12.28.09
Posted in Apple, GNU/Linux, Google, Microsoft, Office Suites, OpenDocument at 6:46 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Mishmash of news; Apple’s helping hand to Microsoft is reappearing now that GNU/Linux and ODF gain traction, partly thanks to Google
IT WAS only yesterday that we wrote about Bill Gates' gradual monopolisation of the schooling system. This is not news [1, 2, 3, 4] but it continues to appear as though schools become the ownership of companies that use the curriculum to train and recruit young people. From the New York Times:
Professional organizations and major technology companies, including Google, Microsoft and Intel support the broad agenda, though companies are not getting into curriculum details.
What’s even more disconcerting is that companies like Google and Microsoft are almost trying to monopolise healthcare too, essentially by capitalising on inevitable digitisation of data. Using an atrocious new press release, Microsoft is trying to lure in more hospitals for them to hand over their patients’ data. They keep pretending that giving a convicted monopolist control of people’s intimate information and also allowing lock-in is actually “put[ting] Patients in Charge”. This is an amazing, total reversal of the truth, or “newspeak” as our reader Fewa labeled it last night. Google pulls similar tricks to get access to/possession of medical information, but that's another story. Neither schools nor hospitals should permit this privatisation by self-serving companies that perceive children and patients (respectively) as mere clients.
Also in this week’s news we have found this report that suggests Apple is liaising with Microsoft against mobile Linux. It is no secret that Apple and Microsoft are still "buddies" who think alike and help each other out.
We have found more reports about it, e.g.:
i. Apple and Microsoft vs. Google for Smartphone Dominance?
Apple and Google were once seen as best friends in their fight against mutual enemy Microsoft, but as Google has ventured into Apple’s turf with the Chrome OS and Android smartphone OS, their BFF status has been in jeopardy. Google CEO Eric Schmidt resigned from Apple’s board of directors, citing a conflict of interest, and Google Latitude and Google Maps Navigation have been released for Android but not iPhone. Meanwhile, Microsoft’s Bing search engine is now available for iPhone.
ii. Will Apple and Microsoft Join Forces To Fight Google?
Apple and Google have historically been very friendly. But in recent months, the tenor of that relationship has changed. Apple rejected Google Voice for the iPhone. And now it appears that the relationship may get a bit cooler with all the talk of a Google phone.
Microsoft is now adding Messenger for Mac 8 and it sure seems like they have found new common enemies. The proprietary giants must hate the idea of Free-as-in-almost-freedom platforms like Android (Linux based) gaining so much traction quite so quickly.
“The proprietary giants must hate the idea of Free-as-in-almost-freedom platforms like Android (Linux based) gaining so much traction quite so quickly.”Apple and Microsoft are also opponents of ODF. Apple has helped Microsoft with OOXML for several years now. Google, on the other hand, vocally protested against OOXML and its online software suite — even though it is proprietary — actually supports ODF.
For what it’s worth, Bart Hanssens has just augmented his list of ODF-supportive software to include OfficeReader, ezComponents, and a Drupal module. We wrote about this a few days ago.
Open source viewer for Symbian phones, supporting ODF text (.odt), spreadsheets (.ods) and presentations (.odp)
The project is sponsored by the NLNet Foundation and Odendahl-SEPT.
This Drupal module allows one to import ODF files into the popular WebCMS. Currently only the content of ODF text documents (.odt) is imported, future releases will support other ODF types as well as importing styles.
Google is expanding its assault on Microsoft’s #1 cash cow, Microsoft Office, using this new acquisition:
i. Google to buy DocVerse, introduce Microsoft Office doc collaboration
Google has been positioning Google Apps as an Office killer and encouraging companies to adopt it. Meanwhile, Microsoft countered with a web-based component to Office 2010. The latest move comes from Google, though, with the acquisition of DocVerse.
ii. Google acquisitions may signal big push against Microsoft Office
I use Google Docs for almost all of my writing, and I’ll be the first to admit that it’s pretty bare-bones compared to Microsoft Office. But that may change next year.
[...]
By the way, Google declined to comment on the DocVerse acquisition rumor (as it always does), and the startup didn’t even bother to answer my email. DocVerse raised $1.3 million from Baseline Ventures and assorted angel investors.
iii. Google Targets Microsoft Office with DocVerse Deal
No company is attacking Google as much as Microsoft (see the Murdoch incident for a recent display or power [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13]), so it’s understandable that Google should aim for Microsoft’s jugular and try to render its cash cow obsolete. Microsoft does exactly the same thing against Google’s bread and butter (again,the Murdoch incident shows precisely that). Except the fact that Microsoft is a criminal company, a fundamental difference between those two is that Microsoft attacks GNU/Linux, whereas Google embraces it.
