at some point.	Jul 21 09:28
kentma	When the site is ready for production, then it'll be announced, I think.	Jul 21 09:28
kentma	It's still being developed at the moment.	Jul 21 09:28
*kentma is trying to catch up with digests		Jul 21 09:29
schestowitz	It has been quiet in the past few weeks. Companies like Red Hat make 0 announcements, so...	Jul 21 09:30
kentma	spent some time with Novell chaps last week... twas interesting.	Jul 21 09:31
schestowitz	I used the time to get some other things done though and increase leisure time, too.	Jul 21 09:31
schestowitz	Management ($$$) or engineers (Linux)? if difference.	Jul 21 09:31
kentma	Leisure time is a good idea - I've been stupidly busy recently.	Jul 21 09:32
kentma	Ah, sales, marketing & senior engineering chap.	Jul 21 09:32
*kentma away, back soon.		Jul 21 09:34
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*Topic for #boycottnovell is: Exploring the reality behind exclusionary deals with Microsoft and their subtle (yet severe) implications (publicly logged)		Jul 21 14:01
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*Topic for #boycottnovell is: Exploring the reality behind exclusionary deals with Microsoft and their subtle (yet severe) implications (publicly logged)		Jul 21 14:04
*Topic for #boycottnovell set by schestowitz at Wed Jun 4 08:34:16 2008		Jul 21 14:04
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schestowitz	sigh http://www.theregister.co.uk/200… Ashlee vance’s headlines are getting really idiotic. He could knock The Register off Google News…	Jul 21 15:03
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kentma	hehe daft sod.	Jul 21 15:24
schestowitz	He’s always doing it. I’ve seen worse, including ones that use the Reiser case to gain more attention (that’s the purpose of these headlines). He hardly writes for The Red these days; he’s working on a book in CA.	Jul 21 15:27
kentma	each to their own, I suppose…	Jul 21 15:49
schestowitz	George has just reported that prep who is pretending to be me in COLA. He found his ISP.	Jul 21 15:50
kentma	ahh, that’s useful. lart possible?	Jul 21 15:50
schestowitz	Yes, done. The issue is not COLA believing it was me. The trolls tend to link to that sort of stuff and I had my family tell me about those posts (which they too realise are fake). As for the rest of the people, who knows?	Jul 21 15:52
kentma	I had someone from work today remark that they’d followed something back to cola and been amazed at the abuse I was getting.	Jul 21 16:23
kentma	The web does tend to connect all	Jul 21 16:24
schestowitz	They realise that you have impact, I guess.	Jul 21 16:27
schestowitz	People take something like USENET with a grain of salt (and the trolls essentially ensure this, which means that they poison the well of otherwise credible information).	Jul 21 16:27
kentma	quite… still, I think that the News postings have had an extremely positive effect. I use quite a few references elsewhere, now.	Jul 21 16:28
schestowitz	I’ll tell you this: on the brighter side of things, their fascination with/stalking of you might actually have the reverse effect. When you attempt to discredit someone you bring attention to that person. For that reason, PJ refuses to mention Maureen O’Gara even if she’s out of line. O’Gara’s spying only make Pj more famous.	Jul 21 16:29
kentma	Hehe, yeah. The funny thing is that the claims about my day job work were completely incorrect, whilst any other claims were merely out of context quotes, plus one genuine typo (I have never claimed to be perfect	Jul 21 16:30
schestowitz	Here’s one I sent as a headsup just half an hour ago (the Microsoft ally try to associate Linux with murder and arrogance): “Guilty of Arrogance Too… Reiser is Looking at 15 Years to Life for a Second Degree Murder…By: Maureen O’Gara.. Jul. 18, 2008 07:00 PM”	Jul 21 16:31
kentma	It’s the way these games are played. To be honest, the internet will, I hope, in the end, put an end to such things, since once everything is online, there’ll be nothing to hide…	Jul 21 16:33
schestowitz	I don’t think it’s stoppable really. The entry barrier to publication/sharing is different now.” Everybody is connected to everybody else, all data that can be shared will be shared will be shared: get used to it, “said Eben Moglen	Jul 21 16:34
schestowitz	Reading De Icaza’s blog today, you continue to get the impression that he’s a Microsoft employee: http://tirania.org/blog/arch… … http://tirania.org/blog/ar… It’s embrace and extend.	Jul 21 16:35
kentma	it’s kind of what he does, really…	Jul 21 16:35
schestowitz	Increasingly it’s also what Novell does. it’s almost as though it prepares for symbiosis with Microsoft. API first…	Jul 21 16:37
kentma	there will be a “last man standing” aspect to proprietary software house survivability going forward. The proprietary model is dead, so it’s really going to be about who survives the best. Oracle vs Microsoft, I think.	Jul 21 17:06
schestowitz	They flirt with Red Hat. Oracle can’t control Linux though… IBM et al won’t let it.	Jul 21 17:07
