02.21.09

Gemini version available ♊︎

Did Microsoft ‘Pull an EDGI’ on Catalonia’s GNU/Linux Migration Plan?

Posted in Europe, Free/Libre Software, GNU/Linux, Microsoft at 11:32 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

THE routine looks awfully familiar:

  • Country/region listens to citizens’ desire and heralds a migration to GNU/Linux
  • Microsoft spots this country/region which migrates to GNU/Linux
  • Microsoft’s leaders make quiet visits to the country/region
  • Microsoft announces a bargain new deal that’s shrouded with secrecy and the migration to GNU/Linux is ended
  • In some case, those who advocated GNU/Linux lose their job and/or get smeared

Steve BallmerWe saw this in many places before, with personal involvements from Bill Gates and even Steve Ballmer, who had eggs thrown at him for it (the picture on the right was taken seconds afterwards).

Orlando Ayala is another executive chief who embarks on such anti-GNU/Linux crusades and in order to understand how it all works, one ought to learn about Microsoft’s EDGI, which is pretty much an anti-GNU/Linux programme. Anti-trust action exposed its internals, but it was settled too quickly to actually tackle the issue:

Some months ago we discussed Microsoft’s illegal deals which exclude competition at government level and it’s unfortunate to find that Microsoft may have just done this in Catalonia as well.

Strike Against Free Software: Microsoft Enters Catalonian Schools

It was a pretty personal deal between Steve Ballmer and president of the Generalitat de Catalunya José Montilla.

[...]

Minister of education Ernest Maragall had announced in April 2008 that hundreds of schools would be switched to GNU/Linux. The main reason, he said at the time, was the illegal use of proprietary software.

Needless to say, Catalonia pays for all the hardware and Microsoft offers the ‘privilege’ of not using GNU/Linux, i.e. Catalonia is allowed to make copies of Windows, which cannot be owned anyway (just licensed until the kids graduate).

Residents of Catalonia should be up and arms. They can demand to see the details of what Microsoft did to take away their children’s’ freedom, i.e. turn them into Microsoft clients at a young age, even with the government’s assistance.

If you do not handle a thug by detaining it, then it will carry on roaming the streets doing more of the same. This really ought to require investigation because it’s a repeated offence. █

Share in other sites/networks: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • Reddit
  • email

Decor ᶃ Gemini Space

Below is a Web proxy. We recommend getting a Gemini client/browser.

Black/white/grey bullet button This post is also available in Gemini over at this address (requires a Gemini client/browser to open).

Decor ✐ Cross-references

Black/white/grey bullet button Pages that cross-reference this one, if any exist, are listed below or will be listed below over time.

Decor ▢ Respond and Discuss

Black/white/grey bullet button If you liked this post, consider subscribing to the RSS feed or join us now at the IRC channels.

DecorWhat Else is New

  1. Links 28/05/2023: eGates System Collapses, More High TCO Stories (Microsoft Windows)

    Links for the day

  2. IRC Proceedings: Saturday, May 27, 2023

    IRC logs for Saturday, May 27, 2023

  3. No More Twitter, Mastodon, and Diaspora for Tux Machines (Goodbye to Social Control Media)

    People would benefit from mass abandonment of such pseudo-social pseudo-media.

  4. Links 28/05/2023: New Wine and More

    Links for the day

  5. Links 27/05/2023: Plans Made for GNU's 40th Anniversary

    Links for the day

  6. Social Control Media Needs to be Purged and We Need to Convince Others to Quit It Too (to Protect Ourselves as Individuals and as a Society)

    With the Tux Machines anniversary (19 years) just days away we seriously consider abandoning all social control media accounts of that site, including Mastodon and Diaspora; social control networks do far more harm than good and they’ve gotten a lot worse over time

  7. Anonymously Travelling: Still Feasible?

    The short story is that in the UK it's still possible to travel anonymously by bus, tram, and train (even with shades, hat and mask/s on), but how long for? Or how much longer have we got before this too gets banned under the false guise of "protecting us" (or "smart"/"modern")?