Clint Boulton from eWEEK’s Google Watch has a couple of new articles about this commercial rivalry:
i. Debate Rages On in Microsoft Vs. Google Web War
ii. This Is Why Microsoft Is So Far Behind Google on the Web
Microsoft has billions of dollars to spend, and more market clout than any software company in the world, thanks to its Windows and Office hegemonies.
Isn’t it stunning that the company is far behind Google and even Yahoo in the online space? Why is that? It’s not for lack of resources and talent.
With more and more deals, Google’s reputation grows stronger and Microsoft resorts to some kind of bribery, as usual.
Talks between Microsoft and News Corp. show the software company is willing to trade revenue for market share to put pressure on Google
Rupert Murdoch is one example of this tactic, but another recent example is Verizon. Pogue from the New York Times has just written about it:
It’s Microsoft Bing or nothing. (The BlackBerry used to offer Google, Wikipedia and others.)
Why? Because Microsoft paid Verizon $500 million, according to The Register.
I don’t know. Maybe Verizon heard that there were six people left on Earth who didn’t have a reason to dislike it.
In a similar fashion, Microsoft has used kickbacks to block GNU/Linux [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. Intel is being punished for it [1, 2]. It is illegal, it’s a violation of the law, and thus it’s a crime. █
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Posted in GNU/Linux, Google, Microsoft, Steve Ballmer at 5:45 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: In relation to the lawsuits by proxy that we wrote about some moments ago, an obligatory discussion arises which revolves around accountability
NewsWeek has kick-started quite a big discussion when it predicted that Steve Ballmer would be out in less than a year, being one of the worst-performing CEOs in his field. There were also many articles calling for the firing of Ballmer around March of 2008. But Ballmer does not deserve such gentle treatment after all the things that happened under his watch. NewsWeek misses the point:
NewsWeek writes, “Microsoft stock has dropped by nearly 50 per cent on his watch, lagging not just other tech companies but even the Dow Jones industrial average. Distracted by the Windows Vista fiasco, Ballmer has missed every big new tech market of the past decade.”
There is also this, still pretending that Microsoft is only “competing”.
According to insiders, Steve Ballmer has not been able to come up with any revolutionary ideas. Even within Microsoft, such feeling is palpable. If Microsoft wants to counter Apple and Google, it needs to go for a complete overhaul.
Yesterday alone we showed that Microsoft is frivolously suing Linux, its #1 competitor, by acting as a financier for lawsuits and paying for slanderous studies. They even attack charities. Some of it is akin to mafia tactics [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6], whereby Microsoft hires some dirty no-name men to do the “dirty job” and attack Linux. In all seriousness, white-collar crime is the most expensive type of crime and a criminal investigation is long overdue; the RICO Act applies, but sadly, rich people are rarely brought to justice in this system. Tax dodging is another good example of what these people can get away with, not to mention bribery as a business model (apparently too low in the list of an average policeman, who is more concerned about hungry shoplifters).
“In all seriousness, white-collar crime is the most expensive type of crime and a criminal investigation is long overdue…”In a just system, justice would be applied to the “Big Criminals”, not shoplifters. It is just sad to see that wealth and corruption are permitted to crush the lower class using the legal system which they pretty much control. It is there to facilitates their unaccountable business and the richer they are, the more powerful they become and the less likely they are to end up in jail. It makes them conceited and reckless.
The likelihood that Ballmer will ever be held accountable for his actions seems slim. Perhaps the only justice will be the self destruction of this business. Microsoft’s former shill-for-hire, Don Dodge [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] is now admitting that Microsoft is in deep trouble [1, 2]. Those who defend the abusive monopolist may wish to deny this, but as Joe McKendrick puts it, it is still just catching up with companies like Google where Dodge works now.
It’s been well reported that Microsoft is prepping for the upteenth fight-to-the-finish of its career, this time for dominance of the cloud frontier against arch-rival Google.
