12.14.09
Time to End Microsoft’s Digital Occupation of Spain
Summary: More boiler room deals from Microsoft Spain could be a violation of the law
WE PREVIOUSLY wrote about what Microsoft was doing to Spain in many posts that notably include:
- Microsoft Teaches Spanish Schools How to Smoke Windows
- What Does Microsoft Want From Spain? (Updated)
- Spanish Government May be Breaking the Law with Microsoft. European Commission Should Investigate.
- Bill Gates Uses Malaria to Attack GNU/Linux
- Reader’s Report from Spain: “Bill Gates Meets Tomorrow with Spain’s Prime Minister in Order to Ensure Spanish School Students Get ‘Addicted’”
- Microsoft is Outmuscling OOXML Opposition in Spain (Updatedx3)
There is this important new update from Linux Magazine:
Microsoft had lost the single Windows booting option in school computers in Spain some time ago. But now they are getting back: The Spanish Government announced in a surprising move that an agreement with Microsoft has been signed to give out laptops to primary schoolchildren next year.
This goes waaaaay back. We have reported about the interest Microsoft has in installing its operating system on as many schoolchildrens’ laptops as possible here, here and here.
Having lost the single Windows booting option in all regions in Spain and having been ditched in most regions where single boot machines with GNU/Linux over the proposed dual Window/Linux booting is prefered, the people from Redmond have decided to move business into the place where things usually work out best for them: the back room.
[...]
Jose María Lancho, president of HispaLinux, has stated to Público newspaper that the agreement “puts free competition in jeopardy” and reminded the minister that the agreement breaks the law on several counts, including article 49 of the law for Public Sector Contracts that forbids hiring companies which “have been fined due to serious infringements with regards to market discipline matters” – Microsoft has been fined several times in Europe for those exact same reason.
As one person put it, ‘Every so often someone says, “It’s too late for XXX, Microsoft has *won* that battle!” Well it’s time to realize that Microsoft has never learned that one – to their benefit. In fact, Microsoft practically ALWAYS loses the first 2 or 3 battles. But they persist, they practically never give up, and perhaps THAT is one key to their success.’
‘Declaring a market battleground “over” and ceding it to Microsoft is THE mistake, because Microsoft certainly doesn’t do the same.’
It is time to fight back. Fight for the freedom of this future generation. █
“They’ll get sort of addicted, and then we’ll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade.”