  8. With EUIPO in Focus, and Even an EU Kangaroo Tribunal, EPO Corruption (and Cross-Pollination With This EU Agency) Becomes a Major Liability/Risk to the EU

    With the UPC days away (an illegal and unconstitutional kangaroo court system, tied to the European Union in spite of critical deficiencies) it’s curious to see EPO scandals of corruption spilling over to the European Union already

  9. European Patent Office (EPO) Management Not Supported by the EPO's Applicants, So Why Is It Still There?

    This third translation in the batch is an article similar to the prior one, but the text is a bit different (“Patente ohne Wert”)

  10. EPO Applicants Complain That Patent Quality Sank and EPO Management Isn't Listening (Nor Caring)

    SUEPO has just released 3 translations of new articles in German (here is the first of the batch); the following is the second of the three (“Kritik am Europäischen Patentamt – Patente ohne Wert?”)

  11. German Media About Industry Patent Quality Charter (IPQC) and the European Patent Office (EPO)

    SUEPO has just released 3 translations of new articles in German; this is the first of the three (“Industrie kritisiert Europäisches Patentamt”)

  12. Geminispace Continues to Grow Even If (or When) Stéphane Bortzmeyer Stops Measuring Its Growth

    A Gemini crawler called Lupa (Free/libre software) has been used for years by Stéphane Bortzmeyer to study Gemini and report on how the community was evolving, especially from a technical perspective; but his own instance of Lupa has produced no up-to-date results for several weeks

  13. Links 27/05/2023: Goodbyes to Tina Turner

    Links for the day

  14. HMRC: You Can Click and Type to Report Crime, But No Feedback or Reference Number Given

    The crimes of Sirius ‘Open Source’ were reported 7 days ago to HMRC (equivalent to the IRS in the US, more or less); but there has been no visible progress and no tracking reference is given to identify the report

  15. IRC Proceedings: Friday, May 26, 2023

    IRC logs for Friday, May 26, 2023

  16. One Week After Sirius Open Source Was Reported to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) for Tax Fraud: No Response, No Action, Nothing...

    One week ago we reported tax abuses of Sirius ‘Open Source’ to HMRC; we still wait for any actual signs that HMRC is doing anything at all about the matter (Sirius has British government clients, so maybe they’d rather not look into that, in which case HMRC might be reported to the Ombudsman for malpractice)

  17. Links 26/05/2023: Weston 12.0 Highlights and US Debt Limit Panic

    Links for the day

  18. Gemini Links 26/05/2023: New People in Gemini

    Links for the day

  19. IRC Proceedings: Thursday, May 25, 2023

    IRC logs for Thursday, May 25, 2023

  20. Links 26/05/2023: Qt 6.5.1 and Subsystems in GNUnet

    Links for the day

  21. Links 25/05/2023: Mesa 23.1.1 and Debian Reunion

    Links for the day

  22. Links 25/05/2023: IBM as Leading Wayland Pusher

    Links for the day

  23. IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, May 24, 2023

    IRC logs for Wednesday, May 24, 2023

  24. Links 25/05/2023: Istio 1.16.5 and Curl 8.1.1

    Links for the day

  25. Gemini Links 25/05/2023: On Profit and Desire for Gemini

    Links for the day

  26. SiliconANGLE: Sponsored by Microsoft and Red Hat to Conduct the Marriage Ceremony

    SiliconANGLE insists that paying SiliconANGLE money for coverage does not lead to bias, but every sane person who keeps abreast of SiliconANGLE — and I read their entire feed every day — knows that it’s a ludicrous lie (Red Hat/IBM and the Linux Foundation also buy puff pieces and “event coverage” from SiliconANGLE, so it’s marketing disguised as “journalism”

  27. Links 24/05/2023: Podman Desktop 1.0, BSDCan 2024, and More

    Links for the day

  28. Gemini Links 24/05/2023: Razors, Profit, and More

    Links for the day

  29. [Meme] When the Patent Office Controls Kangaroo Patent Courts and Judges

    The EPO has been hijacked by industry and its lobbyists; now the same is happening to EU patent courts, even though it is illegal and unconstitutional

  30. The Illegally 'Revised' Unified Patent Court Agreement (UPCA) is Disgracing the Perception of Law and Order in the European Union

    The Unified Patent Court (UPC) isn’t legal, the Unified Patent Court Agreement (UPCA) is being altered on the fly (by a person patently ineligible to do so), and so it generally looks like even patent courts across Europe might soon become as corrupt as the European Patent Office, which has no basis in the Rule of the Law and is basically just a front for large corporations (most of them aren’t even European)

RSS 64x64RSS Feed: subscribe to the RSS feed for regular updates

Home iconSite Wiki: You can improve this site by helping the extension of the site's content

Home iconSite Home: Background about the site and some key features in the front page

Chat iconIRC Channel: Come and chat with us in real time

Recent Posts