One of our readers, Yuhong Bao, has pointed out that someone in Slashdot had just labeled Google an “abusive monopoly” even though evidence is insufficient. But Microsoft’s crimes (which Ballmer should be liable for) go far beyond monopoly abuse and we have covered many examples over the past 3 years. This post is not a detailed indictment of what he did. █
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12.27.09
Posted in Deception, FUD, GNU/Linux, Kernel, Microsoft at 10:41 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“Working behind the scenes to orchestrate “independent” praise of our technology, and damnation of the enemy’s, is a key evangelism function during the Slog. “Independent” analyst’s report should be issued, praising your technology and damning the competitors (or ignoring them). “Independent” consultants should write columns and articles, give conference presentations and moderate stacked panels, all on our behalf (and setting them up as experts in the new technology, available for just $200/hour). “Independent” academic sources should be cultivated and quoted (and research money granted). “Independent” courseware providers should start profiting from their early involvement in our technology. Every possible source of leverage should be sought and turned to our advantage.”
–Microsoft internal document for TEs [PDF]
Summary: The slanderous paper from a so-called ‘Think Tank’ is available for people to assess; Groklaw goes through Microsoft’s dirty laundry
BOYCOTT Novell has mentioned Alexis de Tocqueville on several occasions in recent months because this self-proclaimed “Think Tank” showed up again after spreading Microsoft-sponsored lies about Linux. It sought to encourage and justify lawsuits against Linux, such as the ones we mentioned this morning. One of our readers has just asked: “Seen this? http://www.angelfire.com/linux/toussaint/samizdat/ The PDF of Samizdat by the AdTI, readily available on the internet at last!!”
Apparently that’s new. The paper is now out there for people to view freely. It’s a true scandal. And speaking of scandals, in addition to full Comes v. Microsoft transcripts, Groklaw is now accumulating more data about the exhibits. This would make a nice addition to our existing archive. When handling as many as 9,000 exhibits it is extremely hard to organise them and Groklaw is struggling too.
The material is essentially a dump of all the data that the plaintiffs in Comes v. Microsoft put on their website, including transcripts of the trial and all the exhibits entered into the case. We’re trying to give the data a more meaningful structure so that it will be possible to search by keyword and find particular items in the huge collection.
What’s most important is that the raw data is placed in several mirrors, surely to be preserved for many years to come. This material is extremely damaging to Microsoft because lawyers are using it and partners become aware of Microsoft’s cards. Anyone up for a Microsoft credit card? █
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Posted in Bill Gates, Deception, Finance, Microsoft at 10:10 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“How many crimes are committed simply because their authors could not endure being wrong.”
–Albert Camus
Summary: Education is under threat because of the Gates Foundation and other bizarre moves pique people’s curiosity
MR. Gates claims to have retired from Microsoft (he is still active over there, mostly as an über-lobbyist) and as de facto minister of education [1, 2, 3, 4] he continues to bother people, even in Portland schools. Here is an interesting and very detailed post from a month ago. Gates is being called a “philanthro-capitalist”, which is a good title for businessmen who disguise their for-profit operations as “charity” (Gates is not alone in this).
The free market approach to enrollment and funding is a demonstrable failure in Portland, when measured by access to educational opportunity. Unless the district is willing to significantly reduce opportunity for the white middle class, there’s no way they can pay for equity of opportunity without balancing enrollment, that is, by curtailing school choice. This is a significant element of the high school plan. With it, the district appears to be forging a path independent of current trends pushed by Gates, at least for high schools.
But the district appears unwilling to apply the same lesson to middle grades.
Sara Allan’s contention that it’s not the structure of the school that matters, but what goes on in the classroom, also closely parrots the current line being sold by Phillips, now head of education for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Phillips was the keynote speaker at the Council of The Great City Schools conference held in Portland last month, attended by Allan and quite a few of her administrative colleagues. In her speech, Phillips promoted merit pay for teachers, the latest policy thrust of Gates.
While superintendent in Portland, Philips was responsible for both the transition to K-8 schools and the “small schools” initiative, funded largely by the Gates foundation, which dismantled every comprehensive high school in Portland serving majority non-white students, and split them into rigid “academies.” These academies forced students to choose a narrow field of study as freshmen, and didn’t allow students to take electives offered in other academies in the same building.
[...]
Gates’ quiet partner
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has grown to be the dominant voice in the national education dialogue, heavily influencing the federal education policy of both George W. Bush and Barack Obama. But even as PPS appears to be taking a non-Gates path on high schools, the district continues to be enamored with Gates’ biggest private-sector education policy ally: Eli Broad’s education foundation.
[...]
“Student performance,” entirely measured by standardized test scores, correlates highly to poverty. Broad’s scheme would almost certainly assure that teachers in poor and minority communities would make less than their colleagues in wealthier schools, only worsening the achievement gap. This puts the lie to Broad’s (and Gates’) stated mission of closing that gap.
