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11.09.09

Winter Olympics Incompatible with GNU/Linux, Thanks to Microsoft

Posted in GNU/Linux, Microsoft at 6:42 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Silverlight puke, barf

Summary: The Winter Olympics too will be delivered in Microsoft’s proprietary XAML that it will stream via GNU/Linux servers

AS we showed a month ago, Microsoft may already have influence inside the Olympic Committee [1, 2], leading back to memories of Olympic blue screens of death. But to make matters worse, personal and professional relationships seem to be taking their toll on GNU/Linux users.

NBC (and Microsoft) appear to have gotten special/exclusive rights over the Winter Olympics. Being NBC (Microsoft and MSNBC come to mind [1, 2]), it decided to shill Silverlight again, knowingly discriminating against GNU/Linux, just as it did last year [1, 2, 3]. Microsoft Nick does not mention this problem; instead he uses this as an opportunity to give exposure to Silverlight (so does Microsoft booster Tim Anderson).

NBC’s Winter Olympics Web site went live Wednesday. While the site’s main navigation module is powered by Adobe Flash, NBC’s video player is all Microsoft Silverlight. This time around, a year-and-a-half after the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, there are some cool new features.

Interestingly enough, Microsoft and NBC will be using GNU/Linux to deliver this content that GNU/Linux desktops cannot access. Microsoft is totally dependent on GNU/Linux for CDNs, but it is using these against GNU/Linux users. █

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