kentma	IBM and Nokia have played the game best so far. Sun missed the boat some time ago, I think. HP look like surviving on the back of shelf sales.	Jul 21 17:08
kentma	Sun might make a new play on foss, but I’m not sure where their space will be. They would be best advised to follow red-hat, I think.	Jul 21 17:10
schestowitz	Dell has just been sued by 5000 disgruntled employees; I can’t see it rising to prominence again, but their ‘game’ with Linux sure was an attempt to distinguish themselves. Same with Acer… ASUS bets on the embedded Linux game.	Jul 21 17:10
schestowitz	Phipps has just gone to OSCON. They hurt badly. Rumours suggest that the CEO’s head will soon fly… he said 2 years ago that they had missed the oat with Solaris.	Jul 21 17:10
kentma	Simon P’s a very good guy – good speaker, too. Asus have got it right, I think. Acer might get it right, and Dell need to push much harder into the linux space. There’s no future in Windows now.	Jul 21 17:11
kentma	Sun missed the boat, I agree. They should’ve GPLed solaris about 5 years ago, and offered to support the outcome. That would’ve worked.	Jul 21 17:12
schestowitz	That’s affecting all OEMs.	Jul 21 17:12
kentma	It might yet work.	Jul 21 17:12
kentma	yes.	Jul 21 17:12
schestowitz	Acer was very blunt about it.	Jul 21 17:12
schestowitz	Microsoft says no to everything but Windows, but customers don’t want Windows (Vista, which is now almost the only choice).	Jul 21 17:13
kentma	Microsoft and Oracle are in similar positions, they’re completely replaceable now. It’s just a question of CIOs realising it and doing it.	Jul 21 17:14
schestowitz	Well, Oracle and Microsoft control the Gartners (Ellison and Gates invest in them /personally) and Gartner controls the CIOs. It’s like a syndicate.	Jul 21 17:15
kentma	What you need to look out for is what the CIOs are bonussed on, as that’s what they’ll deliver. As foss becomes more mainstream, it’ll be important for CIOs to be seen to be keeping up with technology, so their bonusses will begin to reflect that.	Jul 21 17:16
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schestowitz	I’ve used MySQL DBs almost exclusively for 4 years. Never a hitch. Oracle = 1000% more expensive for 10% performance gain (task dependent). Here is what I see happening:	Jul 21 17:17
schestowitz	Companies that are tied to Oracle will flop and be taken over by the Googles that use SQLite, MySQL, Linux, etc.	Jul 21 17:18
kentma	Same will go for Microsoft. In both cases, in order to feed their voracious appetite for revenue, MS and Oracle have no other option than to charge their remaining customers more for the same thing, whilst, as you say, their competition will be using mysql, p;ostgres and so on. not sure if there’s a point of no return, but I suspect that there is.	Jul 21 17:20
kentma	not sure if there’s a point of no return, but I suspect that there is.	Jul 21 17:21
schestowitz	Oracle had its prices leap a month ago. Lockin and _lockin only_ makes it possible. They really squeeze the goose very hard (OOXML, XAML etc. are other examples of tools for ensuring data isn’t a commodity). BTW,. all of Microsoft’s recent large acquisitions appear to involve FOSS-based companies. It’s an embarrassment to their pitch,	Jul 21 17:22
schestowitz	what Microsoft achieves with Novell is locki-in _INSIDE_ GNU/Linux.	Jul 21 17:23
kentma	This is precisely what they hoped to get from the SCO deal, but it failed, of course. Novell no longer claim that there’s anything to the patent claims, though, do they?	Jul 21 17:24
schestowitz	They put OOXML in OOo (Novell et al), they put everything under the reign of .NET, they put Linux as _GUEST_ on Windows _HOSTS_, etc. Novell has a prject not only to make desktop search Mono based but now it’s media too… Banshee.	Jul 21 17:24
kentma	hosting linux on a windows machine is completely daft, of course.	Jul 21 17:25
kentma	and I can’t really see Novell successfully corrupting the GNU code-bases in the long-run.	Jul 21 17:25
schestowitz	Well, as for Novell and SCO, the burden is passed. Some speculate that Microsoft could use/buy Novell to pull an SCO again. PJ is pretty sure that Mcirosoft will pull an SCO.	Jul 21 17:25
kentma	It might happen, but I think it’ll depend on how successful Novell were at selling Microsoft vouchers. I’m not sure just how successful they’ve been, since they’ve not said much about it, and Microsoft are normally shouting from the rooftops at any hint of success.	Jul 21 17:28
schestowitz	There was a streak last year, but it seems like they lost momentum.	Jul 21 17:29
schestowitz	I seldon see a PR from Novell about vounchers and I watch the company closely. They typically just take contracts from Red Hat, which is exactly what Microsoft wants. Red Hat’s reports are still impressive almost 2 years after the deal.	Jul 21 17:30
schestowitz	http://arjen-lentz.livejour… “[...] I work for a major Fortune company, and we’re in the process of putting Oracle on a “sunset” list of restricted vendors. No new applications are allowed on Oracle, the only approved vendors are Sun/MySQL…”	Jul 21 18:34
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