[...]
“Student performance,” entirely measured by standardized test scores, correlates highly to poverty. Broad’s scheme would almost certainly assure that teachers in poor and minority communities would make less than their colleagues in wealthier schools, only worsening the achievement gap. This puts the lie to Broad’s (and Gates’) stated mission of closing that gap.
We have also discussed in great length Gates’ aspirations when it comes to controlling agriculture and food around the world. For the uninitiated (as Gates controls/manipulates the press which writes about the subject, using selective funds [1, 2]):
- With Microsoft Monopoly in Check, Bill Gates Proceeds to Creating More Monopolies
- Gates-Backed Company Accused of Monopoly Abuse and Investigated
- How the Gates Foundation Privatises Africa
- Reader’s Article: The Gates Foundation and Genetically-Modified Foods
- Monsanto: The Microsoft of Food
- Seeds of Doubt in Bill Gates Investments
- Gates Foundation Accused of Faking/Fabricating Data to Advance Political Goals
- More Dubious Practices from the Gates Foundation
- Video Transcript of Vandana Shiva on Insane Patents
- Explanation of What Bill Gates’ Patent Investments Do to Developing World
- Black Friday Film: What the Bill Gates-Backed Monsanto Does to Animals, Farmers, Food, and Patent Systems
- Gates Foundation Looking to Destroy Kenya with Intellectual Monopolies
- Young Napoleon Comes to Africa and Told Off
- Bill Gates Takes His GMO Patent Investments/Experiments to India
- Gates/Microsoft Tax Dodge and Agriculture Monopoly Revisited
- Beyond the ‘Public Relations’
- UK Intellectual Monopoly Office (UK-IPO) May be Breaking the Law
- “Boycott Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in China”
According to this news report, Gates may have just acquired a large farm. If this is true, what would be the motive?
Now, they’re wondering whether the company that paid $27.1 million for the very large farm is owned by Bill Gates, Microsoft’s chairman and the world’s wealthiest man.
[...]
Local officials say the rumor is rampant, but they don’t know whether it’s true. Public records lend support to the theory but aren’t conclusive.
“The Gates Foundation and WHO attack small businesses,” says Gateskeepers, who points to this short article:
“For us to take on WHO is like David taking on Goliath. We’re not ‘big tobacco’ and our mom-and-pop retail members are just small businesses selling legal products that adults enjoy like fine wine or top-shelf Scotch whiskey,” McCalla said, “but we cannot stand by while WHO makes outlandish and outrageous claims that are an affront to the intelligence of all thinking people,” he said.
McCalla chose not to repeat the controversial WHO claims so as not to give them further coverage. However, he explained that they had to do with alleged health issues related to smoking and secondhand smoke.
“They say there are no safe levels of secondhand smoke, but the Occupational Safety and Health Administration says otherwise,” McCalla explained. “OSHA has, indeed, set safe levels for secondhand smoke and those levels are 25,000 times higher than are found in bars and restaurants.”
Among contributors to WHO is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation which, despite its support for WHO’s work with preventing and treating malaria, has been criticized by top WHO staffers for not allowing its funding to be more broadly spent.
What’s ironic is that they don’t actually prevent smoking. A few weeks ago we wrote about the Gates Foundation investing in Big Tobacco. This is not exactly news and it is not surprising, either. In a way, it is in Gates’ financial interests to harm small tobacco companies not because smoking is bad but because Big Tobacco’ is inside his portfolio.
It is hard to explain the rationale behind all of this, but such factual observations may help in explaining future actions. Microsoft's patent troll, whom Gates invests a lot of money in, has already begun his racketeering operation (he runs the world’s largest patent troll). He keeps those patent stunts and positive press going [1, 2] while rather awkward is the global warming-related patent promotion. They try to glorify patents by portraying them as a tool that will literally save the world. We last mentioned this right here and we also showed that Nathan Myhrvold funds studies that defend and even promote patent-trolling/harvesting.
As a side note, Microsoft turns out to have sought more control of the VoIP market, but it lost in bidding.
O2 is #1 in bid to acquire Jajah
[...]
Now it seems the company has caught the attention of O2 who has made an offer to buy Jajah for $200 million according to TheMarker financial website, as reported by Reuters. O2 beat Cisco and Microsoft who were also in the running to acquire the company.
Luckily it’s Telefonica which got it, not Microsoft. Microsoft would love to control telephony (communication) too.
Telefonica Europe, better known as O2, already has a user-base of more than 48 million as a part of its communication business, and the addition of Jajah to its stable would presumably help the company beef up its offerings to attract more customers.
Microsoft was built by a determined monopoliser, whose appetite for more monopoliies never abated. In the early days of Microsoft he told a popular magazine (only in print) about his aspiration to control the world. He actually said that. But now he wears the costume of a “philanthro-capitalist” rather than that of a ruthless, merciless dictator who disregards the law and pays the fines later, only to prove that crime pays off. █
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Posted in IRC Logs at 9:04 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
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To use your own IRC client, join channel #boycottnovell in FreeNode.
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Posted in News Roundup at 6:31 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Contents
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So what of Windows? Could its closed source nature be eventually the death of it? Quite possibly, one only has to look at the wealth of FOSS projects that are providing alternative solutions to many of Microsoft products. Even Microsoft themselves are alleged to use GPL code (and allegedly violate it albeit by a third party)
Remember Mr Ballmer’s cancer comment in regards to Linux?
Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches
But then should we really pay any attention to him? he was alleged afterall to also say that Google was a house of cards and iPhone had no chance of getting a significant market share. I bring this up since GoogleOS is built on Linux so its rather relevant that the first “mainstream” steps of this concept are being taken by that which Mr Ballmer seems to have a low opinion of. Talking of cancer and IP, I wonder if he would like to retract that since Microsoft China are alleged to have taken code from another companies product and attempted to use it as their own. For more information on this, read the article here.
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I like Linux. I like it a lot and I think it is the best thing since sliced bread. Better even, I don’t make any money off of sliced bread, just a bigger belly. I know that many of you out there like windows. You like it a lot as well and probably make money off of it too.
When we like something we tend to gloss over the flaws. There is another saying that love is blind. That is also very true. Not just in looks but in every aspect. On the other side of the coin. When we dislike something we tend to exaggerate the flaws. This means that when somebody is gushing about Linux or ranting about windows then perhaps we should take off our rose shades and try to see things from their point of view.
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May 2002: OpenOffice.org 1.0
Few would consider using Linux if there wasn’t the semblance of Microsoft Office compatibility. Sun Microsystems bought, renamed and released its own broadly compatible office suite for free, in what it must have hoped would be a flanking attack on Microsoft’s dominance. A tactic it revisited with the re-licence of Java in 2007.
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Ylmf OS appears to the casual user as XP. Currently the Ubuntu based distro has no English translation. What does this mean for Microsoft? Well if it becomes the “protest choice” of China then quite alot, its got a 10 million strong user base to attract. You can visit the website of this distro here and I would ask if anyone knows of either a translation for the distro itself and/or the homepage, please let me know!
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Server
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Habl Consultancy, an open source and linux solutions provider headquartered in Dubai Silicon Oasis, promises to announce a revolutionary network server solution in January 2010. The exact details of the server solution are currently under wraps, however it will help companies save an enormous amount of money.
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Applications
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Written in Java, RSSOwl is a powerful feed reader for Linux, with support for RSS, RDF and Atom feeds, with a lot of features and customisation options.
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The QT-ing of OpenTumblr has resulted in most of OpenTumblr getting a visual shakedown. Whilst many windows need some usability-guidelines applied, everything works as it should.
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Instructionals
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Sabayon 5.1 is really another good as well as a newbie friendly distribution for average computer users. It may not be as easy as Ubuntu or OpenSUSE but a person with 6-9 months of knowledge in Linux can easily manage Sabayon.
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Okay, if you’re looking to install this on your main computer, I really wouldn’t advise doing that. Having a lightweight operating system is well and good, but to run a system as stripped-down as this, you’re going to run into something that’ll need an application not available for your OS. Better stick with a bootable flash drive if I were you.
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Red Hat Family
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Debian Family
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Ubuntu 10.04’s Alpha has been released. We decided to install it on one of our netbooks to see what is new in it. Canonical claims that many new things will surface with the release Ubuntu 10.04 and some of them have been implemented in the alpha release.
[...]
Right now, there is not even a basic paint alternative. gpaint which although looks a lot like MS paint, but cannot even crop a picture. So, if GIMP is removed, I don’t think there is a worthy MSpaint alternative in Linux
Office
* Dictionary
* Evolution mail and calender
* OpenOffice Presentaion
* OpenOffice Spreadsheet
* OpenOffice Word Processor
Sound and Video
* Brasero Disc Burner
* Movie Player
* Rhythmbox Music Player
* Sound Recorder
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One important feature is the new software centre, Kissling says. A bit of background: modern Linux distributions all possess a so-called package manager. This is a utility to help users install new software not included with Linux itself. Instead of searching through the web for a specific program, the package manager handles the heavy lifting.
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Complete with customized artwork and a big collection of Muslim-specific software, Sabily (formerly Ubuntu Muslim Edition) is a robust operating system for Muslims all over the world, be they Arabic speakers or not.
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All in all another pleasant experience with Sansa products under Linux. I have an older e250 myself and had another even before that, all of which worked well with Ubuntu. For a quality music/video player for use with Ubuntu I can highly recommend the products from Sansa. Most can be purchased for less then $75 and refurbished ones like my last two for well under $50.
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Cherrypal on Tuesday announced a no-frills laptop called Cherrypal Africa, which includes hardware usually found in smartphones. It can run the Linux or Windows CE operating systems, which are also found on cell phones.
Priced at $99, the laptop is targeted at those looking for an inexpensive PC to surf the Internet, said Max Seybold, founder of Cherrypal. It is a “no-thrills” laptop that could find an audience in developing countries and low-income groups in the Western world, he said
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The Samba 4 code has been worked on for over five years, and the Active Directory code is reaching a state where it’s being run in production at several test sites.
When the Samba Team met at the CIFS conference this year, we had a meeting to put together a plan for shipping a production Samba 4 code-base. Here’s how we think it might work.
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The conference was the third such event in the region, organized by the International Open Source Network (IOSN) and InWEnt-Capacity Building International of Germany.
Earlier camps took place in Bangalore, India in 2005 and Sukabumi, Indonesia in 2007. It is based on the source camp template of the Tactical Technology Collective, an NGO that consults for other NGOs on technology.
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I just came across some Open source projects by Google, which were really unknown to me.
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Mozilla
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We all know that due to the copyright of the Mozilla Foundation/Corporation/whatever-it-is, that the Debian project decided awhile ago to drop the copyrighted logos and names from the very popular Mozilla products, hence:
Firefox = Iceweasel
Thunderbird = Icedove
Seamonkey = Iceape
And it turns out the Mozilla standalone calendar application Sunbird as well as the Lightning version of that app that works inside of Thunderbird/Icedove has its own Debian-dubbed name:
Iceowl.
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The email programme Thunderbird is available in a new, highly revised version, its developer Mozilla Messaging has announced. Thunderbird 3.0, an open-source email client, includes more than 2,000 revisions and improvements, according to the California-based company which is also behind the Firefox browser.
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Openness
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In 2008, legislation was passed requiring all NIH-funded researchers to submit their papers to an openly available repository within a year of publication. Even this modest step towards full open access was immediately attacked by rent-seeking scientific publishers.
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It’s not obvious that you would. Since 1965, the percentage of graduates of highly-ranked business schools who go into consulting and financial services has doubled, from about one-third to about two-thirds. And while some of these consultants and financiers end up in the manufacturing sector, in some respects that’s the problem. Harvard business professor Rakesh Khurana, with whom I discussed these questions at length, observes that most of GM’s top executives in recent decades hailed from a finance rather than an operations background.
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Finance
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The New York Times published a Christmas Eve expose of Goldman Sachs’s so-called “Abacus” synthetic collateralized debt obligations (CDOs). They were created with credit derivatives instead of cash securities. Goldman used credit derivatives to create short bets that gain in value when CDOs lose value. Goldman did this for both protection and profit and marketed the idea to hedge funds.
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Under other circumstances, this would have been a year to savour in the long, rapid ascent of Lloyd Blankfein. Goldman Sachs, the investment bank he has led for three years, not only navigated the 2008 global financial crisis better than others on Wall Street but is set to make record profits, and pay up to $23bn (€16bn, £14bn) in bonuses to its 31,700 staff.
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“The simultaneous selling of securities to customers and shorting them because they believed they were going to default is the most cynical use of credit information that I have ever seen,” said Sylvain R. Raynes, an expert in structured finance at R & R Consulting in New York. “When you buy protection against an event that you have a hand in causing, you are buying fire insurance on someone else’s house and then committing arson.”
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But while the FT may agree that Blankfein is doing “God’s work,” others view the bank as indicative of exactly what is wrong with Wall Street. Indeed, Blankfein himself apologized last month for Goldman Sachs’ role in the financial crisis. And Goldman Sachs’s trading practices are currently under investigation by the federal government.
In response to the FT’s decision to honor Blankfein, noted bank analyst Christopher Whalen has canceled his subscription to the paper. “Mr. Blankfein and his colleagues at Goldman Sachs, in my view, have done more to damage the reputations of global financial professionals than any other organization in 2009, yet you applaud them,” he wrote in a letter to the paper.
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Censorship/Civil Rights
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One of China’s most prominent human rights activists was condemned today to 11 years in prison, prompting a furious backlash from domestic bloggers and international civil society groups.
Liu Xiaobo, the founder of the Charter 08 campaign for constitutional reform, was given the unusually harsh jail term on Christmas Day in an apparent attempt to minimise international attention.
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From Venezuela, a group of social organizations and human rights, students and academic groups as well as different individuals, launch this call for a campaign to defend the right to protest, which today is being systematically violated by the government of Hugo Chávez.
Joerg Heilig, Sun Microsystems Senior Engineering Director talks about OpenOffice.org 12 (2004)
Digital Tipping Point is a Free software-like project where the raw videos are code. You can assist by participating.
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Posted in Debian, FSF, GNU/Linux, GPL, Law, Microsoft, Mono, Novell, Ubuntu at 10:28 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: gNewSense is shifting to Debian codebase, shafting Mono, and the debate about Mono and Moonlight reaches new levels
THE FSF has already taken a stance against the use of Mono and the SFLC has shown that Moonlight is not acceptable from a legal perspective (the latest “promise” from Microsoft has at least 10 holes in it).
gNewSense, the distribution which Richard Stallman is currently using, has already removed Mono [1, 2] and gNewSense developers are now “dropping Ubuntu” (not our words) and moving to Debian, just like MEPIS did. From the site’s updated FAQ (“modified on December 23, 2009, at 09:42 PM”):
13. Will gNewSense 3.0 be based on Debian instead of Ubuntu, and why?
Yes, because:
* Debian separates free and non-free software better, so it’s easier to make a fully free derivative out of it.
* Debian supports the architectures we want to support (e.g. MIPS).
* it suits our infrastructure better (easier development).
Since Gobuntu never materialised [1, 2], this means that there is no longer a truly free/libre variant of Ubuntu.
gNewSense’s reasons are known (see above). In the case of MEPIS, the reasons had to do with infrastructure too. One cannot help wondering if Ubuntu’s increasing reliance on Mono also had something to do with this decision, even subconsciously.
To quote a conversation that came up an hour ago in our IRC channel (the full log will be posted tomorrow):
| kecskebak |
Did anyone listen to the latest Ubuntu UK Podcast? |
Dec 27 13:25 |
| kecskebak |
Talking about Silverlight / Moonlight |
Dec 27 13:25 |
| kecskebak |
“At last a real Microsoft Open Source application…” |
Dec 27 13:25 |
| kecskebak |
“Watch the Winter Olympics on Ubuntu” Yeah, right… |
Dec 27 13:26 |
| oiaohm |
God |
Dec 27 13:26 |
| oiaohm |
Its not really open source while MS hold the cards to revoke the licence. |
Dec 27 13:26 |
| oiaohm |
Some of the ubuntu guy are legal morons. |
Dec 27 13:27 |
| kecskebak |
That’s a typical Ubuntu attitude to software freedom, sadly |
Dec 27 13:28 |
| oiaohm |
Problem is most of them have no clues what freedom is. |
Dec 27 13:29 |
| oiaohm |
So will have to learn the leason the hard way. |
Dec 27 13:29 |
| kecskebak |
I think the attraction of GNU/Linux in the UK is it crashes less or you don’t have anti-virus |
Dec 27 13:31 |
| kecskebak |
The software freedom part is seen as rather eccentric and for geeks |
Dec 27 13:31 |
| kecskebak |
Anyone who believes in anything in the UK tends to be regarded as rather suspicious |
Dec 27 13:31 |
| kecskebak |
That’s why Richard Dawkins gets a kicking in the press |
Dec 27 13:31 |
| oiaohm |
Software freedom is about data protection kecskebak |
Dec 27 13:32 |
| oiaohm |
I want to be able to access anything I create in the future. |
Dec 27 13:32 |
| kecskebak |
Yes – that’s precisely why I moved from Flash to Inkscape |
Dec 27 13:32 |
| oiaohm |
If you don’t have direct control over the software you don’t have direct control of your data so you are in a invisable jail with your data held hostage. |
Dec 27 13:33 |
| amarsh04 |
ms-publisher has been a real trap that way |
Dec 27 13:33 |
Regarding the text of the new Moonlight covenant, Groklaw writes: “So Moonlight is being framed as a proprietary product, then, I gather.” Groklaw highlights what it calls an “interesting bit” from the covenant, namely: ““Moonlight Implementation” means only those specific portions of Moonlight 3 or Moonlight 4 that run only as Conforming Runtimes within a Conforming Host on a Personal Computer and are not licensed under GPLv3 or a Similar License.”
One of our readers, Brandon, has written a long post to explain Microsoft’s “Mono/Moonlight Agenda”. To quote just a portion (it is a very detailed analysis):
Many relevant points are brought up in this section. James Plamondon states (infamously) that “Every line of code that is written to our standards is a small victory; every line of code that is written to any other standard, is a small defeat.”
This would imply that by using the C# standard (ECMA 334 & 335), Microsoft receives a small victory. An example of defeat would be lines of code written in Java, C++ (Standardized, C++98 or C++03 for example), Python, etc.
The second paragraph explains that they want to use psychological, economic, and political weapons to convince people to adopt their standards. Often I hear a lot of business talk about wanting to use Microsoft because most of their customer base is Windows machines. Other excuses for sticking with Microsoft has been the FUD “Total Cost of Ownership” studies that falsely prove Microsoft is cheaper or that GNU/Linux is more expensive.
Some days ago we wrote about Novell’s removal of GPL-licensed code from MonoDevelop [1, 2]. Why is Novell still against the GNU GPL? Its ally Microsoft hates the GPL with passion, so this may not seem so absurd a move after all.
In defence of the GPL, Groklaw writes regarding Glyn Moody’s article and Google’s highly-cited document: “The GPL would mean there’d be no need to work hard to avoid fragmenting. If you choose a license that can fragment, you will get fragmenting, because proprietary desires are sure to come into the picture, as they did with UNIX. That’s exactly what is wrong with Apache. It’s open, until it isn’t.”
At this stage, Mono too is being closed. It’s not so surprising considering the fact that Novell calls itself a “mixed source” company. It’s false marketing [1, 2]. █
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Posted in Free/Libre Software, GNU/Linux, Google, Hardware, Microsoft, OLPC at 9:39 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Picture from Wikipedia
Summary: Slime continues to be thrown at OLPC, thanks in part to Intel and Microsoft, the outlaw companies whose role in fighting OLPC was confirmed before
LAST week we shared some revealing information about OLPC (see the OLPC index). A few days ago we showed that OLPC was coming up with a new design whose architecture probably excludes Windows (ARM/MIPS). OLPC News opines that Windows got its way, but see the comments on this post (GNU/Linux was never a problem for OLPC). Evidence has actually been suggesting that OLPC lost interest in Microsoft and Microsoft lost interest in OLPC, which was never valuable to its shareholders in the first place.
For Microsoft, getting involved in OLPC was about derailing Google and GNU/Linux, as revealed by internal documents [1, 2]. It was not about children or education.
“The main perpetrators were Intel and Microsoft, which systematically dealt blows to this charity.”Over at Groklaw, there is a pointer to the article “Skeptics Question OLPC’s Focus With $75 Tablet”
“Because they always do,” adds Pamela Jones, “Perhaps some monopolies need to stop trying to make it an unachievable goal? That is, from my perspective, what happened to the first XO. So it’s a bit rich to accuse OLPC of not reaching a goal that certain monopolies tried to crush so as to make it not achievable. Shame on them, and go OLPC! I love the new design, which once again shows what vendors could give us if they only wanted to. It’s unrealistic only if you define realistic as making a huge profit on each device, n’est-ce pas?”
OLPC was a good case study in corporate corruption. The main perpetrators were Intel and Microsoft, which systematically dealt blows to this charity. Last year the London Times launched an investigation and published an exposé about it. Its verdict was that Intel and Microsoft indeed attacked the project. They harmed its reputation, too. █
“Ideally, use of the competing technology becomes associated with mental deficiency, as in, “he believes in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and OS/2.” Just keep rubbing it in, via the press, analysts, newsgroups, whatever. Make the complete failure of the competition’s technology part of the mythology of the computer industry. We want to place selection pressure on those companies and individuals that show a genetic weakness for competitors’ technologies, to make the industry increasingly resistant to such unhealthy strains, over time.”
–Microsoft, internal document [PDF]
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